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.
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.
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,
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;
“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 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.
“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