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.
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) In our previous post we reviewed all of the analysis and studies that have been done to put a single payer health care system into effect in this country and what the cost would be. We found that even the most liberal states that have looked into a single payer system have shied away from it since it would cost so much money and deliver less than stellar healthcare. In most cases, the states found that every household in that state on average would have to see their tax burden rise by over $25,000 a year. That post can be read at:
Bernie Sanders has proposed a single payer healthcare system in this country that he has dubbed “Medicare For All.” As with any single payer system, Bernie’s system would put the Federal government in charge of every aspect of one’s health care using Medicare as the basis is for the single payer system. Never mind the reality that Medicare is rushing towards fiscal insolvency and loses about $60 billion a year to fraud and wasteful spending. Bernie wants to double down on this disaster.
How much of a disaster is this plan? Well, a recent analysis from the iPatriot website went to the Medicare website and figured out how much a young American just entering the workplace would have to pay to be part of Bernie’s “Medicare For All” system. As you will see, the Bernie claim that everyone would get “free healthcare”: is not quite accurate:
- Using the Medicare website, www.medicare.gov, let’s start off with Medicare Part A.
- A young person who has been the workforce for less than seven a half years would be paying $413 a month for Part A.
- But they would not be able to access Part A benefits until the fulfilled a $1,316 deductible each year.
- Part B would cost that young American at least $134 a month but they could only access that benefit after fulfilling an annual deductible of $183 and even after passing the deductible they would still have to pay 20% of any medical bills incurred under Part B.
- So, already this young American is paying $547 a month before paying for deductibles but there are more Parts to pay for. Part C, which would cover vision, dental and hearing needs can range from $30 to $200 a month.
- If we assume the midpoint or so for Part C, about $100, then the monthly “Medicare For All” cost is now $647 a month.
- Part D, which covers prescription medicines, costs $10 to $100 a month so taking the midpoint of so, say $53, the monthly cost for the first four parts of Medicare is now about $700 a month.
- But don’t forget you cannot partake of the Part D benefit until you fulfill the $400 annual deductible.
- If you go for Parts G and H, which would help pay for the excess charges under Part B, that will cost you another $50 a month but only after you fulfill an annual $2,100 deductible.
And as always when dealing with government cost estimates, these are the current estimates. You know it is highly unlikely these costs will stay flat or go down over time so the $11,200 is likely a low ball estimate for one person.
The other factor that no one bothers to discuss with the single payer system is how many and what quality people will be enticed to enter medicine if the government controls everything including what the future doctors get paid and how they can practice. What quality student is willing to pay out hundreds of thousands of dollars to become a certified doctor only to be ruled and controlled by inane and idiotic politicians and government bureaucrats?
Thus, not only would costs go up, but health care quality would likely go down as the number of quality, smart doctors decreases over time. Higher costs, lower quality, not exactly a winning formula.
Thus, not only would costs go up, but health care quality would likely go down as the number of quality, smart doctors decreases over time. Higher costs, lower quality, not exactly a winning formula.
2) As we have discussed many times, people like Bernie Sanders keep trying to apply an insurance solution to a public health problem. If you can fix some of the root causes of our high health care costs, e.g. Americans eat too much, Americans eat too much of the wrong kind of food, Americans do not exercise enough, etc., than overall health goes up and health care costs, and thus insurance costs, go down.
Consider some simple and stark realities about poor eating habits that were discussed in a Fortune magazine article from the March 1, 2017 issue:
- On average, every American eats about 76 pounds of sugar every year.
- The sugar amount a consumer eats every year on average is up 8% since 1970, i.e. Americans from a sugar perspective are eating less healthy than they did almost 50 years ago.
- A study by The Lancet found that a whopping 74% of packaged goods on supermarket shelves across the country contain some sort of sweetener, either sugar or artificial sweeteners.
America does not have a health insurance problem, America has a dietary problem that results in obesity which results in diabetes, heart disease, hip and knee replacements, and a whole slew of other maladies. Fix the dietary problem and our infested food chain, and you go a long way to fixing the health insurance problem.
3) Every month when we address the unfolding disasters of Obama Care, we usually finish up the discussion with real life stories of Americans whose lives and health have been severely disrupted by Obama Care. The source of most of our stories comes from the website:
Let’s continue that habit below:
KEN - COLORADO: My wife and I have been on the same health insurance plan for 12 years. The cost of that plan has gone up 110% in the last three years and we had to go with different plan due to the cost. The new plan covers less with higher deductibles. It is due to the Obamacare act. We called BCBS to ask why the cost has gone up each year (that's three calls, one a year) we were told the same each time, to get ready for the new health care act. So much for cheaper insurance. IT IS A SAD, RECKLESS LAW! All those who voted for it should be ashamed for what they did!
P.S. We are now slaves to our government, we now have to buy something from a private company or pay a fine, to live in this country.
DAVID - MICHIGAN: I received a letter from my insurance company that I was going to lose my insurance coverage due to obamacare. In order to keep my plan the way I had it but to make aca compliant my premium would raise from $430 a month to $699 a month.which is not affordable at all or my out of pocket deductible would go from $5000 to $15000. Which is also not affordable[. . .]It would be cheaper for me to pay [the] fine/tax then it would be to go with obamacare.
RENAY - WASHINGTON: Our insurance has DOUBLED! My husband is self employed and we have ALWAYS had insurance we bought on the open market, meaning we don't get it subsidized by an employer or government. We had a plan with a high deductible and low monthly cost because it worked perfectly for us. Of course, we didn't get to keep our insurance if we liked it (we were lied to by Obama) and our insurance didn't go down $2500. (we were lied to by Obama). Our insurance went from $500/month to $988/month. Our deductible went from $10,000. to $12,000. and with less coverage than we had before.
When Obama realized that he was caught in his lie and started handing out waivers to 'allow' us to keep our old insurance, I called our state insurance commissioner and said Obama said we could keep it. His office said they were not going to and just keep on as they were. I had looked at the exchanges and noticed that every insurance plan sold was almost EXACTLY the same in price. I also mentioned this to the insurance commissioner office that it didn't look like competition but more like price fixing and racketeering.
I asked what would happen to my complaints and I was told that they weren't even put into a complaint system and that nothing would be done about it! Yes, this is the government we have here in Washington state. We have an insurance commissioner that the only thing I can see that he does is when insurance companies ask for rate hikes (and we had double digit ones every year prior to Obamacare) he wrings his hands and allows ALMOST as much as they asked for and thinks he did a good job for the 'people.'
CHARLOTTE - NEW HAMPSHIRE: When my husband and I lost our long time insurance coverage due to the company's withdrawal from NH after ACA, we went shopping and discovered that we had only 2 options available: we could go through an exchange and lose all our doctors (because Concord Hospital was not an ACA networked provider) or we could pay $5000 more than we were paying before to get an outside-the-exchange plan that would require us to meet a $7000 deductible, covered none of our preventative care (nutrition / chiropractic / dental), but allowed us to keep our doctors. We chose the second option because losing all our doctors after working 9 years to find good ones was too much to bear.
My family is now actively avoiding health care. We are just scraping by. Ever since the recession it's been one thing after another and now we're being nickeled and dimed to death. My husband was having chest pains / shortness of breath the other day and after speaking with a nurse he chose not to go into the ER because he said having to find a way to pay off another $3500 would have killed him for sure as he struggles to provide for our family (something that was much easier for him 6 years ago). This on top of all the infringements on conscience rights through the HHS mandate, the complete lack of private health records, and the rationing of Medicare through IPAB.
I'm all for helping people with pre-existing conditions to get the care they need...but there were other ways of doing it without government takeover of health care.
CAROLYN - KANSAS: CBS News has confirmed millions nationwide will be losing their current insurance coverage. That's because it doesn't meet the new minimum requirements under the Affordable Care Act. There could be thousands of Kansans in that total.
The letters started going out last month, telling Kansans their insurance policies will be discontinued at the end of the year.
"I'm self-employed," said Carolyn Perry. She runs a day care out of her home. "So I need the coverage cause anything can happen at any given time."
She's among those the Affordable Care Act was meant to help.
"But the premium that I'm paying now is twice as much as what it was when I first started paying it," she said. Perry buys her own health insurance. So far, she's keeping it.
Another month, another set of stories of higher insurance premiums, higher deductibles, and politicians who still do not understand that no matter how much you apply an insurance solution to a public health problem you will still never fix the issue of high healthcare costs in this country. More unfolding disasters of Obama Care next month.
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.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w
Another month, another set of stories of higher insurance premiums, higher deductibles, and politicians who still do not understand that no matter how much you apply an insurance solution to a public health problem you will still never fix the issue of high healthcare costs in this country. More unfolding disasters of Obama Care next month.
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.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w
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