Report: States crushed by $35b bill for Obamacare, other regulations

[Geee]

Washington Examiner:

The bill has arrived for all of President Obama's initiatives, from Obamacare to Dodd-Frank banking regulations to school lunches, and state and local governments are choking on the costs and paperwork mandated to comply with new laws, according to a new analysis.

 

The tab: $35 billion in unfunded regulatory costs and at least 75 million hours of paperwork, according to American Action Forum, the center-right policy institute headed by former Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin.

 

Obamacare is the biggest pain to state and local governments. The report said that just one element of the health "reform" costs states 27.1 million hours in paperwork mandates and $880 million dollars to pay for that extra work.

 

That amounts to an average of 251,000 extra hours at a cost of $6.6 million per state, said the report, titled, "The State Share of Unfunded Regulations: Nearly $35 Billion, 75 Million Paperwork Hours."

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States zero in on ObamaCare rescue plan

 

It may be easier than expected for states to save their ObamaCare subsidies, if the Supreme Court rules against the law this month.

Two states — Pennsylvania and Delaware — said this week they would launch their own exchanges, if needed, to keep millions of healthcare dollars flowing after the decision. Both want to use existing pieces of the federal health insurance exchange, like its website and call center — a path that would be far less costly than the way most other states have created their exchanges.

If those plans win approval, many of the other 36 states that stand to lose their subsidies could then pursue a similarly simple strategy.

“I think that’s a pretty easy workaround,” Thomas Scully, the former director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services during the George W. Bush administration, said about the two states’ plans.

“The administration has a lot of flexibility, potentially, to define a state exchange,” he added.

 

http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/244186-for-states-an-obamacare-backup-plan-comes-into-focus