Search the News Archive

The NCPA Fact Checks Obama's Health Policy Address During the State of the Union

"The president didn't mention that an estimated 100 million workers who have paid sick leave likely don't get seven days annually. He also didn't mention that his own advisor Jonathan Gruber has research showing workers themselves wind up paying the cost of mandatory benefits through lower wages.... The president should have called for expanding Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) to all workers, allowing them to set aside funds for medical needs. The president could have also proposed allowing workers to use HSAs to compensate for income lost to sick days."

Zeke Emanuel, Center for American Progress Give Up on Obamacare

"The examples given in [a recent paper by the Center for American Progress] are too government-heavy: All-payer databases, price fixing, and mandatory 'transparency.' Another weakness is that only governments will be able to share in the savings. How about a model where patients share in the savings, through a credit to a Health Savings Account (or Medicare MSA), for example?"

Obamacare's Unintended Consequences: People Buy Short-Term Policies

"Sales of these policies have doubled or more since 2014 ... This surely feeds into the problem that Obamacare enrollees are sicker than expected: The healthy candidates are choosing these policies.... Because these policies are underwritten for pre-existing conditions, the healthy can buy them. However, when the term is up, they are underwritten again.... With Obamacare, of course, if these folks fall sick they can apply for Obamacare coverage at the next open enrollment, which starts November 1."

Ohamacare's Robin Hood Scheme and the Socioeconomics of Health

"Although they are loath to blame lifestyles, liberal health policy folks worry about health disparities. But the reality is most health disparities are due to behavior, not lack of health coverage. Indeed, about 60 percent of medical spending is on conditions linked to lifestyle. This includes diabetes, hypertension and high cholesterol.... People who probably had not spent their own money on medical care in the past decade now have encouragement to get a decade's worth of care the first year or two they are enrolled. As a result, everyone's premiums are skyrocketing and the state and federal exchanges are descending into an adverse selection death spiral."

Lifetime HSAs: The 'Antisocial' Health Reform that's Good for You!

"Under an individualized lifecycle theory of saving for future health care needs, most young peoples' premium dollars would accrue in their HSAs. Only a small portion of their premiums would go for catastrophic insurance. Over time HSA balances would grow and the ratio of HSA deposits to insurance premiums would decline as one's health risk increases with age."

Narrow Networks Are Saving Money for Health Plans

"If narrow networks are like restricting the stores where your kids are allowed to shop, reference pricing is like telling your kids they can shop anywhere. But you will only pay, say, $30 towards the cost of a pair of jeans. If they choose to spend $100 on Buffalo jeans at the mall, they must pay the $70 difference. Several years ago insurer WellPoint partnered with [CalPERS] on a reference-pricing program to encourage enrollees to patronize lower-cost hospitals. It worked -- enrollees quickly shifted to hospitals that charged less for joint replacement surgery."

Economic Growth Improved Health Coverage More Than Obamacare Did

"The RAND Corporation ... analysis of Obamacare's effect on health insurance... [shows] employer-based benefits have been restored as jobs have started to come back.... The good news is the number of people with employer-based benefits increased by 8 million, from 111.9 million to 119.9 million (The total population is adjusted for death, aging and migration over the period.) Digging deeper, it looks like this improvement would have been much higher, but for Obamacare."

Selling Health Insurance Across State Lines

"[S]uch a reform has no effect. Back in 2010, Georgia sacrificed its sovereignty to regulate health insurance, but premiums didn't change. The reason is that if a health plan wants to offer coverage in a state, it already can easily do so. Health insurers enter and exit markets all the time.... By far the largest determinant of insurance premiums isn't mandates, it's the provider network tied to a health plan.... [If] we owned our own health insurance, states would quickly harmonize their laws to facilitate a national market. Which brings us to a legitimate recommendation for Congress: Stop the tax code's discrimination against individually owned health insurance."

Health Spending Represents Increasing Share of GDP

"Last week's third estimate of Gross Domestic Product for the second quarter confirms that growth in health spending might be moderating somewhat from its initial Obamacare fueled rush. Unfortunately, it is not a clear break in the trend of health spending consuming an increasing share of our national income."

Australia Will Raise $5 Billion by Privatizing Its Biggest Health Insurer

"[T]he sale would remove the current conflict where the government is both the regulator of the private health insurance market and owner of the largest market participant. Medibank provides cover to 3.8 million people.... Australia has been shrinking the role of government in health care. Although a national single-payer scheme was established in 1975, the federal government re-introduced private choice within a few years."