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By Gregory Taggart, October 31, 2013 1:17 pm

In a previous post, I discussed the regulations HHS promulgated in June 2010 to implement the Affordable Care Act. I failed to mention that buried in the issue of the Federal Register that contains those regulations, you’ll find the following chart:

You can find the chart and relevant discussion of both group and individual plans on pages 35,552 to 34,553 of this document. Interim-Final-Regulations_HHS-OS-2010-0015-0001_3

Forbes magazine claims that in these pages and with this chart, “Obama Officials [said] In 2010: 93 Million Americans Will Be Unable To Keep Their Health Plans Under Obamacare.” I’m not sure if Forbes’s analysis is accurate, but there’s no doubt that Obama officials knew that lots of people with group and individual health insurance were going to lose their grandfathered status, and thus the health insurance that they presumably liked, by the end of 2013.

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By Gregory Taggart, October 30, 2013 11:44 am

Here’s the relevant provision in the Affordable Care Act, a provision that President Obama touted again and again and again and again:

(a) No changes to existing coverage
(1) In general Nothing in this Act (or an amendment made by this Act) shall be construed to require that an individual terminate coverage under a group health plan or health insurance coverage in which such individual was enrolled on March 23, 2010.[42 USC Sec. 18011 (a)(1)] (Emphasis supplied)

Nope, the Affordable Care Act doesn’t require you–the individual–to terminate that health insurance plan you like. Nope, you don’t even have to get up from the couch. Your friendly federal government, in the form of regulations promulgated by Health and Human Services, will terminate it for you, if your insurance provider or group plan:

-eliminat[es] of all or substantially all benefits to diagnose or treat a particular condition,

-increase[s] . . . a percentage cost-sharing requirement (such as . . . [your] coinsurance . . .),

-increase[s] . . . a fixed-amount cost-sharing requirement other than a copayment (for example,deductible or out-of-pocket limit). . . if the total percentage increase in the cost-sharing requirement . . . exceeds the maximum percentage increase (as defined in paragraph (g)(3)(ii) of . . . [S]ection 54.9815–1251T),

-increase[s] . . . a fixed-amount copayment [by greater than essentially the medical inflation plus $5.00],

-impose[s] . . . [or] decrease[s] an overall annual limit on the dollar value of benefits, [or]

-[if an employer] decreases its contribution rate [essentially, by more than 5%].

(Some emphasis and incidental formatting/punctuation supplied)

Those who are gluttons for punishment can read HHS’s summary of the sordid details here. If you want to read the fine print, click on the link at the very end of the summary. (Oddly, the other links, or at least the ones I tried, don’t work.)

Or you can read my copy here (scroll down until you find the yellow highlights). Have fun: Interim Final Regulations_HHS-OS-2010-0015-0001

A final comment. The HHS regulation makes sense. The Affordable Care Act is supposed to deliver better healthcare–supposed to. And the regulation is an attempt to deliver on that promise to those with existing plans that they like and want to keep. Each of the reasons for terminating your coverage makes sense if you accept the premise that the requirements represent a safety net, a blockade to prevent your health insurance company from reducing your benefits. But that’s not how President Obama sold the Act. As the videos linked to above demonstrate, he promised unequivocally that you could keep your health insurance, no if, ands, or buts, and knowing full well that you probably would not be able to.

Would the Act have passed if he had been up front about this? I don’t think so.

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By Gregory Taggart, October 30, 2013 9:51 am

I’ve been watching the Sebelius/Obamacare hearings this morning. The Secretary keeps reminding us that the ACA is the law of the land. Her choir members on the dais use their solos to remind viewers that Republicans should be rooting for the ACA rather than gloating over the website’s failures. And they may be right.

But then there’s this: the ACA passed on the barest of majorities. In the House, the vote was 219-212–with not a single Republican saying yes. In the Senate, it was 60-39, again with no Republican (Senator Jim Bunning, R-Ky, did not vote). If you prefer your votes in terms of percentages, the vote in the House was 50.57% to 49.43%, in the Senate, 60% to 39% (and that vote ignores the shenanigans the Senate employed to act before Scott Brown joined that august body). Add all the ayes together, and you’ll find that 50.15% of Congress voted for the law, and 46.92% said no. And with that and President Obama’s signature, the Affordable Care Act did, in fact, become the law of the land, and the Federal government assumed control of 1/6th of the economy of the United States.

All that to say this, or rather, to repeat an anecdote about Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan and some advice he gave President Bill Clinton:

Twenty years ago, when he was trying to persuade Bill and Hillary Clinton that universal health care was a politically unrealistic goal, the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan repeated one insistent warning: Sweeping, historic laws don’t pass barely.’They pass 70-to-30,’ he said, ‘or they fail.’

Moynihan was not alone in this opinion. The Politico story continues:

Four years ago, when he was trying to persuade Barack Obama that he would pay a terrible price for jamming health care reform through a reluctant Congress on a partisan vote, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel begged his boss to settle for a vastly scaled-down plan.

If the Affordable Care Act fails, it will not be because Republicans opposed it. It will be because Democrats ignored the advice of Moynihan and Emanuel: massive, historic legislation requires massive, bipartisan support. If you don’t have it, you suffer the consequences.

Hubris. It was hubris that killed the beast.

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By Gregory Taggart, July 2, 2013 6:10 pm

What would a cynical person think about this?

The Obama administration announced on Tuesday that it would delay for a year, until 2015, the Affordable Care Act mandate that employers provide coverage for their workers or pay penalties, responding to business complaints and postponing the effective date beyond next year’s midterm elections.

Update:
I had not been to Drudge when I linked to The New York Times above. I’ll save you the trip:

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By Gregory Taggart, June 8, 2011 3:23 pm

Ilya Shapiro nails it, and apparently, so did the judges of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. Obamacare–the Affordable Care Act–is and always has been about power. Washington wants is. The people, at least people like me, don’t want to give it to them.

As the lawyer representing 26 states against the federal government said, “The whole reason we do this is to protect liberty.” With those words, former solicitor general Paul Clement reached the essence of the Obamacare lawsuits. With apologies to Joe Biden, this is a big deal not because we’re dealing with a huge reorganization of the health care industry, but because our most fundamental first principle is at stake: we limit government power so people can live their lives the way they want.

This legal process is not an academic exercise to map the precise contours of the Commerce Clause or Necessary and Proper Clause — or even to vindicate our commitment to federalism or judicial review. No, all of these worthy endeavors are just means to achieve the goal of maximizing human freedom and flourishing. Indeed, that is the very reason the government exists in the first place.

And the 11th Circuit judges saw that. Countless times, Judges Dubina and Marcus demanded that the government articulate constitutional limiting principles to the power it asserted. And countless times they pointed out that never in history has Congress tried to compel people to engage in commerce as a means of regulating commerce.

In case anybody cares, I feel the same way about Climate Change. Even conceding that the globe is warming, I’m not willing to kneel before the would-be climate demigods, certainly not before them move from their Mount Olympus mansions and give up their jets. Yes, Al, I’m talking about you.

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By Gregory Taggart, June 6, 2011 1:05 pm

In October last year, Obama granted McDonald’s and 28 other firms waivers from having to comply with his Affordable Care Act. With that in mind, consider the following.

Prior to the release of the May jobs report, Morgan Stanley, according to MarketWatch, estimated that McDonald’s would account for roughly half the jobs created in May 2011.

Morgan Stanley estimates McDonald’s hiring will boost the overall number by 25,000 to 30,000. The Labor Department won’t detail an exact McDonald’s figure — they won’t identify any company they survey — but there will be data in the report to give a rough estimate.

In fact, total private-sector employment grew by 83,000 in May. Thus IF Morgan Stanley was right, Mickey D’s was responsible for as much as 36% of the private sector jobs created last week. (If you use the total non-farm payroll, which includes government jobs, job growth was even weaker at just 54,000; thus, Mickey D’s could have accounted for up to 55% of new jobs.)

In any case, job growth was weak in May, and McDonald’s probably created a large number of those jobs; thus, logic compels the following question: Should Obama grant waivers to all businesses?