Our Health Policy Matters

Now that 2014 and Obamacare are both here, there will be plenty of stories about Affordable Care Act implementation.  Some will be newsworthy; but others will just be history.  Last week, we got our first history story characterized as exploding news. The Washington Post reported on a newly-released Harvard study that analyzed the impact of the 2008 Oregon Medicaid expansion on hospital emergency department visits.  The study found that there was a 40 percent increase in the number of emergency department visits made by the new Medicaid enrollees. For the Post article, an MIT health economist (I guess no Harvard ones were available!) commented  that he viewed it “as part of a broader set of evidence that covering people with health insurance doesn’t save money,” something he went on to characterize as a “misleading motivator for the Affordable Care Act.” And Forbes went farther, claiming the study results are “ undermining [the] central rationale...

Now that 2014 and Obamacare are both here, there will be plenty of stories about Affordable Care Act implementation.  Some will be newsworthy; but others will just be history.  Last week, we got our first history story characterized as exploding news. The Washington Post reported on a newly-released Harvard study that analyzed the impact of the 2008 Oregon Medicaid expansion on hospital emergency department visits.  The study found that there was a 40 percent increase in the number of emergency department visits made by the new Medicaid enrollees. For the Post article, an MIT health economist (I guess no Harvard ones were available!) commented  that he viewed it “as part of a broader set of evidence that covering people with health insurance doesn’t save money,” something he went on to characterize as a “misleading motivator for the Affordable Care Act.” And Forbes went farther, claiming the study results are “ undermining [the] central rationale...

There are bad reviews and then there are bad reviews.  But it would be difficult to imagine some worse headlines than the ones Obamacare has received during the past month. My favorite for over-the-top headline?  How about this gem from the National Journal: “ Why Obamacare May Be Obama’s Katrina, Iraq .” That’s right.  An initiative to insure millions of Americans has been equated with the most frightening American natural and man-made disasters of the 21 st century.  In a world in which we have come to expect tight plotlines, heroic successes, and quick and satisfying endings, I imagine that a blockbuster like Obamacare was never going appeal to critics. The Obamacare story is being reported this month as if it were a classic disaster movie, with millions of people about to be left out in the cold to fend for themselves in a chaotic healthcare system as Obamacare exchanges crash and burn around them. But that’s not close to reality. This we...

There are bad reviews and then there are bad reviews.  But it would be difficult to imagine some worse headlines than the ones Obamacare has received during the past month. My favorite for over-the-top headline?  How about this gem from the National Journal: “ Why Obamacare May Be Obama’s Katrina, Iraq .” That’s right.  An initiative to insure millions of Americans has been equated with the most frightening American natural and man-made disasters of the 21 st century.  In a world in which we have come to expect tight plotlines, heroic successes, and quick and satisfying endings, I imagine that a blockbuster like Obamacare was never going appeal to critics. The Obamacare story is being reported this month as if it were a classic disaster movie, with millions of people about to be left out in the cold to fend for themselves in a chaotic healthcare system as Obamacare exchanges crash and burn around them. But that’s not close to reality. This we...