As budget season approaches, premium support is gaining traction as the only viable option to save Medicare. In a recent Politico article, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D–MD) is quoted as saying liberals will use Obamacare’s new provisions to combat a conservative budget that reforms Medicare using premium support. Hoyer told reporters, “Yes, we need to make Medicare viable. We believe that the health care bill—and very frankly CBO (Congressional Budget Office) believes the health care bill will do something that Medicare very badly needs, and that is to constrain … More
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The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its Budget and Economic Outlook for years 2012 to 2022 yesterday, and as Heritage’s Patrick Knudsen shows, the numbers add up to a dismal fiscal future. As the government continues its fiscal irresponsibility, 2012 will be the fourth straight year of trillion-dollar deficits. This trend is on track to continue as a result of increasing federal spending on health care, which will more than double between 2012 and 2022. The CBO estimates that by 2022, the government will spend $1.8 trillion on health care, … More
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In this week’s Heritage in Focus, expert Bob Moffit discusses how Obamacare ends Medicare as we know it. Click here to listen.
How does the health reform law break up traditional Medicare? What’s a better way to fix Medicare? And how much …
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By Michael F. Cannon
President Obama is catching some well-earned blowback for his decision to force religious institutions “to pay for health insurance that covers sterilization, contraceptives and abortifacients.” You see, ObamaCare penalizes individuals (employers) who don’t purchase (offer) a certain minimum package of health insurance coverage. The Obama administration is demanding that coverage must include the aforementioned reproductive care [...]
Contraceptives Mandate Brings ObamaCare’s Coercive Power into Sharper Focus is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
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By Michael F. Cannon
Here’s a poor, unsuccessful letter I sent to the editor of the Washington Post: “The dangerous gym membership” [Jan. 12] claims that in Medicare Advantage, “advertising a plan as the go-to health insurance source for marathoners could lure in a healthier subscriber base, disrupting the rest of the market place in the process.” Oh? Does [...]
‘The Dangerous Gym Membership’? is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
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By Michael F. Cannon
Last night, Newt Gingrich praised the Chilean Social Security system, which allows workers to save for their retirements in personal accounts, rather than contribute to the government pension scheme. Several of my Cato colleagues are far more qualified than I am to comment on that system, including Mike Tanner, Jagadeesh Gokhale, and Jose Pinera–who designed [...]
Personal Accounts–for Medicare is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
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Medicare patient Ann Lorenz has relied on the advice and recommendations of her neurologist, Dr. Jeffrey English, since she was first diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease 13 years ago. So the dramatic changes coming to Medicare via the Affordable Care Act—and its potential to limit seniors’ access to care as doctors foresee dropping Medicare patients—already worry Lorenz. “One of the first things you ask a new doctor is if they accept Medicare,” Lorenz, who lives in Atlanta, says in a new Impact of Obamacare video. “And we have always seemed to … More
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By Michael F. Cannon
A bunch of rural hospitals are upset about a provision of Obamacare that benefits Massachusetts above all other states. Forgive the bureaucratese, but you really have to read the Medicare Price Control Payment Advisory Commission’s description to appreciate the situation: Among the proposed wage index reclassifications or exceptions granted to hospitals for FY2012, the rural floor exception [...]
Obamacare’s Sweetheart Deal for Massachusetts is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
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By Michael F. Cannon
One of ObamaCare’s big selling points was that it would launch lots of pilot programs so that Medicare bureaucrats could learn how to reduce health care costs and improve the quality of care. Yesterday, the Congressional Budget Office threw cold water on the idea. In 2010, Peter Orszag and Ezekiel Emanuel explained the promise of ObamaCare’s pilot [...]
Oops, Maybe ObamaCare’s Cost Controls Won’t Work after All is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
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Dark clouds hover over the nation’s finances and threaten a perfect storm of massive debt and crushing taxation unless Congress starts acting—soon. Washington must demonstrate that it is serious about reining in ever-rising spending and reducing annual deficits. Passing commonsense reforms to our major entitlement programs (Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security), the main drivers of future spending and annual deficits, is crucial. As the population ages and health care costs rise, spending on entitlements is projected to more than double by 2050, as this Heritage Budget Chart Book chart shows. … More
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