Among President Obama’s broken promises, there is this gem of June 15, 2009: “No matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise: if you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period.” That promise helped sway the American Medical Association to back the president’s Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare. But the AMA endorsement…

Members of the House of Representatives are scheduled to vote Thursday to repeal all of Obamacare. Given that the House voted to repeal the law last year, some commentators and observers have questioned the need for another repeal vote. However, the scandals coming to light over the last week perfectly make the case for why Congress must eradicate the law from the…

Obamacare is in trouble, a victim of its own complexity. Enacted in 2010 as a 2,700 page bill, the law called for the creation of more than 150 new federal boards, commissions, panels and programs. It has spawned more than 20,000 additional pages of regulation so far—and that’s after only three years of an eight-year implementation schedule. Welcome to the…

Tucked away in the president’s latest budget was a recommendation to delay scheduled cuts in payments to hospitals that treat large numbers of the uninsured patients and therefore provide a disproportionate amount of uncompensated care. The cuts in Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) payments were enacted under Obamacare, and the call to postpone them constitutes…

Pressure is mounting on Florida lawmakers — who have resisted expanding a dysfunctional program — to agree to the Medicaid expansion included in Obamacare. Many of them are justifiably concerned about the long-term costs and consequences of “super-sizing” a program that already crowds out other state budget priorities, distorts the health-care system and delivers…

Even after the Supreme Court struck down a requirement of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that required states to expand Medicaid coverage to low-income individuals,* states still seemed to have a juicy carrot to do so. That’s because 100% of the extra cost for states will be met by Uncle Sam for the first 3 years, starting in 2014. And although the federal share of costs…

OK, Obamacare. Up on the table. It’s time for your annual physical. Three years old, eh? Well, with any luck, you’ll leave here with a clean bill of uh-oh. I can see one problem already. Have you seen these tax hikes? Let’s see — five, 10, 15, 18 tax hikes in all. That hardly seems wise, considering the fragile health of the economy, but there they are. There’s the tax…

Ask any pollster. Distrust of the government in Washington stands at unprecedentedly high levels. Between three-quarters (Pew) and four-fifths (Gallup) of Americans now instinctively question the veracity of promises from politicians and government agencies. Their frustration with all things governmental, in fact, has reached the boiling point. According to one recent…

The debate about health care in America unfortunately obscures some important areas of agreement. But the noise also masks some fundamental differences of opinion about the role of government in health care. Let's start with areas of agreement. Polls show clearly that most Americans believe that every lawful resident of this country should be able to count on some basic…

‘For every problem,” H.L. Mencken wrote, “there is a solution which is simple, clean and wrong.” Enter Obamacare and one of the main ways that it purports to reduce the number of uninsured: putting more people on Medicaid. S.C. legislators are being pressured to do just that. The House has rejected the idea, and Gov. Nikki Haley has vowed to veto it, but it’s not dead.…

“Get Cash Back Now!” Such signs are common in car dealerships. Salesmen always try to heighten the sense of urgency: “Buy today, before the offer expires, and you can get a rebate or a zero percent interest rate on your car loan.” But there are some things a salesman isn’t likely to tell you. Like how much they’ve marked up the car’s price to cover that rebate. Or the…

To extend health coverage to millions of currently uninsured Americans, the architects of Obamacare relied heavily on the idea that states would open up their already strained Medicaid programs to tens of millions of new people. But expanding Medicaid is risky business. Not only can it lead to lower quality of care for people within the program, it can also risk busting…

At last count, 26 states have rejected the idea of setting up health insurance exchanges that are part of the Affordable Care Act — a continued blow to the Obama administration’s scrambled efforts to get the nationwide exchange program up and running. The Health and Human Services Department recently rebranded the exchanges, calling them “marketplaces.” But that hasn’t…

The first reason states should opt out of the expansion is it's bad welfare policy. While typically considered a health-care program, Medicaid is also America's largest means-tested welfare program. A core principle of welfare policy should be that able-bodied, non-elderly adults receive public assistance only if they are working, preparing for work or actively seeking…

Pressure is mounting on Gov. Scott Walker to expand Medicaid as part of the Affordable Care Act. Obamacare proponents say the expansion is a no-brainer - that the federal government will pick up the tab and bring even more doctors into the struggling health care program for the poor. But this deal is too good to be true. The proposed Medicaid expansion would likely end…