Fix Health Care Policy

Maine’s new market-based health care reform is bringing insurance premiums down by as much as 60 percent in the individual market.

Elected in 2010, Governor Paul LePage (R) made health reform a top priority and signed Maine’s new reform into law in May 2011. Shortly thereafter, he stated, “I believe that common sense, personal experience, and our nation’s collective experience show that the private sector is superior to the government sector. It is time that we reverse course, create a more competitive marketplace, and make a healthier health care market.” After just one year of implementation, building reform around those principles has proved successful.

But Maine’s reform success comes after years of ever-increasing premiums and damaging reforms. In 1993, the state legislature enacted a law with components that were similar to provisions currently in Obamacare, such as community rating and guaranteed issue. These regulations caused the number of people insured in Maine’s individual market to drop by 44 percent from 1993 to 2009.

(Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: free market reforms, Gov. Paul LePage, health reform, insurance marketplace, Maine

Yesterday, Representative Paul Ryan (R–WI) shared his outlook for repealing and replacing Obamacare.

Ryan pointed out that rising health care costs not only make insurance unaffordable for many Americans; they are also a main driver of growing federal deficits. As medical inflation pushes the cost of insurance and medical goods and services sky high, the cost to taxpayers of Medicare, Medicaid, and the new open-ended entitlements created in Obamacare goes up as well.

Adequately addressing rising costs will require pinpointing the root causes of medical inflation. Ryan defined these as over-utilization, under-payments, and inefficiency stemming from the detachment of consumers from the costs of their health decisions in a third-party system. The irony, as Ryan put it, is that “the system that shields us from the cost of services has actually left us paying more.”  (Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: consumer-driven care, health reform, Rep. Paul Ryan, repeal Obamacare, replace, rising costs

Tomorrow, President Barack Obama will host a summit to discuss health care reform, but as Heritage’s Nina Owcharenko notes in this video, if the President is serious and sincere about making the summit a success, he should simply start over.

Owcharenko, who is Heritage’s Deputy Director of the Center for Health Policy Studies, says that the fundamental direction of the President’s plan is flawed.

(more…)

Tags: bipartisan measures, Health Care Summit, health reform, Nina Owcharenko, ObamaCare, start over

First Lady Michelle Obama’s video on health care reform raises important issues about female patients who are falling through the cracks of the U.S. health care system. It’s not a perfect system, but Nina Owcharenko explains that ObamaCare would take women and the rest of the country in the wrong direction. Having to depend on politicians or faceless bureaucrats to make decisions about their care doesn’t empower women or improve their health care situations. Plus, the Obama health reform agenda isn’t what women want. A majority of female respondents told the Independent Women’s Forum in a recent survey that they don’t think government-run health care is best for them or their families. Watch:

Tags: choice, competition, faceless bureaucrats, government-run, health reform, Michelle Obama, ObamaCare, women

Business groups wasted no time in expressing their opposition to the new House health care bill that was released this morning.

A coalition of nine business trade groups sent a letter today to House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), detailing their opposition to the Affordable Health Care for America Act (H.R. 3962).

Specifically, the group admonished Congress for attempting to create a new government-run health insurance plan, mandate employers to provide health insurance and a federally require minimum benefits package for all insurance plans. The group, which includes the Business Roundtable, American Benefits Council, National Association of Manufacturers, National Retail Federation and Corporate Health Care Coalition, also said changes to ERISA could drive up administrative costs for companies that provide health coverage.

“The legislation falls short of the bipartisan goal of controlling costs and jeopardizes employer-sponsored coverage, which now serves more than 160 million Americans,” the letter said.

Tags: health reform, HR 3962, John Boehner, Nancy Pelosi

When it comes to ObamaCare, poll after poll shows the public can be fairly supportive—until they realize how much they stand to personally lose. Americans have told pollsters for months about fears that their health coverage will disappear. They’re also reporting unprecedented concern that health reform will only add to the nation’s out-of-control federal deficits. And no matter how much the Administration says other people will pay for health reform (i.e., the rich), the American people know better.

Republican pollster Bill McInturff agrees. He told us at a health care press chat that Heritage regularly hosts: “In the broader context, there is heightened concern about general government and the page of government spending. And health care spending isn’t some huge abstract from those issues – it’s directly connected.” (more…)

Tags: health reform, Individual Mandate, Public Opinion, public option