July, 2017, Part 1, The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care: Republicans That Cannot Plan and Democrats Who Cannot Tell The Truth

Every month for years now we have had to discuss how bad Obama Care is turning out to be under the continuing theme, “the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care.” This month is no different. As the legislation continues to march through America, driving up health care and health insurance prices as it serves as dead weight on economic growth, it cements its rightful place as the worst piece of legislation Washington has ever produced.

It never had a chance to be successful since it really never addressed the underlying root causes of our ever increasing health costs in the country:

• Americans eat too much of the wrong kind of food, resulting in obscenely high obesity rates for the country.
• Our food chain is infested with overdoses of high fructose corn syrup, salt, sugar, and other unhealthy additives.
• Americans smoke too much.
• Americans do not exercise enough.
• The country is in serious need of health care tort reform.
• Barriers to insurance company competition across state lines need to come down.
• Obama Care never “followed the money” to find out who is actually profiting from the ever escalating healthcare costs in this country and how to get those factors under control.
• Obama Care never got the immense amount of fraud and abuse in current government healthcare programs, Medicare and Medicaid, under control in order to save money to efficiently fund other government health care initiatives.
• Obama Care never put serious research money towards curing the major diseases that drive high healthcare costs such as high frequency cancers and dementia type diseases.
• You cannot resolve any problem unless you understand and address the underlying root causes. No difference here: Obama Care legislation never addressed these listed root causes and thus, has no chance of ever being successful.

But it is not just missing the root causes of our healthcare costs that makes Obama Care so horrible. It resulted in millions of Americans losing access to their favored doctors, hospitals, and insurance policies. It has caused insurance premiums, deductibles and copays to escalate substantially. It will likely add trillions of dollars to the national debt. It has exposed millions of Americans to higher than necessary identity theft chances. It has created government bureaucracies that are wastefully spending taxpayer wealth and being exploited by criminal elements. It has stifled economic growth and job creation.

These are just a sample of the types of idiocy that we have been reviewing for the past several years in this blog relative to Obama Care., To read those past posts, just enter the phrase, “the unfolding disaster,” in the search box above.

1) Let me start this month’s Obama Care disaster review with a quick hit on Congressional Republicans. For like seven years they have correctly ranted and raved about how much of a disaster Obama Care is. They have correctly pointed out that none of the rosy promises Obama made about the legislation came close to becoming reality. Many of their successful election campaigns were based on how bad Obama Care was and how it needed to be repealed and/or replaced. 

Thus, given that they had seven years to come up with a workable and working alternative to this rancid piece of legislation, one would have hoped that when they did regain control of both houses of Congress and the Presidency that would have done their homework and had a replacement bill ready to go the first day they could. That they would have negotiated out any differences within their party over the past seven years to have the best bill possible that would sail through to enactment.

But alas, as always when dealing with the political class, hope does not exist. When it was their turn at bat, they could not find their bat. When it was their turn to go for a touchdown, they could not find their helmet. They had nothing ready to go once the situation was perfect for them and as a result, their infighting has resulted in nothing to replace or repeal Obama Care. Heaven help us from all politicians and their inability to resolve any problem.

2) More than half of those who got health insurance under Obama Care did not get it through robust individual insurance policies purchased on the open market. They got Federal government insurance via Medicaid. While Medicaid is a low cost insurance option, it is also a low quality health insurance and health care option in so many ways, many of which we have previously discussed in this blog.

Betsy McCaughey is the chairperson of the Committee To Reduce Infection Deaths so she obviously knows something about health care and disease. In a July 5, 2017 article for the Heritage Foundation, she lays out her expert opinion on why Medicaid is so frigging bad for your health:

• First off she destroys the myth that liberals and Democrats are spewing that Republican efforts to fix the damage done by Obama Care will get senior citizens evicted from nursing homes, calling it “sheer demagoguery.”
• But she does imply that in one sense that would be a good thing in some cases since many Medicaid nursing homes are afflicted with “filth, rampant infections, and neglect—conditions routinely tolerated by our indifferent public officials.”
• For example, New York state pays out some of the highest Medicaid rates in the country but according to the Federal government ratings a whopping 40% of New York state nursing homes provide inferior care.
• This 40% is not even the worse in the country since 10 other states have higher rates of inferior care in their nursing homes.
• Across the country one third of nursing home residents, often Medicaid patients, incur serious, often permanent injuries due to neglect according to a recent Federal government inspector general report.
• The Federal government estimates that annually 380,000 Americans in nursing homes die from infections that they caught in those nursing homes.
• So you can see, in one sense, getting kicked out of a sub par nursing home might IMPROVE your health.

But that is besides the point. Republicans efforts to fix the Obama Care damage does not “gut” Medicaid spending as liberals and Democrats claim, it just slows down the rate of growth in Medicaid spending. And if Washington was doing its job and cleaned up the massive inefficiencies and criminal fraud in Medicaid that results in horrible nursing home conditions and the criminal pilfering of the Medicaid program then everyone’s health would be a lot better, And their would be more than enough money to help those that truly need better help than what they are getting today.

And by the way, Medicaid spending growth has to be brought under control. As we have reported previously, in four state budgets today Medicaid spending accounts for over 30% of the entire state government budget. As Medicaid keeps growing in costs, there is less and less state government resources for roads, schools, and other needed services. 

Medicaid is like a fifty year old pickup truck that was designed to tow two tons. It was never fixed up and kept in good shape over those fifty years. And then Obama Care came around, without upgrading anything within that old pickup truck, and told it to haul ten tons. As a result that fifty year old pickup truck is falling apart and costing more and more every year to do a job it was not designed to do. Fix the Medicaid truck, Washington or get a new one so that 40% of New York state nursing home patients do not live in squalor.

Depressing stuff to start off this month's Obama Care disaster review. Republicans that cannot plan ahead and Democrats who cannot tell the truth. Lord help us as we continue this week with the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care.

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