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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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.

 All Rights Reserved © 2006 – 2015 “Repairing The Healthcare System” Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

The next two blogs will review the published position on healthcare of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

Obamacare has not been a big issue in the presidential campaign yet. It will become a big issue in mid October when the new premium schedules will leak to the press and by the November 1 publication of premium date healthcare will be a full-blown campaign issue.

Obamacare is on the verge of failure. Democrats are starting to talk up a Public Option as the Obamacare salvation. The Public Option is not going to save Obamacare.

The healthcare Co-Ops were supposed to provide a competitive force for the healthcare insurance companies to keep down the premium costs. However, 17 out of 22 have failed. The other five will fail before the end of the year.

The Public Option is a federally controlled competitive force. However, because of healthcare insurance companies distrust for the Democrats and Obamacare few insurance companies will show up to compete.

The presidential campaign has been such a circus that our attention has been diverted from healthcare.

The failure will be noticed when the new premiums are published on November 1, 2016, five days before we go the polls.

This late date has been set deliberately by the Obama administration in order not to give Americans enough time to respond with anger toward Democrats and the potentially new Hillary Clinton administration and vote her down.

Hillary Clinton’s website’s first sentence in her preamble on healthcare says it all.

“As your president, I want to build on the progress we’ve made with Obamacare.

She will build on Obamacare. Obamacare is a failure by all measures once we see through President Obama, Paul Krugman, and Ezekeil Emanuel’s lies. Why would anyone want to build on that failure?

Hillary supports President Obama’s call for a near tripling of the size of the National Health Service Corps. It will also triple the cost with not evidence that it will be successful.

“ I’ll do more to bring down health care costs for families, ease burdens on small businesses, and make sure consumers have the choices they deserve.”

 It sounds like President Obama’s empty promise.

1. If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor.
2. If you like your insurance company you can keep your insurance company.
3. If you make less than $250,000 dollars a year you will not pay one red cent more in taxes.

 “And frankly, it is finally time for us to deal with the skyrocketing out-of-pocket health costs, and particularly runaway prescription drug prices.”

This statement is important but is minor compared to what needs to be done.

The main body of Hillary Clinton’s position paper says the same thing. It does not give any details on how she will accomplish any of her promises.

Her campaign and the traditional media led by the New York Times have attacked every one of Donald Trump’s proposals because they claim he does not spell out how he would accomplish them.

Below are her website healthcare policies.

Defend and expand the Affordable Care Act, which covers 20 million people.

 In 2016, Obamacare’s Health Insurance Exchanges insure only ten million people.

Most of those 10 million have a pre-existing illness. These people could not buy healthcare insurance on the private market. Eighty-five percent of those people receive government supplements. There has been no increase in Obamacare enrollment since 2014. There has been a lot of lying about enrollment yearly.

It would be less expensive if a system of care were developed to provide these people with medical care without the bloated bureaucracy and falsely promised insurance benefits.

The expansion of Medicaid eligibility decreased the uninsured an additional 10 million. With Hillary Clinton’s plan to increase Syrian immigration to 500,000 a year and provide them with Medicaid the failure of Medicaid will be accelerated.

Medicaid is another failed government program. Medicaid patients have difficulty finding a physician and have decreased access for medical care.

Bring down out-of-pocket costs like copays and deductibles.

Hillary Clinton offers no plan on how she is going to accomplish this.

Reduce the cost of prescription drugs.

Again, there is no explanation for how she is going to reduce these high costs.

Protect consumers from unjustified prescription drug price increases from companies that market long-standing, life-saving treatments and face little or no competition.

Promises, promises, promises with no explanation of a plan. It sounds great but there is no plan explaining fulfillment.

Fight for health insurance for the lowest-income Americans in every state by incentivizing states to expand Medicaid—and make enrollment through Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act easier.

President Obama and his administration have told us over and over again that it is easy to enroll in Medicaid and Obamacare. The Obama administration even pays enrollment navigators $48 an hour.

Expand access to affordable health care to families regardless of immigration status.

Hillary Clinton clearly has no regard for cost. She also wants to expand the immigration of Syrians to 500,000 per year. When this happens the cost of Medicaid will explode.

The federal government will eventually try to dump those costs on the states. Most states have budget deficits that have to be cured now.

Taxpayers will be forced to endure both federal and state tax increases for a failed federal program.

President Obama’s original promise is that the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) will be budget neutral.

Expand access to rural Americans, who often have difficulty finding quality, affordable health care.

Hillary Clinton pledges to explore cost-effective ways to make more health care providers eligible for telemedicine reimbursement under Medicare and other programs.

Please notice she is only exploring the possibility of telemedicine reimbursement. Americans have heard empty promises before.

Defend access to reproductive health care. 

Hillary will work to ensure that all women have access to preventive care, affordable contraception, and safe and legal abortion. This is not a promise. How she will accomplish this goal is not outlined.

Double funding for community health centers, and supports the healthcare workforce: 

This is an initiative that is part of Hillary Clinton’s comprehensive healthcare agenda.

She is going to double present funding for primary-care services at community health centers over the next decade.

This is another ideological plan whose effectiveness has not been proven.

The goal of community healthcare centers is to provide low-level care for illness. It does not promote a patient/physician relationship or patient responsibility. It does not provide patient choice.

It is another step to commoditize medical care.

There you have it. Hillary Clinton’s healthcare policy as described on her website.

It is an extension of President Obama’s failed healthcare policy of the last 7 years. There is no mention of patients or their responsibility for their health or healthcare.

None of these proposals will lower the price of healthcare or increase the quality of care.

Hillary Clinton’s proposals will increase spending on a failed program (Obamacare) that has increased America’s deficit.

Hillary Clinton believes: “Together these steps will get us closer to the day when everyone in America has access to quality, affordable health care.”

I believe Hillary Clinton does not know what she is talking about. I know the American people are seeing what is happening to our healthcare system.

If you want more of Obamacare with its tremendous costs to individuals and the American people along with the lack of improvement in medical care vote for Hillary Clinton.

Hillary Clinton is a tax and spend progressive democrat who does not think about what consumers need. Her attitude is that consumers are not smart enough to choose.

She believes that the federal government knows best.

There is nothing in her healthcare plan to Repair the Healthcare System.

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

All Rights Reserved © 2006 – 2015 “Repairing The Healthcare System” Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE