Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

President Obama announced Thursday that 8 million people have signed up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.

He called the feat a success story that Democrats should "forcefully defend and be proud of" in the face of Republican election-year attacks on the law.

 He told the press the impending failure of Obamacare is no longer a headline story that should be covered.

Obamacare is here to stay.

If anyone believes the information in this press conference, I have a bridge to sell you.

President Obama’s story, at the press conference, mirrors Paul Krugman’s article one week ago. It is the same talking points filled with half-truths and lies. He offers no evidence, statistics or demographics except his word.

His word has been proven to be shaky in the past.

The real story behind Obamacare is the redistribution of wealth. The socialistic idea has continued to crush economic growth in an economy yearning to grow as a result of all the money that has been printed by the Federal Reserve Bank.

In order to gain real insight into Obamacare and its effect on economic growth please watch this video.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=91d_1386194531

Democratic representatives and senators up for reelection are still running away from President Obama and Obamacare.  They realize that he (President Obama) gave another pep talk without substance.

He also belittled Republicans for being misguided, stupid and devoid of ideas.

This is obviously not true but why should President Obama care.

The media is the message.

The temptation is to answer back one point at a time.

There is no need for that rebuttal because Obamacare’s effect is on individual voters directly now. It is no longer an abstraction. It is not pretty.

Those signed up will have high deductibles and limited access to care. The CEO of Wellpoint predicts that health insurance plan premiums will double next year.

Indivduals are starting to see it and feel Obamacare’s effect on their standard of living. They are angry.

The only people who are happy are the people with a preexisting illness or chronic illness who could not buy healthcare insurance at a reasonable price prior to Obamacare. The healthcare industry did not want the risk.

Now they can buy healthcare through the health insurance exchanges and be subsidized by taxpayers. They will be surprised when their access to care is limited.

The problem America will have is that is going to take a little time and waste a lot of taxpayer dollars to repeal the law.

I believe most Americans have noticed that politicians and the traditional media lie.  They try to manipulate us into believing the lies.

The saying is if you tell a lie enough times it becomes the truth. The addendum to that cliché’ should be until it affects individuals directly. The then stop believing the lies.

Please watch the video. It is funny and sad.

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

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Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

The consequence of Obamacare is hitting home to many people as taxes and the cost of insurance premiums increase.

Obamacare is not an abstract concept anymore.

People cannot keep their doctors as promised by President Obama. People cannot keep their insurance as promised by the president either.

Healthcare insurance premiums have increase for the middle class, who are being forced to use Obamacare’s Health Insurance Exchange. These health insurance exchanges have been inefficient. Many of the State Health Insurance Exchanges are failing.

Healthcare insurance premiums have increased by $2,500 a year and not decreased by $2,500 a year as promised by President Obama during the disinformation campaign to pass Obamacare.

If you make less than $50,000 a year it might be a good deal. The government through tax increases is paying the difference to the insurance companies.

Consumers are angry. In order to counteract and neutralize this anger away from President Obama and the Democrats running for congress and the Senate (especially the Senate) in November 2014 President Obama has put into operation the Saul Alinsky disinformation tactics.

The traditional mainstream media is falling for this tactic once again.

The intent of the tactic is to keep your enemy off balance. Whether by mockery, subterfuge, or any available strategy, the purpose behind the tactic is to keep the pressure on you opponent, constantly jabbing and goading them until they lose their clarity of thought, and react in a way that you can exploit to defeat them. “ Rules for Radicals”  

Saul Alinsky has been very direct in his instructions. He also puts the burden of creative execution of these rules on the executor of the rules. The goal is to change the public’s believing the facts by discrediting the person or persons exposing the true facts.

“The job then is getting the people to move, to act, to participate; in short to develop and harness the necessary power to effectively conflict with the prevailing patterns (the truth) and change them.”

When those prominent in the status quo turn and label you an “agitator” they are completely correct, for that is, in one word, your function- to agitate to the point of conflict.

The key to success is to be an outside agitator.

This has been one of President Obama’s major problems. He is the inside agitator.  He is being discovered even though he has done everything is his power to look as if he does not have his fingerprints on any of the agitation.

The first step of the agitator is to disrupt the present system in order to replace it with a new system.  The public must be made uncomfortable enough to demand change in the old system.

Isn’t this what President Obama has done in the financial system, the environmental system, and the healthcare system?

It is backfiring on him because of the uncertainty is has created.  In turn it has affected economic growth and caused great pain for middle class consumers.

However, he is smart. He has exempted almost everyone from the mandate temporarily. The exemptions are going to create other problems.

By exempting everyone from the Obamacare mandate, he is not only ignoring the constitution, he is disrupting his new system (Obamacare) that the major stakeholders are trying to execute. The result has been havoc. However, the Obama administration believes it have shifted the blame for the havoc onto the healthcare insurance industry.

He methodology is very transparent. It has become unsuccessful.

The next step is a disinformation campaign.

The eba.benefitnews.com published an article entitled Americans Stick With Obamacare As Opposition Burns Bright. This headline is totally false. Americans are not sticking with Obamacare. Nevertheless administration press releases fed to the traditional media are published without appropriate fact checking.

President Barack Obama’s health-care law is becoming more entrenched, with 64% of Americans now supporting it outright or backing small changes. This is a lie.

A major talking point of the Democrats now is that “Obamacare is great but it just needs to be fixed.” If you tell a lie enough times it becomes the truth.

“Tell voters they can fix ObamaCare, but Republicans won't let them.”

This is the Democrats' midterm election strategy, as revealed in a memo Politico got its hands on this week. The Democrats are going to admit that Obamacare has flaws. They will promise to repair the flaws. They will argue that Republicans will only make things worse.

However, it has not worked in the Florida special election where Ms. Alex Zisk (Dem) lost to David Jolly (Rep), an unknown, after outspending him by 500%.  The people in the district did not buy the disinformation lie that Obamacare is great and Ms. Zisk will fix the errors.

 A week ago, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, President Obama's top health official, declared there was no evidence Obamacare was costing any jobs.

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said.  “There is absolutely no evidence, and every economist will tell you this, that there is any job loss related to the Affordable Care Act,"

This is another lie in order to confuse the facts.

 The Congressional Budget Office a couple weeks ago concluded that Obamacare would shrink the workforce by 2.5 million jobs because of its work disincentives.

President Obama admitted to the law's adverse effects on businesses when he twice put off the employer mandate.   

 Senator Harry Reid addressed the American people from the Senate floor and solemnly claimed that “there’s plenty of horror stories being told,” about ObamaCare. “All of them are untrue, but they’re being told all over America.”

The tactic is to tell lies to obfuscate the true.

 That dog will not hunt anymore. The American people got it!

 "In addition, 54% of Americans say they’re unhappy with the president’s handling of the issue, according to a Bloomberg National Poll."

That’s an improvement since the last poll, in December, when Obama’s public standing on health care hit a low of 60% disapproval after the botched rollout of the insurance exchanges, according to the March 7-10 poll of 1,001 adults.

The Obama administration’s spin of the story is a complete lie. This week the number shot up to close to 60%.

“Things definitely seem to be getting better,” said Paul Attard, 50, a political independent in Evergreen, Colorado and a program manager for a cell-phone company who wants the law modified rather than repealed.

“It seems like they are getting a lot more people to join. It’s a sign that the system is working.”

This is another lie. I think in real numbers Obamacare will be lucky if 3.5 million have signed up and have paid their premiums by March 31.

All that has to be done to confuse the truth with misleading statistics in the press.

 The discussion moves from statistics that might not be correct from the true. The real question i:.

Can Obamacare work? I have presented data along with many others that show that Obamacare cannot possibly work.

 All the agitators have to throw at the public is confusing statistics and lies.

One such incorrect fact is that 4.2 million have enrolled. The public does not know if the 4.2 million include Medicaid or are just private insurance plans.

What about the 48 million people who were uninsured before the 2013 rollout? What about the additional 6.6 million consumers who lost their healthcare insurance? None of this is part of the discussion.

The public does not know how many have not paid their premiums. The administration says it does not know. Those people are technically uninsured.  

Private institutions have claimed that 20-30% who have applied have not paid premiums. Only 25% of those who purchased insurance are under 30 and healthy. The administration needs at least 37% of the insured to be healthy for Obamacare to be financially viable.

The health insurance exchanges enrolled less people last month than it did in January. The number for success has changed from 7 million for Obamacare to be viable to an unspecified millions. The Obama administration refuses to publish the health demographics for consumers who have purchased insurance through the exchanges.  

My guess is less than 3 million previously uninsured people became insured under Obamacare compared to the 48 million uninsured that were supposed to become insured. It is a pretty awful number.

 President Obama is throwing a bunch of statics at us to confuse us. Here are some examples

1.Fifty-one percent of Americans favor retaining the Affordable Care Act with “small modifications,” while 13% would leave the law intact and 34% would repeal it in the Bloomberg poll.

Vs.

2. Seventy-three percent of Bloomberg poll respondents who would repeal Obamacare say the law will be a “major” decider of their vote, compared with 45% of those who support modifications and 33 percent of those who back the law as is.

Isn’t this confusing? The confusion is generated on purpose. It should not be tolerated anymore.

November elections are just around the corner!

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

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Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

The passage of time has a tendency to help us forget promises made with regard to principles and policies.

It is clear to me that one reason President Obama beat John McCain in 2008 was because he was going to go back to the principles of the constitution.

He taught constitutional law and professed to know how important the constitutional principles are to the laws of the land as well as our economic and political freedom.

John McCain represented the past. In the past America experienced a creep toward bigger and bigger government in order to protect our homeland security.

The result was an impingement on our religious, economic and political freedom.

President Obama does not think about the constitution in the way he did when he was trying to win the hearts and minds of the American people in 2008.

http://youtu.be/UBZIM0ZFiYU

If fact, after the 2012 election victory he has shown a total disregard for the United States constitution. He has a total disregard for the balance of power.

http://youtu.be/yiOmwayoSrw

 He has ignored congressional authority. He has issued executive orders changing laws at will. If congress challenges him he accuses them of being obstructionist.

President Obama has made at least 10 significant changes to Obamacare by executive order up to now. Congressmen and Supreme Court scholars have deemed that these executive orders are unconstitutional.

The Obama administration is now dowplaying his executive orders  significance.

We tend to forget abuse of power episodes. I think it is worthwhile to publish all available examples at once to get a complete feel for the abuse of power.  

These large numbers of executive changes were adopted to avoid Obamacare’s failure. Obamacare’s failures have persisted in spite of the unconstitutional changes.

 Obamacare is basically a defective bill. It should be repealed. Small patches will not repair it.

 Many of the executive orders slipped by the traditional media without discussion.

The following are President Obama’s changes by administrative action.

1. Congressional opt-out: The administration decided to offer employer contributions to members of Congress and their staffs when they purchase insurance on the exchanges created by the ACA, a subsidy the law doesn’t provide. (September 30, 2013).

This is a subsidy congress did not have the guts to fight about. It is self-serving. Why should the congress get a special privilege that ordinary people doesn’t have?

2. Delaying the individual mandate: The administration changed the deadline for the individual mandate, by declaring that customers who have purchased insurance by March 31 will avoid the tax penalty. Previously, they would have had to purchase a plan by mid February. (October 23, 2013).

In addition to this order, if a consumer signed up before December 31 they would have insurance January 1^St. If they signed up by January 15^th they would have insurance by February 1^st. If they signed up by February 15^th they would have coverage by March 1^st. This occurred by executive order in order to encourage enrollment. The government is unable to process these applications. Patients had not paid premiums.

3. Employer-mandate delay: By an administrative action that’s contrary to statutory language in the ACA, the reporting requirements for employers were delayed by one year. (July 2, 2013)

This executive order was issued in July just before Independence Day. This has been typical of the Obama administration. They have released executive order when the public is emotionally preparing for a weekend or a holiday. Friday afternoon at 4.30 is a favorite time.

4. Self-attestation: Because of the difficulty of verifying income after the employer-reporting requirement was delayed, the administration decided it would allow “self-attestation” of income by applicants for health insurance in the exchanges. This was later partially retracted after congressional and public outcry over the likelihood of fraud. (July 15, 2013)

It looks like the administration knew that they did not have the computer systems’ back end connected to check income tax returns with the IRS two and one half months before on October 1^st.  Congress was not consulted for advice.

5. Small businesses on hold: The administration has said that the federal exchanges for small businesses will not be ready by the 2014 statutory deadline, and has instead delayed the implementation of the SHOP (Small-Employer Health Option Program) exchanges until 2015. (March 11, 2013)

I did not realize that this executive order appeared so early in 2013.

6. Closing the high-risk pool: The administration decided to halt enrollment in transitional federal high-risk pools created by the law, blocking coverage for an estimated 40,000 new applicants, citing a lack of funds. The administration had money from a fund under Secretary Sebelius’s control to extend the pools, but instead used the money to pay for advertising for Obamacare enrollment. (February 15, 2013)

This is a mind blower. The Obama Administration decided to discontinue funding the high-risk pool in order to have the money to pay for advertising for Obamacare enrollment.

This order was issued on February 15,2013. It was seven and one-half months before Obamacare enrollment was to begin.

7. Medicare Advantage patch: The administration ordered an advance draw on funds from a Medicare bonus program in order to provide extra payments to Medicare Advantage plans, in an effort to temporarily forestall cuts in benefits and therefore delay exodus of MA plans from the program. (April 19, 2011)

Medicare Advantage was a big mistake for reasons beyond the scope of this report. Political pressure forced President Obama to take money out of one pile and apply it to the Medicare Advantage pile without consulting congress.

8. Employee reporting: The administration, contrary to the Obamacare legislation, instituted a one-year delay of the requirement that employers must report to their employees on their W-2 forms the full cost of their employer-provided health insurance. (January 1, 2012)

The one-year delay adds to the uncertainty of what is going to happen the following year. It makes hiring decisions harder for employers in the long run even though it helps in the short run. The net effect is it will be bad for the economy.

9. Doubling allowed deductibles: Because some group health plans use more than one benefits administrator, plans are allowed to apply separate patient cost-sharing limits to different services, such as doctor/hospital and prescription drugs, allowingmaximum out-of-pocket costs to be twice as high as the law intended. (February 20, 2013)

This executive order was issued in February 2013 to the advantage of the healthcare insurance industry.

10. Delaying a low-income plan: The administration delayed implementation of the Basic Health Program until 2015. It would have provided more-affordable health coverage for certain low-income individuals not eligible for Medicaid. (March 22, 2013)

The administration knew what to expect from the rollout as early as February of 2013. The executive orders changed the law in an effort to cover-up the tremendous cost overruns that will occur.

The public does not have any idea what those cost overruns will be.

It is important to see how many of these unconstitutional executive orders were released and how far back in relationship to enrollment they were ordered.

http://youtu.be/9FgFUOGFpnk

President Obama’s mind-set is expressed in the above You Tube video.

 As President he “can do anything he wants to do.”

 Wake up America!

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

Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

President Obama, please stop deceiving Americans. Please tell us the truth. Please be transparent as you promised us you would be.

President Obama promised to transform America. Americans did not know what that meant. They thought is was for the good. 

The healthcare system was dysfunctional before President Obama became president. In order to fix a dysfunctional system, one must try to get to the root of the problem.

President Obama has not done that. He has pasted another layer of bureaucracy on top of an already dysfunctional system. This has created further dysfunction.

He has further compounded the dysfunction in the healthcare system by changing the law unilaterally by executive order without the consent of congress.

There is question on whether his actions are unconstitutional. If they are unconstitutional it is grounds for impeachment.

At best these unilateral changes have destabilized the healthcare system further. The changes have also increase uncertainty in the investment community. The result of the uncertainty is to slow the jobs market and the economy.

President Obama is a charming fellow. The problem is the veneer has rubbed off. At the beginning he pandered to all the stakeholders vested interests.

He told them glorious things about what they could expect. People have recently found out that they have been deceived.

President Obama is not about innovation and opportunity as many hoped for in 2008.

President Obama is about increased central government control over our freedoms and our choices.

All of his actions and deceptions are starting to backfire on him. The majority of the American public is becoming aware of his tricks and abuse of power.

The tricks, deceptions, abuse of power and outright lies are starting to directly affect the majority of Americans in a negative way.

In healthcare we have been deceived by many actions. At present it is the reporting the enrollment figures in the health insurance exchanges.

President Obama, his administration, and even Dick Durbin have inflated the numbers without giving Americans the facts.

Last week even the Washington Post could not take it anymore. 

“The Washington Post, has given "three Pinocchios" to the White House for its claim that 6 million people have enrolled in Obamacare, and warned the media to ignore the distorted government figures.”

After President Obama announced these figures during his Super Bowl interview, he tweeted them on his official Twitter account.

https://twitter.com/BarackObama/status/421668496120897536/photo/1

The figure comes from a combination of 2.1 million people who have enrolled under federal and state healthcare insurance exchanges, plus 3.9 million who have qualified for coverage on Medicaid through November.

The key words in President Obama’s statement are qualified for coverage on Medicaid through November. These words tells you almost nothing about how the Affordable Care Act is affecting Medicaid enrollment."  

The mainstream media keeps on using the same incorrect numbers over and over again thinking they are fooling the American people.

"No one really knows, though some have tried to tease out figures from the data that has been presented."



 

California was supposed to have the strongest state insurance exchange.  Covered California signed up the most people for Obamacare since October 1,2013. It was the model exchange. After January 1^st, 2014 the problems became apparent.

As of Dec. 31, 2013, nearly 500,000 California residents had enrolled in health coverage through Covered California, the state's health insurance exchange created under the Affordable Care Act, according to data released Monday by HHS, KQED's "The California Report" reports.

Overall, California residents accounted for 22% of the total 2.2 million exchange enrollees nationwide (Aliferis, "The California Report," KQED, 1/13).

I would call this bragging without presenting the facts or the potential problems.

These are the potential problems.

According to the data, 85% of the 498,794 Californians who have enrolled in coverage through Covered California received a federal subsidy, compared with 79% nationally (Seipel, Contra Costa Times, 1/14).

The state and the federal government will have to come up with the subsidies. The result will be higher premiums for those that pay full premium price and increased taxes for those who pay taxes.

The data also show that:

• 61% of enrollees chose a silver-level plan; and
• 23% chose a bronze-level plan ("The California Report," KQED, 1/13).

          52% of enrollees were between ages 45 and 64 ("The California Report," KQED, 1/13); and

• 25% were between ages 18 and 34 (Contra Costa Times, 1/14).

 The number of enrollees is different than the number of people who definitely are insured. Enrollees are not insured until they paid their premiums.

Even so, the enrollee mix, if it stays the same will necessitate an increase in insurance premiums and a bailout of the insurance companies. The insurance company bailout was built into Obamacare upon passage of the act.

The public did not know about insurance company bailouts until recently. 

In California consumers have not receive the coverage they thought they bought. Consumers are not able to see physicians who were caring for them before the new year. Many cancer patients who require continuing care have not seen been able to see their physicians.

Seventy percent of the physicians in California have not signed up to accept Covered California because reimbursement is too low.  

 The White House was dealt a stunning new blow on Obamacare sign-up numbers:

“Reports have leaked showing that only about half of the people "enrolled" at healthcare exchanges in various states have actually paid their premiums.”

“Minnesota's exchange enrollment goal of 67,000 seemed within reach on Jan. 4, when signups stood at 25,860.”

 “But after surging by more than 4,000 per week in the prior five weeks, signups collapsed back to November's pace of less than 700 per week.”

  “As of Feb. 1, Nevada had just 14,999 paid enrollees — vs. the state's March 31 goal of 115,000.”

 “Washington state, meanwhile, was slightly more than halfway to its goal of 340,000 signups — but only 88,071 had paid as of Feb. 1.”

 “The January data available from a handful of states raise new doubts about whether ObamaCare's downgraded first-year prospects are still too optimistic.”

These numbers have been kept out of the mainstream media.

 The poor premium payments by enrollees of 50% in Washington and 66% in Nevada creates a risk that the demographics of the paid exchange population may be older and possibly sicker than the information the Obama administration has publicized to get more people to enroll.

This is only a partial list of President Obama’s present deceptions.

 A complete list of the 35 changes made to the law by executive order without consent of congress is in order about now.

Why are so few in Congress speaking out?

When are the people going to speak out?

Congresspeople who do not speak up should not be reelected!

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

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