The Affordable Care Act is increasingly lining the pockets of federal contractors, with many refocusing away from war efforts to the more profitable healthcare sector.
“They saw that their legacy defense market was going to be taking a hit,” Sebastian Lagana, an analyst with Technology Business Research,
told Kaiser Health News (KHN). “And they knew [the ACA] was going to inject funds into the healthcare market.”
The boom has been described as "the new oil" as federal agencies like the Department of Health and Human Services "outrank" both NASA and Homeland Security in federal contracts, KHN noted of the growth, adding that spending by HHS has hit $21 billion annually over the past 10 years.
Such purchasing, Kaiser added, was on such items as "medical-record software, insurance websites, claims processing, data analysis, computer system overhauls, consumer education and consulting expertise to control costs and identify fraud."
Said Harvard management professor Steve Kelman, who specializes in contracting: “The DOD market is very weak. The two growth markets are cybersecurity and healthcare. So everybody’s trying to get into those.”
While the government makes more money from Obamacare, consumers are having to spend more, not only to afford even the most basic of policies but on medical expenditures themselves, the
Associated Press reported.
Premiums are up five percent on the most popular plans on the federal exchanges, the AP noted. "The modest average increases reported for 2015 mask bigger swings from state to state, and even within regions of a state. According to data released by the administration, some communities will still see double-digit hikes while others are seeing decreases. Most are somewhere in the middle."
The Supreme Court surprised many when it announced last month that it is set to hear a challenge to Obamacare — King v. Burwell — over subsidies offered to low- and middle-income consumers in states that did not set up their own exchanges,
Politico reported. The decision to hear the case creates uncertainty over parts of the law's future, Politico said.
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