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Disinformation Campaign In Full Force.

Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

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

Obamacare is not an abstract concept anymore.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The key to success is to be an outside agitator.

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

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

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

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

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

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

He methodology is very transparent. It has become unsuccessful.

The next step is a disinformation campaign.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is another lie in order to confuse the facts.

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

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

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

The tactic is to tell lies to obfuscate the true.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vs.

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

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

November elections are just around the corner!

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

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Obamacare’s New Taxes And The Middle Class

Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP, MACE

It is important to review all the taxes written into the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). Americans are recognizing that those tax increases are being passed on to all consumers.  The middle class were not supposed to experience tax increases. The middle class is realizing it has less disposable income because of these new taxes.

Since 65% (sixty-five percent) of America’s economy is dependent on consumers discretionary spending, America is destined to further economic difficulty.

These new tax increases are timed in the hope that no one would notice them.

The increased taxes are supposed to fund Obamacare. The taxes continue to be collected even though much of the law’s implementation is delayed.

The increases in Obamacare taxes arearranged by their respective effective dates. Below is the total list of all $500 billion-plus in tax hikes (over the next ten years) in Obamacare, where to find them in the bill, and how much your taxes are scheduled to go up as of today:

 

Taxes that took effect in 2010:

1. Excise Tax on Charitable Hospitals (Min$/immediate): $50,000 per hospital if they fail to meet new "community health assessment needs," "financial assistance," and "billing and collection" rules set by HHS. Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,961-1,971.


2. Codification of the “economic substance doctrine” (Tax hike of $4.5 billion). This provision allows the IRS to disallow completely-legal tax deductions and other legal tax-minimizing plans just because the IRS deems that the action lacks “substance” and is merely intended to reduce taxes owed. Bill: Reconciliation Act; Page: 108-113.



3. “Black liquor” tax hike (Tax hike of $23.6 billion). This is a tax increase on a type of bio-fuel. Bill: Reconciliation Act; Page: 105.



4. Tax on Innovator Drug Companies ($22.2 bil/Jan 2010): $2.3 billion annual tax on the industry imposed relative to share of sales made that year. Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,971-1,980.


5. Blue Cross/Blue Shield Tax Hike ($0.4 bil/Jan 2010): The special tax deduction in current law for Blue Cross/Blue Shield companies would only be allowed if 85 percent or more of premium revenues are spent on clinical services. Bill: PPACA; Page: 2,004.

6. Tax on Indoor Tanning Services ($2.7 billion/July 1, 2010): New 10 percent excise tax on Americans using indoor tanning salons. Bill: PPACA; Page: 2,397-2,399.



Taxes that took effect in 2011:

7. Medicine Cabinet Tax ($5 bil/Jan 2011): Americans no longer able to use health savings account (HSA), flexible spending account (FSA), or health reimbursement (HRA) pre-tax dollars to purchase non-prescription, over-the-counter medicines (except insulin). Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,957-1,959.


8. HSA Withdrawal Tax Hike ($1.4 bil/Jan 2011): Increases additional tax on non-medical early withdrawals from an HSA from 10 to 20 percent, disadvantaging them relative to IRAs and other tax-advantaged accounts, which remain at 10 percent. Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,959.



Taxes that took effect in 2012:

9. Employer Reporting of Insurance on W-2 (Min$/Jan 2012): Preamble to taxing health benefits on individual tax returns. Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,957.



Taxes that took effect in 2013:

10. Surtax on Investment Income ($123 billion/Jan. 2013): Creation of a new, 3.8 percent surtax on investment income earned in households making at least $250,000 ($200,000 single). This would result in the following top tax rates on investment income: Bill: Reconciliation Act; Page: 87-93.

 

Capital Gains

Dividends

Other*

2012

15%

15%

35%

2013+

23.8%

43.4%

43.4%


*Other unearned income includes (for surtax purposes) gross income from interest, annuities, royalties, net rents, and passive income in partnerships and Subchapter-S corporations. It does not include municipal bond interest or life insurance proceeds, since those do not add to gross income. It does not include active trade or business income, fair market value sales of ownership in pass-through entities, or distributions from retirement plans. The 3.8% surtax does not apply to non-resident aliens.

11. Hike in Medicare Payroll Tax ($86.8 bil/Jan 2013): Current law and changes:

 

First $200,000
($250,000 Married)
Employer/Employee

All Remaining Wages
Employer/Employee

Current Law

1.45%/1.45%
2.9% self-employed

1.45%/1.45%
2.9% self-employed

Obamacare Tax Hike

1.45%/1.45%
2.9% self-employed

1.45%/2.35%
3.8% self-employed



Bill: PPACA, Reconciliation Act; Page: 2000-2003; 87-93

12. Tax on Medical Device Manufacturers ($20 bil/Jan 2013): Medical device manufacturers employ 360,000 people in 6000 plants across the country. This law imposes a new 2.3% excise tax. Exempts items retailing for <$100. Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,980-1,986


13. Raise "Haircut" for Medical Itemized Deduction from 7.5% to 10% of AGI($15.2 bil/Jan 2013): Currently, those facing high medical expenses are allowed a deduction for medical expenses to the extent that those expenses exceed 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income (AGI). The new provision imposes a threshold of 10 percent of AGI. Waived for 65+ taxpayers in 2013-2016 only. Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,994-1,995

14. Flexible Spending Account Cap – aka “Special Needs Kids Tax” ($13 bil/Jan 2013): Imposes cap on FSAs of $2500 (now unlimited). Indexed to inflation after 2013. There is one group of FSA owners for whom this new cap will be particularly cruel and onerous: parents of special needs children. There are thousands of families with special needs children in the United States, and many of them use FSAs to pay for special needs education. Tuition rates at one leading school that teaches special needs children in Washington, D.C. (National Child Research Center) can easily exceed $14,000 per year. Under tax rules, FSA dollars can be used to pay for this type of special needs education. Bill: PPACA; Page: 2,388-2,389

15. Elimination of tax deduction for employer-provided retirement Rx drug coverage in coordination with Medicare Part D ($4.5 bil/Jan 2013) Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,994


16. $500,000 Annual Executive Compensation Limit for Health Insurance Executives ($0.6 bil/Jan 2013). Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,995-2,000



Taxes that take effect in 2014:

17. Individual Mandate Excise Tax (Jan 2014): Starting in 2014, anyone not buying “qualifying” health insurance must pay an income surtax according to the higher of the following

 

1 Adult

2 Adults

3+ Adults

2014

1% AGI/$95

1% AGI/$190

1% AGI/$285

2015

2% AGI/$325

2% AGI/$650

2% AGI/$975

2016 +

2.5% AGI/$695

2.5% AGI/$1390

2.5% AGI/$2085

 Exemptions for religious objectors, undocumented immigrants, prisoners, those earning less than the poverty line, members of Indian tribes, and hardship cases (determined by HHS).Bill: PPACA; Page: 317-337

18. Employer Mandate Tax (Jan 2014): If an employer does not offer health coverage, and at least one employee qualifies for a health tax credit, the employer must pay an additional non-deductible tax of $2000 for all full-time employees. Applies to all employers with 50 or more employees. If any employee actually receives coverage through the exchange, the penalty on the employer for that employee rises to $3000. If the employer requires a waiting period to enroll in coverage of 30-60 days, there is a $400 tax per employee ($600 if the period is 60 days or longer).Bill: PPACA; Page: 345-346

 Combined score of individual and employer mandate tax penalty: $65 billion/10 years

19. Tax on Health Insurers ($60.1 bil/Jan 2014): Annual tax on the industry imposed relative to health insurance premiums collected that year. Phases in gradually until 2018. Fully-imposed on firms with $50 million in profits. Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,986-1,993


Taxes that take effect in 2018:

20. Excise Tax on Comprehensive Health Insurance Plans ($32 bil/Jan 2018): Starting in 2018, new 40 percent excise tax on “Cadillac” health insurance plans ($10,200 single/$27,500 family). Higher threshold ($11,500 single/$29,450 family) for early retirees and high-risk professions. CPI +1 percentage point indexed. Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,941-1,956


This “tax” is under everyone’s radar. It has never been mentioned in the traditional mainstream media. It is the tax on Seniors who are on Medicare.

"The per person Medicare Insurance Premium will increase from the presentMonthly Fee of $96.40, rising to:

$104.20 in 2012



$120.20 in 2013





$247.00 in 2014."

All seniors are means tested. This means the greater your income from any source including work income, pension income, capital gains and interest or dividend income the higher the baseline premiums become.

This “tax” had been decided by a Democratic controlled congress that had not read the bill or understood all of its consequences.

These are provisions incorporated in the Obamacare legislation, purposely delayed so as not to anger seniors during President Obama’s 2012 Re-Election Campaign.

Please send this blog to everyone you know and their children. It is important for them to know that President Obama is throwing seniors under the bus.  Obamacare must be repealed.

Everyone must stay focused. President Obama is going to try to change the conversation and create a diversion to the facts.

Some of these taxes have already gone into effect. If the Republicans win the House and the Senate as well as the Presidency, Obamacare must be repealed.   

Everyone interested in America’s economic future must tell a friend to repeal these crippling taxes. President Obama has deceived Americans with Obamacare and its new taxes.  

It is time for everyone to get angry and give control of the House and Senate to the Republicans in November.

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

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Spinning The Truth

Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

President Obama and the Democrats are trying to spin the truth to win the congressional election in November 2014. The Democrats can lose the majority in the Senate in November because of Obamacare. Democrats in the Senate passed the bill. They own it.

Democrats hope to minimize the importance of Obamacare as a political issue by focusing on other topics in this November's midterm elections.

After weeks of trying everything they could to get Obamacare off the front page of even the traditional mainstream media, it took the Russian invasion of the Ukraine to accomplish the feat.

Democrats recognize that Obamacare is flawed. Democrats are promising to fix the flawed national health care plan they passed in 2010.

President Obama and the Democrats are trying to blame Obamacare’s problems  on the Republicans. They are appealing to voters who have been helped by the law to speak out.

Almost every day there is a prominent article in the traditional mainstream media reporting about people who have been helped by Obamacare.

President Obama has asked the Republicans to help fix Obamacare rather than criticize it. President Obama keeps saying “It is the law.” “Live with it and help us fix it.”

Mr. President, IT CANNOT BE FIXED.

In the meantime President Obama has changed the law 25 times by executive order because things have not worked out as he planned. There are questions about whether his executive orders are constitutional.

 I do not think the public will buy his trick plays this time around.  The Alinsky rule in “Rules For Radicals” of attacking your enemy with lies or half-truths is not going to work the way it worked in the Presidential elections of 2008 and 2012.

The consequences of Obamacare are not abstract anymore. They are personal.

Obamacare will be an issue in November 2014. The issue cannot be controlled by the Obama attempts at diversion. Obamacare as an issue in the November 2014 elections can only be controlled by Obamacare’s performance as law in the next 10 months.

Obamacare was destined to failure at the onset. Obamacare’s failures and burdens to this point have directly affected people who had not paid attention to the law’s details at passage.

President Obama has lost the trust of the people. The Democratic Party is not protecting the interest of the American people. The Democratic Party has also lost total credibility.

With each passing day the failures of Obamacare and its burdens to all Americans increase. It is time to examine the increased taxes that have occurred since the passage of Obamacare.

President Obama has just delayed implementation of Obamacare to 2016 to try to avoid discussion of its failures before the 2014 elections.

Obamacare’s changes have added to economic uncertainty in the country. Most insurers are trying to keep the higher costs hidden even though their premiums are increasing. President Obama promised to bail them out if they lose money.

 Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama, has decided to itemize the impact of Obamacare. It has added a separate line item to its premium call the "Affordable Care Act Fees and Taxes." 

“The new taxes on one customer’s bill added up to $23.14 a month, or $277.68 annually, according to Kaiser Health News. It boosted the monthly premium from $322.26 to $345.40 for that individual.”

The extra $23.14 per month per individual has increased premium cost by $1,100.72 a year for a family of four.

There are additional new taxes and fees levied on every health plan. There is also an additional $2 fee per policy that goes toward a new medical-research trust fund.

Americans will pay hidden taxes, such as the 2.3 percent medical-device tax that will inflate the cost of items such as pacemakers, stents and prosthetic limbs.

 There is another sneaky tax to those with high out-of-pocket medical expenses. They will get smaller income-tax deductions.

 The currently allowed deduction is for medical expenses that exceed 7.5 percent of their annual income. The threshold jumps to 10 percent under Obamacare.

This hidden tax affects both the rich and the middle class.  

President Obama’s statement “no new taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year” was a lie.

Historically, raising taxes has been shown to decrease economic growth.

Democrats belittle Republicans and conservatives by saying all they know how to do is decrease taxes.

The American public is angry about President Obama’s deceptions about Obamacare. He cannot blame the impending failure on the Republicans and get away with it.

Explaining Obamacare In One (1) Sentence

 

)  

 http://youtu.be/mZbFrAAV3-o

Democrats have the tax and spend reputation. Big government and increasing bureaucracy has come to mean inefficient execution.

More government cannot fix Obamacare. Americans have learned their lesson.

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

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Healthcare Needs Some Big Time Disintermediation

Stanley Feld M.D., FACP, MACE

What is disintermediation?

Disintermediation is a process that provides a user or end consumer with direct access to a product, service or information that would otherwise require a mediator (middleman) such as a wholesaler, lawyer or salesperson.

In many cases the information available on the Internet has often eliminated the need for a middleman.

As commerce grew in the United States after WWII, there was a need for multiple middlemen to fulfill each commercial endeavor.

One of the strongest examples of early Internet disintermediation was Dell Computers. Consumers were able built custom computers by picking the components. They bought exactly what they wanted at a lower price. Michal Dell sold directly to the consumer and bypassed all the middlemen channels and normal retail outlets.

Amazon is another compelling example. It started with books and now includes almost everything. Amazon bypasses most of the channels and all of the expense of brick and mortar structures to lower the cost to the consumer.

Steve Jobs did it best with ITunes. Most people did not want the16 tunes on a CD. They might want one or two. Music publishers and all the middlemen in that industry fought him tooth and nail.

Steve Jobs won because he provided the consumer with what they wanted, the one song at 99 cents as opposed to 16 songs at $16 dollars.

The music publishing companies have now realized that they are doing better since ITunes with less middlemen and more product sales.

My son, Brad Feld, is going to disintermediate the book publishers. Brad authored 5 books for Wiley Press as part of the Start Up Revolution. Wiley Press and its bureaucracy treat him and other authors unfairly.

He and his partners at Foundry Group Venture Capital started FG Press.

“We treat authors like partners, not service providers. Instead of flat fees and unequal royalty assignments, we abandoned the old model and rebuilt it with the author as our top priority.”

I believe the FG Press results will be to disintermediate the entire book publishing industry.

Disintermediation though the Internet also happened in the travel industry, the airline industry, the stock broker industry and the banking industry.

Disintermediation cuts out the middleman.

By using the Internet, companies and even manufacturers can deal directly with users or end consumers, which is a significant factor in decreasing the cost of servicing customers. The high market transparency often enables the buyers to pay less as they deal directly with the manufacturer, bypassing the wholesaler and the retailer. As another alternative, buyers can also buy directly from wholesalers.”

There is no reason disintermediation cannot be applied to healthcare. The goal in healthcare is to lower the cost, increase quality of care and increase access to care.

The way to do it is by making consumers the most important stakeholder. Consumers must drive the healthcare system just as consumers are put at the head of the line in other disintermediated systems that work.

I have described the evolution of the healthcare business model of 1946 to the business model of 2014 and beyond.

In 1946 the healthcare business model was simple. The healthcare contract was between consumers/patients and physicians.

  1946 business model

 

Consumers were responsible for their medical care. The only technology was physicians’ car his stethoscope and his doctors bag. Consumers were also cautious in their utilization of healthcare services. They did not want to waste their money. They were responsible for their health and their healthcare dollars.

Healthcare insurance destroyed this relationship. Healthcare insurance was attractive to sick people. It was attractive to employers to help their employees stay well. It also helped employer keep their valuable labor force.

Consumers became less cautious about spending their healthcare dollars as third parties were paying for healthcare costs.  

The use of technology boomed in medicine. The cost of healthcare escalated as more and more technology was used.

 In 1965 the government created Medicare. Medicare regulations distorted the free market healthcare system. The distortion increased further in the early 1980s.

 All of a sudden there were more and more middlemen. The middlemen added little value to the medical care of consumers/patients. However they did add increased costs to the healthcare system.

In 2008 the healthcare system became so complex and riddled with rules and regulations that enormous barriers existed between the consumers/patients and their physicians.

2012 busniss model
 

 

It looks like a giant hairball that cannot be digested.

Obamacare was invented to use technology and ideology to straighten this all out. It has made and is making healthcare more unsustainable.

Obamacare cannot work. It is government control. The majority of consumers and physicians are against it.

Obamacare destroys the patient physician relationship. Obamacare has resulted in more bureaucracy, large overhead, more middlemen and an increase in costs to the consumers in terms of higher taxes and higher healthcare insurance premiums. 

The major problems are there are too many middlemen and the bureaucracy is superimposed on a failed legacy healthcare system.

The healthcare insurance industry takes 40% off the top leaving 60% of the premium dollars working for the delivery of medical care.

Hospitals charges are outrageous. Hospital expenses are inflated.

The need for cost shifting puts a large burden on hospital systems.  

Government interference simply escalates costs.

An example is the cost of chemotherapy. In hospital chemotherapy cost is 2 to 3 time the cost of the chemotherapy done by the same doctor in that doctor’s office. The government does not pay for chemotherapy in the doctor’s office.

An example of disintermediation in the healthcare system is the Oklahoma Surgery Center.

The Oklahoma Surgery Center demonstrates that it’s possible to offer high quality care at low prices. Surgeons can do twice as many surgeries in an outpatient surgery center than they can in a traditional hospital surgical suite.

Most industries try to improve efficiency. However, simple efficiencies have not occurred in most traditional hospitals. Surgeons spend half their time waiting for the patients to come to the operating room or for the availability of operating rooms and equipment.

The Surgery centers have solved these efficiency problems. They can service surgeons’ needs at less than half the cost without the wasted time.”

A key reason is there are not multiple administrators creating multiple regulations and collecting multiple $500,000 to $3 million dollar a year salaries. Surgical centers have one head nurse responsible for everything and zero administrators.

The cost of a “complex bilateral sinus procedure” at the Surgery Center was an all-inclusive $5,885. The traditional hospital bill totaled $33,505 without the surgeon’s and anesthesiologist’s bill included.”

Hospital systems in the area are lowering their prices and becoming more transparent.

Obamacare has made the healthcare insurance costs worse for the middle class. The middle class healthcare insurance premiums are not subsidized by the government.

Obamacare has made the premium cost better for the poor and sick. It has not necessarily lowered the deductible. It has not made access to care better for the poor.

Obamacare may make quality of care worse. It will restrict access to care. It will ration care. Obamacare will make medical care decisions for consumers.

The only way to repair the healthcare system is to make it a consumer driven healthcare system using my ideal medical saving accounts.

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

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Another Day, Another Unconstitutional Change

Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

The Obamacare’s new mandate delays are a bid to save Senate Democrats from losing their election in 2014.The mandate delays are also a bid to save Obamacare’s health insurance exchange.   

It is strange that no one has noticed that the taxes resulting from Obamacare have not been waived.

An additional insider leaked delay in the law is coming up in the next few days. The hope of this next delay is to keep Obamacare off the minds of the voters in November 2014.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has steered the subject away from Obamacare in the news. 

President Obama has continued to spin Obamacare positively.

President Obama predicted at the House Democratic retreat on Friday that "10 years from now, five years from now" people will look back on the Affordable Care Act as "a monumental achievement."

Unfortunately Obamacare has so many defects that it continually reminds the American people it is a disaster.

The laws mandate requires businesses with the equivalent of 50 full-time employees based on a 30-hour work week to cover 100% of their workers or else pay a fine, starting Jan. 1, 2014.

The unconstitutional change is to push the deadline to 2016. President Obama also changed the definition of the category. The new category is a business with 100 or less people rather than 50 people working in the business. 

Businesses with more than 100 people employed full time will have to cover only 70% of their workers as opposed to 100% of their workers.

I think this will continue to prevent businesses from expanding and dampen the creation of jobs. Business does not trust President Obama anymore.

The only way for President Obama to alleviate labor market uncertainty would be to ask Congress to repeal the mandate permanently.

I am waiting for someone to challenge these ad hoc changes to Obamacare on constitutional grounds. No one has the guts in this election year.

I think healthcare insurance cancellations will still occur before the November 2014 elections.

Insurance companies are permitted to charge for Obamacare’s costly gold-plated "essential benefits" that all plans will have to cover. Insurance premiums will be unaffordable. The elimination of these essential benefits would reduce the cost for small business coverage.

We get it. President Obama does everything for his political benefit. He has created a political alibi of claiming to exempt some businesses so he can shift the blame to the insurers when the cancellations begin.

 The public will remember that he created the insurance burden and had also permitted the healthcare insurance industry to raise the price of premiums.

The mandate delays can also serve as another President Obama trick play. As small business employers drop coverage of their employees more employees will sign up for Obamacare health insurance exchange coverage.

 He might be surprised as more and more healthy people opt out of the insurance market to be self-insured.

The Obama administration is doing its best to eliminate high deductible insurance plans. However hospital systems are exempt from the Obama administration restrictions on high deductible plans.  They are adopting these plans in order to  gain advantage over their local competitors.

Obamacare enrollment has been abysmal through February. The administration has been very quite about the actual numbers as both Dick Durbin and President Obama are announcing that10 million have signed up. 

My guest is they will be lucky if 3 million have signed up and gotten insurance coverage. All of these probably have preexisting conditions and are at high risk for high cost.

This number is far below the 6.6 million people who have lost insurance in the individual market so far because of Obamacare.

The more lies we are told the more credibility and trust is lost and the less cooperation will be forthcoming.

America is waking up.

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

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Why Is Obamacare A Mess?

Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

Obamacare is a mess because the architects of Obamacare created a system that does not align all the stakeholders’ incentives.

Pre Obamacare we had a dysfunctional healthcare system because no one developed a system to improve the care of patients. When a consumer of medical care got sick he received very good treatment or the illness.

Consumers were not taught how to avoid illness. If consumers of medical care had a chronic disease they were not taught how to self-manage their chronic disease.

Medical care in the healthcare system became too expensive for employers to pay for. Consumers were the recipients of this largess. They had no responsibility or incentive for controlling their healthcare cost.

The healthcare system became more expensive because all the stakeholders except consumers tried to maximize their profit at the expense of each other.

President Obama promised to transform the healthcare system. Initially Tom Daschle was his chief. He wrote a book about healthcare after he was defeated in his bid for the Senate.

Any physician who practiced medicine knew that Tom Daschle’s ideas could not work. He had some good ideas to make healthcare delivery more efficient. The ideas were presented in an impractical way. He did not know who the customer was.

Dr. Donald Berwick was next. He tried to extend and implement some of Tom Daschle’s ideas with his own ideas.

Dr. Berwick was the co-founder the IHI (Institute for Healthcare Improvement).

Dr. Berwick has some excellent ideas. The ideas are an adaptation from the Institute of Medicine's six improvement aims for the health care system: care that is safe, effective, patient-centered, timely, efficient, and equitable.

The Institute of Medicine’s report “ Crossing The Quality Chasm” points out how to develop a new healthcare system for the 21st Century utilizing 21st century technology.

The problem is Dr. Berwick’s ideology is defective. His famous quote, “the very definition of a equitable healthcare system is the redistribution of wealth”  does not sit well with the American psyche.

There has never been a system of successful redistribution of wealth system.

Most people have experienced the deadening effect of bureaucratic systems on innovation. This is what we are experiencing right now with the Obamacare rollout.

People still cannot sign up. People are still spending hours on the telephone and not getting insurance. These are not glitches. These are system disasters.

I have long thought President Obama wants to destroy the present healthcare system so that the masses will demand a single party payer healthcare system with the government in control. Such a system will not be any different than Obamacare.

The government will still be dependent on consumers of healthcare, physicians, pharmaceutical companies, device companies and most of all insurance companies.

Insurance companies will still do the administrative services for the government at a very high price.

Obamacare has not even gotten to the problems it is going to have with the delivery of care, the access to care and the rationing of care. 

Obamacare’s business model is defective. It will be impossible to utilize the advances in technology under a system of increased government bureaucratic control.

I have previously presented a new business model. It’s possible it has not caught on for several reasons.  

1. My business model could have been presented too early in the course of  Obamacare’s demise.  

2. My business model is not politically correct.

3. My business model challenges legacy stakeholders. They do not want to give up any power.

 Legacy stakeholders are having a horrible time figuring out how to make a living under the evolving Obamacare system. Maybe by that adopting my new business model, one that aligns everyone’s incentive costs will decrease and profits for everyone will increase.

4. The presentation of my new business model could have been too complicated.

Over the next several months I am going to present my new business model.

This business model aligns all the stakeholders’ incentives except the government takeover of the healthcare system.

The government’s role should be that of a facilitator and not the director of the healthcare system.

I hope it will start making sense to people who can and want to do something to improve the healthcare system.

It will make life better for everyone.

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

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Why Use Facts and Logic?

 Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

 I have previously 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 the most pain.

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 immediately by the uproar about its 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 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 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.

 

 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.

 

Both were lies. It doesn’t seem 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 henchmen at the New York Times. Paul Krugman is the chief henchman.

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!

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

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“What’s So Great About America?”

Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

Last week a reader sent me the link for the full debate between Dinesh D’Souza and Bill Ayers at Dartmouth College on January 30 2014.

Dinesh D’Souza wrote, directed and produced 2016:Obama’s America in 2012’

 It is based on D'Souza's book The Roots of Obama's Rage (2010). Through interviews and reenactments, the film compares the similarities of the lives of D'Souza and President Barack Obama as D'Souza presents his theory of how early influences on Obama are affecting the decisions he makes as president. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinesh_D%27Souza

 

The film has grossed over $33.45 million in the United States, making it the fourth highest-grossing documentary (domestically) since 1982.

Those who didn’t see documentary can see it here for free.

https://archive.org/details/ObamaBiography

Recently Dinesh D’Souza has been the subject of a recent IRS probe.

I had read about the debate but never had the time to listen to Bill Ayers.   Bill Ayers is an American elementary education theorist and a former leader in the counterculture movement that opposed U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.

He is known for his 1960s radical activism as well as his current work in education reform, curriculum, and instruction. In 1969 he co-founded the Weather Underground, a self-described communist revolutionary group that conducted a campaign of bombing public buildings (including police stations, the U.S. Capitol Building, and the Pentagon) during the 1960s and 1970s in response to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.

He is a retired professor in the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. President Obama worked with and for in the 1980s and 1990s as a community organizer. 

 A reader sent me a link to the debate last week and I watched it. It is a worthwhile use of your time.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2014/01/30/full_debate_dinesh_dsouza_vs_bill_ayers_at_dartmouth_college.html

Obamacare cannot work improve the healthcare system. After listening to Bill Ayers and rereading Saul Alinsky’s thoughts on how to create a socialist state President Obama’s only goal is to control healthcare. If you control healthcare you control the people.   

 According to Saul Alinsky there are 8 levels of control that must be obtained before you are able to create a socialist state.

"The first is the most important.

1) Healthcare — Control healthcare and you control the people

2) Poverty — Increase the Poverty level as high as possible, poor people are easier to control and will not fight back if you are providing everything for them to live.

3) Debt — Increase the debt to an unsustainable level. That way you are able to increase taxes, and this will produce more poverty.

4) Gun Control — Remove the ability to defend themselves from the Government. That way you are able to create a police state.

5) Welfare — Take control of every aspect of their lives (Food, Housing, and Income).

6) Education — Take control of what people read and listen to — take control of what children learn in school.

7) Religion — Remove the belief in the God from the Government and schools.

8) Class Warfare — Divide the people into the wealthy and the poor. This will cause more discontent and it will be easier to take (Tax) the wealthy with the support of the poor.'

 

Read more at http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/alinsky.asp#RGukF0aROOEmmdSO.99

 President Obama is using these tactics to control our country and drive it into being a socialist state.

President Obama combines these tactics with Alinsky’s rules for radicals.

Alinsky’s third rule is: “Wherever possible go outside the experience of the enemy.” Here you want to cause confusion, fear, and retreat. He did this to Mitt Romney during his re-elections. Mitt Romney’s people did not know how to handle it. 

The fourth rule is: “Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules. “ You are free to act as you wish.

You can kill your opponent with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.

The fifth rule: “Ridicule is man's most potent weapon.” It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage.

How many times have we seen the President and Vice-President try to ridicule their opponents? They use this rule often in domestic policy but are afraid to use it in foreign policy.

The eighth rule: “Keep the pressure on, “with different tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose.

Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”  Doesn’t this sound familiar?

The ninth rule: The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.

 The eleventh rule : If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counterside; this is based on the principle that every positive has its negative.

The twelfth rule: The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative. You cannot risk being trapped by the enemy in his sudden agreement with your demand and saying "You're right — we don't know what to do about this issue. Now you tell us."

 If one studies the lies President Obama has told the public he has gotten trapped by his own pressure on his opponents and could not escape or change the subject.

I will have the most transparent administration in history.  It is not transparent at all.

TARP is to fund shovel-ready jobs. He finally had to admit the jobs were not shovel ready.

I am focused like a laser on creating jobs. Each month job growth was less which is the goal of a socialist society.

The IRS is not targeting anyone. Each cover up statement makes the lie worse.

If you like your healthcare plan, you can keep your healthcare plan, period. This was never the intent.

Benghazi was a spontaneous riot about a movie. Something very bad went wrong here.

If I had a son… T Martin. Stirring racism. It was a mistake.

I will put an end to the type of politics that "breeds division, conflict and cynicism". This was never the intention.

You didn't build that! This was an attempt to make Americans uncertain about their achievement and way of life. It failed and President Obama’s credibility shrank even further.

I will restore trust in Government. All the obvious deception during President Obama’s times President Obama contradicts this statement.

However a good offense is many times the best defense. He tried but failed. Attacking FOX News is was not a good strategy as his credibility waned.

The public will have 5 days to look at every bill that lands on my desk. He never kept his word.

It's not my red line — it is the world's red line. You cannot step away from your commitments when people are depending on you.

Whistle blowers will be protected in my administration. This is another lie and empty promise.

We got back every dime we used to rescue the banks and auto companies, with interest. This is an outright lie. He could not control the auditors. 

I am not spying on American citizens. This is a beauty!

ObamaCare will be good for America. It has been very bad for America. It is going to get worse because Americans do not trust President Obama anymore.

Premiums will be lowered by $2500. Premiums have increased and taxes have been increasing. It has cost Americans much more that the $2,500 they were suppose to save.

People making less than $250,000 a year will not pay one dime more in taxes. This is totally untrue as the middle class is learning..

If you like it, you can keep your current healthcare plan Lie of the year.

It's just like shopping at Amazon. President Obama should have tried himself. I did it and it was tedious. If Amazon was like it I would never use it.

I knew nothing about "Fast and Furious" gunrunning to Mexican drug cartels. You should have known everything. You are President. If you didn’t know about Fast and Furious you were not doing your job.

I knew nothing about IRS targeting conservative groups. You should know everything about IRS targeting. Who would make that decision.

I knew nothing about what happened in Benghazi. You should know everything about Benghazi. It was reported to you instantaneously acoording to you own defense department. None of this is very transparent.

 "I, Barrack Hussein Obama, pledge to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America."

In the light of Bill Ayers philosophy and in light of President Obama’s attacks on the constitution and the Bill of Rights, one could question if President Obama meant his pledge to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America.

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

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As President I Can Do Anything I Want To Do

Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

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

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

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

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

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

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

  

http://youtu.be/UBZIM0ZFiYU

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

  

 

http://youtu.be/yiOmwayoSrw

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

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

The Obama administration is now dowplaying his executive orders  significance.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

   

http://youtu.be/9FgFUOGFpnk

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

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

 Wake up America!

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

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