ObamaCare Watch

Featured Stories

Oregon Study Throws a Stop Sign in Front of ObamaCare’s Medicaid Expansion

Cato@Liberty

Michael Cannon

Wed, 2013-05-01

"There is no way to spin these results as anything but a rebuke to those who are pushing states to expand Medicaid. The Obama administration has been trying to convince states to throw more than a trillion additional taxpayer dollars at Medicaid by participating in the expansion, when the best-designed research available cannot find any evidence that it improves the physical health of enrollees."

Baucus Warns Of 'Huge Train Wreck' Enacting ObamaCare Provisions

Sam Baker, The Hill

Wed, 2013-04-17

"Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said Wednesday he fears a 'train wreck' as the Obama administration implements its signature healthcare law. Baucus, the chairman of the powerful Finance Committee and a key architect of the healthcare law, said he fears people do not understand how the law will work."

Obamacare Won't Be Doing Much for Small Business Next Year

The Daily Beast

Megan McArdle

Wed, 2013-04-03

"I don't get the sense that at the time of passage, people had spent a lot of time thinking about the sheer mechanics of how this would all work: how the IT would be built, the rules written, the necessary information assembled. They spent a lot of time staring at the blueprints, not so much thinking about the building materials and the labor."

Obamacare Credits Could Trigger Surprise Tax Bills

Stephen Ohlemacher, The Associated Press

Tue, 2013-04-02

"Millions of people who take advantage of government subsidies to help buy health insurance next year could get stung by surprise tax bills if they don't accurately project their income... What happens if you or your spouse gets a raise and your family income goes up in 2014? You could end up with a bigger subsidy than you are entitled to. If that happens, the law says you have to pay back at least part of the money when you file your tax return in the spring of 2015."

Health Law Provision for Small Business Is Delayed

Robert Pear, The New York Times

Tue, 2013-04-02

"Unable to meet tight deadlines in the new health care law, the Obama administration is delaying parts of a program intended to provide affordable health insurance to small businesses and their employees — a major selling point for the health care legislation."

Obamacare: 3 Years In, It Faces Steep Challenges

Susan Page, USA Today

Thu, 2013-05-16

"The Affordable Care Act is sure to survive the latest vote scheduled for Thursday by the House of Representatives to repeal it — since the Senate doesn't plan to take it up and President Obama would veto it if it somehow reached his desk — but the administration's signature legislative achievement still faces serious perils ahead."

GOP Files Bills Limiting IRS Oversight Of ObamaCare

Pete Kasperowicz, The Hill

Thu, 2013-05-16

"Reps. Randy Forbes (R-Va.) and Tom Price (R-Ga.) said their bills are needed in the wake of the IRS's confirmation that it applied extra scrutiny to conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status. Forbes called that a form of "bullying" by the IRS, and said it's a reason why Congress should approve his bill, which would prohibit the hiring of any new IRS officials to implement ObamaCare."

House GOP Pushes Full repeal Of Obama’s Health Care Law

The Associated Press

Thu, 2013-05-16

"One more time, with feeling! The Republican-led House voted yet again Thursday to repeal President Barack Obama’s health care law, knowing full well that won’t stop it. Only months away from the rollout of coverage for uninsured Americans, it was the 37th attempt in a little more than two years by House Republicans to eliminate, defund or partly scale back the Affordable Care Act."

Get Ready for Huge Drug Cost Gap in Obamacare

The Associated Press

Mon, 2013-05-13

"Cancer patients could face high costs for medications under President Barack Obama's health care law, industry analysts and advocates warn. Where you live could make a huge difference in what you'll pay."

Some Nevadans May See Higher Premiums Under Obamacare

Jennifer Robison, Las Vegas Review-Journal

Sun, 2013-05-12

"The Affordable Care Act may not be so affordable for some Nevadans. The law, commonly called Obamacare, combines benefit mandates and subsidies designed to make health insurance less costly for millions of Americans who now lack coverage. But observers ranging from state insurance officials to employee benefit consultants say some consumers could see premium increases big enough to price them out of insurance markets. If that happens, fewer people than expected could buy into the system, and that might mean the difference between Obamacare’s success or failure."

Cost Estimates for a PPACA Replacement Plan

James C. Capretta & Douglas Holtz-Eakin, American Action Forum

Thu, 2013-04-18

"Nevertheless, there is merit to continued evaluation of full-scale alternatives to the PPACA. One common defense of the law is that there has been no competing alternative, which is not true. But there is virtue to continuing to develop and refine as many alternatives as may be proposed. Toward that end, this short paper outlines one practical, conservative approach to replacing the law with a market-based reform plan."

The Affordable Care Act At 3: Big Cost Burden, Big Consumer Impact

Sam Batkins, American Action Forum

Mon, 2013-03-25

"As the Affordable Care Act (ACA) celebrates its third anniversary, the law has already imposed $21 billion in private-sector burdens, $9.8 billion in unfunded state liabilities, and 111 million paperwork burden hours. When the American Action Forum (AAF) reviewed the law’s regulatory impact last year, the ACA had imposed a combined cost of $12.4 billion and 50 million hours, meaning in the last year the administration has more than doubled the cost of implementation and added 21 million compliance hours."

50 Vetoes: How States Can Stop the Obama Health Care Law

Michael Cannon, The Cato Institute

Thu, 2013-03-21

"Despite surviving a number of threats, President Obama’s health care law remains harmful, unstable, and unpopular. It also remains vulnerable to repeal, largely because Congress and the Supreme Court have granted each state the power to veto major provisions of the law before they take effect in 2014."

‘Not One Dime’: Health Care Law Projected to Add $6.2 Trillion to U.S. Deficit

Christopher Connover, American Enterprise Insitute

Thu, 2013-03-14

"It turns out President Obama was right when he said his health care law wouldn't add one dime to the federal deficit.1 Figures from the Government Accountability Office suggest that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will in fact add 62 trillion dimes over the next 75 years."

Unnecessary Regulations that Increase Prescription Drug Costs

Devon Herrick, National Center for Policy Analysis

Thu, 2013-03-07

"Most health plans provide some prescription drug benefits. Drug coverage will become more prevalent as more uninsured families gain health insurance as a result of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA)... As drug coverage has become widespread, so have calls to impose additional regulations on drug plans and the firms that manage them. In the guise of protecting consumers, there are frequent calls for state and federal lawmakers to enact laws that hamper efficient management of prescription drug benefits. These efforts are short-sighted."

What Is To Be Done: Reveal And Replace Obamacare

Reps. Dave Camp & Fred Upton

The Washington Examiner

Wed, 2013-05-15

"So, if repeal is not a viable short-term option, reveal must be. Dissecting Obamcare's defective anatomy while offering alternatives is the way to get our health care system back on track. That's why the two committees we chair will continue our aggressive oversight, exposing Obamacare's failures - and discussing ways to provide more affordable health care to all Americans. What have our efforts 'revealed' so far?"

How the IRS Scandal Threatens Obamacare

Peter Suderman

Reason Magazine

Tue, 2013-05-14

"Following recent revelations that agents in multiple IRS offices, including tax officials in Washington, targeted conservative groups for extra scrutiny, a number of former and current Republican legislators are already counseling caution about the agency's role in administering the law. Concerns about the agency’s oversight of the health law are well-founded—and not only because of general concerns about the agency’s judgment."

The IRS Is Accessing Your Health Records. You Trust Them?

Scott Gottlieb

Forbes.com

Tue, 2013-05-14

"In the wake of running disclosures of the agency’s nefarious snooping and political targeting, its new role as chief health insurance enforcer should give us heartburn. Under Obamacare, the principal responsibility for verifying eligibility for the healthcare program, and monitoring whether you carry qualifying health coverage (and are exempt from the law’s penalties) will fall principally to the IRS."

Applying for ObamaCare—Still Not Simple

Grace-Marie Turner

The Wall Street Journal

Sat, 2013-05-11

"During his news conference last week, the president sounded defensive in trying to tamp down fears of an impending ObamaCare train wreck. One positive note was his boast about whittling down from 21 pages to three the application for subsidies that individuals have to file. But even that may need some defending."

The ObamaCare Train Wreck

Rep. Mike Pompeo

USA Today

Fri, 2013-05-10

"When the Affordable Care Act was passed, opponents (mostly Republicans) warned that it would be a disaster. Few of us on Capitol Hill could have anticipated that we would later be joined by a raft of former Democratic proponents so eager to distance themselves from ObamaCare that they're using even harsher terms. Let's call these politicians the Train Wreck Club."

ObamaCare Watch

Featured Stories

Issue Areas

e21 VIDEO

Weekly eBrief