Media Hit

The Senate may come to terms on a healthcare bill, but one observer warns it won't stop the collapse of the individual health insurance market.

The individual mandate has not been effective in convincing healthy people to buy insurance, especially if they don't qualify for subsidies, or have smaller subsidies, experts agree.

"I was never optimistic that was going to work," said Merrill Matthews. "My statement is most major legislation starts out asking what's good policy and ends up asking what's good politics," he said. "We're at the what's good politics now."

The information about Californians moving to Texas confirms what some people already know. "We've been identifying that situation for some time," says Merrill Matthews, PhD, a resident scholar for the Texas-based Institute for Policy Innovation.

IPI says that the Senate Republicans’ Health Care Bill Won't Stop the Collapse of the Individual Health Insurance Market. It may be the GOP is willing to sacrifice the individual market in order to achieve the bill’s other important reforms, says IPI's Dr Merrill Mathews in Forbes. The risk is that premiums continue to rise and insurers flee and Democrats, the media and maybe even the public say the Republicans’ “free market” approach didn’t work, so let’s move on to a government-run, single-payer health care system. 

The combination of keeping the guaranteed issue and preventing medical underwriting would make the Senate version actuarially unsound, said IPI's Dr. Merrill Matthews.

The Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously voted Thursday to advance the nomination of White House Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator Vishal Amin to the full Senate. The move also drew praise from BSA|The Software Alliance, the Institute for Policy Innovation and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Global Intellectual Property Center.

“It even overrides state constitutional provisions, that the people of the states have added to their constitutions in order to protect patients and people who are injured by medical negligence,” Conservative writer and public policy consultant Dean Clancy said. Opponents of HR 1215 specifically include the Institute for Policy Innovation, the Taxpayer Protection Alliance and the American Bar Association.

Medical malpractice laws in Texas and other states would be nullified under a measure in Congress that could be voted on this week. Opponents of HR 1215 include the Institute for Policy Innovation, the Taxpayer Protection Alliance and the American Bar Association.

Vishal Amin has been unanimously approved as White House intellectual property enforcement coordinator (IPEC) by the Senate judiciary committee. IPI welcomed Amin’s confirmation and thanked the Trump administration and Senate judiciary committee for moving the nomination.

Medical malpractice laws in Texas and other states would be nullified under a measure in Congress that could be voted on this week. Opponents of HR 1215 include the Institute for Policy Innovation, the Taxpayer Protection Alliance and the American Bar Association.