Undoing health law could have messy ripple effects
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In this March 21, 1996, file photo, Christine Ferguson, left, talks to reporters as then-Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney watches at the Statehouse in Boston. It sounds like a silver lining. Even if the Supreme Court overturns President Barack Obama's health care law, employers can keep offering popular coverage for the young adult children of their workers. But here's the catch: The parents' taxes would go up. That's only one of the messy potential ripple effects when the Supreme Court delivers its verdict on the Affordable Care Act in June 2012. The law affects most major components of the U.S. health care system in its effort to extend coverage to millions of uninsured people. The nation is so divided that states led by Republicans are largely unprepared to carry out critical requirements such as creating insurance markets. "At the end of the day, I don't think any of the major players in the health insurance industry or the provider community really wants to see the whole thing overturned," said Ferguson, a health policy expert who was commissioner of public health in Massachusetts when Romney was governor.
WASHINGTON — It sounds like a silver lining. Even if the Supreme Court overturns President Barack Obama's health care law, employers can keep offering popular coverage for the young adult children of their workers.
But here's the catch: The parents' taxes would go up.
That's only one of the messy potential ripple effects when the Supreme Court delivers its verdict on the Affordable Care Act this month. The law affects most major components of the U.S. health care system in its effort to extend coverage to millions of uninsured people.
Because the legislation is so complicated, an orderly unwinding would prove difficult if it were overturned entirely or in part.
Better Medicare prescription benefits, currently saving hundreds of dollars for older people with high drug costs, would be suspended. Ditto for preventive care with no co-payments, now available to retirees and working families alike.
Partially overturning the law could leave hospitals, insurers and other service providers on the hook for tax increases and spending cuts without the law's promise of more paying customers to offset losses.
If the law is upheld, other kinds of complications could result.
The nation is so divided that states led by Republicans are largely unprepared to carry out critical requirements such as creating insurance markets. Things may not settle down.
"At the end of the day, I don't think any of the major players in the health insurance industry or the provider community really wants to see the whole thing overturned," said Christine Ferguson, a health policy expert who was commissioner of public health in Massachusetts when Mitt Romney was governor.
While it's unclear how the justices will rule, oral arguments did not go well for the Obama administration. The central issue is whether the government can require individuals to have health insurance and fine them if they don't.
That mandate takes effect in 2014, at the same time that the law would prohibit insurance companies from denying coverage to people with existing health problems. Most experts say the coverage guarantee would balloon costs unless virtually all people joined the insurance pool.
Jun 16, 2012 at 8:49 a.m.
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TTT- Sources please.
Jun 14, 2012 at 7:19 a.m.
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68% of Americans still want to repeal that liberal complete control of your life monstrosity.
I'd like to repeal all and any policy and executive order Obama perpetrated on the American public. Could we really wake up and recover from this 4 year nightmare?
I say...Yes, we did with Carter.
Jun 14, 2012 at 12:17 a.m.
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Motorman the idea behind social security and medicare failed when the number of workers supporting those collecting shrank in size; not sustainable. You can pretend defense spending caused the issue, but that will not fix it.
Jun 13, 2012 at 6:26 p.m.
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*Did you ever wonder why we have social security? Its because we needed and still need it.*
It's funny that we didn't need it until the 1930s, isn't it? And that no society on Earth needed it until Wilhelmine Germany decided it was necessary?
*Atlas shrugged was a turgid polemic fairy tale*
Dollars to doughnuts you've never read it or any other book that didn't have ads for Sea Monkeys on the back cover.
Jun 13, 2012 at 2:54 p.m.
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That CBO figure is a joke. It presumes that the half trillion in Medicare cuts that the Dems needed to finance ObamaCare will actually be put through. They won't, and everyone knows it, including smart Democrats.
How does anyone with two brain cells know this? Well, because Medicare cuts were promised back in 1996 if the budget wasn't balanced as part of the 1996 budget reconciliation. Because the budget is never balanced, the cuts are always required (Google "Doc Fix".)
Guess who overrides the cuts because they would be harmful to Medicare, thus adding it all to the debt? The same Democrats who promised ANOTHER set of cuts to finance ObamaCare. Guess who signs the overrides? Obama!
Now that leaves you three options:
1. You believe Democrats will cut Medicare to finance ObamaCare because those cuts won't harm Medicare as much as the 1996 cuts, even though ObamaCare's cuts are much larger (i.e. you are an idiot),
2. You are a willing accomplice to purposeful deceit led by Obama and the Democrats, or
3. You are an unwilling ignorant accomplice.
Which one is it? I will be charitable and guess #3.
By the way, you can Google the testimony of the CBO chief admitting that he did not believe the Medicare cuts required by ObamaCare would be enacted. He replies that his modeling is constrained by the presumptions he is given. In other words, if Congress tells him "please model how much ObamaCare will increase the deficit if we find $500 billion at the end of a rainbow and truck it home on unicorns," he would have to take that $500 billion out of the net cost of ObamaCare.
The unicorn scenario and the half trillion in cuts to Medicare are about equally likely.
You would think that being made to look like a fool by the people you get such lame facts from would lead you to question your allegiance to them. Instead, you just line up for more leftist thin gruel of half truths and deceit, all in order not to admit your're wrong.
Soup's on!
Jun 13, 2012 at 12:48 p.m.
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http://money.cnn.com/2011/01/06/news/eco...
Jun 13, 2012 at 12:46 p.m.
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For all of you conservatives who profess to be so fiscally minded..why do you want to repeal the Affordable HealthCare Act when the CBO has already stated repealing it will add to the deficit?
http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-cohn/83...
Jun 12, 2012 at 11:54 p.m.
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Motorman take a few moments and look up the expected costs of societal programs like social security and medicare. Look at what the framers of these programs claimed for costs and compare that to what they really cost. The idea of the program sound could, they always do, but the financial planning for the programs failed. A new program built under these same failed ideas is going to work this time because why, you want it to more than the last time?
Jun 12, 2012 at 3:48 p.m.
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Ronnie Reagan was the one who forced all hospital emergency rooms to treat patients, without regard to their ability to pay. So who pays for thr uninsured who go to the emergency room? I do. Either through higher taxes or higher insurance premiums.
What is Obamacare modeled on? A Republican plan that Willard Romney implemented.
You right wingers need to take a pill or something. You're in favor of higher taxes or insurance payments? For Republican ideas? Take 2 pills.
Jun 12, 2012 at 3:04 p.m.
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motors-"I wonder how many rightwing anti healthcare folks will refuse Medicare medicaid and their free hover round personal mobility unit when the time comes. Come on be true to your ideals and die like a free patriot.... Or more likely not."
That was a stupid comment. If they are going to be forced to pay for it, why wouldn't they use it?? I'm totally against social security--I would do a MUCH better job of managing/investing that money than the government could ever hope to do. If given the chance to opt out, I would do so in a split second and never hit up the government for a dime as far as that program is concerned. But if the government continues to forcibly take my money to "invest" on my behalf, you can bet on it that I'll try to get every dime of my money back from them......
Jun 12, 2012 at 2:18 p.m.
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*I wonder how many rightwing anti healthcare folks will refuse Medicare medicaid and their free hover round personal mobility unit when the time comes. Come on be true to your ideals and die like a free patriot.... Or more likely not.*
If the ACA stands, you won't be there to see any of the pilgrms leaving for Galt's Gulch, having been euthanized by the state due to the tremendous expense of keeping you breathing.
Jun 11, 2012 at 9:06 a.m.
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Wait-I thought Obamacare was really just a student loan program (Oh wait- its this too)?
Jun 11, 2012 at 8:42 a.m.
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http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_c...
Jun 11, 2012 at 7:01 a.m.
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Pigs get fed; hogs get slaughtered. The public sector was already grossly overpaid prior to the onset of the Great Recession in 2008. If the the public sector had at least opted for a pay freeze and not increased property taxes as of 2008, then they would not have brought the wrath of the taxpayer on themselves. Because of their totally out of control greed, including the recall spectacle and associated waste of taxpayer dollars that they caused, public workers are now despised all over the nation.
Jun 11, 2012 at 6:23 a.m.
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We are breathlessly waiting for your lecture Motorman!
Jun 10, 2012 at 7:47 p.m.
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Theone: Nice try but no cigar!!!!!!!!!!!
Jun 10, 2012 at 7:13 p.m.
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"It is best to stop a pending disaster before it becomes a full blown disaster."
Hmmmm...that's not what the Wisconsin voters said on Tuesday....LOL
Jun 10, 2012 at 4:40 p.m.
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It is best to stop a pending disaster before it becomes a full blown disaster.
Jun 10, 2012 at 3:43 p.m.
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"Because the legislation is so complicated..."
It was so complicated that Nancy Pelosi said they had to pass the bill in order to find out what was in it.
The mess for undoing this law will be better than the mess it created in the first place.
Jun 10, 2012 at 12:51 p.m.
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If this "law" is so good for the country why is it that as part of the law the government has or is hiring over 4000 new IRS agents?
Jun 10, 2012 at 12:26 p.m.
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Who needs healthcare? Well, yeah... The Walker/ALEC template for Wisconsin. [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kb62fpsyh... ]
Jun 10, 2012 at 12:20 p.m.
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"The idea for a healthcare plan was not mine alone. The Heritage Foundation - a great conservative think tank - helped on that. I’m told Newt Gingrich, one of the very first people who came up with the idea of an individual mandate, did that years and years ago." - Willard Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachussetts, who ran to the left of Ted Kennedy, remarking on his progressive views and the RomneyCare healthcare mandate.
"I think people recognize that I'm not a partisan Republican — that I'm someone who is moderate, and that my views are progressive." - Willard Mitt Romney
"He was running to the left of Teddy Kennedy in Massachusetts in 1994." - Newt Gingrich on Willard Mitt Romney
"He ran to the left of Ted Kennedy." - Rick Santorum on Willard Mitt Romney
Jun 10, 2012 at 11:50 a.m.
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The states led by Republicans are determined to prove that health care cannot work by being unprepared. The ensuing disaster will "prove" their case.
.
At least to the simple-minded.
Jun 10, 2012 at 11:34 a.m.
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It's not that complicated.
Mitt Romney understands it.
Jun 10, 2012 at 9:05 a.m.
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Liberal media propaganda, nothing more.
Jun 10, 2012 at 9:01 a.m.
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Destroy the whole thing in one fell swoop. Here one day gone the next, cut the loses and damage.
Jun 10, 2012 at 7:03 a.m.
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Or before we discover how much more ithe plan would cost than we thought.
Jun 10, 2012 at 5:59 a.m.
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"Because the legislation is so complicated"
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Is one of the major reasons it should never have passed.
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