Over the July 4th Holiday Weekend, AHEC's staff gave a presentation in Columbus, Ohio on ObamaCare's impact on Ohio at the "We the People" convention.  The full presentation can be found on AHEC's Analysis page.

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Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) and former CBO Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin have a new op-ed published in The Washington Post on June 17, 2011 that details how ObamaCare will lead to lower quality of care and runaway costs.  You can read the op-ed here.

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Jeffrey H. Anderson at The Weekly Standard has an excellent analysis of the impact ObamaCare will have on Medicare and Medicaid.  

Anderson concludes by stating:
"In sum, President Obama has offered no serious plan to curb entitlement spending, which is one reason why the CBO says that the national debt, which has risen from $9.9 trillion when Obama was elected to $14 trillion today, would rise to $28 trillion by the end of his decade long budget. Meanwhile, his signature legislation would expand Medicaid enrollment by 35 percent in 2014, would launch a massive new entitlement program in that same year, and would raid Medicare to pay the tab — thereby lowering Medicare’s quality of care while putting the program on even worse financial footing. As much as the Democrats would prefer to change the subject, Obamacare is an entitlement disaster."   

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On May 18, 2011, the Federal government filed its reply brief in its appeal of the decision of the Florida lawsuit in which Judge Roger Vinson ruled ObamaCare and the individual mandate were unconstitutional.  (For previous AHEC analysis about the Florida lawsuit, go here, here, and here).

Notable from this latest brief are the following:

• DOJ is now calling the individual mandate the "minimum coverage provision."  It seems the American people know what the individual mandate is and they have rejected it so that the government has changed its rhetoric to avoid visceral public reaction.
• DOJ says that attempts to strike down the individual mandate - which for the first time represents an effort by the government to force people to engage in commerce so that individual conduct can be regulated - is radical.  Note that the power grab by the government isn't radical, the effort to limit government power is radical.
• DOJ continues to put forward the completely debunked myth that the uninsured results in "$43 billion" in cost shifting. Continuing to put this argument forward - when it is known to be false - violates the duty of attorneys under the professional rules of conduct.

In his budget talk a week ago, President Obama talked about how he wanted to give the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), a panel of unelected bureaucrats, vast powers to reign in Medicare spending while bypassing that pesky institution made up elected officials (known as Congress).  Rich Lowry of National Review has written about how ObamaCare gives the IPAB vast powers but the President wants to give them even more.

As Lowry notes in his piece, Friedrich Hayek wrote in the Road to Serfdom: “Parliaments come to be regarded as ineffective ‘talking shops,’ unable or incompetent to carry out the tasks for which they have been chosen. The conviction grows that if efficient planning is to be done, the direction must be taken ‘out of politics’ and placed in the hands of experts — permanent officials or independent autonomous bodies.”

Legislation has been introduced in the House and Senate to repeal the IPAB.

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On of ObamaCare's worst features is its dramatic expansion of Medicaid that will push people from private insurance to government system that is able to provide less and less care in the face of state budget cuts.  ObamaCare expands Medicaid eligibility from 100% to 138% of the federal poverty level.  But fewer and fewer doctors, particularly specialists, are willing to accept Medicaid due its already low (and shrinking) reimbursement rates.

The New York TImes details the story of how a young boy from Louisiana, who is covered by Medicaid, has been unable to see a specialist psychiatrist for over a year for his behavioral issues.  In Louisiana, state officials estimate that Medicaid will grow nearly 40% in their state as a result of ObamaCare.  This demonstrates the undeniable tension of ObamaCare - adding far more patients who rely on Medicaid at a time when fewer and fewer doctors are willing to treat them.

Among some very telling statements from the NYT article are the following:

• Dr. James B. Aiken, “Having a Medicaid card in no way assures access to care.”
• Nicole R. Dardeau, a nurse unemployed due to an injury, “My Medicaid card is useless for me right now,” and “It’s a useless piece of plastic."
• Dr. Michael A. Felton, “How can an already overtaxed Medicaid system handle such a huge influx of people?”
• Dr. Rachel Z. Chatters, a pediatrician noting how hard it is to find specialists for Medicaid her patients, “I devote one afternoon a week, every Wednesday afternoon, to trying to find specialists for my patients...."
• Bruce Greenstein, secretary of the Louisiana's Department of Health & Hospitals: “We have a hard time finding specialists for Medicaid enrollees.”
  
  

As AHEC has previously conveyed, under the leadership of Governor Bobby Jindal and State Health Secretary Bruce Greenstein, the state of Louisiana has become the second state to announce it will not set up an ObamaCare health exchange.  Following the announcement, Louisiana has also taken steps to return $1 million in ObamaCare grant money that the federal government gave to Louisiana to induce the state into setting up the exchange.

State Health Secretary Greenstein made several pointed criticisms ObamaCare and the exchanges, including that:

• HHS has been very slow in providing states with guidance about what the exchanges should look like and what kinds of insurance they would be required to offer.
• Premiums are likely to rise under ObamaCare and that he did not want the state to be blamed for the resulting increases.

Louisiana had previously declined to participate in the federal high risk pools.  The decision to forego setting up an exchange marks the second time Louisiana has decided against taking steps to implement parts of ObamaCare.  Earlier this month, Florida also announced it would forego setting up an exchange.
   

Marking the one-year anniversary of ObamaCare becoming law, the majority staff at the House Ways & Means Committee issued a summary of the bad effects ObamaCare has had over the past year.  Their summary is similar to one put together by AHEC staff earlier this month and published at A Line of Sight.

The Ways and Means (WAM) summary contained the following:

• March 2010: Higher Costs for Employers, Fewer Jobs for Workers & States Revolt
• April 2010: Higher Health Care Spending & Seniors’ Health Care in Jeopardy
• May 2010: Myth of Small Business Credit Dispelled as Employers & More States Join the Repeal Effort
• June 2010: White House Admits You Can’t Keep What You Have and Like
• July 2010: Entire States Seek to Be Exempt from the Democrats’ Health Care Overhaul, Americans Begin Paying Higher Taxes, & Individuals Start Losing Their Health Insurance
• August 2010: Seniors Learn They Will Lose Retiree Prescription Drug Coverage
• September 2010: Employers Forced to Get a Waiver or Cancel Insurance
• October 2010: Workers Forced to Pay Higher Health Care Costs
• November 2010: American People Back GOP Pledge to Repeal 
• December 2010: Law Declared Unconstitutional
• January 2011: Law Again Declared Unconstitutional and Insurance Companies Stop Offering Coverage
• February 2011: Administration Admits to Budget Gimmicks & CBO Says Law Will Mean Fewer Jobs 
• March 2011: While Employers Struggle, Unions & State Governments Get Help; Waivers Total More than 1,000

Details of the WAM analysis can be found here.