Health

Authored by Steve H. Hanke of the Johns Hopkins University. Follow him on Twitter @Steve_Hanke.

In the rancorous to and fro over the repeal of ObamaCare and its possible replacement with the American Health Care Act, an elephant in the room has remained unnoticed. It’s that giant bundle of burdensome regulations that is crushing physicians, their staffs, and sending the costs of healthcare soaring.

Having weakened to unchanged for the last two months, April saw personal spending rise 0.4% MoM (as expected) and personal income rise 0.4% MoM (as expected). However, year-over-year growth in spending (+4.3%, weakest since Sept 2016) and income (+3.6%, weakest since Jan 2017) both signaled a rolling over of the post-Trump exuberance (just in time for another rate-hike by the The Fed).

Major (upward) revisions to spending data seems to have exaggerated April's demise...

But, this is not what The Fed (nor Trump) was hoping for.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas City (Blue KC) has just joined the growing ranks of insurers across the country that have decided they've lost just about enough money on Obamacare.  According to a press release issued earlier today, Blue KC's CEO said the company has lost $100 million on the Obamacare exchanges since 2014, a fact that prompted their decision to exit their 32-county service area.

As the mainstream media and the original Affordable Care Act (ACA) architects attempt to saddle the Trump administration with the blame for Obamacare's epic implosion, we thought the following two charts, which highlight the staggering increases in premiums from 2013 through 2017, were a timely reminder that Obamacare's 'implosion' occurred long before people even thought Trump had a shot at the White House. 

The CBO has finally scored the House-passed healthcare bill, H.R.1628 (which as a reminder remains DOA in the Senate), and finds modest improvement relative to its last scoring of the proposed Healthcare bill as of March 23. Here are the apples to apples comparisons with the last proposed version of the bill: