New study says healthcare reforms make business owners nervous

The National Federation of Independent Businesses released a study this month called "Small Businesses and Health Insurance: One Year After Enactment of PPACA". It appears they have found that small business owners are a bit nervous...

Read the full report here.

A finding that stuck out to me was that businesses not currently offering health insurance have no incentive to start offering this benefit after the enactment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Once again we see that government intervention in the marketplace discourages incentives for the individual and business and ends up costing everyone more money and fewer choices.

Generally when the government meddles in the private sector, it is bad news and results in limited choice. Say for instance, investing in electric cars or providing tax incentives to theme parks.

ObamaCare, Medicaid and emergency rooms

According to NPR, some emergency room doctors say the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act ("ObamaCare") will make emergency room overcrowding worse:

Hospital emergency rooms, the theory goes, get overcrowded because people without health insurance have no place else to go.

But that's not the view of the doctors who staff those emergency departments.

The real problem, according to a new survey from the American College of Emergency Physicians, isn't caused by people who don't have insurance — it's caused by people who do, but still can't find a doctor to treat them.

A full 97 percent of ER doctors who responded to the ACEP survey said they treated patients "daily" who have Medicaid (the federal-state health plan for the low-income), but who can't find a doctors who will accept their insurance...."The results are significant," said ACEP President Sandra Schneider in prepared comments. "They confirm what we are witnessing in Massachusetts — that visits to emergency rooms are going to increase across the country, despite the advent of health care reform, and that health insurance coverage does not guarantee access to medical care."

(h/t Peter Suderman)

Happy birthday, RomneyCare!

This week marks five years since then-Gov. Mitt Romney signed "RomneyCare" into law in Massachusetts. That legislation provides a sober reminder that state policy that assaults freedom can give rise to federal policy that assaults freedom. Here's a video I produced last year with the help of the Cato Institute's David Boaz and Michael Cannon that describes the trouble Romney might have as he pursues the Presidency for the next two years.



Oddly enough, Romney announced the formation of an exploratory committee for President on anniversary.

Watch Bluegrass Institute videos at our YouTube channel.