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 Changing The Rules: It Is Just The Beginning

January 29, 2018
inMedicine: Healthcare System, Politicians,Healthcare and Vested Interests, Uncategorized
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 Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP, MACE

A proposal to cut Medicaid payments to some insurers with excessive reserves stirs concern from healthcare insurers.

Progressive politicians refuse to believe that entitlement programs like Medicaid are not viable. Politicians should be looking at creative ways to structure the Medicaid form of insurance for both physicians and patients.

https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/albany/story/2018/01/22/proposal-to-cut-medicaid-payments-to-some-insurers-with-excessive-reserves-stirs-concern-206875

I have not written a blog lately because both the Democrats and the establishment Republicans in both the house and the senate disillusion me. Neither house or senate members are interested in being creative.

Neither body knows how medicine works.

These politicians have no interest in doing what is best for the people who elected them. They are only interested in maintaining power and extending their power over the people they govern.

The result will be to decrease to quality of care to patients forever.

In the meantime there have been news stories on how different corporate organization and big businesses are trying to take over medicine.

Many readers have noticed that emergency clinics are popping up in every city and town.

I believe these emergency clinics centers are in reality real estate plays waiting for so that big corporations, like Aetna; to buy them out in order to expand their plans to take over medical care.

It feels similar to the proliferation of small banks in the 1980’s. These new small banks’ plan was to grow and be bought out at a premium by larger banks in order to enlarge the sale premium.

When the defective program (Medicaid) is a failure one should learn from that failure. One should not continue to try fixes to the program (Medicaid) when each fix creates greater dysfunction.

One should institute another plan that might work. However, government officials continuously apply an additional patch that leads to more unintentional consequences.

This week New York State governor Andrew Cuomo put another patch on its failed Medicaid system. I predict this patch will lead to more unintended consequences. The result will be to make Medicaid coverage worse for its New York State’s Medicaid recipients.

Governor’s Cuomo’s initial mistake was expanding Medicaid at President Obama’s request. He then compounded the mistake by subsequently allowing illegal immigrants in the state to receive Medicaid coverage.

It is not wise to take a financially failed system and expand it. It is much better to change the system.

Now Governor Andrew Cuomo’s budget is proposing to cut Medicaid payments to certain health insurance companies with excess reserves, a move that is alarming insurers because of its intent and its ambiguity.

“The proposal, part of the $168.2 billion executive budget released last week, says that any Medicaid managed care or long-term care Health Maintenance Organization that has excess reserves across all lines of business would be subject to a prospective cut in Medicaid rates.”

 Why would an insurance company want to participate in these programs?

The immediate unintended consequence is that the insurance company that found a defect in the payment schedule for HMO’s and managed care would leave the Medicaid market.

The second unintended consequence is it would discourage companies from having incentive to make a profit.

“Under current law, all Health Maintenance Organizations are subject to minimum reserve requirements,” said Erin Silk, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health. “This policy will provide the commissioner with the discretion to make rate adjustments to plans holding reserves in excess of the statutory requirements for reasons that cannot be explained or justified.”

The state did not project any savings from this proposal.”

The state cannot run Medicaid without insurance companies being the administrative service providers. It is the same old story. This comes on top of a proposed fourteen percent tax on for-profit insurers as well as the state receiving a cut of the proceeds when a nonprofit insurer converts to a for-profit insurer as a result of the new tax law.

Governor Coumo wants this additional money because he thinks the insurance industry is going to have a windfall from President Trump’s new tax law. He figures the state will collect $640 million dollars more as a result of this move.

“There were 3 million New Yorkers enrolled in these types of plans in 2014, according to a report from the United Hospital Fund.”

The insurance industry gave the usual illogical reason for opposing Cuomo’s proposals.

These insurance companies are there to make money. They are not going to let Coumo out of his commitment. I believe they will walk away from providing administrative services for the states Medicaid insurance coverage.

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

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It Is Getting Worse

December 15, 2017
inConsumer Driven Health Care, Disinformation and the healthcare system, Medicine: Healthcare System
• Leave a comment

Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

Charles Gabe’s graph of enrollment as of 12/9/2017 was published with only six days of open enrollment left.

There are only 5,894,342 confirmed enrollees. There is no indication of how many enrollees paid the first month’s premium. The low-ball estimate was 7.2 million.

Of those enrolled only 3,604,44 were enrolled in President Obama’s Health Insurance Exchanges to buy healthcare insurance.

2,289,902 were enrolled in Medicaid. The number of illegal immigrants in that number is unknown.

December 15th is the deadline for enrollment in 42 states. Eight states have already extended the deadline.

Image1
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This is an extremely disappointing outcome for Democrats who refuse to believe Obamacare has failed. Last year the Democrats and President Obama were bragging that Obamacare provided healthcare insurance for 20 million people.

The problem was that 13 million of those 20 million were enrolled in Medicaid and of the 9 million who bought insurance through the health insurance exchange many did not complete their premium payment for the whole year.

The government subsidized eighty-five percent of those people who bought healthcare insurance through the health insurance exchanges.

Organized medicine has not provided leadership for the medical and surgical community or its patients.

In turn medical professional feel powerless. I believe the profession is about to give up on trying to influence positive change in the healthcare system for its benefit and its patients benefit.

A reader, D.F. M.D., responded to my last blog writing;

“That nothing much is happening in Washington re: healthcare reform may be one of the largest blessings our country has seen this year.”

It might be a blessing because the politicians do not have a clue as to what can be done to repair the healthcare system.

Politicians are not interested in listening to physicians or patients. The people that stand to lose the most in this dilemma are patients.

D.F., M.D. goes on,

 “ We are agreed that our congress hasn’t done much, but there are other activities afoot that will almost certainly be game changers and they are largely un-noticed when it comes to their impact on healthcare services.”

his is very true. When President Trump was running for president he kept declaring that the “government” made the worse deals for the American people with NAFTA, Iran nuclear deal, and the pacific trade deal. He essentially called President Obama and congress stupid.

Now congress is asking big business to help them out of the healthcare mess. The pending take over of medicine by big business is going to destroy medical care in America while they are claiming to save the healthcare system.

D.F. MD writes

“The CVS/Aetna merger, and today’s announcement that United Healthcare is buying DaVita, a healthcare group with over 300 sites of service to add to it’s Optum, segment, with 1,100 care sites of various sorts, not to mention US Oncology, owned by McKesson, that sees about 14-15% of patients with cancer in the US.”

The corporate take over of medical care is growing daily. Without physicians and patients there would not be a need for a healthcare system. Physicians have voluntarily given up their intellectual property and freedom to use their own clinical judgment to the will of corporations.

America is in the early stages of this phenomenon. Medical care is becoming a commodity. Physicians and patients have given up the thought of a personal relationship embodied in the physician patient relationship. Good medical care (in my opinion) is predicated on the patient physician relationship because much morbidity and negative emotional responses to treatment can vanish with an effective patient physician relationship.

Truly, corporate medicine, once outlawed in many states, (for good reason) is on track to become the biggest player in healthcare.  Add to that the report that 60% of physicians are now employed by hospitals, which is in some ways creating a body of spokespersons for healthcare that has not been seen before.”

The result is massive Medicare and Medicaid cost overruns that are not approved by congress. The Democrats are trying hard to blame the costs overruns and Obamacare’s failure on President Trump without good reason.

However, the media is the message and the media is on President Obama and the Democrats side.

D.F., MD continues,

“I have always believed that the medical profession though organized medicine has been remiss by maintaining a low profile where change is concerned, either in the development of programs or the creation and passing of legislation.”

Edward Annis M.D. a former president of the AMA was organized medicine leaders who lead the fight to outlaw corporate take over of the healthcare system and the takeover of medical practice. Dr. Annis wrote an excellent book called Code Blue in 1993.

A reviewer,  Frank J. Primich M.D. in 1994 wrote;

“Code Blue takes its name from the most common term used by hospital public address systems to signify cardiac arrest.

The announcement sends an assortment of specially trained personnel scurrying to the designated site. Modern techniques and technology, when given the timely opportunity, have been highly successful in restoring life.”

“The protagonist in Dr. Annis’s book is the private practice of medicine, which has been declared dead by some of its adversaries. Resuscitation requires an understanding of what has gone wrong, and what can be done about it.”

Dr. Annis was right on target. No one involved in organized medicine has taken this stand presently.

The reviewer goes on;

“In every field, there is an internal rating system. Ed Annis is the acknowledged superstar of those of us who have pleaded the cause of fee-for-service medical practice and maintenance of the traditional doctor-patient relationship.”

All of the healthcare policy wonks and congress people ignore the importance of the physician patient relationship. When they get sick and do not have a patient physician relationship they yearn for one.

“The same time span has seen a steady encroachment into the process from a variety of third parties, particularly government.”

“The concept of socialized medicine, discredited elsewhere in the world, has been introduced, through gradualism, to the point where we are now, in effect, semi- socialized. The current proposals for national health care threaten to push us beyond the point of no return.”

These quotes were taken from the article written in 1994 at the peak of the Hillary-care debate. Wilbur Mills started the socialized medicine debate in America in 1935.

D.F. MD note goes on to say,

“Now they are increasingly tied to large business entities one sort or another.”

 Soon, advocates for patients with no financial axe to grind may end up being only us old retired docs, some of whom have retired because of “improvements” like the electronic medical records which have managed to make their developers rich while not doing all that much to enhance patient care. Unfortunately the old docs lack organization, money, and voice.”

Organized medicine has not provided leadership to help patients understand that when large corporations take over the infrastructure of medicine medical care will be totally commoditized and the important physician patient relationship will be lost forever.

 “Then there are the CBO projections https://www.cbo.gov/publication/53090 which are sometimes wide of the mark, but which the liberal media trumpet as the gospel in projecting the effect on patient care is certain healthcare reforms are enacted and implemented.”

 “The result of all that is that almost anything that is proffered as change is shouted down by one interest group or another, often by people who don’t have much of a clue re: what they are protesting about.”

DF, MD

The only thing that can turn this trend around is patients and a consumer driven healthcare system along with some organized medicine leadership.

   

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

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Is Anyone Confused Or Convinced?

December 6, 2017
inDisinformation and the healthcare system, Medicine: Healthcare System
• Leave a comment

Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP, MACE

Obamacare has failed. You wouldn’t know it by the massive misrepresentation by the mainstream media.

The mainstream impression is that registration during the open enrollment period for 2018 ending December 15,2017 is doing well.

I have not written a blog in about a month because there has been nothing to write about.

I have laid out my ideas about what is necessary to repair the healthcare system. It is all about personal responsibility and physician/patient relationships for both acute and chronic diseases.

It is the only way to control costs and decrease waste in the healthcare system.

Frankly, I am saddened that our representatives in congress don’t give a damn about the costs to the American people.

They simply want Americans to be dependent on government. The government wants to control Americans rather than Americans controlling the government.

Both the Republican and Democratic establishment have been brain dead on how to effectively repair our healthcare system.

Republicans had seven years to figure out an efficient system. The have controlled the house for two terms. They have controlled the senate for one term.

Then they failed. Almost 100 bills passed the house. any passed both houses and were vetoed by President Obama.

Why couldn’t they send one of those bills to President Trump?

Tom Price M.D. had some ideas on how to repair the healthcare system. However he was disposed of by claims of misuse of government funds.

There has been little published since the Republican establishment failed it its effort to repeal and replace Obamacare in November 2017.

It is unclear to me whether the Republican effort failed because it was a step in the wrong direction or the Republican establishment hates Donald Trump.

In any case the Democratic establishment is trying to blame Donald Trump for the Obamacare failure.

They claim it is Donald Trump’s fault the healthcare insurance industry is not being paid the unauthorized supplement President Obama promised but could not pay. He could not find the money.

It is the House of Representative that authorizes expenditures. The cost of those promised subsidies that were unauthorized was 88% short of the healthcare insurance industry’s claims.

The Obamacare cost overruns were gigantic. It must be remembered that the Health Insurance Exchanges only provided insurance for less than 10 million people in the individual healthcare market.

Many factors added to the cost overruns including subsidizes of over $15,000 dollars a year for these premiums in the individual market. The 2018 subsides will be over $20,000.

The healthcare system has become such a partisan issue that the truth about Obamacare’s failure is not the point anymore.

It seems that the Republican establishment is not any smarter than the Democrat establishment in trying to repair the system.

The end of the open enrollment period for 2018 is supposed to be December 15, 2017.

I posted two graphs in this post. One represents enrollment until 11/25/2017 and the second represents enrollment until 12/2/2017.

They bring out several points about Obamacare’s failure.

Seven states of the 39 states have already extended their open enrollment period. California has extended open enrollment until 1/31/2018.

On 11/25/2017 confirmed but not paid enrollment was only 2,660,938 with only 2,277,079 through Healthcare.gov and 383,859 for Medicaid.

Open enrollment projected for 11/25/2017 was 4.2 million with 2.6 million through Healtcare.gov. and 1.6 million through Medicaid.

These projected numbers were revised upward during the summer of 2017 to 4.6 million with 2.8 million through Healthcare.gov and1.8 million through Medicaid.

This represents a 500,000 person enrollment short fall for healthcare.gov. It also must be remember that 85% of the people enrolling through healthcare.gov have preexisting illnesses and are subsidized by the government.

  Chart 1 3 8

The open enrollment numbers look worse on December 2, 2017 although there is not a word of it in the mainstream media.

On 12/2/2017 confirmed but not paid enrollment was 3,491,164 with only 2,751,260 through Healthcare.gov and 709,904 for Medicaid.

Open enrollment projected for 12/2/2017 was 5.1 million with 3.5 million through Healtcare.gov. and 1.6 million through Medicaid.

These projected numbers were revised upward during the summer of 2017 to 5.8 million with 4 million through Healthcare.gov and1.8 million through Medicaid.

This represents a 1,248,840 (4,000,000-2,751,260= 1,248,840) person short fall for healthcare.gov with 13 days to go for the open enrollment period.

Chart 2

It is difficult seeing these numbers by casually studying these charts.

Obamacare is an unmitigated failure. Democrats want to throw more money at it.

Republicans do not know what to do.

I suggest they look at my blog entitled The Ideal Medical Saving Accounts are democratic.

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

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The Plan To Empower Consumers Of Healthcare

October 16, 2017
inChronic Disese Management, Consumer Driven Health Care, Disinformation and the healthcare system, Health Savings Accounts vs Medical Savings Accounts, Medicine: Healthcare System
• Leave a comment

 Stanley Feld M.D., FACP,MACE

The only way to empower consumers of healthcare is to allow them be responsible for their health and healthcare dollars.

The delivery of medical and surgical care has progressed markedly in the last sixty years. Life expectancy has also increased.

At the same time medical care has become unaffordable and the cost of healthcare has become unsustainable.

The incidence of obesity has risen every year. Over fifty percent of Americans are obese. The percentage is rising yearly.

Obesity begets many chronic diseases and subsequently the complications of these diseases.

Physicians can treat these complications fairly well but the treatment of these complications comes at a high cost.

How do you decrease obesity in America?

How do you get people to be responsible for their health and healthcare dollars?

One of the key elements in decreasing obesity is to give consumers financial incentives to use the healthcare system efficiently.

“ObamaCare went in the wrong direction. Its regulations—including required “essential benefits”—raised prices on these plans and limited their availability.”

The only incentive Obamacare provided was the incentive to overuse the system. This was especially true for patients on Medicaid. They had zero premiums and deductibles.

A second tool for motivating patients to consider price is large liberalized health savings accounts. These tax-sheltered accounts are generally used to pay for the noncatastrophic expenses that form the bulk of medical care.

First, equip consumers to consider prices.”

“ Critics always claim this is unrealistic: Are you supposed to shop around from the back of the ambulance?

 The critics use the ambulance excuse argument to eliminate the possibility of consumers using their own judgment to make price decisions.

“But emergency care represents only 6% of health expenditures.”

“For privately insured adults under 65, almost 60% of spending is on elective outpatient care. “

The critics argument is that consumers do not know how to shop prices. Consumers are smarter than the critics think. It would be easy to teach consumers to shop prices.”

http://stanfeld.com/the-failure-of-the-republican-establishment-to-repeal-and-replace-obamacare/

“My ideal medical saving account provides that financial incentive to not overuse the healthcare system. The many articles about my ideal medical saving accounts are attached to this link.

“ Likewise, nearly 60% of Medicaid money goes to outpatient care.”

 Medicaid patients also overuse the healthcare system.

“ For the top 1% of spenders—a group responsible for more than a quarter of all health expenditures—a full 45% is outpatient.”

These patients can be identified as outliers and educational vehicles can be created to decrease this overuse of the system.

In my opinion Medical Savings Account are better than Health Savings Accounts. Medical Savings Accounts take the money out of the healthcare insurance company’s hands and delivers it to consumers.

Both HSA’s and MSAs have the unique advantage of providing and financial incentive to save.

When people have savings to protect in HSAs, the cost of care drops without harmful effects on health. 

 The financial incentive decreases the overuse of the healthcare system.

“ According to a 2012 study in Health Affairs if even half of Americans with employer-sponsored insurance enrolled in this kind of coverage, U.S. health expenditures would fall by an estimated $57 billion a year.”

My ideal Medical Savings Accounts provide an even a greater financial incentive and should decrease costs even further.

“ HSAs should be available to all Americans, including seniors on Medicare. Given that seniors use the most health care, motivating them to seek value is crucial to driving prices lower.”

Scott Atlas has publicized the obvious. This would apply to Medicaid recipient also. The details for Medicaid recipients can be found in my article “My Ideal Medical Savings Accounts Is Democratic. “

The maximum contribution to a MSAs should be raised to $6000 or $7000 dollars. If a consumer get sick and experiences a cost of $6000 he should receive 100% (first dollar) coverage through a reinsurance policy that would cost less than $6000.

There can be many variations on this theme for the consumers benefit.

 When a person with an HSA dies, the funds should be allowed to roll over tax-free to surviving family members.  

This financial incentive should be added to My ideal Medical Savings Account.

“The information that patients require to assess value must be made radically more visible. A 2014 study on magnetic resonance imaging showed that price-transparency programs reduced costs by 18.7%.”

A consumer driven system would force providers to compete for patients. Information on price could easily be provided to consumers by the government and the healthcare insurance industry.

“The most compelling motivation for doctors and hospitals to post rates would be knowing that they are competing for price-conscious patients empowered with control of their own money.”

 In his age of technology and rapid communication telemedicine should be promoted and paid for. One way to do it is to permit physicians to practice telemedicine across state lines.

It would supply instant access to expertize at an affordable cost.

Everything possible should be done to encourage consumer responsibility and provider competition.

The present tax code does the opposite. Consumers’ in-group plans provided by large and small corporations receive their healthcare insurance from the corporation with tax-free dollars.

The larger the corporation the more leverage the corporation has for negotiating the premiums with the healthcare insurance companies.

The younger and healthier the corporate employees are the lower the premiums.

This is where the formation of associations with larger memberships of all ages fits in to lowering the price of healthcare. Large associations would have great leverage in negotiating price with insurance companies. They would also spread the risk.

If financial incentive with my ideal medical saving account was added to the price the association negotiated and the consumer paid for the premium, usage would fall and the cost of insurance would decrease.

Tax deductibility must be given to these “individual” insurance policy holders and association policy holders so they are, in reality, paying for healthcare insurance with pre-tax dollars as the corporate group plan policy holders.

These simple changes in the law would result in an affordable healthcare system that was market driven by consumers. The changes would force providers and the healthcare insurance industry to become competitive.

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

 All Rights Reserved © 2006 – 2017 “Repairing The Healthcare System” Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

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Describing Fake News

September 25, 2017
inDisinformation and the healthcare system, Medicine: Healthcare System
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Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

The front-page headline in the Sunday New York Times on August 26 read;

“Health Insurers Start To Prosper.

The subtitle was; Trump’s Warnings on Affordable Care Act Masks Upside.”

 “Supporters of the Affordable Care Act achieved a major victory this past week when, thanks to cajoling and arm-twisting by state regulators, the last “bare” county in America — in rural Ohio — found an insurer willing to sell health coverage through the law’s marketplace there.”

“So despite earlier indications that insurance companies would stop offering coverage under the law in large parts of the country, insurers have now agreed to sell policies everywhere.”

 A casual Sunday Times reader would respond to this headline and initial paragraph by thinking that President Trump is frightening the public about Obamacare’s failures.

The casual reader would conclude this is just another one of President Trump lies. Obamacare is not failing. He is just trying to scare the public.

The New York Times is telling the public that the insurance industry is going to offer insurance through Obamacare in every county in the country.

The American people cannot trust President Donald Trump.

The causal reader got the message. Obamacare is doing fine. It is not necessary to continue reading the article.

The online Sunday NY Times headline of the dame article was different than the headline that appeared in print.

“Trump’s Threats on Health Law Hide an Upside: Gains Made by Some Insurers”

This headline is also misleading. One insurer in a bare county signed up. This does not represent a upside gain or create a competitive market place.

“The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) reported that 1,476 counties, over 45 percent of counties nationwide, will only have one health insurer on the Obamacare exchanges next year.”

This article is an example of “fake news.” It is totally misleading to the casual reader

Why a single insurance company will sell insurance in that bare county in Ohio is not explained. All the other insurance companies have pulled out of that county.

If the reader got this far into the story he could still be satisfied that Obamacare was not imploding.

However, the article goes on to explain the potential failure of Obamacare.

“But a moment of truth still looms for the industry in the coming weeks under the law known as Obamacare.”

“Companies must set their final plans and premiums by late September, even as the Trump administration continues to threaten to cut off billions of dollars in government subsidies promised by the legislation.”

This is more fake news aimed at blaming Donald Trump for Obamacare’s failure.

The NYT ignores the fact that President Obama promised the healthcare insurance industry the reinsurance subsidy in order to get them to participate in Obamacare in the first place.

President Obama paid the healthcare insurance industry only 12% of what the insurance companies claimed President Obama promised them in their reinsurance package.

President Obama promised the healthcare insurance industry a subsidy through the government backed reinsurance package, if there were cost overruns in Obamacare.

The costs overruns were massive according to the healthcare insurance industry. The legislator only budgeted 12% of that claimed by the healthcare insurance industry.

President Obama could not find the money to pay the remaining 88%.

The industry continues to demand the remaining 88% promised in order to participate in this year’s (2018) Obamacare health insurance exchanges.

All twenty-two of the state run insurance administrative companies that received loans from the federal government have gone bankrupt and have not paid the insurance industry.

Those federal loans will never be paid back to taxpayers.

The Democrats and the mainstream media are trying to blame President Trump for this deficiency in payment and the lack of insurance company participation.

The shortfalls resulted in healthcare insurance premium raises for both the Obamacare health insurance exchanges and the premiums for private group insurance.

Subsequently, most of the healthcare insurance companies have dropped out of providing the insurance through the Obamacare health insurance exchanges.

A third piece of fake news is the success of providing insurance for twenty million enrollees.

The NYT article ignores the fact that Obamacare through the health insurance exchanges only enrollee nine million people in the individual market. Fourteen million lost individual coverage lost their insurance at the onset of Obamacare.

The 22 million additionally insured includes the additional thirteen million were added to the Medicaid roles. Some of those thirteen million are illegal immigrants.

Soon a portion of the financial burden of the Medicaid increase will be dumped on the states.

The Obamacare law requires comprehensive insurance coverage packages for both the individual market and the group markets driving the price of coverage up.

These increases make Obamacare unaffordable. Obamacare is not successful as implied in the New York Times article.

President Trump did not do anything to distort the Obamacare coverage. President Obama did it with his tremendous cost overruns.

It is possible President Obama wanted to prove that an insurance-based healthcare system couldn’t work. It would have to be replaced with a government controlled single payer system.

It is the reason he wanted to include the “Public Option.”

However he placed so many regulations in the way of any possible success.

President Obama believes that the only system that would work is a single party payer system with the government being in control of the money, the coverage and the freedom to choose by the public.

President Obama had no concern for the government inefficiency or cost to the government.

There was no consideration for a more cost efficient and affordable healthcare system.

“The fate of the landmark law, Obamacare, depends in large part on the health of the insurance marketplaces and the ability of insurers to make a viable business out of selling coverage to individuals.”

Healthcare insurers have tried to make a viable business plan out of Obamacare. When the law passed seven years ago, insurers saw a potential bonanza: tens of millions of brand-new paying customers, many backed by generous government subsidies and required by the new law to have health coverage.

The burdensome regulations, lack of coverage flexibility and one size fits all coverage all have cause people not to sign up for Obamacare. They would rather pay the penalty even though they can ill afford it.

On Thursday, Northwell Health, the largest hospital system in New York State, announced that it would shut down its insurance unit, CareConnect, which had been selling coverage in the state marketplace. The move forces tens of thousands of its customers to find another plan for 2018. Northwell’s chief executive put much of the blame on Washington.

As we get closer to enrolling participants in Obamacare for 2018 and the insurance industry’s publishing their premiums more insurance companies are dropping out of participating in the health insurance exchanges.

Most of the startup insurance companies and state sponsored have closed down their business.

The article quoted is fake news.

The article starts off giving the casual reader the impression that Obamacare’s insurance coverage is doing fine.

The reality is It is not fine. Americans have to worry about it. Affordable healthcare insurance will not be available at an affordable price.

The Democrats are happy because then the country will be offered a single party payer system.

The problem is that the federal government cannot afford a single party payer system. At this moment Medicare and Medicaid are not sustainable. A single party payer system will be inefficient and unsustainable.

I don’t know how Mitch McConnell can to say most of the news is not fake news.

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

All Rights Reserved © 2006 – 2017 “Repairing The Healthcare System” Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

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A Single Party Payer System Will Not Work

August 2, 2017
inDisinformation and the healthcare system, Medicine: Healthcare System
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Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP, MACE

Why am I opposed to a single party payer healthcare system?

I am concerned about America’s $20 trillion dollar deficit and $180 trillion in unfunded liabilities.

I am also concerned about China being a reliable buyer of American debt.

The deficit should be viewed as a house of cards that might crumble at any time.

Our country has suffered a massive increase in the deficit the last eight years under Barack Obama and Obamacare. The public knows the debt has increased at lease 1 trillion dollars a year.

No one has seen a good accounting the deficit increase. Everyone knows we have had massive inflation even though we have been told that inflation is only one percent.

The public knows Obamacare is imploding.

The public knows about the waste incurred during the Obamacare website roll out and the scandalous contracts to venders. The public knows about the massive increasing in insurance premiums and the massive subsides that were not anticipated.

The Democrats that the people have elected to congress do not seem to care about the deficits created. Now, we have finally realized that the Establishment Republicans do not seem to care about Obamacare failures either.

These officials do not care how much money the government wastes on bad deals at all levels of the economy. Obamacare has made terrible deals with the insurance industry, the pharmaceutical industry and hospital systems.

It has not made a good deal for the middle class or their primary providers namely physicians.

I do not think American healthcare policy makers or congress can afford to make another mistake.

Winston Churchill’s famous quote about Americans stands out here.

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

America cannot try something that is destined to fail. Socialism, especially in healthcare, does not work. Our government officials refuse to believe this even though it is demonstrated by our own failed entitlements such as the VA Healthcare System, Medicare and Medicaid.

Government officials refuse to believe that the socialistic universal healthcare systems in the rest of the world are unsustainable.

Britain is the perfect example of this as the system is crumbling.

Socialism does work in the long term.

Winston Churchill said it again.

“Socialism does not work because it is not consistent with fundamental principles of human behavior. The failure of socialism in countries around the world can be traced to one critical defect: it is a system that ignores incentives.”

The key to the solution of the healthcare system problem is to provide incentives to all the stakeholders, especially the consumers.I believe “My Ideal Medical Saving Account” will work to provide universal coverage at an affordable cost.

http://stanleyfeldmdmace.typepad.com/repairing_the_healthcare_/2012/05/my-ideal-medical-savings-account-is-democratic.html

America does not need a healthcare system that makes consumers dependent on government. It needs a system that makes them independent of government.

Butch Mazzuca is a local Vail Valley Resident who wrote this article about socialism and the healthcare system that appeared in the Vail

Valley News on July 9, 2017.

Mr. Mazzuca has given me permission to republish his article.

“When it comes to socialism, will they ever learn?

http://www.vaildaily.com/opinion/vail-daily-column-when-it-comes-to-socialism-will-they-ever-learn/ 

Editor’s note: Find a cited version of this column at http://www.vaildaily.com.

“Several weeks ago on ABC’s Sunday morning talk show “This Week,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told host George Stephanopoulos, “The democrats need a strong, bold, sharp-edged and common-sense economic agenda. … That’s what’s been missing.”

So I find it a bit ironic that seven months after losing the 2016 presidential election, Schumer feels the Democratic Party is still struggling to articulate a coherent message. Meanwhile, the Bernie Sanders-Elizabeth Warren wing of the party delivers a very clear message. Unfortunately for their constituency, it’s about a failed ideology — socialism.

Sanders and Warren are advocates of redistributing wealth; lax immigration rules, governmental intervention into health care, energy and business; and the acceptance that Washington should be the final arbiter of all problems.

SOCIALISM HAS INHERENT DEFECTS

While socialism is antithetical to the ideals of the Founding Fathers, it tends to gain its strongest support among the young and those who are uninformed. On the surface, socialism sounds great; it has always sounded great and will continue to sound great within certain precincts. The only problem with socialism is that history exposes it as a bankrupt ideology.

But rather than describing socialism’s failures tenet by tenet, the following apocryphal story illustrates socialism’s inherent defects in an easy-to-understand way.

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before but had once failed an entire class. The class insisted that wealth redistribution, aka socialism, worked because then no one would be poor and no one would be rich — a great equalizer.

The professor then said, “OK, let’s try an experiment.” Henceforth, all grades would be averaged; everyone would receive the same grade, and no one would fail.

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone received a B. The students who studied hard were upset but the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who had studied little now studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride, too, so they too decided to study little. The second test average was a D.

Now no one was happy. When the third test rolled around, the class average was an F; and from that point forward, the scores never increased, as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings with the result that no one would study for the benefit of anyone else and the students all failed the class.

The professor then told them socialism as a form of government always fails because of human nature, i.e., when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes the rewards away, no one will try to succeed.

HUMAN NATURE IS PART OF IDEOLOGICAL EQUATIONS

Similar to the aforementioned students, the far left consistently overlooks the fact that human nature is part of any ideological equation. They fail to understand that socialism has never and will never work because it’s based on a premise that’s inconsistent with human behavior.

When people work, they expect to be compensated commensurate with their effort and skill level. And capitalism does that more effectively than any economic system yet devised by man. Capitalism provides an incentive for people to achieve because they know their efforts will be rewarded.

Conversely, socialism is a disincentive to achievement because people also know their work is valued only collectively, rather than being valued individually.

Quote of the day: “The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent vice of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.” — Winston Churchill.”

Butch Mazzuca, of Edwards, writes regularly for the Vail Daily. He can be reached at bmazz68@comcast.net.

Our politicians should stop fooling around with America’s healthcare system, our fiscal viability, and the welfare of our citizen.

It is time to try something that will work, and not another thing that is doomed to failure.

Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, you are both dead wrong.

 

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

All Rights Reserved © 2006 – 2017 “Repairing The Healthcare System” Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

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Senate Republicans Are Making Repeal and Replace Harder Than It Should Be

June 14, 2017
inDisinformation and the healthcare system, EMR, Health Savings Accounts vs Medical Savings Accounts, Innovations in Healthcare, Medicine: Healthcare System, Stakeholder Mistrust
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 Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

I think the Republican establishment in the senate is trying to undermine President Trump’s agenda.

It would be easy to repeal and replace Obamacare if the reasons for its failure where publicized. The main reason is that it does not align the initiatives of most of the stakeholders. The cost of administration is a close second.

Obamacare is about redistribution of wealth and control over the healthcare system. It ends up penalizing the middle class the most because of premium increases.

People like entitlements because they are free. Someone else is paying for them.

Politicians want to keep their jobs. They do not want to upset people who receive these entitlements.

“But the revisions may well alienate the Senate’s most conservative members, who are eager to rein in the growth of Medicaid and are unlikely to support a bill that does not roll back large components of the current law.

Even with more moderate Republicans on board, party leaders would have a very narrow margin for passage on the Senate floor.”

The healthcare insurance companies do not want to lose money selling healthcare insurance. They are getting out of the healthcare market because, by their calculations, they are losing money.

The Republicans establishment in the Senate want to continue to provide subsidies to the healthcare insurance industry.

Congress needs the healthcare insurance industry’s ability to provide administrative services whether it is for Medicare, Medicaid, health insurance exchange coverage (Obamacare) or private insurance.

The government’s goal is to provide enough financial incentives for the healthcare insurance industry to provide affordable healthcare insurance coverage while saving money.

President Obama subsidized the healthcare insurance industry for any perceived losses through the Obamacare reinsurance program. Then President Obama reneged on the agreement. He only paid 12% of what was owed according to the insurance industry’s calculations..

Democrats want a single party payer system. They want everyone on Medicare or Medicaid. It is simple. The result is the government provides healthcare insurance for everyone. Everyone receives first dollar coverage. This would be the mother of all entitlements.

The single party payer system would also provide the government with tremendous power over the people. It would control consumers’ freedom of choice.

Along with this simple single party system comes a complex bureaucracy with all the inefficiencies that I have described previously.

Consumers would be chained to the inefficient healthcare system. The inefficiencies in the system have been graphically demonstrated by the VA Healthcare System and its ever increasing costs.

It would be nice if a single party payer system were efficient and affordable. Canada has a universal healthcare system. Canadians who are not sick and do not need their healthcare system believe the Canadian system is great.

They ignore the fact that the Canadian provinces are paying 50% of their GNP to provide free healthcare to all Canadians.

“Canada’s health-care wait times costing patients many millions in lost time, wages”

“Ontarians wait longer for health care than citizens of other universal health-care countries”

The fact is single party payer systems do not work for all the stakeholders.Both Democrats and Republicans are missing the essential point about what would work to provide an affordable healthcare system that aligns the incentives of all stakeholders.An essential element is to develop a system that encourages consumers of healthcare to be responsible for their health and have control over their healthcare dollars.

The Senate’s present revision does not consider this. The Senate is considering the needs of the healthcare insurance industry and not the needs of consumers.

The Senate should be considering the following in order to repeal and replace Obamacare.

  1. My Ideal Medical Savings Account should be instituted immediately. It will provide financial incentives for consumers as well and incentives to maintain health.

Self-management of chronic disease is essential for a healthcare system to become affordable. My Ideal Medical Saving Account provides that financial incentive.

1. The Ideal Medical Saving Account will provide instant adjudication of medical care claims.

  1. The ideal Medical Savings Accounts will encourage patient responsibility for their health, the care of their disease and their healthcare dollars.
  2. The Republican Party should establish an organized system of disease management education for persons with chronic disease. The education system should be designed to be an extension of physicians’ care. It should not be a free-standing education system. Physicians should be provided with incentives to set up these educational systems.

http://stanfeld.com/chronic-disease-management-and-education-as-an-extension-of-physicians-care/

  1. A system of social networking with physicians and their patients should be developed. The government could provide the template for physicians and their team.

http://stanfeld.com/social-networks-patient-education-and-the-healthcare-system/

The networks could be physicians to patients networks, patients to patients networks, patients to their physicians’ healthcare team networks. These networks need to be an extension of the physician’s care. All encounters should be imported to the patient’s chart with certain restrictions.

  1. Social networking between physicians should also be developed.
  2. Integrated care systems with generalists to specialists must be developed for both treatment and cost transparency for the physicians and patients.
  1. There must be instant communication between physicians and patient via an effective electronic medical record. The EMR must be a teaching tool for physicians. It must not be a tool to judge physicians’ care and penalize them. The EMR should be cloud based. Maintenance and upgrades should be free and seamless. Physicians should be charged by the click.

http://stanfeld.com/?s=EMRs

  1. Tort Reform is an essential element in a healthcare system that would work and be affordable. It would decrease the cost of over testing. It would also decrease the cost of malpractice insurance and legal fees. These cost are built into the cost of care. The cost of care would be reduced significantly. http://stanfeld.com/?s=tort+reform

The goal of effective healthcare reform should be to align all the stakeholders’ incentives. Patient incentives should be at the center of this alignment.

Align patient 1

Align government

Obamacare did not bother to try to align any of the primary stakeholders’ (patients and physicians) incentives. In fact Obamacare destroyed the patient/physician relationship.

The house bill to repeal and replace Obamacare touches on some alignment.

The senate is fighting about issues that are not significant in aligning all stakeholders’ incentives.

The healthcare system will not be repaired until all the stakeholders’ incentives are aligned. Healthcare policies must be put in place to align those incentives.

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

All Rights Reserved © 2006 – 2017 “Repairing The Healthcare System” Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

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Trump Is Not the Real Target – You Are

May 31, 2017
inMedicine: Healthcare System, Stakeholder Mistrust
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Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACP

Many of my readers have been upset by the slowness and the lack of progress from the Republican senate in repealing and replacing Obamacare.

The country is approaching enrollment time for 2018. Insurance companies need to submit available healthcare plans to the health insurance exchanges soon.

Maybe there will be no healthcare plans available for people in the individual healthcare market with pre-existing illness. This will signify total collapse of Obamacare.

Maybe the Republicans are hanging around waiting for the public to realize that there will be insufficient healthcare plans submitted.

Then the Republicans could blame the Democrats for Obamacare’s failure.

Obamacare has failed for all the reasons I have already written about. There is no reason to debate if it has failed. There is also no reason to debate that President Obama’s vision for Obamacare failed.

President Obama and the Democrats are responsible for its failure. Obamacare was an ill conceived healthcare plan that could not be sustainable.

There are plenty of reasons to support the people who might lose insurance. Those people do not include the 12 million new enrollees in Medicaid.

President Trump is not going to touch their insurance.

The 9 million people enrolled with pre-existing illnesses that have signed up for Obamacare on the individual market must be covered with affordable insurance in some way.

There are many more people in this category who do not have insurance under Obamacare because it is unaffordable.

Within the House Republican plan there are provisions for these people.

It is clear that the liberal mainstream media is on the Democrats’ side.

It’s goal is to do everything it can to obstruct President Trump’s agenda and what he promised the American people.

President Trump won the election on his agenda, not on his personality.

It is clear that the mainstream media is against President Trump. A recent study showed that over 80% of articles written in our daily newspapers are negative articles about the Trump administration.

Many of the 20% positive articles have a negative subtext. Many of these negative articles have no basis in fact and have been proven to be untrue.

President Trump uses the words “fake news” because it angers the press and excites his base.

The Democrats are trying to make as many issues as possible treasonous without any basis for the use of the word treason.

In fact they roll out Maxine Waters every day saying President Trump should be impeached without her presenting a single piece of evidence for impeachment.

It should be clear that is a Saul Alinsky tactic. I have not heard one conservative or Republican accuse the Democrats of using Alinsky tactics.

President Obama did many things that were unconstitutional. He was never called out for them with congressional investigation. When the issues were investigated they were all given a pass. I can think of the IRS and Lois Lerner investigation, the attorney general issue, the CIA issue, and most of all the Hilliary Clinton hearing in which she said nothing for nine hours. The press, the congress and the President let her get away with it without at least an indictment.

James Comey of the FBI said she was careless and unindictable.

The other day I received the following article from a reader declaring the target of these attacks is not President Trump.

The target is the voters who want constructive legislation in Washington for the people. The country cannot survive with the corruption and unconstitutional behavior much longer.

Tim Daughtry is a conservative speaker and co-author of Waking the Sleeping Giant: How Mainstream Americans Can Beat Liberals at Their Own Game wrote a beautiful article explaining what is going on.

I have never thought of the establishment game in these terms. I have reprinted Mr. Daughtry’s entire article so that all of us will take a moment “to reexamine out premises” as Ayn Ryan suggested 70 years ago in Atlas Shrugged.

Trump Is Not the Real Target; You Are

Tim Daughtry

“As we watch the daily barrage of accusations and innuendo directed against President Trump by the far left, the liberal media, and even some in his own party, those of us who voted to put him in the Oval Office need to remember one crucial point: President Trump is not the real target.  You are.

Even considering his outsized persona and the stunning phenomenon of an outsider who has never held political office winning the presidency against one of the most powerful political machines in American history, the new movement that elected Donald Trump has never been about Trump. In the 2016 election, the “forgotten men and women of America” were hell-bent to send a message to the powerful elites of both parties.

The message was that the Washington elites are serving themselves and their own agenda and ignoring the rest of the nation.  The message was that Washington has become a swamp of corruption and self-serving collusion among powerful interests and that Main Street America is ready to see that swamp drained. 

Donald Trump was our messenger.

Because his candidacy was not about Trump the man but Trump the messenger, he was able to withstand the smears and assaults of the Clinton Machine that would have sunk any other candidate.  They siphoned all the way to the bottom of their slime barrel, and still the message prevailed. 

That message was simple and grounded in common sense.  No country can survive unless it has control over its borders.  People coming into American should be vetted to make sure that they pose no danger to us.  After eight years of stifling taxes and regulations, we should once again make America a healthy place in which to do business, make products, and create jobs.  Political correctness may seem silly and laughable, but in reality it poses a serious threat to free expression and open exchange of ideas. If it’s terrorism, call it that.  Say what is obvious to our common sense even if it offends the delicate sensibilities of the elite.

Now the denizens of the Washington swamp are sending a message back to the forgotten men and women who voted for Trump and his reforms: “Forget you.” 

The leftists who worked to radically transform the nation under Barack Obama are telling us that they hold the reins of power and that we the people don’t run anything.  They are telling us that their agenda will prevail regardless of how we vote or what we want.  They are telling us that they can subvert, attack, and destroy any messenger that we send into their territory.  And feckless leaders in the GOP seem, at best, more afraid of displeasing the Democrats than betraying their own voters, and, at worst, in cozy collusion with the opposition.

What is at stake in the barrage of innuendo, twisted news, and “investigations” is not just the future of the Trump presidency, but the future of the very idea that governmental power rests ultimately on the consent of the governed.

Of course there is much at stake in the actual policy questions facing the country.  But underneath the debates about border security, court appointees, tax and regulatory policy, and so on lies a deeper question that is at the very heart of our system of government: Can the American people still change the direction of the country if we believe that the country is headed in the wrong direction?  Or will the powerful and self-serving elites impose their agenda even when we don’t consent to it?

When the voters put leftists in power, as they did with the election of Barack Obama in 2008, the country moves left.  But when voters try to change course, as we did in the elections of 2010 and 2014, the country still careened towards open borders, government control of healthcare, rule by rogue judges, and lawless license for those in the power elite.

And so we went outside the traditional path and elected Donald Trump in 2016.  The liberal news anchors had barely dried their tears after Election Day when the left began to cloud the real meaning of Trump’s election by pushing the bizarre claim that the Russians had somehow hacked the election.

In their gaslighting version of reality, you didn’t really vote to drain the swamp.  You didn’t really vote to secure our borders.  You didn’t vote to repeal and replace Obamacare and put doctors and patients back in charge instead of Washington bureaucrats.  You didn’t vote to restore rule of law and common sense to Washington.  The Russians somehow threw the election to Trump.  You can go back home now and let the experts run things.

It’s swamp gas.  Don’t breathe it.

There is plenty in Washington that merits investigation, from foreign influence through the Clinton Foundation to Obama’s use of intelligence data for political purposes.  Congress has the power to do just that, but we need to give them the will.

Let’s remind our representatives that they might forget us, but we won’t forget them.”

 

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

All Rights Reserved © 2006 – 2017 “Repairing The Healthcare System” Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

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Democrats Still Think Americans Are Stupid

May 11, 2017
inDisinformation and the healthcare system, Medicine: Healthcare System, Politicians,Healthcare and Vested Interests
• Leave a comment

Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP, MACE

The House Republicans finally got their act together and passed their version of the Obamacare repeal and replace act. It seems that many representatives do not trust Paul Ryan, Tom Price and President Donald Trump.

The Republican house version of the bill does not repeal and replace Obamacare completely.

The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) permitted Kathleen Sibelius, the Secretary of HHS, to issue regulations to administer the act at her discretion. Many of her regulations were destructive to the healthcare system.

Tom Price, the new Secretary of HSS can eliminate many of these destructive regulations. The goal of the Obama administration’s regulations was to cause the healthcare system to fail and be replaced not by free market principals but by a single party payer system.

Her regulations were designed to eliminate any modicum of free choice for patients and physicians.

Tom Price’s actions and regulation eliminations should complete the repeal and replacement of Obamacare.

President Obama ignored the fact that a single party payer system would be destined to bankrupt the country. His plan was to get the health care insurance industry out of the healthcare picture.

The defect in his logic was that the government would have to continue to outsource the administrative services to the healthcare insurance industry. The government now outsources the administrative services for Medicare and Medicaid.

The government then lies to the public declaring that its overhead is only 2.5% while the healthcare insurance industry takes 30% for services that are charged as direct patient care.

The healthcare insurance industry would continue to rip off the healthcare system in a single party payer system for all.

The completion of the repeal and replace act will be done as promised by Ryan, Price and Trump in three stages.

As soon as the house bill is passed the House Democrats came out with their talking points criticizing the act. These talking points had little substance and no compelling evidence. They only declared that the legislation was terrible without any explanation of why it was terrible.

They just said 20 million people are going to lose their insurance coverage. The Republican health care act is going to kill people.

The talking points are mostly lies.

A recent study had reported that Obamacare has cost 80,000 people to die.

“Democrat’s immediately made the accusation that the GOP “repeal and replace” bill will kill Americans.  It seems that Obamacare has already done that.” 

In a previous blog I pointed out that more people have lost insurance in the individual market that have gained insurance from Obamacare’s health insurance exchanges.

Fourteen million lost insurance in the individual market in 2009 and at most 8 million gained insurance through Obamacare’s health insurance exchanges.

The 20 million new insured comes from the 12 million new people receiving healthcare insurance through Medicaid.

“Quoting Oren Cass over at National Review, it turns out that fewer people – not more people – had health insurance after Obamacare.  The only increase in “coverage” was Medicaid, but, sadly, it turns out that Medicaid kills people.  It’s better to have no medical insurance at all.” 

 Researchers have found that in 2015 Medicaid patients experienced worse outcomes than similar uninsured Medicaid eligible patients.

“Public-health data from the Centers for Disease Control confirm… [that had mortality continued to decline during ACA implementation in 2014 and 2015 at the same rate as during the 2000-13 period, 80,000 fewer Americans would have died in 2015 alone.”

The Democrats are using the typical progressive tactic of creating a lie. Many people died because of Obamacare but the Democrats threaten that the Republican bill will cost many lives. It diverts attention from the Democrats’ failure with Obamacare.

This is fear mongering for the progressives’ political gain.

This is one of Sol Alinsky’s favorite tactics. One should do everything to marginalize opponents even if it needs to be done by lying.

“Democrats are hurting real people with their scary shrieking about death by Republican.”

The Democrats criticize without facts. The Democrats will lie about the effects of the bill without evidence. I would guess that many have not even read it.

One should expect nothing less from Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer.

The Democrats have even rolled out Jonathan Gruber, the MIT professor of economics and co-author of Obamacare, who infamously said, “the stupidity of the American voter” helped get the measure to become law.

This week Gruber blamed President Trump for Obamacare’s failure on one of the Sunday news programs.

“Whose fault is this (rising premium costs)?” Gruber asked on “Fox News Sunday.” “Since President Trump has been elected … premiums are going up and insurers are exiting.”

This is total nonsense.

Jonathan Gruber still thinks Americans are stupid. However he has no credibility with the American public. Therefore his opinion has no impact on the discussion about the new bill.

Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer’s lack of credibility with the American public does not seem to bother them.

Every lie they tell decreases their credibility even further.

Nancy Pelosi said, “the new Obamacare repeal bill is a ‘a very sad, deadly joke’

This is the same woman who said we will not know what is in the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) until it is passed.

What is so deadly about it? She does not explain her statement. She figures the media is the message. The media will carry the message for her.

Chuck Schumer’s quote was even worse. He said, “Senate GOP should toss House healthcare bill ‘out the window’”

He called on Senate Republicans,

“To avoid following the lead of their colleagues in the House and to work on a bipartisan basis on healthcare reform rather than pushing for repeal of the Affordable Care Act.”

He is trying to save President Obama’s legacy Obamacare. Obamacare is an unmitigated disaster. It is beyond saving.

It was a poorly constructed healthcare bill aimed at giving big government total control of the healthcare system. President Obama totally ignores the fact that Americans did not want it, have not joined it. He felt he clearly know what is best for America.

He goal was to get it passed by the partisan vote. President Obama lied to Americans and lied to his party members.

Obamacare is unsustainable economically to America and is in the process of destroying the economy.

Chuck Schumer said, “Trumpcare is a giant, broken promise to working people, the hard-working people of this great country of ours.“

It would be valid if Chuck Schumer could prove his statement.

President Obama broke his promise to the working people, the hard working people of this great country of ours, when he said, “ If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor and if you like your insurance you can keep your insurance.”

Chuck Schumer did not see it then and he does not see Obamacare’s failure now.

I suggest that Chuck Schumer read the Republican bill carefully before he makes his false statements.

Clearly, he was dead wrong in his judgment about Obamacare

If he read the Obamacare law carefully and voted for doing the right thing, America’s healthcare system might not be in the mess it is in.

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

All Rights Reserved © 2006 – 2017 “Repairing The Healthcare System” Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

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