New research out today from the Mercatus Center looks at the eight major regulations federal agencies issued to implement the Affordable Care Act and finds "ready, fire, aim!" rulemaking at its worst.

Economists Jerry Ellig and Christopher Conover discovered that the rules contain top-driven, low-quality regulatory analysis that reads more like an attempt to justify decisions than to inform them.

The study shows that the low-quality regulatory analysis for the health care law reflects a systemic failing of the federal regulatory process. The Obama administration’s “early interim final” health care regulations score about the same as the Bush administration’s for homeland security. On the Mercatus Center's Regulatory Report Card, both would receive an average grade of ‘F’.

The authors find that these analyses fail to provide a reliable measure of benefits, costs, or even “fairness.” Thus, it appears the federal government does not know the rules’ likely effects on the economy, or even whether the rules will improve Americans’ health care.

To read more on their findings, click here.