There’s a lot to absorb in Wednesday’s opinion, but I can’t get past this analysis: Why would Congress have inserted the phrase “established by the State under [42 U.S.C. § 18031]” if it intended to refer to Exchanges created by a state or by HHS? But defendants [the government] provide a plausible and persuasive answer: […]
Archive | Health Care
Senator Johnson’s ObamaCare Lawsuit
In tomorrow’s WSJ, Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) has an op-ed explaining a new lawsuit he is filing against the Obama Administration’s implementation of the PPACA. Specifically, this lawsuit targets a rule by the federal Office of Personnel Management that allows the federal government to subsidize health insurance for members of Congress and some legislative staff. According […]
Open Thread on Personal Experiences With the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare)
Before posting about my experiences trying to get health insurance for a family member for whom I have a power of attorney, I want to ask VC readers about their personal experiences (and those of their family members). I want to hear both positive and negative experiences. For example, who had no health insurance before […]
The Oregon Medicaid Experiment and New Possibilities for Quasi-Experiments
Jonathan Adler has already noted the new article in Science using data from Oregon’s Medicaid experiment. It found that expanding Medicaid led to a 41% increase in visits to the emergency room, including increases in visits for conditions that would be better treated in a primary care setting. Here is the abstract: In 2008, Oregon […]
Medicaid Expansion Increases Emergency Room Visits
One of the arguments made in favor of measures to expand health insurance coverage, including the Medicaid expansion, was that the lack of insurance coverage leads many individuals to seek medical treatment in emergency rooms, and that this results both in higher health care costs and in cost-shifting, as the uninsured may be unable to […]
Wonkblog’s “Policy Lie of the Year”
Wonkblog has published it’s third annual “Wonky” awards, which “outstanding achievements — and spectacular disasters — in policy wonkery.” Some of the awards may surprise, but the “Wonky” for “policy lie of the year” was somewhat predictable: “Obama’s “If you like your plan, you can keep it” line. Here’s the explanation: President Obama […]
Brain dead is dead
The recent case of Jahi McMath, a 13-year-old declared dead after a routine operation went wrong, raises the issue whether family members can mandate care when their relative is brain dead. The simple answer is No. In the US, brain death is usually treated conclusively as death. Thus, a family member of a dead person […]
Justice Sotomayor Enjoins Enforcement of Contraception Mandate
Last night, before heading to Times Square for the New Year’s festivities, Justice Sonia Sotomayor granted a request for a stay of enforcement of the “contraception mandate” against several Catholic organizations. Here’s the order and more from SCOTUSBlog and the AP. In other pending cases, injunctions pending appeal were granted by split panels of the […]
Upcoming Heritage Foundation Event on Our Book A Conspiracy Against Obamacare
By Ilya Somin on December 30, 2013 11:20 am in Federalism, Health Care, Individual Mandate, Uncategorized
On January 7, co-bloggers Randy Barnett, Orin Kerr, and I will be speaking at an upcoming event at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, DC on our recently published book A Conspiracy Against Obamacare: The Volokh Conspiracy and the Health Care Case, which details ours and the VC’s role in developing the arguments in the Supreme […]
Politifact’s “Lie of the Year” – Part Deux
Avik Roy writes on how Politifact’s assessment of the “if you like your plan, you can keep it” promise went from 100% true to half-true to a “pants on fire” lie to the “lie of the year.” The column is fairly devastating by itself, but then Politifact’s Angie Holan, who authored some of the relevant […]
Ohio Supreme Court Upholds Medicaid Expansion
Shortly before the holiday the Ohio Supreme Court rejected a challenge to Governor John Kasich’s decision to accept Medicaid expansion under the PPACA. This was a controversial decision within the Governor’s party, and prompted a lawsuit. The plaintiffs, six state legislators and two anti-abortion groups, argued that the state could not accept Medicaid expansion without […]
Yet Another ObamaCare Delay (Again)
The Washington Post reports: At midnight Monday, the official deadline arrives for Americans to sign up through the new federal health insurance exchange for health plans that begin Jan. 1. But, without any public announcement, Obama administration officials have changed the rules so that people will have an extra day to enroll, according to two individuals with […]
Yet Another ObamaCare Delay
This week, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced yet another delay in ObamaCare implementation. This time the Administration is delaying enforcement of the individual mandate (i.e. not assessing the mandate penalty) on those who had health insurance plans canceled for failure to meet the minimum coverage requirements of the law. As Nicholas Bagley explains, there is […]
ObamaCare and the Silence of the Liberals
The Hudson Institute’s Christopher DeMuth writes in the Weekly Standard on the practical reality of ObamaCare as it is being implemented. Obamacare will never achieve its promise of affordable health care for all paid for with improved efficiencies in health insurance and medical care. The initial troubles and compromises have revealed that the program improves “access” mainly […]
Politifact’s “Lie of the Year”
“If you like your plan, you can keep your plan” is Politifact’s 2013 “Lie of the Year.” That’s interesting, especially because Politifact previously rated this promise as “true” (when made during the 2008 campaign) and “half-true” (when made in 2009), and claimed challenges to this pledge in 2012 were “false” (here and here). Now, of […]