Posted on 09/09/2014 9:26:40 AM PDT by Kaslin
The bill is coming due for ObamaCare and it’s a whopper. According to Medicare Care’s own actuaries U.S. health care spending is about to rocket.
Federal meddling in what was once the finest and cost-effective health care system on the planet is nothing new.
Back in the 1960s, many Americans paid for doctor and hospital services out of pocket or through modestly priced private insurance. Health care spending was about 6 percent of GDP.
Enter President Johnson and Medicare. He bought millions of votes by giving seniors free health care that they never paid for through payroll taxes during their working years. As insidious, he helped lay the foundations for the entitlement state with Medicaid. The latter, first conceived to help poor children, has been gradually expanded to include many working families.
Today health care spending is more than 17 percent of GDP. Life extending treatments are part of the jump, but Germany and Holland spend about 12 percent and have those. The extra US costs are federally mandated giveaways, inefficiencies and abuse—about $850 billion and much more than spent on defense.
Federal programs set reimbursements for providers and limit use of many drugs and procedures. Those rules are intended to mirror market prices and informed private decisions but often do not.
No bureaucratic rule or computer program can even capture all the judgments we put into purchasing decisions to maximize what we squeeze from our incomes to meet our family’s needs. Those decisions build up to become what economists call the invisible hand of the marketplace that guides businesses to make what we need.
Just as Soviet central planning failed to put enough TVs and beef on store shelves, federally managed health care creates long waits to see doctors and lots of opportunities for soft fraud—activities by health care providers that game federal rules—and outright stealing.
For example, Medicaid pays doctors a small fee for drawing blood but labs pay doctors handling fees up to six times as large to get their business. Doctors prescribe questionable, expensive treatments that may be administered in their offices and push up Medicare reimbursements into the millions for each practice.
Before ObamaCare, federal and state governments were already financing about half of all health care spending. At that level, federal reimbursement rates and rules no longer mirror the market—those become the market. The decisions of private insurers—each much smaller by dollars spent than federal outlays—fit in around those policies.
It was already Soviet health care but without the benefit of free access, as private premiums, deductions and co-pays soared.
Now ObamaCare is throwing new sand into the gears by fining individuals who lack employer provided insurance and fail to purchase a plan from the government marketplace.
No surprise, next year those policies are expected to jump in cost by as much as 30 percent. Medicare actuaries are forecasting health spending will rise at 6 percent a year over the next decade and are on pace to reach 20 percent of GDP by 2025.
The Administration has obfuscated the issue. Government numbers show Medicare expenditures growing more slowly—but that’s because the new law raises premiums, cuts benefits and slices reimbursements to doctors and uses the cash saved to subsidize the federal and state insurance exchanges.
Small businesses are shedding employees and larger ones are scrambling to find machines to replace lower paid workers—or leave the country altogether to escape the burdens of health insurance.
Good jobs are scarce, and America is losing its brand.
The United States, once the home of free markets, is no longer the most vibrant economy on earth. It’s China, where bureaucrats are better at imposing the tyranny of a state managed economy.
If they can hold off the pain until after the 2014 elections the Dems will have time to mount the media campaign that will end up blaming the Republicans. Watch it happen.
No health insurance here since January of this year. Saved a bundle. I did have to pay to have a gold cap reglued to a tooth out of pocket though. My how I miss that $25...
Is there anything in the Constitution about pre-nups for the president ???
Just how much we will give him each month to spend ???
No theres not but there ought to be...
Now ObamaCare is throwing new sand into the gears by fining individuals who lack employer provided insurance and fail to purchase a plan from the government marketplace.
I see the dem’s and Repubs as two sides of the same coin. They are playing “good cop, bad cop” with us. And they are both supporting and working towards a “one world government” that is all controlling of every aspect of everyone’s life - hence the push to control CO2 output. And the perception is that one side of the coin supports big government, while the other supports big business. And they are also on the two sides of the same coin.
And their common enemy is small business. People that own small businesses pay their taxes proactively. They have more freedom in how to conduct their business. People who work for large corporations never see their tax dollars. They also don’t have freedom of speech. A certain pro football team owner is a classic example. They are controlled by “the system”.
The goal is to reduce the country to big government, supported by big business, with no small business left. Next will be the mark of the beast.
Watch the news and read the liberal sites. There is a war against small business, mom and pop business, raw milk, you name it. It’s all in the plan to eliminate everything that is not fully controllable.
And in this diatribe is the reason I refuse to have health care insurance as long as obamacare exists. It made us the old USSR. It crossed a line I could not cross - and still look at myself in the mirror. I looked the other way as many other freedoms were eliminated in the name of security. No more.
ObamaCare will kill many businesses.
If these health care stats are correct the middle class will lose even more spending ability then they have to date.
Our family simply refuses to play their game. They went too far this time, requiring me to buy something simply because I’m a citizen. I will not do it. Period.
If I get cancer I use the Gerson treatment. We actaully have an acquaintence that was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer that was completely cured that way. There are many others, but that is someone we actually KNOW.
Trauma, I pay for it out of pocket. And if you look at the cost of health insurance added to the deductible, I could pay out of pocket for a trauma every year or so and break even.
And I’m not afraid to die.
With many, you could tattoo that on their foreheads and they still couldn't see it.
Trauma care can cost upwards to $100,000. If you cannot afford that,then do not go to the hospital, because they will be forced to treat you. Go home and let nature take its course.
If you think juice and coffee enemas will cure cancer, I have a bridge to sell to you.
Trauma care can cost upwards to $100,000.
And the main problem is that they are “forced” to treat me. They shouldn’t be.
I’m reminded of a small town that privatized the fire department. People could pay a small fee per year or they could opt out, in which case a fire at their house would not be responded to.
So, one day a guy who didn’t pay saw his house catch on fire. The fire department responded, proceeded to water down his neighbor’s (who did pay) homes and watched his house burn to the ground. He asked how they could do such a thing. They said that if they put out his fire, why would anybody pay?
It needs to come to that. You don’t pay, you don’t get the service - and please stop bleeding all over our nice clean tile floor. I’m ok with that. At least it’s MY choice then. And then maybe I’d make a different choice because it would be a LOT cheaper.
A 27 year old friend who is on Medicaid just got a 50.00 Walmart gift card she can use for anything. She has been unable to find work other than part time and really needed a checkup. Molina health care who handles the Medicaid said it was a thank you for her recent doctor visit. So let’s see. As a Michigan taxpayer I not only paid for her to go to the doctor and get lab work with nothing out of pocket, plus we gave her a 50.00 gift card. WTH?!?!?!??!?
PS- I got her permission to use the letter with her name blacked out. I sent copies to both my state reps and the governor along with a terse letter.
If you think juice and coffee enemas will cure cancer, I have a bridge to sell to you.
And the doctors were none too pleased. They said it could come back. Yeah, like they don’t say that anytime cancer is cured, by whatever method.
Also, Jesus is the great physician.
The problem is, a lot of people think the waythat you do until they get an expensive diagnosis, like cancer. Then, all of a sudden, they cry big baby tears, and want the hospital to find a solution to their problem.
It is bad enough that hospitals are now the “social net” for societies ills. I remember working in the 1980s. We discharged patients to the streets, we felt that patients were responsible for their own situation post discharge.
Now, hospitals have to find housing for their patients, arrange transportation and interpreters, assist in post hospital financial planning for patients, be a cop to prevent them from getting admitted to the hospital in 30 days.. I even had a patient ask me to call his landlord to complain about lice in his rental. I basically told him that the lice in his apartment was not the landlords responsibility, but his.He had to clean and do laundry to get rid of them. The patient looked upset, and thought someone else had to do his work for him.
So, when I hear someone say they do not have health insurance by choice, I also do not want those people crying big baby tears to me. Be responsible for your decision. Be willing to lose your home if you have a catastrophic illness. No one else should have to pay for it.
Trauma care can cost upwards to $100,000.
One day my 15 year old girl broke her arm and we had to take her to a private clinic located in a local strip mall. Very nice place. I figured this is where I was going to be sorry I didn’t go for the HMO.
Total bill: ~$275.
Do the math... ;-)
BTW, I was talking to my daughter about this last year and it turns out it’s on the top of her brain as well. She tells all her friends about it whenever they discuss the health care crisis.
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