Our Health Policy Matters

Obamacare will insure 2 million fewer people in 2014 than previously reported.  That number is in a new report just released by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). That may come as a surprise to you.  But it isn’t the biggest surprise in the report for me.  I’ll explain why later.  First, let’s review the new numbers. Last May, the CBO estimated that seven million people would sign up for insurance through exchanges this year.  That number is not a surprise – it has been reported widely in the media. It also estimated that nine million previously uninsured people would be enrolled in Medicaid or CHIP.  In other words, a total of 16 million people would obtain coverage this year through Obamacare. But last week, CBO released updated estimates .  It now says that only 6 million will sign up through the exchanges this year, and only 8 million will enroll in Medicaid or CHIP.  Because some of the people who would have si...

Obamacare will insure 2 million fewer people in 2014 than previously reported.  That number is in a new report just released by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). That may come as a surprise to you.  But it isn’t the biggest surprise in the report for me.  I’ll explain why later.  First, let’s review the new numbers. Last May, the CBO estimated that seven million people would sign up for insurance through exchanges this year.  That number is not a surprise – it has been reported widely in the media. It also estimated that nine million previously uninsured people would be enrolled in Medicaid or CHIP.  In other words, a total of 16 million people would obtain coverage this year through Obamacare. But last week, CBO released updated estimates .  It now says that only 6 million will sign up through the exchanges this year, and only 8 million will enroll in Medicaid or CHIP.  Because some of the people who would have si...

For many, the fight over whether or not to expand Medicaid is just about the money.  But they overlook the fact that the lives of more than 36,000 people may hang in the balance.  That’s the conclusion that can be drawn from a study published last summer in the New England Journal of Medicine.  The study was entitled Mortality and Access to Care Among Adults After State Medicaid Expansions .  In it, the authors calculated the numbers of lives saved as a result of an earlier Medicaid expansion in three states. The three states were Arizona, New York, and Maine.  And while none of these expansion populations matched exactly the expansion population in the Affordable Care Act, they were similar enough to suggest that we might see the same results in the ACA Medicaid expansion population. The authors concluded that Medicaid expansions could save 19.6 lives for every 100,000 people between the ages of 20 and 64.  There are over 185 million Am...

For many, the fight over whether or not to expand Medicaid is just about the money.  But they overlook the fact that the lives of more than 36,000 people may hang in the balance.  That’s the conclusion that can be drawn from a study published last summer in the New England Journal of Medicine.  The study was entitled Mortality and Access to Care Among Adults After State Medicaid Expansions .  In it, the authors calculated the numbers of lives saved as a result of an earlier Medicaid expansion in three states. The three states were Arizona, New York, and Maine.  And while none of these expansion populations matched exactly the expansion population in the Affordable Care Act, they were similar enough to suggest that we might see the same results in the ACA Medicaid expansion population. The authors concluded that Medicaid expansions could save 19.6 lives for every 100,000 people between the ages of 20 and 64.  There are over 185 million Am...

Should the Affordable Care Act be repealed so that over a million people making more than $123,000 per year can avoid paying $3,000 in taxes beginning in 2016?  And should they be allowed to pass on the cost of their health care to everyone else? This week, a local newspaper quoted a lifelong Florida Democrat as saying she might vote for Mitt Romney because she believed ACA offered “a costly giveaway to freeloaders.” The irony is that the law actually does just the opposite – and Mitt Romney knows this better than most.  It requires nearly all health care “freeloaders” either to get insurance or pay a tax penalty. Eighty percent of those affected will get insurance.  But the Congressional Budget Office reported last week that it expects 6 million people to owe the tax penalty beginning in 2014.  The $8 billion the penalty will eventually raise will help defray the cost of uncompensated care. Six million people make up less than 2% of our total p...

Should the Affordable Care Act be repealed so that over a million people making more than $123,000 per year can avoid paying $3,000 in taxes beginning in 2016?  And should they be allowed to pass on the cost of their health care to everyone else? This week, a local newspaper quoted a lifelong Florida Democrat as saying she might vote for Mitt Romney because she believed ACA offered “a costly giveaway to freeloaders.” The irony is that the law actually does just the opposite – and Mitt Romney knows this better than most.  It requires nearly all health care “freeloaders” either to get insurance or pay a tax penalty. Eighty percent of those affected will get insurance.  But the Congressional Budget Office reported last week that it expects 6 million people to owe the tax penalty beginning in 2014.  The $8 billion the penalty will eventually raise will help defray the cost of uncompensated care. Six million people make up less than 2% of our total p...