STRAIGHT FROM THE SENATE

OBAMACARE MAY BE BITTER PILL FOR HOOSIERS

Indiana joins multi-state legal challenge to historic federal action

STATEHOUSE – “Obamacare” – the name many have given to national health care legislation recently passed by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama – may be a tough pill to swallow for Indiana.

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Impact of this law will be felt by all Hoosiers across our state in the form of increased taxes, rationed care, job losses and reduced economic competitiveness.

Recently, Indiana joined 13 other states legally challenging the constitutionality of Obamacare’s requirement that all Americans purchase health insurance. Never before has our government forced citizens to purchase a specific product. Now Congress has for the first time mandated all Americans purchase health insurance or face personal penalties up to $750 each.

Our next two newspaper columns will be devoted to breaking down Obamacare and explaining just what it may mean to Hoosiers.

First and foremost, it will mean more taxes and more government spending during a deep recession. Numbers from the independent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) show the expanded federal role in health care creates a $940 billion pricetag over 10 years. Indiana’s share is an estimated $2.4 billion for the same 10-year time period.

Indiana Family and Social Services Administration (FSSA) Secretary Anne Murphy has already identified a $25 million immediate cost to the state in the form of lost Medicaid prescription drug rebates for fiscal year 2011.  FSSA’s analysis shows this cost increasing each year, eventually costing the state $400 million over the next ten years.

An estimated 500,000 additional Hoosiers would qualify for Medicaid, exploding the cost to the state for delivering services under the program. Figures show one in four Hoosiers would be on public assistance under the plan.

This enormous new cost comes at a time when Indiana is already facing huge budgetary challenges due to declining revenue. To pay the bill, state leaders would likely be forced to raise taxes on Hoosiers already struggling to make ends meet in the worst recession in decades.

Meanwhile, the Healthy Indiana Plan (HIP) would be eliminated as the new federal rules would force Indiana’s 45,000 families who are currently covered into the Medicaid fee-for-service model, losing the cost savings and quality care advantages of our consumer-driven health care.

Rationed care may be on the horizon, as a flood of new patients enter Indiana’s health care system. Through Obamacare’s massive expansion of eligibility for Medicaid, an estimated 500,000 additional patients will be searching for doctors and nurses at a time when there is already a shortage of both. Even before the Pelosi-Reid plan, the American Health Care Association had reported in 2008 that more than 19,400 registered nurse vacancies existed in long-term care settings and the American Hospital Association in 2007 had reported 116,000 open nursing positions in their facilities.

Using figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Indiana currently employs 56,500 registered nurses and 2,460 family and general practitioner doctors. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the shortage of registered nurses is 12 percent nationwide. Assuming Indiana is on par with the national average, we are seeing a shortage of 6,780 nurses statewide.

With the number of patients rising and the number of doctors and nurses already too low, it will be hard to avoid health care rationing in Indiana… unless of course we want to lower admission standards at medical and nursing schools.

In our next column, we will look at why Obamacare could be a money-losing proposition for providers, how many currently-insured Indiana residents will be affected, and what the impact of tax increases could mean for Indiana employers.

Sen. David Long (R-Fort Wayne) is President Pro Tem of the Indiana Senate. He serves District 16, which includes portions of Fort Wayne