Fix Health Care Policy

Adding Insult to Injury: Obama Admin Refuses to Protect Religious Liberty

Amidst the many policy prescriptions of last night’s speech, President Obama’s State of the Union address was notably void of comment on the religious liberty conflicts his own Administration has created.

In yet another assault on religious organizations’ freedom, the Obama Administration released a decision Friday afternoon finalizing an Obamacare health insurance mandate that will restrict the religious liberty of employers to act in accordance with their conscience.  (Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: conscience decisions, contraceptives rule, health insurance mandate, religious liberty, State of the Union

Medicare Advantage Is Living Up to Its Name

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently released a report that reviewed 10 Medicare demonstrations designed with the intention of reducing spending and improving quality of care. Unfortunately, the demonstrations did not produce the desired results.

The CBO report concluded, “The results of the demonstrations illustrate the challenges of developing, implementing, and evaluating policies that reduce Medicare expenditures while improving or maintaining quality of care.” However, Heritage policy analyst Kathryn Nix has analyzed research that shows that the answer to the challenge is right under everyone’s nose: the private market.

Nix explains that private health plans participating in Medicare Advantage (MA) are making strides in what Congress has tried—and failed—to achieve in traditional Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) for decades. Competition among private plans has maintained patient satisfaction, lowered costs, and increased the quality of care. Success is obvious and abundant in the MA program.  (Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: competition, Congressional Budget Office, fee-for-service, lowered costs, Medicare Advantage, private market

VIDEO: Seniors & Providers Dread Obamacare Changes

 

Medicare patient Ann Lorenz has relied on the advice and recommendations of her neurologist, Dr. Jeffrey English, since she was first diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease 13 years ago. So the dramatic changes coming to Medicare via the Affordable Care Act—and its potential to limit seniors’ access to care as doctors foresee dropping Medicare patients—already worry Lorenz.

“One of the first things you ask a new doctor is if they accept Medicare,” Lorenz, who lives in Atlanta, says in a new Impact of Obamacare video. “And we have always seemed to have doctors that accepted it, which has worked out very nicely because I have had to go over the last few years…to many doctors…because of age and the various things that happen to you when you get older.”  (Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: cuts, Impact of Obamacare video series, Medicare, neurologist, Seniors

Obamacare Is Losing CLASS Fast

It may be only a few days since Congress began its new session, but it has already done some decent work. This week, the House Ways and Means Committee held the markup of H.R. 1173, which would repeal the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Act.

The CLASS Act is a government-run long-term care insurance program and a major failure of Obamacare. It has been described in a variety of degrading ways, most notably as unsustainable, an insurance death spiral, and a ponzi scheme of the first order.

As Heritage has previously explained:

From its creation, the CLASS Act was completely unsustainable as written into law. Due to the effects of adverse selection, the program would charge high premiums that would deter less risky individuals from participating. Indeed, participating in the CLASS program would only appeal to those in poor health expecting to need long-term care in the future, further escalating premiums.

Thankfully, the inherent policy flaws of the CLASS Act have been recognized, and congressional action is being taken. Representative Charles Boustany (R–LA), a physician and chairman of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight, is the sponsor of the repeal bill. In a recent Politico op-ed, he urges Congress to act and warns, “CLASS could return to haunt us if it isn’t fully repealed before October 2012. Legal experts at the Congressional Research Service warn that a federal judge could force [the Administration] to revive CLASS after this key deadline in the law expires.”  (Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: CLASS Act, House Ways and Means, long-term care, repeal Obamacare, unsustainable

Republican Presidential Candidates Embrace Medicare Premium Support

Earlier this week in New Hampshire, Republican presidential candidates touted the benefits of a Medicare premium support system — the approach to entitlement reform embraced by House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) and The Heritage Foundation.

Ryan’s recent partnership with Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) helped thrust the idea of premium support back into the national spotlight. Their bipartisan framework represented a breakthrough on Capitol Hill after liberals spent much of the year making false charges about Ryan’s plan.

Given the misleading information about premium support, let’s first take a moment to explain what it is. Heritage’s Bob Moffit and Kate Nix put it this way: (Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: GOP candidates, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, Medicare, premium support

Health Spending Down—Because People Are Avoiding Care

The Office of the Actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently published its annual estimate of U.S. health spending in the journal Health Affairs. The report shows that growth in health spending remained slow in 2010. Medical expenditures grew at an annual rate of 3.9 percent, up just 0.1 percent from 2009. However, the slow growth doesn’t represent a decrease in health care costs, but a reduction in utilization and intensity of medicine. People are choosing the less costly alternative of avoiding the doctor and not taking expensive prescription drugs.

The report primarily attributes the slow growth to effects of the recent recession:

Including the highest unemployment rate in twenty-seven years, a substantial loss of private health insurance coverage, employers’ increased caution about hiring and investing during the recovery, and the lowest median inflation adjusted household income since 1996.

Despite CMS’s and other health economists’ conclusion that the recession led to slow health spending growth, the Obama Administration published a blog stating that Obamacare is responsible, with no mention of the recession. Nancy-Ann DeParle, Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff, wrote that “(These numbers) do show why the Affordable Care Act is so important. And we’re confident the law will continue to help hold down cost growth in the years ahead.”  (Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: CMS, health care spending, Medicare, ObamaCare, prescription drugs, repeal the law, utilization

“Lie of the Year” – Democrats’ Claims about Medicare Reform

Politics is home to some pretty exaggerated accusations, and this year was no exception, particularly in the area of health care. Case in point: Democrats’ claim that “Republicans voted to end Medicare.” In fact, the assertion was so off the wall that PolitiFact.com named it “Lie of the Year 2011.”

Democrats made the claim about House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) FY 2012 “Path to Prosperity” budget, which included a proposal to provide premium support to Medicare enrollees, helping them to purchase a health care plan of their choice. PolitiFact reports on the left’s response to the proposal:

Democrats pounced. Just four days after the party-line vote, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee released a Web ad that said seniors will have to pay $12,500 more for health care “because Republicans voted to end Medicare.” 

(Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: Lie of the Year, Medicare reform, Politifact.com, premium support, Rep. Paul Ryan

Obama Administration Agrees: Florida Medicaid Reform Pilot Good for Patients and Taxpayers

Florida’s Medicaid Reform Pilot is pro-patient and pro-taxpayer, and the Obama Administration agrees.

In original research published by The Heritage Foundation and also submitted to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) during the agency’s deliberations, I showed that the program’s patients are healthier and happier with their care and that Florida taxpayers saved more than $100 million each year of the program.

The Florida reforms work by giving patients a choice of the private health plan that works best for them. Enrollees can choose from plans with varied benefits and provider networks, and a monetary rewards system creates incentives for healthy, responsible behavior. By shifting away from failed policies of central planning toward a consumer-driven program, the program has been successful on a number of levels.

The waiver extension of Florida’s patient-centered Medicaid reform preserves the expanded choices, incentives for healthy behavior, and increased health services that pilot patients have enjoyed for years. Pilot patients have better health outcomes and report higher satisfaction rates with their plans, their care, and their access to specialists than their counterparts who are confined to traditional Medicaid and commercial HMOs.

The bottom line with Florida’s Medicaid Reform is that when the patient is the priority, government and HMO bureaucrats are finally held accountable. Costs flatten and patient health and satisfaction improves.

(Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: Florida, Medicaid, ObamaCare, private health plan, reform, repeal the law