Fix Health Care Policy

Obamacare Pre-Existing Conditions Coverage: Low Enrollment, High Costs

J.M. Guyon/ZUMA Press/Newscom

One of Obamacare’s main selling points during the health care reform debate was the need to provide insurance coverage to those with pre-existing conditions—but like other aspects of the law, the plan is failing those it was intended to help.

Beginning in 2014, Obamacare will prohibit insurance companies from excluding anyone with a pre-existing medical condition from coverage (called guaranteed issue). Because this incentivizes people to wait until they’re sick to purchase coverage, Obamacare includes the dreaded individual mandate to force all Americans to purchase health insurance.

But these massive new insurance mandates don’t take effect until 2014, so in the meantime the law set up the pre-existing conditions insurance plan (PCIP), which funded new high-risk pools in each state, providing coverage to those with pre-existing conditions from 2010 to 2014. The PCIP was allocated $5 billion for that time frame.

Read the rest on The Foundry…

Tags: high-risk pools, Individual Mandate, insurance, ObamaCare, pre-existing conditions, purchase coverage, regulations, sick

12 Days of Obamacare Surprises: A 50/50 Split on Enrollment Estimates

Not all surprises are good. When it comes to Obamacare, the original projections are turning into unfortunately different realities. For the next seven days, Heritage is going to highlight one of the various changes in Obamacare projections (e.g., cost, enrollment, etc.) from when the law first passed until now.

Obamacare expands Medicaid eligibility to able-bodied, childless adults earning up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL).

In the March 2012 baseline, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected that by 2022, Obamacare would enroll 17 million additional Americans into Medicaid.

In a July 2012 update, the CBO incorporated the Supreme Court decision that made Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion optional for states. Now that states have a choice in the matter, the CBO decreased its Medicaid enrollment projection by 6 million people in 2022.

Surprise: Without explaining their methodology, the CBO projected that exactly half of those no longer projected to be on Medicaid would become uninsured and that the other half would enroll in the exchanges. CBO’s rationale is about as clear as eggnog.

12 Days of Obamacare Surprises:

5. More uninsured Americans…

4. Increased exchange subsidies…

3. Big tax increases…

2. The small business tax credit…

1. And the individual mandate.

Tags: exchange subsidies, Individual Mandate, Medicaid eligibility, ObamaCare, small business tax credit, surprises

12 Days of Obamacare Surprises: The Individual Mandate

Photo: Garry Gay/Stock Connection Worldwide/Newscom

Not all surprises are good. When it comes to Obamacare, the original projections are turning into unfortunately different realities. For the next 12 days, Heritage is going to highlight one of the various changes in Obamacare projections (i.e. cost, enrollment, etc.) from when the law first passed until now.

One of the most infamous features of Obamacare is the individual mandate, which requires most Americans to purchase health insurance or pay a tax for being uninsured.

In 2010, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimated that 4 million people would pay the penalty in 2016 and that collections from those penalties would be about $4 billion per year between 2017 and 2019.

In 2012, the CBO and JCT updated their estimate of those paying the mandate to 6 million people in 2016, totaling $7 billion in tax revenue and growing to $8 billion per year from 2017-2022.

Read the rest on The Foundry…

Tags: Individual Mandate, ObamaCare, penalties, surprises, tax, uninsured

Top 5 Obamacare Promises to Remember

Remember when former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D–CA) told the American people that “we have to pass the [health care] bill so that you can find out what is in it”?

Well, it’s been over two years since the enactment of Obamacare, and we’ve found out a lot. Not only are the provisions currently in place falling short; the promises made about the health care law look to be broken. Here are five of them.

1. The law won’t raise taxes on families making less than $250,000 a year.

Obamacare includes over 18 new taxes (including the individual mandate) that will hit the middle class. These taxes come in all forms: on insurers, prescription drug manufacturers, medical device makers, and even tanning salons. Of course, the Administration would be quick to point out that none of these taxes is on individuals. But common sense tells us that these taxes will be passed on to the consumer.

As a result of the Supreme Court decision, the individual mandate is now a tax and one that the Administration can’t run away from. A new report from the Congressional Budget Office shows that nearly 70 percent of the individual mandate will be paid for by those earning less than 400 percent of the federal poverty level.

Read the rest on The Foundry…

Tags: failed promises, Individual Mandate, ObamaCare, pass the bill, taxes

Chart of the Week: Poor, Middle Class Hit by Obamacare Mandate Tax

With campaign season in full tilt, Americans are being inundated with rhetoric regarding the various tax proposals touted by President Obama and Governor Romney.

Given that these discussions usually involve paeans to the middle class and promises to keep their tax rates low, one tax in partcular has received surprisingly little attention: the “penalty” levied on all Americans who do not buy health insurance.

As shown in the chart above, this new tax – defined as such by the Supreme Court, which ruled it constitutional under Congress’s taxing power – hammers not just the middle class, but roughly 600,000 Americans whose incomes fall below the federal poverty line, according to a recent report from the Congressional Budget Office.

Heritage health care expert Alyene Senger explained the distribution of the tax in a recent Foundry post:

Despite claims made by Obamacare’s advocates that the law will help middle- and low-income Americans, CBO’s table reveals that the distribution of the tax falls heavily on those making less than 400 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL)—meaning the majority of this new tax falls on the very people the law was supposed to help. For instance, a family of four making about $24,600 per year, the projected FPL in 2016, could be subject to this egregious tax penalty.

Read the rest on The Foundry…

Tags: federal poverty line, Gov. Mitt Romney, Individual Mandate, lower-income, middle class, ObamaCare, penalty, President Obama, presidential race, tax proposals

More Middle-Class Americans Hit by Obamacare Tax

Yesterday, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a new report that determined that even more Americans than previously estimated will be hit with Obamacare’s ever-controversial individual mandate tax, totaling 6 million by 2016.

Of the 30 million Americans whom Obamacare leaves uninsured and without affordable insurance options, 6 million will have to pay the penalty, an increased estimate from 2010. According to CBO, “About two million more uninsured people are now projected to pay the penalty each year, and collections are now expected to be about $3 billion more per year.” The total cost to uninsured Americans will be around $7 billion in 2016 and is projected to be about $8 billion every year from 2017 to 2022.

The tax penalty is calculated in different ways depending on income levels. If they do not obtain Obamacare-mandated health insurance, households with lower incomes will pay a flat dollar amount each year, and those with higher incomes will pay a penalty equal to a percentage of their incomes.

Read the rest on The Foundry…

Tags: Individual Mandate, millions, ObamaCare, penalties, repeal the law, taxed, uninsured

Obamacare’s 18 New Tax Hikes

Not only did the President and his partners in Congress take $716 billion out of Medicare to pay for Obamacare, but they also raise taxes by $836.3 billion to pay for it, with $36.3 billion hitting Americans in 2013 alone. Here’s the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and Joint Committee on Taxation‘s (JCT) updated cost of the Obamacare tax hikes and penalties.

To read about more of Obamacare’s negative effects, click here.

Tags: Cadillac tax, Congressional Budget Office, employer mandate, Individual Mandate, Joint Committee on Taxation, Medicare cuts, ObamaCare, tanning tax, tax hikes

Experts Hit the Hill to Discuss Impact of Obamacare

On the heels of the Obamacare Supreme Court ruling that upheld the individual mandate, the House of Representatives voted 244–185 to fully repeal the law. Recent hearings before the Ways and Means and Oversight and Government Reform committees provide further reason why full repeal is necessary.

The Ways and Means Committee held a hearing to discuss the implications of the Supreme Court individual mandate decision on future tax policy. Carrie Severino, who filed three Supreme Court briefs against the mandate, shared concerns in her expert testimony before the committee:

Allowing unrestricted taxes on inactivity will open the door to taxes the likes of which this country has never seen. For example, since seatbelts and motorcycle helmets increase road safety, Congress could simply tax those who refuse to wear them.

Severino questioned whether this new power would allow Congress to tax anyone who chooses not to recycle or buy solar panels, and another witness questioned if Congress could tax you for not driving an electric car.

Read the rest on The Foundry…

Tags: House Ways and Means Committee, Individual Mandate, negative impact, Supreme Court decision, taxing power

Too Many Broken Promises in Obamacare

Yesterday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) almost called Obamacare’s individual mandate a tax, stopping mid-word to call it a “penalty”. White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew and other spokespersons echoed this talking point. This is in spite of last week’s Supreme Court ruling that deemed the mandate unconstitutional under both the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause, but ruled that it could stand as part of Congress’s authority to “lay and collect taxes.”

Dubbing the individual mandate a tax saved the President’s health care law, but it’s a concept that President Obama himself has strongly denied. In a 2009 interview, President Obama argued that his individual mandate was not a tax increase, stating, “I absolutely reject that notion.”

But after last week, President Obama must now admit it’s a tax or admit the mandate is unconstitutional. It’s can only be one or the other.

The mandate is in fact a tax, and it’s just one of many new taxes that hit the middle class in Obamacare. Lo and behold, another broken promise. President Obama claims that the mandate is holding people responsible, keeping with that spirit, here’s a reminder of the other promises the President and his health care law are responsible for breaking:

Read the rest on The Foundry…

Tags: denial, Individual Mandate, lay and collect taxes, penalty, tax

Obamacare Raises Taxes on 3 Million Middle-Class Americans

President Obama repeatedly promised not to raise taxes on middle-class families. Yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled that he already has.

Chief Justice John Roberts upheld the President’s health care law on the grounds that the “individual mandate” is a constitutionally permissible tax increase. This violates Obama’s pledge. Middle-class families will pay the vast majority of these new taxes.

Obamacare imposes a penalty—or tax increase—on Americans who do not purchase health insurance. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that most of those paying these taxes are middle-class individuals and families making less than 500 percent of the federal poverty level: $59,000 for an individual and $120,000 for a family of four. Three million lower-income and middle-class Americans will pay an estimated $2 billion in these “mandate taxes.”

Read the rest on The Foundry…

Tags: 3 million Americans, Chief Justice John Roberts, Individual Mandate, middle-class tax, ObamaCare, Supreme Court ruling, tax