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President Obama Tries To Bully The Supreme Court

June 10, 2015
inDisinformation and the healthcare system, Medicine: Healthcare System, Stakeholder Mistrust
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Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

President Obama attacks his opponents, marginalizes them, throws them under a bus, lies, ignores reality, or bullies them.

The reality about Obamacare is that none of the stakeholders like it.

It is causing states with State Health Insurance Exchanges to go deeper in debt.

The government has been forced to create 37 Federal Health Insurance Exchanges. Premiums are skyrocketing because of poor enrollment and demographic distribution. Only people with pre-existing illnesses or those receiving subsidies are joining.

Premiums are now unaffordable even applicants receiving subsidies.

Obamacare is driving corporations providing healthcare insurance for their employees to figure out how to avoid providing healthcare insurance and penalties.

The government has provided waivers for companies such as McDonalds, Burger King and 1300 other companies to not participate in Obamacare.

 Obamacare has tried to take away Medicaid subsidies from states that did not start a State Health Insurance Exchange and would not expand Medicaid. The Supreme Court stopped that two years ago.

Obamacare has driven physicians into hospital employment. Many physicians are unhappy and less productive working for hospitals themselves.

Many physicians have retired early because of Obamacare. This is a bad sign in light of our present physician shortage.

Obamacare has created incentives for hospitals to create Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs).

Logically ACOs cannot work because they shift financial risk for patients on to physicians and hospitals and away rom the healthcare insurance industry.

Hospitals and physicians are finally starting to realize the risk and are dropping out of the ACO programs.

Obamacare has spent over one billion dollars for a web site that is still not fully functional.

The promise of universal healthcare coverage has resulted in more people being uninsured than before Obamacare was passed. Only 9 million people are signed up and 6.4 million receive subsidies.

The original prediction in 2009 for 2015 was 17 million participants.

The expanded Medicaid program in 14 states is  experiencing severe physician shortages and financial problems.

Obamacare patients and Medicaid and Medicare patients are starting to experience limitations on access to care and rationing of care.

I am only naming a few of the many problems Obamacare has created.

Yet with all these defects and failures President Obama has the gall to say,

 “There's something deeply cynical about the ceaseless partisan attempts to roll back progress.”  

"I understand people being skeptical or worried before the law was passed and there was no reality to examine. But now that we can see millions of people having health care—and all the bad things that were predicted didn't happen—you'd think it was time to move on."

Obamacare is not working despite President Obama’s claims.

I think it is time to move away from Obamacare and in another direction.

This week President Obama did another astonishing thing. It reveals   his consistent disrespect for the constitution and the separation of powers.

He has tried to intimidate the Supreme Court to rule in favor of Obamacare with his personal attack on the court and its upcoming decision in King vs. Burwell.

 “The law provides for subsidies only for policies purchased on exchanges "established by the state", inserted in the law as an inducement to states to set up exchanges.”

Congress limited the subsidies to State Health Insurance Exchanges to encourage the states to set up their own exchanges. Thirty-seven states saw the trap that President Obama was setting for them and refused to cooperate.  

The IRS, operating under the direction of President Obama, tried to “fix” the law by permitting federal exchange to provide subsidies.

The infamous Dr. Jonathan Gruber, a principle framer of Obamacare, who was paid by the Obama administration $375,000 for his consultations with the White House staff, said the exclusivity of state exchanges rewarding subsidies was put into the law to induce states to set up exchanges.

Dr. Gruber, a healthcare economist, also said the law would have not passed if the public was not so stupid and could recognize the lack of transparency of the law.

President Obama said at the time of the scandal that he did not know Dr. Gruber. President Obama said Jonathan Gruber played a minor role in the construction of Obamacare.

During the last month President Obama has used the traditional media to try to convince the Supreme Court and the American people that congress really meant to give the State Exchanges and the Federal Exchanges to ability to provide insurance subsidies.

Article after article was published confirming that what the law meant to say was both State and Federal Exchanges had the ability to provide subsidies. This was morally the right thing to do.

President Obama said this week. “That we have an obligation to put ourselves in our neighbor’s shoes, and to see the common humanity in each other.”

First of all congress didn’t write the law. It should have and it should have been bipartisan. Most Democratic congressmen who voted for Obamacare didn’t even read the law.

The IRS has no authority to change the letter of the law with a regulation.

The law as written should be the law. The Obama administration overstepped its constitutional limits. If the law is wrong, congress should amend the words to include subsidies for federal exchanges also.

Obamacare is a terrible law. It is distorting and destroying our already dysfunctional healthcare system. The Republican dominated House and Senate are not going to change a law that is self destructing, if the Supreme Court favors King and the letter of the law.

Since President Obama’s traditional media campaign has been a flop, he has personally gone after the Supreme Court. He tried to intimate it by challenging its integrity.

President Obama said, “Frankly, the Supreme Court should not have taken up the lawsuit challenging Obamacare subsidies.” 

Who is he to decide which cases the Supreme Court should take up?

 President Obama continued,“There is no reason why the existing Federal Health Insurance Exchanges should be overturned through a Supreme Court case,”

 President Obama is preparing the country to be angry at the Supreme Court if the Supreme Court rules in favor of King.

President Obama is disregarding the notion that the Supreme Court is interpreting and upholding the constitution, a concept he frequently ignores.

“I think it’s important for us to go ahead and assume that the Supreme Court is going to do what most legal scholars who've looked at this would expect them to do.”

 This statement is both a lie and a veiled threat to the court.

“Elena Kagan  recently wrote in another case that, "This Court has no roving license, in even ordinary cases of statutory interpretation, to disregard clear language simply on the view that (in [the IRS’s] words) Congress 'must have intended' something broader."

During oral arguments in March, Justice Antonin Scalia suggested Congress could step in and fix the problem.

“Congress just adjusts, enacts a statute. It would take care of the problem. It happens all the time,” he said. “Why is that not going to happen here?”

President Obama did say there was one way to resolve the dispute over the law: “Congress could fix this whole thing with a one-sentence provision.”

President Obama said, “He is puzzled by the legal challenges against his signature healthcare law, arguing there is ample evidence that the system is working.

“Fortunately, there's no reason to have to do it. It doesn't need fixing,”

President Obama keeps harping on the same lies. He believes if you tell a lie enough times it becomes the truth.

President Obama said, “Part of what's bizarre about this whole thing is, we haven't had a lot of conversation about the horrors of ObamaCare because none of them have come to pass.”

There has been limited conversation about the horrors of Obamacare in the media because President Obama and the traditional media have limited the conversation

President Obama cannot bully the Supreme Court into not of upholding the constitution and it obligation to interpret the constitution accurately.

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

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Let’s Do The Numbers : Another Obama Trick

March 19, 2015
inDisinformation and the healthcare system, Medicine: Healthcare System, Stakeholder Abuse of the Healthcare System, Stakeholder Mistrust
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Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

Have the increased Obamacare taxes added enough value to the healthcare system to be worth the costs?

The answer is no.

Are the increased taxes becoming painful yet?

The answer is yes.

The yearly cost of Obamacare has not been transparent.  There have been multiple delays in the implementation of Obamacare.

Favored businesses and unions have received waivers and exemptions from the laws required coverage. All the while taxes have increased and less than 10 million people have received healthcare coverage from the healthcare insurance exchanges. Eighty-five percent of those people enrolled are receiving federal subsidies.

No one has explained how a tax credit becomes a federal subsidy.

The public has no idea what the costs of Obamacare are or will be in the future. The CBO has revised its estimates several times.

Are all the Obamacare pronouncements confusing?

Yes. I believe they are intentionally confusing.

All the stakeholders are dissatisfied. Neither President Obama nor his administration is listening to the primary stakeholder (patients). 

Why are there so many waivers and exemptions being handed out by the Obama administration? I believe it is because President Obama is listening to his political base.

He is delaying the implementation of his agenda so his goal of socialized medicine is not obvious to all Americans.

President Obama and his administration have mislead us about the exact number of enrollees since the very beginning of the first enrollment period,  October 1,2013.

The American public was mislead about ,

 

  1. The disastrous website development, reason for website crashes and cost of website development.
  2. The exact number of enrollees the first year. (9.5 million correct to 8 million and then down to 6.8 million)
  3. The resulting further correction by a decrease in 800,000 more people losing insurance because of discovered ineligibility for subsidies.
  4. Decreasing the original predicted enrollees for 2015 from 13.5 million to 9.5 million.
  5. The change in the start of enrollment from October 1,2014 to November 15th to avoid discussion of enrollment around the time of the November 2014 elections.
  6. Extending the 2014 enrollment three months.
  7. Extending enrollment for 2015 for one to three months.
  8. Finally in 2015 announcing the back end of the website sending information to the IRS was still not complete.
  9. Rehiring CGI the same Canadian company that built the disastrous healthcare.gov to fix the back end of the website.
  10. Discovering that 1.2 million were counted that should not have been because they got dental insurance bringing the number of enrollees down from a recalculated 8 million to 6.8 million enrollees for 2014.
  11. Announcing that 11.5 million people have enrolled for 2015 (these numbers seemed shaking at the time of enrollment. It seemed to be closer to 9.5 million or less.)
  12. Eight hundred thousand (800,000) enrollees lost their subsidy because they lied on their application
  13. Announcing that the group market Obamacare enrollment is being delayed a year or two while the mandate penalty for employers was to start January 1,2015.

Along the way I got the feeling that none of the enrollment numbers could be trusted.  HHS and CMS keeps on modifying and lowering them.

The Obama administration keeps telling us how great the enrollment is and that Obamacare is a success.

However, only ten million people have Obamacare insurance. Eighty five percent of those on Obamacare are receiving subsidies and still cannot afford the deductibles.

The rest of the enrollees have a pre-existing illness. They cannot find private insurance to buy. What about the 330 million people who might have subpar healthcare insurance? How many employers might discontinue employee insurance?    

After five years with all these new Obamacare taxes, I would not call this a successful healthcare reform program.

All of these enrollees were in the individual market. These numbers do not include the group insurance market.

14 million lost their healthcare insurance on the individual market. 10 million gained insurance on the healthcare insurance exchanges.

Several states healthcare insurance exchanges have failed.

An unknown number of enrollees in 2014 did not re-enroll in 2015 because of the loss of the subsidy and the high deductibles.

Other enrollees did not sign up again because they could not afford the high deductible.

The following is President Obama’s next trick play.

At the end of 2015 enrollment the Obama administration declared that 11.5 million people were enrolled.

On March 16,2015 the administration said about 16.4 million people have gained health insurance coverage since the Affordable Care Act became law nearly five years ago.

Please notice the tricky wording. The Obama administration is counting children under 26 that now can be included in their parents’ group insurance plans and the additional Medicaid recipients added by some states.

The count is not only the people who enrolled in Obamacare through the healthcare insurance exchanges.

The present discussion is about the success of the healthcare insurance exchanges not the increase in Medicaid coverage.

Confirmed Exchange QHPs: 11,699,473 as of 3/18/15


Estimated: 11.95M (9.06M via HCgov) as of 3/18/15

 

Estimated ACA Policy Enrollment: 33.1M
(10.46M Exchange QHPs, 8.20M OFF-Exchange QHPs, 330K SHOP, 14.1M Medicaid/CHIP)

 http://acasignups.net

There are two possible reasons for the Obama administration’s pronouncement at this time.

The first is the Republicans are about to announce its alternative plan to Obamacare. The administration’s goal would be to blunt the impact of the alternative plan by announcing the false success of Obamacare.

The second reason is to play mind games with the Supreme Court.

Justice Kennedy’s questioning at the hearing of King vs. Burwell expressed his concern for 85% of 10 million people who would loss their federal subsidy. Justice Kennedy did not address the letter of the law in his questioning.

Only the state healthcare exchanges can provide subsidies not the federal exchanges according to the written law. This is executive overreach of power granted by the constitution. President Obama should have asked congress to rewrite the law’s provision.

In an attempt to pressure the Supreme Court to vote in President Obama’s favor the administration has given the impression of confidence the Supreme Court will act in its favor.

The Obama administration has announced, a few times, that it does not have an alternative plan if the Supreme Court rules against it.

This is not true. The Obama administration has at least three alternative plans in the works.

It looks as if President Obama cannot help himself from trying to manipulate the American public and now the Supreme Court.

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

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The Facts

February 4, 2015
inDisinformation and the healthcare system, Healthcare Insurance Industry, Medicine: Healthcare System, Patients Problems, Physician's Problems, Politicians,Healthcare and Vested Interests, Stakeholder Abuse of the Healthcare System
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Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

The fact that the Obama administration believes that Americans are stupid as expressed by Jonathan Gruber is an insult on its own. The fact that the Obama administration persists in treating us as if we are stupid simply compounds the insult.

In the run up to the February 15th ending of the 2015 www.healthcare.gov enrollment period and the new Republican congress’ upcoming vote to repeal Obamacare, the Obama administration is trying to convince Americans that Obamacare is working and is good for all Americans.

The public knows better by now. The middle class is feeling the economic pain Obamacare has created. They sense President Obama telling another lie.

 Recent headlines have been

Obamacare Will Cost 20% Less

Affordable Care Act will Cost 20% Less Than Initial Projections, CBO Says

Right-Wing Media Won't Tell You That The CBO's New Obamacare Cost Estimates Are Lower Than Expected

President Obama’s deception implies Obamacare is cost effective. All the CBO is saying is the numbers given to it, this time, by the Obama administration show the cost of Obamacare will be 20% lower than the CBO original estimate in 2011.

The additional new taxes for Obamacare were initiated in 2011 based on those CBO estimates.

One important reason for the 20% decrease in cost from the original estimate in 2010 is that fewer people have chosen to enroll in www.healthcare.gov in 2014.

Since fewer people enrolled there is a $51 billion of savings in federal subsidies for fewer enrollees in health insurance exchanges.

This represents a failure of Obamacare not a success as claimed by the Obama Administration.

The government estimates a total 10.7 million will enroll by February 15,2015. On February 2,2015 there were 7.53 million qualified enrollees. The original estimate in 2010 was 17.5 million. The first 2015 estimate enrollment in 2014 was reduced 3 months ago to 13 million. The enrollment figure was modified.

The taxes the middle class have been forced to pay for Obamacare were not modified.

The real numbers are totally confusing because the government documentation is very difficult to follow. CMS modifies the numbers constantly with corrections. The modifications serve to keep Americans stupid and confused.

The Obama administration is now spinning the significance of the CBO report to its political advantage.

The online Daily Mail of Britain published this online story. The headline does not exactly reflect potential consequences of the Facts.

"Obamacare program costs $50,000 in taxpayer money for every American who gets health insurance, says bombshell budget report."

  • ·       Government will spend $1.993 TRILLION over a decade and take in $643 BILLION in new taxes, penalties and fees related to Obamacare
  • ·       The $1.35 trillion net cost will result in 'between 24 million and 27 million' fewer Americans being uninsured – a $50,000 price tag per person at best
  • ·       The law will still leave 'between 29 million and 31 million' nonelderly Americans without medical insurance
  • Numbers assume Obamacare insurance exchange enrollment will double between now and 2025 "

  Buried in a 15-page section of the nonpartisan organization's new ten-year budget outlook were numbers to calculate the cost of Obamacare legislation to add patients to the insurance role. “The $1.35 trillion net cost will result in 'between 24 million and 27 million' fewer Americans being uninsured – a $50,000 price tag per person at best.”

It is impossible to judge whether these estimated figures are correct because estimates are mostly wrong.

What we do know is Obamacare is not doing well from everyone’s except President Obama’s point of view. The spin is keeping all Americans who are seeking the truth confused. Americans want a solution to the deterioration of the healthcare system.

Another reason for the reduction in Obamacare healthcare spending could come from the reduction in reimbursement to physicians.

Insurance companies have not suffered the same reimbursement insult because the government has subsidized the healthcare insurance industry and provides a guaranteed profit that is not included in the CBO estimate.

A third reason for the reduction in spending could be explained in part by the growth of consumer-driven health plans and the Great Recession.

A fourth reason for the 20% reduction could be that the insurance products on the health insurance exchanges have high deductibles. It takes a while before the patients reach their deductibles and the government starts spending money on reimbursement. Patients can also be staying away from receiving appropriate medical care because they cannot afford the deductible.

The CBO report projects that 75 percent of enrollees will receive subsidies in 2015. However, 87 percent received subsidies in 2014. This is wishful thinking on the part of those who provided the data for the CBO to evaluate to believe the subsidy percentage will decrease.  The CBO projected a further decrease in subsidy to 71% in 2025.

The health insurance exchange experience so far suggests there is adverse patient selection. It can be assumed that there will be an increase in healthcare risk and an increase subsidy percentage in the future.

CBO projects the average exchange subsidy per covered enrollee in 2015 will be $4,330 and increase to $7,710 by 2025. These costs represent a 78 percent increase in costs.

However, I do not think anyone can draw any conclusions from the CBO’s report.

I do believe that Obamacare is President Obama's  push to a single party payer healthcare system because of the structure of its market driven elements are destined to fail.

Government will then take over telling us what medical care we can or cannot have.

”We are fast approaching the stage of ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission.” - Ayn Rand

The CBO report of a 20% reduction is spending as a result of Obamacare is meaningless. It is being used by President Obama to confuse the public for political reasons.

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

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It’s De Ja Vu All Over again!

January 31, 2015
inDisinformation and the healthcare system, Medicine: Healthcare System, Politicians,Healthcare and Vested Interests, Stakeholder Abuse of the Healthcare System, Stakeholder Mistrust
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 Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

President Obama uses the same moves over and over again in order to fool the traditional media and the American citizens. Why change tactics when they always work?

He knows Americans want to believe him.

Jonathan Gruber, a consultant economic architect of Obamacare was correct when he said that a lack of transparency is a powerful political tool. He said Americans are too stupid to see through the charade.

President Obama thinks his job is to transform America. He never defined what transforming America means.

Americans assumed he would make America a better place to live for the average citizen.

In the last six years the average American has not had job security, healthcare  security or a better standard of living. President Obama keeps telling Americans they have a better life.

President Obama saying it does not make it so.

Americans are starting to perceive reality and do not believe him or in him anymore.

In February 2014 I published the following blog. The tactic President Obama uses is to present a half-truth that is not close to the truth. He confuses Americans so they do not know what to believe. They stop paying attention to what is happening to them and society. They do not search for the truth until it affects them directly.

President Obama’s fantasy is now affecting the hard working middle class. They now know he lies to them. They feel they have been taken for fools.

In the last few weeks he has been putting out false narrative about how well Obamacare is doing.

Last years blog will set they stage to understand the way the tactic has been played over and over again.

 

"Why Use Facts and Logic?  

Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

 February 27,2014

I pointed out the tactics used in Saul Alinsky’s Rules For Radicals. 

President Obama uses these tactics over and over again to attack his opponents, obfuscate reality and confuse the public.

The public has figured out President Obama out. Reality is now in healthcare and Americans are feeling it.

The middle class independents voters are feeling it the most.

President Obama’s opponents have not figured out how to neutralize  the Alinsky formula. 

If someone points out the truth he is attacked, belittled and marginalized. President Obama is using executive powers to attack the constitution in order to restrict Americans’ rights to freedoms.

The most recent FCC foray to determine the quality of news reporting was cancelled by the uproar about the attack on free speech.

President Obama has tried to shift public attention away from Obamacare by bringing up many topics at once.

The traditional media goes along with this because President Obama is the number one newsmaker. The media have only a limited time or space to cover topics.

Let’s face it. These important topics are not entertainment. They are boring.

A story that floored me was President Obama’s his austerity claim. He said his new budget would finally end the dreary "era of austerity."

Did he think increasing Americans national debt $6 trillion dollars over 5 years was austere?

“ The federal government will still spend $561 billion more this year than it did in 2008.”

I was under the impression that the Republicans took a shellacking from President Obama once again by the way the recent budget deficit and debt ceiling resolutions were reported. The opposite is true.

President Obama wanted the sequester abolished, roughly $2 trillion more in spending, and almost $1 trillion in higher taxes over the next decade.

The latest budget deals delivered none of that. While the sequester was relaxed, all the additional spending was offset with no higher taxes.

Speaker Boehner did not do so bad. 

In 2014 President Obama’s take on the debt ceiling is extremely interesting.

 

 

http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/022114-690858-obama-budget-and-his-phony-complaint-about-austerity.htm

 

In the last few weeks President Obama has been telling his base over and over again that Obamacare is going to be a non-issue in the November 2014 elections. He told Bill O’Reilly in his Super Bowl interview that 6 million people have already received insurance.

 

http://youtu.be/9uzJYlbhH54

Both were lies. It doesn’t seem to bother him to lie.

Dick Durbin, the second man in the senate, told a Sunday morning talk show that 10 million have signed up by end of January.  

On February 25th President Obama announced that 4 million have signed up. He did not say how many of those were on Medicaid, how many bought private insurance, how many lost their insurance because of Obamacare, how many bought private insurance on the health insurance exchange and how many never had healthcare insurance.

He has used the 6 million over and over again even though he received 4 Pinocchio’s from the Washington Post fact checker.

The traditional media just publishes what he tells them even though they have stories with facts that contradict his pronouncements.

President Obama has henchman at the New York Times. Paul Krugman is the chief.

He makes pronouncement without facts.

His February 23, 2014 article “Health Care Horror Hooey” is one of those articles. He starts by brow beating his audience about the death tax (Estate Tax).

“You might think that such heart-wrenching cases are actually quite rare, but you’d be wrong: they aren’t rare; they’re nonexistent. “

No evidence was presented for the statement.

In particular, nobody has ever come up with a real modern example of a family farm sold to meet estate taxes.

One reason is that there are few family farms in existence today.

The whole “death tax” campaign has rested on eliciting human sympathy for purely imaginary victims.

The problem in my view is people paying estate taxes are being taxed a second time on the same money.

I do not care how rich a person might be the government should not be entitled to tax money twice.

And now they’re trying a similar campaign against health reform.

This statement is nonsense

“I’m not sure whether conservatives realize yet that their Plan A on health reform — wait for Obamacare’s inevitable collapse, and reap the political rewards — isn’t working.”

My sense is Paul Krugman views conservative as shiftless idiots. He presents no proof as to whether Obamacare is working or not. He simply declares Obamacare isn’t collapsing.

“But it isn’t. Enrollments have recovered strongly from the law’s disastrous start-up; in California, which had a working website from the beginning, enrollment has already exceeded first-year projections.”

Mr. Krugman ought to read his own newspaper. The New York Times reported that California does not have enough physicians participating in Covered California to service its subscribers. Many subscribers have not paid their first premium.

 The mix of people signed up so far is older than planners had hoped, but not enough so to cause big premium hikes, let alone the often-predicted “death spiral.”

There is absolutely no information about age mix and health risk available for Covered California that I could find.

It is clear the administration is withholding this information.

In fact, Covered California has had to close its website in order to try to cover the discrepancies.

Paul Krugman claims insurance premiums and deductible have not gone up. I think he ought to look at the health exchange insurance premiums and deductibles for the individual market on the health insurance exchange.

He does not talk about the reasons for all the waivers given by President Obama. He does not talk about the congressional exemption.

He does not speak about the exemption delay for the corporate insurance market. Why not?

Millions of families will lose their insurance coverage and be driven into the Obamacare health insurance exchanges or face government penalty.

The IRS sent out a warning this week that if person does not have adequate qualified healthcare insurance a penalty would be assessed on to their tax bill in 2015.

Paul Krugman is being intellectually dishonest with the American people. The American people are being forced into an entitlement program they do not want.                                                                                                                                                            This is not “Health Care Horror Hooey Mr. Krugman.  It is reality.                                                       At the time of Krugman’s article a CMS report was publish that found 65% of small businesses that offer insurance will likely see their premiums rise thanks to ObamaCare. That translates into higher insurance costs for 11 million workers.

“No doubt, Obamacare boosters will charge that this information is from some right wing think tank.“                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

The Obama administration immediately started shouting foul to the CMS study. They said the study was incomplete and the conclusions will change.

This is a typical use of an Alinsky tactic by President Obama.

David Horowitz writes in his book Barack Obama’s Rules For Radicals, There can be no conversation between the organizer and his opponents.  The latter must be depicted as being evil.
 

In this case his own CMS is depicted as being evil.

One study, for example, found that 63% of small employers in Wisconsin will see premiums jump 15% because of ObamaCare. A separate study found that 89% of small companies in Maine would see rate hikes of 12% on average.

Another, by consulting firm Oliver Wyman, concluded that ObamaCare would push up small group premiums nationwide 20%.

As soon as the CMS report came out, Democratic leaders rushed to the microphones to dismiss it.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's spokesman said it was "incomplete" and that the GOP would use the report "to mislead and deceive Americans."

President Obama, the American people got it. After all the lies, deceptions and misrepresentations we know what you are doing with your people and your shills.

 We do not trust you!"  Feburary 27 2014

 

In February 2015 President Obama’s misdirection continues. There is a lack of transparency about the 2015 www.healthcare.gov enrollment figures. The goal for enrollment is rigged.  Last year is was initially published that there were 9 million enrollees.

Those figures were false. It was eventually corrected down to 6.8 million.

The 6.8 million figure included the people who have lied to get higher subsides. Presumably they lied with the help of President Obama’s Navigators who receive $48 an hour from the government to help people complete their applications.

 At least 15% (1 million plus) of these people have dropped their healthcare insurance coverage because they lost the subsidies and/or the deductibles were too high.

As the Republic House and Senate are preparing to repeal Obamacare, the public is hearing from President Obama through the traditional media that Obamacare is working well and will not be repealed.

His fantasy is expressed in the following January 2015 headlines.

President Obama’s Fantasy

Obamacare Will Cost 20% Less Affordable will Cost 20% Less Than Initial Projections, CBO Says

Right-Wing Media Won't Tell You That The CBO's New Obamacare Cost Estimates Are Lower Than Expected

 New York Times: "Budget Office Slashes Estimated Cost Of Health Coverage." 

 HHS: More Than 7.1M Have Enrolled In 2015 Plans Via HealthCare.gov.

Obamacare website enrollment crests 7M as Feb. 15 deadline looms

7 Obamacare Facts You Need to Know at the Halfway Point of Enrollment

Burwell: ‘Time is running out’ for ObamaCare signups

To a casual observer the problems are solved. The cost of healthcare are affordable. Obamacare’s enrollment numbers are great.

 The Facts next time.

 

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

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Obamacare’s Solyndras

January 14, 2015
inDisinformation and the healthcare system, Healthcare Insurance Industry, Medicine: Healthcare System
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Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP, MACE

Peter Orszag was previously President Obama’s director of Office of Management and Budget. He was wrong about Obamacare’s economic impact, improvements in the healthcare system and efficiency in 2009.  He is wrong about it in 2015 in his critique of Steven Brill’s book “A Bitter Pill”.

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-01-12/what-brills-bitter-pill-gets-wrong-on-obamacare

The problem is Peter Orzag still believes in the Obama administration’s fiction. He quotes the Obama administration’s spin of the results as proof of Obamacare’s success. There is little valid data to back up the spin.

Obamacare has had its share of Solyndras. Solyndra was destined to fail. It had a lot of built in organizational waste.

I fear the few Obamacare experiments that we are aware of that have failed are only the tip of the Obamacare failure iceberg. There will be many more debacles that the Obama administration is probably hiding. 

CLASS

Community Living Assistance Services and Supports, or CLASS, was designed to provide cash benefits for those patients needing long-term services and support. CLASS was a part of Obamacare (Affordable Care Act). Many Republican and moderate Democrats objected to CLASS and considered it fiscally unsustainable. It would only waste money.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman at the time Kent Conrad D-N.D. called CLASS “a Ponzi scheme of the first order”. In any event the $68 billion dollar program was rammed through as part of Obamacare.  

Two years later the Department of Health and Human Services determined CLASS could not be implemented in a fiscally solvent manner, and in January 2013 Congress repealed CLASS.

In 2015 the American public still does not know how much of the $68 million dollars was wasted.

Just how much did HealthCare.gov cost?

 The American public will never know. We will never know what we should have paid for the website or what we finally paid.

In October 2013 as soon as it was apparent that www.healthcare.gov was a train wreck the Obama administration denied all the published prices contracted for building the website.

Prices to build the website varied from $91 million dollars to $634 million dollars to over 1 trillion dollars ($1,000,000,000.00).

Americans did not know what the website should have cost. They never found out what the cost was to rebuild the website after the initial disaster.

It was never clear whether the contract to CGI was won by competitive bid. The Obama administration never answered the question of Michelle Obama’s influence in choosing CGI.

The history is clear. CGI has failed to deliver for other projects they have done in other parts of the world.

What is the truth? Why would the Obama administration pick this company? What can we do about this waste of taxpayers’ money?

I guess Americans can remain passive and pay more taxes.

Americans have given up on the truth about the www.healthcare.gov

 debacle. The attitude of many is that it is what it is. We must go on.

All Americans are hearing or want to hear is the current website is easy to use and is working well.The important question is, Is it?

It is easy to understand why Jonathan Gruber would say Americans are stupid and the lack of transparency is a powerful tool. The implication of that statement indicates an Obama administration attitude. It is the reason the administration says they hardly knew the guy.

CoOportunity Health falters, taken over by state

This Obamacare debacle almost got away from recognition by the American public.

 CoOportunity Health is a fledgling Iowa health insurance cooperative set up under  Obamacare with Obamacare money.  It is going bankrupt.

CoOportunity Health was set up by the Obama administration. The Obama administration granted the company $146 million dollars in funding from Obamacare funds. The idea was to provide consumers and small businesses alternative insurance in healthcare markets with limited insurance choices. It could also be thought of as a disguised “Public Option”.

The healthcare insurance industry had refused to participate in the federal and state insurance exchanges in many states. The healthcare insurance companies thought the risk was too great. They would lose money.

Just before this year’s open enrollment period President Obama activated the reinsurance provisions in Obamacare guaranteeing insurance companies that they can only make money and not lose money on providing insurance through the government health insurance exchanges.

The Healthcare insurance companies are falling all over themselves to provide healthcare insurance in high risk states now.

 Where else can you sell insurance to more people at no risk?

“As of December 12,2013 Cooportunity has only $17 million of the $146 million dollars left.  CoOportunity has been taken over by state regulators and could soon go under, officials said Wednesday.”

The Obama administration knows they can now throw government funded insurance companies like CoOportunity under the bus because they have guaranteed backup companies from the healthcare industry that want to sell no risk insurance.

 The CoOportunity hasn't reached insolvency yet but it doesn’t have  enough money on hand to continue to run the company.  It will leave 96,350 consumers uninsured with unresolved claims healthcare insurance claims. These consumers will also lose their un-used premiums.

The 96,350 should be able to get insurance through the federal health insurance exchange in their state.

The federal government as banker has simply cut CoOportunity’s credit and took a $146 million dollar loss.

I wonder how many other Obamacare funded insurance companies are out there?

I wonder how many other Solyndra like experiments Obamacare has. I can think of at least 4 or 5.

I wonder how much money Obamacare is losing on experiments and bureaucratic waste?

It is making medical care more expensive for taxpayers and for patients with increased out of pocket expenses.

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

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Things Happen When No One is Looking

January 4, 2015
inMedicaid, Medicare, Medicine: Healthcare System, Patients Problems, Physician's Problems, Stakeholder Mistrust
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Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

I wish you all a Happy and Healthy New Yew Year.

I have not written blogs during the holiday season because I figured no one would pay attention to what is happing in healthcare.

President Obama figured the same and snuck in a few things to continue to destroy the healthcare system.

Obamacare “innovative programs” seem to be going nowhere. The Obama administration continues to insist that all is going well.

The money spent is being wasted. The taxes for the funding of Obamacare’s 6.7 million enrollees is increasing as it attempts to increase enrollment to 9 million down from the original enrollment goal of 12 million.

I received a note from a reader who said Obamacare is here to stay. It is what it is. We should try to repair Obamacare rather than repeal it and replace it.

In my view Obamacare cannot be repaired. It was created to destroy the healthcare system. President Obama’s goal is to replace Obamacare with a government controlled single party payer system.

 The result will be to control and restrict access to care and ration care. It is a step on the way to restrict citizens’ freedoms.

Every week indications of Obamacare’s failures appear but are kept under the public’s radar.  The Obama administration spins the facts and the mainstream media’s regurgitates that spin.

 The Obamacare signup figures as complied by http://acasignups.net as of 12/30 2014 are very different that the administration’s spin to the media that the open enrollment period is going great.

Obamacare’s enrollment is still 1 million below estimate at this point

Confirmed 2015 QHPs: 7,403,558 as of 12/29/14
Estimated 2015 QHPs (Cumulative):
11/21: 610K (462K HCgov) • 11/28: 1.02M (765K HCgov) • 12/05: 1.80M (1.35M HCgov)
12/12: 3.26M (2.46M HCgov) • 12/15: 4.70M (3.52M HCgov) • 12/19: 8.52M (6.40M HCgov)
12/23: 8.65M (6.50M HCgov) • 12/30: 8.84M (6.54M HCgov)
state-level projections

 HHS finally announced that approximately 87% of Americans who selected 2015 health insurance plans through HealthCare.gov in the first month of open enrollment are receiving financial assistance to lower their monthly premiums. This percentage of subsidy awards is higher than in the same period last year.

The number is significant because, should the U.S. Supreme Court decide against the Obama administration in the King v. Burwell case it is scheduled to hear in March, consumers living in the 37 states relying on the subsidies from HealthCare.gov could lose their premium subsidies.

Another problem is even with the subsidy the people who received them cannot afford the insurance deductible. They do not seek medical care.

HHS has yet to disclose if it has a contingency plan should a ruling come down that only those who buy Obamacare insurance through state exchanges are eligible for coverage subsidies.

The CMS Innovation Center was established by section 3021 of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) for the purpose of testing “innovative payment” and service delivery models to reduce healthcare expenditures while preserving or enhancing the quality of care” for those individuals who receive Medicare, Medicaid, or Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) benefits.

To date the CMS Innovation Center has awarded $2.6 billion through September 2014 to hospitals, doctors and others through nearly two dozen programs that tested new ways to deliver healthcare and pay for it.

“Results of those programs some underway since 2011including more than 60,000 providers and 2.5 million patients in Medicare, Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program, are largely not yet available, the Innovation Center said in its second report to Congress.”

The ICD-10 diagnostic and procedure codes were to be implemented two years ago. It appears to be going nowhere because it is too complicated. President Obama will probably delay it again.

The change toICD-10 from ICD-9 has been pushed forward at least three times. It is too complicated. It is designed to commoditized medical treatment and eliminate physician judgment. Codes have been increase from 18,000 (complicated enough) to 68,000. Neither physicians nor their unsophisticated computer systems can comply correctly.

The Obama administration is still pushing for its execution and wasting money yearly. Physicians cannot and will not comply with this government regulation.

 It is destined to fail at a tremendous waste of taxpayers’ dollars.

“President Obama promised the AMA he would fix the defective Medicare Sustainable Growth Rate formula( GRF) for calculating Medicare reimbursement to physicians. As a result of that promise the AMA supported President Obama’s healthcare reform bill.” 

The GRF is not fixed yet. Congress delays the reductions in reimbursement due to this defective bureaucratic formula  each year and adds the percentage reduction in physician reimbursement to next year’s reimbursement reduction.

This year physicians can expect another 4% reduction for a total of 32% since 2002.  We will see if congress fixes this defective formula this year.  

On January 1, 2015 physicians are going to experience a series of pay cuts from CMS.  If functional electronic medical records are not implemented physicians will experience additional reimbursement reductions from Medicare and Medicaid.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/brucejapsen/2015/01/01/multiple-pay-cuts-hit-doctors-in-2015/#comment_reply

Physicians are struggling to deal with new measurements to improve quality and deal with a myriad of new changes in Medicare and Medicaid rules and regulations.

Two years ago in order to attract more physicians to accept Medicaid to care for the growing number of enrollees in Medicaid, Obamacare increased Medicaid reimbursement by 40%. The increase in reimbursement was to last only until January1, 2015 and then revert to the 2012 reimbursement schedule.

Those pediatricians, family practitioners and internists were faked out once more by Obamacare and President Obama’s promises.

The biggest pay surprise to physicians will come when the old reimbursement returns. Poor Americans on Medicaid will suffer when they cannot find a physician.  

“No other segment of the health care industry faces penalties as steep as these and no other segment faces such challenging implementation logistics,” Dr. James Madara, the AMA’s CEO wrote to the Obama administration.  “The tsunami of rules and policies surrounding the penalties are in a constant state of flux due to scheduled phase-ins and annual changes in regulatory requirements.”

 The cascade of rules and regulations will affect every specialty of medicine. The only thing left is for physicians to quit participating in government programs.

Then government can force medical license renewal to be tied to participation in government healthcare programs.

Where is physicians’ choice and freedom? There is currently a physician shortage. If physicians quit medicine and surgery what will happen to patient care?

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

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Permalink:

Obamacare Deceptions Keep Coming

November 24, 2014
inDisinformation and the healthcare system, Medicine: Healthcare System, Politicians,Healthcare and Vested Interests, Stakeholder Abuse of the Healthcare System, Stakeholder Mistrust
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Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

President Obama and CMS have been extremely quiet about Health Insurance Exchange enrollment since enrollment opened November 15,2014

President Obama reported that on  opening day the health insurance marketplace performed much better than last year. However, some consumers reported long, frustrating delays trying to buy insurance and gain access to their own accounts at HealthCare.gov.

Consumers there were having a hard time logging into their accounts, retrieving old passwords and proving they were who they said they were — a process known as identity proofing, which also vexed many people last fall.

Some people did complete their applications, but it often took them 90 minutes. Some people were unable to finish what they started, so they left the clinic with plans to return at another time.

The insurance exchanges are supposed to be the centerpiece of Obamacare.

 Ms.Sylvia Burwell, the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services said, “23,000 people had completed online applications in the first eight hours after HealthCare.gov, the federal website, opened on Saturday morning.”

Twenty three thousand is a low number for a 45-day enrollment period with four days each at Thanksgiving and Christmas.  It is only 1,035,000 enrollees (45 x 23,000). We do not know if they are new or old enrollees. 

Ms. Sylvia Burwell has given us signals previously that all is not well with Obamacare.

The estimate of total enrollees (old and new) for the end of the 2015 enrollment period was lowered from 13 million to 9 million. If 8 million were enrolled in 2014 this is only an increase of 1 million new enrollees.

There were clearly not 8 million valid enrollees when President Obama did his victory lap at the end of the extended enrollment period on March 31,2014.

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It was later announced that 85% of enrollees were to receive subsidies (tax credit). The tax credits were to make the insurance premiums affordable to enrollees earning less than $50,000 a year.

It turned out that 65% of those approved for subsidies originally had the subsidy reduced when they could not verify their claimed income.

The American taxpayers, who are responsible for the subsidy (tax credit), were never told how the government was going to collect the government over payment. Taxpayers were never told the amount of  payment due from people who received the invalid subsidies.

 How many of those over subsidized people dropped out of Obamacare because they could not afford the premium or the deductible.

How many enrollees remained from the 8 million claimed to have enrolled?

 Somehow the published number of enrollees dropped to 7.3 million. Did the decrease from 8 million to 7.3 million include the over subsidized dropouts?  

I should think an inspector general or someone in congress would start connecting the dots.

I would think the CBO would recalculate their estimates.

I should think someone in the press would sense there was something fishy and start investigating.

 

Last week it was discovered that 400,000 people were counted in the total enrollment number that did not buy healthcare insurance. The 400,000 enrolled for low cost dental insurance.

 This new revelation lowered the total number of claimed enrollees to 6.9 million from the 7.3 million claimed enrollees.

Kathleen Sibelius declared over a year ago that Obamacare would have to have over seven million enrollees to be viable and declared successful.

In a previous blog my estimate of valid enrollees for 2014 was 3 million. I have also pointed out that the healthcare insurance industry is not worried about the number of enrollees because if they lose money the government would bale them out and subsidized the difference.

The loser is the taxpayer. We have been paying a tax increase of more than 10% for Obamacare since 2010.

The public has not yet seen any numbers proving Obamacare’ s viability or it’s bending of the cost curve.

 We have seen patients complaining that they cannot afford the 6-10 thousand dollar deductibles of the health insurance policies. People have realized that they are not covered by insurance until they reach their deductibles. People have been hesitant to get necessary medical care in order to avoid paying the deductibles.

The Obama administration claims to have reduced healthcare costs. The administration does not count the patient’s deductible costs (out of pocket costs) in their bogus calculation of costs to the healthcare system.

The avoidance of follow-up care by patients with pre-existing illnesses (chronic diseases) is only going to lead to complications of those chronic disease and higher societal healthcare costs.

Lowering the goal for the number of enrollees to 9 million if only there are only 3 million valid enrollees that stayed in the system is going to be a very difficult task.

The changing of the date to begin open enrollment from October 1 to November 15 for political reasons is not going to help achieve the goal.

President Obama will probably extend the enrollment period from December 15,2014.

The Obama administration already announced the 2016 open enrollment period. It starts October 1 2015 and ends December 15, 2015.

There is a great website that calculates the estimated weekly enrollment and actual enrollment. Enrollment is not going very well. President Obama and his administration are very quiet about the enrollment. The mainstream traditional media is also ignoring enrollment.    

 

The website is, http://acasignups.net

As of 11/21/2014 the website reports confirmed enrollees for 2015 QHPs: at least 39,215 have enrolled as of 11/21/14 as opposed to the government estimated enrollees for 2015 QHPs of at least 410,000 as of 11/21/14.

No one is paying attention to the website. The Obama administration is not providing the information necessary for consumers to judge how well Obamacare enrollment is doing.

Ms. Burwell said,

Ms. Burwell said that attention should be on all of the people who now have health insurance, rather than the miscalculation.

“While we understand some will be skeptical, our clarity that this is mistake and the fact that we have quickly corrected the numbers should give people confidence,” she said. “It is important to continue to focus on the fact that millions of Americans are getting affordable health care.”

The Obama administration persists in trying to distract the American public.

I think the Obama administration continues to believe, as Jonathan Gruber believes, that Americans are too stupid to understand what the administration is doing.

The administration wants to prove that the free market and private insurance cannot provide healthcare coverage for all that only total government control of the healthcare system can work.

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

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The Significance Of The Jonathan Gruber Controversy

November 16, 2014
inDisinformation and the healthcare system, Medicaid, Medicare, Medicine: Healthcare System, Patients Problems, Physician's Problems, Politicians,Healthcare and Vested Interests, Stakeholder Abuse of the Healthcare System
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Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

Jonathan Gruber, a professor of Economics at MIT and one of the authors of Obamacare, made comments in 2013 about the trick plays the Obama administration used to pass the Affordable Care Act.

Jonathan Gruber’s comments serve to help Americans understand the mechanics of the passage of Obamacare. Hopefully it will serve as a wakeup call for the entire electorate.

Jonathon Gruber’s comments reflect the attitude of President Obama and his entire administration toward the electorate.  

  

http://youtu.be/G790p0LcgbI

The cover-up always makes it worse.

 

http://youtu.be/zhavicDc0Ts

Mr. Gruber admits what many of us have understood throughout President Obama’s years in office. President Obama’s attitude is reflected in all the trick plays he has pulled on congress and the American people during the passage and implementation of Obamacare.

Please look at all the articles covering President Obama’s trick plays since 2008 by clicking here.

The mainstream media has done President Obama’s bidding. It has not covered the meaning of Jonathan Gruber’s comments and the disrespect he and others have for the intelligence of the American public.

A reader sent me this comment before Jonathan Gruber’s comments were discovered.

“Dr. Feld,

There is some science behind the Progressive methodology that non-progressives need to learn.  The Progressive movement talks directly to the limbic portion of the brain while non-progressives tend to sort through facts in the neocortex.

Decisions are made in the emotional limbic portion of the brain, hence the reason and way marketers appeal to emotions versus your facts. 

The bottom line is this, non-progressives need to turn their facts into stories that are emotional or conservatives will always be out sold by those who’s arguments are devoid of facts (or outright lies) but full of emotion.

Have an awesome day.”

The Gruber controversy has given Americans a story that stimulates an emotional response. Americans are offended by being called stupid.

Jonathan Gruber did not make these statements in a void. It had to reflect the thinking of Obama administration. Even John Kerry gave him some help.

 

 

Published on Nov 12, 2014

Gruber explains how Senator John Kerry helped him fool stupid voters into accepting a tax hike.

   

 

http://youtu.be/iUOyqw5HhRI

 Mr. Gruber could not have made the decisions on his own to take the policy actions he described.

He never should have described the actions of those involved in public.

 The Obama administration also provided the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) with wrong information. The information led to wrong CBO’s conclusions regarding Obamacare’s real costs. The CBO crunches numbers fed to it by the Obama administration.

 The Obama administration used CBO’s false scoring to sell the CBO’s economic conclusions to the public through the mainstream media.  

It is clear that President Obama and his administration believe they are smarter than the American people. President Obama believes that his administration knows what is best for Americans.

The only reason the American people have not connected the dots is because they believe the president is an honorable man. The president is not expected to lie to the public.  

The progressive press is trying to divert attention from Jonathan Gruber’s comments. It is trying to get the public to ignore Mr. Gruber.

An initial diversion came from Paul Krugman in his Victory Lap article about Obamacare.

Paul Krugman said the health economist Jonathan Gruber, one of the principal architects of health reform  recently summed it up:

“The Medicaid-rejection states “are willing to sacrifice billions of dollars of injections into their economy in order to punish poor people. It really is just almost awesome in its evilness.”

Paul Krugman did not provide any facts just an appeal to emotion.

 MSNBC used this emotional stimulation to get its followers to ignore Jonathan Gruber’s comments.

“Part of the problem with the Jonathan Gruber “stupid” story is that it’s a shiny object for the political world to stare at for a while. It offers more heat than light. It’s a bouncing ball for political insiders to chase after, despite its relative insignificance.”

“But since it’s likely to soon be the subject of congressional hearings, and since your crazy uncle who watches Fox News all day will be talking about nothing else at Thanksgiving, let’s grudgingly tackle this week’s Most Important Story Of All Time As Agreed Upon By Republicans And The Beltway Media.”
 

Please note the inference that Republicans and Fox News are stupid for making an issue out of Jon Gruber’s statements. The implication is MSNBC is smart.

Progressives need public support in order to maintain power.

The problem is the public is tired of progressives’ emotional appeals devoid of facts.

The progressive press including MSNBC and The New York Times need examine their premises. They are daily losing listeners and readers .

Nancy Pelosi is incredible.

She said,

“Let’s put Jonathan Gruber aside.”

 “House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi responds to Jonathan Gruber’s comments on the Affordable Care Act, saying, “I don’t know who he is. He didn’t help write our bill. So with all due respect to your question, you had a person who wasn’t writing our bill commenting on what was going on when we were writing the bill who has withdrew some of the statements that he made. So let’s put him aside.”

It is almost as bad as "we will not know what is in the bill until we pass it."

President Obama and his administration are trying to prevent public understanding of his current tricks plays. He continues to try to divert American from the truth about Obamacare.

President Obama needs to explain the truth to regain his credibility with the American people.

He must address these unanswered issues if he wants to maintain his promise of transparency.

  1. Why the healthcare.gov open enrollment period was delayed until November 15th.
  2. What is the actual number of valid enrollees in Obamacare in 2014? Is it 8 million, 7 million, 5.6 million or 3 million? I thought Obamacare and its mandate would be in effect for small businesses and corporations in 2015.
  3. Why has the estimate of total enrollment for 2015 been reduced from 13 million to 9 million? I thought 2015 Obamacare would be fully implemented and many more people would sign up as they lost employer sponsored insurance.
  4. How many people who received government subsidies last year lied on their application?
  5. Why weren’t the rules for subsidies enforce?
  6. How many people lost their subsidy?
  7. How are you going to collect the subsidy from people that lied?
  8. How many people have claimed they are not going to re-enroll in Obamacare this year and why are they not going to enroll?
  9. How does a person receive a tax credit when he has no taxable income to apply that tax credit to?  

     10. Explain the status of the open enrollment and the mandate for small businesses and large corporations.

      11. What is the status of waivers that companies and unions received from Obamacare for 2015?

      12. Why does the state of Massachusetts have a failed State Health Insurance Exchange that     required  $400 million dollars in federal  supplements each year if Romneycare is so successful?

      13. Why would the government subsidize healthcare insurance companies to participate in Obamacare?

     14. Why is the public being told that healthcare exchanges premiums are going down when in reality they are going up?

     15. What is happening with the Minimed Insurance policies that were supposed to expire in 2015?

     16. What does Obamacare cost the federal government? Is it budget neutral?

     17. What is the exact amount of increased taxes used to fund Obamacare?

     18. What percentage of the increased taxes are collected from each income group?

These are just a few of the questions President Obama and his administration have not provided the answer to.

 The answers to these questions would permit the public to understand Obamacare’s sustainability.

 The Jonathan Gruber incident has made it clear how President Obama and his administration operates as well as its lack of respect for the intelligence of the American public.

 Americans are not dumb. They want to believe their leaders. Their leaders have lied to them. Americans recognize that. President Obama and his administration have little credibility with the American public. President Obama promised a transparent government. There is not any transparency.

The midterm elections proved Americans are aware. It is a good first step.  Now we have to see what the Republicans will do with this leadership opportunity. 

 

 

An explanation of Obamacare.

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

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Government Is The Problem Not The Solution

October 1, 2014
inDisinformation and the healthcare system, Healthcare Insurance Industry, Medicare, Medicine: Healthcare System, Politicians,Healthcare and Vested Interests, Stakeholder Mistrust
• Leave a comment

Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

 

The government has been attempting to take over the healthcare system since 1935 at the time of the Roosevelt administration.

The government took over the healthcare system 30 years later during the Lyndon Johnson administration. LBJ passed Medicare and Medicaid. It turned out that financial projections were faulty and the business model was defective.

Medicare and Medicaid provided medical care for the elderly and the poor at an affordable price at that time. Everyone loved it. At the time it was also affordable for the government.

I do not think anyone contemplated the healthcare inflation that occurred as a result of the government’s business model.

Inflationary pressure increased rapidly.

Finally, President Reagan said the government could not afford the increasing prices any more. He said enough is enough. He decreased provider (hospital, doctors, pharmaceutical company, and insurance company) reimbursement for Medicare and Medicaid services.

The reduction in reimbursement for services resulted in price shifting increases in reimbursement in the private sector.

Both the private sector and the public sector experienced increased inflationary pressure as a result of this maneuver.

It was clear by 1984 that Medicare and Medicaid were unsustainable long term.  

America did not have a free market healthcare system before Obamacare. It was a hybrid system.

The country already had 90 million Americans in a single-payer system. Ninety million Americans get coverage from Medicare, Medicaid, and the Veterans Health Administration systems.

The problem is these government controlled single-payer systems did not work efficiently. They were financially unsustainable.

Obamacare expands the single party payer system to eventually cover all Americans. Obamacare simply adds on to an existing unsustainable healthcare.   Raising taxes is not going to make it more sustainable.

The expanded bureaucracy will only make the system more inefficient and more prone to fraud and abuse.

President Obama is already modifying the law without congressional approval. He is trying to hide elements of this unsustainability from the American public.

The federal government’s Obamacare enrollment system www.Healthcare.gov alone has already cost taxpayers about $2.1 billion dollars according to a Bloomberg government analysis of contracts related to the project.”

The website is still not working perfectly at the backend after spending $2.1 billion dollars.

Americans will experience more of the www.healthcare.gov dysfunction after the mid term elections.  

Navigator companies hired to help people enroll cost $48 a session. These companies are increasing their prices for the 2015 enrollees.

 

These same companies have had their fraud and abuse exposed. Nevertheless they have been rehired at the increased price by the Obama administration.

President Obama announced to Democrats last spring that Obamacare would not be an issue at the time of the midterms.

This week the administration also announced that the cost of healthcare insurance through the health insurance exchanges is decreasing next year.

It was also announced that there is an increase in the choice of insurance carriers in most states resulting in competitive premium pricing and lower premiums.

President Obama announced that Obamacare is working. He said Obamacare is a non issue in the 2014 mid term elections.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

If our elected officials cannot see President Obama’s trick play how can the public expect to understand the deception?

This is another of the manipulations of Obamacare designed to hide its impending failure from the public.  

The Obama administration set up a reinsurance company funded by taxpayers that eliminates any insurance risk the healthcare insurance companies might incur in insuring enrollees.

Healthcare insurance companies are signing up and competing for market share to gain profit from this no risk insurance. They can easily afford to lower the premiums because the government will cover their supposed loses.

None of this has anything to do with patient care or the quality of patient care.

It has little to do with providing low cost insurance. The cost of insurance keeps increasing. The government pays the difference between the cost of insurance and what patients who receive subsidies pay for their premiums.

Obamacare misses the main problems in the healthcare system. Obamacare creates more dysfunction in the healthcare system.

 Obamacare will result in greater unfunded future liabilities.

“White House spin pretends otherwise, but the unfunded liabilities may exceed $100 trillion.”

 The Congressional Budget Office said,

 “Looking indefinitely into the future, the unfunded liability, with optimistic assumptions, is $43 trillion—almost three times the size of today's economy.”

Based on more plausible assumptions, such as those reflected in the "alternative" scenario for Medicare produced by the Congressional Budget Office in June 2012, the long-term shortfall is more than $100 trillion.

It is the responsibility of our elected officials control America’s expenditures.

Unfortunately, for American’s, this is not how a government controlled system works.

Voters must decide how long they are going to tolerate this abuse of power.

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



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