Is ObamaCare Better Than Doing Nothing?

GALEN GUIDE No. 4

ObamaCare is worse than doing nothing.

FALL 2012

“We need health reform and at least Congress has passed something!”

That’s a refrain we hear a lot.

But what if the law is worse than doing nothing? What if...

It threatens to cause tens of millions of •people to lose the coverage they have now?1

It makes it more difficult for the most •vulnerable to get care by overloading the Medicaid program?2

It causes health costs to increase, not fall?• 3

It adds trillions to the federal debt?• 4

It dries up creation of new jobs because •employers are so fearful of the mandates and costs?5

It threatens access to care for 49 million •seniors because Medicare is being used as a piggybank to pay for a massive expansion of entitlement programs?6

All of that, and more, is happening as a result of ObamaCare. ObamaCare is worse than doing nothing because of the damage it will do — and already is doing — to our health sector and economy.

What we need is a step-by-step approach to sensible reform that builds on the strengths of our system, changes that expand coverage without breaking the bank and which don’t disrupt coverage for tens of millions of Americans. All that is possible with market-based health reform as outlined in our book, Why ObamaCare Is Wrong for America.

Galen Institute is a not-for-profit public policy research organization devoted to promoting an informed debate

over free-market ideas to health care reform. Request additional Galen Guides by emailing galen@galen.org

and access our research online at www.galen.org.

Is ObamaCare Better Than Doing Nothing?

1 Shubham Singhal, Jeris Stueland, and Drew Ungerman, “How US health care reform will affect employee benefits,” McKinsey Quarterly, June 2011, http://bit.ly/q51yc9.

2 Edward Miller, “Health Reform Could Harm Medicaid Patients,” The Wall Street Journal, December 4, 2009, http://on.wsj.com/q4fUo0.

3 Sean P. Keehan, Gigi A. Cuckler, Andrea M. Sisko, Andrew J. Madison, Sheila D. Smith, Joseph M. Lizonitz, John A. Poisal and Christian J. Wolfe, “National Health Expenditure Projections: Modest Annual Growth Until Coverage Expands And Economic Growth Accelerates,” Health Affairs, June 2012, http://bit.ly/QAxMXg.

4 Douglas Holtz-Eakin and Cameron Smith, “Labor Markets and Health Care Reform: New Results,” American Action Forum, May 2010, http://bit.ly/ obrGZX.

5 William J. Dennis, Jr., “Small Business and Health Insurance: One Year After Enactment of PPACA,” National Federation of Independent Business, July 2011, http://bit.ly/nMaVws.

6 John D. Shatto and M. Kent Clemens, “Projected Medicare Expenditures under Illustrative Scenarios with Alternative Payment Updates to Medicare Providers,” Office of the Actuary, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, May 18, 2012, http://go.cms.gov/OHRFyL.

For more information about the impact of ObamaCare, order Why ObamaCare Is Wrong for America by Grace-Marie Turner, Jim Capretta, Tom Miller, and Bob Moffit (Broadside/HarperCollins, 2011). www.WrongForAmericaBook.com