Smoking Is a ‘Preexisting Condition’ – Kevin D. Williamson – National Review Online

Obamacare is designed to destroy the insurance market. Markets do not function without prices, and Obamacare ensures that prices will not be allowed to emerge. There is a medical price associated with smoking, but the District of Columbia has decided to suppress that price by law. Pretending that smoking has no relationship with health-care costs does not make it so — it is only a way to push costs around in a way that is agreeable to the likes of Barack Obama, converting a system that prices risk into a system of entitlements.

via Smoking Is a ‘Preexisting Condition’ – Kevin D. Williamson – National Review Online.

Employers Blast Fees From New Health Law – WSJ.com

Employers are bracing for a little-noticed fee in the federal health-care law that will charge them $63 for each person they insure next year, one of the clearest cost increases companies face when the law takes full effect.

Companies and other plan providers will together pay $25 billion over three years to create a fund for insurance companies to offset the cost of covering people with high medical bills.

The fees will hit most large U.S. employers, and several have been lobbying to change the program, contending the levy is unfair because it subsidizes individually purchased plans that won’t cover …

via Employers Blast Fees From New Health Law – WSJ.com.

The Determinants of Rising Inequality in Health Insurance and Wages: An Equilibrium Model of Workers’ Compensation and Health Care Policies by Rong Hai :: SSRN

I develop and structurally estimate a non-stationary overlapping generations equilibrium model of employment and workers’ health insurance and wage compensation, to investigate the determinants of rising inequality in health insurance and wages in the U.S. over the last 30 years. I find that skill-biased technological change and the rising cost of medical care services are the two most important determinants, while the impact of Medicaid eligibility expansion is quantitatively small. I conduct counterfactual policy experiments to analyze key features of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, including employer mandates and further Medicaid eligibility expansion. I find that (i) an employer mandate reduces both wage and health insurance coverage inequality, but also lowers the employment rate of less educated individuals; and (ii) further Medicaid eligibility expansion increases employment rate of less educated individuals, reduces health insurance coverage disparity, but also causes larger wage inequality.

via The Determinants of Rising Inequality in Health Insurance and Wages: An Equilibrium Model of Workers’ Compensation and Health Care Policies by Rong Hai :: SSRN.

Obamacare requires employers to offer insurance. What if it’s too expensive?

Millions of lower-income workers may gain access to employer-sponsored health insurance under the Affordable Care Act—but they may decide not to purchase that coverage.

Most of the lowest-income workers currently offered health benefits elect not to enroll, according to a new study from the ADP Research Institute. While the Affordable Care Act does require large employers to offer coverage, this study raises the possibility that Americans may still decide to forgo the option.

via Obamacare requires employers to offer insurance. What if it’s too expensive?.

Premium surcharge on smokers makes strange bedfellows – North Adams Transcript

For all the political division over the nation’s health-care law, one provision has managed to put two longtime rivals on the same side.

Big tobacco companies and anti-cancer activists are standing in opposition to a part of the Affordable Care Act that allows insurance companies to charge smokers 50 percent more than patients who do not use tobacco.

Cigarette makers such as Altria say the policy amounts to discrimination against smokers.

The American Cancer Society, meanwhile, worries that the high surcharges could make health insurance unaffordable to cigarette smokers, who are disproportionately low-income.

via Premium surcharge on smokers makes strange bedfellows – North Adams Transcript.

An Analysis of U.S. Fiscal and Generational Imbalances: Who Will Pay and How?

This paper updates existing measures of the U.S. fiscal gap to include federal laws up to and including the mid-December 2010 federal fiscal stimulus. It then applies the methodology of generational accounting to establish how the burden of adjustment required to attain fiscal sustainability is shared across generations. We find that the U.S. fiscal and generational imbalances are large under plausible parametric assumptions, and, while not much affected by the financial crisis, they have not improved much by the passing of the Final Healthcare Legislation. We find that, under our baseline scenario, a full elimination of the fiscal and generational imbalances would require all taxes to go up and all transfers to be cut immediately and permanently by 35 percent. A delay in the adjustment makes it more costly.

The paper shows that generational imbalances are worse for a) current young generations; b) current retirees; and c)  future generations, including unborn, as a consequence of the Affordable Care Act.

http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2011/wp1172.pdf

Would Hayek Have Approved Obamacare? – Reason.com

In a controversial Politco op-ed published in 2012, Angner wrote that while Britain’s National Health System and the price-rigging elements of Obamacare violate Hayekian principles, creating an individual mandate and giving poor Americans some amount of money to spend on health care as they see fit does not. To Angner, vouchers for health care would function similarly to vouchers for education, helping to create stronger market forces and spurring the sort of competition that would lead to a more efficient and robust system.

“You can be for markets without being against redistribution,” says Angner, who argues that Hayek thus offers a true alternative to contemporary liberals and leftists on the one hand and libertarians and conservatives on the other.

via Would Hayek Have Approved Obamacare? – Reason.com.

Is Obamacare bad for young people? Let’s ask them!

The bar on the far left represents the 4.83 million young adults who earn less than 138 percent of the federal poverty line and will become eligible for Medicaid. That entitlement program does not use the age rating provisions used in the private market, meaning that one-third of young adults won’t interact with this part of Obamacare in any way.

The three bars in the middle show young adults who will become eligible for subsidies  under the Affordable Care Act. Those subsidies will cap the young adults spending on health insurance as a percent of income. Let’s take an individual who earns $22,240, which works out to 200 percent of the poverty line. That person would get enough tax subsidies so that, at most, he was spending $1,407 annually on health insurance (a $117 monthly premium).

Those subsides get less generous though as you move up the income scale. Those who earn 300 percent of the federal poverty line will be expected to pay 9.5 percent of their income, or $3,185, like the example that the Oliver Wyman firm used.

via Is Obamacare bad for young people? Let’s ask them!.

John Stossel – ObamaCare and Religion – YouTube

Tamara Holder (Fox News) and Tim Carney (Washington Examiner) join John to discuss how the dictates of ObamaCare impact morality and religion.

via John Stossel – ObamaCare and Religion – YouTube.

HHS Delays Basic Health Plan Option Until 2015 – Capsules – The KHN Blog

The Obama administration has delayed by one year the rollout of a health program aimed at low to moderate-income people who won’t qualify for the expanded Medicaid program under the federal health law.

Under the so-called Basic Health Program, some states had planned to offer government insurance to people who don’t qualify for Medicaid, but who would be hard pressed — even with federal subsidies — to afford the premiums and cost-sharing of plans offered in the new insurance marketplaces. Those earning up to twice the federal poverty level, or about $47,000 for a family of four, would have been eligible.

via HHS Delays Basic Health Plan Option Until 2015 – Capsules – The KHN Blog.