Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Why Obama Care Is Still No Sure Thing

 

Part I

The majority of state governors are Republicans, and they have the power to disarm the health-care law.

by  James Capretta and Yuval Levin  from the Wall Street Journal

“Champions of Obama Care want Americans to believe that the president's re-election ended the battle over the law. It did no such thing. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act won't be fully repealed while Barack Obama is in office, but the administration is heavily dependent on the states for its implementation.

Republicans will hold 30 governorships starting in January, and at last week's meeting of the Republican Governors Association they made it clear that they remain highly critical of the health law.

States still have two key choices to make that together will put them in the driver's seat: whether to create state health-insurance exchanges, and whether to expand Medicaid. They should say "no" to both.

At its core, Obama Care is a massive entitlement expansion. Between vastly increased Medicaid eligibility and new premium subsidies, it is expected to bring 30 million more people onto the federal government's entitlement rolls. The law anticipates that the states will take on the burden of implementing the expansions, but states can opt out of both.

Running the exchanges would be an administrative nightmare for states.

The exchanges would create unsustainable pressures on each state's insurance market, treating similarly situated people differently by providing far greater subsidies for those in the exchanges than those in employer plans—yielding perverse incentives that distort consumer and employer decisions and increase costs.”

There is no denying that federal regulations always mandate ‘workarounds’ to overcome perverse incentives and penalties imposed by new regulations.  Obama care will be one of the worst.”

 

REASONS-TO-OPPOSE-EXCHANGES

This white paper from the “Citizen’s Council for Health Freedom”, details the flawed Health Insurance Benefit Exchange.

““President Obama won re-election and Democrats maintained control of the Senate this month, but the states hold the future of Obama Care in their hands. Knowing the harm the law would do to their citizens, to the economy and to American health care, governors should refuse to become its enablers.”

Mr. Capretta is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Mr. Levin is a fellow at the EPPC and editor of National Affairs.

Part II to follow…………………….

 

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