Twisting the Facts About Health Care
Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE
I have been a New York Times reader since 7th grade. At
that time I delivered the New York Times to all the classrooms in my Junior
High School.
The New York Times has become pretty shabby in recent
years. It has stopped printing unbiased news. It does not print, “All
The News Fit To Print.”
It has been publishing biased news, news leaks as well as
opinions that have contained innuendo and not based on facts.
A glaring example is the healthcare editorial on Sunday October
21,2012.
The New York Times is trying very hard to help defeat
Mitt Romney and push President Obama over the finish line.
I hope intelligent readers can see through the Times’
smokescreen of no facts and evaluate the candidates objectively.
The editorial’s first sentence is absolutely correct.
“The outcome of the presidential election will determine which of
two opposing paths the nation will follow on health care for all Americans.”
One
path represented by Obamacare is a path of government takeover of healthcare.
It will convert the healthcare system totally to an entitlement system. The government will make the rules and create regulations.
Many will be difficult to follow and impossible to enforce.
This
path leads to restriction of freedom of choice, rationing and a decrease in
access to healthcare.
Americans
did not expect this option when they elected President Obama.
It
is easy to remember the sound-bite, “ If you like your present
insurance you can keep it. If you like your physicians you can keep them.”
His
campaign principles were vague. His promises were broad brushstrokes of
policies and not a specific outline of policies. At the end of these vague
promises was the appealing promise of affordable healthcare insurance coverage
for all.
It
turns out that after four years healthcare insurance coverage has become more
expensive. There is no relief in sight. All Americans are subjected to 10
hidden taxes that in effect increases the cost of healthcare insurance
coverage.
America
has passed a 2400 page bill that few read and fewer understand. The bill has
generated over 44,000 new regulations so far and massive new government
bureaucracies.
The
bill was supposed to decrease the cost of healthcare by over $125 billion
dollars during the next ten years.
It
is now estimated to cost taxpayers an additional $1 trillion dollars over ten
years.
The
New York Times editorial goes on to say:
“If voters re-elect President Obama, he will
protect the health care reforms that are his signature domestic achievement.”
It
sounds like the New York Times believes this is a good thing. My guess is the
Times is not a very good judge of sound business practices because it is itself
on the verge of bankruptcy. Obamacare is
unsustainable and destined to drive America into bankruptcy.
So
far President Obama has done nothing to decrease the number of uninsured and
nothing to decrease the cost of care. In fact the cost of care has escalated as
patient deductibles have increased, premiums have increased and the quality of
employer coverage has decreased. Employer sponsored healthcare insurance
coverage is expected to decrease further in the next two years.
The
New York Times editorial goes on to state:
“If they elect Mitt
Romney, they will be choosing a man who has pledged to repeal the reform law
and replace it with — who knows what?”
The biggest defects in today’s healthcare system are ;
1. It does not encourage individuals to be responsible for the
maintenance for their own health
2, it does not give consumers control of their healthcare dollars
or incentives to preserve those dollars.
3. It does not discourage the practice of defensive medicine with
effective tort reform.
4. It does not create a competitive healthcare market that must
become consumer driven in order to control costs.
The New York Times invites us to visit Mitt Romney’s web site
after this biased preamble:
“The competing visions are often difficult to evaluate because the
Republican candidates — Mr. Romney and his running mate, Paul Ryan — have
become so artful about obfuscating their plans for Medicare, Medicaid and what
they will do to reform the whole system.”
I went to the web site to see what Mitt Romney’s plan is. He has
very specific proposals in his healthcare plan. The proposals could Repair the
Healthcare System if implemented correctly.
I imagine the New York Times did not pay attention to any of the
words in the plan because they are drinking President Obama/Mr. David Axelrod’s
"Kool Aid."
The Times tells us in the very next sentence;
“Almost nothing the Republican candidates say on these or other
health care issues can be taken at face value.”
I would say this is not objective reporting.
What is Mitt Romney’s healthcare plan? I would like readers to
read it carefully and judge for themselves.
He first explains the Obamacare failures. The failures are
important to keep in mind because Obamacare has been shoved down the mouth of
Americans.
OBAMA'S FAILURE
Unfortunately,
the transformation in American health care set in motion by Obamacare will take
us in precisely the wrong direction. The bill, itself more than 2,400 pages
long, relies on a dense web of regulations, fees, subsidies, excise taxes,
exchanges, and rule-setting boards to give the federal government extraordinary
control over every corner of the health care system. The costs are
commensurate: Obamacare added a trillion dollars in new health care spending.
To pay for it, the law raised taxes by $500 billion on everyone from
middle-class families to innovative medical device makers, and then slashed
$500 billion from Medicare.
Obamacare
was unpopular when passed, and remains unpopular today, because the American
people recognize that a government takeover is the wrong approach. While
Obamacare may create a new health insurance entitlement, it will only worsen
the system’s existing problems. When was the last time a massive government
program lowered cost, improved efficiency, or raised the consistency of
service? Obamacare will violate that crucial first principle of medicine: “do
no harm.” It will make America a less attractive place to practice medicine,
discourage innovators from investing in life-saving technology, and restrict
consumer choice.
In short,
President Obama’s trillion dollar federal takeover of the U.S. health care
system is a disaster for the federal budget, a disaster for the constitutional
principles of federalism, and a disaster for the American people.
MITT'S PLAN
On his
first day in office, Mitt Romney will issue an executive order that paves the
way for the federal government to issue Obamacare waivers to all fifty states.
He will then work with Congress to repeal the full legislation as quickly as
possible.
In place
of Obamacare, Mitt will pursue policies that give each state the power to craft
a health care reform plan that is best for its own citizens. The federal
government’s role will be to help markets work by creating a level playing
field for competition.
Restore
State Leadership and Flexibility
Mitt will
begin by returning states to their proper place in charge of regulating local
insurance markets and caring for the poor, uninsured, and chronically ill.
States will have both the incentive and the flexibility to experiment, learn
from one another, and craft the approaches best suited to their own citizens.
- Block grant Medicaid and other payments to
states - Limit federal standards and requirements on
both private insurance and Medicaid coverage - Ensure flexibility to help the uninsured,
including public-private partnerships, exchanges, and subsidies - Ensure flexibility to help the chronically
ill, including high-risk pools, reinsurance, and risk adjustment - Offer innovation grants to explore
non-litigation alternatives to dispute resolution
Promote
Free Markets and Fair Competition
Competition
drives improvements in efficiency and effectiveness, offering consumers’ higher
quality goods and services at lower cost. It can have the same effect in
the health care system, if given the chance to work.
- Cap non-economic damages in medical
malpractice lawsuits - Empower individuals and small businesses to
form purchasing pools - Prevent discrimination against individuals
with pre-existing conditions who maintain continuous coverage - Facilitate IT interoperability
Empower
Consumer Choice
For
markets to work, consumers must have the information and the power to make
decisions about their own care. Placing the patient at the center of the
process will drive quality up and cost down while ensuring that services are
designed to provide what Americans actually want.
- End tax discrimination against the individual
purchase of insurance - Allow consumers to purchase insurance across
state lines - Unshackle HSAs by allowing funds to be used
for insurance premiums - Promote "co-insurance" products
- Promote alternatives to "fee for
service" - Encourage "Consumer Reports"-type
ratings of alternative insurance plans
Mitt Romney’s plan is an outline of his healthcare plan that
corrects all of the defects in our healthcare system. Obamacare has amplified
the healthcare system’s defects.
By giving states the opportunity to select a waiver from Obamacare,
Governor Romney is eradicating all the new taxes, regulations, bureaucracy, and
impingement on individual choice, individual freedoms and access to care
issues. He is also opening the door for subsidized healthcare coverage for
those in need.
It is much more specific than the plan President Obama presented before
his election in 2008. I have reviewed my articles on his proposals. President
Obama disguised his real intentions. He made it sound much better than he
intended. If one reads between the lines it is clear President Obama wanted the
federal government to control the healthcare system.
The blog post from 2008 make interest reading. Please click on
them.
President Obama is the pot calling the kettle black.
Government Romney puts the consumer first, not the government. His
plan also strengthens states rights which have been severely discounted during
his term in office. The states can be a little more efficient that the central
government.
President Obama has presented nothing about his healthcare plan
during his reelection cycle,
Many of the regulations have not been written yet. President Obama
is waiting until after the election when “he
will have more flexibility. ”
Please remember I voted for him in 2008. President Obama has been a
tremendous disappointment to me. He does not understand the American psyche and
is ignoring Americans’ wishes.
The opinions expressed in the blog “Repairing The Healthcare System” are, mine and mine alone
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