Viewpoints: Obamacare Enrollment ‘Flatlined’; Investors Enjoying Health Law Benefits
A selection of opinions on health care from around the country.
Forbes:
Flatlined: White House Says Obamacare Exchange Enrollment Growth To Collapse In 2016
For years, this blog has been warning about how the high cost of Obamacare-sponsored insurance would limit the law’s expansion of health coverage. Well, the chicken has come home to roost. Today, the Obama administration announced that it projected dramatically lower enrollment growth for Obamacare’s exchanges in 2016: only 1.3 million, compared to a prediction of 8 million when the law was passed five years ago. ... The problem is fairly easy to understand. Obamacare imposed thousands of pages of new federal regulations on the market for private-sector health insurance purchased by individuals. These regulations mandated that all plans had to pay for a wide range of services, even if policyholders didn’t want them. They forced young people to pay double, and sometimes triple, what they had been paying before for coverage. And plans were required to provide higher financial payouts than they previously had to. (Avik Roy, 10/15)
Bloomberg:
Ask Investors Whether Obamacare Is Working
Since the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act took effect two years ago in the rockiest of rollouts, American health-care companies outperformed every industry in the U.S. Taken together, they are the best collection of stocks among worldwide peers. The impact of Obamacare on the U.S. economy and its health-care system remains a matter of intense debate. More Americans have health insurance, but the longterm effects on the cost of medical care and on government spending are still unknown. For health-care companies, though, one thing is clear: Instead of being the economic catastrophe predicted by congressional Republicans, all of whom voted against it, Obamacare, at worst, is benign for U.S. business and, at best, is making global investors rich. (Matthew A. Winkler, 10/16)
The Washington Post:
John Kasich: Washington Is Obsolete
The biggest problem with America’s economy is called Washington. The anemic growth we have today isn’t because the federal government failed to do enough but because it succeeded in doing too much. It starts with restraining spending and balancing the budget in eight years, cutting personal and corporate taxes to spark growth, and re-engineering the entitlement programs that are bankrupting us and failing those who need them. ... And nowhere has Washington’s one-size-fits-all approach done more harm to innovation and those it should be serving than with Medicaid. (Ohio Gov. John Kasich, 10/15)
The Washington Post:
Obama Presidency Wallops Seniors
Two factors are making life hard for seniors. With their income flat and health care soaring, Democrats are open to attack in 2016 that they have not looked out for the elderly. ... The root of the problem for seniors is that the Obama-appointed Federal Reserve has kept interest rates at zero, and inflation therefore non-existent. That might be great for stock speculators (who move money from bonds to stocks) but for people with savings, it’s bad news. Social Security checks are frozen and the income from savings many depended on is low as well. (Jennifer Rubin, 10/15)
Los Angeles Times:
Planned Parenthood Wisely Moves On
Planned Parenthood was right to stop taking reimbursement for donating fetal tissue to research programs, but not because anyone has proven that the organization did anything wrong. (10/15)
The Washington Post:
Paid Family Leave Is No Pipe Dream
Tuesday’s Democratic presidential debate featured quite a few ambitious proposals: free college for all, reducing income inequality, breaking up the big banks, moving the United States to a 100 percent clean electric grid. Some of the items on this wish list would be expensive and extremely challenging to carry out. Some might be pipe dreams. Here’s one that isn’t either of those: paid family leave. (Catherine Rampell, 10/15)
The New England Journal of Medicine:
Improving Value in Health Care — Against The Annual Physical
Eliminating the annual physical might appear contradictory to our health care system's increased attention to prevention. Indeed, Medicare just began reimbursing for the annual wellness exam in 2011. But it is evidence-based prevention that's key, and the annual physical is not evidence-based: research has demonstrated both its minimal benefit and potential harms. We believe it's time to act on this evidence and stop wasting precious primary care time by having a third of the adult population come in for such visits. Eliminating coverage for annual physicals, shifting our approach to preventive care delivery, and creating and reimbursing for a visit whose sole goal is to establish primary care relationships are key first steps to move us forward. (Ateev Mehrotra and Allan Prochazka, 10/15)
The New England Journal of Medicine:
Toward Trusting Therapeutic Relationships — In Favor Of The Annual Physical
Continued enthusiasm among both patients and physicians for the annual physical (also known as the periodic health examination) despite the dearth of hard evidence for its benefit raises the question of what drives its persistent appeal. Educational efforts and financial incentives that encourage screening and prevention certainly contribute, but most evidence-based screening can be done without a specific annual physician visit. Perhaps the answer lies in the less commoditized aspect of primary care — people's desire or need to establish and maintain a close, trusting relationship with the doctor they consider their personal physician. (Allan H. Goroll, 10/15)