Obamacare Is Not In The News

Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

There has been little reporting about Obamacare in the traditional media lately. I believe it is intentional.

President Obama doesn’t want to talk about it. He has told us Obamacare is a success. The problem is he has left out the facts about its failures, costs and disruptions.

Last week a 70 plus year old woman wrote and told me that none of her brand name medicines are being covered by her high level Medicare Part D plan because of Obamacare regulations.

She said out of pocket expenses for her generic drugs have doubled in her in the past two years.

I found it hard to believe because there has been nothing reported about this in the traditional mainstream media.

Out of pocket expenses are beyond the reach of many Medicare recipients.  

A big out of pocket expense for many has been the cost of signing on to a concierge medicine doctor in some cities in the country.

The most prominent city is Los Angeles. I have been told that  primary care physicians will not see a patient that does not sign on to their concierge panel at a cost of $1500/year.

To my surprise Thomas B. Edsell a very liberal (progressive) United States journalist and academic, best known for his weekly opinion column for the New York Times online and for his 25 years of covering national politics for the Washington Post wrote two articles about the problems with Medicare and Obamacare.                        

The first article “Obamacare, Hand Off My Medicare” points out that President Obama is destroying Medicare.

The second article is entitled “Has Obamacare Turned Voters Against Sharing the Wealth?”

Both articles state, in detail, reasons and excuses for Obamacare’s failures.

Here are just a few reasons and excuses.

“A number of factors underpin the anti-redistributionist shiftin public opinion that I wrote about last week.

First, and perhaps most important, is the emergence of significant resistance to downward redistribution among the elderly, a major voting bloc.”

How come this trend is occurring? It is because seniors of modest means are threatened. They are realizing Obamacare is a bad law with many defects.

“The Obama administration has reported that the Affordable Care Act will be financed in part by $716 billion in Medicare cuts over 10 years.

 Somewhat improbably, the administration also contends that cuts of this magnitude will not reduce services to Medicare beneficiaries.”

Another President Obama lie. Seniors are already feeling the Medicare cuts by a decrease in access to care and an increase in out of pocket expenses.

Seniors have learned that they cannot trust President Obama to preserve Medicare.

“Seniors have started raising concerns about the cost of these plans — higher taxes and premiums for those with coverage, more government interference in physician choices.”

These concerns are real and present.

 “Further increasing anxiety among the aged in the United States is the shift from defined benefit pensions, which guarantee payments, to defined contribution pensions, which do not.”

If Medicare shifts to a defined contribution policy, seniors are afraid if they live longer they will run out of money.

Obamacare is unsustainable. Once President Obama losses public trust any idea no matter how good it was thought to be in the past will not be supported.

The reasons for Obamacare’s failures were predictable before the bill was passed. I have written many articles giving reasons for its failures.

Now President Obama is setting up the public with excuses for its failure through these New York Times articles.

The President’s next step is to declare that Americans have to live with Obamacare because the Republicans have not come up with anything better.

President Obama does not listen to Republicans even when they come up with reasonable ideas.

This predictable step is taken to brain wash the public to accept a law that empowers the government to make the public more dependent on government and less free to make their own medical choices and decisions.

Seniors are starting to act out now because Obamacare, with its redistribution of their wealth, is hurting them economically and is not in their vested interest.

Seniors should start understanding how President Obama has given favors to the healthcare insurance industry, the pharmaceutical industry and the hospital industry at seniors’ expense. Once they understand, seniors will not support President Obama.

Seniors are a big voting block. They represent a large threat to the Progressive Democratic Party and its foolish laws and tactics.  

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

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