Weekend Economists Examine (E)sc(h)atology January 24-26, 2014

[Demeter]

78. Why Is The Public Being Stonewalled On Serious ObamaCare Fixes?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottatlas/2014/01/26/why-is-the-public-being-stonewalled-on-serious-obamacare-fixes/


...And what has been the president’s reaction? More likely due to the undeniable reality of the situation rather than anything else, President Obama has shown some flexibility, at least enough to make short-term changes in the ACA where the law is failing. Indeed, the administration has backpedaled on several deadlines and even deleted some parts of the ACA since it officially became law. In 2011, the administration scrapped the CLASS program designed to provide unlimited, lifetime benefits for long-term care. HHS Secretary Sebelius ultimately admitted it was too costly and would not work, even though it represented a key source of the ACA’s projected savings. Then, HHS urgently granted more than a thousand waivers to prevent widespread loss of coverage and substantial premium increases caused by ObamaCare’s own rules. Such waivers were granted to unions, states, and corporations that cover about 4 million people to avoid “significant increases in premiums or significant decreases in access to health care benefits”… “needed to meet the annual (ObamaCare) limit requirement” wrote John Dicken, Director of Health Care Issues for the Government Accountability Office, in his letter to Congress. The administration has given temporary amnesties to businesses, too. In July, the White House announced a one-year delay in the “employer mandate” that requires businesses with more than 50 employees to provide health insurance or pay a fine. Then, in November, small businesses were also temporarily pardoned, so that they do not need to offer their workers online enrollment through the exchanges until 2015. Lately, multiple postponements in the enforcement of the law’s penalties and deadlines were instituted, including delaying deadlines to enroll and pay for insurance – from December 15 all the way until March 31 (so far) to buy coverage and avoid the law’s penalty (“tax”). We have now seen the government grant an exemption from one of its most fundamental components, the individual mandate, the requirement in the health care law that individual Americans have insurance as of January 1. According to healthcare.gov, the millions of Americans whose insurance was cancelled by ObamaCare will not have to pay any fine if their “individual insurance plan was cancelled and (you) believe other (ObamaCare) Marketplace plans are unaffordable”.

Clearly, there has been no shortage of pivots and ad hoc modifications to the ACA by the Obama administration. In fact, the president is coming under fire from eleven states’ attorneys and numerous legal scholars for acting outside the boundaries of his constitutional authority to unilaterally and selectively delay deadlines and modify parts of the law, regardless of the need for those delays. Beyond those important legal questions, critics also point to the seemingly brazen political motivation for relief from isolated parts of the ACA, as the Obama administration conveniently pushed back enforcement of rules until after the 2014 Congressional elections.

Regardless of the legitimacy of the administration’s actions, the shifts were effected because the law was either literally impossible to obey as written, or because the consequences of the law became embarrassingly indefensible for President Obama personally....But what remains disturbing is that this president does not seem to be interested in truly fixing the ACA in response to the general public’s mounting concerns and the law’s undeniable flaws. Preliminary estimates indicate that only 11 percent of the 2.2 million people buying insurance on the ObamaCare exchanges were previously uninsured, and most cite lack of affordability as the reason for not purchasing. If the honest goal is to increase the population with insurance, improve access to health care and control costs, then some of the most destructive provisions in the ACA – specific rules that raise insurance premiums and jeopardize coverage for existing policyholders – should be reconsidered...

AND THE LIST AT LENGTH CAN BE FOUND AT THE LINK