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The Biden administration is continuing the march toward a universal, government-run health care system, both by chipping away at the private health sector and ushering more and more people into government programs.
The latest: President Biden announced on Tuesday he’s giving legal status to undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens and their children. At least 500,000 are expected to qualify.
It’s hard to understand how this is legal since there will be significant costs associated with their new eligibility for entitlement programs, including ACA and Medicaid coverage—spending that should require congressional approval. Lawsuits will ensue.
This follows the controversial “Dreamers” program the Obama administration created in 2012 that gave legal status—and entitlement eligibility—to adults who were brought into the U.S. illegally as children.
Chipping away: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services plans to award $500 million in grants over the next five years to “navigator” programs across the country.
A creation of Obamacare, navigators are paid by government to assist consumers in signing up for health coverage. The problem: We already have a network of nearly a million private insurance agents that have decades of knowledge and experience in helping clients find the best health coverage for their needs and pocketbooks. It’s very hard for them to compete with much-less-experienced navigators backed by $500 million in taxpayer dollars.
In addition, the Biden administration is undermining the competitive, consumer-friendly model of Medicare’s prescription drug benefit. It is making changes to Part D that are degrading the program, leading to fewer plan choices, fewer drugs covered, and premiums which are expected to increase by more than 20% next year.
And they are attacking Medicare Advantage plans in ways designed to discourage seniors from enrolling in these private, competing health plans that more than 30 million seniors have voluntarily chosen for lower costs and better benefits. But the number of options is shrinking as plans exit the program, citing Biden administration regulatory demands and financial pressures.
Fewer choices. Higher costs. More government control. More government spending.
The individual and small group markets show where this leads. In 2000, nearly half of small businesses provided health insurance to their employees, but only 31% do now. They can’t compete against the massively subsidized ACA exchange plans. As a result, the market that serves small business is in a free fall.
The Paragon Health Institute released a new study this week showing that Biden policies have ushered in a new level of fraudulent spending for ACA exchange coverage. They show that five million enrollees are receiving health-insurance subsidies well above the amounts to which they are legally entitled, providing almost half of all enrollees with free or nearly free coverage, costing taxpayers an extra $20 billion this year.
We must turn this ship around quickly or the private insurance that the majority of Americans still have and value will be crushed mountains of government regulation and trillions of dollars in taxpayer spending.
