Should former Vice President Joe Biden be wearing a bike helmet? Did the risks of former President George H.W. Bush parachuting our of an airplane at age 75 vastly exceed any conceivable benefits? Should I follow Ben Stiller’s suggestion to get a prostate specific antigen (PSA) test? How should we even think about such everyday risks or ...

There is a huge public debate whether the economic costs of actions designed to arrest the spread of COVID-19 are worth the potential health benefits achieved. Literally trillions of dollars in lost economic output and uncounted lives hang in the balance. No rational discussion of this weighty issue is possible without first having a ...

TLDR: All told, Americans cross-subsidize health care for unauthorized immigrants to the tune of $17.0 billion a year. Federal taxpayers provided $10.0 billion in subsidized care to unauthorized immigrants in 2019. The total amounts to $1,615 per unauthorized immigrant, imposing a burden of $51 per U.S. resident. Current federal policy is ...

In the first part of this series, I hope I convinced most readers that ifAmericans want responsible national health insurance, BernieCare--the Medicare for All plan supported by Senator Sanders--would represent a huge step in the wrong direction. Theannual hidden costs of BernieCare--includingdeadweight losses, avoidable waste, rationing ...

For more than a century, health reformers have lamented the inability of American policymakers to enact what for much of this period of debate was called "national health insurance." After Hillarycare crashed and burned in 1994, the termquickly fell out of favor 1. But before it did, conservative market reformers at American Enterprise ...

As Margaret Thatcher famously said"The trouble with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money." While some progressives such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are seeking punishingly high marginal tax rates (70%!) on the wealthy to bankroll their big government schemes, others such as would-be presidential candidate ...

Longtime readers know I have been deeply skeptical of widespread claims that Obamacare has saved tens of thousands of lives per year. As I previously explained here and here about Obamacare in general and here and here about Obamacare's Medicaid expansion specifically, the methodological limitations of the various studies on which such claims ...

Despite rumors of a revolution among a small group of Democrats seeking to derail it, Nancy Pelosi appears to be on track to be re-elected as House Speaker when the House reconvenes in January. I am no fan of Nancy Pelosi'sin part because if there is any single individual who can be credited with the passage of Obamacare in 2010, it is she. At ...

A few weeks ago, Forbes Policy Editor Avik Roy proposed scrapping Obamacare's premium tax--a monstrosity expected to increase health insurance premiums by $261 billion over the next decade even while delivering only $161 billion in net revenues to the U.S. Treasury. Although it may be a delusional hope, it would be wonderful if Judge ...

What does it take to rid Americans of a lemon law? For thethird time now since its passage, a central element ofObamacare has been ruled unconstitutional . In the civics texts I learned back in the 1960's, such a law would long ago have been deep-sixed, sent back to Congress to either be fixed or permanently discarded. Yet here we are--a ...

Judging from all the cheering going on among Obamacare enthusiasts–including the usual suspects such as Paul Krugman as well as the president himself–you would think Obamacare had bent the cost curve. This should not be a surprise given thatPresident Obamapointed out 6 years ago,“Every single good idea to bend the cost curve and start ...

The Wall Street Journal has an in-depth report that in today’s print version is titled “Despite Federal Health Law, Illegal Immigrants Get Care.” The online version makes the same point “Illegal Immigrants Get Public Health Care, Despite Federal Policy.” I’m obviously not responsible for crafting headlines at that paper, but it seems to me ...

Winter Storm Jonas buried chances of a House vote this week to override President Obama’s veto of a measure to repeal huge swaths of Obamacare. The House vote is now expected during the week of Feb. 1. Admittedly, no one expects the veto override effort to succeed. Regrettably, Obamacarecannot be fully replaced until its namesake is replaced, ...

Readers can decide whether this is good news or bad news: health costs likely exceeded $4.9 trillion in 2015 . Health policy wonks may scratch their heads at this figure, since the latest official figure released by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services last monthpegged 2014 health spending at a nice round $3.0 trillion. However, my ...

There’s good news on the healthcare inflation front. The annual rate of healthcare inflation is at a 6 decade low .
H/t to fellow Forbes contributor, Meghan Fitzgerald for the idea behind this chart.
That’s true whether we measure it using the widely used medical CPI (put out monthly by the Bureau of Labor Statistics) or a superior measure ...

Asking whether the Obamacare Cadillac tax will increase worker wages might seem nonsensical on its face. But wait until you hear the answer: yes AND no. Don’t worry: Schrodinger’s cat hasn’t wandered into the thicket of health policy (nor am I channeling my innertwo-handed economist).
It’s a trick question: the answer depends on whether ...

Last week I reported on a fascinating new Wharton School studyof non-poor uninsured people 1.Another revealing finding from that same study highlights a dilemma facing any would-be health reformer: even before Obamacare, less than onequarter of health costs for uninsured persons were paid for out of pocket, regardless of family income ...

he latest KFF/HRET Employer Health Benefits Survey figures have arrived with yet more bad news about Obamacare. Obamacare’s fiercest advocates have been quick to trumpet a purported slowdown in health spending and way too quick to assign Obamacare the credit for this. They’ve failed to acknowledge two inconvenient truths. The slowdown began ...

The Census Bureau has finally released definitive statistics on the number of uninsured in 2014 and the news is not good for Obamacare (unless, of course, you have abysmally low expectations for government performance). The population-wide uninsured rate fell from 14.5% in calendar year 2013 to 11.7% in 2014. The total number of uninsured ...

WASHINGTON, DC – SEPTEMBER 04: U.S. President Barack Obama looks on during a bilateral meeting in the Oval Office of the White House September 4, 2015 in Washington, D.C. The President and the King were expected to discuss various issues including joint security and counter-terrorism efforts According to Roger Cohen, in a recent New York ...

Here we go again. What is it about Obamacare that inspires its fiercest supporters the cherry-pick evidence as proof it is "working"? The latest entrant in this never-ending contest is Matt Phillips, who trumpets the news "Obamacare fixed U.S. healthcare inflation." If true, this would be no mean feat since as we'll see, medical inflation ...

Everywhere I look, it seems like someone is saying Obamacare is "working" (Steven Rattner), " working better than intended" (President Obama), " working better than any of us imagined" (Gail Collins) or even " working incredibly well" (Jonathan Chait). Given that Obamacare has failed in virtually all the major promises made for it, it ...

As the SCOTUS oral arguments in King v. Burwell draw near, the cacophony from liberal outlets is nearly deafening. The plaintiffs' position is "absurd ," they cry. Congress "never contemplated withholding premium subsidies" in noncooperative states. Even the Obama administration argued that "it would have been perverse for Senators concerned ...

Are free annual checkups for adults good public policy? Not according to Al Lewis, co-author of Cracking Health Costs and Vik Khanna (Lewis's co-author Surviving Workplace Wellness co-author. They have taken to the Huffington Post to rebuke Republicans for their failure to attack Obamacare on this ...

President Obama's reaction to yesterday House vote to repeal Obamacare was astonishing. "This is working not just as intended, but better than intended" he declared at a White House meeting with 10 people purported to have benefited from the law. Call me gob-smacked. President Obama either has an exceedingly poor memory or is (yet again) ...

In his State of the Union message, President Obama gave a full-throated defense of what he called "middle class economics": That's what middle-class economics is — the idea that this country does best when everyone gets their fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules." Despite this president's ...

Barely a month after Obamacare's passage, then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared "We see it as an entrepreneurial bill. A bill that says to someone, if you want to be creative and be a musician or whatever, you can leave your work, focus on your talent, your skill, your passion, your aspirations because you will have health care ...

Steven Brill's 60 Minutes interview this week was a fascinating amalgam of brilliant insights and seriously flawed policy advice. His latest hefty tome, America's Bitter Pill, weighs in at 528 pages and was only released on January 5. So I will venture a guess that most readers have not (and may not ever) read it even though an Obamacare ...

"Safer Cars Lead to Drop in Fatalities" trumpets a recent Wall Street Journal headline. Not to be a curmudgeon, but whether this is good news or bad news depends on what it cost to achieve this reduction in mortality. No one disputes that saving lives is a very good thing, but even the richest nation in the world lacks infinite resources. We ...

C-SPAN junkies were treated to a 4-hour spectacle yesterday as MIT professor Jonathan Gruber navigated the treacherous waters of a hearing before chairman Darrell Issa's House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. According to Politico's David Nather, "Gruber survives. He squirmed. He dodged. He apologized. But Republicans barely laid a ...

Anyone who has listened to the Gruber tapes has heard Prof. Gruber's repeated references to the "three-legged stool" that forms the core of Obamacare.1 However, those who pay close attention to his remarks–variously characterized as "arrogant" (Charles Krauthammer), " careless" (New York Times), "dumb" (Ezra Klein) " ill-advised and ...

Democrats took a serious one-two punch last week. First, they suffered their second consecutive mid-term "wave" election on Tuesday, losing the Senate in the process. Then on Friday, the Supreme Court announced it would review yet another Obamacare case that Obamacare champion Ron Pollack of Families USA said represented "the most ...

Remember this categorical assurance from President Obama?
"We'll lower premiums by up to $2,500 for a typical family per year. . . . We'll do it by the end of my first term as president of the United States"
OK, it's probably a little unfair to take some June 2008 campaign "puffery" literally–even though it was reiterated by candidate ...

Remember this categorical assurance from President Obama?
"I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits."
This was no casual, throw-away campaign promise. The pledge was made on September 9, 2009 in his health speech before a joint session of Congress. In reality, we have known for years that Obamacare would violate this promise. ...

The majority of Americans who continue to oppose Obamacare should be greatly pleased to learn that the Supreme Court is likely to get a do-over on this misguided and too-often-lawlessly-implemented law. Ours is a nation of fresh starts and second chances: it is only fitting that SCOTUS be handed an opportunity to undo the convoluted, ...

There's been a fierce debate over whether Obamacare has increased health insurance premiums. Progressives have argued Obamacare is working due to modest projected premium increases on the Exchanges for 2015. Conservatives have retorted that "there can be no doubt that health care today is more costly than it would have been without Obamacare." ...

Researchers at the Commonwealth Fund recently asked "have escalating health care costs contributed to the huge economic gap between America's rich and the rest?" Their conclusion? "The evidence, it turns out, is suggestive, but not definitive."
In actuality, I believe a far more definitive conclusion is possible. The best available ...

The New York Times put out a major piece last week claiming that Medicare was no longer such a budget-buster. Would that this were true. A little perspective is in order since there are a few things the Times reporters left out of their account. The reality is that the entitlements problem–which was a crisis before President Obama took ...

Modern Healthcare has put President Obama at the top of its annual list of the 100 most influential people in healthcare. This ranking is based on the opinions of 31,000 readers who submitted ballots (weighted 50%) and the magazine's senior editors (weighted 50%). The magazine recognized that "Obama is poised to lose influence in Washington" ...

I appreciate Prof. Reinhardt’s thoughtful and civil response1 to my postsuggesting that Sally Pipes may be right in her claim that employer-sponsored health insurance (ESI) being less expensive than Medicaid. My argument is that accounting for deadweight losses tips the scales back in favor of ESI. Prof. Reinhardt concedes that deadweight ...

Princeton health economist Uwe Reinhardt this week posteda very informative andentertaining (no surprise there) response to Sally Pipes’ claim that Employer Health Insurance: A Bargain Compared to Government-Sponsored Coverage(read: Medicare and Medicaid). It’s hard to disagree with most of what Prof. Reinhardt has offered in his rebuttal. But ...

If being uninsured were no big deal, presumably Obamacare never would have been enacted. The whole premise of the law is that being uninsured is a bad thing, so it’s well worth wielding a few carrots and sticks to get people into coverage. Unfortunately, Obamacare has had to break more than a few eggs along the way. One of the ...

I’ve said it before. I’ll say it again. Obamacare has become the poster child for bait-and-switch (no matter how much administration spokespeople might deny it). The evidence is piling up so thick and fast I don’t see how any honest American could deny this ugly truth. Here’s just three of the latest examples1:

Illegal Subsidies on ...

There’s been quite a bit of bad news about Obamacare in recent weeks:

a SCOTUS smackdown on the contraception mandate overreach,
the possibility of an even more momentous court decision being handed down next week,
worrying signs of more rate shock to face Exchange plan buyers next fall,with many states seeing double-digit ...

If there were a Nobel Prize for truth-twisting, Paul Krugman surely would be heavily favored to win. His most recent blog post offers ample supporting evidence for this proposition. He claims that critics of Obamacare are zero for six in their “predictions of Obamacare doom.” But the reality is that Prof. Krugman himself is at best batting 2 for ...

The enrollment period for Obamacare Exchange sign-ups has officially ended–unless, of course, you are one of many given a reprieve in the last furious round of unilateral (arguably illegal) administrative changes to the law (as fellow Forbes contributor Scott Gottlieb has pointed out, ObamaCare enrollment never truly closes). The LA Times, ...

March Madness has begun as states embark on the final two weeks to enroll people on the Obamacare Exchanges before the March 31 deadline. Notwithstanding the nearly two dozen administrative delays and changes to the law made to date, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told Congress on March 12 that the Obama administration ...

Another day, another delay. Not content with nearly two dozen unilateral changes to the health care law–many of quite dubious legality–the administration yesterday announced yet another delay to Obamacare.1This newest delay will permit members of non-qualified health plans in the non-group market to keep them for another two years (through ...

In this week’s Economix column, Princeton economist Uwe Reinhardt suggests that the real health care ‘war’ on the young is being waged by employers. This echoes a rhetorical query voiced atAustin Frakt’s The Incidental Economist blog last November: Where is the outrage over employer-sponsored coverage in the ‘rate shock’ debate? As Prof. ...

For many months we have known that Obamacare’s modified community rating rules will unfairly tax young males at far higher rates than everyone else in order to subsidize older people who generally have higher incomes than the young males expected to provide these cross-subsidies. My Forbes colleague Avik Roy has aptly described this as a “war ...