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Disinformation and the healthcare system

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Bill Clinton Is Crazy As A Fox

Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP, MACE

 Many Republicans and Democrats thought Bill Clinton had lost his mind when he made his Obamacare statement earlier this week.

Most of the conservative traditional and alternative media also thought he lost his mind. They repeated Bill Clinton’s statement over and over again. The media’s goal on both sides of the aisle simply wanted to make sure it sunk into the head of the American people.

Notable & Quotable: Bill Clinton on ObamaCare

Former President Bill Clinton speaking about ObamaCare at a rally Monday in Flint, Mich.:”

 “The people that are getting killed in this deal (Obamacare) are small business people and individuals who make just a little too much to get any of these (Obamacare’s) subsidies.”

 “ Why? Because they’re not organized.”

 “ They don’t have any bargaining power with insurance companies. And they’re getting whacked.”

 “ So you’ve got this crazy (healthcare) system where all of a sudden 25 million more people have health care, and then the people who are out there busting it, sometimes 60 hours a week, wind up with their premiums doubled and their coverage cut in half.

 It’s the craziest thing in the world.”

Clinton

 


https://youtu.be/ETVcsPRTSHM

 

Trump

https://youtu.be/jziTLD0Gc7Y

Bill Clinton knew exactly what he was doing. Hillary Clinton’s position on Obamacare has been clearly stated. She is for Obamacare and for the public option. She has stated that she is going to expand Obamacare.

Bill Clinton’s position sounds totally opposite his wife’s position.

Hillary Clinton’s website explains her position on healthcare clearly.

She wants to : Defend and expand the Affordable Care Act, which covers 20 million people.

Hillary Clinton stating that 20 million people were covered by Obamacare is untrue. In 2016 the health insurance exchanges only cover 10 million people. Obamacare has expanded Medicaid coverage by 10 million people. Medicaid coverage is less than ideal.

The comments in the WSJ about Bill Clinton’s comments are more entertaining than Bill’s comments about Obamacare.

One comment suggested that Bill Clinton is jealous of his wife.

“This is called a “Bill bomb”, designed to passive aggressively tank Hillary’s campaign so he doesn’t have to go back on the leash.”

“She was lagging in the polls, Bill had nothing, but she is surging again and Bill can’t have that.”

Some of the comments applaud Bill Clinton for finally speaking the truth.

       1.” You gotta love it when Bill sounds like a Republican.”

  1. It is so refreshing to hear a Democrat politician speak the truth. And oh, so rare. Perhaps Bill forgot to take his medication.”
  1. “Give the Democrats credit whenever they do something intelligent, and non-ideological, even if they do it for a confounding reason.”

      4. “Leave it to Bill to hit the nail on the head.  Pure genius.”

      5.”Perhaps there is one Clinton who tells the truth.”

This commentator forgot all of the lies Bill Clinton’s told us (the public) when he was president such as his most famous lie, “I did not have sex with that woman.”

      6.” I don’t know what’s more shocking: Bill slamming Obama’s signature law or a Clinton telling the truth.”

      7.” He must have been off his meds at the time he made the comment, the next day he was back on track. I guess Hillary had to break another lamp over his head.”

I believe Bill Clinton did a brilliant thing for his wife. Obamacare is going to fail. He and Hillary do not want to have anything to do with Obamacare’s failure.

Consumers have discovered that their premiums and deductibles for 2017 are rising to unaffordable level. These increases are because of Obamacare. The private sector has also experienced tremendous increases in premiums and deductible because of Obamacare.

Open enrollment for the health insurance exchanges are supposed to start November 1, 2016, seven days before the Presidential election. If Hillary Clinton does not separate herself from Obamacare it will sink her chances to be elected.

I think the Obama administration will delay open enrollment until after the Presidential election.

President Obama might be able to pull Obamacare’s failure out of the dirt if he is able to illegally obtain theJudgement Fund” money to pay the healthcare insurance industry the money he owes them.

The Republican establishment in congress should make a stink about the release of this money. The Republican establishment should not sell out to President Obama.

President Obama is pulling another illegal fast play on congress and the American taxpayer by getting this money.

President Clinton’s statement is his effort to distance his wife from the Obamacare impending failure.

His statement demonstrates the Clintons’ character. After President Obama and Michelle Obama went all out to endorse Hillary Clinton for President, Bill Clinton stabs President Obama’s legacy legislation in the back.

“Now that the Obamas have given Hillary their full-throated endorsement, Bill can take policy positions more in line with suffering middle class voters. In Clintonworld expedience supersedes truth.” 

Hillary Clinton’s goal is to usurp credit for healthcare reform from President Obama.

She wants to be able to say that healthcare insurance plans do not work.

America needs a single party payer system and it needs it now.

Bill Clinton’s assessment is correct on the issue of Obamacare. All Obamacare is doing is merely shifting costs from those who cannot pay to those who can pay.

It is truly a healthcare system that redistributes wealth as Dr. Don Berwick said a long time ago.

The Clintons want a single party payer system real fast so that they look like they are coming to the rescue of the American people.

Democrats running for congress have rapidly gotten on the Clinton bandwagon.

Clinton’s proposal is simply bait and switch.

The problem is a single party payer system detrimentally affects the middle class taxpayer the most as I have explained.

They are trying to make Obamacare’s failure into an election issue asset for Hillary Clinton who will come to the rescue with her single party payer system.

A single party payer system is unsustainable and has huge defects.

I also know the majority of the middle class does not trust Hillary or Bill Clinton.

The Clintons will not fooled the majority of the middle class again.

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

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Defective Thinking About Single Party Payer Systems

Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP, MACE

Sowell

 

In a government controlled single payer health care system the government provides the healthcare coverage for all. The government pays providers for various services at a cost determined by the government.

Advocates of a single party payer system in the United States have publicized that Canada, Britain and the European Countries have successful single party payer systems.

These declarations are untrue.

The definition of success is variable, problematical and questionable. It is successful in the fact that healthcare coverage is universal.

It is problematical in the sense that access to care is difficult. The rationing of medical care has inevitable because of the escalation of costs.

It is questionable as to whether these countries can afford to cover everyone. The National Healthcare System in Britain is falling apart rapidly. Hospitals are closing because of lack of funding. Patients’ waiting lines are increasing, access to care and rationing of care is increasing.

Britain has a robust private healthcare insurance industry for those who can afford to pay. The National Healthcare Systems costs are unsustainable.

In Britain the private healthcare insurance industry is thriving.

In Canada the healthcare system is absorbing 50% of Canada’s GDP.

Canada’s unsustainable healthcare system has resulted in government rationing of care as well as long waiting lines for patients to receive even rudimentary care much less hip or knee replacement.

The United States has three single party healthcare systems: the VA healthcare system, Medicaid and Medicare.

The VA Healthcare System is a treatment and financial disaster. It has evolved into a bureaucratic monster. Employees who do not perform cannot be fired according to government rules. Too many employees have been hired to try to get the job done. The infrastructure is administratively bloated.

The second reason for the VA Healthcare System’s problems is there is no intellectual or financial incentive to do a responsible and better job on the part of employees.

The culture of the VA System is that of a typical government bureaucracy. The federal government throwing more money at the VA System, to help our veterans receive better care, has not improved the system.

Patients are not satisfied with Medicaid because there is limited assess to care. Physicians do not accept Medicaid patients because reimbursement is too low. Medicaid provides an opportunity for the indigent to receive medical care. However the ability to get medical care is limited.

Seniors are satisfied with the care available through Medicare. However, as reimbursement is decreasing and the delivery of care is becoming more bureaucratic, physicians are leaving the Medicare system and demanding cash from seniors for medical care.

There is also an increase in concierge medicine for seniors.

Drugs are increasing in price. Seniors cannot afford their medication. Medicare Part D coverage (Drug Medicare) has become too expensive to afford.

The result is patients are becoming sicker because they cannot afford the prescribed medications. Then they end up in the hospital. The result is an increased cost to the Medicare System. Since deductibles and co-pay are increasing seniors are being bankrupt by the Medicare system.

The advocates of a single party system ignore basic inefficiencies inherent in government controlled bureaucratic systems.

These bureaucratic systems are inefficient and ineffective. They become unsustainable in all the single party payer systems in existence.

The deception sold to the public by progressive politicians is the advantage that medical care is free to all. The simple concept that nothing is free is ignored.

A system must replace these failed systems that provides incentives to consumers for consumers to drive the system.

Below are the claimed advantages to a single party payer system. I have noted the deception in each claim.

  1. Healthcare Coverage is Universal

Everyone has health care coverage to the full extent that his or her health needs require.

People with pre-existing illness cannot be refused medical treatment.”

This should be the goal of any healthcare system.

The problems with healthcare systems in which consumers are entitled almost always get abused. The healthcare system has to be developed where people are responsible for their health and healthcare dollars.

  1. Decrease Amount of Necessary Paperwork

That a single party payer system will “decrease the amount of necessary paperwork” is a fictitious advantage. It will increase the amount of paperwork as has been proven over and over again.

The goal of any government run healthcare system is to measure what the healthcare system is doing so that the government can determine the quality of care delivered on the basis of the information provided. The fact that the information provided could be fudged is immaterial to the documentation.

The delivery of medical care is complex. It is almost impossible to commoditize. In an effort to measure quality of care there are increased regulations and documentation requirements.

The more complex an illness is the more paperwork will be needed to enable evaluation of the quality of care.

The result will be there will be less time, not more time, for the medical staff to spend providing care for the patient.

The belief of single party payer advocates is “providers will have more time to spend with patients.”

Additionally because medical care is free the entitled inevitably overuse the healthcare system making it even less efficient.
“Advocates believe the costs of single payer health care systems will be lower.”

  1. Lower Costs

Progressives think the reasons for “the lower costs is there isn’t any competition, a not for profit structure, and a reduced number of administrative staff.”

“ The high salaries for administrators and sales people are eliminated in a single payer system.”

The costs of government run systems are never lower. The costs to patients are lower because it is free. The costs to the healthcare system are higher because there is no incentive to be competitive.

The government will have to outsource the administrative services to the healthcare industry. The healthcare industry will make the money even as they do now.

Obamacare’s administrative costs were supposed to be lower. The administration is in panic mode because of its high costs and impending failure.

A small part of the failure is the result of healthcare insurance companies non-participation in the health insurance exchanges and the failure of government set up Co-Op Insurance funds.

President Obama paid only 12% of what the healthcare insurance companies claim they are owed to cover their loses through the crazy reinsurance program the government promised the healthcare insurance industry.

President Obama, through the Justice Department is going to raid the Treasury’s Judgment Fund” to pay the insurance industry what they were promised in the reinsurance program.

It is essential for the survival of Obamacare that the healthcare insurance industries participate in Obamacare’s health insurance exchanges. Justice and the Treasury are ignoring the appropriation power of the congress.

This happens to be against the law.

In a 1998 letter the Government Accountability office pointed out that the Judgment Fund “is not a tool to circumvent congressional restrictions on appropriations.”

This is precisely what President Obama is doing.

The Administration will do anything to rescue its flailing Affordable Care Act, and nothing so meager as the law will interfere. This damage to the separation of powers, not a health-care bill, will be President Obama’s abiding legacy.”

The problem is congress will letter President Obama get away with doing this.

  1. No Insurance Companies Needed

The notion that the healthcare insurance industry is not needed for administrative services is a deception that progressive politicians continue to state falsely.

  1. Only One Buyer Required

“Only one buyer (the government) is required” is partially true and false. In the military the cost of drugs are cheaper than either the cost of drugs for government employees with Medicare Part C or seniors with Medicare Part D. The government is restricted from negotiating prices for drugs. The middlemen infrastructure for purchasing drug will remain.

I believe Americans are becoming more and more cynical about big government’s intentions and efficiencies. They want a change for good reason.

The following the ideas of progressives is not working. It is destroying the healthcare system.

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

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What Exactly Is A Public Option?

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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

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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

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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

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Why Vermont’s Single Party Payer Healthcare Plan Failed

 Stanley Feld M.D., FACP,MACE

Vermont’s single party payer healthcare plan was doomed to fail from the onset for several reasons.

Healthcare policy consultants do not understand the medical care system. The healthcare policy consultants for the Vermont healthcare system were the same consulting architects President Obama used for Obamacare.

The consultants were Harvard’s William Hsiao and MIT’s Jonathan Gruber.

William Hsiao has spent most of his academic career helping governments install healthcare systems. William Hsiao is the K.T. Li Research Professor of Economics in Department of Health Policy and Management and Department of Global Health and Population, at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Jonathan Gruber is a professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he has taught since 1992.[1]

He is also the director of the Health Care Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research, where he is a research associate.

Jonathan Gruber has been heavily involved in crafting public health policy.

He has been described as a key architect[2] of both the 2006 Massachusetts health care reform, sometimes referred to as “Romneycare”, and the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, sometimes referred to as the “ACA” and “Obamacare”.

There is little evidence that the systems he and Dr. Hsaio have built are overwhelming successful, cost effective or preserve consumer freedom of choice.

In fact, a study by NPR and Harvard’s T.Chan School of Public Health concluded that Obamacare is a complete failure.

Dr. Hsaio is on the faculty the Harvard T.Chan School of Public Health.

NPR AND HARVARD T.H. Chan School of public Health SAY: OBAMACARE IS A COMPLETE FAILURE

In a New York Times interview in 2009 Dr. Hsiao discussed the system of healthcare Reform he installed in Taiwan.

The question was:

What’s the most important lesson that Americans can learn from the Taiwanese example?

Dr. Hsiao.

You can have universal coverage and good quality health care while still managing to control costs. But you have to have a single-payer system to do it.

The Taiwan government managed to insure 98 percent of the population with a premium cost of 4.6 percent of wages.

Q.

Has your system of healthcare in Tiawan translated into better life expectancy or lower complication rates from major diseases?

Dr. Hsiao.

“There is evidence of positive health results for select diseases, like cardiovascular disease and kidney failure.”

There is no medical or financial data available to prove outcomes have improved.

“Overall, it’s really difficult to say that national health insurance has improved the aggregate health status, because mortality and life expectancy are crude measurements, not precise enough to pick up the impact of more health care.”

“That said, life expectancy is improving, and mortality is dropping. And everyone now has access to good health care”.

This is not good science. It is not even good social science. This is a biased opinion.

Q.

What are the system’s weaknesses?

Dr. Hsaio

“In the legislative process, compromises had to be made. First, the president yielded on payment reform, so Taiwan kept its fee-for-service payment system. Unfortunately, that encourages doctors and hospitals to give more treatment in order to boost their income.

“Second, the Taiwanese system doesn’t have a systematic way to monitor and improve quality of care.”

“Third, in the legislative process, they rejected a provision to adjust the premium automatically when the national health system depletes its reserves.”

“In every country, health care costs are increasing faster than wages. When that happens, the premium has to go up. But that provision wasn’t incorporated into the law. As a result, the system is running a deficit.”

“National health insurance tries to cut the fees for hospital and physician services. But eventually these fee reductions will adversely affect the quality of health care.”

President Obama was so anxious to change the healthcare system in the United States to fit his socialist ideology that he picked two professors, Dr. Hsaio of Harvard and Jonathan Gruber of MIT to be the architects of Obamacare.

Jonathan Gruber has been introduced as the ‘architect’ of the Massachusetts law and/or Obamacare”.[52]

Neither professor had scientific evidence that a single party payer system would work efficiently.

Obamacare was not working efficiently yet the progressives in Vermont hired Dr. Hsaio and Dr. Guber to be the architects for Vermont’s single party payer system.

Jonathon Gruber has turned out to be a honest about the Obama administration’s lies.

Many of the videos show him talking about ways in which he felt the ACA was misleadingly crafted or marketed in order to get the bill passed, while in some of the videos he specifically refers to American voters as ill-informed or “stupid”.

In October 2013, Gruber we said: “the bill was deliberately written “in a tortured way” to disguise the fact that it creates a system by which “healthy people pay in and sick people get money”.

Some of Americans are waking up to the fact that they cannot trust President Obama and his administration to be our surrogate. This is true not only in healthcare but in his decision making in every area of the economy and our live.

Gruber said this obfuscation was needed due to “the stupidity of the American voter” in ensuring the bill’s passage. Gruber said the bill’s inherent “lack of transparency is a huge political advantage” in selling it .[31]

 In 2010, Jonathan Gruber expressed doubts that the ACA would significantly reduce health care costs. He thought lowering costs played a major part in the way the bill was promoted by the Obama administration.[36]

President Obama said he never met Jonathan Gruber and did not think he came to the White House. President Obama forgot he hired him and paid him a $400,000 consultation fee.

In 2014, the Obama administration claimed that Gruber did not have a major role in creating the PPACA.[50]

President Obama acted irresponsibly to the public by hiring healthcare policy wonks to change America’s healthcare system without evidence for the success because their thoughts fit his ideology.

I don’t think President Obama understands he has changed the way hospitals and physicians have changed their approach to healthcare and medical care.

In my opinion, healthcare and medical care has changed for the worse.

Rich Lowry said that the videos were emblematic of “the progressive mind, which values complexity over simplicity, favors indirect taxes and impositions on the American public so their costs can be hidden, and has a dim view of the average American”.[41]

The American public eventually figures it out.

Commentator Charles Krauthammer called the first Gruber video “the ultimate vindication of the charge that Obamacare was sold on a pack of lies.”[42]

 The Vermont governor hired Dr. Hsaio and Dr. Gruber to create a single party payer system in Vermont figuring,the system would be easier in one small state than in the nation.

Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin (D.) announced that he was pulling the plug on his four-year quest to impose single-payer, government-run health care on the residents of his state.

“In my judgment,” said Shumlin at a press conference, “the potential economic disruption and risks would be too great to small businesses, working families, and the state’s economy.”

Watch out Colorado!

Why doesn’t a single party payer system work?

All of the healthcare policy wonks, especial Dr. Hsaio and Dr. Gruber, leave out the most important ingredients in a successful healthcare system.

Consumers cannot be treated as a commodity. Consumers cannot be forced to take what is given to them. The healthcare system must have a viable physician patient relationship provision.

The physician patient relationship is a big part of the therapeutic index. If treatment is to be successful patients must participate in their care.

Consumers of the healthcare system must drive the healthcare system. It must not be government or the healthcare insurance industry.

Consumers must be a the center of the healthcare system.

A system needs to be developed that puts patients in charge, not the government. Consumers must be responsible for their healthcare and their healthcare dollars.

This will motivate doctors and hospitals to compete for patients’ business.

My Ideal Medical Savings Account will provide incentives for the consumers to have a consumer driven healthcare system. This system will in turn drive hospital systems and physicians to compete for their care.

The end result will be to decrease the cost of the healthcare system and improve medical care and consumer satisfaction with 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

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We Never Learn: Watch Out Colorado

Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP, MACE

“You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.”

 Winston Churchill

There are many smart people in America.

Americans form opinions from the information presented to them. When the information presented in incorrect or incomplete it is easy to form the wrong opinion.

The art of presenting misinformation and disinformation has been perfected.

The people of Colorado are now being bombarded with the need to pass Amendment 69 or ColoradoCare.

Most Coloradans have not paid sufficient attention to the amendment. Their opinions are being influenced by misinformation or inadequate information concerning the unintended consequence that are inevitable.

Many might look at ColoradoCare’s official website. http://www.coloradocare.org/know-the-facts/increases-savings/ and read the following.

  • With Amendment 69, ColoradoCare, every Colorado resident can contribute their best, knowing ColoradoCare has everyone covered with universal health care.”   Sounds wonderful.
  • “ Imagine life with ColoradoCare. If you’re a resident and you need any kind of health care (including mental health), you just go to see your provider, and ColoradoCare pays the bill.”Free is great.
  • “Without the layers of hassles, businesses, providers, and everyone in the state can go about their important work of contributing to their families and communities knowing ColoradoCare has everyone covered.”   The problem is nothing is free.                                                                                                        
  •  In a statement to the Colorado Independent October 2016, Bernie Sanders lent his support to the single-payer measure.
  • “Colorado could lead the nation in moving toward a system to ensure better healthcare for more people at less cost. In the richest nation on earth, we should make healthcare a right for all citizens.”

Hillary Clinton has not yet supported ColoradoCare. I believe she is afraid it will steal her thunder by having large increases in government healthcare expenditures she has planned. She plans to increase taxes and get healthcare governance firmly in the hands of the federal government.

The ColoradoCare website goes an to say,

“An economic analysis of health care spending in Colorado has calculated that comprehensive health coverage for every resident could be paid for with pre-tax payroll premiums of 3.33% for employees and 6.67% for employers.”

There has been no effort to prove these numbers are correct.

In fact, all of the Republican establishment politicians in Colorado are against ColoradoCare as well as many high ranking members of the Democratic establishment.

The Democratic establishment includes Governor John Hickenlooper and former governor Bill Ritter. They are opposed to Amendment 69’s passage because they understand the financial burden ColoradoCare would put on the state’s budget and growth.

The size of the current state budget is $25 billion dollars. The tax increase for ColoradoCare would be an additional $25 billion dollars. Everyone can assume the state would need more to implement the program.

ColoradoCare would be far and away the largest tax increase in state history, and would give Colorado the highest tax rate in the nation.”

“ This would be implemented as a payroll tax that would be split into 3.33% for employees, and 6.67% by employers.

An additional $18billion dollars would be asked of the federal government, as well as a waiver to let the state opt out of the Affordable Care Act in order to fund Colorado care.

If voters approve ColoradoCare, it would be written into the state constitution, making it very difficult to dismantle and impossible to amend.

The president of the Denver chamber of commerce is opposed to ColoradoCare because the chamber knows this will drive businesses out of the state and inhibit businesses from coming into the state. The Denver chamber of commerce has worked very hard and very successfully to bring business into the state.

Most of all these politicians know that Obamacare has failed. Oregon’s attempt at the state being the single party payer has failed.

Most recently, Vermont’s attempt at a single party payer system has failed.

Both Oregon’s and Vermont’s governance realized the great fiscal burden to the state budget as well as its businesses and residents.

These states quit before the taxpayers realized the extraordinary tax burden the single party payer system would have on their state.

However, most progressive thinking people cling to the ideology that a single party payer system is the way to universal coverage.

Why did Vermont fail to institute a single party payer system after the state legislature passed the bill?

I will describe the reasons for failure in my next blog.

Walker Stapleton, the Colorado state treasurer said, “a major part of his responsibilities is attention to the fiscal and economic condition of the state.”

He goes on to say,

“If passed by the voters, the provisions of Amendment 69 will have a great negative impact on the state’s fiscal and economic health, as well as impacting individual residents fiscally.”

“If passed, Amendment 69 — creating a governmental entity called ColoradoCare to administer the health care payment system — would amend the Colorado Constitution. It would not be a legislative issue to which the Colorado Legislature could make amendments as needed.”

Walker Stapleton said the state health exchange was supposed be self-sustaining. However, the state health exchange has blown through federal dollars provided.

The State has no way to fix the state exchange or has a way to pay back the federal loan. Walker Stapleton acknowledged the problems with Colorado Health Benefit Exchange, saying, “The exchange was intended to be self-sustaining, and it is anything but, and we have blown through federal dollars.”

United Health and others are leaving the exchange. The exchange has one-fifth of the enrollment anticipated because of cost, network size and service.

“The exchange is in a hole and we have not yet come up with a way to fix it,” he said.

He added that Amendment 69 would assume the state health exchange burden in addition to its debt.

This burden is not good for the single party payer financial burden.

ColoradoCare (Amendment 69) was proposed by a Boulder State Senator, a progressive M.D., with support of the other progressive M.D.s in the Boulder, Colorado community.

Most of the M.D. practices in the Boulder community are owned by Boulder Community Hospital.

I wonder if the M.Ds understand the unintended consequences to the state’s fiscal health, the unintended consequence to the business environment as a result of the increase in tax rate and the unintended consequence to residents experiencing increases in taxes.

I wonder if these physicians are aware of the unintended consequences to their ability to practice medicine.

I suspect the author of the amendment and her followers have not thought about the unintended consequences.

Consequences.

1. Amendment 69 authorizes state taxes be increased $25 billion annually in the first full fiscal year and by such amounts that are raised thereafter.

2. ColoradoCare would be exempt from Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR).

3. “A 10 percent payroll tax for every employer in Colorado,” Stapleton said.

The employer would pay 6.7 percent and the employee 3.3 percent. If a taxpayer were self-employed, he/she would pay both, for a total 10 percent.

4. Investment income is subject to this tax.                                                                                                                                                                         5. If the employer is outside the state, the tax does not apply for the employer’s 6.7 percent so the employee pays the full 10 percent.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     Walker Stapelton said, “It is possible retirement income would be taxed,”

Also of great concern to Stapleton are these additional provisions in Amendment 69:

Transferring administration of the Medicaid and children’s basic health programs and all other state and federal health care funds for Colorado to ColaradoCare;

• Transferring responsibility to ColoradoCare for medical care that would otherwise be paid for by workers’ compensation insurance;

• Requiring ColoradoCare to apply for a waiver from the Affordable Care Act to establish a Colorado health care system;

• And suspending the operation of the Colorado health benefit exchange and transferring its resources to Colorado Care.

I hope the people of Colorado understand what this dangerous amendment represents to the fiscal health of the state.

The population will only understand its negative connotations if it starts paying attention to the consequences.

If it only believes that free medical care is good they do not understand that nothing is free.

A system in which the state offers free medical care will fail at the expense of all the taxpayers.

It has already been proven in Oregon and Vermont.

There is a more effective and less expensive way!

If you are interested please read the following links.

My ideal medical savings account is democratic and provides universal coverage with the consumers being responsible for their choice of medical care while being in control of their healthcare dollars.

Consumers’ responsibility for their health is always left out of models of healthcare reform.

If the federal government or a state government wants a business model to be successful, it should adapt my future state business model.

It is a consumer driven model with consumer responsibility built in so that consumers control their healthcare dollars.

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

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More On The Public Option

Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

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.

Slide7

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.

I believed then that the consolidation of doctors into larger physician groups was inevitable and desirable under the ACA.”

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.

Slide7

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.

“Using a market mechanism, like a “health insurance exchange,” then adding a “public option” to undercut private plans and destroy a competitive private market was a political strategy.”

“All the public relations rhetoric about expanded “consumer choice,” promoting “market competition,” and keeping private plans “honest” was, of course, classic boob bait.”

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

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