No. The Cato Institute’s Michael Cannon Simply Has Not Done His Homework on How ObamaCare Works. Why Do You Ask?

I confess I thought that Nicholas Bagley had misread Michael Cannon. But no…

Cato: if you want to be taken seriously at all, you need to step up your game. Badly.

Nicholas Bagley:

Nicholas Bagley: A bad reason to oppose Burwell: Michael Cannon has predicted…

…indeed, he hopes—that [Sylvia Matthews Burwell] will have a “brutal confirmation process,” and all because of IPAB… the Independent Payment Advisory Board… a pre-commitment device, one that reflects the public’s genuine desire to constrain Medicare spending even if feckless legislators can’t muster the political courage to do it themselves…. Because the Secretary can wield IPAB’s Medicare-cutting powers herself, “[t]he question confronting senators is, should Burwell be entrusted with more power than the entire Senate?”… [But] Burwell will never exercise IPAB’s powers.

Under the ACA, the Secretary can only issue a proposal if the Medicare per capita growth rate exceeds a target rate…. Under the ACA, the Secretary must submit a proposal by January 25 of each year, but only if CMS’s actuary determines by April 30 of the previous year that the target was exceeded. The target won’t be exceeded this year, so there won’t be a proposal in 2015….

Burwell could submit a proposal in 2016—but only if Medicare spending exceeds the [five-year average] target by April 2015…. Last year, the five-year growth rate was 1.15%—nowhere near the current 3% target. The growth rate this year will probably be only slightly higher…. CBO’s projections suggest that the five-year per capita growth rate in 2015 will be a measly 1.17%…. Her confirmation hearings should focus on the powers she will exercise—not the ones she won’t.

There’s no point in Cato having analysts who don’t understand how the government works.