There are two very good articles on ObamaCare on the Internet today. The first was posted yesterday at Investors.com and the second is in today’s Wall Street Journal. The Supreme Court will begin arguing ObamaCare on Monday.
The Investors.com article points how ObamaCare will increase the cost of medical care and insurance for the people who are insured–not actually lower the cost for anyone.
The article reports:
…By 2019, roughly 16 million people out of the 50 million uninsured will be forced into coverage thanks to the individual mandate. Of those 16 million, some 6 million to 7 million will be covered for the first time by Medicaid and, to a lesser extent, the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
Medicaid, however, provides very low reimbursement rates to participating doctors and hospitals — only 58% of those normally paid by insurance companies. Medicaid often doesn’t pay enough to cover a provider’s costs.
Under the government’s logic, hospitals and doctors will be forced to raise prices for the insured to cover their costs, which will be passed along as higher premiums. The total cost shift under Medicaid is substantially greater than for the uninsured who fail to pay their bills.
Moreover, the increased cost-shifting phenomenon used by the government to justify the individual mandate will only grow worse as Medicaid enrollment expands due to the mandate.
ObamaCare will totally ruin any part of the medical insurance and patient care system that currently works.
The Wall Street Journal article is entitled, “Liberty and ObamaCare.” It deals with the constitutional question of the individual mandate. The article also gives some insight on how the Obama Administration will argue the case:
Consider a White House strategy memo that leaked this month, revealing that senior Administration officials are coordinating with liberal advocacy groups to pressure the Court. “Frame the Supreme Court oral arguments in terms of real people and real benefits that would be lost if the law were overturned,” the memo notes, rather than “the individual responsibility piece of the law and the legal precedence [sic].” Those nonpolitical details are merely what “lawyers will be talking about.”
Does anyone remember the old lawyers’ joke, “If the law is on your side, pound the law; if the evidence is on your side, pound the evidence; if neither is on your side, pound the table.” It sounds as if the Obama Administration plans to pound the table.
Talk radio host Hugh Hewitt (a law professor and practicing lawyer) has promised to highlight the arguments on his radio show (6 pm to 9 pm East Coast Time). I am looking forward to what he has to say.
