Posted on 02/19/2017 6:54:22 AM PST by Kaslin
Twenty million. That is the number foisted upon us by the Obama administration and all of its believers as to how many people got health insurance because of his signature health care program and how many will lose it if the evil Republicans tinker with the program; i.e., “repeal and replace.” Have you ever seen the figures behind that 20 million number? No you have not because it is a phantom number. Like the 97% of scientists believing in global warming – sorry, climate change. Or that the day of the Super Bowl has the highest number of domestic violence incidences. The Left repeats things often enough, echoed by the compliant media, that they begin to believe their own lies.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA aka Obamacare) brought a sledgehammer to something they should have brought a ball-peen hammer to fix. It should have addressed only the uninsured plus the major challenge for the rest of us: pre-existing conditions. Instead, because they really wanted to make our health care system single payer (i.e. government run), they gave us a slew of new taxes (most of them hidden) and really covered very few new people outside of Medicaid. The real number appears to be about 2.2 million gaining coverage outside of Medicaid in 2013-2015. That should have happened through normal hiring and other processes. Medicaid added 11.8 million covered during that period so the real number is 14 million new people with insurance.
We have previously discussed the fact that many of those 11.8 million may have health insurance, but no health care because of the lack of physicians who accept Medicaid with its low reimbursement rates. People cannot find doctors in most rural areas. The doctors they might get in densely populated urban areas may require hours for transit to/from for services.
One of the elements of proposals floated by Republicans is a cap on how much an employer can pay for an employee's health insurance. I never like caps like this. For example, if we had not changed insurance companies we would have exceeded the caps with a $12,000 deductible. Arbitrary caps are just that -- arbitrary. For example, the IRS still thinks a $25 gift to a customer is appropriate or even achievable. These caps don’t work.
Here are some suggestions for the Republicans while they are recreating the system bludgeoned by ACA:
1. Get the government out of the private sector health care. Too many requirements for people to have too many criteria loaded on their health insurance. Just require a clear, concise statement by the insurance companies of what is included and what is not included in a policy. Let the companies develop their options to meet the marketplace.
2. The only insurance people should be required to buy is catastrophic insurance or what was referred to as hospitalization (if you end up in a hospital from a traffic or skiing accident.) A 26-year-old should not be required to buy comprehensive insurance that will never be used. That is why they have not participated in Obamacare. That grand experiment failed. If the 20-somethings do not get insurance through work, they are not going to pay exorbitant rates to subsidize their parents and grandparents.
3. Dispense with the penalties and the enforcement by the IRS -- a despicable aspect of Obamacare. A lot of people got hit with penalties this past year and the Obama administration did not tell the world how many owe the government money because of premium supports that were overstated. Stop with the punishment. Emphasize rewards for acquiring insurance.
4. Let’s get real about FDA approval of drugs. Not allowing legalization of medications tested and used in Europe is absurd. Not allowing people with virtual death sentences from disease to try an experimental process or medication is near criminal. Having drug tests taking eons and costing hundreds of millions is government in overdrive.
5. For the 9,548th time, the biggest problem with Obamacare was it increased demand, but did nothing about increasing supply (doctors, nurses, hospitals). There may not be a need for more hospitals as stays are shortening, but it does no good to have insurance if you cannot see a practitioner. We need to push down some services that do not need doctors or dentists to lower-level practitioners to increase the supply, especially in primary care. We need to address this issue and no one is looking at it. We keep building law schools to create lawyers to sue doctors, but few, if any, new medical schools.
6. Pricing for services has to become more of a marketplace. People need to know what the cost of their services are going to be before they are incurred. Being told not to worry because insurance will pay for your medical services is not good enough.
7. Please, please, please stop this nonsense that you have to be at a doctor’s office to get medical advice. In an era where we have modern communication including Skype where a doctor can physically see a patient why does everyone need to travel across town, sit in a waiting room with people coughing and sneezing to get a diagnosis on simple matters as if it is still 1966? The government insists on doctors only billing for office visits. I beg my doctor to just tell them I was there, give me the prescription and bill me, but no. That is what happens when government bureaucrats and policy wonks make up health care rules.
8. Reasonable levels of deductibles have to be established. Having significant deductibles is good to put the power of decision making back into the hands of the consumer. But $10,000 deductibles do not cut it for average Americans. This is where Health Savings Accounts need to come back into play after being attacked by Obamacare.
9. We need to consider high-risk pools for people with significant pre-existing conditions. These people are the most challenging part of the medical system and the reason people not in this group have the greatest fear. They fear becoming part of this group and not having proper coverage.
These are just some of the points that need to be addressed in this round of revamping our medical system. Dr. Tom Price, Secretary of Health and Human Services, understands these points because he was actually a practicing orthopedic surgeon. This is unlike the current system that was designed by a bunch of policy wonks. Price has had a plan ready for years to replace ACA despite the lie that has been perpetuated that Republicans have no plan, much like the lie about 20 million losing coverage.
Let us remember Obamacare actually threw millions of Americans out of their plans. I was one of them. That actually happened versus the projected number of people who might lose their plans in hypothetical scenarios.
The idea is that we can replace this government controlled top-down plan with one that focuses on control by citizens and their medical professionals.
P.S. They now say (Robert Reich/MoveOn.org) it will be 32 million losing their insurance. They are unhinged.
Love it! “Phantom number” = fake news!
Trump should tell Schumer to put up a plan within 30 days that would keep obamacare from becoming a complete train wreck. It is clearly crashing. Put up or shut up, Chuckie.
How about “11 million illegal aliens?” That will also turn out to be Very Fake News, because TX has about 2 million and CA has at least 3 million, so 11 million is far too low.
As long as the government is in it, it is un-Constitutional.
I beg my doctor to just tell them I was there, give me the prescription and bill me, but no. That is what happens when government bureaucrats and policy wonks make up health care rules.
This. I have a condition that every once in awhile flares up and I need antibiotics. My doctor knows it. I know it. But can I just call and get the same antibiotics they give me every time? No. I have to do an office visit which gets billed to my insurance for a 5 minute visit. Ridiculous.
Free markets for insurance including choice. Free markets in the supply chain that support healthcare. Tort reform. All necessary for the repeal of the ACA. Yet none of it will solve our so called healthcare crisis until published prices for hospital and physician care can be brought into reason. I have recently had a relatively simple ER visit priced at $7K and a 30 minute outpatient surgery priced at $67K. Even negotiating those price down would leave an average person broke. Will market reforms drive those prices down? Thoughts and opinions appreciated?
Don’t forget the fraud factor. I read somewhere that 32% of Medicare is fraud charges. I know this first hand from a local hospital. When my dad died mom was going through the bills. There was a doctor’s charge of $5,000 she had not heard of. She back checked and found the doctor had died 7 years earlier and the hospital was still billing for his time. Private insurance companies are more likely to check the bills sent.
The other ruse is the “old boy network” We’d go to a “SPECIALIST”. After a 5 minute interview with him he would say- “I can’t help you but I know a doctor that might be able to” and bill Medicare $5,000 or more only to be repeated by the next doctor.
Somebody please explain how insurance cost will be reduced when a hospital charges $8,000.00 per hour for a wrist surgery? 3 hours in and out, 30 min. pre-op 90 min surgery and 60 min. post op. Total hospital charge was $24,000.
So long as Little Robbie and the crew at MO.org are among the 32MM, I'm OK with that.
#2 - I reject anything that ‘requires’ me to buy insurance. I’d do it for my family, to secure their position while protecting my health, but to subject, key word being ‘subject’ anything to buy something ‘because the crown has decreed so because you are breathing’ is unacceptable.
Our medical system was designed a hundred years ago for the benefit of doctors who had few useful tools to treat people. It hasn't changed.
If banking hadn't changed we'd still be walking into banks and having 'a banker' OK our withdrawals - a banker who knew us by name - AND IT WOULD COST A FORTUNE ...
SAME WITH MEDICAL CARE.
It costs a fortune and doesn't work well because it has NOT been brought into the modern world. Your medical records should be kept on a heath care computer designed by Bill Gates and you should be able to access it via your computer. Every 5th prescription of antibiotics might require a visit to a computerized health center... where after a machine diagnosis a live doctor will look at you and confirm the machine's choice.
Yes, the world is ready for ATM machines at banks and they're ready for computerized medicine. Hello Bill Gates - REALLY want to help the world? Set up the software system that uses the questions the best diagnosticians use to diagnose disease and program it into computers.Bruce Bialosky is on the right path - he just doesn't go far enough... Medicine should be better, cheaper and more accessible... to all.
I hope to GOD Republicans are not just looking for another nanny-state replacement for the ACA - Obamacare lite, without all the IRS enforcement. This is why the Left always wins in the end.
They MUST return health-care to the market. Give tax and regulatory benefits to those doctors and patients who deal directly in CASH, with payments and costs made between themselves.
ANY 3rd party system, whether government or private insurance, will, in some way, distort the process. Government will distort it badly, but large-scale private insurance, especially if complex, does the same.
This is the destructiveness of 3rd payer systems (particularly government) and also highly complex mandates on pricing and transparency. When medicaid declares they are only going to pay at 50% of published rates, and make doctors and hospitals wait 150 days for their money - what would your response be? Double listed rates.
CASH, CASH, CASH!
Allow and create tax and regulatory benefits for patients who buy treatment directly from their doctors - with no one else in-between. Do not dis-incentivize anyone to buy treatment, in cash, directly from the source - whether doctors, hospitals, or clinics!!!
Prices will drop IMMEDIATELY.
Health insurance should be like car insurance. Everyone pays their own routine maintenance and anything over and above that would be through insurance. The prices would drop like a rock.
I was watching Fox News Sunday, and Chris Wallace had Rush Limbaugh on. He was bitching to Rush that at this time that arrogant pos former occupant of 1600 health care had already passed totally ignoring that it was pushed down the people’s throat and that not one republican voted for it. He also said his tax reform was passed. He also ignored that rats had the majority in both houses. I finally went outside because I couldn’t stand his ranter.
I am no fan of doctors, trust me, but nowadays most of them are just little cogs in the wheel of really, really big Big Medicine.
Doctors have a right to be concerned.
A few years back some ‘brilliant’ insurance group decided that a three day hospital recovery for people with pneumonia was adequate and they would not pay for ‘day 4’ without reams of paperwork and pleading from doctors. The insurance company bean counters didn't understand that a 3 day recovery was an average... Some people would be able to leave the hospital after a day or two... some people needed to stay for a week. Doctors were right to be outraged.
So, no I'm not taking the side against doctors...
I remember when Gore came up with a plan to take care of the health of a few thousand kids - the money he wanted to use would have insured a million or more....it’s the Democrat way - throw as much money away as possible to do the lousiest possible job.
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