Permalink:

Making Medicine Function: Five (5) Key Elements From Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE : Repairing the Healthcare System

January 4, 2016

• Leave a comment

Scott Becker of Becker’s Healthcare asked me to write an article on Element needed to Repair The Healthcare System. Becker’s Healthcare is the leading source of cutting-edge business and legal information for healthcare industry leaders.

His portfolio includes five industry-leading trade publications:

Becker’s ASC Review
Becker’s Infection Control & Clinical Quality
Becker’s Spine Review
Becker’s Hospital Review
Becker’s Dental Review

My article appeared in the latest addition and with permission from Scott Becker. I am reprinting it on my site. Becker’s Healthcare is a valuable information site.

Making Medicine Function: Five (5) Key Elements From Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE : Repairing the Healthcare System

Patients, physicians, hospital executives, healthcare insurance executive and government all believe the healthcare system is dysfunctional and unsustainable in future years.

All the stakeholders are unhappy with Obamacare.

Clinical Endocrinologist, Stanley Feld, MD, FACP, MACE, is a physician who believes Obamacare’s business model is seriously flawed. He also believes that Obamacare has accelerated the dysfunction in the healthcare system.

Dr. Feld believes Obamacare has increased the healthcare system’s unsustainability by causing an increase in bureaucracy, a decrease in efficiency and encouraging the gaming of the healthcare system by all stakeholders.

The Obamacare business model must be changed to a consumer driven healthcare business model with the consumer in charge and in the center of the healthcare system, not the government or other secondary stakeholders.

Consumers must be taught and incentivized to use all the 21^st century technology tools available including smart phones. The goal must be to improve medical care and treatment outcomes, not improve the measurement of medical process outcomes.

Dr. Feld became interested in the causes of the healthcare system’s dysfunction in 1991 while he was on the steering committee of a nascent medical organization, the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists (AACE).

He became AACE’s third President and was chairman of the Type 2 Diabetes Guideline committee. He was the chief author of “A System of Intensive Self-Management of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus.”

In 1991 there was little government and healthcare insurance industry support for the concept of teaching the Type 2 Diabetics how to be the “Professor of Their Disease” even though there was a Type 2 Diabetes epidemic.

The epidemic was the result of lack of understanding by consumers (patients) of how to prevent and treat Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus. Uncontrolled Type 2 Diabetes causes complications that are coronary heart disease, kidney failure, blindness and amputations. Quality of life of is decreased. The complications are costly to the patients and the healthcare system.

America was in the midst of an obesity epidemic. The epidemic continues today. Obesity predisposes consumers to Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus and its subsequent complications.

Dr. Feld said everyones goal for the healthcare system is to have a healthier population at an affordable price. The goal can be accomplished by putting consumers in control of their health and healthcare dollars. Consumers must also be given financial incentives to control their health. No one is focused on the consumer’s responsibility to lower cost in the Obamacare business model.

Dr. Feld believes Obamacare’s business model has too many faults to repair. Each time President Obama alters the business model to fix a fault, the healthcare system becomes more costly, dysfunctional and unsustainable.

Dr. Feld developed a business model that would accomplish the goal of providing a functional and efficient healthcare system at an affordable cost to consumers, employers, healthcare insurance companies and the government.

Dr. Feld’s business model would eliminate most of the government’s inefficiency that absorbs 40% of the healthcare dollars. The inefficiencies must be eliminated or at least significantly decreased.

Here are Dr. Feld’s five key elements necessary to Repair the Healthcare System.

All the key elements listed are explained in detail in Dr. Feld’s blog “Repairing the Healthcare System”. Each link will have a full list of my blog posts on the topic.

The Ideal Medical Savings Accounts (MSAs).

Dr. Feld’s Ideal Medical Savings Account is the insurance model in his business plan.

Medical Saving Accounts are different than Health Savings Accounts. Health Saving Accounts are the fastest growing healthcare insurance plans. Medical Saving Accounts provide consumers with more financial incentive.

The Ideal Medical Saving Account transfers the premium dollars saved by consumers into a tax-free retirement trust that is not restricted to medical care. The financial incentive will cause consumers to be responsible for the control of their health and wisely spend their healthcare dollars.

The Ideal Medical Savings Accounts are democratic. The employer, the individual or the government could fund the Medical Savings Account. The deductible must be high enough to provide enough financial incentive for consumers to be motivated to become responsible for their health and their healthcare dollars. Once the deductible is reached the consumer receives with first dollar coverage for an illness.

If the deductible is not spent the consumer gets it tax-free in their retirement trust.

Ideal Medical Savings Accounts provide consumers the choice of physician. The environment is created where consumers decide on who will provide the best value for their healthcare dollars rather than the government, the healthcare insurance industry or the government.

MSAs would create a Consumer Driven Healthcare System with the benefit of consumers creating competition among the stakeholders in the healthcare system rather than stakeholders deciding for consumers. For greater details go to this link.

The Importance of Tort Reform

Most politicians have ignored the importance of Tort Reform. They have been led to believe that Tort Reform is an insignificant cost to the healthcare system.

Dr. Feld points to study by the Massachusetts Medical Society. Every practicing physician believes the data of this study. The resulting data is an excellent and truthful indicator of the huge cost of over-testing to prevent malpractice claims.

The lack of Tort Reform costs the healthcare system $200 billion to $750 billion dollars a year as a result of over testing by physicians to avoid malpractice suits.

Physicians who order a test usually do not receive the profit built into the test he/she has ordered.

The Importance of Self-Management of Chronic Disease

The unsuccessful management of chronic diseases results in 80% of the cost of care for those diseases. Most important is to prevent the chronic disease from occurring in the first place. Diseases with the highest costs are Diabetes Mellitus, Heart Disease, Hypertension and Cancer. Obesity and consumer’s genetic makeup are responsible for most of these chronic and costly diseases.

Consumers are in control of the development of obesity. They must be responsible for preventing it. However all of our cultural stimulation encourages obesity. Consumers must make a choice. Government can provide public education programs to help consumers make the correct choice. When consumers are educated and are at financial risk for developing obesity, they will become responsible and avoid becoming obese.

The reformed healthcare system could prevent the onset of complications of these chronic diseases. The cost of the complications of chronic disease is 80% of the cost of treating that disease.

These teams must be an extension of their physicians care and responsible to their physician.

The Magic of the Patient/Physician Relationship.

Obamacare tries to quantify patient care. Twenty thousand rules and regulations have been produced so far to measure the care delivered by physicians to patients.

Maybe the measurement criteria for quality care are wrong? Maybe the government is measuring the wrong thing.

There is no quality measurements made about patients’ compliance or adherence. There are no rules to measure the patient/physician relationship.

These would be important measurements for bureaucrats to measure in order to quantitate the effectiveness of care.

If one wanted to commoditize the delivery of quality medical care, consumer responsibility for compliance with their treatment is an important measurement.

The patient/physician relationship is magical. It can result in improved patient compliance and self-management of both acute illness and avoidance of the complications of chronic diseases. The end result is that it can decrease the cost of healthcare by at least 50 percent. The healthcare system would then be affordable.

As the government and healthcare insurance companies try to decrease their cost they have decreased reimbursement and increased regulations and paperwork for physicians

A physicians work product is intelligence, skill and time. Physicians do not have enough time to develop a patient/physician relationship today.

The patient/physician relationship is difficult to measure. It cannot be commoditized into a universal report that a computer program can generate.

The Rule of Information Technology

Physicians are not opposed to information technology. They are against information technology generating data that is being used as a tool to judge their clinical competence and reimbursement by bureaucrats. Many times the “big data” is inaccurate.

Information technology should be used as a tool to extend a physician’s ability to patients. It should be used as a tool to improve physicians’ care.

In order to reduce the cost of medical care and increase the patient’s ability to be a “Professor of Their Disease”, medical care must be delivered by a team approach.

Information technology must be a part the team with the consumer being in the center. Physicians must be the coach; the other members of the team must be physician extenders (assistant coaches).

There are many websites generating both good and bad information. As the manager of the team the physician and his assistant managers should pick the websites for his/her patients to use.

Physicians and his/her healthcare management teams should develop social networks so his/her patients can relate to each other and learn the subtleties of their chronic disease from each other. Physicians and his patient extenders would monitor and correct any false information generated through the social network.

These social networks would be very effective in motivating consumers to be responsible for their care and their healthcare dollars.

These are five elements that would decrease the cost of America’s healthcare system. They would avoid the trap and unintended consequences of a single party payer system.

The real cost curve has not been bent downward. It has been bent upward in the actual cost to taxpayers. The government is not measuring all the costs, including new taxes, as payment for Obamacare.

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

Please have a friend subscribe

What Exactly Is A Public Option? | Stanley Feld M.D., FACP, MACE
Thanks for leaving a comment, please keep it clean. HTML allowed is strong, code and a href.

Permalink:

Single Party Payer Will Fail

December 21, 2015

inDisinformation and the healthcare system, Repairing the Healthcare System, Stakeholder Abuse of the Healthcare System, Stakeholder Mistrust

• Leave a comment

Stanley Feld MD, FACP, MACE

Socialism does not work!

Intellectually, socialism is attractive and easy to understand.

Simple Definition of Socialism

“: a way of organizing a society in which major industries are owned and controlled by the government rather than by individual people and companies.”

Full Definition of socialism

“1 : any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods 
2 a : a system of society or group living in which there is no private property b : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state 
3 : a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done.”

It would be nice to have the government tend to all our needs equally.

Everything would be free to the public.

Not one would need to “get ahead.”
No one would have special privilege.
Everyone would live the same housing.
No one would have to have responsibility for anything.
No one would have incentive to be creative or inventive.
No one would need to take the initiative to be innovative and create new good and services.

The government would then run out of money because people would have little to be innovative about or have any incentive to work hard to provide for their family.

People would have little incentive to produce income that would generate taxes for government to spend on goods and services to support the benefits offered the people in a socialistic system.

The government would have to borrow more money from others because the people would not produce enough income to tax.

What lender would be inclined to lend money to a country that could not pay it back?

The socialistic system would then become unsustainable and collapse.

This explanation might be considered by some to be a fifth grade explanation of socialism. It is simple to understand but direct and to the point.

America is headed in that direction. The present healthcare system as is unsustainable.

Government cannot spend other peoples’ money when the money is not there.

In America the federal government and state governments keep making the same mistakes over and over again.

Obamacare’s regulations caused 335,000 healthcare insurance policies to be cancelled in Colorado. In 2010 Obamacare made these Coloradan healthcare insurance policies illegal.

Obamacare has failed for the citizens of Colorado.

The state’s politicians tried to fix Obamacare by borrowing hundreds of millions of dollars from the federal government to set up Colorado HealthOP the state’s co-op health insurance plan.

The goal was to stimulate competition among insurance companies by providing lower priced insurance. The co-op is in debt to the federal government for hundreds of millions of dollars.

Colorado HealthOP became the largest insurer on a state health insurance exchange in Colorado.

Colorado HealthOp lost so much money that it could not borrow any more. The Colorado HealthOp had to shut down in October 2015 leaving the federal government to absorb its loan to the state of Colorado.

The closure of Colorado HealthOP left 80,000 Coloradans without health insurance coverage for 2016.

The other state insurance plans are increasing premiums an average of 11.7% to stay above water according to state calculations.

It has made premiums and deductibles too expensive for many of these uninsured 80,000 people.

Coloradans are tired of all the insurance changes, increasing prices and uncertainty. They want something new.

The knee jerk reaction is to change to something easy to understand. A socialistic single party payer system (SPPS) is the easiest to understand. Let the state provide healthcare insurance to everyone. Healthcare would be universal and free to the public.

The problem is nothing is free. The advocates in Colorado (progressives and liberals) are mobilizing to replace Obamacare with either the Canadian or United Kingdom healthcare system.

However, both of these nations healthcare systems are unsustainable. They are failing because of the cost, inefficiency, long wait times for diagnosis and treatment and lack of services despite the governments claims and some of the consumers’ perceptions.

The progressive advocates accumulated 100,000 Coloradans’ signatures. These progressive democrats have gotten a single party payer (SPPS) proposal on the 2016 ballot.

“ColoradoCare,” as it is being called, would replace private insurance with health care funded completely by the government, substituting higher taxes for premiums.

The conservatives in Colorado do not have a proposal to replace Obamacare to put on the ballot in 2016. They have been asleep at the switch.

Conservatives and libertarians have been sleeping at the switch in every state except Vermont.

Conservatives and libertarians did nothing in Vermont. Peter Shumlin was elected governor to institute a SPPS.

The Vermont experiment with a single party payer system has been a disaster already.

“In 2010 Vermont voters elected Democratic Gov. Peter Shumlin, who promised to institute single payer in lieu of ObamaCare.”

Jonathan Gruber, who designed Obamacare, and thinks Americans are stupid, along with William Hsiao, who thinks price controls work designed the system for Vermont.

“Helping design the system was advisers such as Jonathan Gruber, the MIT economist often described as the architect of Obamacare, and William Hsiao, the Harvard economist who developed the Medicare price controls that are driving up prices around the country.”

Vermont played right into President Obama’s goal of creating a single party payer system (SPPS). Colorado is trying to follow the same path to disaster.

The Obama administration provided Vermont with many millions of dollars in federal grants in order to accomplish President Obama’s dream of a single party payer healthcare system.

In order to pay for Vermont’s SPPS the state proposed an 11.5% payroll tax on businesses, which would have taken the total payroll-tax burden to nearly 20%.

Vermont contemplated a new state income tax of 9.5% to pay for the SPPS on top of the existing 3.55-8.95% individual state tax.

The state budget would need to be doubled with the SPPS, therefore taxes would need to be doubled.

Even with these increases in taxes the plan would be deep in the red in three to five years.

Gov. Shumlin (Vermont) was elected to create a SPPS. In 2014 he abandoned single payer system he was about to create because of its effect on the state economy.

Gov. Peter Shumlin woke up to the impending disaster, “The potential economic disruption and risks,” he remarked, “would be too great to small businesses, working families and the state’s economy.”

Ben and Jerry might even flee the state and move to Texas because of the high taxes and economic disruption.

The people of Colorado should look carefully at Vermont’s mistake. The Denver Post has already predicted tax increases that would drive business and job growth out of the state.

Colorado also has a large VA Hospital System. In April 2015 the Colorado Springs Gazette reported that four of Colorado’s VA facilities were among the 10-worst in terms of wait times of all VA hospitals.

The Veterans Affairs hospital system is a pure a single-payer system.

“ A September report by the agency’s inspector general supports the conclusion that thousands of veterans may have died while waiting for the care they needed, although shoddy record-keeping made it impossible to know for sure.”

All Coloradans have to look at is their state’s VA SPPS that cannot take care of the 400,000 veterans in the state. Why should Coloradans expect a SPPS would work for five (5) million residents it their state?

What have conservatives and liberations offered as a substitute for the failed Obamacare experiment?

Nothing!

Leaders should start looking at My Ideal Medical Savings Account system that would put consumers in charge of their health and healthcare dollars.

Please send my summary blogs about an alternative to Obamacare and my Ideal Medical savings accounts to your elected representatives.

Spread the word about My Ideal Medical Savings Account as an alternative to Obamacare.

I wish everyone a HAPPY AND HEALTHY HOLIDAY SEASON

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

Thanks for leaving a comment, please keep it clean. HTML allowed is strong, code and a href.

Permalink:

December 13, 2015

inDisinformation and the healthcare system, Medicine: Healthcare System, Stakeholder Abuse of the Healthcare System, Stakeholder Mistrust

• Leave a comment

The Disinformation Continues

Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

A simple definition of well-informed in Merrian Websters dictionary of is:

having a lot of knowledge about current topics, a particular situation, etc.
based on fact

A simple definition disinformation in Merrian Websters dictionary of is:

false information that is given to people in order to make them believe something or to hide the truth.

Most of us like to be well-informed. It is almost impossible for a person to be well informed about a subject that they are casually interested in when President Obama and his administration control the information. It does not matter what the subject is.

The traditional mainstream media led by the New York Times picks up on the administration’s press releases. The traditional mainstream media then pretends to help us become well-informed citizens.

The problem is we are feed disinformation and have the truth hidden from view.

The First Amendment protects Americans. Students of an issue can see through the disinformation. These students of an issue attempt to inform themselves and others using by connecting facts from government reports to help people become well informed about the facts.

The use of these facts through the Internet is driving President Obama and his administration crazy. The administration is having trouble controlling the message.

President Obama is trying to control the media in many subtle ways

The New York Times, on Thursday December 9^th, published a stunning example of disinformation.

I signed up for the New York Times Daily Briefing to stay “well informed” on multiple current events according to the New York Times.

The Thursday December 10^th headline was:

NYTimes: Your Thursday Briefing: Donald Trump, San Bernardino, ‘Serial’ Podcast

7:13 AM (3 hours ago)

“Here’s a story from The New York Times I thought you’d find interesting:

Here’s what you need to know to start your day.

Read More: http://nyti.ms/1Q2A3vQ

Get The New York Times on your mobile device

Here is one of the topics covered in the daily

Health insurance deadline nears.

One million new customers have signed up for health insurance during the Affordable Care Act’s third open-enrollment season. The deadline for coverage beginning Jan. 1 is Tuesday.

At the same time, a little-noticed provision that Senator Marco Rubio slipped into a giant spending law is quietly undermining the health care law.

It is impressive that “One million new customers have signed up for health insurance during the Affordable Care Act’s third open-enrollment season. The deadline for coverage beginning Jan. 1 is Tuesday.”

ACAsignups.net publishes government release enrollment numbers weekly. These are the December 9th numbers.

Confirmed 2016 Exchange QHPs: 3,260,356 as of 12/09/15 Estimated 2016 Exchange QHPs: 4.73M as of 12/09/15 (3.60M via HCgov)

Projected Exchange QHPs: 5.76M by 12/12/15 (4.34M via HC.Gov)

Projected #OE3 QHP Selections: 14.70M nationally (11.23M via HC.gov)

Projected #OE3 QHP Selections by State

http://acasignups.net

The problem is that maybe 9 million signed up last year.

Where are last year’s enrollees with 3 weeks to go in until January 1, 2016? Christmas to New Years consumes one week of enrollment. Holiday shopping will consumer the other two weeks.

Why did the government reduce the expected enrollment to 5 million when enrollment was 9 million last year?

Does the Obama administration expect 4 million people to drop out of Obamacare because it is too expensive?

Why did the Obama administration’s information given to the CBO caused the CBO to predict an enrollment of 21 million enrollees for 2016?

The New York Times Daily Briefing suggests to the well- informed reader that 1 million new enrollees is a good number.

What happened to the old enrollees?

The 1 million new enrollees is being used as further evidence that Paul Krugman is correct when he declares that Obamacare is working.

In actual fact 1 million new enrollees out of the 3.6 million confirmed enrollees is a terrible number. It tells us that only 2.6 old enrollees renewed their coverage.

The New York Times bias is subtle but real.

The second part of the Daily Briefing is even more revealing of the New York Times bias.

At the same time, a little-noticed provision that Senator Marco Rubio slipped into a giant spending law is quietly undermining the health care law.

We do not know how much Obamacare is costing the taxpayers in direct costs. The average American is feeling the cost in higher deductibles and insurance premiums with less coverage.

No one is considering the direct costs of the hidden tax increases written into Obamacare. Obamacare’s hidden taxes increased everyone tax bill 10% both directly and indirectly.

It is not the Republicans’ fault that this is happening. President Obama’s administration has not told the American people what the direct cost to the government is with all the inefficiency that has been built into the system.

Some have estimated that the start up costs are over 1 trillion dollars.

President Obama has been spending money on Obamacare like a drunken sailor. Marco Rubio put a cap on that spending. President Obama signed the cap into law.

The spending cap has resulted in an underpayment of 88% of the reinsurance bill due to the healthcare insurance industry.

The reinsurance bailout program should have never happened. It was an anticipated bailout of the healthcare insurance industry’s loss due to participating in the defective provisions in Obamacare.

The New York Times’ Daily Briefing suggests that Senator Rubio is undermining Obamacare by trying to slow down spending and decrease losses.

At the same time, a little-noticed provision that Senator Marco Rubio slipped into a giant spending law is quietly undermining the health care law.

This is a typical Saul Alinsky tactic. The tactic of blaming the next guy is a tactic used daily by the Obama administration.

I feel sorry for the country, and my well-informed liberal, progressive and sophisticated friends who are being influenced by this misinformation.

The weird thing is they believe their opinion is absolutely correct. I say they should start reading the New York Times carefully to see the subtle way the Obama administration feeds and molds our opinions and hides the truth.

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

Please have a friend subscribe

Thanks for leaving a comment, please keep it clean. HTML allowed is strong, code and a href.

Permalink:

Breaking The Law Again

December 9, 2015

inDisinformation and the healthcare system, Medicine: Healthcare System, Stakeholder Abuse of the Healthcare System, Stakeholder Mistrust

• Leave a comment

Stanley Feld M.D, FACP,MACE

The mainstream media is biased. It usually supports the Obama administration blindly. Many intelligent liberals believe everything in the New York Times and what Paul Krugman says as if both were source material.

The New York Times and the TV networks ignored the initial press release by United Healthcare potentially withdrawing from the 38 federal health insurance exchanges in 2017. Fox news was the only cable network that covered the story.

The potential withdrawal is a very big deal. It is an indication that Obamacare is failing. Paul Krugman continually declares Obamacare is a success.

In order to induce United Healthcare’s participation in Obamacare’s health insurance exchanges the Obama administration guaranteed the healthcare insurance industry stop loss protection.

Then the Obama administration only paid 12.6% of the $2.8 billion dollars due the healthcare insurance industry under the stop loss agreement.

“Health insurance stocks took a nasty tumble last week, and maybe the markets are realizing that ObamaCare isn’t performing as well as the political class pretends.”

“The immediate cause of the selloff was UnitedHealth Group ’s shock $425 million downgrade to its earnings forecast for 2015, almost entirely driven by losses on the Affordable Care Act exchanges. “

United Healthcare did not sign up to sell insurance in the federal health insurance exchanges originally because it was afraid it would suffer large losses. It signed up only after President Obama activated the stop loss provision embedded in the reinsurance program of Obamacare legislation.

The United Healthcare announcement comes only a few weeks after 12 of 23 smaller, nonprofit insurance cooperatives failed and stopped selling insurance to Obamacare subscribers. These co-ops received billions of dollars in federal loans that will never be paid back to the nations taxpayers.

These cooperatives were given federal loans by the Obama administration in order to be competitive with the big insurance companies.

The federal health insurance exchanges attracted people with pre-existing illness. President Obama’s legacy law guarantees people with pre-existing illness availability to healthcare insurance at the same price as people without pre-existing illness.

People with pre-existing illnesses cost more than people without existing illness.

The resultant premiums are high and the deductibles are higher. Consumers who qualify for subsidies do not receive subsidies for the $6000 deductibles.

Young healthy consumers are not buying insurance from the federal health exchanges. They have figured out that they are not getting insurance coverage until they spend the $6,000 deductible.

These young consumers did not earn enough money to afford the high premiums and higher deductibles. The poor cannot afford the deductibles either. No one at low risk is signing up for Obamacare.

In order to keep Obamacare going the Obama administration needs the healthcare insurance industry. The healthcare insurance industry performs all the administrative services for the government.

United Healthcare is not interested in selling insurance on the health insurance exchanges because the government has not been trustworthy and has not paid them what was promised.

The stop loss insurance should not have been promised to the healthcare insurance industry in the first place. However, President Obama jumped in and essentially gave the healthcare insurance industry the ability to sell insurance at no risk.

United healthcare did not sign up for 2013 but jumped into the Health Insurance Exchanges in 2015 because of the government’s stop loss guarantee.

Obamacare now owes the healthcare insurance industry 2.5 billion dollars. The budget contained an amendment that does not permit the government to reimburse more than it collected in premiums. Both houses of congress and President Obama signed the amendment into law.

At present President Obama has pledged to pay out the risk corridors payments despite the massive shortfall in the near term.

All President Obama has to do is ignore the law he signed in order pay the $2.5 billion dollars illegally. If he pays United Healthcare the money due it might continue to participate in Obamacare’s federal healthcare insurance exchanges.

HHS “will explore other sources of funding for risk corridors payments, subject to the availability of appropriations. This includes working with Congress on the necessary funding for outstanding risk corridors payments.”

“The risk corridors program, one of three health insurance risk programs established by the Obamacare, essentially helps mitigate insurers’ losses in the early years of the new insurance marketplaces. The risk corridors program expires after 2016.”

United Healthcare is in business to maximize profits and not to lose money on good deeds.

Obamacare’s business model is a terrible model destined to lose trillions of taxpayers’ dollars. United is not interested in losing billions of dollars doing the government a favor.

Paul Krugman continues to tell his readers Obamacare is working wonderfully despite fact that it is failing. Major media networks have hardly described the problem.

It will be worse if we go to a single party payer system. Socialism has never worked.

It should be all about consumer driven healthcare and market forces driving healthcare with consumers being responsible for their health and healthcare dollars.

Government only function should be to create simple regulations that none of the stakeholders should abuse. The government must execute the enforcement of these simple regulations.

My ideal medical savings account will work. It will permit universal healthcare coverage and eliminate the development of the massive, inefficient and dysfunctional healthcare system called Obamacare.

Obamacare is unsustainable. It is being proven every day even if it is ignored by the traditional media, President Obama and his administration and Paul Krugman.

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

Thanks for leaving a comment, please keep it clean. HTML allowed is strong, code and a href.

Permalink:

Where Is The Missing Money?

November 30, 2015

inUncategorized

• Leave a comment

Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

Does anyone know how much Obamacare cost each year? Does anyone know if Obamacare is the cause of America’s more than one trillion-dollar deficit each year despite the Obamacare tax increases that are supposed to pay for it ?

If someone knows they sure are not telling taxpayers. A good friend who is a liberal and a big fan of President Obama said to me he is not worried about the federal deficit. Neither is President Obama. President Obama has convinced his base that the budget deficit and America’s escalating debt is an insignificant problem.

It follows that he can spend money as he wishes and waste money with impunity. I was taught that is not the way to run a business. Especially when the waste fullness gets negative results that leads to more deficit spending.

The problem is the waste of money is reported in dribs and drabs and usually on a Friday afternoon.

We have seen that happen in the VA system. After one year and billions of dollars spent the waiting times have decreased slightly. The medical service to veterans has not improved. No one in the bureaucracy has been held responsible. Veterans have been complaining more loudly since nothing has improved.

Missing Money

“The federal government awarded over $5 billion to help states set up Obamacare exchanges, with the vast majority – $4.6 billion – going to 16 states and Washington, D.C.”

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently reported that most of the money has not been accounted for. Several of those State Health Insurance exchanges have gone out of business this year.

$1.4 billion of that has been spent on IT projects. This sounds very high for 16 different web sites. Why couldn’t everyone use the same website?

Three ($3 billion) has been “spent or drawn down.” Only some of the drawn down spending has been detailed.

At least $1.6 billion is unaccounted for. Only three states returned any portion of the money. The federal government has only received back $1 million.

It sounds like government bureaucracy inefficiency at best and fraud and abuse at worst with no one being held accountable.

Can Americans trust the government to run our healthcare system?

Where did those taxpayer dollars go?

More Missing Money

Obamacare created the co-ops to encourage State Health Insurance Exchanges to increase competition in state insurance markets.

The intent was to offer consumers choices with the hope of holding down premiums.

Co-ops were snuck into Obamacare to replace the public option. No one has spoken about this being a substitute for the “public option.” The public option is an obvious ploy to convert the healthcare system quickly to a single party payer system.

The public option was designed to compete with private insurers on the state level by offering lower premiums in order to force the insurance industry to lower its premiums. The co-ops were designed to do the same thing.

President Obama offered state co-ops $6 billion dollars for start-up costs. Since there were only 23 states co-op formed instead of 50 Congress decreased the total payment to $2.4 billion to the 23 start-up co-ops.

All 23 co-ops received their proportional federal loans to meet solvency requirements as well as start-up costs.

President Obama now claims the Republican house denied Obamacare enough money for the co-op to be successful.

Twelve (12) of the 23 nonprofit insurance co-ops announced they will not offer coverage to consumers who bought healthcare coverage in 2015 in 2016. They are bankrupt. Where did the money go?

Somewhere between 300,000 and 600,000 people will be shopping for more expensive healthcare coverage for 2016.

The remaining 11 standing co-ops are $500 million dollar in the hole.

There is no accounting available to explain why these co-ops have failed

Does anyone think these $2.4 billion dollar loans will be paid back to the federal government? I do not. It will simply be added to the federal deficit.

“CMS said the government would “use every tool available to recover taxpayer dollars” from the co-ops going out of business, but it declined to say how much she expected to recoup.”

There are many reasons these co-ops have failed. Republicans not giving the co-ops more money, as progressives and Democrats have claimed, is not one of the reasons.

Another area of missing taxpayers’ dollars.

The Senate Finance Committee is looking into the millions of taxpayer dollars being spent on ads to promote Obamacare enrollment.

The total federal government budget for ads and PR was nearly $1 billion in fiscal 2013. How much was spent on Obamacare?

The Health and Human Services budget for “paid media” is about $35 million for the current enrollment period. The $35 million dollars will be spent in the 38 states using HealthCare.gov in the 2016 enrollment period.

Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, raised concerns about agency ad spending and sent a letter to the acting head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) asking for a full accounting of agency ad spending.

“Increased transparency on government spending on advertising will improve accountability and help ensure that the taxes from hardworking Americans are not squandered and wasted on ineffective or misguided government programs,” he wrote to Acting Administrator Andrew M. Slavitt.

Senator Hatch demanded the accounting by November 25^th. Does anyone think he received it?

In 2010, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported the Obama administration spent nearly $20 million on a Medicare brochure that contained “instances in which HHS presented abbreviated information and a positive view of Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) that is not universally shared.”

The GAO papered over the ridiculous expenditure.

GAO concluded that “nothing in the brochure constitutes communications that are purely partisan, self-aggrandizing, or covert.”

CRS reported HHS was second only to the Department of Defense, spending $197.4 million on advertising in fiscal 2013.

“The total federal government budget for ads and PR was nearly $1 billion in fiscal 2013.”

Would healthcare be so expensive if the government was transparent and congress was really on top of everything?

Physicians only receive 20% of the healthcare dollars spent.

President Obama and his administration spend taxpayer’s money at will.

Americans have to demand “more efficiency and much more transparency.”

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

Please have a friend subscribe

Thanks for leaving a comment, please keep it clean. HTML allowed is strong, code and a href.

Permalink:

Lie. Why Not?

November 22, 2015

inUncategorized

• Leave a comment

Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

President Obama and his administration continue to lie to the American people. One of the major criticisms of letting Syrian refugees into this country is that our vetting process is not robust enough to determine if some of the young strong men might be ISIS operatives.

Ben Rhodes, Deputy National Security Adviser, repeated President Obama’s lie about the U.S. intelligence agencies having a robust vetting procedure. The agencies contradicted President Obama.

How can President Obama have the nerve to tell the American people that Obamacare is working when few enrollees are signing up on www.healthcare.gov so far during this open enrollment period.

On Thursday UnitedHealthcare said it is losing too much money on servicing www.healthcare.gov enrollees to continue. It is threatening drop out of servicing the Health Insurance Exchanges.

The traditional mainstream media did not cover this important news release on its important evening cycle.

“In the latest piece of ObamaCare news (Failure) that the liberal media has chosen to ignore, ABC, NBC, and Spanish networks Telemundo and Univision skipped on Thursday night and Friday morning word from United HealthCare from Thursday that it may withdraw from ObamaCare exchanges in the future after reporting losses of around $700 million for the year.”

While ABC and NBC were joined by CBS in censoring this story from their Thursday evening newscasts, Friday’s CBS This Morning stepped forward with a measly 18-second, 46-word brief from co-host Charlie Rose that alluded to a Wall Street Journal piece on United HealthCare.

Charlie Rose said with little emotion, editorial comment or explanation of its meaning, “The Wall Street Journal reports on one of the nation’s biggest health insurance company considering pulling out of ObamaCare. United Health Group said it suffered major losses on the policies sold on the Affordable Care Act exchanges. Operating losses this year will total about $700 million.

The CEO of UnitedHelath’s actual statement was, “in recent weeks growth expectations for individual exchange participation have tempered industrywide, Obama”s co-operatives have failed and market data has signaled higher risks and more difficulties while our own claims experience has deteriorated, so we are taking this proactive step.”

These are the reasons for the UnitedHealthcare pull out. Fox News covered the story in full on Thursday evening in primetime and Friday morning.

“Special Report to devote a full story to the matter from correspondent Rich Edson.”

“Host Bret Baier declared in a short lead-in that “a major setback” is possibly “in the works tonight for ObamaCare” as “[t]he President’s health care law could be losing a huge source of the coverage provided.”

“Edson also made sure to mention that such a story has given “ObamaCare critics” additional reasons to argue that “with rising premiums, fewer health provider choices, is another sign of the unsustainability of the health care law.”

How can anyone expect the public to be informed about Obamacare’s failures when the major networks who these important stories?

But the public is catching on. The major networks are acting as a shill for the Obama administration. The major networks should not be surprised that their viewership is declining.

As opposed to covering the major healthcare story Thursday’s CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News each found time to tout the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of a genetically-modified salmon for human consumption that won’t actually become widely available for at least a few years.

How can President Obama think the American people have confidence in him?

The lies continue daily. The majority of the information sources have become a super pac for President Obama. What is the public recourse to stop this madness?

Most of the people in the country have never heard of Saul Alinsky or his book “Rules for Radicals.”

Saul Alinsky’s recommendations are exactly what President Obama is using.

You lie to the people and restrict information so that the critics of your policies seem unreasonable. Opponents cannot mount an effective offensive and therefore get enough public support to demand change.

I suggest Republicans hire an effective and innovative public relations firm to counteract President Obama’s attacks on the freedoms of the American people.

President Obama’s response to his critics has been that Republicans are fear mongers and should be ignored. He presents no evidence just accusations.

I am republishing the following 2014 blog’s You Tubes because viewing these amazing You Tube compilations of President Obama’s lies are essential to understanding President Obama’s method of operation.

http://youtu.be/4puS-yjwsiE

This You Tube is worse than the Words Matter You Tube

http://youtu.be/1YqXCFCXXL8

The American people must do their own research, get involved and not let President Obama manipulate us into a socialist state.

Socialism does work as we are seeing in Europe. France cannot afford to fight ISIS because entitlements consume 54% of the GDP and taxes are close to 70% of personal income.

The wealthy people with large incomes who paid high taxes in the past are fleeing the France.

As corporate taxes and individual taxes have gone up in the United States on President Obama’s watch we have not only had a tax inversion occur with corporations moving over 3 trillion dollars overseas, we are now seeing a tax inversion movement by rich individuals.

President Obama’s lies and manipulations cannot be ignored anymore. These lies are a clear and present danger to America’s economy and way of life.

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

Please have a friend subscribe

Thanks for leaving a comment, please keep it clean. HTML allowed is strong, code and a href.

Permalink:

Obamacare Is In Big Trouble!

November 18, 2015

inMedicine: Healthcare System, Politicians,Healthcare and Vested Interests, Stakeholder Mistrust

• Leave a comment

Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

There are so many parts of Obamacare that are failing it would be impossible to describe each failure in a single blog..

President Obama and his administration keeps telling the American people that Obamacare is working great. It is here to stay.

I cannot believe Americans believe him. I cannot believe he thinks Obamacare is doing great.

It could be true that everything is going great for him if he wants Obamacare to fail and cause hardship for millions of Americans.

At that point Americans would beg President Obama or another progressive president loke Hillary Clinton to institute a single party payer system.

A single party payer system has been Hillary’s dream since Hillarycare 1993. Now she is saying she wants a private insurance based system. The purpose of this statement is to neutralize (freeze) her free market system critics.

Once more America is being exposed to Hillary Clinton’s use of a typical Saul Alinsky tactic. The tactic in his “Rules for Radicals” is to freeze your opponent by stating his position as yours even if it is a lie.

Hillary wrote her senior Wellesley College thesis on Saul Alinsky and “Rules for Radicals”. She also became a big fan and good friend of his.

Hillary Clinton and President Obama know Obamacare is failing. They are just waiting for the tipping point. The tipping point will be when the American people say please help us and give us a single party payer system.

At that point we will hear the typical gee shucks, I guess we will have to try a single party payer system.

A single party payer system will be a bigger financial and patient care disaster than what we have now.

The data on the first week of applications for Obamacare’s healthcare.gov was announced to the rave reviews by the Obama administration.

Since few pay attention to the actual numbers President Obama can get away with the lie.

The CBO predicts 19 to 21 million will sign up for Obamacare for 2016. The administration estimates they are going to have 9.1 to 11 million enrollees for 2016.

The Obama administrations estimate is 30% lower than the announce 13 million enrollees in 2015. In reality only 9.7 million enrollee paid for healthcare insurance through healthcare.gov 2015. Of those 9 million only 6.5 million kept their insurance premiums current for the entire year.

The www.acasignup.net quoted the Obama administrations claim that 595,590 filled out applications to get price insurance quotes. Only 8% of the reported applicants or 47,243 paid their first month’s premium for 2016.

These numbers are not a cause for celebration unless you want to misinform the public by claiming a successful first week enrollment.

Let’s do the math. The enrollment period for 2016 is from November 1^st until December 31^st 2015 or eight and one have weeks with four major holidays, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years.

Let us the assume all 600,000 that filled out applications will pass the application requirements and pay their assigned premium for each month. Let us also assume the average weekly application rate is 600,000 per week for the 81/2 weeks. The grand total enrollees would be 5.1 million enrollees for 2016. This is 4.5 million less paid enrollees than in 2015.

There was an attrition rate 2% a month in 2015. President Obama extended the enrollment period several times to get more people to sign up.

2015 FULL YEAR ENROLLMENT/ATTRITION RATE TABLE PROJECTION:

2014 FULL YEAR ENROLLMENT/ATTRITION RATE TABLE (FINAL):

It is clear that President Obama’s victory laps celebrating the success of Obamacare is unwarranted.

However the media is the message. He controls and manipulates the media. It would have been much easier to provide Medicaid and CHIP coverage to the poor outright than destroying the healthcare system with changes that are not working.

The final enrollment for 2014 was 6,338,622 not over 13 million. The final enrollment for 2015 was 9,736,350 and not over 13 million. This is a net gain of 3.5 million new paying enrollees in 2015.

This year the Obama administration estimates that 9 million will purchase insurance through the health insurance exchanges. At the present rate only 5.1 million will purchase insurance for 2016 at the end of the enrollment period December 31, 2015.

The CBO’s estimate was 19-21 million paid enrollees.

It does not represent a very successful net gain when the government publishes that there are 34 million uninsured Americans. No one knows if the 90 million unemployed Americans are counted in the number uninsured.

All anyone hears is the Obama administration’s reasons our taxes, and insurance premiums are going up, while our insurance coverage is going down. The Obama administration is blaming the healthcare insurance industry and Republicans.

President Obama has used, with the help of the mainstream media, the Saul Alinsky tactic to freeze opponents by shocking them with unsustainable factoids.

The Avalere Health consultancy’s analysis of 2015 signup data showed surprisingly weak ObamaCare enrollment at modest income levels. At between 150% and 200% of the poverty level, just 41% of those eligible signed up for coverage. The number falls to 30% among those between 200% and 250% of the poverty level.

In 2016 President Obama is going to penalize people that do not have healthcare insurance.

It’s now clear that the actual impact of ObamaCare’s individual mandate tax penalty will be far worse than the benign intent that the Obama administration claimed.

“What we’re talking about is a penalty for the few people who will refuse to buy health insurance — even though they can afford it — and who expect the rest of us to pick up the tab for their care,” a September 2009 White House defense of the individual mandate states.”

Reality should be coming into focus by now for the average American taxpayer and the poor. Obamacare is ripping everyone off.

“The mandate’s primary impact will be to compel low-income households to buy bronze coverage with deductibles of up to $6,850 per adult that are well beyond their capacity to afford. “

Even after these poor people pay the $6,850 deductible they have a 40% deductible on the rest of the billing.

Who said poor people are too stupid to handle their own money and be responsible for their healthcare dollars?

They are smart enough to know the government is ripping them off.

George Shore101 • 3 months ago

“If the Obama administration and Democrats love the poor why did they force the poor to purchase something they can not afford and then penalize them for not being able to afford it?”

It is a horrible thought to think President Obama is working to make the poor poorer and make the healthcare system fail the American people.

It looks like he is. His plan to replace it with a single party payer system will result in a bigger failure.

Why are Republicans just standing around doing nothing? Why don’t they publicize my Ideal Medical Saving Accounts?

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

Thanks for leaving a comment, please keep it clean. HTML allowed is strong, code and a href.

Permalink:

My Two TechStars Sons

November 15, 2015

inUncategorized

• Leave a comment

Stanley Feld M.D., FACP,MACE

A few Mondays ago I flew to Boulder on the first American Airlines flight from Dallas to Denver get to TechStars FounderCon before 9.30 a.m. and the first morning session.

I wanted to see what FounderCon was all about and how my son, Daniel Feld, put it together.

Daniel and his staff put on FounderCon in Boulder. It attracted over 800 TechStars founders. I wanted to be there to celebrate Daniel’s success.

Also I wanted to spend time with all these young people observing how their powerful social network works.

I love spending time hanging out and learning from my sons. I try to take every opportunity I can to learn from them

Daniel Feld is Vice President of Operations for Techstars. He leads its powered by TechStars expansion efforts with corporate partners including Nike, Kaplan, R/GA, Sprint, Disney, Barclays, Ford, MetroAG and others.

FounderCon is a TechStars annual event for all Techstars graduate founders. The conference is two full days of keynote speakers and breakout sessions in addition to social and business opportunity networking.

The primary purpose is to learn and network with almost 800 Techstars founders across the 36 TechStars programs in the U.S. and around the world.

My conclusion at the end of the conference was that Daniel is an excellent organizer and administrator. His staff is dedicated to his leadership.

His father (me) is very proud of him. I also learned a ton from all these young entrepreneurs about their corner of the world.

What is TechStars?

TechStars is a startup accelerator founded by David Cohen, David Brown, Brad Feld and Jared Polis in 2006.

In Las Vegas in 2006 on one of our father-son weekends Brad told me the two David’s idea to see how I would react. I knew he had already made up his mind that he was going to go for it.

I thought it was great. There is nothing like a young startup entrepreneur learning how to start and run a business from mentors who have already started up a business. It is much better and more efficient than learning from scratch.

TechStars has grown into a fabulous franchise in the last nine years. There are founders who have learned how to startup a company from all over the world. It is growing rapidly.

FounderCon provides an opportunity for graduates of TechStars to grow and help each other.

The TechStars mantra is give first. Do not worry about the return. The concept is expressed eloquently in Brad seminal book for start ups “Startup Communities Building An Entrepreneurial Ecosystem In Your City. “ The book has been published in many languages.

The book is the foundation of his Startup Revolution.

The startup energy results from his Boulder Hypothesis. This hypothesis has led to the formation of many very successful startup companies.

TechStars has expanded geometrically in the pursuit of developing Startup communities.

The magic of TechStars and the development of a successful Startup Community are expressed in the following You Tube.

My sons Daniel and Brad teach me more that I teach them these days.

I am all ears and try to learn all I can.

We also have a great time hanging out and enjoying chocolate ice cream.

Daniel and Stan. Which One is Stan?

Brad and Stan at our tradition.

Thanks guys. I love you both very much.

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

Please have a friend subscribe

Thanks for leaving a comment, please keep it clean. HTML allowed is strong, code and a href.

Permalink:

A Message That Needs Repeating

November 11, 2015

inMedicine: Healthcare System, Stakeholder Mistrust

• Leave a comment

Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

Obamacare has not been discussed in the traditional mainstream media very much these days even though open enrollment begun on November 1^st.

Senator Marc Rubio is correct. The traditional mainstream media is President Obama’s and the Democratic Party’s main special interest group and super pac.

They have keep Americans blind to what is really going on in America as they report President Obama’s and the Democrats lies as if they are the truth.

Americans have been programmed to be a headline and sound bite society.

President Obama and the Democrats do not allow us to be critical thinkers because they do not expose us to the true facts.

Consumers can think critically if they have the actual facts and not manufactured sound bites.

We are being driven toward a socialistic society. Socialism does not work. Americans will soon realize this. They will not like it at all.

This is happening in economics, finance, healthcare and welfare.

People must be responsible for themselves and not be dependent on the government.

Why? The answer is simply because bureaucracies will decide what we can have and what we cannot have. The inevitable corruption that develops because of bureaucracies is destroying our freedoms.

Ayn Rand in Atlas Shrugged, published in 157 developed this thesis in a simple love story as she observed the destruction of incentives, initiatives and innovation.

Progressives continually lie about her message and try to marginalize her as evil in compliance with Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals.”

Democrats and Ayn Rand

October 5, 2014

Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

http://stanfeld.com/democrats-and-ayn-rand/

I have never understood why Democrats have always belittled Ayn Rand. Atlas Shrugged is reported to be the best selling book in history aside from the Bible.

I first read it in 1959, two years after it was published. It is a weak love story but a powerful critique of government policy and the effect of expanding government control over society.

I did not think about it much during medical school.

I thought about it when the government started to control my endocrinology practice in the early 1970’s.

In 1984 my son, Brad when he was at MIT, insisted I read Atlas Shrugged again. It describes exactly the effect the government was having on the practice of medicine.

I did not understand why Democrats in congress and the Democratic Party members become were so angry with Ayn Rand and her philosophy. I thought Democrats were problem solvers for the benefit of the people.

I finally realized that Ayn Rand’s writings are a dangerous threat to the Democrats’ progressive agenda. The Democrat’s agenda is the government’s control over society turning free citizens into clients of big government.

In this election season the Democrats have decided to combine their anti-Rand rhetoric with a Saul Alinsky tactic.

The Democrats are trying to immobilize Republicans’ replies through a replay of their anti-Rand sound bites. They are using the traditional mainstream media to spread their disinformation.

If a reader wants to know what Ayn Rand’s philosophy is read Atlas Shrugged. I suspect most critics have not read the book.

Democrats attack Ayn Rand by misrepresenting her philosophy as evil.

This year the Democrats’ attack dog is House Minority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.).

“ He accused Republicans of following author Ayn Rand’s advice that “compromise is always evil,” and warned that letting Republicans take over Congress would only lead to more gridlock and partisanship.”

In reality comprise is usually evil. If a policy or law is wrong, compromising will not fix the problem that policy or law set out to fix. According to Ayn Rand there are issues in which compromise is evil. If a law or policy does not work compromise can be evil is if is not modified by compromise.

Steny Hoyer’s warning Republicans taking over congress would only lead to more gridlock and partisanship does not logically follow the first part of his sentence.

The House of Representatives have passed about 350 bills. A 98% of the House passed bills were bipartisan.

Harry Reid, chairman of the senate, has created the gridlock by not permitting these bills to be brought to committee or the senate floor for debate.

Harry Reid has been President Obama’s inarticulate creator of gridlock.

“Compromise is not evil,” Hoyer said. “It is the necessary and noble pursuit of those who govern responsibly in a democracy. We listen to one another. We come to an agreement.”

Harry Reid has not compromised on anything. Neither has President Obama.

How does Steny Hoyer have the chutzpah to make such a statement?

Why doesn’t the traditional media react to this ridiculous statement.

Steny Hoyer’s statement is the typical Saul Alinsky lie crafted to immobilize the enemy’s ability to have a strong reply.

If a policy is wrong and is not working or has not been working reasonable men should debate the issue and change the policy so it works to the benefit of the people.

The policy must be changed. It is the responsibility of both parties to change it to something that can work for the benefit of all the people.

Obamacare is a law forced through congress by a Democratic majority that is not working. Compromise can only make it worse.

Who is to blame for congressional gridlock?

Is it the Republicans or Democrats?

If there were a Republican majority in the Senate and bills passed both houses President Obama has threatened to veto the bills. He would then be responsible for his errors not Harry Reid.

Hoyer accused House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and others as following Rand’s teachings when it comes to operating Congress.

The implication is Paul Ryan is evil.

The message is President Obama knows what is good for the people. Therefore. elect Democrats to congress this fall.

Which of President Obama and the Democrat’s policies have worked? All are failing at the expense of the middle class taxpayer.

President Obama’s policy decisions have been proven wrong daily.

He has created chaos in the healthcare system with Obamacare.
He has increased the costs of unsustainable entitlements programs.
Obamacare is another unsustainable entitlement program.
He has increased the deficit from $11 trillion dollars to $17 trillion dollars.
America’s foreign policy is chaotic.
America’s economy is still a mess and getting worse even though the President claims it is better.
People are more dependent on government.
Individual privacy had been violated.
Independence has been discouraged.
Individual responsibility has been discouraged.
Cronyism has been promoted..

President Obama wants to do away with racism yet makes every issue a racist issue and blames it on Republicans.

I think before Steny Hoyer and the Democrats start attacking Republicans who might have been influenced by Any Rand, he should read Atlas Shrugged or at least watch the three-part movie.

“He should reexamine his premises.” (A John Galt quote).

President Obama’s own party members are running away from his concepts of big government and central control in order to be elected.

They are sounding like Republicans.

The people are realizing that “Big Government” has had difficulty in doing anything efficiently.

These days government competence is all too often exposed as a fragile veneer. When an elite corps like the Secret Service can’t remember to lock the White House’s front door and alleged health technocrats can’t build a working Obamacare website for less than $2 billion, a sense of low-level worry about Ebola seems more than reasonable.”

President Obama is always blaming his failures on President George W. Bush or his advisors.

Many of President Obama’s advisors are now blaming Republicans for their agencys’ shortcomings. Even Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Health Infectious Disease division, is implying Republicans are to blame for the agencey’s lack of efficient response to the Ebola virus epidemic.

“Nor does it inspire confidence that the head of infectious diseases for the CDC is resorting to that promiscuous federal excuse—budget cuts.

Anthony Fauci recently told Congress that sequestration “has, both in an acute and in a chronic insidious way, eroded our ability to respond in the way that I and my colleagues would like to see us be able to respond to these emerging threats.”

Is this a joke? There are many other examples of shifting blame such as our foreign policy crisis in the middle east, the crisis with ISIS, nuclear Iran, Israel/Hamas and the Arab spring to name a few.

All these excuses remind me of the excuses that characters in Atlas Shrugged used when the world was falling apart.

“As I listened to President Obama’s repeated statements that government was going to somehow fix what Obama calls “income inequality” it brought to mind several of the more depressing chapters of Any Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged, which you recall envisioned a dystopian world in which government “looters” stripped society’s producers, thinkers and creators of the fruits of their labor in the name of equalizing society.”

“The looting of the fruit of their labor provoked the producers to withdraw from society. Without producers, thinkers and creators there was an economic implosion and society rapidly declined and fell into chaos.”

Every time President Obama mentions government enforced income equality or government-led opportunity I think of the villains in Atlas Shrugged such as the politician Wesley Mouch (New York Senator Chuck Schumer) or crony capitalist Orren Boyle (various green energy vampires) to name only two.

In the words of Yogi Berra, “It feels like Deja Vu all over again.”

Please think about this as we look at both the Republican candidates and Hillary Clinton during this Presidential election season.

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

Please have a friend subscribe

Thanks for leaving a comment, please keep it clean. HTML allowed is strong, code and a href.

12
13
14
15
16
17
18
15/120