Tag: Medicare

Roy: “The Arkansas-Obamacare Medicaid Deal: Far Less Than It First Appeared”

By
Michael F. Cannon

At Forbes.com’s Apothecary blog, the Manhattan Institute’s Avik Roy is cool to the idea of states implementing ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion by putting those new enrollees in ObamaCare’s health insurance “exchanges”: 

When Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe (D.) first announced that he had reached a deal with the Obama administration to use the Affordable Care Act’s private insurance exchanges to expand coverage to poor Arkansans, it seemed like an important, and potentially transformative, development. The myriad ways in which the traditional Medicaid program harms the poor have been well-documented, and it looked like Beebe had come up with an attractive—albeit expensive—way to provide the poor with higher-quality private insurance. A Good Friday memo from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, however, splashes cold water on that aspiration. It’s now clear that the Beebe-HHS deal applies a kind of private-sector window dressing on the dysfunctional Medicaid program, and it’s not obvious that the Arkansas legislature should go along.

The first reason states should not pursue the Beebe plan is that, like a straight Medicaid expansion, it would inhibit the pursuit of low-cost health care for the poor. 

The second reason is that it would cost even more than putting those new enrollees in the traditional Medicaid program. Economist Jagadeesh Gokhale, who advises the Social Security program on how to make these sorts of projections, estimates a straight Medicaid expansion would cost Florida, Illinois, and Texas about $20 billion in the first 10 years. And that’s in the wildly unrealistic event that the feds honor their committment to cover 90 percent of the cost. President Obama has already proposed abandoning that committment. Congressional Budget Office projections suggest the “Beebe plan” would increase the cost of the expansion by 50 percent. That too should be enough reason to reject the Beebe plan. Neither the state nor the federal government have the money to expand Medicaid at all. Volunteering to make the expansion even more expensive is lunacy. 

The Beebe administration is trying to make its plan seem no more expensive than a straight Medicaid expansion. How? By simply assuming state officials would voluntarily make a straight Medicaid expansion so expensive that the Beebe plan wouldn’t cost a penny extra. The illogic goes like this. If Arkansas were to expand traditional Medicaid, the state would likely need to increase Medicaid payments to doctors and hospitals in order to secure adequate access to care for new enrollees. That would make a straight Medicaid expansion so expensive that the Beebe plan would be no more costly, and might even cost less. 

It’s true, states that implement ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion would have to increase provider payments to give new eligibles decent access to care. The problem is that Medicaid never does that. Medicaid is notorious for paying providers so little that it access to care is lousy. Medicaid does so year after year, even if people sometimes die as a result. The Beebe administration simply assumed that state officials would magically change such behavior, increase Medicaid’s provider payments to the same levels private insurers pay, and thereby volunteer to make an already-expensive Medicaid expansion even more unaffordable. In that fantasy world, the Beebe plan would be no more expensive. As an indication of how implausible that assumption is, no one had been talking about combining a straight Medicaid expansion with higher provider payments until the Beebe administration needed to make the governor’s plan seem slightly less unaffordable. 

Roy has soured on Beebe-style plans since reading some of the terms and conditions the Obama administration issued on Friday. Yet he still imagines there might be free-market-friendly ways to implement a massive expansion of the entitlement state. Thus he counsels states only to expand Medicaid in exchange for real reforms. We’ve heard that song and dance before. Republicans said the State Children’s Health Insurance Program and Medicare Part D – two Republican initiatives – would lead to Medicaid and Medicare reform. Instead, government got bigger and reform went nowhere. Lucy is going to pull the football here, too. If it is Medicaid reform you seek, the only free-market Medicaid reforms are Medicaid cuts. Roy’s criticisms of the Beebe plan are welcome, though it’s odd to find him to the left of officials in the 15 or more states that are flatly rejecting the expansion.

Topics: 
General, Government and Politics, Health Care

Holman Jenkins: ObamaCare Is Part of the Insanity, Not Its Cure

By
Michael F. Cannon

I’m a week late on this, but Holman Jenkins has an excellent discussion of why health care costs and pricing (not the same thing!) are insane, and why ObamaCare will only make it worse:

Duke University’s Clark Havighurst [wrote] a brilliant 2002 article that describes the regulatory, legal and tax subsidies that deprive consumers of both the incentive and opportunity to demand value from medical providers. Americans end up with a “Hobson’s choice: either coverage for ‘Cadillac’ care or no health coverage at all.”

“The market failure most responsible for economic inefficiency in the health-care sector is not consumers’ ignorance about the quality of care,” Mr. Havighurst writes, “but rather their ignorance of the cost of care, which ensures that neither the choices they make in the marketplace nor the opinions they express in the political process reveal their true preferences.”

You might turn next to an equally fabulous 2001 article by Berkeley economist James C. Robinson, who shows how the “pernicious” doctrine that health care is different—that consumers must shut up, do as they’re told and be prepared to write a blank check—is used to “justify every inefficiency, idiosyncrasy, and interest-serving institution in the health care industry.”

Hospitals, insurers and other institutions involved in health care may battle over available dollars, but they also share an interest in increasing the nation’s resources being diverted into health care—which is exactly what happens when costs are hidden from those who pay them.

Put aside whether President Obama could have pushed real reform if he wanted to. ObamaCare as it emerged from Congress fulfills the insight that any highly regulated system ends up benefiting those with influence, i.e., health-care providers and high-end customers, not those of modest means.

What are ObamaCare’s mandates on individuals and employers except an attempt to force back into the insurance market those who have been priced out by previous “reforms” so their money can be used to prop up a system of gold-plated coverage that mostly benefits those in the highest tax brackets? What are ObamaCare’s minimum coverage standards except a requirement that these customers buy more costly coverage than they would choose for themselves so their money can be used for somebody else?

I include a lengthy excerpt from Robinson’s excellent article in my chapter for the Encyclopedia of Libertarianism.

Topics: 
General, Health Care

Majority of Americans Now Oppose ‘Universal Coverage’

By
Michael F. Cannon

I launched the Anti-Universal Coverage Club on the Cato@Liberty blog in 2007. The Club is “a list of scholars and citizens who reject the idea that government should ensure that all individuals have health insurance.”

Well, that list just got longer. A whole lot longer. I’ll let the folks at Gallup take it from here:

In U.S., Majority Now Against Gov’t Healthcare Guarantee

For the first time in Gallup trends since 2000, a majority of Americans say it is not the federal government’s responsibility to make sure all Americans have healthcare coverage. Prior to 2009, a majority always felt the government should ensure healthcare coverage for all, though Americans’ views have become more divided in recent years…

The shift away from the view that the government should ensure healthcare coverage for all began shortly after President Barack Obama’s election and has continued the past several years during the discussions and ultimate passage of the Affordable Care Act in March 2010.

The split is 54-44 percent, well outside the poll’s margin of error. Below the jump are the results in chart form:

Now all we need is for 54 percent of the public to “like” the Anti-Universal Coverage Club’s Facebook page.

The shift was bipartisan:

Republicans, including Republican-leaning independents, are mostly responsible for the drop since 2007 in Americans’ support for government ensuring universal health coverage. In 2007, 38% of Republicans thought the government should do so; now, 12% do. Among Democrats and Democratic leaners there has been a much smaller drop, from 81% saying the government should make sure all Americans are covered in 2007 to 71% now.

Yet another indication that ObamaCare remains quite vulnerable.

Topics: 
Government and Politics, Health Care

I Agree with Stuart Butler

By
Michael F. Cannon

ObamaCare is far from settled law. Here’s an excerpt from Butler’s blog post for the Journal of the American Medical Association:

President Obama’s narrow victory has left proponents of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) breathing a collective sigh of relief, believing that the legislation is safe. It’s true, of course, that the election’s outcome has ended the prospect of a new administration using Republican majorities in both chambers and the budget reconciliation process to force outright repeal. But the reality of the economic and political situation means the core elements of the ACA remain very much in play.

The primary reasons for this are the continuing problems with the federal budget deficit and the national debt and the worrying long-term weakness of the economy. Add to that the increasing skepticism that the ACA’s blunt tools will slow costs.

Let’s remember that the most important provisions of the ACA, such as penalties for Americans lacking insurance and firms not offering it, the expansion of Medicaid, and the heavily subsidized exchange-based coverage, do not go into effect until 2014. Meanwhile, new taxes on self-employment and limits on flexible spending accounts are scheduled to go into effect next year, just as Congress will be trying to boost employment growth. Additionally, lawmakers will be desperately searching for ways to delay or cut spending to deal with the deficit. That adds up to 2013 being a year for buyer’s remorse in Congress and around the country.

Read the whole thing.

Topics: 
General, Government and Politics, Health Care

‘Dems and GOP Agree, Government Needs More Money’

By
Michael F. Cannon

That’s the (fair) title of this blog post over at National Journal’s Influence Alley:

The federal government needs more money. That’s one thing both parties can agree on, Republican and Democratic lawmakers said Tuesday. The rub, of course, is how to get it.

Reps. Peter Roskam, R-Ill., and Allyson Schwartz, D-Pa. said at a National Journal panel on Tuesday morning that there’s no question that more revenue is needed. Democrats say they can raise the money by letting upper-income tax cuts expire, while Republicans say economic growth alone will help raise the cash.

“We need more revenue,” said Roskam, the House GOP’s chief deputy whip. “If you can get the money to satisfy obligations, that’s an area of common ground.”

Let’s hear it for duopoly, eh, comrades? Without it, we might suffer political parties that question whether those government “obligations” are wise, or necessary, or constitutional; or that point out governments don’t have needs, people do; or that reject the premise that politics is an exercise in deciding who needs what; or that argue for eliminating entire spheres of government activity. Can you tell I’ve just watched a presidential debate?

Topics: 
General, Government and Politics, Health Care

‘The Obamacare Cases Keep Coming’

By
Michael F. Cannon

Jonathan Adler at National Review Online:

During oral arguments in the Supreme Court challenge to the individual mandate, NFIB v. Sebelius, the plaintiff’s lawyer Paul Clement warned the justices not to make the same mistake they made in the 1970s with Buckley v. Valeo. In Buckley, the Court upheld portions of the post-Watergate campaign-finance reforms while invalidating others. The result was a muddled statute that Congress and the courts would repeatedly revisit for years to come. Repeating this approach with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Clement cautioned, could produce similar undesirable results. It’s too soon to know how quickly Congress will revisit the PPACA, but Clement’s warning already seems to be coming true in the courts…

More than three months after the Court’s decision, over three dozen legal challenges to the PPACA or its implementation are pending in federal courts, and more are sure to come.

At a Cato briefing on Capitol Hill this Wednesday, Adler and I will be speaking about one of those cases.

Topics: 
Cato Publications, Government and Politics, Health Care

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