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Healthcare Policy in The Post Truth Era

January 4, 2020

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Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP, MACE

The government has been deficient in trying to do anything to Repair the Healthcare System.

Unfortunately, John McCain’s vote blocked the repeal of Obamacare which froze any progress. His reason was feeble and politically naïve.

John McCain wanted congress to work together and have bipartisan agreement on healthcare reform. The entire majority of the present House of Representatives has no desire to be bipartisan or help President Trump create or pass any bipartisan legislation.

Democrats in the house only want to impeach the president. They have no time for positive legislation to repair the healthcare system.

I believe the Trump administration has the right idea.

President Trump and his administration have decided to make structural changes to the healthcare system by executive order until it can make big legislative changes. Their hope is they win a more cooperative Congress in 2020.

We are living in a Post-Truth era.

“Post-truthpolitics(also called post-factual politics^[1]and post-reality politics)^[2]is a political culturein which debate is framed largely by appeals to emotion disconnected from the details of policy, and by the repeated assertion of talking pointsto which factual rebuttals are ignored.

Post-truthdiffers from traditional contesting and falsifyingof facts by relegating facts and expert opinions to be of secondary importance relative to appeal to emotion. While this has been described as a contemporary problem, some observers have described it as a long-standing part of political life that was less notable before the advent of the Internetand related social changes.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-truth_politics

The media is the message. Donald Trump threatens the Democratic Party, the bureaucracy and the traditional mainstream media. He also threatens some of the Republicans.

He is a crude speaking person from Queens, New York. He has been called a brawler by some. He says he never starts a fight. He fights back. Many say he fights back in an unappealing way.

He says his goal is to drain the swamp. We have all gotten a glimpse of the inefficient and at times corrupt bureaucracy within our government. We can see the swamp’s depth only because of the Internet and the availability of alternate news opinions.

President Trump is working hard to streamline and increase the efficiency of the ever-expanding bureaucracy. He is a direct threat to their well-being. This is their justification for hating him.

The traditional mainstream media has promoted the Democrats’ agenda. They have helped obstruct President Trump’s agenda. The media has ignored or criticized the continual successes of President Trump.

It has either published disinformation or misinformation, ignored critical thinking on issues, or simply published non-truths.

President Trump has had no choice. Obamacare remained the law. It has been expensive and unsuccessful. It is impossible to know its yearly cost to the federal government. It is self-imploding and will disappear shortly.

Obamacare has just completed its open enrollment period for 2020. The enrollment period is supposed to end on December 15^th. The Obama administration extended it to March 31 during some enrollment years. The Trump administration has extended the 2020 open enrollment period until December 31, 2019 this year.

85% of people who enrolled in Obamacare have a preexisting illness. The Obama administration has subsidized most of the premiums. It did not subsidize the deductibles. Obamacare participants still could not afford to pay the deductible. In essence, participants have no healthcare insurance because they could not afford to use it.

Open enrollment as of December 7, 2019, was awful.

http://acasignups.net/blogs/charles-gaba

There are only 6,134,477 who have enrolled in 2020 compared to 16.1 million enrollees in 2014. Medicaid was expanded by 9.3 million in 2014. With the Medicaid expansion, a total of 25 million people received insurance in 2014.

Medicaid is a single party payor. It is inefficient. It has a problem getting physicians to participate because reimbursement does not cover most physician’s overhead.

President Obama decided to have the federal government pay over 90% of the state-run Medicaid programs for a few years. The states, which signed up for the Medicaid expansion, did not have an increase in costs.

When states have to start paying more for the Medicaid expansion, they will have to raise taxes because by law they cannot have a budget deficit. At the moment most of those states have unauthorized budget deficits. Those deficits will become worse when they have to fund expanded Medicaid.

The mainstream media and Democratic congress continually publish the figure that Obamacare has decreased the uninsured by 20 million. However, eleven million were that result of the expanded Medicaid program.

2014

The numbers do not match. The government graphs are complex and confusing. However, they are very informative. The graphs tend to confuse us with estimates and actual enrollees.

In 2016 the numbers decreased to 9.3 million with open enrollment extended to February 1, 2016

2016

Medicaid enrollment increased in 2016 to 15.3 million. The Medicaid increase is included in the total number of previously uninsured, Obamacare provided healthcare insurance. Obamacare’s increase in previously uninsured is, in fact, an expansion of Medicaid. The mainstream media use the number 20 million newly insured patients which is a misleading justification for fixing Obamacare. Some of Medicaid’s increase enrollment could represent the illegal immigrants who are now entitled to healthcare coverage.

The net Medicaid increase since March 2010 in 2016 was 16.3 million. It looks like Obamacare’s goal was to increase Medicaid. The next step is to have “Medicaid/Medicare for All.”

2018 remained the same as in 2016, with many more dropouts because people realized Obamacare’s unaffordability. Since it was unaffordable, they realized they could not afford care event thought they paid their premium. Therefore, they dropped out and stopped paying their premiums.

2020 has been the expected disaster. Consumers needed relief from the Obamacare disaster. Obamacare has caused a further increase in dysfunction in an already dysfunctional healthcare system for people insured by Medicare, Medicaid and Private Healthcare insurance.

Everyone is dissatisfied.

Only 6.1 million consumers have enrolled in Obamacare for 2020.

President Trump is hoping that after the 2020 election, he will have a friendlier Congress. Obamacare will be repealed. Congress will want to do something to help him repair the healthcare system. Meanwhile, he can only do some structural changes to lead us on the path toward an affordable healthcare system.

I predicted Obamacare would eventually fail when it was passed in 2010. Obamacare did not align stakeholders’ incentives!

Obamacare was destined to become unaffordable to consumers, the states and the federal government.

Bernie Sanders’ and Elizabeth Warren’s “Medicare for All” will suffer the same fate as Obamacare.

Most of all the taxpayers in the nation will suffer the most.

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

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Please Read Between the Lines

May 9, 2019

inDisinformation and the healthcare system, Medicaid, Medicare, Medicine: Healthcare System

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Please Read Between the Lines

Stanley Feld M.D., FACP, MACE

Most of us have trained ourselves to speed read the daily newspaper. I have asked my readers to read between the lines of the New York Times’ healthcare articles. Most articles are not factual or half-truths. The articles are an opinion and express a confirmation bias.

“Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms one’s beliefs or hypotheses while giving disproportionately less attention to information that contradicts it.^[32] The effect is stronger for emotionally charged issues and for deeply entrenched beliefs. People also tend to interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing position.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bias#Confirmation_bias

Often, the application of confirmation bias is subtle. During speed reading, one’s opinion can be influenced by the presentation of confirmation bias. The bias is interpreted as fact because the “media is the message.”

The traditional media is losing its influence on our culture because peoples are realizing it is feeding us a confirmation bias that does not comport with reality.

The development of ideological manipulation is a science unto its own. The print media and television media are its masters. The traditional mainstream media leans towards the progressive left.

Conclusions should be backed by facts and not by opinion. All sides of an opinion should be presented. A huge problem is social science is imperfect. It does not use scientific principles utilizing reproducible double-blind studies.

Much of the traditional media sound like an echo chamber. It repeats the same soundbites over and over again rather than studying all the facts and reaching a logical conclusion.

In Carl Sandberg’s book, “The Prairie Years’ he said, If you tell a lie it over and over again it eventually becomes the truth.” If the confirmation bias is wrong, the public pays the price to correct it down the line.

Charles Blahous, a former Social Security and Medicare public trustee, has estimated that under Bernie Sanders’ plan of “Medicare for All”, the government could pay about 40 percent less than what private insurers now pay for medical care.

There are large discrepancies in these payments among experts. It has been estimated that there will be a 32.2 trillion-dollar deficit in a “Medicare for All” program over a ten-year period.

I would not believe the saving predicted by Chares Blahous. He was involved in creating a large deficit in our seniors’ Medicare program with the implication that Medicare would be financially viable.

It is predicted by a pro “Medicare for All” advocates, if this version of “Medicare for All” worked as planned, everybody would be insured, health care usage would rise sharply because it would be free without even a co-payment, and America would spend less overall on health care.

The math does not prove this theory. It does appeal to the notion that free is good.

This is a Democratic party pipedream to get more votes. I hope Americans do not fall for this false promise. The Democratic party has done this to taxpaying citizens of all ethnic groups over and over again in the past.

The New York Times has become a propaganda machine for progressives.

On March 3, 2019, David Brooks’ article headline washttps://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/04/opinion/medicare-for-all.html?searchResultPosition=1

David Brooks really didn’t mean it. He is just setting the reader up in order to express his confirmation bias.

“The Brits and Canadians I know certainly love their single-payer health care systems. If one of their politicians suggested they should switch to the American health care model, they’d throw him out the window.”

The reality is 80% of Brits and Canadian are not sick and do not interact with their healthcare system.

However, they have a false sense of security that they have good healthcare insurance. When they get sick or need emergency specialty care they realize the system is less than they thought it was. Both Canada and Britain have provider shortages, lack of access to care, long appointment waiting times and large financial deficits.

The defects in their healthcare systems can be followed in the local newspaper and not in the government’s press releases.

David Brooks goes on trying to convince us that “Medicare for All” is a good idea. Progressives have been telling us this since 1935 when Wilber Mills tried to ram a single party payer system down America’s throat in the midst of the great depression.

It didn’t work then, and I hope Americans do not fall for it now.

David Brooks says; “So single-payer health care, or in our case “Medicare for all,” is worth taking seriously.”

” I’ve just never understood how we get from here to there, how we transition from our current system to the one Bernie Sanders has proposed and Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris and others have endorsed.”

He implies he doesn’t understand how it could work but says a lot of top-flight politicians have endorsed it. Therefore, they know more than he does.

“Despite differences between individual proposals, the broad outlines of Medicare for All are easy to grasp.”

“We’d take the money we’re spending on private health insurance and private health care, and we’d shift it over to the federal government through higher taxes in some form.”

I cannot think of a government-run agency that runs efficiently, without a large bureaucracy, red tape, or corruption. Inefficiency and corruption mean waste and higher cost.

“Since health care would be a public monopoly, the government could set prices and force health care providers to accept current Medicare payment rates.”

Price fixing has never worked. It leads to corruption

Medicare reimburses hospitals at 87 percent of costs while private insurance reimburses at 145 percent of costs.

The important question should be, why would the insurance companies pay a 58% premium when the healthcare insurance industry knows exactly what Medicare pays? The healthcare insurance industry knows exactly what the government pays because it does the administrative services for the government.

The answer is the healthcare insurance companies are competing with each other for providers, hospitals and patients.

On April 21, 2019, a New York Times headline read: “Hospitals Stand to Lose Billions Under ‘Medicare for All’

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/21/health/medicare-for-all-hospitals.html

A reaction by a reader is who cares if hospitals lose billions. They have been ripping off consumers forever.

The headline immediately established the enemy. The first two paragraphs of the article confirm the enemy. It also sets up the liberal or independent reader to develop the same confirmation bias the New York Times has.

“For a patient’s knee replacement, Medicare will pay a hospital $17,000. The same hospital can get more than twice as much, or about $37,000, for the same surgery on a patient with private insurance.”

“Or take another example: One hospital would get about $4,200 from Medicare for removing someone’s gallbladder. The same hospital would get $7,400 from commercial insurers.

Yes, this pricing is too high in my opinion for both Medicare and private insurance. However, it is the result of insurance companies lobbying and financial reporting that permits the rise in premiums.

As hospital systems become less efficient, they hire more administrators and increase executive salaries.

Many hospitals say they spend their last penny on excessive overhead. If they cannot raise prices, they claim they would go out of business.

The progressives like Bernie Sanders then chime in with their talking points that the New York Times keeps repeating.

“If Medicare for all abolished private insurance and reduced rates to Medicare levels — at least 40 percent lower, by one estimate — there would most likely be significant changes throughout the health care industry, which makes up 18 percent of the nation’s economy and is one of the nation’s largest employers.”

The propaganda worked. The confirmation bias of “Medicare for All” is solid.

The only problem is, it will not reduce the cost of healthcare. This has been proven over and over again in many countries and in many of our government run agencies.

“The Sanders plan would increase federal spending by about $32.6 trillion over its first 10 years, according to a Mercatus Center study that Charles Blahous led.

This is the same Charles Blahous that said the cost would be 40% less. What does that study do to the confirmation bias the New York Times tried to promote? Which one is fake propaganda?

“Compare that with the Congressional Budget Office’s projection for the entire 2019 fiscal year budget, $4.4 trillion.”

The 32 trillion-dollar deficit over ten years is a fair estimate. The estimate could be correct if one simply examines the Medicare and Medicaid deficits. All we have to recall is Obamacare’s website. It was riddled with inefficiency and was a financial disaster.

Usually, as a result of cost overruns, there is a decrease in access to care. The glaring example is the VA Healthcare System.

“That kind of sticker shock is why a plan for single-payer in Vermont collapsed in 2014 and why Colorado voters overwhelmingly rejected one in 2016.”

“It’s why legislators in California killed a single party payer system In the California plan, the taxes are upfront, the purported savings are down the line.”

All it takes is a little reading between the lines to realize that we are subjected to ideological manipulation. “The media is the message.”

The New York Times is supposed to be “the nation’s newspaper of record with all the news that is fit to print.” With the advent of the internet and social media, Americans have more information to decide on what is the truth. People now have the ability to examine multiple sides of an issue.

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

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Why Vermont’s Single Party Payer Healthcare Plan Failed

March 16, 2019

inMedicine: Healthcare System, Stakeholder Mistrust

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Stanley Feld M.D., FACP,MACE

Vermont’s single party payer healthcare plan was doomed to fail from the onset for several reasons.

Vermont had a Republican governor for eight years. He decided to retire. Peter Shumlin (D.) won the Democratic nomination for governor after progressive activists demanded that each candidate for the Democratic Party nomination promise to enact single-payer health care if nominated.

Shumlin’s got the nod, won the election. He was anxious to pass the single party payer system.

Vermont’s consultants were Harvard’s William Hsiao and MIT’s Jonathan Gruber.

William Hsiao has spent most of his academic career helping governments install single-payer healthcare systems.

There is little evidence that the systems by developed in Taiwan and other countries by William Hsiao have been successful. They have not been cost effective or sustainable. They have not preserved freedom of choice.

Gruber and Hsiao made the same mistakes for Vermont that they made for America with Obamacare.

Hsiao and Gruber promised that single-payer health care in Vermont could save $1.6 billion over ten years. With that endorsement in hand, Shumlin and the legislature passed Act 48, a law instructing the state to figure out how to finance a single-payer system. They dubbed it Green Mountain Care.

Governor Shumlin said, “If Vermont gets single-payer health care right, which I believe we will, other states will follow,” pronounced Shumlin. “If we screw it up, it will set back this effort for a long time. So I know we have a tremendous amount of responsibility, not only to Vermonters.”

Unfortunately, Americans have a short memory, the short memory promoted by the conformational bias of the traditional mass media toward a progressive agenda.

Progressive Americans and their progressive politicians had better wake up fast. “Medicare for All” does not work.

Medicare does not work in a financially sustainable way for the government or seniors. It was not sustainable in the Bernie Sanders small state of Vermont. It is nice to believe you can provide healthcare benefits for nothing to all. However, nothing is free especially when it is run by central bureaucrats. It has been proven over and over again.

First, bureaucrats and healthcare policy consultants do not understand the medical care system. The history of Vermont’s single- payor story is interesting.

In December 2014 Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin (D.) announced that he was pulling the plug after four years on Vermont’s single-payer, government-run health care system.

“In my judgment,” Governor Shumlin said, “the potential economic disruption and risks would be too great to small businesses, working families, and the state’s economy.”

Rather than saving $1.6 billion the Green Mountain Care would cost an additional 2.6 billion dollars in tax revenue for 2017 alone. The law would require a 151 percent increase in state taxes.

“Fiscally, that’s a train wreck. Even a skeptical report from Avalere health had previously assumed that the plan would “only” cost $1.9 to $2.2 billion extra in 2017.”

“In 2019, Costa estimated that Green Mountain Care would have required $2.9 billion in tax revenue vs. $1.8 billion under pre-existing law: a 160 percent increase in revenue.”

The result should explain why the dream of single-payer health care in the U.S. should be dead for the foreseeable future.

Daily, we read articles calling for “Medicare for All” from progressive politicians running for office.

How stupid do they think Americans are?

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

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Hospital Mergers Don’t Work

September 11, 2018

inMedicine: Healthcare System, Stakeholder Mistrust

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Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

This article appeared in Kevin M.D. several weeks ago. The article has some valid points. However, it misses the vital reasons hospital mergers are not working.

“In 2010, there were 66 hospital mergers in this country. Since the Affordable Care Act went into effect, the rate of hospital consolidation has increased by 70 percent.

By creating incentives for physicians and health providers to coordinate under accountable care organizations (ACOs), the ACA hindered the ability of regulators to block hospital mergers while incentivizing hospital consolidation.”

The government published reason for encouraging hospital mergers was to increase hospital efficiency and decrease healthcare costs.

I have said over and over again that the real goal of Obamacare was to have total control over the healthcare system. This control could be accomplished by controlling all the providers.

Hospitals realized that physicians controlled the utilization of hospital facilities. As knowledge and technology improved more and more diagnosis and treatment could be performed on an outpatient basis.

All the hospitals had to offer was a brick and mortar facility. Hospitals tried to stop physicians, before Obamacare, from developing their own outpatient facilities. The hospitals lobbied the government to require certificate of need for advanced outpatient technology (MRI, CAT scans, Outpatient Surgical facilities, and laboratories).

It did not work.

Obamacare provided incentives for hospitals to merge and consolidate into hospital systems.

Obamacare also provided incentives for hospital systems to create Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs). I have written about ACOs destiny to fail ad nauseum.

The government’s pretext was that hospital consolidation into hospital systems would increase efficiency with resultant decreases in hospital care costs.

The real reason was to get hospitals to hire physicians. At that point they would lower reimbursement on both. Hospitals and physicians would be totally dependent on the government.

“There is a growing body of evidence that hospital mergers lead to higher prices for consumers, employers, insurance and the government.”

The result is opposite the stated goal and was totally predictable.

“It is imperative to educate patients and lawmakers as to how the consolidation of hospitals and medical practices raise costs, decrease access, eliminate jobs and, ultimately, reduce care quality as a result.”

The development of hospital systems led to the expansion of administrative personnel which in turn led to increased administrative salaries and costs. Administrative costs are not government controlled. They are part of the overinflated hospital overhead.

In some cases, the government increased hospital systems’ subsidies because of increased administrative costs.

It did not lead to greater compensation to physicians they hired. Yet the hospital system was totally dependent on staff physicians for revenue production.

Physicians tended to work hard when they owned their own practice. Now that their salary was guaranteed they tended not to work 12-hour days.

Initially, hospital systems paid physicians on the basis of physicians’ previous productivity in their private practice. Additionally, physicians were given a payout for their practice. The payout was never the real value of their practice.

Hospital systems calculated the physicians’ productivity because the hospital system hired all the full-time employees. The hospital systems’ computer systems were also used in the calculation of productivity and overhead.

Hospital systems controlled the overhead and the books. A lot of the time the calculation was inaccurate. This was the result of two fees collected from the government and the insurance companies. One was a technical fee that belonged to the hospital system. The other was a professional fee for the physician.

At times, the professional fees were not collected and the physician groups could not figure out the discrepancy.

There had been a long-standing mistrust by physicians toward hospitals prior to Obamacare. The errors in calculations resulted in greater mistrust by physicians toward hospitals.

If a physician was not producing according to the hospital system’s calculation the physician, at the end of a usual two-year contract, was let go. This created more mistrust and suspicion among physicians toward hospital systems.

It has also caused physicians who anticipated this stranglehold by hospital systems to become concierge physicians or open outpatient clinics of their own.

This has caused hospital systems to provide concierge physicians of their own as well as hospital outpatient ambulatory surgical care clinics. The problem is that the free-standing physician owned ambulatory surgical care clinics (ASC) are more efficient and cheaper than the inpatient hospital care and the hospital’s own outpatient ambulatory surgical care clinics (HOPD). Some privately own ASC are cheaper than the increasing deductibles patients with private insurance have to pay using their insurance.

Below are some examples of Ambulatory Care Surgical Center fees as opposed to Hospital Owned Outpatient Surgical fees.

“ASC – $1250 ($500 out of pocket)

HOPD: $4250 ($1000 out of pocket)

Echocardiogram:

ASC $500 ($200 out of pocket)

HOPD: $4250 ($1250 out of pocket)

Arthroscopy of Knee:

ASC – $3600 ($1070 out of pocket)

HOPD: $13,000 ($3900 out of pocket)

Hernia Repair:

ASC – $2500 ($750 out of pocket)

HOPD: $19,000 ($5700 out of pocket)”

There has been a dramatic increase in hospitals gobbling up independent providers and becoming powerful regional monopolies. These monopolies raise prices not decrease prices.

“According to a 2012 study by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, “the magnitude of price increases when hospitals merge in concentrated markets is typically quite large, most exceeding 20 percent.”

Forbes’ Avvik Roy of Forbes said, a presentation in 2012.

“You have to get at the errors in public policies which drive the hospitals to merge.” He concluded that government must do more to fight consolidation among hospitals.”

The underlying theme is that President Obama wanted Obamacare to fail so it can be replaced by a single party payer system that has been pushed by progressives since 1935. Obamacare is moribund despite claims by Democrats. They refuse to face the fact that socialism does not work even thought it is a feel-good concept.

“A recent paper authored by Northwestern’s Leemore Dafny, Columbia’s Kate Ho, and Harvard’s Robin Lee provides some definitive proof that when hospitals consolidate, prices increase substantially. The effect is made worse directly in proportion to proximity of the merging hospitals. “If you are doing it because you think in the long run it will serve your community well, you should think twice,” Dafny said.”

Hospital systems are consolidating because they think it is in their vested interests to consolidate. They are falling right into President Obama’s trap. Hospital systems do not control productivity. Physicians control productivity.

A study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, conducted by Zack Cooper of Yale University, Stuart Craig of the University of Pennsylvania, Martin Gaynor of Carnegie Mellon and John Van Reenen of the London School of Economics, sheds light on the real cost of reduced competition among hospitals: hospital prices are 15.3 % higher when a hospital had no competition compared in markets with four or more hospitals, amounting to a cost difference of up to $2000 per admission. Hospital prices are 6.4% higher in markets with two hospitals and those with three are 4.8 % more expensive when compared to markets with four hospitals.”

The American Hospital Association has been aggressive in criticizing those reports. It has funded a couple of critical reports defending mergers and consolidations. The American Hospital Association doesn’t understand the progressives’ trap either.

It is backfiring already as hospital systems are saying they are losing money. The government is cutting reimbursement, the insurance companies are raising insurance rates and increased deductibles are unaffordable. Consumers are experiencing a decreased access to care.

None of the policy makers are focused on the right problems because they want a single party payer system in order to gain total control over the healthcare system. Progressive have no interests in the cost of care, the need to raise taxes or the delivery of efficient care.

America is going to experience an economic disaster as it has been experienced in Canada, England and many other countries in the world.

Consumers are continuing to take it on the chin in other countries because 80% are not sick at any one time. Consumers in other countries feel secure with the guaranteed coverage even if it increases their taxes and decreases access to care.

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

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More Single Party Payer Noise

August 22, 2018

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

Democrats have tried to pass a single party payer healthcare system since 1935. Slowly, but surely, the American population has been indoctrinated into believing that a single party payer system run by the government is the best healthcare system to have.

Americans have been filled with disinformation about the wild successes of single party payer systems in the rest of the world.

The economics of these single party payer systems are seldom discussed in a coherent way. Americans have no idea of the economic burden a single party payer system places on the budget of countries that have such a system.

The fact that these governments continue to raise taxes to pay for their single party payer system while decreasing their citizens’ access to care is hardly ever discussed. Only the favorable statistics that fit the progressive narrative are published.

In Norway the income tax rate is 50%. This is mostly because of its universal single party payer healthcare system. Norwegians seem happy with the system. If they get sick they have nothing to worry about. Their health care is free.

The Canadian healthcare system is unsustainable.

“Canada spends 50% of its GNP on healthcare. All of the provinces are experiencing massive deficits due to additional healthcare costs.”

“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.”

“The United States consumes only 18.5% of our GDP on healthcare. This percentage is rising as access to care is decreasing.”

The Frazer Reportis very specific on the cost of healthcare in Canada although the government is not very transparent.

Each province is having a difficult time figuring out how to fix its healthcare system. Many Canadians are convinced that a single party payer system is not the answer but cannot politically eliminate it.

The fact is nothing is free and only 20% of the population interacts with the healthcare system at any one time. People who are not sick think the single party payer system in great. They are happy they have no anxiety about the cost of healthcare if they get sick.

In Britain taxpayers are unhappy with the National Health Services. Consumers recognize the bureaucratic waste in their healthcare system. They suffer from decreased access to care. Wait times for health care and surgery are ridiculously long.

The private healthcare market is flourishing in Britain for those who can afford it.

The British healthcare system is unsustainable. The British government has not been able to fix the expensive National Health Service.

America has a single party payer system for Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP and the VA system.

Seniors love Medicare. Most seniors could not afford to get medical treatment if there was not the Medicare System. Policy wonks and Democrats refuse to recognize that in 1965 after Medicare was enacted, healthcare prices exploded. Most economist agree, as a result of Medicare, the cost of healthcare in America has continued to increase yearly for all Americans.

Congress has ignored the basic defects in the Medicare system that has caused this explosion. Over the years a few brave congressmen have made attempts to correct these structural defects.

The Democrat and Republican establishment have ignored these congressmen.

The political establishment has made feeble attempts to control costs through ineffective regulations. The bureaucracy has grown and the healthcare system has become more costly and inefficient.

The reduction in reimbursement to physicians has resulted in the tremendous increase in concierge medicine. This explosion in concierge medicine has decreased access to medical care in many cities in the U.S.

The result is an increase in cost and greater opportunity for abuse by the insurance industry, the pharmaceutical industry, hospitals and healthcare providers. The government has imposed more control over the individual’s ability to make his or her own healthcare decisions.

Medicaid has experienced the same increasing costs. It also created a shortage of physicians because of low reimbursement. Obamacare has expanded Medicaid. This has decreased the availability of medical care for Medicaid patients.

President Obama’s law (Obamacare) increased the number of Medicaid recipients but did not cure the reasons for the lack of providers. Many clever Medicaid providers have figured out how to exploit Medicaid rules only to suffer from government investigations and penalties in the long run.

The VA system is the purest example of sheer failure. Not only are the patients unhappy but also the providing administrative bureaucracy is riddled with inefficiency, corruption and waste.

The inefficiency, corruption and waste have not been able to be fixed by many notable private sector executives the government has hired to fix it. They have all ultimately resigned or were fired.

The VA system’s single party payer system remains an incurable failure.

These examples are proof that a single party payer system is unsustainable and not economically feasible. The government continues to make the same mistakes over and over again.

Are these mistakes intentional? Perhaps.

The government’s goals are to gain power and have control over the population. If its goals were to have an efficient and effective healthcare system, it would provide the resources to permit all consumers to drive the healthcare system. It would create a system that would motivate consumers to be responsible for their healthcare.

What is happening now?

The healthcare policy ideologists are using the New York Times as their propaganda vehicle to promote a single party payer system.

The article, “Back to the Health Policy Drawing Board” may be intellectually simulating to readers of the Sunday Times. However, many of its details are untrue.

After one casually reads the article on a pleasant Sunday morning it would seem much simpler to have a single party healthcare system controlled by the government than the chaotic system that presently exist. The New York Times article is promoting Medicare for all.

Medicare currently is a single party payer system whosecost is out of control. America cannot continue to print money forever.

America’s politicians are ignoring this fact in order to gain more power.

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

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Here They Come Again

April 5, 2018

inDisinformation and the healthcare system, Stakeholder Abuse of the Healthcare System, Stakeholder Mistrust

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Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

Americans have been filled with disinformation about the wild successes of single party payer systems in the rest of the world.

The economics of these single party payer systems are seldom discussed in a coherent way. The American public has no idea of its economic burden to its countries.

The fact is nothing is free and only 20% of the population interacts with the healthcare system at any one time.

In Britain taxpayers are unhappy with the National Health Services. Consumers recognize the bureaucratic waste in their healthcare system. They also suffer from decreased access to care. Wait times for health care and surgery are ridiculously long.

The private healthcare system is flourishing in Britain for those who can afford it.

The British healthcare system is unsustainable. The British government cannot figure out how to make it more efficient.

America has a single party payer system for Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP and the VA system.

Seniors love Medicare. They could not afford to get treatment if there was not a Medicare System. Policy wonks and Democrats refuse to recognize that in 1965 after Medicare was enacted, healthcare prices exploded. The price of healthcare has continued to explode yearly.

Congress has ignored the basic defects that have caused this explosion. A few congressmen are making feeble attempts to correct this continuing price explosion.

The political establishment largely ignores these congressmen.

As attempts are made to try to control costs through regulations the bureaucracy grows and the system becomes more inefficient. The reduction of reimbursement to physicians has resulted in the explosion of concierge medicine.

The result is an increase in costs and greater opportunity for abuse by the insurance industry, the pharmaceutical industry, hospitals and healthcare providers and government.

President Obama’s law increased the number of Medicaid recipients but did not cure the reasons for the lack of providers. Many clever Medicaid providers have figured out how to exploit Medicaid rules only to suffer from investigations and government penalties in the long run.

The VA system is the purest example of sheer failure. Not only are the patients unhappy but the providing administrative bureaucracy is riddled with inefficiency, corruption and waste.

The inefficiency, corruption and waste have not been able to be fixed but many notable private sector executives. They have all ultimately resigned or were fired.

The VA system’s single party payer system remains an incurable failure.

These examples have proven to me that a single party payer system is unsustainable and not economically feasible. The government continues to make the same mistakes over and over again.

Are these mistakes intentional?

What is happening now?

The healthcare policy ideologists are using the New York Times as their propaganda vehicle to promote a single party payer system.

The article, “Back to the Health Policy Drawing Board” is intellectually simulating to readers of the Sunday Times. However, many of its details are untrue.

However, the cost of the Medicare system is out of control. America cannot continue to print money forever. America’s political class is ignoring this fact.

It is so out of control political wonks are starting to talk about having another Debt Jubilee.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubilee_Debt_Coalition

The New York Times article starts by saying:

The Affordable Care Act needs help.

It sure does. The problem is there are too many defects in the structure of Obamacare that led to the increases in costs to the government and consumers. Obamacare is beyond repair.

After scores of failed repeal attempts, Congress enacted legislation late last year that eliminated one of the law’s central features, the mandate requiring people to buy insurance.

There was only one failed repeal attempt not scores of repeal attempts. The one repeal attempt failed by one vote. It seemed to me to be a vindictive vote. It was not on the bills lack of merit. It seemed to me to be on John McCain’s personal animosity toward President Donald Trump.

There has been a total lack of bipartisanship in trying to repair Obamacare. The have been no ideas offered by Democrats. Its goal was to stymie the Republican administration.

Many establishment Republicans’ goal was to also stymie the Republican administration.

Obamacare had three principal features:

Insurers could not charge higher prices to people with pre-existing conditions.
Those without coverage had to pay a penalty to the government (the “mandate”).

President Trump slipped the elimination of the mandate into the tax bill to bring a speedier death to Obamacare.

Low-income people would be eligible for subsidies.

Each feature represented a death bell from the onset

A June 2017 poll showed that 60 percent of Americans said the government should provide universal coverage, and support for single-payer insurance rose more than one-third since 2014.

Americans are frustrated with the dysfunction in the healthcare system. Premiums have increased tremendously since Obamacare. Its regulations and defective principles increased dysfunction.

Enormous deductibles have resulted in individual buying defective insurance policies. Consumers have ended up with essentially no insurance coverage except for catastrophic illness. Only people at risk for high cost treatment have bought these policies.

I cannot imagine what the 60% who want a single party payer were thinking. Can a government run system improve the inherent inefficiency, waste, abuse and unsustainability of Obamacare or a VA like healthcare system?

A government run single party payer system can only make things worse.

The healthcare system will not improve until congress acts to level the playing field and fix the defects inherent in our present healthcare system.

I believe a universal consumer driven healthcare system, available to all, can “Repair the Healthcare System” at a much lower cost to society and individual consumers than a single party payer system.

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

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They Are Getting There

July 27, 2017

inMedicine: Healthcare System

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Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP, MACE

As Obamacare implodes, President Trump is trying to get a Republican congress to repeal and replace Obamacare in an orderly fashion with a minimum of disruption to the present healthcare system.

The Republican establishment in congress is trying to disrupt his goal. All the Democrats are going to stonewall him.

Republicans won both houses of congress because they promised to repeal and replace Obamacare. They had seven years to create a plan. They have failed to achieve a consensus in the Republican caucus.

Democrats are starting to talk about making it easy. They are suggesting congress replacing Obamacare with a government run single party payer healthcare system.

You may recall President Obama told John Kerry and Barney Frank that America would get to a single party healthcare system via Obamacare. He told them not to worry.

The reality of the situation is America is inching its way to a universal single party payer healthcare system.

Medicaid, Medicare and the VA system are already single party payer systems. Each one of these programs has been declared unsustainable.

It is incomprehensible to me that the Republican politicians who the American people elected in good faith are not hearing their complaints

Presently 41.5% of the population is in one of these single party payer healthcare plans. 49% of Americans pay no taxes. This means that 51% of Americans are paying the healthcare bill for 49% who do not pay taxes.

This is the redistribution of wealth that Dr. Donald Berwick said was essential in America.

If fact many of the 49% receive additional monies from the government such as food stamps, free mobile telephone service and free housing.

America is on its way to European socialism, This ideological system has failed in Europe.

The following calculation is how I came up with the percentage of Americans that are in an entitlement healthcare system. I use U.S. agency census data.

“The current population of the United States of America is 326,613,397 as of Monday, July 24, 2017, based on the latest United Nations estimates.”

9 %of the population is urban (270,683,202 people in 2017)
The median agein the United States is 1 years.

hfo/world-population/us-population/

The chart below displays the total number of individuals enrolled in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) in the current month (April 2017) and the period prior to the start of first Marketplace open enrollment period or “baseline” period (July – Sept. 2013).

The current enrollment is obviously post Obamacare.

*Month*	*Expansion States*	*Non-Expansion States*	*Total*
Baseline July-Sept 2013 (Monthly Average) (49 states)	37,069,415	19,733,676	56,803,091
Apr 2017 (preliminary) (51 states)	52,058,495	22,472,507	74,531,002

Medicaid and Chip increased by 22,472,507 since the onset September 2013.

74,531,002/326,613,397 equals 22.81% of the population is on Medicaid so far.

Medicare enrollment is lower than present Medicaid enrollment. As of May 2017, 37,976,052 are on original Medicare and 20,089,220 are on Medicare Advantage or others Medicare plans for a total of 58,065,272 on this single party payer entitlement.

Medicare is an entitlement program with high premiums. The premiums are means tested. People in the upper tax brackets pay over $18,000 a year in after tax dollars premiums for Part B, Part D and Part F.

The people in lower tax brackets pay less. The premium deduction for Part B is taken out of their monthly Social Security check. This creates a burden on their standard of living.

The additional 58,065,272 to the 74,531,002 bring the total percentage of the population on a single payer healthcare system to 40.6%.

(132,596,274/326,613,397= 40.6%)

If the VA healthcare system enrollees are added to the analysis of the number enrollees to a government run single party payer healthcare system the percentages increase.

In Fiscal Year 2014 the total veteran population was 21,619,731. 9,111,955 veterans were enrolled. 6,616,963 veterans used the VA Hospital System. The VA System brings the total number enrollees in a single party payer system to 133,508,229 or 40.9%

9,111,955 + 132,596,274= 133,508,229

133,508,229/326,613,397= 40.87%

https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43579.pdf

The IHS provides a comprehensive health service delivery system for approximately 2.2 million American Indians and Alaska Natives who belong to 567 federally recognized tribes in 36 states.

https://www.ihs.gov/aboutihs/

133,508,229+2,200,000= 135,708,229

135,708,229/326,613,397= 41.5%

41.5% of the American population is already in a government controlled single party payer healthcare system. President Obama was right. He promised he would get there

Barney Frank and John Kerry did not have to worry. The only problem is that Obamacare is collapsing because it is unsustainable.

It is a pity is Republicans cannot agree to an innovative plan to repeal and replace Obamacare. Maybe the Republican want to have control over the healthcare system and deny Americans their freedoms.

The Democrats don’t care about the welfare and freedoms of Americans or the fiscal health of the nation.

Something needs to be done about this madness now.

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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Trump Is Not the Real Target – You Are

May 31, 2017

inMedicine: Healthcare System, Stakeholder Mistrust

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Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACP

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

President Trump is not going to touch their insurance.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Trump Is Not the Real Target; You Are

Tim Daughtry

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

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

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

Donald Trump was our messenger.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s swamp gas. Don’t breathe it.

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

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

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

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