“…When PolitiFact described a blatantly deceptive Obama campaign ad on Mitt Romney’s Medicare reform as “Mostly True.” The ad claimed that the Romney-Ryan plan “could raise future retirees’ costs more than $6,000,” when in fact the Romney-Ryan plan would increase future retiree’s costs by exactly zero, and in fact give them the opportunity to lower their out-of-pocket costs…”
Read the article on Forbes.com
Paul Howard
In a debate focused on jobs and the economy, Obamacare was a subheading. But it shouldn’t be. It is already causing small employers, and employers with many low-wage workers to put off hiring or shift more positions from full time to part time to avoid paying Obamacare’s employer tax penalty. It also effectively increases tax penalties for low-income workers, discouraging them from working and earning more. In an economy where health care costs continue to take a big bite out of Americans’ take home pay, Obamacare will become an increasing drain on innovation and job creation.
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The Wall Street Journal, Paul Howard and Russell Sykes
Avik Roy on Forbes.com today:
The first presidential debate between Mitt Romney and President Obama was easily the wonkiest such debate I can recall in my lifetime. That’s great for the country. But even better was the fact Mitt Romney was able to correct a number of the misleading statements that President Obama has been making about Romney’s plans for health care and entitlement reform. Let’s review the details…
Paul Howard:
Romney made the critical point that Obamacare takes $716 billion from Medicare - not to make it more effective or sustainable, but to pay for new health insurance subisidies for the uninsured on state health insurance exchanges. The Medicare cuts will also make 15% of Medicare providers unprofitable in the short term, and 40% unprofitable in the long term. This will translate into reduced health care access for seniors as providers stop accepting Medicare coverage.
On other side of the ledger, which Romney did not mention, the CBO estimates that the exchange subsidies and Medicaid expansion will cost $200 bilion annually by 2020, and grow at 8% annually. This is hardly “bending the curve” of health care costs that President Obama initially promised. Furthermore, states’ ability to invest in critical infrastructure projects and education is being strangled by the rising state share of Medicaid costs. Obamacare does nothing to reverse this trend, and in fact is set to make it much worse.
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Paul Howard in his new Issues 2012 paper, “How Block Grants Can Make Medicaid Work”
” In his speech to the Democratic National Convention, former president Clinton spent a significant portion of his 48 minutes defending the Obama administration’s fight for health care reform…
…However, something that President Clinton clearly fails to address is that health care cost growth has slowed (somewhat) only because the economy has been so sluggish - hardly a point of pride for the Obama Administration.
As the graph above shows, the economic downturn of 2008-09 sunk the economy, pulling inflation down with it. Even though health care costs continued to rise, the weakened economy slowed the rate of this growth by around 0.5 percent…”
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Diana Furchtgott-Roth today on RealClearMarkets.com
“Chairman Ryan has been one of the most articulate voices in Congress on reforming Medicare and Medicaid, and how we can make those programs sustainable for future generations without bankrupting the nation. Governor Romney’s choice of Congressman Ryan as his running mate will give the nation an opporunity to have a real conversation about health care reform, and discuss how we can use the principles of competition and consumer choice to make health care truly patient- and family-centered. The contrast with President Obama’s vision - which is dependent on handing more control over to bureaucrats and increasing taxes on the rest of the economy - could not be more profound…” - Paul Howard, Manhattan Institute senior fellow
…What’s the Obama administration’s response to this carnage? Effectively it’s this: that people should pay more for insurance, because it’s for their own good. The costlier, more comprehensive plans offer more protection, and people should be forced to buy that extra protection, even if they think it exceeds their own needs…
During the election season there are often misstatements about policy and economics. Through our Issues 2012 initiative, our goal is to correct misleading statements during the election season with rapid-response figures, analysis, and commentary to rebut errors and inaccuracies - "Policy for Politics."
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