Hillary Clinton is a tax and spend Democrat. She will be an extension of the Obama administration.
Her list of promises and expenditures will continue in healthcare without success in providing better cost effective care to Americans.
Her plans for healthcare will result in increased government control of Americans’ lives and freedoms while escalating the federal deficit.
The expansion of President Obama’s failed programs will simply accelerate the path toward total collapse of our healthcare system.
Dr. Robert Kocher was special assistant to President Obama for health care and economic policy from 2009 to 2010. He was instrumental in promoting the consolidation of healthcare systems. He also encourage these healthcare systems to buy physicians practices in order to consolidate networks.
The rational was the government would then deal with one provider (the hospital system). The communications within the network would improve the quality of care and decrease the cost of care.
Theoretically, this should be true. However, the differences between the culture of hospital administrator and physicians made Dr. Kocher’s goals impossible to achieve.
This last week he admitted that he was wrong and individual practicing physician groups are more efficient and less expensive than “hospital controlled networks of physicians.”
“I, along with Ezekiel Emanuel and Nancy-Ann DeParle, argued that “these reforms will unleash forces that favor integration across the continuum of care.”
“We thought only hospitals or health plans can afford to make the necessary investments” needed to provide the care we will need in a post-ACA world.”
“Now I think we were wrong to favor it.”
“What I know now, though, is that having every provider in health care “owned” by a single organization is more likely to be a barrier to better care.”
In 2010, I predicted hospital systems owning physicians would not work. Anyone with an understanding of hospital politics and hospital administrators thinking knew it could not work.
The only reason physicians let hospital systems buy their practices was because the physicians were disgusted with the intrusive government rules and regulations and they were afraid they would be left out of the growing future trend.
It was clear to me the trend was misguided political manipulation.
The best of the clinicians tried to make it work but failed. ACO’s controlled by hospital systems were destined to fail and not save money.
ACO’s that are owned by private group practices are barely saving money and profiting by that savings.
President Obama and his administration fell for the concept because they visualized it as a path to control physicians and the healthcare system.
The Obama administration and its experts never considered what the consumers might want or need.
The healthcare insurance industry is now suing the government because the government is reneging on its reinsurance commitment totaling billions of dollars.
President Obama and Hillary Clinton are calling for a public option. This is a diversionary tactic The public option is certain to fail.
The government will continue to remain totally dependent on the healthcare insurance companies for administrative services.
The reintroduction of the public option will accelerate the collapse of the healthcare system. It appears that Ms. Clinton has no idea of the unintended consequences.
The unspoken reality of the “public option” is to destroy private healthcare insurance. It is not a good idea. It will accelerate the collapse of the healthcare system.
I have written extensively about the consequences of the public option.
The government would squeeze private insurance out of the marketplace through regulatory control over access to care, premium control over consumers, and financial control over providers. The government would undercut the marketplace.
The government will remain dependent on the healthcare insurance industry to administer the services provided for all of the existing government healthcare services including Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare.
The healthcare insurance industry would be in better shape because all the insurance risk would be transferred to the government.
The government programs are unsustainable at the moment. This unsustainability will escalate.
“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.”
President Obama said just the opposite in his Journal of the American Medical Association article.
“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.”
President Obama’s statement is a total lie. However, the mainstream media is repeating the lie as a fact.
I hope President Obama and Hillary Clinton’s public option is no more convincing today to the public than it was in 2009.
It should be less convincing in the face of all the Obamacare failures to date.
Taxpayers are realizing that the public option will put them at more real financial risk. Taxpayer financial risk was clearly stated in the first version of the public option with no congressional questions asked.
The public option does not create a competitive marketplace and level the playing field. The competition will disappear at the taxpayers’ expense.
It is clear that both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton think the American public is stupid.
President Obama has been playing the American public for 71/2 years. He was correct when he told Senator Kerry and Representative Barney Frank that we don’t need a public opinion.
Obamacare was enough to get central government control of the healthcare system.
Let us think about it a little.
The federal government mandated coverage. The problem is the mandates didn’t work.
Then, Obamacare defined what healthcare plans are permissible.
These Obamacare regulations escalated the premiums and the deductibles to unaffordable heights.
The federal government determined what health benefits consumers could receive.
It didn’t work. If a benefit was not included, consumers bought that benefit outside the system or did not buy healthcare insurance if the benefits where too many.
Physicians started to not participate in the Obamacare system. This non-participation has caused a shortage of providers.
Some medical procedures or treatments were not covered. The government decided what should be covered, what level of coverage should exist and what copayments and deductibles were to be allowed.
Consumers have been protesting. The government has not been listening.
Obamacare has all the tools and power of the law to control the healthcare system without a public option.
However, the Obama administration and another future Clinton administration feel they must destroy the healthcare insurance industry in order to give the public no choice and compel them to comply.
The public option will also fail. It will lead to restrictions on freedoms and liberty. When this is clear the public will get very angry.
The cost of healthcare will rise, not fall, because of greater inefficiency and bureaucratic control.
There will be reams of red tape and unenforceable provisions as a result of government control.
There will be special deals to certain providers in order to avoid uncontrollable protest.
Who will lose? The poor and the middle class!
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