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Showing posts with label brokenpromiseshealthcare. Show all posts
Showing posts with label brokenpromiseshealthcare. Show all posts
Surprise increase in the cost of Obamacare for next fiscal year

Surprise increase in the cost of Obamacare for next fiscal year

Some technicalities apparently have some real consequences. So much for Obama's promises about how much Obamacare would cost.From the AP:

Cost estimates for a key part of President Obama's health care overhaul law have ballooned by $111 billion from last year's budget, and a senior Republican lawmaker on Friday demanded an explanation.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., wants to know by Monday why the estimated ten-year cost of helping millions of middle-class Americans buy health insurance has jumped by about 30 percent.
Administration officials say the explanation lies in budget technicalities and that there are no significant changes in the program.
The revised numbers, buried deep in the president's budget, stumped lawmakers and some administration officials for most of the week. At a congressional hearing Tuesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who is in charge of carrying out the health care law, indicated she was unaware of the changes.
At issue are subsidies that will be provided under the health care law to help middle class people buy private coverage in new state insurance markets that will open for business in 2014.
Last year's budget estimated the cost of the aid to be $367 billion from 2014-2011. This year's budget puts it at $478 billion over the same time period. . . .
30 percent of employers may soon drop health insurance for their employees

30 percent of employers may soon drop health insurance for their employees

Boy, this is a big surprise. NOT. The fee for going through the government insurance is very small compared to what the insurance actually costs, so why not let the taxpayers pick up the tab. So much for the government estimates on how many people would stay on private insurance. Remember these additional costs will blow the budget apart. From Fox News:

Three years before the new health care law takes full effect, a survey of employers has found 30 percent of them are thinking about dropping coverage, in part because most employees will have an alternative -- government-subsidized insurance exchanges.
McKinsey & Company commissioned a survey of 1,329 private sector employers in February and found that three out of 10 respondents who said their companies offered employer-sponsored health insurance said they would "definitely" or "probably" drop coverage in the years following 2014, the year the Affordable Care Act takes full effect.
"The employer knows there's no reason to provide private, expensive coverage if there's free options available from the government," said John Goodman, of the conservative National Center for Policy Analysis in Dallas.
Workers in the exchanges making all the way up to more than $90,000 in income would get generous federal subsidies. For lower-wage workers, the government would pay almost the entire cost of insurance.
"For a $12,000-dollar health insurance plan, if you make about $30,000 a year, the government pays about $11,000 of the premium," Goodman said. . . .
Obamacare spending will not ask beneficiaries for residency status

Obamacare spending will not ask beneficiaries for residency status

Whatever one thinks of the merits of providing this health care and however large one thinks that the benefits are relative to the costs, he is pretty clear that President Obama has broken another promise and that it was an issue that he thought could have defeated his health care bill. From the Hill newspaper:



Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) on Wednesday said his infamous cry of “You lie!” at President Obama has been vindicated.



Wilson said an Obama administration decision on healthcare centers proves the president wasn’t telling the truth during a 2009 address to a joint session of Congress. . . .



Wilson said Wednesday that a recent award of $28.8 million to 67 community healthcare centers around the country would inevitably end up benefiting illegal immigrants, contrary to Obama’s pledge.



Of that $28.8 million, $8.5 million is earmarked to target migrant and seasonal farm workers — a group that Wilson claims is comprised of illegal immigrants.



"It is clearly providing money that should be going to American citizens to illegal immigrants," Wilson said on Fox News's "America Live." "It's even worse than I thought, they won't even ask for status." . . .
Obama breaks Obamacare promise to drug companies

Obama breaks Obamacare promise to drug companies

Well, Obama's promise to pass Obamacare lasted about a year.

The White House’s new deficit plan has the drug industry crying foul, and that means Big Pharma may now join Big Insurers to push back on health reform.
Drug industry sources tell FOX Business the Administration is backtracking on what is called the “PhRMA deal” in health reform, a deal that was struck behind closed doors in late 2009 and early 2010 in order to get the industry to support and endorse health-care reform.
In the “PhRMA” deal, drug companies would fork over $80 billion in fees as well as give drug discounts to seniors in Medicare over 10 years, among other things (The CBO has reported that those fees may be passed along to customers, anyway, in the form of higher drug prices. (See EMac's Bottom Line, "CBO Says Health Reform Causes Drug Costs to Rise")
In exchange, the White House agreed, among other items, to not force the drug industry to accept rebates on drugs sold through Medicare Part D, a program launched under President George W. Bush to subsidize prescription drugs for seniors.
But President Barack Obama's new deficit push calls for those Medicare rebates, via the Simpson-Bowles plan. . . .
Not only did Obama break his promise to televise health care negotiations, but he is fighting Congress over releasing records

Not only did Obama break his promise to televise health care negotiations, but he is fighting Congress over releasing records

Fox News has this:

President Obama once promised that negotiations over his health care overhaul would be carried out openly, in front of TV cameras and microphones. Tell that to the White House now.
Republican congressional investigators got the brush-off this past week after pressing for details of meetings between White House officials and interest groups, including drug companies and hospitals that provided critical backing for Obama's health insurance expansion.
Complying with the records request from the House Energy and Commerce Committee "would constitute a vast and expensive undertaking" and could "implicate longstanding executive branch confidentiality interests," White House lawyer Robert Bauer wrote the committee. Translation: Nice try.
It's one more roadblock for Republicans who tapped into widespread anxiety about the scope and costs of the new health care law to regain control of the House in last fall's elections. . . .
Obama's double counting of savings in Obamacare

Obama's double counting of savings in Obamacare

I thought that this was well-known, but it is good to see this issue being raised again.

It was only a few minutes in the making but comments last week by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Capitol Hill have set off a firestorm of criticism around President Obamas health care law and how the law, when its finally implemented, will have double counted on Medicare -- and, therefore, does not have the savings once predicted by the White House.

The Affordable Care Act adds 12 years to the Medicare trust fund, according to every actuary, and the $500 billion represents a slowdown in the growth rate of Medicare over 10 years from what was projected at 8 percent to a growth rate, Sebelius said during questioning by Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill.

But, as Shimkus pushed the issue, asking for Sebelius to explain if the president was using the $500 billion to save Medicare or fund health care reform, Sebelius added one word both. And that word has made many more nervous than ever about the health care law, as they say it sounds like double counting, or using money from one program to count into another, which does not equal savings. . . .

The idea of complaining about a double count is not new to the White House. In March 2010, "Special Report" anchor Bret Baier specifically questioned Obama about the issue.

Obama at the time made it clear there was no robbing Peter to pay Paul in the health care legislation.

"You can't say that you are saving on Medicare, and then spend the money twice," Obama said.What you can say is that we are going to take the savings, put them back to make sure that seniors are getting help on the prescription drug bill instead of that money going to, for example, insurance reform. . . .
So much for the government's estimates of the number of people who would lose their health insurance under Obama care

So much for the government's estimates of the number of people who would lose their health insurance under Obama care

What a surprise, but it looks like price controls impact the supply of a product. Remember when the CBO told everyone this:

the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that 10 million workers could lose employer-provided benefits and would have to find other insurance.


Now we have this:

McDonald's Corp. has warned federal regulators that it could drop its health insurance plan for nearly 30,000 hourly restaurant workers unless regulators waive a new requirement of the U.S. health overhaul.

The move is one of the clearest indications that new rules may disrupt workers' health plans as the law ripples through the real world.

Trade groups representing restaurants and retailers say low-wage employers might halt their coverage if the government doesn't loosen a requirement for "mini-med" plans, which offer limited benefits to some 1.4 million Americans.

The requirement concerns the percentage of premiums that must be spent on benefits.

While many restaurants don't offer health coverage, McDonald's provides mini-med plans for workers at 10,500 U.S. locations, most of them franchised. A single worker can pay $14 a week for a plan that caps annual benefits at $2,000, or about $32 a week to get coverage up to $10,000 a year.

Last week, a senior McDonald's official informed the Department of Health and Human Services that the restaurant chain's insurer won't meet a 2011 requirement to spend at least 80% to 85% of its premium revenue on medical care.

McDonald's and trade groups say the percentage, called a medical loss ratio, is unrealistic for mini-med plans because of high administrative costs owing to frequent worker turnover, combined with relatively low spending on claims. . . .

McDonald's move is the latest indication of possible unintended consequences from the health overhaul. Dozens of companies have taken charges against earnings—totaling more than $1 billion—over a tax change in prescription-drug benefits for retirees.

More recently, insurers have proposed a round of double-digit premium increases and said new coverage mandates in the law are partly to blame. HHS has criticized the proposed increases as unwarranted. . . .
Government moves to ration cancer care for women

Government moves to ration cancer care for women

So private insurance covers this? Why should the government make a decision that this treatment isn't cost effective? Can't patients, doctors, and insurance companies make this decision on their own? If people want to buy insurance policies that pay for this, why can't they do that? Personally, I don't see why the government should be able to approve the treatments that cancer patients receive in any case, but this notion of them evaluating drugs based on cost effectiveness just seems wrong.

A decision to rescind endorsement of the drug would reignite the highly charged debate over US health care reform and how much the state should spend on new and expensive treatments.
Avastin, the world’s best selling cancer drug, is primarily used to treat colon cancer and was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2008 for use on women with breast cancer that has spread.
It costs $8,000 (£5,000) a month and is given to about 17,500 women in the US a year. The drug was initially approved after a study found that, by preventing blood flow to tumours, it extended the amount of time until the disease worsened by more than five months. However, two new studies have shown that the drug may not even extend life by an extra month.
The FDA advisory panel has now voted 12-1 to drop the endorsement for breast cancer treatment. The panel unusually cited "effectiveness" grounds for the decision. But it has been claimed that "cost effectiveness" was the real reason ahead of reforms in which the government will extend health insurance to the poorest.
If the approval of the drug is revoked then US insurers would be likely to stop paying for Avastin.
The Avastin recommendation led to revived allegations that President Barack Obama’s overhaul of the US health care system would mean many would be denied treatments currently available.


UPDATE: From the WSJ:

Remember, too, that these are only averages over a narrow population, while individual patients respond in dramatically different ways. That includes prolonging survival, which Avastin does in some situations. The median overall survival benefit for one subgroup of 496 patients between the ages of 40 and 64 was an additional 5.7 months of life. Some individuals gain years. At any rate, even the 31% reduction in the risk of disease progression or death is better than the status quo.

Such quantifiable progress, moreover, was the "endpoint" that Avastin had been required to hit. In February 2009, the FDA confirmed that the drug would be approved if it showed "demonstrated improvement in progression-free survival and evidence that survival is not impaired," according to the agency's minutes.

The FDA later unilaterally redefined its regulatory expectations, devising a pretext to undermine Avastin. The terms of ODAC debate are set by instructions from FDA staff reviewers, and in round two they suddenly emphasized topics that had been resolved in round one, such as the lack of overall survival benefits and safety issues such as toxic side effects. . . .

The Avastin mugging is really an attempt to undermine regulatory modernization like accelerated approval that offends the FDA's institutional culture of control and delay. It is also meant to discourage innovations like Avastin that the political and medical left has decided are too costly, with damaging implications for the next generation of cancer drugs.

Investigations at the frontiers of genomic science have only begun, and the learning curve for how subsets of patients respond to biologics, and how to target them, is steep. Yet the world's oncologists agree that the future of their science lies in patient-specific, biologic treatments. Cancer survival rates have improved gradually over the last several decades, thanks in part to improvements at the margin like Avastin. . . .
Is a head tax a valid part of the government's power to tax?

Is a head tax a valid part of the government's power to tax?

Can Obama make any honest statements?

When Congress required most Americans to obtain health insurance or pay a penalty, Democrats denied that they were creating a new tax. But in court, the Obama administration and its allies now defend the requirement as an exercise of the government’s “power to lay and collect taxes.”

And that power, they say, is even more sweeping than the federal power to regulate interstate commerce.

Administration officials say the tax argument is a linchpin of their legal case in defense of the health care overhaul and its individual mandate, now being challenged in court by more than 20 states and several private organizations.

Under the legislation signed by President Obama in March, most Americans will have to maintain “minimum essential coverage” starting in 2014. Many people will be eligible for federal subsidies to help them pay premiums.

In a brief defending the law, the Justice Department says the requirement for people to carry insurance or pay the penalty is “a valid exercise” of Congress’s power to impose taxes.

Congress can use its taxing power “even for purposes that would exceed its powers under other provisions” of the Constitution, the department said. For more than a century, it added, the Supreme Court has held that Congress can tax activities that it could not reach by using its power to regulate commerce.

While Congress was working on the health care legislation, Mr. Obama refused to accept the argument that a mandate to buy insurance, enforced by financial penalties, was equivalent to a tax.

“For us to say that you’ve got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase,” the president said last September, in a spirited exchange with George Stephanopoulos on the ABC News program “This Week.”

When Mr. Stephanopoulos said the penalty appeared to fit the dictionary definition of a tax, Mr. Obama replied, “I absolutely reject that notion.” . . .


The tax argument is clearly the strongest argument that the Obama administration has.

Jack M. Balkin, a professor at Yale Law School who supports the new law, said, “The tax argument is the strongest argument for upholding” the individual-coverage requirement. . . .


Yet, even assuming that this is now a tax, this is the first time that people have been taxed for not doing something.

Thanks to Tony Troglio for this link.

The transcript of the interview on ABC is here.

More on the question here.
Even the New York Times notes that Obama may have broken key health care promise

Even the New York Times notes that Obama may have broken key health care promise

This is only a surprise to the NY Times.

As the Obama administration begins to enact the new national health care law, the country’s biggest insurers are promoting affordable plans with reduced premiums that require participants to use a narrower selection of doctors or hospitals. . . .

The tradeoff, they say, is that more Americans will be asked to pay higher prices for the privilege of choosing or keeping their own doctors if they are outside the new networks. That could come as a surprise to many who remember the repeated assurances from President Obama and other officials that consumers would retain a variety of health-care choices. . . .
More on Obama's Executive Order on Abortions not being of any use

More on Obama's Executive Order on Abortions not being of any use

Jake Tapper has the story here.

the Obama administration had approved $160 million for Pennsylvania to set up a “high risk” pool for individuals with pre-existing conditions who had been uninsured for the previous six months.

The language in the Pennsylvania solicitation for that plan, however, seemed to suggest abortions could be covered.

While the solicitation said that “elective abortions are not covered,” it also stated the plan would include “only abortions and contraceptives that satisfy the requirements” of a number of Pennsylvania statutes -- including one stating that abortions can be provided by physicians who determine in “his best clinical judgment, the abortion is necessary ... in the light of all factors (physical, emotional, psychological, familial and the woman's age) relevant to the well-being of the woman. No abortion which is sought solely because of the sex of the unborn child shall be deemed a necessary abortion.” . . .


UPDATE: Just a reminder of who relied on this promise in their votes for the health care bill.
The Obama administration finally admits something about its health care plan that should have been obvious to everyone

The Obama administration finally admits something about its health care plan that should have been obvious to everyone

This is pretty depressing. From the AP:

Over and over in the health care debate, President Barack Obama said people who like their current coverage would be able to keep it.
But an early draft of an administration regulation estimates that many employers will be forced to make changes to their health plans under the new law. In just three years, a majority of workers—51 percent—will be in plans subject to new federal requirements, according to the draft.

Employers say it's more evidence that the law will drive up costs. Republicans say Obama broke his promise. But some experts believe increased regulation will lead to improved benefits for consumers.

"On the face of it, having consumer protections apply to all insurance plans could be a good thing for employees," said Alex Vachon, an independent health policy consultant. "Technically, it's actually improved coverage."

The types of changes that employers would be forced to make include offering preventive care without copayments and instituting an appeals process for disputed claims that follows new federal guidelines. The law already requires all health plans to extend coverage to young adult children until they turn 26. But such changes also nudge costs up.

The Obama administration said the draft regulation is an early version undergoing revision. Nonetheless, the leaked document was getting widespread interest Friday in lobbying firms that represent employers and insurance companies and on Capitol Hill.

"What we are getting here is a clear indication that most plans will have to change," said James Gelfand, health policy director for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "From an employer's point of view that's a bad thing. These changes, whether or not they're good for consumers, are most certainly accompanied by a cost."

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said it showed that Obama's assurance that Americans would be able to keep the plans they currently have was "a myth" all along. . . .
Obama's broken promise not to tax health care insurance

Obama's broken promise not to tax health care insurance

Breitbart TV has this video of Obama's broken promises on taxing health insurance. I have written on this before, but it is useful to see it on a video.


"I can make a firm pledge: no family making less than $250,000 will see any form of tax increase - not your income taxes, not your payroll taxes, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes. And my opponent can't make that pledge. and here is why: for the first time in American history, John McCain wants to tax your health care benefits."


The full Obama quote is here:

For example, I'm on record as saying that taxing Cadillac plans that don't make people healthier but just take more money out of their pockets because they're paying more for insurance than they need to, that's actually a good idea.

John McCain calls these plans Cadillac plans and in some cases it may be that a CEO's getting too good a deal. But what if you're a line worker making a good American car like the Cadillac? What if you're one of the steel workers who are working right here at Newport News and you've given up wage increases in exchange for better healthcare? Well, Senator McCain believes you should pay higher taxes, too. The bottom line: The better your healthcare plan, the harder you fought for your good benefits, the higher the taxes you'll pay under John McCain's plan.

And I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.

And my opponent can't make that pledge and here's why. For the first time in American history John McCain wants to tax your healthcare benefits. Apparently Senator McCain doesn't think it's enough that healthcare premiums have doubled. He thinks you should have to pay taxes on them, too. That's a $3.6 trillion tax increase potentially on middle class families.
Obama's Promise on Health Care Reform Transparency

Obama's Promise on Health Care Reform Transparency



“I respect what the Clintons tried to do in 1993 in moving health reform forward, but they made one really big mistake, and that is, they took all their people and all their experts and put them into a room, and then they closed the door. We will work on this process publicly, it will be on C-SPAN, it will be streaming over the net.” November 2008

Yet, another broken promise by President Obama.
With a trillion dollar health care bill heading towards approval, I thought that it might be useful to remember what Obama promised

With a trillion dollar health care bill heading towards approval, I thought that it might be useful to remember what Obama promised

Obama's health care promise included:

Access to Health Insurance
Supports a national health insurance program for people who do not have employer-provided health care and who do not qualify for other existing federal programs. Would mandate health insurance coverage for children but not for adults.
Would require employers that do not provide health coverage for employees to pay into his proposed national health insurance program.
The plan's $50 billion to $65 billion price tag would be paid for by discontinuing Bush's tax cuts for those earning more than $250,000 a year.


This is both a lot more expensive than Obama promised. He is also breaking his promise that it wouldn't be mandatory.
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