Nancy Pelosi was wrong: Even after passing the bill, no one could have possibly known what was in it!
That’s because America’s finest bureaucrats are creating a galaxy of amazing new rules to implement provisions of the “Affordable Care Act”. In the traditional Friday-night document dump that is the hallmark of how the Obama Administration operates, The Hill writer Megan Wilson reports that over 700 pages of new rules were released:
The four rules, which are scheduled for publication in mid-March, finalize both major and minor parts of the healthcare reform law that Congress passed in 2010.Three of the regulations are final and roll out the multistate healthcare exchanges and reforms to the insurance market, including provisions to encourage cost-sharing, stabilize health insurance premiums and prevent providers from denying coverage….The other rule is a proposal to implement the Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP), making it effective on Jan. 1, 2015.The change in the effective date is due to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services receiving comments that warned of the difficulties in implementing the program.
The only thing one can say with certainty: These new requirements will ensure that the Affordable Care Act is anything but!
Interestingly, Court TV founder Steven Brill appeared on The Daily Show and provided clear details on the the complex and senseless market forces that drive the American health care industry…none of which the new law addresses.
Rules such as those found in 700 pages of legalistic documentation do nothing to help businesses to open or expand. In fact, the founder of a famous food chain near and dear to my family says today’s regulatory environment would have stopped him from opening a store in the first place.
It’s hard to imagine a world without the $5 Footlong. But Subway founder Fred Deluca says the sandwich chain would not exist if it started today.“I’ll tell ya, if I had started Subway today, Subway would not exist,” ” Deluca said on Wednesday. ”Because I had an easy time of it in the ’60s when I started, and I just see a continuing increase of regulations.”Deluca spoke on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” about the current state of the economy. He said the economic environment is unfriendly toward businesses and has undergone drastic changes since he founded Subway in 1965.
And how about those pills President Obama wants Americans to take instead of surgery? Sadly, drug innovations that are a key Obamacare solution are crushed under the weight of testing requirements:
A recent report by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology estimates that it costs an average of $1.2 billion to win FDA approval and bring a new drug to market. Given that biopharmaceuticals account for roughly two percent of the economy, this is no small matter.The chief problem is the complex process of clinical trials, in particular “Phase 3,” in which a drug is tested and retested to prove its its effectiveness in treating conditions across a broad population. These trials have a strong track record, but they are poorly suited to new biopharmaceuticals, which are often very effective in smaller, targeted groups despite a lower success rate in the public at large. Under the current system, many of these drugs may fail their trials despite their effectiveness when prescribed correctly.
I suspect many of my fellow Democrats are going to be shocked at the realities of Obamacare implementation, because the devil was in the details that had yet to be written.
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