Friends and foes of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) alike tend to target the relative effectiveness of the (soon-to-be-repealed) individual mandate as the key factor behind relatively higher levels of insurance coverage since the law was enacted in 2010. ACA supporters might wish that the mandate was much stronger, but they still claim that...
Health Insurance
Senate Should Repeal Regressive Tax on the Uninsured
Senate Democrats who fret over the distributional effects of tax cuts should thank their GOP colleagues for giving them the chance this week to vote on repealing one of the most regressive taxes: the Obamacare tax on the uninsured.This tax disproportionately falls on those with incomes less than $50,000, while exempting many households earning...
Obamacare’s Individual Mandate Is Repealing Itself
The Senate this week is expected to vote on a tax bill that includes a controversial provision to repeal Obamacare’s tax penalty on the uninsured. Democrats and some conservative policy analysts fret that if Congress scuttles the so-called individual mandate, insurance premiums will rise. The reverse may be closer to the truth: Premiums for...
Health Reform: Helping the States Help the Poor
Many Catholics, especially Catholic leaders, have been conflicted over bills that have been presented to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act: They strenuously object to the ACA’s affront to religious liberty yet they know it offers access to health insurance for millions, including those who have been left behind in our bifurcated system....
The Hatch-Brady bill offers a way to make health insurance affordable
The Oct. 26 editorial “Health-care reform that pays off” unfairly maligned a bill introduced by two committee chairmen as “dismantling major pieces of Obamacare.” It does nothing of the sort. Like the bill proposed by Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) that the editorial praised, a bill from Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah)...
Obamacare Is Uninsuring the Insured
The law expanded coverage among the poor at the expense of coverage among the middle class. The number of people with individual health-insurance coverage is shrinking. Despite $146 billion in federal subsidies to low-income households and well-capitalized insurers, 2.6 million fewer people had individual policies in March 2017 than in March 2016, a drop...