“ACA Total Blows Past 7 Million!” “Obamacare Comeback?” “More Than Seven Million Have Enrolled Under the Affordable Care Act, Whitehouse says!” blare numerous April 1, 2014 newspaper headlines. The president gave a speech in the White House Rose Garden stating, “Last night, the first open-enrollment period under this law came to an end. And despite […]
Medicare Fraud: All Talk, No Action
The Medicare Trust Fund, which is in the red and on track to reach insolvency by 2026, needs every penny it can get. Thanks to the Recovery Audit Contractor (RAC) program, $8.2 billion in improper Medicare payments has been recovered since its nationwide implementation in 2010. RACs operate on a contingency fee basis, so their work does not cost taxpayers a dime. Rather than celebrate this successful program, members of Congress, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and special interests, particularly the hospital trade associations, are conspiring to kill it.
Showdown at Medicare Part D Corral
Medicare Part D is one of the few government-created programs that has consistently cost less than the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) original estimates. Every fall, seniors get to choose from a variety of plans for their drug coverage. Pharmaceutical companies, pharmaceutical benefit managers (PBM), and pharmacies know this and they compete vigorously for seniors’ business. A PBM is a third party administrator of prescription drug plans (Well-known PBMs are Catamaran, CVSCaremark, Express Scripts, Humana Pharmacy Solutions and USScript). PBMs negotiate drug prices, establish formularies, process, and pay prescription drug claims in private insurance, as well as Medicare. This robust competition among private sector entities is the major reason that Medicare Part D costs less than originally anticipated; rather than employing heavy-handed government edicts or price controls, market forces keep prices low and satisfaction high. So, why would the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) suddenly move to “fix something that ain’t broke”?
Happy Birthday for Obamacare?
On March 23, 2010, President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) into law. The healthcare reform law is also known as the Affordable Care Act. President Obama and Vice President Biden gave brief remarks during the signing ceremony. Below are some of the statements and promises made by the president to the […]
ObamaCare = Slouching Toward the PIIGS
PIIGS is the acronym for the European countries of Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain. These countries represent the most at-risk economies in Europe, particularly after the European sovereign debt crisis in 2009 and 2010. Their fiscal conditions, which include astronomically high debt and large social-welfare states, should be a warning to the United States.
The ObamaCare Python
On February 12, 2014, the Obama Administration released the final regulation for the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) employer-shared healthcare insurance responsibility provisions. This regulation again delays the employer mandate and changes the healthcare reform law without Congressional approval. But it also contains a provision, which truly demonstrates how pernicious ACA, better known as ObamaCare, is […]
The Article One President Strikes Again
On Monday afternoon the Obama administration issued the final regulation for the implementation of the employer-shared responsibility provisions under the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare. The regulation again delays the employer mandate to provide health insurance to employees and corresponding fines for non-compliance until 2015 or 2016, depending on the size of the employer. Here’s […]
More Problems with Medicaid Expansion
Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), better known as Obamacare, the eligibility for Medicaid program was expanded to nearly all Americans under the age of 65 that are effectively at or below 138 percent of the federal poverty level (approximately $32,913 for a family of four.) Prior to Obamacare, Medicaid eligibility was for these mandatory classes: children, pregnant women, very-low income parents, seniors, the blind, and the disabled. Eligibility for these six classes varies by income. (States do have some flexibility in designing and expanding the program.)
Declaration of Dependence
A February 4, 2013 Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report confirmed what taxpayer watchdog groups such as Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) have been warning about for years: Obamacare is an unprecedented disaster for every American’s personal health and the country’s economic health. CBO reported that 2.5 million people, a historically high number, will leave the […]
Disturbing News on Medicaid from Oregon
Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) in 2010 objected to the Affordable Care Act’s expansion of Medicaid, a “partnership” between state governments and Washington to provide healthcare to the poor, knowing at the time that the price tag would be prohibitive and it would put the federal and local governments in charge of millions of Americans’ […]