The Health Care Choices Plan we developed would help the millions of people who are struggling to afford health insurance, particularly in the small group and individual markets, to have access to more choices of more affordable insurance while protecting the poor and the sick.
It is based upon formula grants to the states, using existing Obamacare resources, but with guidelines that incentivize states to provide people with more choices of more affordable coverage and even provide an escape hatch for people on Medicaid and CHIP to get better private coverage.
As we head toward the end of the year, biopharmaceutical companies are announcing their pricing strategies for 2019.
Merck & Co. raised the list price of five drugs, including its blockbuster cancer treatment Keytruda, in November — raising the price of Keytruda by 1.5 percent and its human papillomavirus vaccine Gardasil by about 6 percent. The other three treatments that saw increases were vaccines.According to Merck, the average net price of their drugs declined 1.9 percent in 2017.
A federal judge’s surprise move late in the day on Dec. 14 to strike down the Affordable Care Act statute in its entirety is sending shock waves through the political world, but a jubilant lawyer on the winning legal team said the court ruling strikes a blow for freedom, is constitutionally sound, and is here to stay.
The Dec. 14 ruling by Judge Reed O’Connor of the Northern District of Texas was hailed by President Donald Trump but promptly assailed by former President Barack Obama, his liberal allies, and some legal commentators, largely on hyper-technical procedural grounds as opposed to whether the law itself runs afoul of the U.S. Constitution.
They say nothing is certain in life except for death and taxes. At this point, we might add Obamacare lawsuits to that list.
In the latest stage of ongoing legal challenges, Judge Reed O’Connor of the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas ruled that actions by Congress last year effectively invalidated the nearly 9-year-old law. However, despite this latest development, the ACA is still the law of the land and it probably will remain that way.
Last week, a federal district court judge in Texas ruled that ObamaCare – in its entirety – is unconstitutional.
ObamaCare’s defenders plan to appeal the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court, if necessary. The legal fight could drag on for years.
If the ruling is upheld, it’ll be a huge victory for the millions of Americans struggling with higher health care costs thanks to ObamaCare’s onerous regulations. It’s time for Congress to acknowledge ObamaCare’s failures and devolve authority for health policy to the states.