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The Republican Establishment’s Failure

July 20, 2017

inChronic Disese Management, Consumer Driven Health Care, Medicaid, Medicine: Healthcare System

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Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP, MACE

I am coming to the conclusion that the Republican establishment does not want to Repair the Healthcare System.

The Republican establishment has the same goal as the Democratic establishment.

Recently the mainstream media is saying that a single party payer system is looking good.

Neither party has any interest is having consumers control their healthcare dollars. It looks as if both parties want the government to control the consumer’s healthcare dollars.

All the politicians ignore the fact that government control is unaffordable. It also ends up not working.

The best example is the bureaucratic VA Hospital System and its system wide corruption.

A reader wrote:

“I have read your last blog post carefully and agree with many of the points put forward but there is a glaring omission.”

“How are patients supposed to be responsible for their healthcare dollars when there is absolutely no transparency and no consistency in pricing.”

The lack of transparency is a major defect in our present healthcare system.

Only 20% of consumers use the healthcare system at any one time. Eighty percent of the consumers have not run into the lack of transparency problem in the healthcare system.

Most consumers do not care about transparency because they have first dollar coverage provided by their employer. They think their medical care is free. They believe they have excellent healthcare insurance.

President Obama took care of that notion with Obamacare. The defective structure of Obamacare caused healthcare insurance premiums and deductibles to skyrocket. First dollar healthcare insurance became too expensive for most employers.

Employers stopped providing first dollar coverage. Middle class employees are now noticing that out of pocket expenses have made their healthcare insurance unaffordable. Consumers have tried to compare prices of competitive providers. They have discovered that it is impossible!

Consumers are becoming aware of the lack of transparency. They have been astonished by this lack of transparency.

There is nothing in the new Republican bill that addresses Republican politicians’ awareness that the lack of transparency is a major defect in the healthcare system.

The lack of transparency is only one of the major defects in our healthcare system.

There is nothing in the Republican bill that speaks to the consumers’ responsibility for their health and healthcare dollars. Consumer driven healthcare is completely ignored.

There is nothing in the bill that addresses effective tort reform. The Massachusetts Medical Society survey showed that defensive testing to avoid lawsuits costs the healthcare system between $250 billion to $700 billion dollars a year.

The lack of the development of systems of care for chronic diseases cost another $700 billion dollars a year that our healthcare system does not address. There is nothing in the bill that emphasizes this very important defect in the healthcare system.

The Republican establishment thinks consumers are too stupid to take care of themselves.

The mainstream media likes to tell us that people love entitlements. The public does not want to give up these entitlements.

My question is how come less than 9 million people signed up for Obamacare’s individual healthcare plans last year if they love entitlements?

It is because they cannot afford to buy the health exchange insurance even though 85% of the premiums of those 9 million consumers are subsided by the government. Their high deductibles are not subsidized.

The Republicans are going claim they are promoting health savings accounts. The public is not told the amount of money they can put into a health savings account or whether it will provide first dollar coverage over that amount if they get sick.

There is no financial incentive for consumers to be responsible for their healthcare or their healthcare dollars.

My Ideal Medical Saving Account is a much better idea.

These are only a few of the major defects in the Republican establishment’s concept to fix the healthcare system.

President Obama did some of the awful things to Obamacare through rules and regulations after certain vested interests complained about the law. Obamacare’s rules and regulations have to be eliminated

There were crony waivers that would make one’s blood boil. In fact, elected congressional members got the best exemptions.

It is becoming apparent that congress doesn’t want to fix the healthcare system for the majority of Americans. The congressional establishment wants to control consumers.

Socialism does not work!

Our political establishment does not tell us about the economic result in other countrys’ single party payer universal healthcare systems.

We don’t have to go to other countries. We only have to go to the indigent areas in California were everyone is covered by Medicaid.

The Republican establishment needs to get off the stick before all of them are kicked out of congress.

Just imagine the healthcare systems savings if every consumer were empowered to shop for the best healthcare at the best price.

The result would be a free market healthcare system in which competition would cleanse the system and make it affordable to everyone.

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

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It Looks Like The Dice Are Loaded

June 7, 2017

inPoliticians,Healthcare and Vested Interests, Stakeholder Abuse of the Healthcare System, Stakeholder Mistrust

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Stanley Feld M.D., FACP, MACE

Everyone is probably familiar with Leonard Cohen’s song “Everybody Knows.” If you are not you should read the words and /or listen to it.

https://www.google.com/#q=leonard+cohen+song+everybody+knows

The first paragraph says it all.

“Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows”

Leonard Cohen nailed it.

That is what is going on with the repeal and replacement of Obamacare in the congress.

“Everybody knows” the Republicans have shown little enthusiasm in repealing and replacing Obamacare. House Republicans barely got it passed. They had seven years to develop a replacement plan.

I think Republicans do not want replace Obamacare. They have used repeal and replace as a calling card to get a majority in both the house and the senate.

It looks like the American public has been used as a pawn for Republican to gain control of congress.

The Republicans talked a good game for the seven years that Obamacare has been the law of the land.

Obamacare has been a disaster. The majority of people have seen large increases in their healthcare insurance premiums and deductibles along with poor access to care.

Obamacare has cost our treasury trillions of dollars because of it poor business model design and mismanagement.

Obamacare claims it has provided healthcare coverage for twenty million Americans. It is not true. Thirteen million of those twenty million have been added to the enrollees in Medicaid.

Medicaid is a single party payer system that does not provide effective insurance coverage. It does not provide easy access to care in most parts of the country. There is also built in rationing of care.

“Everybody knows”

The healthcare insurance industry insurers are dropping out of Obamacare’s health insurance exchanges. Almost all the state insurance exchanges have gone bankrupt and are out of business.

Americans heard over and over again from Republicans that Obamacare is going to die from it own weight. It is true.

There will continue to be insurance to coverage for the nine million insured with preexisting illness. The government mostly subsidizes these nine million patients. However they have unaffordable deductibles.

“Everybody knows that the dice are loaded.”

This week both Mitch McConnell and other Republican senators were publicly pessimistic about their prospects of repealing and replacing Obamacare this year.

“Senate Republicans remain publicly pessimistic about their prospects of repealing and replacing Obamacare this year with several raising concerns this week about the party’s central campaign promise even as one of their leaders vowed to pass such a bill this summer.”

The fix is in. The dice are loaded! Everybody knows.

Russ Limbaugh blew his top when he heard this.

“Rush Limbaugh said during his show that Republicans are road blocking the President’s agenda to a greater extent than Democrats are.

Limbaugh specifically pointed to remarks by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), specifically about the Obamacare repeal bill.

Check it out:”

“I don’t understand how people don’t get that it’s not just the Democrats in Washington that are road blocking Trump. I mentioned it earlier.”

“Mitch McConnell says he can’t see a way to getting 50 votes for the House Obamacare repeal bill?

Now, stop and think here, folks. Back when the only element that we had was the House of Representatives and Republican voters were constantly saying, “Why aren’t you doing more to stop Obama? Why aren’t you trying to do something to stop Obamacare?”

The answer was always, “Well, all we’ve got is the House. W-w-we can’t get anything through the Senate because the Democrats own the Senate. Obama’s in the White House! He’ll veto anything if it did make it there.”

Limbaugh continued that prior to this year, “Republicans always blamed failed policy attempts on a lack of majority in the Senate.

“Then, when we won the Senate, they blamed failed agendas on President Obama.”

“So we’ve given Washington a Republican House, Republican Senate, and a Republican president in the White House, and it still feels as though nothing is getting done.”

How come?

“It’s the Republicans standing up and saying, “I just don’t see how we’re — there’s no room here.

“ I don’t know how we’re goanna lower rates when you have this exemption over here and you have this exemption there.”

Mitch McConnell is giving hollow excuses. The Republican establishment’s motives and method are becoming very transparent.

Everybody knows the dice are loaded.

Rush Limbaugh continues,

“ And I just read this stuff and I shake my head. They don’t want to cut taxes.

Either they don’t want to cut taxes institutionally, they don’t want to cut taxes economically, or they just don’t want to do the heavy lifting.”

The Republican and Democratic establishment has built a very successful swamp for themselves. It is both socially and economically rewarding. It is a strong powerbase that neither is willing to relinquish.

“ I don’t know what it is. My guess is they don’t want to help Trump.”

President Trump has pledged to drain the swamp. He has pledged to put power back into the hands of the people. He represents a real threat to the power the establishment in both parties has over the people and their freedoms.

Neither party anticipated his victory and neither party understands his popularity. The Democrats are trying to hobble him directly with fake scandals. The mainstream media are trying to hobble him with fake news.

“They just don’t see how they can do it,” Limbaugh said, remarking how especially incredible it is:”

Because, of course, there’s a way.

They just don’t want to do it.

I think it’s all establishment, all the time anti-Trump, throw the media in there as well.

But even in the middle of this I can tell you almost assuredly that Trump is not off his game. He’s not despondent. He’s not sitting there worried about why all these people hate him.

He’s not worried about all that. He’s just head down and moving ahead full speed as he can…

Rush Limbaugh should not be confused. Republicans are defending the swamp they built. These guys are not going to let President Trump disrupt the powerbase that is in the swamp.

While the Republican establishment is stonewalling President Trump, the Democratic establishment is rolling out a single party payer option again. The Democratic establishment is going to try to sneak it in.

The Democrats argue that it is obvious the Republican establishment does not have a plan. The Democrats proclaim they have a replacement for Obamacare. They claim that a single party payer is easy to understand. Their proclamation is, “Doesn’t Medicare work for seniors?”

“At rallies and in town hall meetings, and in a collection of blue-state legislatures, liberal Democrats have pressed lawmakers, with growing impatience, to support the creation of a single-payer system, in which the state or federal government would supplant private health insurance with a program of public coverage

Medicare does work for seniors. The problem is the premiums and co-payment is becoming higher each year. Supplemental insurance increases each year. Healthcare insurance coverage for seniors is unaffordable to many.

Medicare is also unsustainable for the federal government. The premiums do not cover the costs of coverage.

The Democrat-controlled California State Senate approved a preliminary plan for enacting single-payer system.

This is a joke. California has a huge budget deficit presently. Where are they going to pay for its proposal?

When are Democrats going to realize the importance of fiscal responsibility?

They don’t now. The expansion of Obamacare to a Medicare model is unsustainable and will bankrupt the state.

This kind of thinking by liberals and Democrats is not going to repair the healthcare system. It will result in collapse of the healthcare system as politicians try to increase their power over the people.

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

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Pre-Election Obama Administration Lies

October 30, 2016

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

The Obama administration is out in force telling pre-election lies so that the Democrat’s base that loves entitlements stays calm.

New data from Joint Commission on Taxation led the TPC to cut the number of people paying federal income taxes by 3.9 million. In total, 77.5 million individuals and married couples — or tax units. as they are defined by the TPC — won’t pay income tax this year out of a total of 171.3 million. The previous estimate was for 66.2 million out of 163.8 million tax units not paying income tax in 2015.

In 2015, this represented 45.2% of the taxpayer units. In 2013, 40.4% of taxpayer units paid no taxes. With the influx of illegal immigrants paying no taxes the percentage of non taxpaying units will increase.

The illegal immigrants will receive Medicaid and other entitlements.

Hillary Clinton has pledged to increase illegal immigration with open borders and increase Medicaid enrollment.

Taxes will have to be increased. The middle class will be crushed. Hillary Clinton will hide some of these taxes as President Obama has done for Obamacare..

President Obama is trying desperately to save Obamacare from self-destruction.

I have recently reviewed the phony enrollment figures for 2014, 2015 and 2016 published by the Obama administration. There has not been a significant increase in enrollment in the last three years.

The claim that there are 20 million enrollees as a result of Obamacare is not even a half-truth. There are only 10 million enrollees from the Health Insurance Exchanges.

The failed Medicaid entitlement program has an added 10 million enrollees and insufficient physician coverage.

The first pre-election day lie was HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell telling a group that the 2017 Open Enrollment period was going to sign up an additional 1 million enrollees. She said the Federal Health Insurance Exchange marketplace was strong.

“The Marketplace is strong – and will continue to be strong – because it is offering a product people want and need.

This year, we know the Marketplace is strong, but we think it will grow even more.”

“As we look to this next open enrollment period, we project that the Marketplace will grow by another million people. By the end of open enrollment for 2017, we expect 13.8 million people to have selected a plan.”

Obamacare enrollment through the Health Insurance Exchanges was supposed to grow to 21 million last year according to the CBO estimate. At best, 11 million people are enrolled not 12.8 as claimed. Eighty-five percent of the enrollees receive subsidies.

President Obama’s goal is to have a single party payer in control, namely the government.

Secretary Burwell goes on to conclude;

“In closing, as the President said during the debate over the law, “we did not come to fear the future. We came here to shape it.”

It looks like President Obama is shaping the future in a way Americans did not anticipate or want.

The next big pre-election lie was President Obama’s lie admitting that Health Insurance Exchange premiums will go up 22% in 2017. He also said that the government would cover the premium increases for those receiving subsidies.

He did not discuss the government’s position on the increases in deductibles. Is President Obama also covering the deductible increases?

Where is President Obama getting the money? I think the money for the increased subsidies was built into the budget by telling the CBO that there were supposed to be 21 million enrollees in the Federal Health Insurance Exchanges. Only 10 million enrollees showed up.

The reason for these continuing lies is to calm the public. President Obama and Hillary Clinton want us to believe that Obamacare is good and is working well.

The obvious message of these lies is that the public should vote for Hillary Clinton to continue this good work.

https://youtu.be/ziVfvWO8oUE

This You Tube is an excellent summary of all the lies President Obama and the Obama administration have told the America public since the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) was passed.

It is worth ten minutes of your time to review this deception.

This week he tried to dodge the responsibility for the Health Insurance Exchanges demise and also claimed he should not be blamed for the rise in premiums in the private group insurance market.

Of these major cities, the places with the largest increases in the unsubsidized second-lowest silver plan were Phoenix, AZ (up 145% from $207 to $507 per month for a 40-year-old non-smoker),

Three hundred dollars a month or $3,600 dollars a year is a lot of money for a person making between $40,000 and $50,000 per year.

The premium increases in Birmingham, AL (up 71% from $288 to $492) and Oklahoma City, OK (up 67% from $295 to $493).

“ Meanwhile, unsubsidized premiums for the second-lowest silver premiums will decrease in Indianapolis, IN (down -4% from $298 to $286 for a 40-year-old non-smoker), Cleveland, OH (down -2% from $234 to $229), and Providence, RI (down -1% from $263 to $261) and increase just 1% in Little Rock, AR (from $310 to $314).”

In many states there isn’t any competition in healthcare insurance for consumers business.

“Marketplace insurer participation in states using Healthcare.gov in 2017 ranges from 1 company in Alabama, Alaska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Wyoming, to 15 companies in Wisconsin.”

Hillary Clinton bragged that healthcare reform was called Hillarycare long before it was called Obamacare.

I would not be very proud of that statement, if I were her.

I do not believe the American public is not going to be fooled again by progressive rhetoric and lies.

Obamacare is a disaster. I have described the disaster and its potential consequences for since its passage in 2010.

It has caused both the public and private healthcare markets to escalate insurance premiums to unaffordable levels for all Americans. The cost to the federal government is unsustainable.

The present awareness of the Obamacare disaster is the straw that is going to break the back of Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

All Americans deserve a better healthcare system than Obamacare.

My ideal medical saving account is the solution to the healthcare problem.

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

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Public Option: Another Catch 22

September 21, 2016

inDisinformation and the healthcare system, Medicine: Healthcare System

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Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

Obamacare is in crisis. The public does not realize it because the media is keeping the impending disaster out of the public’s view.

The Obama administration and media is also shielding the public from the past history of Obamacare and its failures at each step.

At this moment, the Obama administration, the traditional mass media and Hillary Clinton think the magic bullet to save Obamacare is a “Public Option.”

All progressives are obsessed with the idea that a single party payer system will magically convert Obamacare into an affordable healthcare system. They also think the Public Option is a direct route to a single party payer system.

https://youtu.be/f3BS4C9el98

It is unfortunate that the progressives’ base believes a single party payer system is the answer to our dysfunction healthcare system despite the failures experienced in Vermont, New Hampshire, Canada and England.

My wife and I were touring the Canadian Rockies a few weeks ago with a tour group.

I got into a discussion with a couple of lawyers on the tour about the healthcare system.

I told them Canada spends 50% of its GNP on healthcare. All of the provinces are experiencing massive deficits.

Canadians who are healthy and do not need to interact with the system are happy and feel secure that their healthcare needs will be serviced without cost. Nothing is free.

Canadians who need the healthcare system are unhappy. They experience long waits and poor service.

The lawyers’ immediate reaction was healthcare consuming 50% of Canada’s gross national product was impossible.

The United States consumes only 18.5% of our GDP on healthcare.

They checked their IPhones. Their iPhones said Canada only spends 11.4% of their GNP on healthcare. They clearly did not believe me.

I told them to read my blog and the Frazer Report.

The Washington Post published: in 2009, Canada spent 11.4 percent of its Gross Domestic Product on health care, which puts it on the slightly higher end of OECD countries:

This is not true according to the Fraser report.

“Six of ten Canadian provinces are on track to spend half of their revenues on health care, according to the Frazer Institute. To be specific,

“By 2017, four more provinces — Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia and New Brunswick — will spend half of their revenues on health care, according to the institute.”

I decided to reinvestigate the discrepancy between the two numbers when I got home.

Why would the Washington Post publish one number (11.4 percent of its Gross Domestic Product on healthcare) and the Fraser Report publish a 50% number?

In 2012, I figured the Washington Post just got it wrong. The reporter probably copied a number from some report that did not include all the funding for healthcare.

The Fraser Report added up all of contributions various Canadian agencies made to the government funding of the Canadian single party payer healthcare system.

The August 2016 Fraser Report made the discrepancy clear between the 11.4% and 50% number.

“Canadians often misunderstand the true cost of our public health care system.”

“This occurs partly because Canadians do not incur direct expenses for their use of health care, and partly because Canadians cannot readily determine the value of their contribution to public health care insurance.”

The August 2016 Fraser Research Bulletin explains the discrepancy. It starts off by saying;

Health care in Canada is not “free.” While Canadians may not be billed directly when they use medical services, they pay a substantial amount of money for health care through the country’s tax system. Unfortunately, the size of these tax payments is hard to determine because there is no “dedicated” health insurance tax.

“As a result, individuals and families often cannot fully appreciate the true cost they pay towards the public health care system.”

The Canadian Government has figured out how to hide the true cost of healthcare from the press and the public.

The Obama administration is also hiding many costs from the American public as the insurance premiums are skyrocketing.

“The purpose of this research bulletin is to help individuals Canadians and their families better understand how much healthcare actuallt dosts them personally so they can determine whether they are receiving good value for their tax dollars.”

The problem is the Canadian public is only interested in what their individual healthcare coverage insurance costs.

Their coverage is “free” at the point of service. Free is good but nothing is free. Their complaint is the difficulty with access to care and the time it takes to get care.

Canadians are not thinking about the total healthcare costs to society. Canadians are not thinking about the source of revenue for that cost.

In Canada general revenue taxes are increased gradually.

Somehow these increases are not recognized.

Yet, people earning $48,456 a year have a tax rate of 43.1% and pay $11,439 dollars for healthcare coverage.

The healthcare coverage comes off the top of the tax bill similar to our social security payment pays for our Medicare Part B insurance.

Someone making $281,359 pays $158,255 in taxes or q tax rate of 56% of which $37,361 is paid for healthcare insurance coverage.

When people speak of “free” healthcare in Canada, they are entirely ignoring the substantial taxpayer-funded cost of the system.

The healthcare insurance premiums paid by Canadians only covers a fraction of the costs of the Canadian Healthcare System.

Some Canadians might assume that in those provinces that assess them, health care premiums cover the cost of health care.

“However, the reality is that these premiums cover just a fraction of the cost of health care and are paid into general revenues from which health care is funded.”

This is precisely what President Obama is doing with our healthcare system. The true cost is totally opaque.

In the U.S. it is impossible to figure out from which taxpayer fund President Obama take the revenue for the $2.5 billion dollar loans lost for the failed Co-Ops experiment, the $650 million dollar website fiasco, or the insurance subsides for 85% o the consumers who signed up for Obamacare.

Congress is not helping us find out where the money is coming from either.

“Indeed, Canadians cannot easily work out precisely what they pay to government each year for health care because there are many different sources of government revenues that may contribute to funding health care, including income taxes, Employment Insurance (EI) and Canada Pension

Plan (CPP) premiums, property taxes, profit taxes, sales taxes, taxes on the consumption of alcohol and tobacco, and import duties, among

others.”

President Obama is not telling the American public the truth about the cost of Obamacare with its tiny participation.

If Americans knew where all the money is coming from they would demand immediate real of Obamacare.

There is a growing mistrust for our elected officials. The increase in public awareness is a result of the spread of social media and Internet communication.

It is difficult for the Obama administration and media to hide thing from the American people anymore. The catch is Americans have to more pay attention.

An excellent example is Hillary Clinton’s cancellation of a noon fund raising event is North Carolina. The cancellation was announced at 9 a.m. It went viral on the Internet at 10 a.m.

The cancellations aroused suspicion that Hillary was sick again, especially when her campaign announced that it had not comment.

Five hours later it announce that she had to cancel her events for the week to study for the debate.

With the many lies Americans have experienced from President Obama from Obamacare to the Iran Nuclear Treaty and Hillary from her emails and the Clinton Foundation, Americans are starting to become aware of their need to pay more attention to the day’s events and not rely on elected surrogates to look after us.

Healthcare, taxes, our economic growth and personal safety are important issues to most Americans. Many Americans are wondering if we can trust our surrogates.

Americans are starting to demand the truth.

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

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Donald Trump on Healthcare Reform

September 16, 2016

inHealth Savings Accounts vs Medical Savings Accounts, Medicine: Healthcare System, Politicians,Healthcare and Vested Interests

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Stanley Feld M.D. FACP, MACE

Donald Trump’s healthcare proposals are totally different from Hillary Clinton’s. His proposals are a step in the right direction to Repair the Healthcare System.

His advisors tried to create a market based healthcare system. However, they have omitted the most important elements necessary to align all the stakeholders’ incentives.

Unfortunately, their approach is the usual healthcare policy wonks market based policy approach. They do not focus on the most important stakeholder in the healthcare system.

The consumer is the most important stakeholder in the healthcare system. The consumer should be the driver of the healthcare system.

A market based system should:

Promote of consumer driven healthcare system.
Promote consumers’ responsibility for their health and healthcare dollars.
Promote the physician/patient relationships.
Promote a respect for consumers’ intelligence. Consumers can judge what is best for their healthcare needs.
Promotion of accurate education about a consumers’ disease and provide resources to help consumers make the best choices to treat their diseases and use their and healthcare dollars.

Donald Trump’s web site starts by pointing out the defects in Obamacare. The Obama administration and Hillary Clinton’s spin machine uses the traditional media to promote the erroneous concept that all that is needed to fix Obamacare’s small defects are small modifications and more money.

This is a wild fantasy. The real goal is to completely control the healthcare system.

Donald Trump’s web site starts by declaring that Obamacare must be repealed.

“Since March of 2010, the American people have had to suffer under the incredible economic burden of the Affordable Care Act—(Obamacare.”

The average Americans are starting to understand Obamacare economic burden on the economy in general and them individually

“ The Affordable Care Act, (Obamacare), legislation, passed by totally partisan votes in the House and Senate and signed into law by the most divisive and partisan President in American history must be repealed.”

President Obama and majorities in the House and Senate tightly controlled the debate in congress and the traditional media.

Nancy Pelosi said it all when she said “you will not know what is in Obamacare until it has passed.”

“Obamacare has tragically but predictably resulted in runaway costs.”

The runaway costs for the government and individuals were the result of:

“Websites that don’t work, greater rationing of care, higher premiums, less competition and fewer choices.”

“Obamacare has raised the economic uncertainty of every single person residing in this country.”

This has resulted from the 10 hidden taxes, along the inhibiting effect on the economy and the uncertainty of the potential mandates, that resulted in and from job losses.

“As it appears Obamacare is certain to collapse of its own weight, the damage done by the Democrats and President Obama, and abetted by the Supreme Court, will be difficult to repair unless the next President and a Republican congress lead the effort to bring much-needed free market reforms to the healthcare industry.”

Donald Trump concludes that Obamacare cannot be fixed. It must be repealed.

“But none of these positive reforms can be accomplished without Obamacare repeal. On day one of the Trump Administration, we will ask Congress to immediately deliver a full repeal of Obamacare.”

Donald Trump recognizes that simply repealing Obamacare will not fix the healthcare system.

He also recognizes that he must work with Congress to have a series of reforms ready for implementation.

“We will work with Congress to make sure we have a series of reforms ready for implementation that follow free market principles and that will restore economic freedom and certainty to everyone in this country.”

It is refreshing to know that a potential president is willing to work with congress rather than issue executive orders and see if he can get away with them.

“By following free market principles and working together to create sound public policy that will broaden healthcare access, make healthcare more affordable and improve the quality of the care available to all Americans.

Any reform effort must begin with Congress.”

Donald Trump says;

Several reforms will be offered that should be considered by Congress so that on the first day of the Trump Administration, we can start the process of restoring faith in government and economic liberty to the people.

This is the correct process according to the constitution.

It is imperative that Republicans maintain their majorities in the House and Senate in order for Donald Trump to lead legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare.

The following are the suggestions a Trump administration will offer the congress according to his website.

Completely repeal Obamacare.
Our elected representatives must eliminate the individual mandate (tax according to the Supreme Court). No person should be required to buy insurance unless he or she wants to.
Modify existing law that inhibits the sale of health insurance across state lines.

Donald Trump assumes eliminating state line restrictions will allow full competition in the healthcare insurance market place. He assumes insurance premium costs will go down and consumer satisfaction will go up. The healthcare insurance companies will try to keep the insurance premiums equally high in all states.

It can only work if consumers can buy insurance they believe they need. Costs of unnecessary insurance should not be piled into one insurance plan fits all. i.e. A post menopausal woman does not need to pay a birth control premium.

4. Allow individuals to fully deduct health insurance premium payments from their tax returns under the current tax system.

Individuals should be allowed to take the same tax deductions as group insurance plans are allowed.

5. We must review basic options for Medicaid and work with states to ensure that those who want healthcare coverage can have it.

This is where Donald Trump’s proposal weakens. The Medicaid program must be modified. Medicaid recipients should be incorporated into my ideal Medical Saving Account program. The government should act as the funding agent for the eligible poor.

This will put the poor on the same payment footing as everyone else.

The Medicaid eligible poor should be given financial incentives to take charge of their health and healthcare dollars.

Our healthcare system must be moved from a system that fixes you when you are sick or broken into a system that rewards people financially for remaining healthy and controlling their healthcare spending.

It is much cheaper to avoid the cost of emergency care than it is to get sick and have to go to the emergency room.

6. Allow individuals to use Health Savings Accounts (HSAs). Contributions into HSAs should be tax-free and should be allowed to accumulate.

Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) should be changed to Medical Savings Accounts (MSAs) to provide better financial incentives for people who choose this form of insurance. The Medical Savings Accounts can easily be customized so that consumers can choose the level of insurance they desire.

The contribution to the MSA can be flexible to provide adequate amounts of money to be put into the savings accounts to incentivize consumers to remain healthy.

Obesity is a huge program that must be consumer driven. Obesity must be cure by the patient and his family, not surgery.

Obese children are becoming diabetic and also hypertensive at a young age. This must be stopped because of the potential explosive effect of complications of both diabetes and hypertension on individual and overall costs of medical care.

7. Require price transparency from all healthcare providers, especially doctors and healthcare organizations like clinics and hospitals.

Price transparency is an essential provision for individuals, businesses and groups. It provides leverage for consumers to be responsible for their healthcare dollars. It is also necessary to require insurance companies to provide verifiable price transparency for their administrative costs and their direct patient care costs

Consumers must be empowered to be responsible and shop for the most value and best prices for procedures, exams or any other medical related procedure.

This is the way to decrease the cost of healthcare services and medical care services.

Social networking should be used as the backbone for the establishment of consumer empowerment.

The success of Angie’s list, Trip Advisor and Open Table are a result of social networking. Local communities have their individual social networks that empower people in their neighborhood to know which vendors provide the best value in their community.

This simple step can be used to decrease the cost of healthcare and medical care.

This could be a place where government can lead the way in establishing this accurate educational resources.

8. Block-grant Medicaid to the states.

These block grants can be used by the states to fund MSAs without a threat of increasing state budget deficits or giving states rights to the control of the federal government.

Block grants for social networking should be used to provide incentives to help individuals to seek out and eliminate fraud, waste and abuse of some of its local providers. It would eliminate expensive big data collections that many times are inaccurate in decision making by central federal control.

9. Remove barriers to entry into free markets for drug providers that offer safe, reliable and cheaper products.

Federal and state governments should help its citizen choose safe, reliable and cheaper products for the treatment of their diseases.

It would help with compliance and adherence to recommended treatment and decrease the cost of care.

It would promote consumers taking responsibility for their own health and healthcare dollars.

10. Congressss will need the courage to step away from the special interests and do what is right for America.

One example is allowing consumers access to imported, safe and dependable drugs from overseas. It will provide more options to consumers. This is only one example of many that ways to decrease the cost of drugs in this country.

Donald Trump is proposing a lot of important changes.

However, he is missing the important element of consumer power, consumer initiative, and consumer incentives.

His healthcare changes must include a consumer driven system with an ideal medical saving account otherwise the healthcare system will remain an unmanageable, expensive and abused mess.

Donald Trump admits this is simply a start. His start is much more powerful than Hillary Clinton’s proposal to continue and build on Obamacare.

Obamacare has been a disaster that is unsustainable. It is weekly increasing the cost of care while rationing care and decreasing access to care.

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

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The Deception and Disinformation Continues

September 2, 2016

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

When Co-Op Health Insurers close, what happens to customers’ all ready paid in deductibles?

The new insurer will not credit the already paid deductibles in 2016. Consumers will have to start all over again with new deductibles. This is despite President Obama’s implied promise that consumers will get credit for the deductibles paid.

President Obama’s goal was to make Obamacare as complicated as possible so no one could understand it.

I believe neither he nor his administration understand all the interwoven parts and the unintended consequences.

Obamacare was built to fail.

Obamacare was built so that whatever part of the component policy failed, that policy would ultimately default to a single party payer system. The original goal was to have complete government control of the healthcare system.

The federal government would control choice and restrict access to medical care.

Americans’ free choice would be disappear.

Obamacare’s healthcare exchanges have only been attractive to people who could not obtain healthcare insurance because they had pre-existing illnesses.

That was a good thing. However, premiums were too high for the healthy uninsured.

The healthy uninsured would pay for the consumers with preexisting illnesses and spread the risk. The thought was that it would lower the cost of insurance.

The Obama administration lent $2.5 billion dollars to only 22 states that opted to set up Co-Ops to compete with the healthcare care insurance companies offering insurance through the health insurance exchange in those states.

These Co-Ops were destined to fail. The Obama administration’s plan was to low ball the insurance premiums and force the healthcare insurance companies to compete and lower their premiums.

President Obama’s reinsurance program to subsidize and protect insurers from loss fell apart because of budget restraints that he signed into law.

High-risk people with pre-existing illnesses flocked to sign up for the Co-Op’s healthcare insurance. The Co-Op insurance plans were poorly advertised and constructed. Few healthy people bought the plans.

We are constantly told how many people lost their insurance and their deductible.

In reality the Co-Ops was the “public option” without the approval of congress.

So far, seventeen of the twenty-two have declared bankruptcy so far. The remaining five Co-Ops are on the way. The federal government will never get paid back for the $2.5 billion dollars in loans.

Illinois’ Co-Op “ Land of Lincoln” declared bankruptcy and closed out over 49,000 patrons. The have to get new insurance to cover them for October, November and December.

“A large insurer (Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois) on the Illinois’ Obamacare exchange has decided not to credit former Land of Lincoln members for money they’ve already paid toward their deductibles despite a request from the state to consider doing so.”

“They will likely have to start from zero again on their deductibles and out-of-pocket max payments — in some cases costing them thousands of additional dollars.”

The other large insurers have not commented yet. President Obama has not come through with his promise to cover these deductibles.

President Obama and his press secretary deny Obamacare is in trouble. The casual observer who reads are Paul Krugman’s articles in the New York Times and believes he personally has adequate healthcare insurance would also believe the lie.

Paul Krugman is President Obama and Hillary Clinton’s hatchet man. When something goes wrong in any area of the economy Mr. Krugman blames it on the Republicans without evidence or data.

The New York Times and his readers believe him without critically evaluating his statements.

Paul Krugman: “Most of the news about health reform has been good, defying the dire predictions of right-wing doomsayers.”

This is lie. He has no positive evidence for this statement except that Obamacare has added 10 million people to the Medicaid program.

This could have been accomplished without Obamacare by simply raising the definition of poverty from its obsolete 1955 level.

Paul Krugman :“But this week has brought some genuine bad news: The giant insurer Aetna announced that it would be pulling out of many of the “exchanges,” the special insurance markets the law established.”

Others have pulled out in addition to Aetna.

UnitedHealth, Cigna, Blue Cross and Blue Shield and other smaller insurance companies such as Baylor/ Scott and White have pulled out because they have lost huge amounts of money. Their losses are unsustainable for their business.

Seventeen of the 22 federally funded Co-Ops have gone bankrupt and closed down. They were supposed to create competition like the public option to keep premium prices and deductibles down.

Paul Krugman says: “This doesn’t mean that the reform is about to collapse.”

What does it mean? He does not say.

Then he goes on to attack the Republican Party and Donald Trump.

“They’re problems that would be relatively easy to fix in a normal political system, one in which parties can compromise to make government work. “

Maybe the Republicans cannot compromise because Obamacare was so poorly conceived and constructed.

Obamacare has been a waste of government money and taxpayers’ money. It is destroying the delivery of medical care. I would call this a failure.

Maybe the Republicans are correct in opposing a law that is increasing the federal deficit while claiming is that it is budget neutral.

It is unbelievable that Hillary Clinton wants to expand Obamacare. Isn’t it because Obamacare is failing and unsustainable?

Then Mr. Krugman goes on to take an inappropriate swing at Donald Trump.

“But they (the problems) won’t get resolved if we elect a clueless president (although he’d turn to terrific people, the best people, for advice, believe me. Not.).”

Paul Krugman then goes on to tell lie after lie about the success of Obamacare and how unfairly Republicans view Obamacare.

“Paul Krugman says:” The economy of race prevents Medicare and Obamacare expansion.”

“White voters “don’t like the idea of helping neighbors who don’t look like them”

“New York Times columnist Paul Krugman argued Monday that the opposition of red states like Texas to accepting federal money to fund Medicaid expansion isn’t based, as claimed, on a commitment to smaller government and the superiority of the free market so much as it is the politics of race, and who would receive those funds.

Medicaid expansion, Krugman noted, disproportionately benefits nonwhite Americas, and voters in red states — particular the white ones — “don’t like the idea of helping neighbors who don’t look like them.”

Paul Krugman is an economics professor. Can’t he figure out that the system has failed economically? American needs a better system with responsible consumers driving the system.

Who is stimulating race wars without facts or evidence?

Paul Krugman is stimulating race wars with unfounded statement like this in order to defend Obamacare and President Obama’s legislation. Legislation that has failed.

“Nearly a third of the nation’s counties look likely to have just a single insurer offering health plans on the Affordable Care Act’s exchanges next year, according to a new analysis, an industry pullback that adds to the challenges facing the law.”

Higher than expected costs have led UnitedHealth, Aetna, Humana and many smaller companies such as Baylor/Scott and White to pull out of Obamacare’s federal health insurance plan.

With the demise of the state Co-Ops the competition is even slimmer.

“The Kaiser Family Foundation, in a study commissioned by the Wall Street Journal, estimates that 19% of Obamacare enrollees seeking coverage in 2017 will be in a market with just one insurer, up from just 2% in 2016. Another 19% will have access to just two carriers, up from 12%.

Forty percent of 10 million people is 4 million people who are going to be affected by a decrease in competition. The total enrollment in Obamacare has been stagnant the last 3 years.”

We must repeal this debacle called Obamacare and start a new system that could work. A consumer driven healthcare system for all as described in my article “My Ideal Medical Saving Account is Democratic.”

It includes everyone. It provides financial incentives to everyone to be responsible for their own health and healthcare dollars.

“What do we have to lose?”

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

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The Folly of Obamacare

July 19, 2016

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

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Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP, MACE

In 2008 I was under the impression that President Obama was the real deal.

I thought he cared about Americans and cared about Repairing the Healthcare System. I wrote six letters to him giving him clues on how to repair the healthcare system.

Then, I realized he was not interested in the improved delivery of healthcare to all Americans. He was interested in the central government controlling the healthcare system in order to control and limit our freedoms.

Obamacare was the answer to his goal. Many physicians did not buy his plan. Many felt powerless to object. Many felt they should go along to get along.

Many in the healthcare industry figured that greater government involvement in healthcare financing would lead to greater economic benefit.

Everyone has been deceived. Everyone is starting to believe that government managed healthcare leading to a better healthcare for all and a better healthcare system is a myth.

In my letters I tried to explain this to President-elect Obama. My explanation fell on deaf ears.

Dear President Obama Part 1

http://stanleyfeldmdmace.typepad.com/repairing_the_healthcare_/2008/11/dear-president-elect-obama.html

Dear President Obama Part 2

http://stanleyfeldmdmace.typepad.com/repairing_the_healthcare_/2008/11/dear-president-elect-obama-part-2.html

Dear President Obama Part 3

http://stanleyfeldmdmace.typepad.com/repairing_the_healthcare_/2008/11/dear-president-elect-obama-part-3.html

Dear President Obama Part 4

http://stanleyfeldmdmace.typepad.com/repairing_the_healthcare_/2008/12/dear-president-elect-obama-part-4.html

Dear President Obama Part 5

http://stanleyfeldmdmace.typepad.com/repairing_the_healthcare_/2008/12/dear-president–elect-barack-obama-part-5.html

Dear President Obama Part 6

http://stanleyfeldmdmace.typepad.com/repairing_the_healthcare_/2008/12/dear-president-elect-obama-part-6-why-dont-you-listen-to-practicing-physicians.html

Over the last seven and a half years I have developed a simple but effective consumer driven healthcare system that should replace Obamacare after it is repealed.

Obamacare is missing the major ingredient that must be in a successful healthcare system.

The healthcare system must be market driven, with consumers being responsible for their healthcare and healthcare dollars. The tool that will accomplish this is my Ideal Medical Saving Account. Please include reading the article My Ideal Medical Savings Account Is Democratic! among all the articles in the group explaining My Ideal Medical Savings Accounts

If the Republicans and Donald Trump would adopt this system they would excite and encourage all the people who have been hurt by the failures of Obamacare. The cry for Obamacare’s repeal would be overwhelming among Democrats, Republicans and Independents.

John Dale Dunn, M.D., J.D. is an emergency physician and policy advisor. I met him on the phone several years ago went he called me to replace him for a television interview he could not do.

We became friends. He asked me to join his private social network and join in the discussion of many of the important topics of the day including healthcare reform, the economy, the banking system and climate change.

The member discussions are, in my opinion, the most intellectually stimulating discussions on the web that one can participate in.

In April 2010 the American Thinker published an article Dr. Dunn wrote called “The Myths of Managing Health Care.”

Over the last few years John has refined his argument but this article describes his journey in his practice of medicine.

April 11, 2010

The Myths of Managing Health Care

John Dale Dunn, M.D., J.D. is an emergency physician and policy advisor for the Heartland Institute of Chicago and the American Council on Science and Health of New York City.

“I learned the hard way that human nature is the biggest obstacle to cutting health care costs. President Obama is not the first chief executive to foist onto us an unrealistic medical reform.

I left Nebraska to become Medical Director of a Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) in Louisiana in 1980. I believed the myths of managed care promoted by the smart guys. Health insurance premiums were spiraling up, and business and industry were concerned. People wanted good insurance cheap. Managed care was the answer.

The Nixon administration wrote the Health Maintenance Act of 1973, funding and promoting managed care by a non-profit community-controlled, federal benefit package, one community premium, no limits on preexisting conditions, preventive care, comprehensive care, first dollar coverage health care. To help them get started, the law said that a federally qualified HMO under the act could mandate an offer to an employee group.

Government experts promote myths when policy agendas solidify in order to encourage public support. The myths of managed care were that:

1.Good medical science would eliminate unnecessary medical services;

2. New financial incentives would reduce costs

3. Preventive health programs would improve things and reduce costs.

In 1980, I was a believer, living the dream. HMOs were a part of the grand solution for health care in America…but then reality intruded.

Myths busted by reality:

– Salaried physicians are less motivated than fee for service docs, producing increased costs.

– People who buy comprehensive 1^st dollar insurance use it — a lot. And they demand the frills, in Louisiana called lagniappe — extra.

– The consumer movement attitude produces excess utilization.

– A community-based non-profit can’t say no, even to inappropriate expenses.

– Reducing costs is important — for someone else’s care. Demands and expectations are high, complaints come quick, a litigious environment increases defensive medicine, and all of these increase costs of care.

HMO of Baton Rouge was my life and my nurse wife’s life, 24/7, for eighteen months in 1980 and ’81. The HMO was in trouble in 1980, put on financial probation by the feds, but we had a slim chance of survival by offering the plan to a group we had avoided: the biggest employee group in the area, comprising government employees of the universities and the State. Government employees were and are notorious for excess use of health plan benefits, but we needed more members to make the magic break-even membership recommended by the feds. The sales staff put up the comprehensive luxurious package, and we added five thousand members at the end of 1980. It was a risk we had to take. In January of 1981, a flu epidemic hit, and demand went through the roof for everything — phone lines, office visits, hospital care — with the new members, government people who knew the complaint and grievance processes, not being shy. It was a nightmare.

For me, the myths about managed care crashed on the rocks of reality in 1981. Fixed income and high demand for services don’t make successful business plans. Americans can be anxious, health-conscious hypochondriacs who use up health care and always know the latest new and expensive medical development. Federal good intentions and human behavior make health care services a monetary black hole, regardless of the tricks employed or the myths held to be controlling.

The HMO went bankrupt by May 1981. It was doomed when I arrived, a bright-eyed, energetic 34-year-old from Nebraska. I put in the effort and dreamed the dream, but I have been an emergency physician pushcart trader ever since, and my taste for health care reform and government comprehensive strategies has been tempered by experience.

The HMO act organizations are no longer in existence, with few exceptions, because the myths don’t work. Some of the managed care concepts promoted in the ’70s and ’80s are embedded in commercial health care insurance programs, like restricting provider and hospital care to contracted entities, but no one uses the words “HMO” and “managed care” now — the public always like to save money on somebody else’s care, and the media turned on managed care as evil profiteering. Medical Directors became public enemies. I’m happy that I quit that line of work.

A new set of myths and unswerving support for government are now the foundation of “comprehensive” health care reform. The myths affirm the value of a monolithic state collective medical system as the solution.

Comprehensive Healthcare Reform Myths

Private insurance companies are bad, government good.

This myth is part anti-capitalist, part statist. However, sixty years of government tax rules and mandates has destroyed free-market insurance and increased health costs. Economic good sense is out the window in a mandate-controlled, third-party-payer system. A free lunch will result in a crushing tax and debt burden.

Amy Finkelstein of MIT has shown that Medicare and Medicaid independently and significantly increased health care costs by distorting markets and increasing utilization, but also by causing cost shifting. Comprehensive reform advocates destroy competitive insurance and Health Savings Accounts options.

The uninsured numbers prove that America has failed.

Uninsured is a choice, not a disease. For the truly needy, America has charity care and a Social Security Title 16 and Title 2 safety net. Devon Herrick shows that the uninsured numbers are exaggerated by the advocates, but even so, most uninsured are healthy, and if they get sick in America, then America takes care of them.

The head of financial services at the Cleveland Clinic ruined the president’s drama about a lady with leukemia by explaining that she was being cared for and qualified for Cleveland Clinic’s generous annual 100 million charity care and Medicaid because she was a working citizen. America takes care, and the safety net works.

Uncompensated care is ruining any chance of fiscal integrity of the health care system.

America spends 2.2 trillion dollars annually on health care. The uninsured care cost is less than 100 billion, less than 5%. Crisis? Jack Hadley in Health Affairs explains that the uninsured are not a sick group. The system is expensive, but it works, with adequate safety net provisions for the needy.

We need to stop wasting money on emergency departments.

The total cost for emergency care in the United States is less than 5% of the total of $2.2 trillion America pays every year for health care. One hundred and twenty million visits, insured and uninsured, billed for $120 billion. Most of it paid for with insurance or cash. Crisis? Again? Emergency departments are convenient, open 24/7, and they offer access to high tech resources. Universal insurance will not reduce E.D. use because in a reformed system, it will be free to the patient. Robert Samuelson insightfully discusses these things in the Washington Post.

Reformers will use computers and make everybody’s health record on a government databank, resulting in better care for all.

Computers are expensive, take providers away from the patient, magnify mistakes, and don’t reduce costs. Computers don’t take care of patients, systems crash, data decays and is not securely private. Computer problems that cause errors have not yet been solved.

Comparative effectiveness panels and guidelines writers will save money and improve care.

The guideline and practice control projects will provide a way to ration or deny unapproved care for economic or medical reasons, but evidence does not show better care. The Leap Frog project in one thousand hospitals was reported as a disappointment by Leslie Kernisan in JAMA.

Lack of insurance is a killer.

The president and others wave the bloody shirt of a 2009 study claiming that a lack of health insurance causes 45,000 deaths in America per year. John Goodman and William Tate both exposed the study as irresponsible and flawed propaganda by Woolhandler and Himmelstein, unreliable and self-declared fanatic advocates of socialized medicine. In contrast, Dr. Steven Asch and Drs. Helen Levy and David Meltzer find no real benefit to health outcomes from health insurance.

New preventive care projects will save money and lives.

Preventive health myths flourish in spite of the evidence. Michael Fumento in National Review and Joshua Cohen in a comprehensive medical journal review report that claims of preventive care benefits are exaggerated and unimpressive in reality, and there are downside risks to screening healthy populations.

The American health care system isn’t safe. Government needs to intervene and punish and penalize hospitals, nurses, and physicians.

The only comprehensive American hospital care patient safety studies over four decades show a rate of negligent patient injury less than 0.25%. Denigrating health care providers and hospitals promotes the savior role of nine-to-five government mandarins with clipboards, furrowed brows, and red pencils. Government experts as guarantors of safety and quality may be the biggest myth of all.

We are in the last stretch of the hijacking, intended to create a command-and-control health care reform by a mean rank of self-assured tyrants, monitoring and intruding into every nook and cranny of American life. Health care will open the door to the state dictating living and lifestyles. Those in charge will meddle and mandate to affirm their power, sense of superiority, and good intentions.

Eric Hoffer, longshoreman philosopher, said, “The intellectuals and the young, booted and spurred, feel themselves born to ride us.”

Ronald Reagan warned that a federalized medical system would be the key to making America a socialist state. He said, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.”

Soon these remorseless, arrogant, socialist, dome-headed apparatchiks will be tallying and monitoring Americans lives in their journals, recording new orders and mandates, chronicling oppressions and terminations. Harshness will characterize their regime.

Liberty will be a whisper, a faint and fading image.

Twenty-five years ago, Ronald Reagan was president. Are we lost to our home-grown socialist movement?

John Dale Dunn, M.D., J.D. is an emergency physician and policy advisor for the Heartland Institute of Chicago and the American Council on Science and Health of New York City.

A recent article by President Obama in the JAMA, “United States Health Care Reform Progress to Date and Next Steps” by

Barack Obama JD is more of the same mythology. It will put the healthcare system in a deeper hole as it tries to shift complete control of the healthcare system away from patient responsibility to the federal government.

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

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America Is Being Set Up By Progressives

July 12, 2016

inDisinformation and the healthcare system, Medicine: Healthcare System

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Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP, MACE

During the past six months the Obama administration and its surrogates have being setting up Americans to believe that Obamacare is increasing in popularity in America. The surrogates being used are the New York Times, the Washington Post and progressive organizations such as the Kaiser Foundation and various think tanks that issue surveys geared to make that point.

Donald Trump is correct. The system is rigged.

The widely quoted Kaiser Health Tracking Poll published monthly spins its information in the direction the administration wants it to be. The conclusions of the February 2016 survey were;

Americans (36 percent) say policymakers should build on the existing law to improve affordability and access to care than any other option presented.
Sixteen percent say they would like to see the health care law repealed and not replaced.
13 percent say it should be repealed and replaced with a Republican-sponsored alternative.
24 percent say the U.S. should establish guaranteed universal coverage through a single government plan.

There are several things wrong with these findings.

The Republicans did not have an understandable alternative at the time of the survey and they still do not have an understandable alternative.
In February 2016 the Real Clear Poll survey of all state polls resulted in 51.9 % opposing Obamacare while 43% of all those surveyed approved of Obamacare.

Here is the rub in the February 2016 Kaiser Health Tracking Poll. Opinions of those surveyed were swayed after hearing counterarguments about Obamacare.

Before those surveyed heard the counterarguments the survey found that 50% were in favor of a single party payer system with the government running the system. 43 percent were opposed.

After the counterarguments were explained, the survey results were completely different. When it was understood that taxes would go up many changed their vote. Now, 43% of those surveyed plus an additional 20% opposed a single party payer system. Only 30% of those surveyed were in favor of a single party payer.

When the question was asked after the counterarguments were understood about how many would want the current healthcare law (Obamacare) eliminated or replaced, 14% switched their vote to favor eliminating Obamacare for a total vote of 14% plus 43% (57% total).

This is a very different view of the popularity of Obamacare.

These numbers appear in the weeds of the survey and were never advertised. One has to look carefully but they are there. The percentages opposed in these survey numbers are higher than the percentages in the Real Politics Poll.

Since the media is the message the conclusion of a casual reading would be that more than 50% want a single party payer system.

The disinformation creates a false impression of Obamacare’s popularity for the public. The hope is that the public would believe that more people like Obamacare and the prospect of a government controlled single party payer system.

In June 2016 the Kaiser Tracking Poll followed up with another survey that contained more disinformation.

The conclusions were:

Current attitudes about the ACA are divided, with 44 percent expressing an unfavorable opinion and 42 percent reporting a favorable opinion; 16 percent of Democrats report an unfavorable opinion, down from 25 percent in April.

It is not at all divided as reported by the Real Politics Polls or Kaiser’s previous corrected survey.

In May 2016 a Real Clear Politics survey of all state polls showed that 48.8% percent of all polled opposed Obamacare and wanted it repealed. Only 39.2% were in favor of Obamacare. The media had set the administration’s false message.

Increases in the amount people pay for their health insurance premiums tops health care costs concerns; premiums and deductibles are the biggest financial burdens.

This is true but the increases noticed it is because of the 10 hidden taxes for Obamacare and the healthcare insurance companies projected premium increases as of result of Obamacare.

A majority of Americans are following the news about rising health insurance premiums, but the public doesn’t differentiate reports about ACA marketplace premiums from private insurance premiums overall.

In the individual private insurance market premiums were always high and not tax deductible to the individual. Now that everyone is guaranteed healthcare insurance coverage in the individual private market the projected premiums have increased. This is the result of Obamacare regulations. I have described the exact details previously.

However, it is convincing enough to say Obamacare is falling short of providing universal care. The administration’s conclusion is that Obamacare must be expanded to a single party payer system with the government in control to achieve universal care at an affordable cost.

All I can say is everyone should remember the cost of VA Healthcare System is astronomical as well as universal. In this government controlled single party payer system our veterans are treated very poorly despite several scandals and the infusion of more government money.

Three weeks later, on July 10, along comes Hillary Clinton declaring that Obamacare must be expanded and more money must be spent. What will follow is higher taxes and more government bureaucracy.

Can anyone deny that something fishy is going on?

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

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