red states rule
11-11-2013, 06:21 AM
Hang onto your wallets folks - Obama wants more of your money to fund Obamacare. A lot more of your moeny
When the going for Obamacare gets tough, the Administration considers throwing more money at the problem (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/07/obama-health-care-law-fix_n_4237204.html?1383886080). To quote the Allahpundit, “Shocka“:
The Obama administration is considering a fix to the president’s health care law that would expand the universe of individuals who receive tax subsidies to help buy insurance, an administration source told The Huffington Post.
***
According to the administration source, the White House is “looking at an administrative fix for the population of people in the individual market who may have an increase in premiums, but don’t get subsidies.”
Even liberal pundits like Paul Waldman (http://prospect.org/article/obamacare-expansion-offing) wonder how the Administration does this without Congress. True, Obama has not considered the Constitution to be much of a constraint in other situations. On the other hand, exploding the projected cost of O-care subsidies (http://washingtonexaminer.com/a-fix-to-boost-obamacare-subsidies-would-explode-cost/article/2538763) from $458 billion to $1.2 trillion in just the first six years might be difficult to pull off with a wave of the administrative wand.
Yet the most interesting thing about this trial balloon is the extend to which it does not fix what you would think the Left would consider the problem with O-care subsidies. The proposal could be a purely unserious political feint which tries to put the GOP in opposition to decreasing O-care’s pain (per Waldman’s suggestion), or — like Obama’s “sorry, not sorry” this week — to avoid supporting broader legislative fixes (http://blogs.rollcall.com/wgdb/obama-apologizes-for-people-losing-health-coverage/). If not, the Administration may have deeper political concerns in mind.
The policy landscape is fairly well-understood, even across ideological lines. As Avik Roy and the Manhattan Institute (http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/11/04/49-state-analysis-obamacare-to-increase-individual-market-premiums-by-avg-of-41-subsidies-flow-to-elderly/) crew show, health care premiums are set to increase significantly on average under Obamacare, even after the subsidies are included in the calculations. Moreover, there will be distinct winners and losers under this scheme. Men, particularly young men, will tend to be losers.
Young women and those approaching retirement age will tend to benefit. TNR’s Jonathan Cohn (http://www.newrepublic.com/article/114622/obamacare-premiums-and-rate-shock-new-studies-and-consensus) does not directly dispute much of this analysis. Rather, he relies on experts suggesting O-care will produce more winners than losers, “as long as you account for subsidies, Medicaid, and the ability of young adults to enroll in special catastrophic plans or stay on their parents’ policies,” particularly the Medicaid expansion. These are important qualifiers, as we we will see later.
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/11/09/obama-considers-costly-unilateral-fix-of-obamacare-subsidies/
When the going for Obamacare gets tough, the Administration considers throwing more money at the problem (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/07/obama-health-care-law-fix_n_4237204.html?1383886080). To quote the Allahpundit, “Shocka“:
The Obama administration is considering a fix to the president’s health care law that would expand the universe of individuals who receive tax subsidies to help buy insurance, an administration source told The Huffington Post.
***
According to the administration source, the White House is “looking at an administrative fix for the population of people in the individual market who may have an increase in premiums, but don’t get subsidies.”
Even liberal pundits like Paul Waldman (http://prospect.org/article/obamacare-expansion-offing) wonder how the Administration does this without Congress. True, Obama has not considered the Constitution to be much of a constraint in other situations. On the other hand, exploding the projected cost of O-care subsidies (http://washingtonexaminer.com/a-fix-to-boost-obamacare-subsidies-would-explode-cost/article/2538763) from $458 billion to $1.2 trillion in just the first six years might be difficult to pull off with a wave of the administrative wand.
Yet the most interesting thing about this trial balloon is the extend to which it does not fix what you would think the Left would consider the problem with O-care subsidies. The proposal could be a purely unserious political feint which tries to put the GOP in opposition to decreasing O-care’s pain (per Waldman’s suggestion), or — like Obama’s “sorry, not sorry” this week — to avoid supporting broader legislative fixes (http://blogs.rollcall.com/wgdb/obama-apologizes-for-people-losing-health-coverage/). If not, the Administration may have deeper political concerns in mind.
The policy landscape is fairly well-understood, even across ideological lines. As Avik Roy and the Manhattan Institute (http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/11/04/49-state-analysis-obamacare-to-increase-individual-market-premiums-by-avg-of-41-subsidies-flow-to-elderly/) crew show, health care premiums are set to increase significantly on average under Obamacare, even after the subsidies are included in the calculations. Moreover, there will be distinct winners and losers under this scheme. Men, particularly young men, will tend to be losers.
Young women and those approaching retirement age will tend to benefit. TNR’s Jonathan Cohn (http://www.newrepublic.com/article/114622/obamacare-premiums-and-rate-shock-new-studies-and-consensus) does not directly dispute much of this analysis. Rather, he relies on experts suggesting O-care will produce more winners than losers, “as long as you account for subsidies, Medicaid, and the ability of young adults to enroll in special catastrophic plans or stay on their parents’ policies,” particularly the Medicaid expansion. These are important qualifiers, as we we will see later.
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/11/09/obama-considers-costly-unilateral-fix-of-obamacare-subsidies/