The Heartland Institute

From time to time we have chronicled the various failures of the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare), and they are many. First was the CLASS Act, which even the Obama administration said could not be implemented. Then there were the federal high-risk pools, and the small business tax credit, and the subsidy for employers ...

On January 1 yet another ObamaCare provision crashed and burned: the “Early Retiree Reinsurance Program” (ERRP), a $5 billion giveaway to unions, state and municipal governments, and corporations. The idea was to encourage such entities to continue health benefits for early retirees (ages 55-64) until the wonders of ObamaCare ...

Over the past year, it s been my pleasure to write and produce the Consumer Power Report on occasion in Greg Scandlen s stead. The work Greg has done in furthering the cause of a pro-consumer approach to health care policy is unequaled, and I m honored to have the opportunity to speak to you all on a platform he built ...

What passes for conventional wisdom in political circles these days is disheartening to say the least. Richard Reese sent around a snippet from a white paper from Merritt Hawkins, the physician recruiting firm. Dr. Reese notes health reformers would have us think most doctors do their work in large integrated groups or medical ...

A year ago at Thanksgiving I said I was optimistic in spite of the challenges facing us. I wrote: Call me Pollyanna, but I m not worried. Yes, we will dither. The country will experiment with centralized planning and control. The Washington Elite will be telling you what to do, and how to do it. They will tell you that ...

I ve gotten a lot of requests from people looking for a quick summary of what Obamacare will do to employers, to taxpayers, to consumers, to physicians, and so on. Unfortunately, I usually have to send them either lengthy research pieces or opinion pieces that focus on just one or two topics. But now I have the perfect ...

Wow, hard to imagine the election is only a week away. Whatever the final outcome it is certain to be a very big gain for the Republicans, not only in Congress but in the states and local governments as well. All of the credit all of it goes to the great awakening and mobilization of ordinary Americans under the Tea ...

What I am hearing is that Congress will bite the bullet and enforce the physician fee cuts this year, mostly because of deficit concerns. What they are likely to do is reduce this year s cuts from 26 percent to 15 percent, and then enforce the cuts going forward. Meanwhile, the AMA is pushing an idea to accept a 10 percent ...

Friday is October 1, the start of a new fiscal year for the government of these United States. But there is no budget. Last spring Congress decided budgets were old-fashioned and they couldn t be bothered to even try to develop one. It has passed no appropriations bills zero and doesn t plan to until after the elections ...

You know something s happening here, but you don t know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones? Bob Dylan, Ballad of a Thin Man Man, oh man, oh man, oh man. I have never seen anything remotely like this. This newsletter isn t supposed to focus on political analysis, so I will just say that once again the experts have been proven ...

I was in Santa Rosa, California last week talking to the North Coast Association of Health Underwriters. The speaker before me told them not to worry if they work really hard they ll be okay under health reform. He also said the European countries spend less than we do and have longer life expectancies, so they must be ...

I ve decided not to renew my coverage when the bill comes in for the 4th quarter. I currently pay $320/mo for a $2,500-deductible BCBS plan. I have an HSA and have saved up a fair amount of money in it. Pretty good deal. So why drop it? 1. I have never even come close to meeting my deductible. Everything I have done ...

I ve been re-reading George Orwell s 1984 , for the first time since I was a teenager. A lot of the ideas in it are familiar Big Brother is watching! Doublethink; Newspeak; Thought Police; rewriting history; permanent war; and absolute control over the behavior, attitudes, and even emotions of the Outer Party members. These ...

I really hate it that I have to write about Obamacare every week. Unfortunately, the law is so sweeping and so onerous that it has taken all of the air out of the room and left little time to discuss anything else. We don t get to look at any other developments around the world or domestically in medicine or health ...

Man, ain't it swell when politicians run things? Unlike them greedy, money-grubbing business executives, politicians are interested only in What Is Good For America. If Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi decide something is Good, you know it must be so, because they aren't tainted by profits. So, you may rest assured that cutting ...

The impact of ObamaCare is already showing up in some pretty disturbing ways. A new insurance company founded by our friend Paul Kitchen in Virginia has announced it will close its doors. This is a pity because we need more competition, not less in the insurance market. The company, nHealth, was off to a great start. The ...

Where to begin this week? How about the overall political environment? It is beginning to look like the wheels are coming off this bus, to the point that even Democrat loyalists are getting nervous. Obviously the President of the United States can't do much about plugging the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. The federal government ...

I was in Louisiana this week giving talks to Baton Rouge and New Orleans health underwriters. I m afraid I didn t have any good news for them, other than that the chances that the Supreme Court will throw out this monstrosity have grown with the retirement of Justice Stevens. Whatever else might be said about Elena Kagan ...

I gave a keynote address at a conference put on by Benefits Selling Magazine last week. Great conference. About 600 people in attendance, mostly brokers. Unfortunately, I did not have any good news for them. You've already read most of what I had to say to the group. The talk was framed by my bottom line conclusion: This ...

I was having an exchange with a physician friend. He argued that advocating repeal of the ObamaCare law is a bad strategy. He thought there were some good things in it that should be preserved. He wrote, " So a more realistic pragmatic approach is needed or the opponents will simply be painted as being ANTI - Health Care ...