“Minnesota health insurers propose lower premiums,” read a headline from the Minneapolis StarTribune late last week. According to the reporting under the headline there will be some premium drops for individual health insurance plans in that state’s market, and supposedly this is a sign of stability. from Obamacare. “Health insurers in Minnesota’s individual market say they…
Podcast: Armstrong Says Schneider Is Campaigning “a Lot More Moderate Than His Voting Record”
On Friday I had U.S. House candidate Kelly Armstrong on my radio show. He and his Democratic opponent Mac Schneider squared off recently in a debate hosted by the North Dakota Newspaper Association. At that event Armstrong said something about voters having a choice between himself, a conservative Republican, and Schneider who is campaigning as…
Podcast: Democratic House Candidate Mac Schneider Declines to Say if He’d Have Voted for Obamacare
We talked about his recent debate with Republican opponent Kelly Armstrong and the impression many observers got (notably myself and columnist Mike Jacobs) that the two candidates didn’t really do much to contrast themselves. Schneider says he disagrees with Armstrong in several areas mentioning the expansion of corporate farming, Trump’s trade tariffs, and the state’s…
Insurance Commissioner: Obamacare Continues to “Destabilize” North Dakota’s Insurance Markets
North Dakota Insurance Commissioner Jon Godfread announced today that his office would be doing some research into reforms for the state’s insurance markets. “As the Affordable Care Act (ACA) continues to destabilize North Dakota’s individual health insurance market and federal health care reform efforts continue to face significant challenges, the Department is studying various state…
Will Heitkamp Vote to Shutdown the Government to Protect Illegal Immigrants and Drive up Health Insurance Costs?
Over the many years of budget brinksmanship our friends on the left have told us, repeatedly, that shutting down the government is extremely dangerous. Mainstream Democrats have even claimed that a government shutdown could literally kill people. But now Congress – the Senate, specifically – is on the verge of allowing a shutdown to happen…
Audio: ND Insurance Commissioner Says He Doesn’t “Know What We’ve Gained” From Obamacare
As a new Obamacare enrollment period begins most of the state of North Dakota, geographically speaking, will have just one option available on the federal government’s insurance exchange. Yesterday I had Insurance Commissioner Jon Godfread on air to talk about that. The law was supposed to boost access to health insurance by lowering premium costs…
Obamacare Was Driving up Premiums Even Before Trump’s Decision to Stop Paying Illegal Insurance Company Subsidies
There has been a lot of gnashing of teeth among Democrats over President Donald Trump’s executive actions last week. Specifically his decision to cut off illegal subsidies for insurance companies selling individual policies in the Obamacare exchanges. “This disheartening decision was about claiming a political win, not supporting American families,” Senator Heidi Heitkamp said in…
John Andrist: U.S. Healthcare Is Too Big to Succeed
I would have loved to have given North Dakota a crack at devising its own health care system. The federal government is hopelessly in debt, while our state has the luxury of multiple savings accounts, called trust funds. We’re smarter, smaller, and far more innovative than Washington. And we have a can-do mentality. That’s why…
Audio: Godfread Says Medica Leaving Obamacare Exchange “A Sign of Things to Come”
Yesterday Insurance Commissioner Jon Godfread ripped Congress for their inaction on healthcare reform while announcing that the insurance company Medica was leaving North Dakota’s iteration of the Obamacare exchanges. “This situation is one the Department understood to be a possibility but we were hopeful that Congress would come to a resolution regarding health care reform…
Did Obamacare’s Expansion of Medicaid Contribute to the Opioid Crisis in North Dakota and Elsewhere?
Back during their 2013 session North Dakota lawmakers voted to expand the state’s Medicaid program in accordance with Obamacare despite a Supreme Court ruling declaring any federal retribution for failing to pass that expansion to be unconstitutional. Former Governor Jack Dalrymple, though vocally opposed to Obamacare, was the fourth Republican governor to support the expansion.…