According to a legal opinion letter by former White House Counsel C. Boyden Gray, the answer is YES. In this recording of a May 26, 2016 media conference call, experts describe the Obama administration’s decision to pay health insurers generous reinsurance subsidies while stiffing taxpayers, despite a statutory requirement that fixed sums must go to the U.S. Treasury. Mr. Gray’s letter … [Read more...] about Is the Obama administration illegally diverting billions to insurance companies?
Political Choices Made To Goose Obamacare Are Now Wrecking It
Health plans are seeking double digit rate increases for their 2017 Obamacare plans—17.3% in New York, 25% in Michigan, 20% in Oregon, as examples. From special enrollment periods to countless exemptions, the Obama administration traded short term political gain for the long-term stability of the program and its risk pools. The big premium spikes for 2017 are an economic reckoning of this … [Read more...] about Political Choices Made To Goose Obamacare Are Now Wrecking It
Obamacare: The Gazillion-Dollar Startup Machine
Seth Sternberg was visiting his 65-year-old mother in Connecticut when he got the idea for his home-health-aide business, Honor. She'd picked him up at the airport, and he noticed that she was driving really slowly. He asked why. "And she was like, 'Well, driving's just harder than it used to be,' " he recalls. This got Sternberg's mind working. What if his mother were 75 or 85, and tasks like … [Read more...] about Obamacare: The Gazillion-Dollar Startup Machine
Prescription drug price controls pose lethal problems
The Democratic primaries may be contentious, but both candidates agree on one point: government fiat must rein in prescription drug prices. Hillary Clinton proposes caps on drug prices and a mandate that pharmaceutical companies spend a preset percentage of revenues on research and development. She’d confiscate any excess to subsidize public biomedical research institutions like the National … [Read more...] about Prescription drug price controls pose lethal problems
UnitedHealthcare launches a smaller, ‘very, very different’ insurer
UnitedHealthcare is facing competition this year in Atlanta and Chicago from a new name in health insurance — a carrier that’s actually one of its subsidiaries. For the first time, individual shoppers are buying coverage from Harken Health, a company with about 100 employees based at an office on the UnitedHealthcare corporate campus in Minnetonka. Harken is being run as an independent entity, … [Read more...] about UnitedHealthcare launches a smaller, ‘very, very different’ insurer
California’s Illegal Medicaid Tax
California politicians and interest groups have been working overtime to figure out a way to fix an illegal Medicaid provider tax—the subject of my recent Mercatus Center study. These taxes are problematic because they are generally accompanied with the guarantee of increased Medicaid payments to the providers paying the tax—payments largely financed with federal matching funds. As a result, … [Read more...] about California’s Illegal Medicaid Tax
The pros and cons of selling health insurance across state lines
Obamacare has not done much to slow the growth of health care costs. Government actuaries project that health spending will grow 5.8% a year over the next decade — substantially faster than growth in the economy. Could Republican proposals to sell health insurance across state lines bend the cost curve and make premiums more affordable? The idea seems simple enough. Right now, if you are buying … [Read more...] about The pros and cons of selling health insurance across state lines
Selling Health Insurance Across State Lines––A Really Dumb Idea
Any candidate that suggests such a scheme only shows how unsophisticated he and his advisers are when it comes to understanding how the insurance markets really work––or could work. I gave a speech to 750 health insurance brokers and consultants in DC last week. When selling health insurance across state lines, something Trump and a number of other Republican presidential candidates have … [Read more...] about Selling Health Insurance Across State Lines––A Really Dumb Idea