BOARD BOYCOTT:Republican Leaders Rally Against ObamaCare Panel

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  April 23, 2013: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell listens during a news conference on Capitol Hill.AP

The Republican leaders of the House and Senate announced Thursday that they will boycott the ObamaCare-created committee responsible for holding down Medicare costs, in a challenge to a controversial element of the health care overhaul. 

The Individual Payment Advisory Board, or IPAB, has been described as a "death panel" by some of its fiercest critics. Though that epithet is not often used anymore to describe the panel, Republicans still say it would hurt seniors by forcing doctors to stop seeing patients. 

House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, in a letter Thursday to President Obama, said they would refuse to recommend any nominees to the committee, reiterating that they think it should be repealed entirely. 

They revived concerns that the panel would enforce Medicare cuts by reducing payments to providers and/or "eliminating" certain treatments. 

"These reduced payments will force providers to stop seeing Medicare patients, the same way an increased number of doctors have stopped taking Medicaid patients. This will lead to access problems, waiting lists and denied care for seniors," they wrote. 

The 15-member advisory board, known as IPAB, would have the power to force payment cuts on insurers, drug companies and other service providers if Medicare costs rise beyond certain levels. 

The health care law explicitly forbids the board from rationing care, shifting costs to seniors or cutting their benefits. But Boehner, at a news conference Thursday, said the members still "have the authority to deny seniors access to care." 

It's unclear what effect the boycott will have on the panel. The law says the president should consult with Congress on the nominations, but the president is free to make his own appointments. The members of the board, though, are supposed to be from both parties and nominees would be subject to Senate confirmation. 

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney slammed Republicans for the stance and for renewed efforts to repeal the health care law. 

"It just demonstrates again how out of touch with what the American people want the House Republicans have become. Instead of focusing on measures that could help us invest in innovation and manufacturing and job creation, instead of focusing on common-sense efforts to reduce our deficit in a balanced way, House Republicans are voting again to repeal the Affordable Care Act," Carney said. 

Asked why the House was voting a 37th time to repeal all or part of the law, even though GOP leaders know the Democratic-controlled Senate will again ignore the vote, Boehner said there were about 70 new members of the House this year. "Frankly they have been asking for an opportunity to vote on it, and we are going to give it to them." 

He said he supports total repeal of the law rather than efforts to amend it as it goes into effect over the next year. 

Republicans say there have been only two previous votes to eliminate the health care law in its entirety. They say there have been more than 30 votes to partially repeal or defund the law, and several have been signed into law, including one eliminating an unpopular tax-filing requirement that would have affected millions of businesses. 

Economists have predicted that the Medicare board's services might not be needed in the near future because Medicare cost increases appear to be manageable. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Will Medicaid expansion under ObamaCare be effective? New study says 'No'

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A new study recently released in the New England Journal of Medicine analyzed data from 10,000 low-income individuals randomly selected to apply for Medicaid coverage, comparing them to an identical group of people who did not have access to it.  The study, known as the Oregon Health Study, hoped to verify the effect expanded health care coverage had on individuals’ health and wellbeing.

The ultimate result: Expanded coverage did not improve individual health outcomes.  In fact, the results could be considered more harmful than positive.

RELATED: New study looks at how expanded Medicaid coverage affects individual health

This research is the perfect template to analyze whether or not ObamaCare is going to be an effective tool in making Americans healthier.  Some of the parameters the study measured included blood pressure, cholesterol, hemoglobin A1c, screening for depression, self-reported diagnosis, health care utilization and out-of-pocket expenses.

This was a randomized controlled study, and the conclusion was quite startling to me.  Despite the fact that there was expanded Medicaid coverage, it really did not significantly improve the health outcomes of the participants in the first two years of coverage.  But it did raise some negative aspects, such as individuals spending more on their health care needs and increased use of health care services.

There were some positive findings. Medicaid expansion did help doctors pick up more diabetes diagnoses, and individuals reported lower rates of depression as well as a reduced financial burden on the participants’ families.

However, while diabetes was detected more, the Oregon study really did not show a reduction in blood pressure, cholesterol or hemoglobin A1c levels, which are active measures of diabetic management.

What scares me the most is that this offers a false sense of hope for individuals, because it is showing little actual health benefits.  What it really is doing is increasing the cost of health care, and that is just a bad formula for our future.

This is a perfect example of how politics and medicine don’t mix.

Dr. Manny Alvarez

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'DRAIN ON INNOVATION': Senate Push to Repeal Key ObamaCare Tax Grows

Published March 22, 2013

FoxNews.com

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  June 15, 2007: A patient is put through a cat scan machine in Kingston, N.Y.AP

The Senate gave sweeping bipartisan approval Thursday to a proposal by Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., to put senators on record in favor of repealing a tax on medical devices – a key part of President Obama’s controversial health care law.

The Hatch-Klobuchar amendment to the GOP budget plan is the latest effort to roll back the tax that applies to a range of medical products, from surgical tools to heart devices. It’s among several taxes in Obama’s 2010 health care overhaul.

The amendment passed the Senate by a vote of 79 to 20.

“Today, bipartisan members of the Senate spoke loudly and clearly that this tax on medical devices simply must go.  It is a drain on innovation, on job creation and on our ability to provide ground breaking medical technologies to patients,” Hatch said in a statement.

The Affordable Care Act levies a 2.3 percent tax on medical devices with the goal of raising nearly $30 billion over the next decade.

Manufacturers say the impact of the tax is far greater than meets the eye -- the 2.3 percent tax is on gross sales, meaning it's a much greater percentage of net income. 

The Obama administration has defended the medical device tax, saying companies actually stand to benefit from the law. Though the 2.3 percent tax hits the industry, the department argues that the millions of new health care customers insured as a result of the law will increase the demand in hospitals to order more equipment -- in turn boosting medical device companies' profits. 

Last year the White House threatened to veto a House bill that would have repealed the tax, citing concerns that the House proposal would offset the lost revenue from the tax by cutting down on subsidies for some families. 

This, they said, would effectively "raise taxes on middle-class and low-income families." 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Rate shock: How ObamaCare is causing a surge in insurance premiums

Over the past couple of weeks, many insurance companies have provided guidance in their investor calls that premiums for insurance plans being sold in the individual market could go up as much as 50 percent on average.  

One has to wonder how this is even possible when ObamaCare was passed under the promise of affordability and access.  While some may argue that “rate shock” has become a mechanism for insurance companies to scare the market, the reality is that economics really leave the insurance market with no other choice.  

ObamaCare requires insurers to offer benefit plans on the new exchanges that are relatively generous and would include coverage for maternity, prescription drugs and treatment of mental illness.  These are clearly important areas to cover.  

In order to get this level of coverage, however, many people in their 20s, who are used to buying basic coverage, will now be required to pay more for these required benefits in the exchanges.  In fact, it is expected that more than 75-85 percent of individuals in this age group could end up spending more for insurance in these exchanges than they do currently.  

Some argue that the annual price tag of $1,600 to $2,000 for an insurance plan is still an attractive deal, but if the penalty for not having coverage can be as low as $95 per year, the question remains whether many people will decide to opt out until they absolutely need insurance.

A key reason why insurance premiums are going up is because insurance companies will no longer be able to turn away or charge people more with pre-existing conditions. Even more significant is that these companies would only be able to charge its oldest customers three times as much as their youngest.  

If younger individuals decide to wait until they get sick enough to require health insurance, this will obviously skew the insurance market where the sickest individuals will be the ones who are in the system, thus raising rates for everyone else. Many insurance companies are pushing the government to regulations that would charge higher rates for individuals who don’t sign up for insurance within a certain timeframe.   

What many people also fail to recognize is the income they earn this year will impact the amount of subsidy and/or penalty that will be calculated for 2014.  A recent survey indicated more than 70 to 80 percent of Americans had no idea how this year’s income reporting will impact the calculation of their benefits for next year, and as much as 40 percent of people between the ages of 18 to 34 were unaware that there was even a penalty for not having coverage.    

Supporters of the law have downplayed the notion of rate increases with the idea that the new competitive markets will force insurers to provide competitive rates.  History will tell us, however, that in the days of managed care it is very difficult to ultimately contain costs in the long-term, especially when you factor in community rating and guaranteed issue.  

The other complicating factor in the equation is that, as of Friday, February 15, 2013, only about half of the states have agreed to proceed with setting up the insurance exchanges, while the other half is deferring to the federal government.  What remains to be seen is how effective this dichotomy of market places will be in driving competitive advantage, and how insurance premiums will vary between these two systems. 

The Congressional Budget Office indicated in its estimates that insurance premiums for those buying coverage in the marketplaces would probably be 10 to 13 percent in 2016 because the health plans would be more comprehensive.  The likely outcome from the current effects of ObamaCare is that while rates come down for older people, they may increase for consumers in their 20s, which could leave an older, sicker population now, and an even sicker population down the road.  

The idea that federal subsidies will help shelter the cost of those individuals who need to find affordable coverage is worrisome in light of recent findings.  Several high-risk pools were established to provide assistance for those individuals with pre-existing conditions who needed help in finding coverage.  As recent as last week, it was reported these high-risk pools were running out of money and are underfunded.  

The harsh reality is with an aging population that has a growing need for care of their chronic conditions, the cost for providing adequate coverage will not be cheap, and the biggest fear among employers, states, insurance companies, providers and the consumer is how we will afford the price tag to provide for what has been proposed.  

As premiums continue to rise out of control, the jury is still out as to whether the promises of ObamaCare will actually be able to reel these trends in, or whether it is a balloon that continues to drift away.  

Dr. Sreedhar Potarazu is an acclaimed ophthalmologist and  entrepreneur who has been recognized as an international visionary in the business of medicine and health information technology. He is the founder of VitalSpring Technologies Inc., a privately held enterprise software company focused   on   providing employers with applications to empower them to become more sophisticated purchasers of health care. Dr Potarazu recently founded GoodChime! a social platform for driving consumer engagement in health for which he is the chairman.

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