President Biden’s proposal to open Obamacare plans and Medicaid to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients marks the most recent effort to expand federally subsidized health insurance programs. These expansions, however, come with an inconvenient truth: They inflate prices for unsubsidized commercial patients and payers.
Our new study documents that between 2011 and 2021, after adjusting for medical price inflation, median unsubsidized premiums for in...
Opinion
It’s time to address the unaffordability of affordable health care
President Biden’s proposal to open Obamacare plans and Medicaid to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients marks the most recent effort to expand federally subsidized health insurance programs. These expansions, however, come with an inconvenient truth: They inflate prices for unsubsidized commercial patients and payers.
Our new study documents that between 2011 and 2021, after adjusting for medical price inflation, median unsubsidized premiums for in...
Will Biden’s zigzag strategy work?
In 1996, President Clinton pursued a reelection strategy of “triangulation” — politically, a made-up term that meant running to the middle in order to win, a tried-and-true strategy that worked for Clinton as it has for many others in American presidential politics.
For President Biden, “triangulation” is not on the table given the highly polarized nature of American politics. His own progressive left base won’t hear of it. Instead, Biden is pursuing a more modest “zigzag” str...
No, Biden can’t let ‘Dreamers’ join ObamaCare
There’s just one little, teensy weensy problem with President Biden’s announcement that he will let “Dreamers” join the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) or Medicaid — it’s illegal. I know what you’re thinking: When has an action being illegal ever stopped Biden? And you’re right, it usually doesn’t. But while illegality won’t stop him, the U.S. Supreme Court almost certainly will.
The DREAM Act (hence, the name Dreamers) was first introduced in 2001, often with some bipartisan ...
How the end of free preventative health care could affect us all
A federal district court last week ruled that health insurers are no longer required by the Affordable Care Act to provide "free" preventative care for services identified as important by the Preventative Services Task Force.
Judge Reed O'Connor ruled that the volunteer members of that task force are officers of the United States and need to be appointed by the president or at least by the head of a governmental department. What Congress thought was a feature i...
How the end of free preventative health care could affect us all
A federal district court last week ruled that health insurers are no longer required by the Affordable Care Act to provide "free" preventative care for services identified as important by the Preventative Services Task Force.
Judge Reed O'Connor ruled that the volunteer members of that task force are officers of the United States and need to be appointed by the president or at least by the head of a governmental department. What Congress thought was a feature i...
What we’ve gained from the Affordable Care Act, 13 years later
Do you remember when some senior citizens had to ration their medicines because their prescription drug costs would triple every year after they entered the Medicare coverage gap known as the “donut hole”? I do.
Do you remember when turning 19 meant getting kicked off your parents’ health insurance plan, regardless of your living situation? I do.
Do you remember when insurance companies could refuse to pay for preventive treatments — vaccinations, mammograms, colonos...
Chaos and rudeness at Stanford
It is unusual for a controversial event to end with absolutely everybody looking bad, but that is what happened on March 9 at Stanford University Law School, when the Federalist Society chapter sponsored a talk by Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan, an ultra-conservative firebrand appointed by President Trump to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The judge, the student protesters and an on-scene administrator all played to type, exhibiting arrogance, intolerance and irresponsibility, respectivel...
Now is the time to guard against reckless banking legislation
All of this has happened before, and it will all happen again. The cycle of financial deregulation followed by financial calamities has a sickening familiarity to it. Our only hope for breaking out of this wasteful and destructive cycle is to learn enough from one of the crises to install reforms durable enough to have a chance to survive the money-induced amnesia that will inevitably follow.
The failures of Silvergate, Silicon Valley and Signature Banks provide us an opportun...
Republicans’ ‘Charlie Brown’ budget problem
Remember the great Peanuts comic strip where every time Charlie Brown went to kick the football it was yanked away? Think of congressional Republicans as Charlie Brown and Medicaid as the football.
For 40 years, the GOP has tried to slash Medicaid, the federal-state health care program targeted at the poor. They'll get some temporary wins, only to have that football yanked back. Over the past 40 years, Medicaid has grown more than Medicare.
They're at it again.<...