TheHealthCareCritic

We have warned the reader repeatedly that the Healthcare “reform bill” is a link in the socialistic chain that President OBAMA is building. The signals were very clear early on. Every policy/legislative move or appointment was based on ideology.

The TARP money, the largest infusion in U.S. history, may have permanentely changed the relationship between the government and the governed. Loans to GM allowed the creditor, the U.S. government, to directly convert debt at face value into GM shares, unlike any other creditor except for the UAW and the Government of Canada. The existing shareholders were left holding an empty bag.  All was done based on an ideology that favors labor over capital. The Stimulus money and the continuing funding of long term unemployment are robbing the United States of its productivity edge and creating dependency on government. The latter is an intended target from a very ideological President who continues to ignore tax cuts and tax subsidies as veritable mechanisms for promoting employment. The piling of regulations is another impediment to job growth as regulation and the continuing modifications of the rules are a form of taxation and uncertainty generators. Business does not like uncertainty.

Another link was the creation of the SHADOW CABINET within the White House. The so called Tsars within the White House represent a cabinet-of-sort accountable only to President Obama without congressional and possibly judicial oversight. Mr. Kenneth Feinberg, the pay Tsar, has been rampaging through bank executive pay, while the friends of Obama make millions from a single film and Oprah makes even more from a single show with no limit on their compensation.

The Fox guarding the hen house is best exemplified in the appointment of Erik Holder and especially his Deputy: Tom Perez, who is a sanctuary city advocate, and in no hurry to enforce employer sanctions for hiring illegals. The Labor Department Secretary, Hilda Solis seems to be drinking from the same well.

But, alas, the latest appointment of Mr. Donald Berwick to head Medicare and Medicaid is perfectly consistent with the underlying philosophy that brought us ObamaCare with bribes, intimidation, and back room deals.

Dr. Berwick is not shy about expressing his ideology. He wants to “spread the wealth” that Obama promised to do during his political campaign. He seems to be instinctively opposed to having the forces of the market to solve any of the US  health care issues: do not “put your faith in market forces”  he once admonished his audience. He is unable to see a system where the decision between patient and doctor is preserved and respected:

“Young doctors and nurses should emerge from training understanding the values of standardization and the risks of too great an emphasis on individual autonomy” .  And, he believes the total health care costs for the nation will not exceed 8% (currently 17%) if we would only listen to him and have excellence in medical care defined in terms of “…….standardization to the best known method- above clinician autonomy as a rule for care”.

Dr. Berwick wants to engage in involuntary wealth distribution. The wealthy who pay the majority of the taxes in this country are already witnessing wealth redistribution through Medicare and through restricted access to Medicare. Make no mistake about it, those who are still holding on to their Medicare Cadillac plans will pay more taxes. Care will be rationed in Medicare and Medicaid as the incentives of the doctors to participate in these programs are being systematically reduced through shrinking reimbursement schedules.

Dr. Berwick’s appointment is based on this anti market philosophy. Indeed it completely confirms it. He stated that:

“Any health care funding plan that is just equitable, civilized and humane must redistribute wealth from the richer among us to the poorer and the less fortunate. Excellent health care is by definition redistribution”. The immediate implication is:  the more you redistribute, the more excellent health care will be. Dr. Berwick draws the wrong lessons from history as well as Canadian and English experiences.  Their patients’ access to health care is limited. Their Choices are limited. The survival of their system is due to international access that allows them to reduce the pressures of the system: Canadians coming to the US to pay for expensive surgeries that are being denied at home, and British patients filling entire hospitals in India and dentist offices in  Hungary.

Other Berwick speak is even more revealing and poignant. He asserts that:

“.. the decision is not whether not we will ration care- the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open. And right now, we are doing it blindly”.

Patients ought to get ready for long lines at the doctor’s office and long lists for surgical care. Expect older patients to be denied certain surgeries because they are too sick, old, or poor.

Very soon we will all have government provided insurance, and the only way out of the lines is to go overseas.

A new company can help you escape the ravaged on health care socialism: Global Medical Excellence: www.gme-surgical.com.

When ideology trumps logic and the welfare of the citizenry everyone should be on his guard. We recommend a huge participation in the Democratic process in November 2010.  This is the most effective way to protect your pocketbook and your access to excellent health care. President Obama wanted to keep the controversy over Dr. Berwick’s appointment and views from flaring up in Congress. That is why he elected the Recess Appointment. He is conveniently overlooking the wisdom and the scrutiny of the American people. They will show up in November to provide him with the appropriate reminder.

Joe Concerned

Some see a light at the end of the tunnel as most of the health care ‘REFORMS’ are not due until after the next presidential election. We hope that the new President in 2015 will promptly conclude, and irreversibly, that the patience of the American people for corruption in the highest places has run out, and the time for dismantling the enabling law and the associated mountain of health regulations has indeed arrived. Logic dictates this, but the reality may run against logic in favor of politics, all aided and abetted by the politicians AND the insurance companies (yes!). America is hopeful that all the incumbents that accepted, unashamedly, bribes in different forms would have been retired, Nelson and Stupak especially, by the will of the people or by their own sense of shame! But this may not be enough!

Before we cork off the Champagne we must realize that the light at the end of the tunnel may well be a mirage or a freight train. We cite only two cases.

We can start, however, with some preliminary indictments. Much of the Health Care law was based on false numbers. There will be huge deficits associated with it and the taxpayers will have either to pay up or lobby to repeal the law. No matter, our grand children are forever saddled by the cost of health care up to 2015 in the form of associated, rationality-busting budget deficits.

A constant in recent political history is that what government gives, it may not be able to take away. Abortions funded by federal money may well be the first irreversible new budget item. Should OBAMA find a way to thwart the Stupak compromise this may well become another budget busting item that will spill into the streets, and Congress may not be able to reverse it. Imagine, similarly, congress trying to take away the drug benefits from seniors.

Another issue is even more ominous and is more likely to become permanent. Recently all states were faced with two choices: take the money and create your own high risk pool (exchange), or participate in an obligatory pool for the seriously ill run by the Federal government. It can safely be anticipated that the Insurance companies that were so systematically vilified by the Obama Administration, will lobby to keep either pool on the books. This allows them to permanently change the pool of clients seeking to buy health insurance by dumping as many of the undesirable candidates (those with preexisting conditions) into these pools. This will simply add large numbers to the upward secular trend in health care costs. The lobbyists for insurance companies are likely to win this battle. The life of insurance companies will become less complicated.

Politicians is their rush to do “good” and be responsive to the health care needs of the “poor” and the ‘seriously ill’ will continue to redefine the pool in a way that forces much of the health care cost of the seriously ill unto government, and allow the insurance companies to cherry pick their clientele, all in the name of ‘bending the cost curve”.

But the cost curve has already started its steep rise. The forecasts are for even faster increases. No bending!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The pools whether run by the state of the Federal government are likely to become a fiscal nightmare.

This is how they work: states that do not want to run their own exchanges may opt out.  But this is not free. They will have to agree to extend “Medicaid to more of their citizens, including all uninsured persons with 133% to 200% of the poverty level”.

But states may opt out of Medicaid entirely, but their citizens cannot. They must continue to pay the Medicaid taxes no matter what the states do in terms of high risk Health Exchanges.

But providing catastrophic insurance is required. The states will receive some subsidies from the Federal government until 2015 if they are running their own exchanges. Arnold decided to do this for California. He was not thinking about the post 2015 costs. He simply was thinking about the here and now and closing the budget deficit, if only slightly.

This is the consequence of a policy that seeks to underwrite the absurd in the hope that “if things will not work out or we will simply borrow the money”. This is the deficit addiction factor.

But Arnold failed to read the fine print. The Federal government will have its hands deep into the state pockets as it will be able to impose the contents (the coverage) of the state run insurance program. No sooner than 2015 comes around plastic surgery for a person considering their face too “ugly” to sustain emotionally may well be considered a catastrophic case.

Further, the Federal government will be able not only to propose but also to dispose. States must make sure that all of their citizens have health insurance. Catastrophic insurance is clearly the most expensive, thus more likely to be a candidate for major subsidies by the state or by the Federal government. Sooner than you know the subsidies will apply to those who may well be earning over 300% of the federal Poverty Level as no one “should go bankrupt because of health care costs”.

The final results are very predictable: massive increases in health care costs with the insurance companies standing on the sideline when it comes to catastrophic care. Should those companies smile too broadly, they will be subjected to additional taxation based on the expense to premium ratios and/or have their compensation schemes ever more closely supervised, etc., all in the name of fairness.

The taxpayer will be ever more on the hook no matter the outcome of the presidential elections and no matter who will collect the taxes: the State or the Federal Government.