Stop The Noise: Start Working

The New York Times is filled with case reports of people helped by Obamacare.

The implication is Obamacare is successful and the Republicans do not have a better plan.

Articles appear daily defending Obamacare despite the fact that premiums and deductibles are up, access to care and coverage is down and the medical profession and consumers are despondent.

Obama Says Healthcare Law is Working Fine

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/01/health/obama-says-health-care-law-is-working-fine.html?smprod=nytcore-ipad&smid=nytcore-ipad-share

Obama Says Healthcare Law is Helping White Americans Despite Perceptions

http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2014/12/29/obama-says-health-law-is-helping-white-americans-despite-perceptions/?smprod=nytcore-ipad&smid=nytcore-ipad-share

Is The Healthcare Law Creating More Part Time Work?

http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/27/is-health-care-reform-creating-more-part-time-work/?smprod=nytcore-ipad&smid=nytcore-ipad-share

Why Even Some Republicans Are Rejecting The Replacement Bill

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/07/upshot/why-even-some-republicans-are-rejecting-the-replacement-bill.html?smprod=nytcore-ipad&smid=nytcore-ipad-share

Obamacare Users Await Repeal and Replacement With Dread Anticipation

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/obamacare-users-await-repeal-and-replacement-with-dread-anticipation/

All of this is “Fake News.”

I cannot understand how Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, with a straight face on national television, can say Obamacare is not failing.

Dr. Emanuel thinks Obamacare is a great deal. He is one of its authors.

His problem is he cannot prove it is great in reality.

 

 https://youtu.be/1-PRvZ_R0-0

I guess the Democrats hope is if you tell a lie enough times it becomes the truth.

The conservative media is starting to figure out how to neutralized this tactic that engenders sympathy for Obamacare. The Wall Street Journal published an article “How Obamacare Punishes the Sick.”

This article stimulates feeling against President Obama’s lies.

“Republicans are nervous about repealing ObamaCare’s supposed ban on discrimination against patients with pre-existing conditions.”

 If one can disregard the fact that one case does not win a medical argument, one can start talking about what might work to create a cost effective quality healthcare system.

Obamacare and its bureaucracies have set up perverse incentives for stakeholders and against consumers.

A recently reported study by Harvard and the University of Texas in Austin demonstrated these perverse incentives.

Obamacare is supposed to help the sick. It turns out Obamacare punishes the sick with certain illness.

“But a new study by Harvard and the University of Texas-Austin finds those rules penalize high-quality coverage for the sick, reward insurers who slash coverage for the sick, and leave patients unable to obtain adequate insurance.”

Diseases such as multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, infertility and others high cost conditions are being charged higher deductibles, experiencing more prior-authorization for drugs, an increase in lesser quality substitution drugs, and often no coverage for the drugs they need.

Most of these conditions require long- term expensive medications.

Therefore consumers with these diseases cannot get treated adequately.

For example, a patient with multiple sclerosis might file a $61,000 claim.

Insurers lose money on every MS patient. An incentive is created for insurers to avoid enrolling patients with MS. The insurers then make its healthcare policy unattractive to people with multiple sclerosis.

Obamacare’s subsidy for patients with multiple sclerosis is inadequate for the cost of the disease’s care.

“To mitigate that perverse incentive, ObamaCare lobs all manner of taxpayer subsidies at insurers. Yet the researchers find insurers still receive just $47,000 in revenue per MS patient—a $14,000 loss per patient.”

 

The insurer doesn’t want to loss $14,000 per patient. Patients are not stupid. They find the best coverage at the lowest price,

This insurer suffers high losses. He either leaves the market or decreases coverage. The perverse incentive leads to low quality care.

Patient with multiple sclerosis on Obamacare are not getting high quality healthcare.

Everyone losses. The government loses, the insurer loses but most of all the patient loses.

There is a better way to insure these people. In a free market system driven by my ideal medical saving accounts the creation of a high risk pool funded by all participating insurance companies in the lucrative private market spreads the risk to insurance companies and government while providing high quality care to qualified patients.

Politicians must start thinking smart.

The format of previous high-risk healthcare insurance pools was a disaster for all the stakeholders. High-risk pools can be formatted in a way that works for patients and does not contaminate the private market with spiraling insurance prices.

The Democrats ought to give up Obamacare. It is a dead horse.

Obamacare has failed for the many reasons I have pointed out in my blog over the past 7 years.

The Democrats’ knee jerk reaction would be why not just adopt a single party payer system.

The answer is look at the mess the VA system is in with it bureaucracy and apathy.

Republicans ought to stop trying to prove Obamacare is a failure.

The politicians ought to try to do something right for the people who put them in power.

They ought to get rid of Obamacare in the least disruptive way possible as quickly as possible.

I believe President Trump, Tom Price M.D., and Paul Ryan are trying to do just that with the American Healthcare Act that is being voted on the house tomorrow.

The conservative coalition in the house should get off its high horse and not shoot itself in the foot.

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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