Tag: 2012 Election

ObamaCare and the End of Nothing

Jun 20, 2012• 15

By JD Kleinke

“The only constant in health care is change.”

It’s one of those clichés peddled at health care industry conferences by consultants who charge by the hour for helping attendees brace their organizations for all those terrifying changes just over the horizon. Not only is this cliche not true, but it is exactly untrue. The only constant in health care is gnawing anxiety about change that never actually occurs.

The Obama Administration’s health care reform plan – we can all call it “ObamaCare” now that the Administration finally owns the label it should have from the outset – is the motherlode of anxiety over change about to storm through the health care system. That is, unless you happen to cover your ears and block out all the partisan screaming, along with the political ideology dressed as legal arguments in the Supreme Court this week, and look at the actual plan and its numbers.

Yes, ObamaCare is expected to cram 30 million uninsured people into the current non-system. Complementary elements of the law make it illegal for health insurers to kick any of us out if we get too sick or stop paying our bills if we get too expensive. And if an insurer makes too much money in the process, it needs to refund a portion. Aside from these four economically intertwined health insurance market reforms, most everything else about ObamaCare is business as usual.

Romney’s Response to ObamaCare

Jun 15, 2012• 24

By John Goodman

Mitt Romney’s entire career reflects a businesslike approach. On the one hand he has been willing to act boldly to solve problems. On the other hand he has been willing to keep what works and discard what doesn’t. The latest Romney pronouncements on health policy are consistent with that history.

As President Obama has said on many occasions, ObamaCare is based on a health reform Governor Romney spearheaded in Massachusetts. But blindly copying a health reform — while ignoring what’s really worth copying and what’s not — is hardly sensible presidential leadership.

Here is what is good about the Massachusetts health reform: (1) Governor Romney brought both parties together to achieve genuine bipartisan reform (something Barack Obama failed at miserably at the national level); (2) he cut the insurance rate in half by giving substantial tax relief to people who must purchase their own insurance, and (3) he did all this without raising taxes.

Healthcare M&A: Keep Calm and Carry On

Jun 14, 2012• 1

By Bijan Salehizadeh

With just a couple of weeks to go until we hear from the Supreme Court on the fate of Health Reform, bankers and the investment community are making grand pronouncements that M&A activity is “on hold” until the Court opines.

This is just not true as you will see below.

Here’s an excerpt with an evocative title from PEHub’s coverage of the annual Jeffries Healthcare Conference just this week (emphasis added):

PE-Backed Healthcare M&A on Hold for Election, Supreme Court Decision on Obamacare

Private equity investing in healthcare is on pause this year, according to executives speaking Wednesday on the panel “Financial Sponsors Perspectives on Healthcare Investing.” The industry is waiting to see whether Mitt Romney succeeds in overtaking President Obama. Also, dealmakers wants some clarity on President Obama’s healthcare reform bill….

Healthcare M&A has slowed this year. So far there have been 1,073 global announced M&A deals, valued at $75.3 billion. This compares to 2,729 deals in all of 2011 which totaled roughly $229.6 billion….

“Once we get clarity, and past Obamacare and the presidential election, we will see more deals,” the exec said.

The problem with this is that it might make for good reading or for an “entertaining” panel discussion at an investment banking conference, but it doesn’t reflect reality.

Awaiting the Court’s Decision on Healthcare

May 30, 2012• 13

By David Merritt

The Supreme Court has already decided the fate of the health reform law, and in a few short weeks the rest of us will know whether it is upheld, struck down entirely, or badly damaged. Of the possible decisions, four are the most likely and each would have significant ramifications.

1) The Court could uphold the law. Prior to oral arguments, this was the conventional wisdom. Justice Anthony Kennedy’s stinging questions led many to change this view, but he has surprised Court watchers before.

If he springs another surprise and supports the individual mandate, the law’s implementation would continue unabated. States that have waited for the Court’s decision would start moving on exchanges and essential benefits.

HHS would issue more regulations: on subsidies, employer penalties, insurance requirements, and others. However, it is common knowledge that many of the more controversial rules are being slow walked until after November 6th so as to not complicate President Obama’s reelection chances.

Upholding the law would certainly raise the stakes of the November elections. Should Democrats hold the Senate and/or President Obama win reelection, it’s likely the law would be permanently ensconced. On the other hand, should Republicans control the House and Senate and Governor Romney win the presidency, they will try to repeal the law or gut it through budget reconciliation before major provisions take effect in 2014.

But based on the “train wreck” of oral arguments, it seems unlikely that the law will escape the Court unscathed. It is more likely that the law will be damaged. The question is, to what extent?

The President’s Health Care Law is Hurting Our Economy, and Must Be Fully Repealed

May 30, 2012• 14

By John Boehner

It’s no secret that our nation’s economy is struggling, and the president’s health care law, enacted in 2010, is making things worse — raising health costs and making it harder for small businesses to hire workers. The only way to change this is by repealing ObamaCare in its entirety.

There has been much renewed media focus on the president’s health care law in recent months because the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule in June on the question of whether the law is constitutional. But the American people have never lost their focus on it. They didn’t like the law when it was rammed through Congress by President Obama and a Democratic majority in 2010, and according to most public opinion surveys, they like it even less now.

It’s not difficult to understand why most Americans remain opposed to ObamaCare. Many question its constitutionality; I’m certainly one of them. But the law’s negative impact on Americans’ daily lives is what I hear about the most.

Americans are dealing every day with the tough realities of life in the Obama economy. They’re facing rising prices for food, gas, college tuition and health care. Many are out of work. And among those fortunate enough to have jobs, many are struggling to keep them. Couple this with the ever-present specter of higher taxes — which are constantly being threatened by the president and his advisors — and the possibility of another downgrade in our nation’s credit rating as a consequence of the national debt that has exploded under the president’s spending policies, and it’s a pretty grim picture. If you’re reading this, you know exactly what I mean.

The Psychology of the ObamaCare Debate

May 4, 2012• 34

By Peter Ubel, MD

“How can the government make us buy health insurance? What gives them that right?”

Sitting on my left while our airplane raced above the clouds, Elizabeth was clearly upset about Obamacare. She wondered why the bill had to be so long, and why Obama would endorse a plan that doubled her health insurance costs. But nothing vexed her more than the individual mandate.

At least that’s what I though until I spoke with her at greater length, and she revealed a profound truth to me about people’s attitudes towards the mandate and towards Obamacare more generally: she showed me that deep down she liked the idea of the mandate, once she realized its important role in accomplishing goals people on all sides of the political spectrum care about deeply.

We were flying towards North Carolina the day before the Supreme Court held its oral arguments on Obama’s healthcare plan. Elizabeth had heard a great deal about the mandate. She read The Wall Street Journal regularly, in part because it was so relevant to her work in banking. And she enjoyed watching Bill O’Reilly on Fox News, but not Hannity, who she thought was “too extreme”. She was by no means a conservative extremist. She had major concerns about the banking industry for example, and as a Christian felt strongly that income inequality is a moral problem that neither party was addressing in an effective manner. But she was solidly Republican, no doubt about that, and she agreed with most people in that political party that Obamacare was hurting the economy. And above all she believed the health insurance mandate was “un-American.”

A Health Care Setup Both Sides Could Live With

Apr 28, 2012• 5

By Donald H. Taylor Jr.

Before long the Supreme Court is expected to rule on the health care reform law, a decision that will have tremendous policy ramifications and could reshape the presidential election.

But even if the court overturns the Affordable Care Act, as some observers predict, that won’t change the reality that our country’s health care system is seriously broken. In short, regardless of what the court says, people will still be getting sick, costs will keep rising and too many people will be uninsured. And our federal budget will never be sustainable if we can’t bring health care costs under control.

The Democratic Party and progressives invested a huge amount of political capital in getting Congress to pass the ACA in 2010. The act was not perfect, but it did provide a start to the many years of work needed to create a sustainable health care system. In speeches, Republicans and conservatives acknowledge that our health care system is unsustainable and have spoken of a need to “replace”; however, in the two years since the ACA passed, they have failed to be clear about what they actually favor.

As we look to what we’re actually going to do about the problem, what’s clear is that progressives and conservatives both need to move beyond their familiar positions to find a new kind of deal. This seems politically impossible before November, but politicians on both sides would do themselves – and the country – a big favor if they quietly started devising a solution that everyone can live with, even if neither side gets everything it wants.

For progressives, universal coverage has always been the Holy Grail and dream deferred, not just of health policy, but of all social policy. I don’t think conservatives have a health policy interest that is so clear and heartfelt as universal coverage is for progressives, but if I had to take a stab, I think it is their belief that people don’t have enough “skin in the game” and are therefore wasteful of other people’s money.

How Obama Botched and Bungled the Health Reform Message

Apr 26, 2012• 105

By Michael L. Millenson

While it’s comforting to just blame the GOP for the unhappiness with health reform threatening the president’s re-election, the truth is that Barack Obama repeatedly botched, bungled and bobbled the health reform message. There were three big mistakes:

The Passionless Play

While Candidate Obama proclaimed a passionate moral commitment to fix American health care, President Obama delved into legislative details.

When a Baptist minister at a nationally televised town hall asked in mid-2009 whether reform would cause his benefits to be taxed due to “government taking over health care,” Candidate Obama might have replied that 22,000 of the minister’s neighbors die each year because they lack any benefits at all. Instead, President Obama’s three-part reply recapped his plans for tax code fairness.

While Republicans railed about mythical “death panels,” and angry Tea Party demonstrators held signs showing Obama with a Hitler moustache, the president opted to leave emotion to his opponents. The former grassroots organizer who inspired a million people of all ages and ethnicities to flock to Washington for his inauguration never once tried to mobilize ordinary Americans to demand a basic right available in all other industrialized nations. In fact, he hasn’t even mobilized the nearly 50 million uninsured, who have no more favorable opinion about the new law than those with health insurance!

Dispatch from Washington

Apr 25, 2012• 5

By John Irvine

In its wisdom, the Supreme Court of the United States may decide to overturn the Obama administration’s health reform legislation.

The Supreme Court of the United States may decide not to.

Mitt Romney may unseat Barrack Obama and wrest the Presidency away from the Democrats. Or he may not.

In a way, these things may not actually matter.

There may be uncertainty on Wall Street and in the media about the fate of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the upcoming presidential election, but the mood in the crowd gathered at the 9th session of the World Health Care Congress last week in Washington was curiously upbeat.

There was a sense that health care is making progress.

And that is a good thing.

Innovations like accountable care organizations (ACOs), scientific management principles like cost containment and quality improvement and the movement for better health information technology will make their presence felt, regardless of what happens in the courts and on Election Day.

Unlike TEDMED, which brought together official Washington, the tech industry, entertainment and medicine — at the Kennedy Center last week, the World Health Care Congress is a meeting pretty much limited to health care industry insiders at larger firms.

As is generally the case, the speakers list read like a who’s who of very important healthcare names. Kaiser Permanente CEO George Halvorson, Intermountain CEO Charles Sorensen, Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini, Economists Ezekiel Emanuel and Jonathan Gruber, former OMB Director Peter Orzag, TEDMED curator (Priceline.com) Jay Walker talked about the power of the Internet to fundamentally rewire the way people think. Verizon CEO and NantWorks Founder Patrick Soon-Shiong were on hand to talk up a new collaboration. Xerox CEO Ursula Barnes introed the tech giant’s push into healthcare. Journos like Health Affairs Editor Susan Dentzer and NBC correspondent Nancy Snyderman provided media star power.

If the Supreme Court Kills ObamaCare, Should We Thank Mitt Romney?

Apr 11, 2012• 5

By John R. Graham

There is no doubt that the campaign to “repeal and replace” ObamaCare will have its weakest standard bearer if Mitt Romney becomes the Republican candidate for President. His embrace of an “individual mandate” to buy health insurance or pay a penalty, as legislated in his 2006 Massachusetts health reform, is anathema to those faithful to the ideal of limited government. When Mr. Romney declares that he will issue a universal waiver from ObamaCare’s regulations as his first executive order, the people who should be voting for him fear that such action would be a substitute for repeal, instead of a preparation for it. (Do these folks really think a clean repeal bill, like the one passed by the House of Representatives in January 2010, will be on the president’s desk on inauguration day?)

But maybe we should look at it another way: If Mitt Romney had never signed his 2006 law (which was motivated, as the president’s men are so fond of telling us, but an idea generated at The Heritage Foundation), those of us committed to defeating ObamaCare would never be in the fortunate position we are today – the whole, ungodly mess hanging by a thin thread after a brutal hazing in the Supreme Court last week.

Without Massachusetts’ 2006 law, there is almost no likelihood that the Democrats would have written an individual mandate into the bill. Instead, they would have just hiked taxes. The only reason they painted a thin varnish of so-called “individual responsibility” onto the bill was so that they could pin some of the blame on Mitt Romney and certain conservatives who had embraced it. As noted by Avik Roy, the individual mandate was traditionally anathema to liberals, who prefer straight-forward tax hikes.