For all of the quality care it delivers, the U.S. health care system is one of the most dysfunctional sectors of the U.S. economy. The government spends nearly 50 cents of every dollar spent on health care, most consumers are almost entirely insulated from the cost of their decisions, and employers decide what kind of health insurance their employees get.
But while the U.S. health care system begs for reform, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act only exacerbates all of the current problems, promising to devolve into a price-controlled system rationed and micromanaged by bureaucrats.
IPI believes there are much better options: reform the tax treatment of health insurance; remove the state and federal mandates and regulations that make coverage more expensive; pass medical liability reform; and promote policies that create value-conscious shoppers in the health care marketplace.
Game Over: The Stock Market Delivers A Big Fat No To Obamacare Exchanges
The major health insurers that are finally pulling back from Obamacare have seen a 15% to 20% decline in their stock prices since the middle of last year, while the one insurer that signaled last year it was getting out has climbed about 15%.
If Obamacare Is So Bad That You Can't Get Insurance, Do You Still Have To Pay The Fine?
There's a provision in Obamacare that says if you cannot find an ACA-qualified policy for less than 8 percent of household income after taxpayer-provided subsidies, you’re exempt from the mandate to have coverage. If there are no Obamacare-qualified plans available to individuals in a given area, then those individuals can’t buy one for less than 8 percent of their income.
Aetna Leaving Health Insurance Exchanges Due to DOJ Lawsuit
Aetna is planning to pull out of most of the public health insurance exchanges in 2017 and move from serving 778 counties to only 242 counties.
Affordable Care Act's Reinsurance Programs Keep Market Stable
"About 7 million people are getting subsidies under the Affordable Care Act," said Merrill Matthews, Ph.D. "That certainly makes for a huge pool. But the structure of it is designed to fail.”
Surprise! Medicaid Expansion Cost Much More than Projected
The federal government has announced that Obamacare's Medicaid expansion cost much more than it had predicted, and no one was surprised except, apparently, the federal government.
Affordable Care Act, Exchanges Challenge Health Payers
A number of health payers have been dropping out of the health insurance exchanges due to significant financial losses.
How to Use Life Insurance to Pay for Prescription Drugs
There is a little-known way to pay for new, cutting-edge prescription drugs if a patient is facing significant out-of-pocket costs: life insurance.
How Payers Could Succeed in ACA Health Insurerance Exchanges
“What the Affordable Care Act was intended to do was to bring everyone into a relatively low deductible, low co-pay health insurance policy that was going to cover the vast majority of their expenses. What we have are very high-deductible policies that are forcing people to pay for an awful lot of care out of pocket that they used to pay for with health insurance,” Dr. Merrill Matthews said.
The Justice Department Fights Health Insurers Trying to Survive the Obamacare Wasteland
The Obama administration’s efforts to keep four insurers from becoming two may mean that only one or none will continue selling on the Obamacare exchanges.
DoJ Lawsuits Sabotage Insurers' Ability to Survive Obamacare
The Department of Justice announcement to block two separate health insurer mergers sabotages those insurers’ ability to survive Obamacare’s financially unsustainable and onerous regulatory environment in the health insurance marketplace.


