It was a piece of legislation whose primary purpose was to at least get every American into a health care insurance program within ten years. However, the latest Congressional Budget Office analysis forecasts that well over 20 million Americans will still be without health care coverage ten years after the enactment of the law.
That CBO analysis does not take into account the millions of more Americans that will lose their existing workplace insurance coverage because the legislation was written so badly that companies will find it less expensive to terminate their current employee health care coverage and pay a smaller Obama Care fine than to continue offering their employees health insurance coverage.
The legislation has introduced almost 2,000 more regulations and dozens of taxes into our lives, creating uncertainty and confusion that is resulting in businesses cutting back on expansion and hiring. They do not know if they can afford to grow and hire in the midst of the chaos caused by the law. Makes one wonder if the stagnant, above 8% long term unemployment rate is really a product of Obama Care chaos.
The legislation makes no concerted effort to reduce the hundreds of billions of dollars lost to waste and criminal fraud over the years, wasteful spending that could have been used to expand current government programs on health care without introducing 2,700 pages of Obama Care into the world. Credible sources put Medicare and Medicaid's annual waste at well over $100 billion a year, money that could take care of a lot of vaccinations, mamograms, and other health needs without 2,000 more regulations and dozens of more taxes.
I could go on and on about how bad this legislation is (e.g. ignoring tort reform, not encouraging and allowing cross state border health insurance company competition, adding trillions of dollars to the national debt, etc.) but the details and justification for each reason on why this is terrible law can be found in the posts put out during the week of August 22, 2012. Unfortunately, since then, we have come across more bad news that just reinforces our conclusions that this is one bad piece of law writing:
- New analyses results from the Institute of Medicine found that the U.S. health care system annually wastes 30 cents out of every dollar spent in the health care field. How much does that work out to in total across the land? An unbelievable $765 billion a year, year in and year out. This would be like putting about $6,700 back into the health care budget of every American household every year, money that could buy a lot of health care coverage.
As reported at the Bankrupting America website, the analyses and report found that there were six areas where major waste exists in the health system:
1.Unnecessary services: $210 billion
2.Administrative costs: $190 billion
3.Inefficient delivery of care: $130 billion
4.Price inflation: $105 billion
5.Fraud: $75 billion
6.Failure to provide preventative care: $55 billion
While the report did not provide a detail plan on how to realize these savings, "all of these costs have the potential to be minimized through better incentives and more efficient medical practices. Not all health care costs in the U.S. fall directly on the individual taxpayer, but considering 20 percent of the federal budget accounts for Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), combating the waste that exists in the health care system would be a significant step in reducing the budget deficit without necessarily reducing health care benefits."
Wouldn't this have been a better approach vs. the Obama Care approach? Wring out the waste and inefficiencies of what is currently going today and direct those new found monetary resources to laser fix what is broken rather than upending the entire health care industry in the country? Obama Care just expands the current processes, along with the inefficiencies cited above, which will end up wasting even more than $765 billion every year. Insanity.
- It is no secret that many businesses, especially small businesses, will not be able to afford the burdensome taxes and regulations that Obama Care imposes. However, for smaller businesses, there is a way out of the regulations by insuring that the number of full time workers is less than 50. The legislation exempts these sized businesses from providing health care coverage to their employees, allowing these businesses to survive.
It has been reported in many places, including in this blog, that many businesses are either turning some of their full time employees into part time employees in order to fit into this definition or are not expanding their businesses and hiring more staff. The reason for their contortions is that once they hit the magic 50 number, a large Obama Care financial burden drops onto their shoulders. In either case, Obama Care is causing business to stifle work hours or stifle hiring, two very negative consequences in this economy of low economoic growth and high unemployment.
And this approach for survival just got even worse, both for employees and their employers. The Health and Human Services Department and the IRS recently issued an 18 PAGE definition of what a "full time" employee is. 18 pages for one definition.
Not only is that ridiculous, the new definition of what constitutes a full time employee is even more preposterous. The new guidelines define a full time employee as one who works 30 hours a week, not the traditional 40 hours a week.
Thus, what is likely to happen in the real world, the world outside of Washington, D.C.? The need for many small businesses to survive and avoid the Obama Care financial burden will obviously result in many small businesses reducing the number of hours their employees work by 25% or more in order to conform with the inane definition of full time employee coming out of Washington. Thus, those fortunate enough to have a job, in an economy without a lot of excess jobs, will suddenly find themselves 25% or more less flush with cash every week.
Again, what planet to these bureaucrats live in where a full time job is working 30 hours a week?
- According to a September 18, 2012 Associated Press article, the findings from a large study from the Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation predicts that by 2030, more than half the people in the vast majority of states will be classified as obese, i.e. extremely overweight. Their analysis is based on large part on official Federal government statistics and findings including work done by the Centers For Disease Control. Details from the study include the following depressing facts:
- Mississippi is expected to remain the most obese state in the nation for at least two more decades, predicting that 67% of that state's adults will be obese by 2030. That would be an unbelievable growth from Mississippi's current 35% obesity rate
- The study predicts every state would have obesity rates above 44% by 2030.
- According to the article, about two-thirds of Americans are overweight now and 36% of American adults are obese. Obesity is defined as having a body-mass index of 30 or more, a measure of weight for height.
- The study projects that by 2030, 13 states would have adult obesity rates above 60%, 39 states might have rates above 50%, and every state would have rates above 44%.
- While Mississippi will retain its status as the most overweight state, the study projects that even the thinnest state, Colorado, will face an obesity rate of 45% by 2030.
- The article cites comments by Jeff Levi, executive director of Trust For America's Health that "it's clear that the nation's weight problem is going to continue, escalating the number of cases of diabetes, heart disease and stroke." and "the focus of so much of the ongoing debate about health care is over controlling costs. We can only achieve it by addressing obesity. Otherwise, we're just tinkering around the margins." Well said, Obama Care focused on everything but the root causes of our high health care costs, in this case, obesity.
- The top ten, most obese states by 2030 are predicted to be Mississippi, Oklahoma, Delaware, Tennessee, South Carolina, Alabama, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, and Arkansas, all of whom will have obesity rates greater than 60% by 2030.
How much money could be taken out of our high annual health care medical costs if we properly attacked the obesity epidemic? The study estimated that medical costs from treating obesity-related diseases are likely to increase from $18 billion today to $66 billion per year by 2030, an increase of $48 billion. Over a ten year period, $480 billion, half a trillion dollars, could be targeted for savings if we attacked this root cause rather than tying ourselves in knots trying to understand, never mind, adhere to, a 2,700 page piece of bad legislation.
Again, I suggest that you go back to the late August posts for the detailed analyses that showed Obama Care was posibly the worst piece of legislaiton ever conceived. This horrid piece of law needs to be scapped completely, its few good points retained and used as the basis for an efficient, root cause focused solution to our high health care cost problem.
A good strategy to use in the redo would be to take the political class out of the loop as much as possible. We saw the failure of their efforts that became Obama Care, it is unlikely they could do any better if we entrusted them to do it again. Step 28 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" lays out a coherent, root caused focused approach to finally solve this problem, an approach that would not depress economic growth or bankrupt the country.
This approach, or one like it, that depends on subject matter experts and trained economists to put together a real plan is our only hope of resolving our health care cost issue. And I bet this approach could do a better job using less than 2,700 pages of legislation, 2,000 or so new regulations, and far fewer taxes. How could it not?
We invite all readers of this blog to visit our new website, "The United States Of Purple," at:
http://www.unitedstatesofpurple.com/
The United States of Purple is a new grass roots approach to filling the office of President of The United States by focusing on the restoration of freedom in the United States, focusing on problem solving skills and results vs. personal political enrichment, and imposing term limits on all future Federal politicians. No more red states, no more blue states, just one United States Of America under the banner of Purple.
The United States Of Purple's website also provides you the formal opportunity to sign a petition to begin the process of implementing a Constitutional amendment to impose fixed term limits on all Federally elected politicians. Only by turning out the existing political class can we have a chance of addressing and finally resolving the major issues of our times.
Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.
Please visit the following sites for freedom:
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment
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