The federal government is cranking up its effort to control health care costs by imposing backdoor price controls on health insurers, or as the Government Accountability Office euphemistically puts it, so Americans "receive value for their (health insurance) premium dollars." A provision in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act referred to as the medical loss ratio (MLR) requires … [Read more...] about Merrill Matthews in Investor’s Business Daily: ObamaCare Hidden Price Controls Will Hammer Insurers
Tom Miller in National Journal: Repeal to replace: starting this year
Serious political debate in Republican circles over the substance, scope, and scale of what should “replace” the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has been more or less frozen in suspended animation since its enactment in March 2010 for three reasons. (1) Grassroots activists focused on outright repeal as a common unifying goal. (2) Elected GOP officials and other Republican candidates for office … [Read more...] about Tom Miller in National Journal: Repeal to replace: starting this year
Bureaucratic Delay Costs Lives
One of the countless concerns with growing government control over the health sector is additional bureaucratic delay in getting new treatments to patients. We’re seeing more and more evidence of these hurdles. And we have another example involving a new life-saving vaccine: The Food and Drug Administration expedited approval of Prevnar 13, which prevents pneumonia and related diseases in … [Read more...] about Bureaucratic Delay Costs Lives
Strike One against CLASS
Speaker Boehner lead the House of Representatives on Wednesday to overwhelmingly pass a bill repealing the long-term care entitlement in ObamaCare -- the one that Democratic leaders have described as "completely unsustainable" and "a Ponzi scheme of the first order" and which the Obama administration could see "no viable path forward" to implement. The vote to repeal the CLASS Act was 267-159, … [Read more...] about Strike One against CLASS
Scott Gottlieb in The Wall Street Journal: Digital doctoring
Scott Gottlieb reviews Eric Topol's book on how medical innovation will coalesce to change clinical practice and what the coming changes mean for today's policy debates. Read more at AEI... … [Read more...] about Scott Gottlieb in The Wall Street Journal: Digital doctoring
ObamaCare’s latest assault on freedom
The Catholic Church has unleashed a firestorm of opposition to the Obama Administration’s announcement last month that it will require religious-affiliated organizations to provide coverage by next year for contraception — including controversial drugs that can abort an early pregnancy. This is an outrage that started with a decision by the Obama Administration last summer listing the … [Read more...] about ObamaCare’s latest assault on freedom
Be prepared for today’s House vote on CLASS
The CLASS Act was doomed before it began when Sen. Kent Conrad, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, called the new government entitlement program for long-term care payments “a Ponzi scheme of the first order, the kind of thing Bernie Madoff would be proud of.” We offer below several of our contributions from this week to educate the debate as the House prepares to vote today … [Read more...] about Be prepared for today’s House vote on CLASS
Defend Freedom — Repeal CLASS
Democratic senator Tom Harkin of Iowa may have inadvertently revealed why President Obama has pledged to veto efforts by Congress to repeal a part of Obamacare that already has failed — the long-term-care entitlement program known as the CLASS Act. “The problem with CLASS is that it’s voluntary,” Senator Harkin said on Tuesday. In the liberal mind, the program would be fine if we were forced … [Read more...] about Defend Freedom — Repeal CLASS