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Earlier this week, the Congressional Budget Office released its revised estimates of what Obamacare will cost, now that the Supreme Court has weighed in. As I read the report, it occurred to me to ask: how have the CBO’s estimates changed over time? It turns out that, even when you compare the years that are common to each CBO report, a clear trend emerges. Today, the CBO believes that Obamacare … [Read more...] about Avik Roy: CBO: Obamacare Will Spend More, Tax More, and Reduce the Deficit Less Than We Previously Thought

“If you’ve got a business—you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen,” declared President Barack Obama at a campaign stop last week in Virginia. Evidently, the president believes that economic growth and job creation are largely the result of actions taken by benevolent government agencies. But while it is certainly the case that good governance is essential, entrepreneurs engaging in … [Read more...] about Ronald Bailey: Government Did Not Build Your Business

In the wake of the Supreme Court ruling that the Affordability Care Act meets the test of constitutionality in its most significant aspect, the individual mandate, the urgency for new, truthful leadership is obvious. The law intends to transform health care toward a European-style system by shifting nearly 20 million more people into a financially unsustainable and scandalously inadequate … [Read more...] about Scott Atlas: The Supreme Court’s Obamacare Calamity Calls For New, Truthful Leadership

The CBO will release its projection of the ACA budget baseline today in the aftermath of the Supreme Court decisions.  The new baseline is unlikely to be dramatically different from prior budgetary outlooks because CBO doesn’t yet have all the information needed to resolve the uncertainty. However, based on information already available to CBO and others,  Forum modeling found that the cost of … [Read more...] about Doug Holtz-Eakin, Stephen Parente, and Michael Ramlet: Congressional Budget Office Revision to the Affordable Care Act Baseline

You have heard a lot about 'health care inflation' over the past 40 years or so. You would think that much of the 'inflated' cost of health care would have to do with paying a massive skyrocketing number of highly-skilled physicians, surgeons and specialists, right? After all, these doctors are THE most important part of any medical procedure when it comes to figuring out what is wrong with … [Read more...] about Frank Hill: The High Cost Impact of More Regulation and Admin/Executive Staff on Health Care Inflation

Last week, I wrote about why states have asignificant fiscal incentive to drop out of Obamacare’s expansion of the Medicaid program. States fear, among other things, that the federal government will shift more of the program’s costs to the states over time, leaving states with an unsustainable spending commitment. It turns out that this fear isn’t merely theoretical. During the “supercommittee” … [Read more...] about Avik Roy: Governors’ Worst Nightmare: Obama Proposed Shifting Costs of Obamacare’s Medicaid Expansion to the States

Today, most patients needing long-term dialysis no longer get it in hospitals but go to less costly, more convenient outpatient clinics. Routine problems like hernias are fixed in outpatient surgery offices; while complex issues like cancer are handled in specialized centers with expertise to better manage these problems, at lower cost. These and other innovations in delivering medical care, … [Read more...] about Scott Gottlieb: Obama Pans the Private Equity That Will Save Our Lives

Now that the Supreme Court has decided that ObamaCare’s mandate to buy health insurance is a tax, will the IRS be able to collect it? Generally speaking, if you owe the IRS, it will get the money from you—with the possible exception of the ObamaCare tax. Though ObamaCare’s individual mandate imposes a tax on people who do not purchase government-approved health insurance, the law explicitly … [Read more...] about Joseph Antos and Michael R. Strain: If You Don’t Buy Insurance, Will You Really Pay the Tax?