Stanley Feld M.D., FACP, MACE Menu

All items for July, 2016

Permalink:

President Obama Continues to Deceive i.e. The Public Option

Stanley Feld M.D., FACP,MACE

President Obama continues to deceive the American people about Obamacare’s success as his term in office is winding down.

He is trying to use his charming personality to erase the fact tat Obamacare is failing.

The public must keep their eyes and ears open.

Obamacare is falling apart as the months continue. President Obama and the liberals are queuing up to pour more money into a failing healthcare reform model by reintroducing the need for a public option.

On June 30, 2016“CMS division of the HHS Dept. released the HHS Dept. released the actual Q1 effectuation report,

Each year the Obama administration has lied to Americans about enrollment in the health insurance exchange program.

As of June 30,2016, only 11.1 million people have signed up and continued to pay their premiums for Obamacare coverage in the 38 federal health exchanges as opposed to over 13 million that were published. State exchanges are closing monthly.

The latest prediction is that only 10.2 million will have insurance through Obamacare for the entire year. Eighty-seven percent of those insured through the federal health insurance exchanges have government subsidies in the government’s attempt to make health insurance purchased through the exchanges affordable.

If President Obama is correct about Obamacare providing insurance for 20 million people who did not have healthcare insurance previously then 9 million new people have signed up for Medicaid coverage.

Medicaid coverage is completely free to the recipients and is a single party payer system. The federal government presently pays for Medicaid coverage. The increased enrollment is also increasing the federal deficit.

Soon the federal government is going to dump some of the financial responsibility on participating states that are already running budget deficits.

It is only a matter of time before all the 23 state Co-Ops will go out of business and the federal health insurance exchange will take over.

Illinois is the 16th state to close its Co-Op doors. It followed one week after Oregon Health Co-Op closed its doors.

Land of Lincoln Health received $160.1 million in loans from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. More than 54,000 enrolled in coverage from the co-op through March 31.

 Where are these 54,000 people going to go for healthcare insurance?

 “It’s a bad day for the marketplace in Illinois and our consumers,” Jason Montrie, Land of Lincoln Health’s CEO said. “This is the end.”

Who is going to pay CMS back for these federal loans? The state of Illinois cannot afford to pay CMS back. The American taxpayers will re-pay the loan.

So far the total number of federal loans given to the failed nonprofit insurers is more that $1.5 billion for an experiment that was destined to fail from the start.

When are the liberals and progressives going to learn? You cannot keep spending other peoples’ money. You will eventually run out.

These last two weeks have been a big distraction because of party conventions.

Hillary Clinton announced her healthcare proposals. She has proposed an increase of $40 billion dollars in mandatory federal spending insulated from annual budget fights over the next 10 years to develop community health centers.

Hillary Clinton also wants to expand Medicare by letting people age 55 years old or older to opt into Medicare.

In addition she wants a public option.

“Bernie Sanders tweeted. “Together these steps will get us closer to the day when everyone in America has access to quality, affordable health care.”

Who is paying? The middle class taxpayer will pay the burden of the increase in taxes. It will not be paid by the 50% of the entitled citizens who do not pay taxes.

This is an attempt by Hillary Clinton to expand coverage for middle-aged adults. It also gives us a glimpse at how she wants to make Obamacare her own.

President Obama was not taking this lying down. He published an article in the Journal Of the American Medical Association, a “scientific journal.” This article is complete progressive propaganda. Why the AMA permitted this publication is beyond my understanding?

In his “special communication” President Obama once more presents another Trojan Horse (A destructive program that masquerades as a benign application.) to the physicians of America and the consumers of healthcare.

Some parts of the country have struggled with limited insurance market competition for many years, which is one reason that, in the original debate over health reform, Congress considered and I supported including a Medicare-like public plan.

Public programs like Medicare often deliver care more cost-effectively by curtailing administrative overhead and securing better prices from providers.59,60

The public plan did not make it into the final legislation. Now, based on experience with the ACA, I think Congress should revisit a public plan to compete alongside private insurers in areas of the country where competition is limited.

Adding a public plan in such areas would strengthen the Marketplace approach, giving consumers more affordable options while also creating savings for the federal government.61

In 2009 Barney Frank and John Kerry insisted that a public option was essential for Obamacare to evolve into a single party payer system.

President Obama told them they would get to a single party payer system without a public option.

He has now changed his mind.

https://youtu.be/f3BS4C9el98

 

I have written extensively about the defects in a public option. http://stanfeld.com/?s=public+option

The New York Times writers did not describe the meaning or consequences of the public option in articles about both Hillary Clinton’s and President Obama’s call for a public option.

The American people should be told the real reason for the public option.

The combination of a “public option” within a health insurance exchange system was originally developed by liberal health policy analysts as a dual action mechanism to secure a “single payer” system. It presents the facade of a free market system but the end game is a full-scale government monopoly.

“If a public option became part of government-run health, the Health and Human Services secretary would establish such a plan, set its benefits, and fix its payment rates.

While private plans must negotiate market rates with doctors and hospitals, a Medicare-like “public option” would fix payment rates by fiat, well below the rates that would otherwise prevail in a real market.”

The “public option” would be a better deal for consumers rather than private healthcare coverage. The government would artificially force premiums down with subsidies. It could indiscriminately lower non-negotiated reimbursement to physicians and hospitals and force insurance companies out of the healthcare market.

It would result in an increase in federal taxes.

Additionally, the result will be a defacto single party payer system with less choice and access to care.

President Obama continues to ignore the fact that the government is dependent on the healthcare insurance industry to perform the administrative services for this government program. He ignores the fact that he needs doctors and hospitals to treat and care for sick patients.

He is only interested in financing the healthcare system and controlling the consumer’s ability to choose.

The opinions expressed in the blog “Repairing The Healthcare System” are, mine and mine alone.

All Rights Reserved © 2006 – 2016 “Repairing The Healthcare System” Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

  • Stepehen

    Really very best to know about your blog really this site has been updating about life on the line, thank you for sharing with us. All knowing you are the professional whose job it is to advise keep it up.

  • Thanks for leaving a comment, please keep it clean. HTML allowed is strong, code and a href.

Permalink:

The Folly of Obamacare

  • Thanks for leaving a comment, please keep it clean. HTML allowed is strong, code and a href.

Permalink:

America Is Being Set Up By Progressives

Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP, MACE

During the past six months the Obama administration and its surrogates have being setting up Americans to believe that Obamacare is increasing in popularity in America. The surrogates being used are the New York Times, the Washington Post and progressive organizations such as the Kaiser Foundation and various think tanks that issue surveys geared to make that point.

Donald Trump is correct. The system is rigged.

The widely quoted Kaiser Health Tracking Poll published monthly spins its information in the direction the administration wants it to be. The conclusions of the February 2016 survey were;

  1. Americans (36 percent) say policymakers should build on the existing law to improve affordability and access to care than any other option presented.
  2. Sixteen percent say they would like to see the health care law repealed and not replaced.
  3. 13 percent say it should be repealed and replaced with a Republican-sponsored alternative.
  4. 24 percent say the U.S. should establish guaranteed universal coverage through a single government plan.

There are several things wrong with these findings.

  1. The Republicans did not have an understandable alternative at the time of the survey and they still do not have an understandable alternative.
  2. In February 2016 the Real Clear Poll survey of all state polls resulted in 51.9 % opposing Obamacare while 43% of all those surveyed approved of Obamacare.

Here is the rub in the February 2016 Kaiser Health Tracking Poll. Opinions of those surveyed were swayed after hearing counterarguments about Obamacare.

Before those surveyed heard the counterarguments the survey found that 50% were in favor of a single party payer system with the government running the system. 43 percent were opposed.

After the counterarguments were explained, the survey results were completely different. When it was understood that taxes would go up many changed their vote. Now, 43% of those surveyed plus an additional 20% opposed a single party payer system. Only 30% of those surveyed were in favor of a single party payer.

When the question was asked after the counterarguments were understood about how many would want the current healthcare law (Obamacare) eliminated or replaced, 14% switched their vote to favor eliminating Obamacare for a total vote of 14% plus 43% (57% total).

This is a very different view of the popularity of Obamacare.

These numbers appear in the weeds of the survey and were never advertised. One has to look carefully but they are there. The percentages opposed in these survey numbers are higher than the percentages in the Real Politics Poll.

Since the media is the message the conclusion of a casual reading would be that more than 50% want a single party payer system.

The disinformation creates a false impression of Obamacare’s popularity for the public. The hope is that the public would believe that more people like Obamacare and the prospect of a government controlled single party payer system.

In June 2016 the Kaiser Tracking Poll followed up with another survey that contained more disinformation.

The conclusions were:

  • Current attitudes about the ACA are divided, with 44 percent expressing an unfavorable opinion and 42 percent reporting a favorable opinion; 16 percent of Democrats report an unfavorable opinion, down from 25 percent in April.

It is not at all divided as reported by the Real Politics Polls or Kaiser’s previous corrected survey.

In May 2016 a Real Clear Politics survey of all state polls showed that 48.8% percent of all polled opposed Obamacare and wanted it repealed. Only 39.2% were in favor of Obamacare. The media had set the administration’s false message.

  • Increases in the amount people pay for their health insurance premiums tops health care costs concerns; premiums and deductibles are the biggest financial burdens.

This is true but the increases noticed it is because of the 10 hidden taxes for Obamacare and the healthcare insurance companies projected premium increases as of result of Obamacare.

  • A majority of Americans are following the news about rising health insurance premiums, but the public doesn’t differentiate reports about ACA marketplace premiums from private insurance premiums overall.

In the individual private insurance market premiums were always high and not tax deductible to the individual. Now that everyone is guaranteed healthcare insurance coverage in the individual private market the projected premiums have increased. This is the result of Obamacare regulations. I have described the exact details previously.

However, it is convincing enough to say Obamacare is falling short of providing universal care. The administration’s conclusion is that Obamacare must be expanded to a single party payer system with the government in control to achieve universal care at an affordable cost.

All I can say is everyone should remember the cost of VA Healthcare System is astronomical as well as universal. In this government controlled single party payer system our veterans are treated very poorly despite several scandals and the infusion of more government money.

Three weeks later, on July 10, along comes Hillary Clinton declaring that Obamacare must be expanded and more money must be spent. What will follow is higher taxes and more government bureaucracy.

Can anyone deny that something fishy is going on?

The opinions expressed in the blog “Repairing The Healthcare System” are, mine and mine alone.

All Rights Reserved © 2006 – 2016 “Repairing The Healthcare System” Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

  • Thanks for leaving a comment, please keep it clean. HTML allowed is strong, code and a href.

Permalink:

Deals With The Devil, How To Destroy The Healthcare System

Stanley Feld M.D., FACP, MACE

President Obama’s goal is to destroy the healthcare system. His deals and regulations lead the healthcare system on the path of destruction.

The strategy is creating so much pain to all the stakeholders that the healthcare system will implode.

At that time public opinion will demand the government take over the healthcare system.

What makes the government a better manager than the free market? The key is to have a system that aligns all the stakeholders’ incentives.

The government is not doing a good job keeping Medicare and Medicaid solvent and providing access to care. It is providing horrible healthcare services to our veterans in the VA system.

The government has conditioned progressive Democrats to continuously declare; “ I don’t mind paying a little more to make the system better.”

The destruction of the healthcare system is a slow process. The Obama administration is proceeding step by step in a very organized fashion.

When it is replaced by a single party payer system controlled by non-elected bureaucrats, consumers will have no control over their free choices.

Hopefully, the U.S. and its citizens are too diverse and too accustomed to freedom of choice and freedom of expression to let this happen.

Hopefully, consumers realize that central government control and socialized medicine doesn’t work. The concept of central control and socialism has failed too many times to count.

Our founding fathers certainly understood this concept.

Hopefully, consumer will realize that Adam Smith was right. The free market is self-correcting. It is only self-correcting with everyone plays by the rules and the government enforces the rules.

A government run by the political establishment that is controlled by vested interests does not work. It will eventually generate mistrust among all parties.

The mistrust of government is building to a tipping point.

Two recent examples of approaching the tipping point are the new ACO rules and the deception involved in the Obamacare reinsurance scandal.

Most of the 242 ACOs out of 3000 potential ACOs have three-year contracts. Many ACOs are not about to reach their Shared Savings goals for the reason I have mentioned.

I don’t know if these ACOs realized in their quest to become more efficient they would eventually lose money. Next year’s sharing goal will be this year’s modified to be the new profit sharing benchmark.

It might be impossible to deliver care more efficiently by the new benchmark.

When the ACO automatically progress to track 2 and fall short of the most recent efficient cost sharing savings benchmark these ACOs will have to repay the government for the losses.

The second important point that is propelling the healthcare system to the tipping point is that the new ACO rules do not take into consideration the healthcare systems that signed up to become ACOs initially.

Any savings the new rules offer in order to attract more healthcare systems to sign up for the ACO program have not been offered to the original signees until 2019. The original 242 have to wait until 2019 to be eligible for the extra bonuses given to new signees.

This might get the original hospital systems to quit their ACO participation completely. If the old ACOs quit the program, it would create more dysfunction in the healthcare system.

It would be just the thing the Obama administration wants to happen. The more dysfunction, the closer America is to a single party payer system.

An equally frustrating example was the money promised to the healthcare insurance industry to guarantee it a profit if it participates in the federal and state health insurance exchange program.

I have described President Obama’s reinsurance program in detail previously.

I was opposed to the reinsurance program. The Obama administration is totally dependent on the healthcare insurance industry to perform healthcare administrative services.

I am not sure either house of congress was aware of or appreciated the implications of the reinsurance program until it because obvious three years after Obamacare was passed.

The healthcare insurance industry knowing full well that they couldn’t make legitimate profits selling coverage through Obamacare’s exchanges, relied on Democrat guarantees that their losses would be covered by the taxpayers.

But a funny thing happened on the way to easy profits. Congress refused to appropriate the funds.”

When congress realized what was going on it capped the funds appropriated to the reinsurance program. President Obama is still trying to find the fund to pay the healthcare insurance industry.

President Obama paid only 12.6% of the 2.87 billion dollars the industry claimed the government owed it.

Now the healthcare insurance companies that have not been paid are starting to sue the Obama administration.

The companies included are Health Republic Insurance Company. It has filed a class action lawsuit against the government for $5 billion, Highmark Health has sued for $223 million, Moda Healthfiled filed a $180 million suit. Blue Cross & Blue Shield of North Carolina has sued for $129 million. Land of Lincoln Health has filed a $70 million suit.

It isn’t clear that these lawsuits aren’t going anywhere. “

“The defendant in the class action suit, for example, is “The United States of America” and the plaintiffs ask the court to strike down provisions of two congressional budget resolutions that require the risk corridor program to be budget neutral.”

Congress is the only branch of government that has the power of the purse. It is not the administration or the court.

As U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer put it in a ruling against the Obama administration in a similar case involving unauthorized HHS spending, “Congress is the only source for such an appropriation … See U.S. Constitution, Art. I, § 9, cl. 7”

“(‘No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.…’).” And a budget resolution becomes law once it has been signed by the President. That’s why the 2015 spending bill is titled, “Public Law 113–235.” Yet the Health Republic class action suit holds that losses somehow render the law invalid:”

Qualified Health Plans have incurred even greater compensable losses in 2015 that CMS and HHS cannot pay as a result of the 2016 Spending Bill.

“Neither the Obama administration nor the congressional Democrats with whom they made their cynical deal can save them. In the end, the Devil will have his due.”

Another way to look at the entire debacle of Obamacare is this is exactly the way President Obama and his administration wanted it to turn out. It will lead the way to a single party payer system. The single party payer system will be another disaster.

Was Obamacare designed and implemented with such incredible ineptitude that Co-Ops like Health Republic and Lincoln Health were doomed from the onset?

Were Texas and the thirty other states that did not join smart enough to know the Co-Ops and state exchanges were destined to fail and go bankrupt?

Was it done purposefully by the Obama administration in order to create chaos in the healthcare system?

Why would anyone believe that a central government that runs and controls the healthcare system be any different than the VA system and the insolvent Medicare and Medicaid System?

Who is responsible for the debacle? The traditional mainstream media such as the New York Times and the Washington Post will blame it on a Republican congress that is refusing to change the law to pay President Obama’s illegal debts.

Who do you think will pay for the upcoming debacle?

You guessed it.

The taxpayers will pay for President Obama and his administration’s obvious fiscal irresponsibility.

The opinions expressed in the blog “Repairing The Healthcare System” are, mine and mine alone.

All Rights Reserved © 2006 – 2016 “Repairing The Healthcare System” Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

  • Thanks for leaving a comment, please keep it clean. HTML allowed is strong, code and a href.