Stanley Feld M.D., FACP, MACE Menu

All items for September, 2016

Permalink:

What Exactly Is A Public Option?

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

Permalink:

Public Option: Another Catch 22

Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

Obamacare is in crisis. The public does not realize it because the media is keeping the impending disaster out of the public’s view.

The Obama administration and media is also shielding the public from the past history of Obamacare and its failures at each step.

At this moment, the Obama administration, the traditional mass media and Hillary Clinton think the magic bullet to save Obamacare is a “Public Option.”

All progressives are obsessed with the idea that a single party payer system will magically convert Obamacare into an affordable healthcare system. They also think the Public Option is a direct route to a single party payer system.

https://youtu.be/f3BS4C9el98

 

It is unfortunate that the progressives’ base believes a single party payer system is the answer to our dysfunction healthcare system despite the failures experienced in Vermont, New Hampshire, Canada and England.

My wife and I were touring the Canadian Rockies a few weeks ago with a tour group.

I got into a discussion with a couple of lawyers on the tour about the healthcare system.

I told them Canada spends 50% of its GNP on healthcare. All of the provinces are experiencing massive deficits.

Canadians who are healthy and do not need to interact with the system are happy and feel secure that their healthcare needs will be serviced without cost. Nothing is free.

Canadians who need the healthcare system are unhappy. They experience long waits and poor service.

The lawyers’ immediate reaction was healthcare consuming 50% of Canada’s gross national product was impossible.

The United States consumes only 18.5% of our GDP on healthcare.

They checked their IPhones. Their iPhones said Canada only spends 11.4% of their GNP on healthcare. They clearly did not believe me.

I told them to read my blog and the Frazer Report.

The Washington Post published: in 2009, Canada spent 11.4 percent of its Gross Domestic Product on health care, which puts it on the slightly higher end of OECD countries:

This is not true according to the Fraser report.

 “Six of ten Canadian provinces are on track to spend half of their revenues on health care, according to the Frazer Institute. To be specific, 

By 2017, four more provinces — Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia and New Brunswick — will spend half of their revenues on health care, according to the institute.”

I decided to reinvestigate the discrepancy between the two numbers when I got home.

Why would the Washington Post publish one number (11.4 percent of its Gross Domestic Product on healthcare) and the Fraser Report publish a 50% number?

In 2012, I figured the Washington Post just got it wrong. The reporter probably copied a number from some report that did not include all the funding for healthcare.

The Fraser Report added up all of contributions various Canadian agencies made to the government funding of the Canadian single party payer healthcare system.

The August 2016 Fraser Report made the discrepancy clear between the 11.4% and 50% number.

“Canadians often misunderstand the true cost of our public health care system.”

 “This occurs partly because Canadians do not incur direct expenses for their use of health care, and partly because Canadians cannot readily determine the value of their contribution to public health care insurance.”

The August 2016 Fraser Research Bulletin explains the discrepancy. It starts off by saying;

Health care in Canada is not “free.” While Canadians may not be billed directly when they use medical services, they pay a substantial amount of money for health care through the country’s tax system. Unfortunately, the size of these tax payments is hard to determine because there is no “dedicated” health insurance tax.

“As a result, individuals and families often cannot fully appreciate the true cost they pay towards the public health care system.”

The Canadian Government has figured out how to hide the true cost of healthcare from the press and the public.

The Obama administration is also hiding many costs from the American public as the insurance premiums are skyrocketing.

The purpose of this research bulletin is to help individuals Canadians and their families better understand how much healthcare actuallt dosts them personally so they can determine whether they are receiving good value for their tax dollars.”

 The problem is the Canadian public is only interested in what their individual healthcare coverage insurance costs.

Their coverage is “free” at the point of service. Free is good but nothing is free. Their complaint is the difficulty with access to care and the time it takes to get care.

Canadians are not thinking about the total healthcare costs to society. Canadians are not thinking about the source of revenue for that cost.

In Canada general revenue taxes are increased gradually.

Somehow these increases are not recognized.

Yet, people earning $48,456 a year have a tax rate of 43.1% and pay $11,439 dollars for healthcare coverage.

The healthcare coverage comes off the top of the tax bill similar to our social security payment pays for our Medicare Part B insurance.

Someone making $281,359 pays $158,255 in taxes or q tax rate of 56% of which $37,361 is paid for healthcare insurance coverage.

When people speak of “free” healthcare in Canada, they are entirely ignoring the substantial taxpayer-funded cost of the system.

The healthcare insurance premiums paid by Canadians only covers a fraction of the costs of the Canadian Healthcare System.

Some Canadians might assume that in those provinces that assess them, health care premiums cover the cost of health care.

 “However, the reality is that these premiums cover just a fraction of the cost of health care and are paid into general revenues from which health care is funded.”

 This is precisely what President Obama is doing with our healthcare system. The true cost is totally opaque.

In the U.S. it is impossible to figure out from which taxpayer fund President Obama take the revenue for the $2.5 billion dollar loans lost for the failed Co-Ops experiment, the $650 million dollar website fiasco, or the insurance subsides for 85% o the consumers who signed up for Obamacare.

 Congress is not helping us find out where the money is coming from either.

Indeed, Canadians cannot easily work out precisely what they pay to government each year for health care because there are many different sources of government revenues that may contribute to funding health care, including income taxes, Employment Insurance (EI) and Canada Pension

Plan (CPP) premiums, property taxes, profit taxes, sales taxes, taxes on the consumption of alcohol and tobacco, and import duties, among

others.”

 President Obama is not telling the American public the truth about the cost of Obamacare with its tiny participation.

If Americans knew where all the money is coming from they would demand immediate real of Obamacare.

There is a growing mistrust for our elected officials. The increase in public awareness is a result of the spread of social media and Internet communication.

It is difficult for the Obama administration and media to hide thing from the American people anymore. The catch is Americans have to more pay attention.

An excellent example is Hillary Clinton’s cancellation of a noon fund raising event is North Carolina. The cancellation was announced at 9 a.m. It went viral on the Internet at 10 a.m.

The cancellations aroused suspicion that Hillary was sick again, especially when her campaign announced that it had not comment.

Five hours later it announce that she had to cancel her events for the week to study for the debate.

With the many lies Americans have experienced from President Obama from Obamacare to the Iran Nuclear Treaty and Hillary from her emails and the Clinton Foundation, Americans are starting to become aware of their need to pay more attention to the day’s events and not rely on elected surrogates to look after us.

Healthcare, taxes, our economic growth and personal safety are important issues to most Americans. Many Americans are wondering if we can trust our surrogates.

Americans are starting to demand the truth.

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

 All Rights Reserved © 2006 – 2015 “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:

Donald Trump on Healthcare Reform

Stanley Feld M.D. FACP, MACE

Donald Trump’s healthcare proposals are totally different from Hillary Clinton’s. His proposals are a step in the right direction to Repair the Healthcare System.

His advisors tried to create a market based healthcare system. However, they have omitted the most important elements necessary to align all the stakeholders’ incentives.

Unfortunately, their approach is the usual healthcare policy wonks market based policy approach. They do not focus on the most important stakeholder in the healthcare system.

The consumer is the most important stakeholder in the healthcare system. The consumer should be the driver of the healthcare system.

A market based system should:

  1. Promote of consumer driven healthcare system.
  2. Promote consumers’ responsibility for their health and healthcare dollars.
  3. Promote the physician/patient relationships.
  4. Promote a respect for consumers’ intelligence. Consumers can judge what is best for their healthcare needs.
  5. Promotion of accurate education about a consumers’ disease and provide resources to help consumers make the best choices to treat their diseases and use their and healthcare dollars.

Donald Trump’s web site starts by pointing out the defects in Obamacare. The Obama administration and Hillary Clinton’s spin machine uses the traditional media to promote the erroneous concept that all that is needed to fix Obamacare’s small defects are small modifications and more money.

This is a wild fantasy. The real goal is to completely control the healthcare system.

Donald Trump’s web site starts by declaring that Obamacare must be repealed.

Since March of 2010, the American people have had to suffer under the incredible economic burden of the Affordable Care Act—(Obamacare.”

The average Americans are starting to understand Obamacare economic burden on the economy in general and them individually

“ The Affordable Care Act, (Obamacare), legislation, passed by totally partisan votes in the House and Senate and signed into law by the most divisive and partisan President in American history must be repealed.”

President Obama and majorities in the House and Senate tightly controlled the debate in congress and the traditional media.

Nancy Pelosi said it all when she said “you will not know what is in Obamacare until it has passed.”

“Obamacare has tragically but predictably resulted in runaway costs.”

The runaway costs for the government and individuals were the result of:

“Websites that don’t work, greater rationing of care, higher premiums, less competition and fewer choices.”

Obamacare has raised the economic uncertainty of every single person residing in this country.”

This has resulted from the 10 hidden taxes, along the inhibiting effect on the economy and the uncertainty of the potential mandates, that resulted in and from job losses.

As it appears Obamacare is certain to collapse of its own weight, the damage done by the Democrats and President Obama, and abetted by the Supreme Court, will be difficult to repair unless the next President and a Republican congress lead the effort to bring much-needed free market reforms to the healthcare industry.”

Donald Trump concludes that Obamacare cannot be fixed. It must be repealed.

“But none of these positive reforms can be accomplished without Obamacare repeal. On day one of the Trump Administration, we will ask Congress to immediately deliver a full repeal of Obamacare.”

Donald Trump recognizes that simply repealing Obamacare will not fix the healthcare system.

He also recognizes that he must work with Congress to have a series of reforms ready for implementation.

“We will work with Congress to make sure we have a series of reforms ready for implementation that follow free market principles and that will restore economic freedom and certainty to everyone in this country.”

It is refreshing to know that a potential president is willing to work with congress rather than issue executive orders and see if he can get away with them.

“By following free market principles and working together to create sound public policy that will broaden healthcare access, make healthcare more affordable and improve the quality of the care available to all Americans.

Any reform effort must begin with Congress.”

Donald Trump says;

Several reforms will be offered that should be considered by Congress so that on the first day of the Trump Administration, we can start the process of restoring faith in government and economic liberty to the people.

This is the correct process according to the constitution.

It is imperative that Republicans maintain their majorities in the House and Senate in order for Donald Trump to lead legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare.

The following are the suggestions a Trump administration will offer the congress according to his website.

  1. Completely repeal Obamacare.                                                         
  2.  Our elected representatives must eliminate the individual mandate (tax according to the Supreme Court). No person should be required to buy insurance unless he or she wants to.
  3. Modify existing law that inhibits the sale of health insurance across state lines.

Donald Trump assumes eliminating state line restrictions will allow full competition in the healthcare insurance market place. He assumes insurance premium costs will go down and consumer satisfaction will go up. The healthcare insurance companies will try to keep the insurance premiums equally high in all states.

It can only work if consumers can buy insurance they believe they need. Costs of unnecessary insurance should not be piled into one insurance plan fits all. i.e. A post menopausal woman does not need to pay a birth control premium.

4. Allow individuals to fully deduct health insurance premium payments from their tax returns under the current tax system.

Individuals should be allowed to take the same tax deductions as group insurance plans are allowed.

     5. We must review basic options for Medicaid and work with states to ensure that those who want healthcare coverage can have it.

This is where Donald Trump’s proposal weakens. The Medicaid program must be modified. Medicaid recipients should be incorporated into my ideal Medical Saving Account program. The government should act as the funding agent for the eligible poor.

This will put the poor on the same payment footing as everyone else.

The Medicaid eligible poor should be given financial incentives to take charge of their health and healthcare dollars.

Our healthcare system must be moved from a system that fixes you when you are sick or broken into a system that rewards people financially for remaining healthy and controlling their healthcare spending.

It is much cheaper to avoid the cost of emergency care than it is to get sick and have to go to the emergency room.

         6. Allow individuals to use Health Savings Accounts (HSAs). Contributions into HSAs should be tax-free and should be allowed to accumulate.

Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) should be changed to Medical Savings Accounts (MSAs) to provide better financial incentives for people who choose this form of insurance. The Medical Savings Accounts can easily be customized so that consumers can choose the level of insurance they desire.

The contribution to the MSA can be flexible to provide adequate amounts of money to be put into the savings accounts to incentivize consumers to remain healthy.

Obesity is a huge program that must be consumer driven. Obesity must be cure by the patient and his family, not surgery.

Obese children are becoming diabetic and also hypertensive at a young age. This must be stopped because of the potential explosive effect of complications of both diabetes and hypertension on individual and overall costs of medical care.

      7. Require price transparency from all healthcare providers, especially doctors and healthcare organizations like clinics and hospitals.

Price transparency is an essential provision for individuals, businesses and groups. It provides leverage for consumers to be responsible for their healthcare dollars. It is also necessary to require insurance companies to provide verifiable price transparency for their administrative costs and their direct patient care costs

Consumers must be empowered to be responsible and shop for the most value and best prices for procedures, exams or any other medical related procedure.

This is the way to decrease the cost of healthcare services and medical care services.

Social networking should be used as the backbone for the establishment of consumer empowerment.

The success of Angie’s list, Trip Advisor and Open Table are a result of social networking. Local communities have their individual social networks that empower people in their neighborhood to know which vendors provide the best value in their community.

This simple step can be used to decrease the cost of healthcare and medical care.

This could be a place where government can lead the way in establishing this accurate educational resources.

       8. Block-grant Medicaid to the states.

These block grants can be used by the states to fund MSAs without a threat of increasing state budget deficits or giving states rights to the control of the federal government.

Block grants for social networking should be used to provide incentives to help individuals to seek out and eliminate fraud, waste and abuse of some of its local providers. It would eliminate expensive big data collections that many times are inaccurate in decision making by central federal control.

       9. Remove barriers to entry into free markets for drug providers that offer safe, reliable and cheaper products.

Federal and state governments should help its citizen choose safe, reliable and cheaper products for the treatment of their diseases.

It would help with compliance and adherence to recommended treatment and decrease the cost of care.

It would promote consumers taking responsibility for their own health and healthcare dollars.

     10.  Congressss will need the courage to step away from the special interests and do what is right for America.

One example is allowing consumers access to imported, safe and dependable drugs from overseas. It will provide more options to consumers. This is only one example of many that ways to decrease the cost of drugs in this country.

Donald Trump is proposing a lot of important changes.

However, he is missing the important element of consumer power, consumer initiative, and consumer incentives.

His healthcare changes must include a consumer driven system with an ideal medical saving account otherwise the healthcare system will remain an unmanageable, expensive and abused mess.

Donald Trump admits this is simply a start. His start is much more powerful than Hillary Clinton’s proposal to continue and build on Obamacare.

Obamacare has been a disaster that is unsustainable. It is weekly increasing the cost of care while rationing care and decreasing access to care.

 

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

 All Rights Reserved © 2006 – 2015 “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:

Hillary Clinton On Healthcare Reform

Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP, MACE

The next two blogs will review the published position on healthcare of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

Obamacare has not been a big issue in the presidential campaign yet. It will become a big issue in mid October when the new premium schedules will leak to the press and by the November 1 publication of premium date healthcare will be a full-blown campaign issue.

Obamacare is on the verge of failure. Democrats are starting to talk up a Public Option as the Obamacare salvation. The Public Option is not going to save Obamacare.

The healthcare Co-Ops were supposed to provide a competitive force for the healthcare insurance companies to keep down the premium costs. However, 17 out of 22 have failed. The other five will fail before the end of the year.

The Public Option is a federally controlled competitive force. However, because of healthcare insurance companies distrust for the Democrats and Obamacare few insurance companies will show up to compete.

The presidential campaign has been such a circus that our attention has been diverted from healthcare.

The failure will be noticed when the new premiums are published on November 1, 2016, five days before we go the polls.

This late date has been set deliberately by the Obama administration in order not to give Americans enough time to respond with anger toward Democrats and the potentially new Hillary Clinton administration and vote her down.

Hillary Clinton’s website’s first sentence in her preamble on healthcare says it all.

“As your president, I want to build on the progress we’ve made with Obamacare.

She will build on Obamacare. Obamacare is a failure by all measures once we see through President Obama, Paul Krugman, and Ezekeil Emanuel’s lies. Why would anyone want to build on that failure?

Hillary supports President Obama’s call for a near tripling of the size of the National Health Service Corps. It will also triple the cost with not evidence that it will be successful.

“ I’ll do more to bring down health care costs for families, ease burdens on small businesses, and make sure consumers have the choices they deserve.”

 It sounds like President Obama’s empty promise.

  1. If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor.
  2. If you like your insurance company you can keep your insurance company.
  3. If you make less than $250,000 dollars a year you will not pay one red cent more in taxes.

 “And frankly, it is finally time for us to deal with the skyrocketing out-of-pocket health costs, and particularly runaway prescription drug prices.”

This statement is important but is minor compared to what needs to be done.

The main body of Hillary Clinton’s position paper says the same thing. It does not give any details on how she will accomplish any of her promises.

Her campaign and the traditional media led by the New York Times have attacked every one of Donald Trump’s proposals because they claim he does not spell out how he would accomplish them.

Below are her website healthcare policies.

Defend and expand the Affordable Care Act, which covers 20 million people.

 In 2016, Obamacare’s Health Insurance Exchanges insure only ten million people.

Most of those 10 million have a pre-existing illness. These people could not buy healthcare insurance on the private market. Eighty-five percent of those people receive government supplements. There has been no increase in Obamacare enrollment since 2014. There has been a lot of lying about enrollment yearly.

It would be less expensive if a system of care were developed to provide these people with medical care without the bloated bureaucracy and falsely promised insurance benefits.

The expansion of Medicaid eligibility decreased the uninsured an additional 10 million. With Hillary Clinton’s plan to increase Syrian immigration to 500,000 a year and provide them with Medicaid the failure of Medicaid will be accelerated.

Medicaid is another failed government program. Medicaid patients have difficulty finding a physician and have decreased access for medical care.

Bring down out-of-pocket costs like copays and deductibles.

Hillary Clinton offers no plan on how she is going to accomplish this.

Reduce the cost of prescription drugs.

Again, there is no explanation for how she is going to reduce these high costs.

Protect consumers from unjustified prescription drug price increases from companies that market long-standing, life-saving treatments and face little or no competition.

Promises, promises, promises with no explanation of a plan. It sounds great but there is no plan explaining fulfillment.

Fight for health insurance for the lowest-income Americans in every state by incentivizing states to expand Medicaid—and make enrollment through Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act easier.

President Obama and his administration have told us over and over again that it is easy to enroll in Medicaid and Obamacare. The Obama administration even pays enrollment navigators $48 an hour.

Expand access to affordable health care to families regardless of immigration status.

Hillary Clinton clearly has no regard for cost. She also wants to expand the immigration of Syrians to 500,000 per year. When this happens the cost of Medicaid will explode.

The federal government will eventually try to dump those costs on the states. Most states have budget deficits that have to be cured now.

Taxpayers will be forced to endure both federal and state tax increases for a failed federal program.

President Obama’s original promise is that the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) will be budget neutral.

Expand access to rural Americans, who often have difficulty finding quality, affordable health care.

Hillary Clinton pledges to explore cost-effective ways to make more health care providers eligible for telemedicine reimbursement under Medicare and other programs.

Please notice she is only exploring the possibility of telemedicine reimbursement. Americans have heard empty promises before.

Defend access to reproductive health care. 

Hillary will work to ensure that all women have access to preventive care, affordable contraception, and safe and legal abortion. This is not a promise. How she will accomplish this goal is not outlined.

Double funding for community health centers, and supports the healthcare workforce: 

This is an initiative that is part of Hillary Clinton’s comprehensive healthcare agenda.

She is going to double present funding for primary-care services at community health centers over the next decade.

This is another ideological plan whose effectiveness has not been proven.

The goal of community healthcare centers is to provide low-level care for illness. It does not promote a patient/physician relationship or patient responsibility. It does not provide patient choice.

It is another step to commoditize medical care.

There you have it. Hillary Clinton’s healthcare policy as described on her website.

It is an extension of President Obama’s failed healthcare policy of the last 7 years. There is no mention of patients or their responsibility for their health or healthcare.

None of these proposals will lower the price of healthcare or increase the quality of care.

Hillary Clinton’s proposals will increase spending on a failed program (Obamacare) that has increased America’s deficit.

Hillary Clinton believes: Together these steps will get us closer to the day when everyone in America has access to quality, affordable health care.”

I believe Hillary Clinton does not know what she is talking about. I know the American people are seeing what is happening to our healthcare system.

If you want more of Obamacare with its tremendous costs to individuals and the American people along with the lack of improvement in medical care vote for Hillary Clinton.

Hillary Clinton is a tax and spend progressive democrat who does not think about what consumers need. Her attitude is that consumers are not smart enough to choose.

She believes that the federal government knows best.

There is nothing in her healthcare plan to Repair the Healthcare System.

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

All Rights Reserved © 2006 – 2015 “Repairing The Healthcare System” Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

Permalink:

The Deception and Disinformation Continues

Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

When Co-Op Health Insurers close, what happens to customers’ all ready paid in deductibles?

The new insurer will not credit the already paid deductibles in 2016. Consumers will have to start all over again with new deductibles. This is despite President Obama’s implied promise that consumers will get credit for the deductibles paid.  

President Obama’s goal was to make Obamacare as complicated as possible so no one could understand it.

I believe neither he nor his administration understand all the interwoven parts and the unintended consequences.

Obamacare was built to fail.

Obamacare was built so that whatever part of the component policy failed, that policy would ultimately default to a single party payer system. The original goal was to have complete government control of the healthcare system.

The federal government would control choice and restrict access to medical care.

Americans’ free choice would be disappear.

Obamacare’s healthcare exchanges have only been attractive to people who could not obtain healthcare insurance because they had pre-existing illnesses.

That was a good thing. However, premiums were too high for the healthy uninsured.

The healthy uninsured would pay for the consumers with preexisting illnesses and spread the risk. The thought was that it would lower the cost of insurance.

The Obama administration lent $2.5 billion dollars to only 22 states that opted to set up Co-Ops to compete with the healthcare care insurance companies offering insurance through the health insurance exchange in those states.

These Co-Ops were destined to fail. The Obama administration’s plan was to low ball the insurance premiums and force the healthcare insurance companies to compete and lower their premiums.

President Obama’s reinsurance program to subsidize and protect insurers from loss fell apart because of budget restraints that he signed into law.

High-risk people with pre-existing illnesses flocked to sign up for the Co-Op’s healthcare insurance. The Co-Op insurance plans were poorly advertised and constructed. Few healthy people bought the plans.

We are constantly told how many people lost their insurance and their deductible.

In reality the Co-Ops was the “public option” without the approval of congress.

So far, seventeen of the twenty-two have declared bankruptcy so far. The remaining five Co-Ops are on the way. The federal government will never get paid back for the $2.5 billion dollars in loans.

Illinois’ Co-Op “ Land of Lincoln” declared bankruptcy and closed out over 49,000 patrons. The have to get new insurance to cover them for October, November and December.

A large insurer (Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois) on the Illinois’ Obamacare exchange has decided not to credit former Land of Lincoln members for money they’ve already paid toward their deductibles despite a request from the state to consider doing so.”

“They will likely have to start from zero again on their deductibles and out-of-pocket max payments — in some cases costing them thousands of additional dollars.”

The other large insurers have not commented yet. President Obama has not come through with his promise to cover these deductibles.

President Obama and his press secretary deny Obamacare is in trouble. The casual observer who reads are Paul Krugman’s articles in the New York Times and believes he personally has adequate healthcare insurance would also believe the lie.

Paul Krugman is President Obama and Hillary Clinton’s hatchet man. When something goes wrong in any area of the economy Mr. Krugman blames it on the Republicans without evidence or data.

The New York Times and his readers believe him without critically evaluating his statements.

Paul Krugman: “Most of the news about health reform has been good, defying the dire predictions of right-wing doomsayers.”

 This is lie. He has no positive evidence for this statement except that Obamacare has added 10 million people to the Medicaid program.

This could have been accomplished without Obamacare by simply raising the definition of poverty from its obsolete 1955 level.

Paul Krugman :“But this week has brought some genuine bad news: The giant insurer Aetna announced that it would be pulling out of many of the “exchanges,” the special insurance markets the law established.”

 Others have pulled out in addition to Aetna.

UnitedHealth, Cigna, Blue Cross and Blue Shield and other smaller insurance companies such as Baylor/ Scott and White have pulled out because they have lost huge amounts of money. Their losses are unsustainable for their business.

Seventeen of the 22 federally funded Co-Ops have gone bankrupt and closed down. They were supposed to create competition like the public option to keep premium prices and deductibles down.

Paul Krugman says: “This doesn’t mean that the reform is about to collapse.”

What does it mean? He does not say.

Then he goes on to attack the Republican Party and Donald Trump.

“They’re problems that would be relatively easy to fix in a normal political system, one in which parties can compromise to make government work.

Maybe the Republicans cannot compromise because Obamacare was so poorly conceived and constructed.

Obamacare has been a waste of government money and taxpayers’ money. It is destroying the delivery of medical care. I would call this a failure.

Maybe the Republicans are correct in opposing a law that is increasing the federal deficit while claiming is that it is budget neutral.

It is unbelievable that Hillary Clinton wants to expand Obamacare. Isn’t it because Obamacare is failing and unsustainable?

Then Mr. Krugman goes on to take an inappropriate swing at Donald Trump.

“But they (the problems) won’t get resolved if we elect a clueless president (although he’d turn to terrific people, the best people, for advice, believe me. Not.).”

Paul Krugman then goes on to tell lie after lie about the success of Obamacare and how unfairly Republicans view Obamacare.

“Paul Krugman says:” The economy of race prevents Medicare and Obamacare expansion.”

“White voters “don’t like the idea of helping neighbors who don’t look like them”

“New York Times columnist Paul Krugman argued Monday that the opposition of red states like Texas to accepting federal money to fund Medicaid expansion isn’t based, as claimed, on a commitment to smaller government and the superiority of the free market so much as it is the politics of race, and who would receive those funds.

Medicaid expansion, Krugman noted, disproportionately benefits nonwhite Americas, and voters in red states — particular the white ones — “don’t like the idea of helping neighbors who don’t look like them.

Paul Krugman is an economics professor. Can’t he figure out that the system has failed economically? American needs a better system with responsible consumers driving the system.

Who is stimulating race wars without facts or evidence?

Paul Krugman is stimulating race wars with unfounded statement like this in order to defend Obamacare and President Obama’s legislation. Legislation that has failed.

Nearly a third of the nation’s counties look likely to have just a single insurer offering health plans on the Affordable Care Act’s exchanges next year, according to a new analysis, an industry pullback that adds to the challenges facing the law.”

Higher than expected costs have led UnitedHealth, Aetna, Humana and many smaller companies such as Baylor/Scott and White to pull out of Obamacare’s federal health insurance plan.

With the demise of the state Co-Ops the competition is even slimmer.

“The Kaiser Family Foundation, in a study commissioned by the Wall Street Journal, estimates that 19% of Obamacare enrollees seeking coverage in 2017 will be in a market with just one insurer, up from just 2% in 2016. Another 19% will have access to just two carriers, up from 12%.

Forty percent of 10 million people is 4 million people who are going to be affected by a decrease in competition. The total enrollment in Obamacare has been stagnant the last 3 years.”

We must repeal this debacle called Obamacare and start a new system that could work. A consumer driven healthcare system for all as described in my article “My Ideal Medical Saving Account is Democratic.”

It includes everyone. It provides financial incentives to everyone to be responsible for their own health and healthcare dollars.

“What do we have to lose?”

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

 All Rights Reserved © 2006 – 2015 “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.