Who Can You Trust?
Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE
On April 16th President Obama declared that Obamacare is a success. He said over 8 million people had enrolled through the health insurance exchanges.
He did not know how many had paid the first month’s premium or how many enrollees would be subsidized by the government.
He did not know how many had a chronic illness or pre-existing conditions. He said that 35% of the enrollees were under 34 years of age. This is short of the 37% needed to make Obamacare financially viable but he said it was close enough.
It turns out that only 66% of the enrollees paid their first month’s premium by the April 15th. This was the deadline set by the administration. Republican lawmakers issued a report last week using healthcare insurers data.
If the insurers knew the numbers the Obama administration and President Obama certainly knew the numbers.
My guess is less than 2 million people who were previously uninsured obtained insurance. The administration is withholding the figures to avoid protest about its failure to provide insurance for the uninsured.
In his press conference he declared Obamacare is a success and Republicans and the media should stop talking about Obamacare’s failure
“Mr. Obama pointed to the number to declare the law a success and that Republicans should stop trying to overturn it.”
"The point is, the repeal debate is and should be over," the president said. "The Affordable Care Act is working and I know the American people don't want us spending the next 2½ years refighting the settled political battles of the last five years."
It turns out President Obama’s success numbers of 8 million enrollees contradicts all the healthcare insurance companies’ tallies of insurance holders.
Why did President Obama lie? President Obama’s goal is to manipulate the media and fulfill his agenda.
The mainstream media does not believe him or his administration any more. This mistrust has been accentuated by the recent Benghazi information that the administration had tried so desperately to withhold.
I do not want to talk about these lies.
I want to talk about other promises about Obamacare that are turning out to be lies and deceptions.
In a recent report a New York woman suffering from a neurological disease that has required four brain surgeries has been dropped by all of her doctors and denied medications due to her Obamacare plan.
She suffers from a disease known as Arnold Chiara Malformation and Syringomyelia.
This 49-year-old woman said, "I've been vomiting. I lost 22 pounds. The pain is unbearable.” "My medication helps me function during the day."
The Obamacare plan she purchased assured her that she was covered for her medications and her disease.
Nevertheless her insurance card was denied when she went to fill her prescriptions. None of her doctors have accepted her Obamacare plan.
In all of Staten Island there are only six doctors who accept her plan. She has been unable to get an appointment with any of them.
This is one of many complaints that patients are making to their congressmen who face the same problem with Obamacare’s narrow networks and the extreme restrictions of Obamacare to physicians and hospitals.
"Even though the insurance company cashed your check, it doesn't mean it (the policy) has been implemented."
These stories are just beginning since most of the people who have signed up have pre-existing illnesses. Obamacare is already making people furious. The fury might be disguised by the traditional media’s ignoring the fury or downplaying it. The complaints might be further diluted by the fact that President Obama has given waivers to the majority of people covered by their employers or unions.
This strategy is clever. After people in the individual market get tired of complaining Obamacare will be so rooted that the rest of the populations will find it unproductive to complain.
I think President Obama is miscalculating the American peoples’ resolve. The strategy will not work.
Obamacare’s narrow networks are limiting specialty centers. The Associated Press says just 4 of 19 nationally recognized comprehensive cancer centers offer Obamacare access through all insurance plans in their state Obamacare exchanges.
President Obama’s promise of access to care and the lack of rationing of care is turning out not to be true.
All one has to remember is that President Obama ridiculed the Republican’s suggestions that Obamacare was going to create “death panels.”
He said it would never happen. It looks like it is happening.
The opinions expressed in the blog “Repairing The Healthcare System” are, mine and mine alone
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