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RomneyCare’s ‘Connector’ a ‘Legal Pit Bull’ Forcing Fed-Up Mass. Residents to Pay
According to the Boston Herald:
The state’s health insurance connector — the highly touted agency that aims to bring cheap medical care to the masses — has turned into a legal pit bull by aggressively going after a growing number of Bay Staters who say they can’t afford mandated insurance — or the penalties imposed for not having it.
The Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector Authority is cracking down on more than 3,000 residents who are fighting state fines, and has even hired a private law firm to force the health insurance scofflaws to pay penalties of up to $2,000 a year.
All told, more than 7,700 people have appealed state fines for not having health insurance, according to connector spokesman Richard Powers. The agency has hired several private attorneys at $50 an hour to hear many of the appeals, and some 3,150 of them have been denied — and the losers told to pay up.
The connector has also hired the Hub law firm Bowman & Penski — at $125 an hour — to defend itself against 13 lawsuits filed by fed-up taxpayers who insist they can’t afford state required insurance premiums or the escalating fines.
For more on RomneyCare, see “The Massachusetts Health Plan: Much Pain, Little Gain.”
Provenge Controversy Argues for Medicare Vouchers
The new prostate-cancer vaccine Provenge (manufacturer: Dendreon) appears to extend life by an average of four months at the relatively high cost of $93,000 per patient. This week, Medicare bureaucrats will conduct a national coverage analysis before deciding whether Medicare will cover the vaccine. This “unusual“ step has sparked charges that government bureaucrats are rationing medical care to save money.
Today’s Washington Post includes letters from two cancer survivors that neatly illustrate why the government should not be in the business of providing health insurance or purchasing medical care at all. Cancer Survivor #1 argues that Medicare should cover Provenge:
“Expensive” treatments have given me many extra years with my family. I witnessed my older daughters graduate from high school, start college and celebrate events doctors told me I would never see…Time is precious, life is priceless and every breath is a gift.
Cancer Survivor #2 says no way:
As a 63-year-old cancer survivor, would I forgo just four more months of life if it would cost $93,000? Yes, in a heartbeat…Let’s quit trying to live forever and put those millions of dollars into educating the next generation.
If the government stayed out of health care, or just subsidized Medicare enrollees with a voucher, then both cancer survivors would get their wish. Cancer Survivor #1 could purchase coverage for expensive cancer treatments. Cancer Survivor #2, and millions like her, could buy lower-cost insurance and donate the savings to scholarships.
Yet politicians and government bureaucrats dictate what type of insurance Medicare enrollees get, which means they also decide what enrollees will not get. And no matter where they draw the line, someone loses. Either Cancer Survivor #1 won’t get her expensive medical treatment, or Cancer Survivor #2 won’t be able to fund scholarships for kids.
The only way out is Medicare vouchers. In addition to being the most plausible way to reduce Medicare spending, vouchers are the only way to protect Medicare enrollees from government rationing.
More Proof ObamaCare Is a Sop to Industry
Reuters has helpfully published another article demonstrating that ObamaCare‘s biggest cheerleaders are the insurance and drug industries. That’s because, barring repeal and despite the Obama administration’s fatuous rhetoric about standing up to the special interests, ObamaCare will shower those industries with massive subsidies. Excerpts follow.
Health Overhaul Should Press Ahead: Industry
By Susan HeaveyThu Nov 11, 2010 1:39pm EST
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Repeal reform? No thanks, say health insurers, drugmakers and others looking for a clearer picture of the U.S. healthcare market after the bruising passage of the controversial overhaul law…
The new healthcare law created “a stable, predictable environment, however painful it has been in the short term,” GlaxoSmithKline Plc’s (GSK.L) Chief Strategy Officer David Redfern said at the summit in New York.
“When you are running a business, the hardest thing is changing policy and a changing environment because it is very difficult to plan, predict and ultimately invest in that sort of scenario,” he said, echoing other speakers.
True enough. How’s a firm supposed to develop a business plan around uncertain taxpayer subsidies?
Health officials must still hammer out how to implement the law and finalize hundreds of new rules and regulations. Many such details are key, as the sector looks to adjust its business for 2011 and beyond.
Wait, I thought the law created a “stable, predictable environment” and repeal would create uncertainty. Hmmmm.
“Anti-reform made good talking points before the election,” said the Department of Health and Human Services’ Liz Fowler, adding that people “will find more to like than to dislike” in the law once it is more in place.
Boy, they just won’t let go of that chestnut, will they? Remember: voters need re-education, not the Obama administration.
Even insurers, which were vilified by Democrats in passing the reforms, said they don’t want a repeal, even as they push for clarity on forthcoming rules and seek additional changes.
Cigna Corp CEO David Cordani and Aetna Inc President Mark Bertolini both urged the nation to move forward on the overhaul.
Even the insurance industry is against repeal? The folks whose products the law will force 200 million Americans to purchase? Never saw that coming.
Since the start of 2009, the Morgan Stanley Health Care Payor index has risen 75 percent, outperforming a roughly 35 percent rise for the broader Standard & Poor’s 500 index.
You don’t say.
Unlike insurers[!], drugmakers have escaped largely unscathed under the law, although there is still incentive to shape it.
Filed under: Cato Publications; General; Government and Politics; Health Care
Tea Party Not Keen on RomneyCare
The following exchange took place yesterday on the Christian Broadcasting Network between host David Brody and Tea Party Express Chairwoman Amy Kremer.
Brody: Mitt Romney…on the Massachusetts health care situation, you’re going to tell me that’s going to fly in the Tea Party movement?
Kremer: Absolutely not…I’m being honest here…You can’t get away from that. And that’s the thing is, the days of people being able to do one thing in their state in front of a microphone, and then going to Washington and doing something else. I mean, the Internet, and 24-hour news cycles changed it all, and these people don’t have short memories, they’re digging up everything from the past, and they’re not going to let go of the health care.
Hmm. I wonder why…
Video of the CBN exchange is available here. For more on RomneyCare, read “The Massachusetts Health Plan: Much Pain, Little Gain.”
Filed under: Cato Publications; General; Government and Politics; Health Care
There Ain’t No Such Thing as a Tax Expenditure
The co-chairs of President Obama’s Fiscal Commission propose to eliminate several tax loopholes while reducing marginal rates. Hear, hear. But they describe those loopholes as “backdoor spending in the tax code.” It is incorrect and dangerous to equate tax loopholes with government spending.
The tax code’s countless credits, deductions, and exclusions let people keep a portion of their earnings, provided they use the money how the government wants them to use it. Tax loopholes therefore have a lot in common with government spending: they give power to politicians, inhibit freedom, reduce economic output, unjustly enrich special-interest groups, et cetera.
But to call them “tax expenditures” or “tax subsidies” or ”backdoor spending in the tax code” is to claim that when the government fails to take a dollar from you, it is spending that dollar. It implies that your dollar actually belongs to the government, which is graciously letting you keep it. And it implies that eliminating a tax loophole is not a tax increase, because that dollar already belonged to the government anyway. The government has simply decided to spend its money somewhere else.
When you hear a politician use the terms tax expenditure, tax subsidy, or backdoor spending in the tax code, beware. He’s about to raise your taxes.
Obama’s Fiscal Commission and Health Care Spending
Following up on what Dan and Chris have said …
If the co-chairs of President Obama’s fiscal commission were serious about reducing federal spending and deficits, they would have proposed eliminating the federal deficit, rather than “reduc[ing] it to 2.2 percent of GDP by 2015.” Yawn. They would have proposed cutting federal spending (currently, 24 percent of GDP and rising) to match federal tax revenue (currently at 15 percent of GDP). But the co-chairs proposed only to “bring spending down to 22 percent and eventually 21 percent of GDP.” Not only does that elicit another yawn, but since the co-chairs only asked for half a loaf, they won’t even get that much.
If the co-chairs were serious about reducing federal spending and deficits, they would have proposed a balanced-budget amendment. They would have proposed block-granting Medicaid. They would have proposed implementing Medicare vouchers immediately. (Vouchers are the only way to reduce Medicare spending while protecting seniors from government rationing. They would also change the political dynamics that repeatedly stymie efforts to reduce Medicare spending.) Instead, the co-chairs propose the same ol’ failed strategy of trying to limit Medicare and Medicaid spending using government price-and-exchange controls, which they euphemistically describe as “rebates” and ”payment reforms.” Along the same lines, they propose strengthening IPAB, ObamaCare‘s rationing board. IPAB’s mandate is — you guessed it — to ration care by fiddling with Medicare and Medicaid’s price and exchange controls. It will therefore inevitably fall prey to the same political buzzsaw. To appease Republicans, the co-chairs propose unwise and unconstitutional federal rules that would prevent patients injured by negligent physicians from recovering the full amount they are due (euphemism: medical malpractice liability “reform”). Finally, the co-chairs propose that if federal health spending continues to grow faster than GDP growth plus 1 percent, Congress should consider “a premium support system for Medicare” (which could mean vouchers) and “a robust public option and/or all-payer system” for people under age 65 — a debate that wouldn’t even begin until 2020.
Fiscal Commission members, congresscritters, and citizens who are serious about reducing federal spending and deficits — and who are looking for specific ways to cut government spending — should instead consult Cato’s excellent web site DownsizingGovernment.org.
ObamaCare = A Bailout for Private Insurance Companies
This Reuters headline says it all: “Cigna CEO: Don’t repeal U.S. health law.”
Wishful Thinking about ObamaCare Investigations
NPR found two Republicans who caution House Republicans that their efforts to investigate ObamaCare could “backfire.”
But all those hearings could also have the opposite effect — giving the administration a chance to make its case in favor of the law, a case that often got drowned out during the election campaign.
“The next round of this, while there will continue to be the broad sloganeering on both sides, will presumably get a little bit more into the detail,” says Martin Corry, a health care lobbyist and former official at the Department of Health and Human Services during the Bush administration. “So if you’re a family with a 22-year-old still in college, you may not want to see that provision [that lets grown children stay on their parents' health plans] repealed.”
… Former Republican Sen. Dave Durenberger of Minnesota says he thinks the Democratic-led Senate could try to dampen the House repeal efforts by holding a series of hearings of its own.
Let me see if I understand. If House Republicans hold hearings, it will be a boon to ObamaCare. Even though House and Senate Democrats stoutly refused to hold such hearings. If House Republicans hold hearings, sloganeering will give way to detail. And if House Republicans hold hearings, ObamaCare supporters will finally be able to get their message out — something they were unable to do while they controlled both chambers of Congress and the executive branch.
Why Some People Think NPR Exhibits Bias
Listening to NPR on the way into work, I twice heard a reporter refer to Meredith McGehee, a champion of (ahem) campaign finance reform, as a “good-government lobbyist.”
Got that? If you disagree with McGehee’s lobbying agenda — if, say, you think campaign finance reform is an unconstitutional attempt by the Left to restrict political speech that they don’t like — then you are against making government better.
But did you catch the more subtle form of bias? I maintain there is no such thing as good government. (Call it Cannon’s First Law of Politics.) And I’m not alone. ”Government, even in its best state,” wrote Thomas Paine in Common Sense, “is but a necessary evil.” Not good. Less evil than the alternative, to be sure. But still, evil. Others disagree. The reporter, like many others and probably without even realizing it, took sides in that long-standing debate too.
ObamaCare Takes a Shellacking
It wasn’t just the party of ObamaCare or its champion that took a “shellacking” at the polls yesterday. The law took a shellacking as well. One pollster reports:
This election was a clear signal that voters do not want President Obama’s health care plan. Nearly half (45%) of voters say their vote was a message to oppose the President’s plan….
Arizona and Oklahoma passed constitutional amendments designed to block ObamaCare’s individual mandate. Many new governors either plan to join the 22 states already challenging ObamaCare in court, or to block its implementation in other ways. Congressional Republicans appear determined to use every tool in their arsenal to repeal it.
President Obama is striking a conciliatory note, saying he is open to “tweaks:”
If the Republicans have ideas for how to improve our healthcare system, if they want to suggest modifications that would deliver faster, more effective reform… I am happy to consider some of those ideas.
There is room to doubt his sincerity. The Washington Post has reported that when President Obama begins a sentence with, Let me be clear, it is “a signal that what follows will be anything but.” Obama has likewise claimed open-mindedness and flexibility when his behavior exhibited the opposite qualities. (Remember how last year’s White House summit on health care was all about gathering “the best ideas.”)
Yet with a firm conviction that facts and science and argument still matter, I resubmit to President Obama this Cato Policy Analysis: Yes, Mr. President: A Free Market Can Fix Health Care. In fact, a free market is the only thing that will. But a reasonably free market is impossible with ObamaCare still on the books.
I doubt the president will read it. But Republicans should. They seem pretty solid on Repeal. They’re weaker on Replace.
Bootleggers & Baptists, a Welcome Correction
In my recent “Bootleggers & Baptists, Sugary Soda Edition” post, I wrote that environmentalists and agribusiness team up to support ethanol subsidies. An alert Cato@Liberty reader writes to my colleague Jerry Taylor:
[Cannon] is no doubt right that environmentalists and agribusiness worked together to promote government subsidies to ethanol through about 2006. But by 2007 (when the ethanol mandate was doubled) the environmentalists had dropped out of the pro-ethanol coalition, to be replaced by national-security hawks! If you run into him, please tell him to stop blaming environmentalists for current biofuels policies!
If environmentalists have recently dropped their support for ethanol subsidies, they deserve credit for that. Mea culpa.
I would rather have been completely wrong about the environmentalists’ support for ethanol subsidies. But I’ll settle for being partly wrong.
NPR Story Was Hardly Biased, but the Headline?
Today’s NPR story, “Health Law Hardly At Fault For Rising Premiums,” was much fairer than its headline (and the sub-heads, if that’s what we call them). ObamaCare is “hardly at fault for rising premiums?” Really? The story quotes an insurance-industry flack who well establishes what the Obama administration’s own regulations confirm: ObamaCare will be a major driver of premium increases for some health plans. A sub-head calls such claims “misinformation.” Oh? The article does more to bolster those claims than the administration’s flack does to knock them down. A more accurate headline would have been, “Health Law at Fault for Rising Premiums? In Some Cases, Yes.”
One wonders whether, in some posh Versailles salon, there’s an editor who already knows what the headline should be — never mind what the article says.
Filed under: Cato Publications; General; Government and Politics; Health Care
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