Brian Blase, Ph.D., is the President of Paragon Health Institute. Brian was Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy at the White House’s National Economic Council (NEC) from 2017-2019, where he coordinated the development and execution of numerous health policies and advised the President, NEC director, and senior officials. After leaving the White House, Brian founded Blase Policy Strategies and served as its CEO.
Obamacare Is Still Wrecking Our Health-Care System
Attempting to pivot from her previous support for “Medicare for All” and her call to eliminate private health coverage, Vice President Kamala Harris is embracing the Affordable Care Act (ACA). A couple of growing problems with the ACA — massive fraud and a preponderance of low-quality coverage — could undermine this pivot. At the debate on Tuesday, former president Donald Trump said that Obamacare is not good health care but that he does not yet have a fully developed health-care-reform plan. What follows is an outline of the main problems with ACA coverage and potential reforms that his administration could pursue if he wins the election.
Previous research by the Paragon Health Institute has revealed that millions of people have enrolled in the ACA exchanges under false pretenses to claim more subsidy than they are eligible for — leading to large windfalls for insurers, unscrupulous brokers, and call centers. This work led Congress to open an investigation and contributed to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ suspending 450 brokers. A second major problem is now getting attention — the deteriorating quality of ACA plans.
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