In practice, the Democratic Party’s so-called Medicare for All would really be Medicare for None. Under the Democrats’ plan, today’s Medicare would be forced to die. The Democrats’ plan also would mean the end of choice for seniors over their own health care decisions. Instead, Democrats would give total power and control over seniors’ health care decisions to the bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.
The Trump administration handed the decision about whether to offer short-term, limited duration health care plans over to the states. California immediately passed legislation to ban the sale of these plans, which the Trump administration had expanded access to by allowing for a longer renewal period and carrying time. Doug Badger, an expert on these plans, talks about why California’s decision is bad news for people seeking affordable alternatives to Obamacare Exchange plans and how, despite this, the move to let states decide is the intent of a federalist system.
The Senate appears poised to vote soon on a Congressional Review Act resolution sponsored by Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) that would rescind the Trump administration’s final rule on “short-term limited duration insurance.” Nearly every Senate Democrat has cosponsored the Baldwin resolution because they believe it would protect consumers. It would do exactly the opposite.
The recent editorial regarding the supposed benefits of Medicaid expansion to Louisiana overlooked several important facts. Your editorial correctly noted that enrollment in Obamacare’s expansion to able-bodied adults exceeded projections by more than 100,000 individuals. As a result of this underestimation, an expansion originally projected to total $1.2 billion to $1.4 billion annually cost an estimated $3.1 billion during the last fiscal year.
Congress must get back to work, repeal the dysfunctional status quo, and make a serious start on comprehensive health care reform.
The “Health Care Choices Proposal,” developed by a broad range of conservative think tanks, would replace Obamacare’s spending schemes with state block grants to help the poor and the sick to get health coverage. It would restore regulatory responsibility to the states, and it would allow people enrolled in public programs such as Medicaid to redirect public dollars to private health plans of their choice—if they wished to do so.
The Center for Health and Economy found that our recommendations to replace Obamacare entitlements with formula grants to the states would reduce premiums for individual coverage by as much as a third. The Health Care Choices Proposal also would modestly reduce the deficit, increase the number of people with private health insurance, and cut Medicaid spending.
On July 24, 2018, liberal activists announced they collected enough signatures to place Medicaid expansion on Idaho’s November 2018 ballot. If voters approve this initiative, Idaho will expand the program to able-bodied adults that earn up to 138 percent of the federal poverty line.
Supporters of Medicaid expansion claim the program will generate millions of dollars in new revenue and save money, citing a recent report from the consulting firm Milliman. However, an earlier 2016 report from Milliman determined Medicaid expansion would cost Idaho almost $3 billion more than its new estimates. The firm argues its 2018 estimates are more accurate because Medicaid expansion has cost other states less than previously thought, but this claim is completely without merit.
A few states have found a key to undoing some of Obamacare’s damage to their individual health insurance markets by redirecting some federal funding to help sick people. These states are providing separate assistance to those with the highest health costs, thereby reducing premiums and increasing enrollment for healthy people driven out of the market by soaring costs.
In June, the Health Policy Consensus Group released a health care reform plan called “The Health Care Choices Proposal.” The stated purpose of this plan, referred to in this report as the Proposal, is the expansion of choice and lowering of costs. The Proposal’s key feature is a block grant allocated to the states beginning in 2020, giving states resources and authority to design their own programs aimed at making insurance more affordable. All impacts projected in this report are relative to H&E’s March 2018 baseline.
- Premium Impact: The Proposal is projected to decrease the cost of premiums for private individual market health insurance coverage. Silver plans would see the largest impact, as premiums would decrease by 15 to 32 percent beginning in 2020 relative to the baseline.
- Coverage Impact: The Proposal is projected to result in nearly 1 million fewer people purchasing insurance by 2028, with enrollment holding steady earlier in the 10-year window.