Another Obama Political Campaign Has Started

Stanley Feld
M.D.,FACP,MACE

I have predicted Obamacare will fail ever
since its passage. Proponents of Obamacare believe Obamacare is America’s last
hope for meaningful healthcare reform with affordable care for all.

They now admit there are some problems
with Obamacare but little tweaks will fix it.

Obamacare is not America’s last chance for
healthcare reform. Obamacare is a series of regulations pasted on to an already
dysfunctional healthcare system. It is destined to collapse on it own weight
and regulations. There are over 20,000 new regulations to date with thousands
coming each week as we get closer to January 1,2014.

I believe the business model I outlined
using 2013 technology is the system that will align all the stakeholders’
incentives and provide universal care at an affordable cost for all.

It will provide freedom of choice and
enhance the patient physician relationship. It will be a system that is patient
centered as opposed to Obamacare being government and outcome centered.

An outcome centered healthcare system puts
the government and the healthcare insurance industry in control of medical care
decisions. It will control access to care and result in rationing medical care.

The passage of Obamacare was a political
farce.

The bill was slipped through the Senate just
before dawn three Christmas eves ago with only one Republican vote in both
houses of congress. Obamacare is not a bipartisan act.

Nancy Pelosi told the American public and congress
that we would not know what is in it until we pass it.

We have been told that most of congress has not
read the act completely.

The new entitlement’s start-up date is October
2013. The implementation date is January 1,2014. No one is ready for either
date.

 “The size and
complexity of the Affordable Care Act meant that its implementation was never
going to easy. But behind the scenes, even states that support or might support
the Affordable Care Act are frustrated about the Health and Human Services
Department's special combination of rigidity and ineptitude.”

Individual
state governments have tried to get a clear idea of how Obamacare would work in
practice with the health insurance exchange.

 The states are terrified of the economic burden the health
exchanges could impose on their deficit-ridden states.

The Supreme Court has given the states a choice of signing on
whereas there was not a choice in the original bill.  

Some states felt they could not turn down the health insurance
exchange because the Obama administration was offering them too much money,

The Obama administration is starting to make preliminary deals
with states that have rejected the health insurance exchanges at this point.

The administration is giving Ohio and Arkansas more money to pay
for health insurance for people earning up to 133% above the poverty level. (Income
of $14,400 a year). This deal nowhere as creative as the Indiana Health Plan
and will cover many fewer people.

This offer will not cover people who really need insurance.

The preliminary deals with Arkansas and Ohio will be more costly
that deals with other states. It is questionable whether the Obama
administration has the authority to spend the additional money.

As new regulations keep being produced none of the real hard
operational questions are being answered.

A regulation usually requires 60 days of public comment. The Obama
administration has unilaterally shortened public comment to 30 days. The shortened
public comment period for new regulations can be challenged by the states and
congress.

There are other problems that states are having with Medicaid and
Obamacare. Many feel that HHS is treating states not as partners but as serfs
to the federal government.

The central government is building a data hub to determine who is
eligible for Medicaid and Obamacare health insurance exchanges. This new
federal bureaucracy will dispense insurance subsidies and police the market.

Many states want to cut their administrative costs to balance
their budget. They are combining the application process for Medicaid, food
stamps, cash assistance and other antipoverty programs into one agency.

HHS's privacy rules say the hub can only be used for Obamacare.
HHS will force states to become less efficient by having a free standing
bureaucracy for Obamacare and has flatly refused to consider participating
states’ requests for combining all the agencies under one roof.

Twenty-four (24) states have still refused to participate as of
May 15^th. The Obama administration will have to run a federal
exchange in those states.

HHS has not revealed how it will handle these exchanges. The
agency running the federal exchange won't reveal how it will operate.

The irony is that many of the states would participate if HHS gave
them more flexibility to manage their own programs and control costs.

“At a House Energy and Commerce hearing on Thursday, Obamacare
point man Gary Cohen all but took the Fifth on how he'll deal with this and
other challenges.”

It seem as if it is going to be a vast
undertaking that can not possible be in place in October or operational on
January 1^st, 2014.

Chris Christie (N.J.) and Bill Halsam
(Tenn) wanted to participate but now feel the health insurance exchange in not
a sane or rational marketplace. The costs
and risks were too high.

“This is all-or-nothing
political gambit is meant to put the governors of states not participating in a
bad political spot at home if they don’t participate.”

“At this point, the total administrative burden on the federal
government has massively increased. Yet neither the federal government nor the
states have the human or financial resources to discharge these tasks in a
timely fashion, making it highly unlikely that these exchanges will be up and
running by January 1, 2014.”

 

 

 Making things worse for
Obamacare is no fewer than 18 Democratic Senators came out against Obamacare's
$28 billion tax on medical device sales.

The list of Democratic Senators
includes Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin and Patty Murray. Either they believe it or
the lobbyists got to them.

The medical device industry has received little
guidance about how to comply with the tax. This has caused significant
uncertainty and confusion for medical device businesses.

These are some of the problems Obamacare is
facing.

President Obama is unfazed. In the face of criticism from
Democrats about his incompetent implementation of Obamacare, he is going on the road to spin some misinformation and make it
look like Obamacare is great and his critics are political.

President Obama co-opted
Mother’s Day in his latest campaign to sell Obamacare that begins now and will
last until the 2014.

President Obama kicked off
another campaign-style effort to get people to sign up for the so-called
Affordable Care Act.

“In a
statement dripping with condescension Obama tried to blame misinformation for
his health care troubles.”

He said, “Precisely because there’re been so much
misinformation, sometimes people may not have a sense of what the law actually
does.   

He continued,   “We’re going to need everybody out there to make sure
they get the right information.”

“Don’t
just read a blog or some commentary from some pundit that has a political
agenda.  Make sure you know what the actual facts.”

Don’t
let people confuse you.  Don’t let them run the okeydokey on you. 
Don’t be bamboozled.”

Doesn’t this sound like his
political campaign of 2012?

President Obama seems to
have forgotten that a lot of misinformation about Obamacare results from his
statements.

Wasn’t he was the guy that
said, “If you like you doctor you will be able to
keep your doctor and if you like your healthcare plan you can keep your
healthcare plan.”

None of this is true
including free choice, affordable healthcare insurance, and free access to
care.

I wonder when Americans are
going to get tired of President Obama’s misinformation and false promises.

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

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