By Dr. Merrill Matthews
Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN Texas Health & Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius got upset last week with all the news of health insurers raising their premiums & promptly issued a retort: Simply stated we the Obama administration will not stand idly by as insurers blame their premium hikes & increased profits on the requirement that they provide consumers with basic protections.
So ObamaCare requires health insurers to:
might not be included in the health insurance exchanges slated for 2014.
Welcome to the new America where unelected officials who have no constitutional authority to do so dictate rules threaten companies and impose price controls.
Why is the secretary so energized over this issue striking back at health insurers who arent getting on board with ObamaCare?
The rising premiums make a mockery of the presidents oft-repeated promise that health insurance premiums would be $2500 lower by the end 
of his first term. The way things are going well be lucky if theyre only $2500 higher.
But there is another important budgetary reason.
ObamaCare provides a sliding-scale subsidy for families making up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level which is about $88000 for a family of four today.
The higher the premiums the more the government must spend on the subsidies -- and the less money it has for bailouts and stimulus packages.
Theres nothing surprising about this of course. Health insurance premiums have been exploding in Massachusetts which passed its own version of ObamaCare in 2006. And now the state is fighting most of the premium increases.
Secretary Sebelius is just starting the price-control implementation process a little sooner trying to save both ObamaCare and her boss.
Todays TaxByte was written by IPI Resident Scholar Dr. Merrill Matthews.
- Drop any maximum pay-out limit
- Provide free preventive care
- Cover children up to age 26 (well into child-bearing age) and
- Drop pre-existing condition exclusions to name a few and health insurers arent supposed to charge more for this grab bag of new benefits?
might not be included in the health insurance exchanges slated for 2014.
Welcome to the new America where unelected officials who have no constitutional authority to do so dictate rules threaten companies and impose price controls.
Why is the secretary so energized over this issue striking back at health insurers who arent getting on board with ObamaCare?
The rising premiums make a mockery of the presidents oft-repeated promise that health insurance premiums would be $2500 lower by the end of his first term. The way things are going well be lucky if theyre only $2500 higher.
But there is another important budgetary reason.
ObamaCare provides a sliding-scale subsidy for families making up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level which is about $88000 for a family of four today.
The higher the premiums the more the government must spend on the subsidies -- and the less money it has for bailouts and stimulus packages.
Theres nothing surprising about this of course. Health insurance premiums have been exploding in Massachusetts which passed its own version of ObamaCare in 2006. And now the state is fighting most of the premium increases.
Secretary Sebelius is just starting the price-control implementation process a little sooner trying to save both ObamaCare and her boss.
Todays TaxByte was written by IPI Resident Scholar Dr. Merrill Matthews.
