Fix Health Care Policy

Opening the Door to Health Care Rationing Under Obamacare

One of the biggest fears Americans have about Obamacare is who will ultimately control health care decisions: the government or patients and their doctors. New research by Heritage health policy analyst Kathryn Nix explains that while the law does not explicitly put those decisions in the hands of the government, it does allow government bureaucrats to unduly influence medical care. Enter comparative effectiveness research (CER), which compares different methods for preventing, diagnosing, or treating a specific disease or condition. In her paper, Nix explores the many ways CER might be used under Obamacare in ways that harm patients more than help them.

(Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: comparative effectiveness research, government-run health care, ObamaCare, patients

Health Care Expert Sally Pipes on Repealing, Replacing Obamacare

As a Canadian and firsthand witness of Canada’s government-run health care system, Sally Pipes is warning that Obamacare will exacerbate the existing problems of rising costs and lack of access in the American health care system.

At a recent Heritage event, Pipes, president and CEO of the Pacific Research Institute, joined other health policy experts to speak on the need to repeal Obamacare. Pipes is the author of two books on the new health care law, The Truth about Obamacare and The Pipes Plan.

At the panel and in her first book, The Truth About Obamacare, Pipes outlined the many problems with the left’s big-government approach to health care reform. She points out that this approach adversely affects patients by creating long waiting lines for care, rationing, drug shortages, and decreases in quality. She explains that Obamacare will limit patients’ options, especially the kind of insurance they can purchase and the providers they can access.   (Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: Canada, government-run health care, Pacific Research Institute, Sally Pipes

The Big Issues Behind the Obamacare Challenge

“Are you serious? Are you serious?” then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D–CA) famously replied when asked where, specifically, the Constitution granted Congress the authority to mandate that every American purchase health insurance coverage.

The question was very serious, it turns out, even if Pelosi’s intent was sarcasm. Four federal courts have already struck down Obamacare in whole or in part on constitutional grounds. And now, with the Supreme Court widely expected to take the case in the coming weeks, three of the individuals who proved Pelosi wrong will address The Heritage Foundation on the present and future of Obamacare and constitutional federalism this Thursday at noon.

At the time that Pelosi spoke, just two years ago, her incredulity was hardly atypical. The Democrat-controlled Congress was racing to enact President Obama’s top legislative priority, a government-run health care system, and there was simply no place or time for quaint constitutional niceties. Only a few months later, recall, Speaker Pelosi’s minions would contrive the magnificently named “deem and pass” maneuver by which House Members wouldn’t even have to vote for a health care bill that the public had by then turned against.  (Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: deem and pass maneuver, government-run health care, Individual Mandate, ObamaCare, unconstitutional

Census Numbers: The Trend Toward Government Coverage Continues

In its yearly survey of health insurance coverage, the U.S. Census Bureau published figures that underscore the trend toward greater dependence on government for coverage.

The percentage of Americans on government health programs continues to grow, while employer-based coverage continues to decline. According to the latest Census report, 31 percent of the population received coverage through the government in 2010 compared to 23 percent in 1987. In contrast, 64 percent of the population had private coverage in 2010, compared to 75.5 percent in 1987. Employer-based coverage declined from 62.1 percent in 1987 to 55.3 percent in 2010. (Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: Census Bureau, government-run health care, health coverage, ObamaCare, uninsured

Doctor Fears Government’s Expanding Role in Health Care

Dr. Martha Boone doesn’t hide her displeasure with Obamacare. She was opposed to the law long before President Obama signed it one year ago and remains critical of it today. She spoke at Heritage this week about its impact on doctors.

One story Boone shared shed light on the challenges government-run health care has created with her patients. She spoke of an incident involving a Medicare patient with stress incontinence, a condition that can be treated by one of two operations.

The first operation takes 15 minutes, is not invasive and does not require anesthesia. It costs $2,200. The alternative requires cutting, general anesthesia, is more dangerous for those over 65, and has a four-week recovery. It costs $15,000. (Read the rest at The Foundry…)

Tags: doctors, Dr. Martha Boone, government-run health care, ObamaCare

Another Victory on the Road to Repeal

Last month at a town hall in Hayward, Calif., a constituent asked Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA) about Obamacare: “If this legislation is Constitutional, what limitations are there on the federal government’s ability to tell us how to run our private lives? … If they can do this, what can’t they?” Stark, a long-time advocate of government-run health care, gave an honest yet troubling answer: “The federal government can, yes, do most anything in this country.”

Yesterday a federal court in Virginia agreed with the logic, but not the Constitutional understanding, of Stark’s view of federal government power. In the first substantive legal ruling on President Barack Obama’s health regulation law, U.S. District Court Judge Henry Hudson held that the Commonwealth of Virginia raised a valid substantive theory to challenge Obamacare and that its democratically passed Virginia Health Care Freedom Act provided it standing to challenge the federal individual mandate. On the issue of that mandate, Hudson wrote: “Unquestionably, this regulation radically changes the landscape of health insurance coverage in America. … No reported case from any federal appellate court has extended the Commerce Clause or the Tax Clause to include the regulation of a person’s decision not to purchase a product, notwithstanding its effect on interstate commerce.”

Echoing the court’s ruling, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli said: “This lawsuit is not about health care, it’s about our freedom and about standing up and calling on the federal government to follow the ultimate law of the land – the Constitution.” And it is becoming more and more clear that Obamacare makes it next to impossible for Americans to even track, let alone check, federal power. While the Joint Economic Committee released a report showing that the President’s health law created an impenetrable web of at least 47 new bureaucratic entities, a CRS report from earlier in the month drew an even starker conclusion: “The precise number of new entities that will ultimately be created pursuant to PPACA is currently unknowable.” (more…)

Tags: government-run health care, Individual Mandate, ObamaCare, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli

Cuccinelli on Obamacare Lawsuit: ‘We Are Doing What the Founders Expected’

RICHMOND — Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli said he will file a formal response as early as next week to the federal government’s attempt to dismiss Virginia’s legal challenge to Obamacare.

In an exclusive interview with Heritage, Cuccinelli said the federal government’s motion to dismiss, released on Monday, was mostly predictable. He said the attorney general’s office had already anticipated the government’s arguments and will have its response ready on or before June 7.

“What they filed on Monday was very much what we expected,” Cuccinelli said in an interview at his Richmond office. “You never know exactly how they’re going to present it, but we did expect them to move to dismiss the case.”

The legal maneuvering puts Cuccinelli at the center of the Obamacare court battle. In addition to Virginia’s lawsuit, 20 states have joined a legal challenge from Florida. Virginia is pursuing its own strategy because its legislature adopted a law protecting its citizens from the individual mandate.

Cuccinelli said the stakes are high and he expects Virginia’s case — and probably Florida’s — to end up before the Supreme Court within the next two years.

(more…)

Tags: government-run health care, motion to dismiss, ObamaCare, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, Virginia's legal challenge