This Week’s Health Policy News Roundup Curated by Jane M. Orient, M.D.
According to AMA Morning Rounds, a Commonwealth Fund survey found that because of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the number of Americans struggling with medical costs has dropped. The proportion of U.S. adults who skipped or delayed medical care because of cost fell from 43 percent in 2012 to 36 percent last year. http://medicaleconomics.modernmedicine.com/medical-economics/news/end-medicaid-parity-will-be-costly-pcps
“We don’t know yet that the law is improving people’s health,” said Sara Collins, a vice president at Commonwealth. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/15/upshot/financial-distress-connected-to-medical-bills-shows-a-decline-the-first-in-years.html?ref=health&_r=1&abt=0002&abg=1
A big winner is House Speaker John Boehner, whose current investment holdings include a number of stocks benefiting from Obamacare in a total portfolio estimated at between $3.5 and $5 million in current market value. http://www.wnd.com/2015/01/boehner-profits-from-obamacare-stocks/#ZdDIQk36iJTrds8R.99
Peter Schweizer, in his 2011 book on Washington corruption, Throw Them All Out: How Politicians and Their Friends Get Rich Off Insider Stock Tips, Land Deals, and Cronyism that Would Send the Rest of Us to Prison, writes that on Dec 10, 2008, Boehner bought numerous health insurance company stocks, including tens of thousands of dollars in Cardinal Health, Cigna, Wellpoint, Amgen, Johnson & Johnson, Forest Labs, Covidien, Pfizer, and CareFusion.
ObamaCare has had a number of Solyndras, writes Stanley Feld, M.D.: Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS), Healthcare,gov, and CoOpportunity Health. The losers are the taxpayers. http://stanleyfeldmdmace.typepad.com/repairing_the_healthcare_/2015/01/obamacares-solyndras.html
Individual taxpayers will soon find out that they didn’t win as much as they thought. As many as half of the 6.8 million ObamaCare subsidy recipients may owe a refund to the IRS, estimates H&R Block. http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2558106
The IRS has issued 21 pages of instructions concerning “shared responsibility payments.” http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/21-pages-of-obamacare-tax-instructions-irs-demands-shared-responsibility-payment/article/2558368
Workers who do have coverage may be spending 28 percent of their paycheck to obtain it (about $16,000). http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2558356
Other losers will be 36 states that use private managed-care plans to provide some Medicaid services. They face $15 billion in ACA levies over 10 years. http://www.forbes.com/sites/gracemarieturner/2015/01/05/obamacare-slaps-states-with-15-billion-in-new-costs/?mc_cid=ba39c80d39&mc_eid=cfafdebde6
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via @WSJ At our practice, patients pay in cash and prices are lower http://t.co/N0W8jc1OJH @FreeMarketCare @SurgeryCenterOK
— Brandon Dutcher (@brandondutcher) January 15, 2015
