"What we've learned through the course of this program is that this is really not a sensible way for the healthcare system to be run."
That was Gary Cohen, director of the Department of Health and Human Services' Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, talking. He was specifically responding to the apparently surprising need to halt enrollments in a program designed as a temporary bridge for people with preexisting conditions who couldn't wait until the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare) fully kicks in next year. The program was allocated $5 billion, but some estimate it will take $40 billion to fund the effort.
Such surprises are becoming routine. The New York Times has reported that many small and mid-size firms may be opting out of Obamacare entirely. "The new healthcare law created powerful incentives for smaller employers to self-insure," Deborah J. Chollet of the Mathematica Policy Research told the paper. "This trend could destabilize small-group insurance markets and erode protections provided by the Affordable Care Act."
It turns out that Obamacare actually makes self-insurance less of a gamble because you can always throw workers on public exchanges without penalty. Naturally, the administration's response is to look for ways to tighten the ratchet and make self-insurance harder. It's a typical response. The shortcomings of a wildly ambitious law only justify more regulatory strong-arming.
As Yuval Levin of the Ethics and Public Policy Center notes, the NYT never paused to ask why it's OK that "a design flaw in the law somehow empowers" regulators to punish private employers. But this is typical of so much coverage of Obamacare. It is just taken for granted that thing must be made to work.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
