Fix Health Care Policy

Shocking Study Results Reveal Moral Imperative to Fix Medicaid

This week, The New York Times highlighted a study on Medicaid, the federal–state partnership to provide health care to the poor and disabled, and its failure to offer enrolled children access to care. The researchers used a “secret shopper” technique to see how many specialists in Cook County, Illinois, turned away children with Medicaid compared to private insurance.

The results were jaw-dropping. While specialists turned away 11 percent of privately insured children, 66 percent of children with Medicaid were unable to get an appointment. For those who did, the waiting time was 22 days longer than for other patients.  (Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: children, federal-state partnership, Medicaid, ObamaCare, private coverage, The New York Times

Happy Birthday, Obamacare? What It Really Means for Young Americans

This past Wednesday marked the first anniversary of Obamacare. While advocates spent the week highlighting the new law’s effects on different groups of Americans, we’ve done the same. A review of the facts on the ground and the conclusions of Heritage research over the past year reveal the far-reaching negative consequences of the new law.

Today, liberals are arguing that Obamacare helps young Americans. Although there are benefits from some provisions of the new law—for example, young adults can now stay on their parents’ health plan until age 26—young Americans will ultimately experience negative effects under Obamacare.

Under Obamacare, “young invincibles” are disproportionately burdened by higher insurance premiums. First, the act places a new community rating restriction on insurance companies so that they will be unable to charge premiums that differ by more than a 3:1 ratio by age. This will require younger, healthier, insured Americans to pay higher premiums to subsidize those who are older, sicker, and more expensive to insure. Since young and healthy individuals are less likely to buy insurance, policies that increase premiums will deter them from seeking coverage in the first place. (Read the rest at The Foundry…)

Tags: children, higher premiums, insurance coverage, negative consequences, ObamaCare

Top Ten Side Effects of 2010

Within days of Obamacare’s passage, The Heritage Foundation began documenting all of the ill Side Effects the new law was inflicting on our country. It has been The Foundry’s most popular feature by far. The Side Effects index page is the third highest trafficked page on the blog. Continuing our Top Ten in 2010 series, here are the Top Ten Side Effects of 2010 ranked by pageviews with the 10th most popular post on top, and the most popular post at the bottom.

10. Doctor Participation May Vary
9. Congress Regulates Themselves Out of Coverage
8. Medical Devices Tax Will Costs Jobs
7. Higher Health Insurance Taxes
6. Get Ready to Change Your Insurance
5. Young to Pay Higher Health Insurance Premiums
4. Obamacare Fueling Higher Insurance Costs
3. Obamacare Doesn’t Work on Children After All
2. Obamacare May Be Fatal for Your HSA
1. Laws No Longer Mean What They Say

Tags: children, costs, health insurance taxes, HSA, ObamaCare, Side Effects

Side Effects: Obamacare Causes Some Insurers to Stop Offering Coverage for Kids

The effects of Obamacare are getting weirder with each passing month. Now, new requirements created by the law are causing some insurers to consider no longer offering “child-only” policies to avoid having to raise rates.

Most children are covered by parents’ employer-provided insurance or by government programs. But some parents buy individual health insurance coverage just for their kids. Starting next year, Obamacare prohibits insurers and employer plans imposing any pre-existing condition exclusions on children and requires them to accept all applications for children who qualify for coverage under their plans (so-called “guaranteed issue”). Those provisions could have serious and unintended consequences for children, as well as others. (more…)

Tags: children, employer-provided insurance, individual coverage, ObamaCare, pre-existing conditions, Side Effects

Not So Fast, Kid

That was what Speaker Pelosi said on March 10, 2010.

One day after the Senate’s mammoth, 2,700-page health bill became law, the Associated Press has discovered the legislation doesn’t deliver on a key promise.

Despite repeated assurances that the measure would provide immediate health coverage for children with pre-existing medical conditions, it doesn’t.

Just two days before the crucial House vote, at his nationally televised pep rally for the bill, President Obama promised: “Starting this year, insurance companies will be banned forever from denying coverage to children with pre-existing conditions.” (more…)

Tags: children, pre-existing medical conditions, President Barack Obama, Senate Health Bill