Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: ACA Obstacles And Reality Checks; Impolitic Comments, Transparency And IPAB
The Washington Post: Obamacare’s Biggest Obstacle Now May Be Its Public Image
Despite the bad publicity surrounding the health-care overhaul, most Americans who have received coverage through the government’s exchanges report being happy with it. More than seven in 10 newly insured Americans rate both the quality of their health care and their coverage “excellent” or “good,” according to a new Gallup poll. That’s about in line with the ratings that insured Americans overall give their health insurance. When it comes to the costs of their coverage, people newly insured through Obamacare are actually more satisfied than the general population of insured people. ... All of this makes me wonder if Obamacare will eventually follow the same political arc as Medicare: fiercely opposed by conservatives until they realize people really like it, leading both parties to become champions of its expansion. (Catherine Rampell, 11/17)
The Washington Post's Plum Line: Obamacare’s Year Two Is Off To A Good Start. But The Politics Are Still Terrible.
Hatred of the ACA is inextricably entwined with hatred of Barack Obama. When Obama leaves office in January 2017, the fire of that hatred will begin to cool. ... it will increasingly become indistinguishable from the broader health care landscape. Without Obama making Republicans newly angry each and every day, instead of everything in the health care system being Obamacare, it’ll just be the health care system, with strengths and weaknesses that might or might not require legislation to address. (Paul Waldman, 11/17)
Bloomberg: Reality Check On Obamacare Year Two
Enrollment opened for the second year of Obamacare this weekend, and so far we know two things. First, the software works a whole lot better than it did last year. And second, the major markets generally have at least one silver plan that's not much more expensive than the lowest-cost silver plan from 2014. This is undoubtedly major progress. What we still don't know is what people will actually be paying. (Meghan McArdle, 11/17)
The Washington Post: Why Uber Loves Obamacare
As Obamacare's second-ever enrollment period gets underway, the program has a big cheerleader in Silicon Valley: the chief executive of Uber, the ambitious ridesharing company that lets private car owners overnight become professional drivers. Travis Kalanick, also a co-founder of Uber, said the health-care law has been "huge" for his business. By creating a functioning individual market for health insurance, people have more flexibility to pursue the jobs they want, Kalanick said. (Jason Millman, 11/17)
Dallas Morning News: Hospitals Seek A Texas Way To Expand Medicaid
Expanding Medicaid may be anathema to Texas political leaders. For hospitals, though, it would be a godsend. (Jim Landers, 11/17)
The Wall Street Journal: Jonathan Gruber, Transparency And Obamacare’s IPAB
The administration faced a political firestorm last week, when videos emerged featuring MIT professor—and paid Obamacare consultant—Jonathan Gruber making comments on “the stupidity of the American voter,” and claiming that only a deliberately opaque and deceptive process was essential to the law’s enactment. But the administration may soon face a policy controversy as well—for the law features a board that can operate in nontransparent ways, and which will empower technocrats like Mr. Gruber himself. ... Designed to control health spending, the [Independent Payment Advisory Board] of 15 experts—nominated by the president, based in part on suggestions from congressional leaders, and confirmed by the Senate—will have the power to make binding rulings to slow the growth in Medicare outlays. (Chris Jacobs, 11/17)
The New York Times: The Impolitic Jonathan Gruber
Jonathan Gruber, a health economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is a strong supporter of health care reform. But his careless comments at academic forums last year, caught on videotapes that surfaced recently, can only harm the reform cause. Mr. Gruber said in one comment that the Affordable Care Act relied on a “lack of transparency” and the “stupidity of the American voter” to gain passage. He said in another comment that the “Cadillac tax” on expensive employer-provided health insurance passed only because voters were “too stupid to understand it.” Both comments are doubly offensive. First, they insult ordinary Americans. And they’re largely wrong. (11/17)
The Washington Post: Thanks To Jonathan Gruber For Revealing Obamacare Deception
Democrats are desperately distancing themselves from Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber. He “never worked on our staff,” President Obama said this weekend in Brisbane, Australia, (even though Gruber was paid almost $400,000 by his administration, is the intellectual author of the individual mandate and met in the Oval Office with Obama and the head of the Congressional Budget Office to pore over the bill). “I don’t know who he is,” Nancy Pelosi declared on Capitol Hill (even though she repeatedly cited him by name during the Obamacare debate). The reason Democrats are running from Gruber is the same reason conservatives should be thanking him: Gruber has exposed what liberals really think of the American people. (Marc A. Thiessen, 11/17)
USA Today: Latest Ebola Death Shows Danger Remains
Liberia's President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf announced Thursday that she would not extend her country's state of emergency, citing progress in the Ebola fight. Liberia is winning because they take the threat seriously, right down to the level of bus coin boxes. The Obama administration's priority has been less seriousness .... "America in the end is not defined by fear," the president said in October. "That's not who we are." He has opposed quarantine measures ... and the White House arranged a photo opportunity of the president hugging recovered nurse Nina Pham. The message strategy promotes the idea that Ebola is hard to catch and relatively easy to control. (James S. Robbins, 11/17)
