Archives for Health Care Exchange

LA Times: “States, not Congress, can thwart Health Care Law”

Posted by John LaPlante on Wednesday, November 10th 2010

While all the attention on health care is on the new Congress, state governments still have a say. As the Los Angeles Times points out, “the fate of President Obama’s sweeping overhaul will probably be determined not in Washington but in state capitals across the country, where the GOP also scored dramatic victories.”

Here are just a questions that new leaders in state governments will have to answer:

Should they join the ongoing state-based lawsuits against the law?
Should they create a state-based health insurance exchange?
Should they expand Medicaid before they are required by the feds?
Should they impose stricter price controls on insurance companies?
Should they petition the Obama Administration to delay implementing rules on medical-loss ratios, which will devastate some insurance plans?

In other words, state governments still have some significant amount of discretion.

On the subject of health care, don’t forget to sign up for an evening with Mark Steyn.

category: Blog Posts, Health Care, Health Care Exchange, John LaPlante

Two States Rebuke ObamaCare in Yesterday’s Elections

Posted by John LaPlante on Wednesday, November 3rd 2010

If you’re reading the tea leaves from yesterday’s election, one thing you should notice is that ObamaCare isn’t popular.

In Arizona and Oklahoma, voters approved ballot measures opposed to the new federal health care law, while a similar measure in Colorado went down to defeat. All three ballot measures echoed the Freedom of Choice in Health Care Act, a model legislation put forth by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an organization of conservative and libertarian legislators across the country. In brief, the act “protects the rights of patients to pay directly for medical services, and it prohibits penalties levied on patients for declining participation in a particular [which is to say, state-run] health plan.”

With yesterday’s election, statutory or constitutional versions of the act have been passed in 7 states: Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Virginia. It’s likely to pass in Florida should the Legislature choose to give it another try; Gov. Charlie Crist, now the ex-governor of the state, vetoed a bill passed by both houses there.

The act is one prong of a legal attack on the new health care act. Another is a number of lawsuits that have been filed by both state governments and private parties against the U.S. government.

category: Blog Posts, Health Care, Health Care Exchange, John LaPlante, ObamaCare

The Free-Market Question: Make Insurance Exchange Work, or Kill Them?

Posted by John LaPlante on Friday, October 29th 2010

Are health insurance exchanges a silver lining in ObamaCare, or an irrelevant distraction?

You might make the case that health insurance exchanges are a good thing. They allow someone to get insurance through someplace other than an employer. More choice, portability, what’s not to like?

Many people have been intrigued by the exchanges set up in Massachusetts and Utah. Generally, people who have favored ObamaCare think that Massachusetts is a decent model, while opponents have thought that Utah is a better one. The difference is an important one, since under the new health care law, states are told to create insurance exchanges, markets with specific government regulations created for the insurance products bought and sold there.

In the best-case scenario, the a properly regulated exchange will be the silver lining of ObamaCare: A person can take money from his paycheck, perhaps combined with a taxpayer subsidy, and buy, from a number of companies, a policy that will follow him from job to job. No more depending on what your corporate HR department decides, or having to switch doctors because your employer switched to a new insurer that uses a different network of doctors.

But against this rosy scenario, John R. Graham of the Pacific Research Institute offers a caution, and counsels states to reject exchanges altogether. Opponents of ObamaCare have generally pointed to the Massachusetts Connector as an example of the problems with a state-created exchange: The number of people with insurance may increase, but public subsidies spiral out of control, and the newly insured have a hard time actually getting to see a doctor.

Maybe Utah offers a better example? I’ll spare you the details, but the regulations imposed there are more sensible and sustainable.

Or are there?

Graham says, “While the Utah Health Exchange is vastly superior to Massachusetts’ Commonwealth Connector, it has not proved successful.” Its most promising feature, which allows a husband and wife to combine money from both of their employers to purchase a single policy independent of either employer, hasn’t actually been put into place yet. And going forward, it’s unclear whether Utah can afford the subsidies and operating costs needed to make the exchange work.

The national political situation, meanwhile, makes prospects for state-based exchanges problematic:

States establishing Obamacare exchanges are making a one-way, lose-lose bet. If Obamacare persists, exchanges will become bloated administrative nightmares. If Obamacare is defeated, states will have wasted time and energy that should have been directed towards that effort. Obamacare is President Obama’s problem.

He concludes, “Don’t make it your state’s problem.”

Graham encourages state leaders to encourage Congress to repeal the law. In Kentucky, for example, Rep. Jim Gooch Jr., has introduced a measure that says simply, “JOINT RESOLUTION urging the United States Congress to repeal the Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA).”

category: Blog Posts, Health Care, Health Care Exchange, ObamaCare