State-by-State Resources on Obamacare’s Effects
As Families USA released a compilation this morning of state-by-state statistics showing the “benefits” of the law, I wanted to make sure you were aware of the following studies and sources that show its true effects:
- The Heritage Foundation has a very helpful report indicating the impact of the health care law’s Medicare Advantage cuts, with details broken out by state (and by congressional district), that can be found here.
- The Finance and Energy and Commerce Committee staffs compiled a state-by-state report outlining new unfunded mandates totaling at least $118 billion thanks to the health care law. Keep in mind also that these numbers may be UNDER-estimates, as definitions of income in the statute mean many more individuals could be dumped into Medicaid than previously contemplated, and because the Administration’s stated effort to impose new rules on Medicaid physician payment levels would impose yet another unfunded mandate on states.
- NFIB has compiled state-by-state data illustrating how most small businesses WILL NOT be eligible for tax credits, thanks to all the various bureaucratic hoops firms must go through to obtain federal subsidies. (On a related note, this morning’s Associated Press article includes a quote admitting that “the longer this [tax credit] has been out in the marketplace, the less appealing it’s been to small business owners.”)
- The Center for Studying Health System Change released a study detailing how many states with the largest Medicaid expansions do not have adequate numbers of physicians willing to treat Medicaid patients – meaning a Medicaid card will NOT mean access to care in those areas.
- The Administration has a list of the 1,040 firms – covering over 2.6 million individuals – who received waivers from the law’s mandates. The Administration (surprisingly) has yet to release a state-by-state breakdown of where these individuals reside – but such information may be disclosed in the coming weeks.
- The Administration also has a list of states that have applied for waivers from the medical loss ratio requirements – and several more states have indicated their intent to apply in the coming months. Individuals in states obtaining waivers will not receive the law’s “consumer protections,” although they may be more likely to keep their current coverage (at least for a few more years).
- The Administration has released state-by-state enrollment numbers for the new federal high-risk pool program – and the numbers fall far short of the 375,000 enrollment predicted by the Medicare actuary. Many states have enrollment lagging in double digits – Minnesota’s pool has only 29 enrollees, and North Dakota’s but five – while even the largest state, California, enrolled only 706 people with pre-existing conditions as of February.