Our Health Policy Matters

Did Obamacare reduce access to care? That’s one of the arguments being made today by members of Congress who have rushed to judgment by voting for an inadequate replacement plan. It may surprise you that they call it “AHCA,” which sounds just like “ACA.” But it shouldn’t. Polling data always showed that “ACA” was a lot more popular than “Obamacare,” because many people did not know they were the same thing.  Republicans are hedging their bets – next election they hope they can tell a confused public that they were opposed to Obamacare but for AHCA. But back to the question.  Did Obamacare reduce access to care? That’s the argument made by the American Spectator, which counts among its editors the conservative, math-challenged, icons Jeffrey Lord, Ben Stein, and Grover Norquist. They argue that this is evident because of the 71 rural hospital closures since 2010 – approximately one per month. That’s pretty astonishing. Seventy-one rural hospital closures in six yea

The Affordable Care Act amendment offered by House leadership yesterday seems well-intended. But it falls far short of the “repeal and replace” promises that have been made for years. Instead of offering better health insurance, more choices, and greater affordability as promised, the draft proposal pushes more people into private health insurance exchanges, through which insurers will offer poorer coverage at a higher cost.  Older adults will immediately pay as much as 60 percent more for their health insurance. All individuals will find themselves subjected to a new “individual mandate,” disguised as a 30 percent premium surcharge for those who lose their coverage for more than two months and for those 26 year olds who fail to enroll as soon as they leave their parents’ policies. A new high risk pool for those with chronic diseases will become a multi-billion dollar unfunded mandate on the states by 2026. Employers will no longer have to provide insurance to t