Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

 

Have a Happy and Healthy New Year Everyone!

I have received many incredible examples about the effect Obamacare has had on the loss of insurance and the increased cost of insurance through Obamacare’s health insurance exchanges.

President Obama has changed the Obamacare law ad lib for everyone except the 14 million people in the individual healthcare insurance market. He has granted waivers to favorites including the unions and the congress. He has delayed the employer mandate without congressional approval.

This was smart. Maintaining the employer mandate would have affected at least 100,000 families. Everyone would have lost their insurance at once.  

The outrage would have been intolerable.

America will wake up one day with a completely unaffordable healthcare system, with rationing of care and long delays in access to care.

This is reality and not naysayer talk. There are so many things wrong with Obamacare that Max Bacchus’s train wreck will be a reality before we know it.

PolitiFact called “If you like your health-care plan, you can keep it.” the lie of the year.

Obamacare was supposed to be a refinement to the current healthcare system minus its waste and inefficiency.

It was going to increase access to healthcare care and make medical care affordable for all. It was going to force the healthcare insurance industry to provide affordable insurance.

It has already made insurance unaffordable to those middle class families who do not qualify for subsidies.

The "sticker shock" that many buyers of new, ACA-compliant health plans have experienced—with premiums 30% higher, or more, than their previous coverage—has only begun.

The costs borne by individuals will be even more obvious next year as more people start having to pay higher deductibles and copays.

President Obama promised that the Affordable Care Act was not going to cost the federal government a dime.

It was going to decrease the federal deficit over ten years by over 1 trillion dollar.

The current CBO estimate is that it will increase the deficit by over 1 trillion dollars. The Affordable Care Act was misnamed. It should be the Unaffordable Care Act.

Obamacare was force down the throat of the American public by the Democratic majorities in both houses of congress. It did not get one Republican vote. Most of the Democrats have admitted they did not read the bill in its entirety.

Nancy Pelosi told America “we have to pass the bill to know what is in it.”

It is now obvious that President Obama was able to pass the bill by feeding everyone a pack of deceptions about the bill and its implications.

It was a magnificent con job.

The deceptions once discovered must not be tolerated by our congressional representatives and senators.

Government is supposed to be by the people, for the people. Consumers did not pay attention to the defects in Obamacare until it started to affect them directly.  

The mainstream media has been sympathetic to President Obama’s lies and deceptions. Now the people are discovering the deceptions and the media is starting to report them.

Now that over 6 million people have lost their insurance coverage, and premiums have skyrocketed Obamacare is affecting the consumers who make under $250,000 a year.

Obamacare has affected consumers financially. There have been significant Obamacare hidden taxes for four years. Obamacare officially starts January 1,2014.

President Obama or his administration has lost the public’s trust because of all the lies and deceptions.

My guess is the media does not know of all the lies and deceptions. The media also does not understand all the defects in Obamacare.

The Obama administration launched a $685 million dollar public relations campaign to disguise the impending Obamacare disaster.

The disastrous website (healthcare.gov) is only the tip of the iceberg.

The web site is incomplete and not secure. It was written using obsolete code at a cost of $650 million dollars. The $650 million dollars is $649 million dollars over what it should have cost according to some sources.

 There remains much work to be done before it is fully functional.

The healthcare insurance industry is becoming fed up with all the constant changes in the rules the Obama administration is making.

 The healthcare insurance premiums on the health insurance exchanges are higher than last year’s commercial insurance. The patient deductibles for these policies put them out of affordable range for the middle class.

It will be a fair deal for consumers with families who earn up to $49,000 per year. This group will qualify for various levels of subsidy. It is a terrible deal for everyone making $50,000 to $250,000 dollars a year.

The 6 million people losing their insurance coverage started American’s wake up call. 

President Obama said their healthcare insurance coverage was defective and inadequate.

 The subtext is the government will decide what you need.

Those who expect better days ahead for the Affordable Care Act are in for a rude awakening. The shocks—economic and political—will get much worse next year and beyond.

In 2014, millions must choose among unfamiliar physicians and hospitals, or paying more for preferred providers who are not part of their insurance network. Some health outcomes will deteriorate from a less familiar doctor-patient relationship.

Those who expected better and more affordable medical care with the government as single party payer will experience tax increases both obvious and disguised and worse medical care.

 The government does not know how to run things efficiently.

The other defects in Obamacare that will shock the nation and hurt all consumers in the near future will be;

1. The lack of functional electronic medical records and transportability of patient medical information.
2. Increased paralyzing and incomprehensible regulations for physicians and hospitals leading to patient care delays.
3. The lack of development of Accountable Care Organizations for integrated care with penalty. ACO’s were suppose to save money but are failing.
4. The inability of Obamacare to facilitate timely and cost effective medical care.
5. The decrease in physician practitioners signing up to accept Obamacare leading to an increased physician shortage and decrease in consumers’ access to care.
6. The lack of tort reform will result in an increase in defensive medicine testing. Physicians and hospitals will refuse to participate in Obamacare. They will demand direct payment from the patients.
7. The new ICM 10 coding system will drive physicians and hospital out of business and certainly out of participating in Obamacare.
8. Lack of compelling chronic disease management initiatives will not increase quality of care or decrease the cost of care. The cost of treating chronic disease complications account for 80% of the cost of care.
9. More Web Site and IT failures are likely. The application process is easier.“The complex back-office side of the website—where the information in their application is checked against government databases to determine the premium subsidies and prices they will be charged, and where the applications are forwarded to insurance companies—is still under construction.
10. Consumers will experience problems in eligibility, coverage, billing, claims, insurer payment and patient information-protection and security.
11. Obamacare has taxpayer-funded "risk corridors." The risk corridors will bailout potential insurance company losses without bailing out consumers, physicians and hospitals. The bailout could result in an increase in taxes, collapse of the healthcare system, the medical care system and the economy.

The bailout will certainly result in a level of consumer anger worse that the anger caused by 5 million people losing their healthcare coverage.

 One hundred and eighty million people might loss their coverage within a year.

 Obamacare misses the entire point about the way to repair the healthcare system.

 The point is about giving consumers incentives to be responsible for themself and controlling their own healthcare decisions. Most consumers do not want to be dependent of the government.

Americans will take government handouts but as soon as they realize they are being dictated to and controlled by the government there will be a public outcry.

Consumers are much smarter than President Obama thinks.

Unfortunately there is much more money to be wasted and grief that the public is going to experience in the coming year. At that point America’s view of Obamacare will reach the boiling point.

Only then will we experience real healthcare reform.

 

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

Please have a friend subscribe.