In the battle over who is to blame for high prices Obamacare insurance, a new study finds that the reason is fewer insurers competing for customers, a new study finds.

Medicaid is meant to serve as a backstop for the truly disadvantaged. It’s not supposed to be a replacement for a job. Physically able enrollees ought to work in exchange for their benefits.

Last Thursday, the Trump administration came out with a new rule that requires hospitals to post online the prices they charge for medical procedures.

The Trump administration on Monday approved a request from Maine to set up a program to help moderate rising health insurance costs. CMS said in a letter to the state that it will approve a reinsurance program from January 2019 to Dec. 31, 2023.

At long last, the Trump administration has created a “freedom option” for people suffering under Obamacare. A final rulemaking reverses an Obama-era regulation that exposed the sick to medical underwriting.

Medicaid is meant to serve as a backstop for the truly disadvantaged. It’s not supposed to be a replacement for a job. Physically able enrollees ought to work in exchange for their benefits.

Health insurance companies in Colorado have asked to increase premiums by an average of 5.94 percent for 2019 in the Obamacare market, according to rate filings.

No insurers are leaving the exchange, and every county will have at least one health insurer offering coverage. The requested average premium increase for individual gold plans is 6.85 percent, and 12.3 percent for silver plans. For bronze plans, the requested average premium increase is 0.9 percent. Anthem’s filings requested a decrease in premium rates.

. . .

A provision of Obamacare that opponents once saw as a potential loophole allowing a Republican president to unravel the law by executive order is now being used by some states to steady their shaky Obamacare markets.

Since the inception of Obamacare, “state innovation waivers,” which ostensibly provide states with some flexibility to experiment with different ways to provide healthcare for their residents, were eyed by those seeking to repeal the law. During the 2012 Republican presidential primaries, Mitt Romney repeatedly vowed that if elected, “On Day One I would issue an executive order paving the way for Obamacare waivers to all 50 states.” Early in the Trump administration, officials saw the waivers as a backup plan to ease Obamacare regulations if congressional repeal efforts were unsuccessful.

. . .

More than half of American adults want to transition to a single-payer healthcare system, according to a Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll conducted earlier this year. Most of these people have no idea how challenging such a switch would be — or the trade-offs it would entail.

Even the pied piper of single-payer, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., recently admitted “there will be pain” in the process of implementing his proposed “Medicare for all” plan.

Just consider the economic devastation single-payer would sow. In 2016, the health insurance industry employed more than 460,000 folks. A government-run insurer might hire some of these workers, but tens, if not hundreds of thousands of them would surely lose their jobs.

. . .

Obamacare, which Republicans spent months trying but failing to overturn, will play a starring role again in Congress this summer, this time helping determine the fate of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Democrats said Tuesday they plan to make the confirmation of Kavanaugh a fight over the future of Obamacare, which is under a lower court challenge that is winding its way toward possible consideration by the Supreme Court.

. . .