In The Spotlight Blog

In the News: Blog 01/8/2014
Innovations and the governments that squash them
Innovation is now the norm in industries, writes Gordon Crovitz in the Wall Street Journal – innovation so fast that it disrupts industries. He mentions how the free maps app on his phone has made the GPS device he bought superfluous. A new book, “Big Bang Disruption,” by Larry Downes and Paul Nunes, points out this happens a lot. As Crovitz writes: “Powerful new technologies like cloud computing and big data allow entrepreneurs to develop products and services that are ‘simultaneously better, cheaper, and more customized,’ Messrs. Downes and Nunes write. ‘This isn't disruptive innovation. It's devastating innovation.’ “Who would have thought that a mobile phone would challenge industries as varied as home phones, video cameras and flashlights? Digital alternatives undermined the business models for travel agents, restaurant guides and newspapers. Even disrupters rapidly get disrupted: Digital videogames decimated the pinball industry, but the market value of Zynga collapsed after consumers abandoned Farmville for the next new game.”
In the News: Blog 01/8/2014
So much for 'affordable'
About four million people have been added to Medicaid, the government-run single-payer health plan for the poor, since Obamacare rolled out in October. Putting people on Medicaid was a big part of how the Affordable Care Act was supposed to extend affordable health coverage. Extending coverage, in turn, was supposed to save money by cutting down on how often uninsured people went to expensive hospital emergency rooms for care instead of going to a doctor. But new findings from a top-notch study in Oregon finds that putting people on Medicaid doesn’t cut down on how often they use costly emergency rooms. It increases it, by about 40 percent. “When you make ER care free to people, they consume more of it. They consume 40 percent more of it," Michael Cannon of the Cato Institute told National Public Radio. “Even as they're consuming more preventive care. And so one of the main arguments for how Obamacare was going to reduce health care costs is just flat out false.”
In the News: Blog 01/6/2014
Why I'm suing over ObamaCare exemptions for Congress
On Monday, Jan. 6, I am filing suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin to make Congress live by the letter of the health-care law it imposed on the rest of America. By arranging for me and other members of Congress and their staffs to receive benefits intentionally ruled out by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the administration has exceeded its legal authority. The president and his congressional supporters have also broken their promise to the American people that ObamaCare was going to be so good that they would participate in it just like everyone else. In truth, many members of Congress feel entitled to an exemption from the harsh realities of the law they helped jam down Americans' throats in 2010. Unlike millions of their countrymen who have lost coverage and must now purchase insurance through an exchange, members and their staffs will receive an employer contribution to help pay for their new plans.
In the News: Blog 12/16/2013
Obamacare facts and political imagination
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s PolitiFact operation over the weekend tried to “fact-check” something I said. It didn’t work out the way they wanted, apparently, so they had to be flexible to avoid saying I was right. What they tested was something I said on Brian Kilmeade’s radio show on Dec. 5. You can listen yourself – it’s in the first minute of the program. I said that the “Affordable Care Act” isn’t very affordable: “It’s certainly not affordable. In Wisconsin, I think the average that I’ve seen is, if you’re 27 years old, you’re going to be paying about 100, more than 100%, double what you paid on average, for health care. So it’s not affordable. An average plan for a family didn’t go down by $2,500 per year, it’s going up about $2,500 per year. So, I mean, it’s a totally misnamed law.”
In the News: Blog 12/14/2013
This is how you destroy health care coverage
Obamacare’s been a disaster so far, for those trying to enroll and for those unwillingly made to because regulations killed their old plans. Now it’s getting worse. The Wall Street Journal points out exactly how: “Late Thursday, the Health and Human Services Department suddenly released a new regulation that explains ‘there have been unforeseen barriers to enrollment on the exchanges.’ The passive voice is necessary because the barriers are all the result of politically driven delays, the botched website and the exchanges that transmit false information about enrollment to insurers.” The government’s cure for its own incompetence? “Unilaterally ordering plans to backdate all exchange applications. People can sign up for a plan on the exchange as late as Dec. 23.” Then they’re covered – the insurer must pay all claims, whether or not the government sends any information, whether the customer pays (only an unspecified “down payment” is required).
In the News: Blog 12/12/2013
One more reason not to grow
The Washington Post reports that Obamacare gives small businesses one more reason not to hire more people. While the law eases its harsh penalties when it comes to businesses with fewer than 50 employees, regulators are adding up all the employees of separate businesses that share an owner. The Post reports: “The aggregation rules pose an addition compliance headache for a large number of small business owners. In fact, roughly four out of 10 small firms with at least 20 employees are run by employers who own at least 10 percent of at least one other company, according to research by the National Federation of Independent Business. “Due to the complicated nature of the rules, many of those firms will be forced to hire a tax attorney to determine their size status under the law, according to Debbie Walker, a Washington accountant who testified at the hearing.
Victims of Government 12/12/2013
Victims of Government: Kathi's Story
President Obama promised that under the Affordable Care Act, “if you like your current insurance, you keep that insurance. Period. End of story.” He said that “if you have health insurance, the only thing that changes for you is you’re more secure.”
In the News: Blog 12/12/2013
Good intentions, unintended consequences
Kathi Rose is a pastor from Neenah. She now has to pay $4,000 more per year for health care because under President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, the plan she chose was canceled. Now, it’s harder for her to find care for her special-needs daughter. The president told Americans, “If you like your current insurance, you keep that insurance. Period. End of story.” That wasn’t true for Kathi Rose nor for millions of other Americans notified that the plans they chose and could afford were canceled. See her story at RightWisconsin.
In the News: Blog 12/11/2013
They missed the part about ‘dismantle’ and ‘something better’
Liberals seem to be grasping for any ray of hope now that Obamacare has turned out to be such a bust. After epic incompetence at building a website, more than 5 million people losing their insurance, and skyrocketing costs and deductibles, the president’s fans need a good story. Any story will do. So some are cheering that a conservative Republican – “far right,” as one progressive insider said – liked something about Obamacare. The Huffington Post even crowed that this conservative senator “likes a key part of Obamacare.”
In the News: Blog 12/9/2013
You can’t keep your really good health care after all
Remember when President Obama said that if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor? That’s not true for millions of Americans under ObamaCare. Now Obamacare’s architect, Ezekiel Emanuel, is now sayingthat the president really meant that, if you like your doctor, you can start paying a lot more for insurance in order to keep that doctor. Which is a way of saying that under the Affordable Care Act, coverage might be affordable for some Americans, but only if they accept a level of care they didn’t want. What about hospitals? New evidence is in the Financial Times. Plans that meet Obamacare’s standards exclude many of the nation’s leading hospitals: