The New York Times editorial “The Republican Healthcare Con” should really be entitled “The New York Times Con of The Republican Health Care Con”
In my opinion The New York Times has become a biased newspaper. Instead of publishing “all the news fit to print”, it is printing articles and editorials that are biased opinions with incomplete facts.
The Republicans have not introduced their replacement of Obamacare yet this editorial is critiquing the replacements effect on the healthcare system..
Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion. No one is entitled to his or her made up facts.
“Republicans say the Affordable Care Act provides health insurance that manages to be both lousy and expensive.”
This is true. Most of the population seems to agree with this statement.
The only people buying insurance from the health insurance exchanges are people with pre-existing illnesses. These people have no other insurance available.
“Whatever the flaws of these policies (Obamacare), the new Trump administration is trying to pull off a con by offering Americans coverage that is likely to be so much worse that it would barely deserve the name insurance.
It would also leave many millions without the medical care they need.”
How does the New York Times editorial board know this when the Trump administration’s healthcare plan has not been introduced?
The liberal media keeps saying the Republicans have no plan. If Republicans do not have a plan how can the NYT criticize it?
How can a non-existent healthcare plan leave many millions without the medical care they need”?
There is no evidence for the statement above.
This reality became increasingly clear when President Trump’s choice to run the Department of Health and Human Services, Tom Price, testified before a Senate committee last week.
He looked pained as he described the terrible predicament of people who earned around $30,000 to $50,000 a year and had to deny “themselves the kind of care that they need” because they had Obamacare policies with deductibles of $6,000 to $12,000.
Tom Price M.D. is correct in saying the Obamacare deductibles are $6,000-$12,000. The NYT left out that the Obamacare networks available are restrictive and the access to proper healthcare is difficult.
The NYT editorial board also left out the fact that 85% of people buying healthcare insurance from the health insurance exchanges are subsidized by the government and have a pre-existing illness.
“ Yet, earlier in the same hearing, Mr. Price extolled the virtues of policies that would be woefully inadequate — policies that cover medical treatment only in catastrophic cases.”
This is a misrepresentation of Dr. Price’s testimony.
Perhaps the NYT editorial Board does not understand Health Savings Accounts?
If you want to understand a potential Trump administration proposal read my blog “Medical Savings Accounts Are Democratic.”
Dr. Price was talking about the virtues of health saving accounts without being specific.
The goal of health savings accounts are to put consumers in control of their medical care and healthcare dollars while providing them with financial incentives to save retirement dollars and not waste medical care dollars.
Consumers could have control of what they spend for their own healthcare.
The employer or government would pay for the deductible and the reinsurance above the deductible.
The money would be put in a healthcare trust. The money in the trust would pay for medical care.
If consumers did not spend the money on medical care that year, it would go into a personal saving trust for those consumers retirement.
“ Such policies often have deductibles of around $14,000 for family coverage.”
FALSE! One can get excellent coverage with a $6,000 deductible and first dollar coverage after spending $6,000 at a reasonable price.
Health Savings Accounts are the fastest growing healthcare insurance vehicle.
The government has put so many restrictions on health savings account that employees are hesitant to offer it. The government must remove these restrictions. www.unitedheath.com
“ This is simple hypocrisy. Condemn the policy you don’t like, propose something far worse as a replacement and claim that it is much better”
This paragraph is written to condemn Dr. Price and rile up the anti-Trump forces with false information.
The editorial completely disregards the fact that a proposal has not yet been announced by the Trump administration.
There were 2000 plus pages published about President Obama’s Obamacare proposal. There were glaring defects in he proposal.
The NYT did not comment on these defects at the time. Others did. I turned out that the defects were the source of Obamacare’s failure.
In reality the NYT has no idea of what the Trump administration’s proposal will be.
The NYT editorial also ignores the fact that Obamacare is unsustainable, unaffordable and is restricting access to care while rationing care for the very citizens that need the care.
“Mr. Price and Mr. Trump have recently said that their goal is to offer health care to many more people than are covered by the current health care law, which has driven the uninsured rate to historic lows.”
I believe historic lows are a counting error just as the unemployment rate and the inflation rate are counting errors in order to provide the Obama administration acceptable numbers.
Average people know exactly what is happening.
Mr. Price’s testimony and the legislation he introduced in the House (a few years ago), where until recently he was the Budget Committee chairman, show that the new administration will make decent health care less affordable and less accessible for most people.
The underlined portion is a NYT editorial opinion. It is an opinion without facts or evidence. It could also be a lack of understanding of the bill Dr. Price’s introduced.
The Trump administration’s upcoming proposal might be completely different.
How would the NYT know the Trump administration’s healthcare plan would make decent health care less affordable and less accessible for most people?
This is an unsubstantiated bias that would qualify as fake news.
“Those Health Savings Accounts would not help families earning the median household income of $56,000 a year because these families would never be able to sock away enough money.”
The NYT editorial either missed the concept of Health Savings Account totally or is reporting the concept to fit its bias.
The best description of what Mr. Price stands for can be found in a bill he introduced in 2015, the Empowering Patients First Act. It would “empower” Americans by eliminating the health care law’s expansion of Medicaid that has helped more than 10.7 million newly eligible people enroll in that government-run insurance program.
Many of these Medicaid patients cannot find a physician or hospital that accepts Medicaid.
Therefore they have very limited access to care.
A potential proposal could expand Medicaid patients’ access to care using health savings accounts.
It would also drastically cut subsidies that have helped 11.5 million people purchase private insurance on federal and state health exchanges.
There is no evidence for this wild statement.
Under his bill, people buying insurance for themselves would get between $1,200 and $3,000 a year in subsidies, down from an average of $4,600 that people get now on HealthCare.gov.
The amount of tax benefits or tax credits for Health Savings Accounts have been restricted by Obamacare in order to discourage its use.
The Obama administration wanted to control medical care and eliminate consumer choice and power.
President Obama wanted healthcare decisions to be in the hands of the central government.
The Trump administration plans to modify these restrictions. President Trump has stated he wants to put healthcare decision making back into consumers’ hands and not the government’s hands.
The bill would even get rid of the requirement that allows young people to stay on their parents’ insurance policy until age 26, a provision that is widely popular.
This is totally false and once again fake news.
And it would hurt people who get insurance through their employers by setting a cap on how much of that expense businesses can claim as a deduction on their taxes. Experts say that over time this would encourage companies to stop offering health benefits to workers.
The independent insurance market has not had tax deduction. It should be on a level playing field with group insurance. There is no evidence that the group market will lose its tax deduction.
“When it comes to health care, Mr. Price and other Republicans say their goal is to give people more choices. It is hard to argue against choice. But in the ideological world inhabited by Mr. Price, House Speaker Paul Ryan and many other Republicans, choice is often a euphemism for scrapping sensible regulations that protect people.”
This claim also has no basis in fact. It is pure opinion by the NYT editorial board.
“Some Americans might well be tempted by this far-right approach. They would have to pay less up front for these skeletal policies than they do now for comprehensive coverage.”
Has Obamacare provided comprehensive care? It is unaffordable and inaccessible to all.
But over time, when people need health care to recover from accidents, treat diabetes, have a baby or battle addiction, they will be hit by overwhelming bills.
Where did this come from? It came from a negative bias toward Donald Trump and his administration without facts or evidence.
The Trump administration seems perfectly willing to sell those people down the river with false promises.
People are not stupid. They do not need government to rule their life and make healthcare decisions for them.
People need incentive to control their health and healthcare dollars.
The opinions expressed in the blog “Repairing The Healthcare System” is, mine and mine alone.
All Rights Reserved © 2006 – 2017 “Repairing The Healthcare System” Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE
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