Fix Health Care Policy

Health Care Spending Remains Stable, but Not for Long

Health care spending actually didn’t skyrocket in 2011–but just wait.

This week, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Office of the Actuary released the National Health Expenditures report for 2011. The report shows that growth in national health spending remained relatively low in 2011, growing at 3.9 percent.

Overall, the U.S. spent $2.7 trillion on health care in 2011, which accounts for 17.9 percent of total gross domestic product (GDP).

There are four major takeaways from the report:

1. A slow economic recovery played a role. The slow growth in health spending correlates with overall slow growth in incomes, jobs, and GDP in 2011. As the report explains, this “raises questions about whether US health care spending will rebound over the next few years as it typically has after past economic downturns.”

Read the rest on The Foundry…

Tags: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, economic downturn, health spending, National Health Expenditures report, ObamaCare, Office of the Actuary, slow growth

Recession Accelerates Shift Towards Greater Control of Washington in Health Care

While overall health care spending slowed in 2009, it is the underlying trend that is more troubling: the continuing decline in private coverage and the steady increase in government health care. These trends will only accelerate under Obamacare.

According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), total health care spending grew by 4 percent in 2009 to reach $2.5 trillion. This represents a slower rate of growth from 2008, but the slower increase still outpaced spending as an overall percentage of GDP.

The 3.2 percent decline in private coverage and the slowing of out-of-pocket spending by consumers are attributed to the recession. Fewer people with jobs mean fewer people with traditional employer-based health care coverage and less income to pay for health care.

The decline in private coverage is reportedly offset by a massive increase in Medicaid as more individuals enroll in the government health care program for the poor. According to CMS, Medicaid spending grew at a rate of 9 percent, nearly doubling from 4.9 percent in 2008. Moreover, the federal share of this spending increased 22 percent as the federal government picked up a greater share of the cost as directed under the stimulus bill. (Read the rest at The Foundry…)

Tags: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, national health care spending, out-of-pocket costs, private coverage

Calling Doctor Berwick: We Have A Mild Case of Rationing

Dr. Donald Berwick may not be a household name yet, but if he is confirmed as the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the position for which he was nominated by President Obama, he may soon determine the direction of health care of millions of Americans.

So what’s the big deal about that? Earlier this week, a Washington Post editorial attributed the ongoing hold-up in Berwick’s confirmation hearing to “partisan politics,” claiming that “Republicans are seizing on the Berwick nomination as an opportunity to relitigate the health-care debate, latching on to a few of Dr. Berwick’s statements to wage their campaign.” The Post misses the point. (more…)

Tags: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Dr. Donald Berwick, health care debate, ObamaCare, rationing

More Inconvenient Obamacare Truths

Last week the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released the final cost projections for Obamacare, finding that, contrary to White House claims, the legislation will increase national health spending by $311 billion over the next decade and will cause 14 million Americans to lose their current employer-based health coverage. President Barack Obama unleashed his staff to attack Foster’s work. Nancy-Ann DeParle, director of the White House Office of Health Reform, and White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer downplayed and criticized Foster’s analysis on the White House website. As Heritage’s Rob Bluey reports this was not the first time the author of the report, Medicare and Medicaid chief actuary Rick Foster, had been attacked by a White House: (more…)

Tags: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, CMS Chief Actuary Rick Foster, employer mandate, Individual Mandate, Medicare Advantage, ObamaCare, Politico, welfare spending

Side Effects: State Reluctant to Swim in National High-Risk Pools

Obamacare aims to insure the uninsured. To do that, the law bars insurers from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions—but not until 2014. In the meantime, the law calls for a national high-risk pool to offer coverage to the otherwise “uninsurable.”

Under the new law, an important deadline looms. By Friday, states must declare whether they will help implement the new risk-pools for their citizens, or if they’ll just let the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services do it for them. (more…)

Tags: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, high-risk pools, Medicaid, ObamaCare, Side Effects, States

Morning Bell: Is Now Really the Time To Create a New $2.5 Trillion Entitlement?

In theory, the federal government has $2.5 trillion stashed away in a nondescript office building in the sleepy little town of Parkersburg, West Virginia. That is where the Treasury Department keeps stacks of nonnegotiable Treasury bonds payable to the Social Security Administration. But as the Associated Press reported yesterday, for the first time since the 1980s, the federal government will not be adding to that stack. Thanks to an aging population and slow economy, Social Security will pay out $29 billion more this year than it takes in. And the Congressional Budget Office reports that after small surpluses in 2014 and 2015, the program is projected to be in the red from 2016 until forever.

But what about Al Gore’s Social Security “Lock Box?” Can’t we just spend that $2.5 trillion in the Social Security Trust Fund? As Heritage experts David John and Brian Reidl explain, since 1939 federal law has required Social Security to “invest” its extra money in Treasury bonds. Those bonds are really just IOUs from the government to the government. The feds already spent that $2.5 trillion long ago on programs such as education, foreign aid and defense. Add the $2.5 trillion Social Security obligation onto our other obligations and our current national debt stands at $12.5 trillion, or nearly $42,000 for every man, woman, and child in the country. And it will only get worse under President Barack Obama’s Budget. It would: 1) borrow 42 cents for each dollar spent in 2010; 2) leave permanent annual deficits that top $1 trillion as late as 2020; and 3) dump an additional $74,000 per household of debt into the laps of our children and grandchildren. (more…)

Tags: AAA ratings, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, deficit, health care entitlement, President's proposal

Obama Knows Obamacare Increases Government Control, Right?

At his impromptu press conference yesterday, President Barack Obama again defended his health care plan this time claiming:

“I don’t know if people noted, because during the health care debate everybody was saying the President is trying to take over — a government takeover of health care. I don’t know if anybody noticed that for the first time this year you saw more people getting health care from government than you did from the private sector — not because of anything we did, but because more and more people are losing their health care from their employers. It’s becoming unaffordable. That’s what we’re trying to prevent.”

First of all, we definitely noted the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) report the President references above. But more importantly, if we are to take the President at his word, and believe him when he says he wants to prevent a government takeover of health care, then he should know that his plan is the exact wrong direction to go.

In a separate report on the Senate health bill issued earlier this year, the CMS projected that over half (18 million) of the 33 million Americans who would gain health insurance because of Obamacare, would do so by enrolling in Medicaid … which is a government run health care program. And another 2 million would enroll in Medicaid for supplemental coverage. (more…)

Tags: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, government takeover, government-run health care, ObamaCare

Has Obamacare Already Won? Existing Government Programs to Take Over Health Care by 2012

For the past several months, Washington has exhausted every possible method to pass a health care bill designed to increase government’s control over health care. They haven’t been successful yet, but that may not matter: even without Obamacare, government health spending is set to increase far faster than private health expenditures, surpassing the private sector as soon as 2012.

Today the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released its projections of national health expenditures for the next ten years. The report shows that spending by the public sector grew much faster in 2009 at 8.7 percent, compared to the private sector which only grew at 3.0 percent. Though public spending was heightened by the recession, as unemployment caused more Americans to lose employer-sponsored coverage and enroll in Medicaid, the trend is expected to continue into the next decade.

What is more, the report bases its projections on current law. In the case of Medicare, this underestimates future spending. Under current law, Medicare is set to reduce physician reimbursement rates by 21.3 percent in 2010. This would lead to growth in Medicare spending of just 1.5 percent in 2010. However, the likelihood of these cuts coming to fruition is slim to none, as every year, Congress votes to suspend them. 2010 will likely be no different. A report by Health Affairs cites that, if physician payment rates are held constant, the more likely growth in Medicare will be 5.1 percent in 2010. Whether or not these physician cuts occur is no small matter—with them, overall health spending growth would be 3.9 percent. Under the more likely scenario, health spending growth would be 4.7 percent. (more…)

Tags: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, government-run health care, ObamaCare, tipping point

More Broken Health Care Promises

New analysis confirms that the health care bills moving the House and Senate will break the many promises President Obama made to the American people. As the details of the legislation are exposed, it is no wonder that Americans are growing uneasy over the direction the legislation has taken.

The Chief Actuary for the President’s own Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued an extensive analysis of the pending Reid bill and House-passed bill. The Lewin Group also released an analysis of the House and Senate bills. These reports provide a comprehensive overview and impact of the legislation. Here are a few important facts from the reports:

More Health Care Spending, Not Less
A key argument by the President and Congress for health care has been to bring health care spending down. However, both studies expose that instead of bring health care spending down, the House and Senate bills would increase health care spending. (more…)

Tags: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, higher insurance premiums, trillion dollar deficits

Morning Bell: The Battle Over Obamacare’s Obituary Has Begun

Last month, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) rammed through her version of Obamacare almost a week before the agency in charge of running Medicare and Medicaid, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMMS), could issue its non-partisan and independent analysis of the legislation. And for supporters of the President’s plan, it’s a good thing she did. The CMMS report eviscerated almost every single promise the President has made about his health care plan.

According to that report, Obamacare: 1) raises health care costs; 2) causes millions of Americans to lose their current health care coverage; 3) forces millions of Americans to pay fines and still receive no health insurance; 4) causes millions of seniors to lose their Medicare Advantage plans; 4) places millions of Americans on welfare; 5) jeopardizes Medicare access for all seniors; 6) worsens health care access for the poor.

This past Friday, CMMS issued another report, this time on Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) version of Obamacare and the verdict was in many ways worse: 1) health care costs would rise by $234 billion; 2) 17 million Americans would be forced out of their existing health insurance; 3) 19 million Americans would pay $29 billion in taxes/fines and receive no health care in return; 4) 33% of all Medicare Advantage customers would lose their health care plan; 5) 18 million Americans would be put on welfare; 6) the $493 billion in Medicare cuts would force 20% of Medicare providers to become unprofitable thus jeopardizing access to care for all seniors; and 7) the explosion in Medicaid recipients would exacerbate existing health care access problems for the poor. (more…)

Tags: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, health care costs, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, ration care