Posted by Michael F. Cannon on July 22, 2010
By Michael F. Cannon
That didn’t take long at all. Left-wing congresscritters have (re-)introduced legislation to create a “public option” in ObamaCare’s health insurance exchanges.
The Congressional Budget Office scores the bill as reducing federal deficits by $53 billion by 2019. How? Paying doctors and hospitals less! Put that on a bumper sticker! The public option would use Medicare’s price [...]
Categories: Congress, Politics |
Tags: cost containment, Government and Politics, government health care, Health, health bill, health insurance, Health, Welfare & Entitlements, Medicare, Obamacare, prescription drugs, public option, spending | 
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Posted by Michael F. Cannon on July 19, 2010
By Michael F. Cannon
The individual mandate has been a tricky issue for Barack Obama, leading him to make some impressive self-reversals.
When campaigning against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, Obama came out hard against an individual mandate to purchase health insurance, alleging that Clinton would garnish workers’ wages and that Massachusetts’ individual mandate has left many [...]
Categories: Politics |
Tags: Barack Obama, employer mandate, george stephanopoulos, Government and Politics, health insurance, Health, Welfare & Entitlements, hillary clinton, randy barnett | No Comments »
Posted by Michael F. Cannon on July 15, 2010
By Michael F. Cannon
The Obama administration announced yesterday its plans for implementing ObamaCare’s mandate that consumers purchase first-dollar coverage for preventive services. The press release reads (emphasis added):
Administration Announces Regulations Requiring New Health Insurance Plans to Provide Free Preventive Care
Of course the administration would emphasize that consumers will pay nothing for these services at the moment of service, [...]
Categories: Politics |
Tags: Cato Publications, cbo, free, Government and Politics, Health, health insurance, health insurance mandates, Health, Welfare & Entitlements, los angeles times, Medicare, New York Times, no cost, Obamacare, Politico, preventive care, Regulatory Studies, Reuters, Wall Street Journal, Welfare & Entitlements | No Comments »
Posted by Michael F. Cannon on July 15, 2010
By Michael F. Cannon
Christopher Weaver of Kaiser Health News has an excellent article in today’s Washington Post on the various government agencies that will now be deciding what health insurance coverage you must purchase, and how many of those decisions will ultimately fall to lobbyists and politicians:
For years, an obscure federal task force sifted through medical literature on [...]
Categories: Politics |
Tags: barbara mikulski, Cato Publications, consumers, effectiveness research, government agencies, Government and Politics, health insurance, health insurance coverage, health plan, health plans, Health, Welfare & Entitlements, healthcare, insurance coverage, lobbyists, politicians, premiums, regulations, science, Washington Post | No Comments »
Posted by Michael F. Cannon on July 1, 2010
By Michael F. Cannon
In a recent post on how RomneyCare is increasing health insurance costs in Massachusetts (by encouraging healthy residents to purchase coverage only when they need medical care) and how ObamaCare will do the same, I linked to a Boston Globe article where an insurance-company spokeswoman made this odd claim:
We believe…the gaming in the system…is adding [...]
Categories: Politics |
Tags: boston globe, Health, health care system, health insurance, Health, Welfare & Entitlements, individual mandate, insurance, Massachusetts, medical care, premiums, romneycare, spending | No Comments »
Posted by Michael F. Cannon on June 30, 2010
By Michael F. Cannon
The Massachusetts health care law that Gov. Mitt Romney signed in 2006, and the nearly identical federal law that President Obama signed this year, create perverse incentives that are causing health insurance costs to rise and could eventually cause health insurance markets to collapse. A report released yesterday by the Massachusetts Division of Insurance shows [...]
Categories: Politics |
Tags: adverse selection, Cato Publications, General, health care reform, health insurance, Health, Welfare & Entitlements, individual mandate, Obamacare, price controls, romneycare | No Comments »
Posted by Michael F. Cannon on June 23, 2010
By Michael F. Cannon
Among the many ways ObamaCare will increase the cost of health insurance, it will require all Americans to purchase unlimited annual and lifetime coverage. The latter requirement takes effect this September. The former will require consumers with non-grandfathered health plans (i.e., about half of the market) to purchase coverage with an annual limit on claims [...]
Categories: Politics |
Tags: General, health care reform, health insurance, Health, Welfare & Entitlements, individual mandate, Obamacare | No Comments »
Posted by Michael F. Cannon on June 21, 2010
By Michael F. Cannon
Last week, The New York Times published an article subtitled, “In Desperately Poor Rwanda, Most Have Health Insurance.” The main theme was the contrast between Rwanda’s compulsory health insurance system and the as-yet-non-compulsory U.S. health insurance market:
Rwanda has had national health insurance for 11 years now; 92 percent of the nation is covered, and the [...]
Categories: Politics |
Tags: Anti-Universal Coverage Club, Cato Publications, church of universal coverage, Education and Child Policy, Health, health care reform, health insurance, health policy, Health, Welfare & Entitlements, infant mortality, International Economics and Development, life expectancy, Life of a Thousand Hills, Obamacare, poverty, Rwanda, uninsured, universal coverage | No Comments »
