Month: March 2015

Forbes: Latest Florida Proposal Is Still Obamacare

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By Nic Horton, Jonathan Ingram, and Josh Archambault—  Mr. Horton is a Policy Impact Specialist, Mr. Ingram is Research Director, and Mr. Archambault a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Government Accountability.

The Florida hospital lobby is persistent, to say the least. Barely two years after the Florida Legislature defeated Obamacare Medicaid welfare expansion, the hospital lobbyists are back at it, rolling out yet another Obamacare expansion plan, this time with the help of local chambers of commerce and other groups. The hospitals’ new coalition even has a clever name for itself: “A Healthy Florida Works.”

These actions have prompted some speculation that Florida lawmakers may flip flop on their principled opposition to this massive expansion of Medicaid welfare. Insiders are also reporting that the hospitals are preparing to dump even more money and resources into lobbying for Obamacare expansion—on top of the more than 250 lobbyists hospitals already deploy to Tallahassee every year.

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In the past, lawmakers have taken a thoughtful, careful approach to the Medicaid expansion question. After setting up a special committee to study every aspect of the issue and gathering all the facts, they rightly rejected every effort to implement it – even when that meant standing up to a wavering Republican governor, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and the full force of the Obamacare lobby. Continue reading →

Two Memos On Bad Health Care Proposals

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downloadFGA Action recently published two memos on bad health care proposals in two states — Arkansas and Montana.

The Arkansas memo focuses on SB828, a bill that would delegate broad policy-making authority to state bureaucrats and allow them to pursue 1332 waivers:

Senate Bill 828 gives the executive branch virtually unlimited authority with no meaningful legislative oversight. Most disturbing is the fact that some of the bill’s defenders have falsely said that the bill actually requires legislative approval. Sadly, the bill’s express language confirms this is not the case.

Senate Bill 828 provides that “any waiver submitted [by the governor] under this section shall have legislative approval” to implement those waivers.6 The bill does not say that waivers shall require legislative approval, but that they shall be deemed to have already received legislative approval.

You can read the full SB828 memo here.

Continue reading →

Forbes: AR’s Private Option Architect Hopes To Revive The State’s Failed Obamacare Medicaid Experiment

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By Nic Horton, Jonathan Ingram and Josh Archambault.  Mr. Horton is a policy impact specialist, Mr. Ingram is research director, and Mr. Archambault a senior fellow at the Foundation for Government Accountability.

Earlier this session, Arkansas lawmakers took an important first step in rolling back its disastrous Obamacare expansion. The legislature passed Act 46, which requires the Arkansas Department of Human Services to eliminate the Obamacare expansion by December 31, 2016. But a new bill proposed by one of the chief legislative architects of the failed Private Option experiment would reverse that progress and cement Obamacare into state law forever.

Days until the Private option is scheduled to end. 

motionmailapp.com

Continue reading →

FGA: Section 1332 Waivers, The ObamaCare Straightjacket

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FGA-Logo-2014On March 12, the Foundation for Government Accountability published “The ObamaCare Straightjacket: Section 1332 Waivers Are a Fool’s Errand, Not an Escape Hatch.”

The report is coauthored by FGA’s Jonathan Ingram and Nic Horton. Here’s an excerpt:

State lawmakers across the country are looking for an escape hatch from ObamaCare. A number of health care consultants have recommended Section 1332 waivers as a cure for ObamaCare’s biggest problems, promising that states will gain unprecedented flexibility to implement innovative, state-led reforms. This is a dangerous idea.

Instead of an innovative escape hatch from ObamaCare, Section 1332 waivers create a stranglehold on state-led reform initiatives. Lawmakers exploring these waivers under the false promise of “flexibility” will be disappointed. After all, Washington bureaucrats hold all the cards and they are interested in only one thing: protecting and expanding ObamaCare.

These waivers will only make ObamaCare’s impact on states worse, not better. States would be required to provide benefits at least as generous as ObamaCare, cap cost sharing at least as low as ObamaCare, and cover at least as many people as ObamaCare. Worse yet, experimenting with these waivers would put state taxpayers at risk for cost overruns for federal programs.

Section 1332 is not an escape hatch from ObamaCare. As the Obama administration itself stresses, it is a backdoor to implement even more liberal welfare policies.

To read the full paper, click here.

Forbes: There’s No Magic Pot Of Obamacare Medicaid Expansion Money

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By Nic Horton, Jonathan Ingram and Josh Archambault — Mr. Horton is Policy Impact Specialist, Mr. Ingram is Research Director, and Mr. Archambault is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Government Accountability.

A recent report from the Congressional Research Service (CRS) confirms what many policy experts have known for some time: states that reject Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion aren’t sending that Medicaid expansion money to other states. Instead, that money is simply never spent.

This revelation is important because numerous governors and state lawmakers from across the country have used this argument to justify their support for expanding Medicaid through Obamacare. However, as CRS succinctly explains, these arguments are entirely frivolous.

There’s No Fixed Pot of Obamacare Medicaid Money

Politicians have made the case for Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion based on the false idea that rejecting Medicaid expansion will send their states’ shares of Obamacare money to other states.

Governor John Kasich (R-OH), for example, has repeatedly claimed that rejecting Medicaid expansion would send Ohio’s ‘Medicaid expansion money’ to states like California. These false sentiments have been echoed repeatedly in Missouri, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming– just to name a few. Obamacare advocates promise that Medicaid expansion won’t increase federal spending, but will instead simply ‘bring back’ their own federal tax dollars.

The new CRS report explains that this claim is bogus: Continue reading →