Consumers using the Obamacare exchanges should prepare for sticker shock when they go shopping next year. Insurers in six states have already filed their rate request seeking to raise their rates 18.6 percent on average in 2016. The CBO is predicting that rates will rise by 8.5 percent per year over the next three years. The largest increase of 36.3 percent came from one provider that covers 70 percent of the Tennessee market.

Dish Network is defending their strategy during the FCC’s most recent spectrum auction. The company has come under fire after it was revealed that they bankrolled two small businesses to place $13.3 billion in winning bids. Those companies then were able to claim $3.3 billion in small business discounts. Dish says that the criticism “takes the bidding credits out of context and ignores the results of the auction as a whole.”

According to the New York Times, the EPA’s campaign for positive public comments “test[ed] the limits of federal lobbying law.” The Obama Administration was the first to give the agency power to conduct “broad public outreach” to use campaign style tactics to garner support for proposed regulations. This raises a question about how much of the EPA’s own voice is in the ‘public comments’ for the controversial Waters of the United States rule.

Eakinomics: What’s the Growth Strategy?

With another round of weak economic data and the specter of prolonged growth at the anemic pace of 2.1 percent per year, one would think that proposals to raise economic growth would be of central importance. The beginning of the 2016 White House race has delivered some proposals — candidates Rubio, Paul, Perry, Huckabee, Cruz and Christie have all discussed tax reform ideas as a central part of growing more rapidly — and candidates Bush and Christie have laid out specific growth targets. 

The other side of the aisle, however, is notably quiet. Despite billing Hillary Clinton’s appearance yesterday as a “small business” focus, there was little policy meat to digest. She channeled her inner Barack Obama (#Clintobamanomics) by noting that the president inherited the weak economy, fully-supported his call for free community college tuition, and upped the stake on Obamacare by calling for keeping kids on their parents’ policies until age 27 (up from age 26). This is far from a vision for more rapid economic growth, although it could represent the beginnings of a tax-and-transfer approach to so-called inclusive growth.

AAF has been busy on this front as well. As part of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation Solutions Initiative III, AAF will unveil a proposal today at the Peterson Foundation’s Fiscal Summit that addresses policy for better economic growth. You can catch the live webcast of the event here.

From the Forum

Obamacare Failed to Address ER Overcrowding by Tara O’Neil, AAF Health Care Policy Analyst