President Obama Is Destroying His Theoretical Basis For Obamacare In Order To Win Re- election.
Stanley Feld M.D., FACP,MACE
I have been speaking to many people about the hazards of Obamacare.
Many well-educated people do not understand the defects in President Obama’s Healthcare Reform law and its potential unintended consequences.
Unfortunately, many congressmen and senators do not understand the consequences of the law either.
Rather than President Obama’s Healthcare Reform law making the medical care system better it is destined to make it worse.
I have explained the reasons for these unintended consequences in past blogs.
Most people have difficulty understanding details of the law because it is poorly covered in the press in our sound bite society.
Only a small percentage of people need medical care at any one time. To those not needing medical care the healthcare system under President Obama’s law has changed little except for higher healthcare premiums and deductibles.
The 35-55 year olds are the group that must become aware of the changes that will result from the law. When they will need medical care our healthcare system will likely be decimated.
Everyone is in agreement that our federal, state and local governments are bankrupt. Everyone understands our federal government has borrowed and spent the money we should have saved to fund our future healthcare needs.
Additionally, entitlements and administrative inefficiency, waste and fraud will have intensified the problems of overspending.
Paul Krugman believes deficit spending is immaterial. He continues to insist that John Maynard Keynes was right even though he lack evidence for his conclusion. Deficit spending is immaterial until there is no one around to lend the government money.
President Obama keeps saying he is going to decrease healthcare costs with his law. His conclusion is theoretical. His conclusion defies his own government’s CBO and various experts.
President Obama’s conclusions also demonstrate his lack of understanding of the complicated defects that have accumulated over many years of adjusting to defective healthcare policy.
Increasing bureaucratic structure and government control is at the root of the problems in the healthcare system. Increasing this structure is not the solution to the healthcare system.
President Obama is now backing off some of the draconian aspects of contaminating the theoretical basis of his Healthcare Reform Act.
The Obama administration’s surprise announcement Friday that it planned to give states broad leeway to pick the benefits offered under the federal health care law offers yet another example of a gradualist approach to carrying out its signal domestic policy achievement.
Obamacare mandates what must be covered under the Federal Health Care Law
• Ambulatory patient services, like doctor’s visits
• Emergency services
• Hospitalization
• Maternity and newborn care
• Mental health and substance abuse services
• Prescription drugs
• Rehabilitative and habilitative services, and specialized social and medical services for people with conditions like autism and cerebral palsy
• Laboratory services
• Preventive and wellness services and chronic disease management
• Pediatric services, including oral and vision care
President Obama is choosing to avoid some crucial choices until well after the 2012 elections. Critics accuse the administration of political expediency. The Obama administration insists the decisions have been based on sound policy judgments.
I hope the public is not stupid enough to believe President Obama’s ploy. The public has been duped in the past. I think it is waking up.
In passing a good deal of the decision-making to states, the administration has guaranteed that Americans will continue to face a patchwork of state regulations that make coverage uneven and inefficient.
People in Utah and Wyoming, for example, are likely to have more limited access to expensive services now mandated in states like Massachusetts and Maryland. And consumer advocates worry that some states will limit benefits too strictly.
President Obama has taken the guts out of his law just as he previously discontinued the insurance mandate to large organizations in 2011.
President Obama is playing another trick play on the states and the American people. The net result will be more uncertainty, more unintended consequences and more deficit spending.
Let us not be fooled again. Let us wake up!
The opinions expressed in the blog “Repairing The Healthcare System” are, mine and mine alone.
Please send the blog to a friend