GAO Believes Obamacare Could Persist: Even If Supreme Court Strikes Down Individual Mandate
March 26th, 2011
GAO Believes Obamacare Could Persist: Even If Supreme Court Strikes Down Individual Mandate
Published on March 26th, 2011 @ 10:26:41 am , using 332 words
Foxnews Politics Blog
by Wes Barrett
A new report from the Government Accountability Office suggests the federal health care law could hold together even if the Supreme Court strikes down the individual mandate.
The report, requested by Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., makes clear that the mandate is critical to the health care policy-without it, Americans with health insurance would be on the hook for an estimated $57 billion to cover increasing numbers of uninsured people.
But the report lists alternatives that could potentially hold the health care law intact if the Supreme court rules against the individual mandate.
It suggests modifying insurance open enrollment periods and imposing late fees, expanding employer input in facilitating health insurance enrollment and auto-enrollment, conducting a public education and outreach campaign and providing broad access to personalized health insurance enrollment assistance. The authors of the report wouldn't endorse any of the options saying only that they were possibilities that were discussed in drafting the report.
"Washington needs to explore the GAO report's alternatives and others to see if there is a successful way to improve health reform," Nelson said in a statement.
The Congressional Budget Office has reported that without an individual mandate, the current health care law would lead to 16 million more uninsured people and would cost those who do have insurance between 15 and 20 percent more for their premiums.
And without an individual mandate or an alternative, health care experts say there could not be a ban on denying coverage due to preexisting conditions. In that case, sick patients could, in essence, buy health insurance on their way to the hospital, a practice likened to someone buying homeowner's insurance after a fire has already started in the house.
But the ban on pre-existing conditions has been one popular aspect of an otherwise increasingly unpopular law.
Most Popular at Fox
U.S. Intervention in Libya and the Specter of “Black Hawk Down”
GAO Report Outlines Individual Mandate Alternatives
Former Bachmann Chief of Staff Supports Tim Pawlenty for President
Permalink1 comment
If one is seeking laughter
Or one is seeking sport,
I’d make a guess the Senate floor
Will fall a little short.
Exceptions prove the rule,
And on this Ash Wednesday,
The senior Husker on the floor
Put on a fine display.
The man who late invented
The Husker kickback clause,
Was lecturing his colleagues
On passing budget laws.
Old Ben, who’d seen his standings
In all the polls descend,
Declared bills from both parties
Would meet a bitter end.
“Both bills are dead,” reported
Nebraska’s senior suit,
“Both bills should die a horrid death.
Both bills we should refute.
For one bill cuts too little,
And one is filled with hate –
Those haters would my subsidies
For ethanol abate!”
At which, along the aisles
And near the colonnade,
The chuckles and the snickers
Rose like a tidal wave.
For speaking from the lectern,
the crowd was well aware,
Was Voter Number Sixty
Who saved Obamacare.
“No tricks, no games nor gimmicks,”
The Senator proclaimed,
“Should compromise our efforts
To get the budget tamed.”
Of tricks and games and gimmicks,
The Senator knows well,
For like the damned of Dante
He gave us health-care hell.
“We should cut fifty billion,”
The Senator explained,
“Though I can’t say what funding goes,
And what will be maintained.”
Which caused a wave of laughter
To echo through the hall;
The red-state’s bluest Senator
Received a curtain call!
Comment feed for this post
