Gazing Into CBO’s Budget and Health Care Crystal Ball James C. Capretta Kaiser Health News, 07/29/10
CBO’s latest projections again make it clear that the nation is rushing headlong toward a fiscal crisis, and the health law does nothing to head it off. Read more...
Americans Cut Back on Visits to Doctor Avery Johnson, Jonathan D. Rockoff and Anna Wilde Mathews Wall Street Journal, 07/29/10
Insured Americans are using fewer medical services, raising questions about whether patients are consuming less health care as they pick up a greater share of the costs. The drop in usage is showing up as health-care companies report financial results. Insurers, lab-testing companies, hospitals and doctor-billing concerns say that patient visits, drug prescriptions and procedures were down in the second quarter from year-ago levels. "People just aren't using health-care like they have," said Wayne DeVeydt, WellPoint Inc.'s chief financial officer, in an interview Wednesday. "Utilization is lower than we expected, and it's unusual." Read more...
Poll: Seniors know little about reform law UPI, 07/28/10
Only 22 percent of U.S. seniors age 65 and older say the Affordable Health Care Act would not cut their basic Medicare benefits, a survey indicates. The survey for the National Council on Aging found 42 percent of the seniors say -- incorrectly -- that healthcare reform will cut their basic Medicare benefits, while 37 percent say they did not know. Read more...
Health reform tasks could overwhelm agencies, former federal official says Doug Trapp American Medical News, 07/28/10
Federal employees responsible for drafting and enforcing health reform regulations have an enormous task ahead of them, according to Gail Wilensky, PhD, an economist and former director of the agency now known as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act contains a daunting list of tasks that will overhaul how health care is delivered in the U.S., Wilensky said at a July 9 Alliance for Health Reform event on implementing the act. Read more...
Harry Reid Imagines That ObamaCare is Getting More Popular Peter Suderman Reason, 07/28/10
Democrats have recently taken to arguing that the public is warming to the new health care law, but I don’t buy it. As Cato’s Michael Cannon argues, that narrative only works “if you begin looking for a trend at the high-water mark of opposition, if you look at a few select polls, if you look at not-so-straightforward poll questions, if you interpret simultaneous declines in both support and opposition as growing support, and if you devise a rationale for ignoring the views of those who most oppose ObamaCare.” Once you do that, though, it's totally plausible! Read more...
Leviathan's Drug Problem John R. Graham Pacific Research Institute, 07/27/10
This study concludes that allowing American patients to access medicines that have already been approved in Europe would increase regulatory competition, enable more patient choice, and potentially save the lives of those suffering life-threatening illnesses and who currently have no treatment options. Read more...
Ready for the Next Trillion-Dollar Bailout? Brian Riedl National Review Online: Critical Condition, 07/27/10
Obamacare has been rightly blasted as fiscally responsible, yet few have noticed what may be Obamacare’s largest ticking entitlement time-bomb: the CLASS Act. My new op-ed on the subject is here, and my new report, co-written with Jim Capretta, is here.
NFIB: Small Business Owners On Why ObamaCare is Unconstitutional
Medical Liability Bill Key to Health Reform Reps. Phil Gingrey and John Fleming Roll Call, 07/27/10
...Clearly, however, as has become more apparent every day since the bill became public law, ObamaCare will have none of these intended [positive] effects — due to both what is in the bill and what was left out. Read more...
The Growing Battle Over Berwick Hal Scherz RealClearPolitics, 07/27/10
...the Obama administration's recess appointment of Dr. Donald Berwick as Medicare czar continued stirring controversy, with Senate Republicans "spoiling for a fight" and "escalating the conflict" according to the Washington Examiner's Byron York. Read more...
