Free Republic

Medicare for All”. Who can argue with that? No more struggles with medical care. No more worries about cost or insurance. You simply go to the doctor … and it’s free. Why SHOULD you have to worry about money? There are so many fallacies here. One you will hear little about in the coming presidential campaign: the rights of doctors. Also the rights of nurses, and all the allied health care professionals. Kamala Harris — the last I checked — was the new front runner for the Democratic Party, at least according to the media. A few weeks back, Harris...

Nearly all 2020 Democratic presidential contenders are pushing some form of full-on socialized, government-controlled healthcare, most wrapped in a “Medicare-for-all” scheme the candidates say resembles “successful” similar programs in Europe. But what these candidates are not telling Americans — nor is the Democrat-aligned “mainstream media” — is that several Nordic countries with long histories of socialist-like healthcare are moving more towards private insurance models. This comes as top Democratic contenders like Sen. Bernie Sanders are threatening to do away with all private, mostly employer-based health insurance, which currently covers roughly 100 million Americans (who are mostly satisfied with their coverage,...

One in three Americans with private health insurance has been hit with a surprise medical bill, according to a new survey by Consumers Union. The study of 2,200 individuals also found consumers overall are confused when it comes to how to fight a surprise bill. Among the surprises: bills that were for higher amounts than customer’s expected, bills for out-of-network services that customers believed were in-network, and bills from doctors they did not expect would send them a bill. Betsy Imholz of Consumers Union says few people who receive surprise bills ever file a complaint with a state agency. “Nobody...

National insurance giant UnitedHealthcare plans to cut up to 700 Massachusetts doctors from its physician network for seniors enrolled in its private Medicare plan as a way to control costs, according to company officials. For elderly patients enrolled in the plan, the cuts mean they will have to find a new doctor or eventually switch to a new health plan that covers their current doctor. The move, effective Sept. 1, follows similar cuts made by the insurer to its Medicare Advantage provider networks in 11 other states... There is also pending legislation in Congress to prevent health plans from cutting...

Sweden, a country famous for a welfare state that has actually been trimmed back substantially in recent years, is experiencing a phenomenon unlikely to bring cheer to those Americans who think the answer to Obamacare's problems is more government involvement in medicine. Tired of long waits and inadequate care, Swedes increasingly purchase private health insurance policies to gain access to the care the state can't provide. -snip Why the growth? From The Local: "It's quicker to get a colleague back to work if you have an operation in two weeks' time rather than having to wait for a year," privately insured Anna Norlander...

Bailing Out Health Insurers and Helping Obamacare Jeffrey H. Anderson January 13, 2014 Robert Laszewski—a prominent consultant to health insurance companies—recently wrote in a remarkably candid blog post that, while Obamacare is almost certain to cause insurance costs to skyrocket even higher than it already has, “insurers won’t be losing a lot of sleep over it.” How can this be? Because insurance companies won’t bear the cost of their own losses—at least not more than about a quarter of them. The other three-quarters will be borne by American taxpayers. For some reason, President Obama hasn’t talked about this particular feature...

In June 2013, the DC City Council passed legislation requiring carriers to sell all individual and small group products through DC Health Link, effectively dissolving the non-Marketplace individual and small group markets. Individual plans may only be offered through the Marketplace beginning on January 1, 2014, while small group plans have until January 1, 2015 to transition to DC Health Link.6 In addition, the SHOP and individual markets will be merged into a single risk pool.7

If you think the Obama health law won't affect you because you have private insurance, keep reading. The Department of Health and Human Services announced final rules for private insurance last week. The federal government will have control over your care. Sec. 1311 of the law empowers the Secretary of Health and Human Services to dictate how doctors treat privately insured patients and what questions patients must be asked. Your doctor will enter your information into an electronic database; your doctor's decisions will be monitored for compliance with federal guidelines, and your doctor may have to choose between what is...

In his brilliant exposition of why sweeping policy changes often have unintended consequences, the late sociologist Robert K. Merton wrote that leaders get things wrong when their "paramount concern with the foreseen immediate consequences excludes the consideration of further or other consequences" of their proposals. This leads policy makers to assert things that are false, wishing them to be true. Which brings us to President Obama's many claims about his health-care reform. Take his oft-expressed statement that if you like the coverage you have, you can keep it. That sounds good—but perverse incentives in his new law will cause most...

Just in case it's not obvious why President Obama has shown such extreme vitriol towards private insurance companies, and the citizens who work for them, here's a video, in his own words, that certifies his real end game, which is to completely eliminate them.

Before Thanksgiving, the Senate voted to opening debate on President Obama's health-care bill, and that debate has begun in earnest this week. Well, if they want a debate, let's let them have it. But let's not get distracted by the sideshows Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has planned for us. Forget about abortion. Of course the left will accept restrictions on funding for abortion, because they want to keep moderate Democrats on board for the goal they know is really important: giving the government a dominant role in health care. Everything else is just details, and funding for abortions is...

When the Numbers Don't Add Up http://www.wiseandfrugalgovernment.blogspot.com In the early 1990's, before our kids were in school, we would spend Thanksgiving on a small working farm in Killarney Ireland. On the way we would stop in London for a few days. Every year for three years I would note the headlines were dominated by the same news: the British health care system was out of money. I read stories about hospital closings due to lack of funding. People in need of urgent surgery being put back on the wait list because there simply was not enough money to keep the...

Not later than February 1, 2014, the Comptroller General shall submit to the appropriate committees of Congress a report on . . . (ii) the availability of affordable health benefits plans, and (iii) the ability of individuals to maintain essential health benefits coverage . . . Not later than April 1, 2014, the appropriate committees of Congress shall report legislation implementing the recommendations contained in the report . . . [or] any member of the House of Representatives or the Senate, respectively, may introduce legislation implementing the recommendations contained in the proposal and such legislation shall be placed on the...

One of the questions constantly asked of Obamacare supporters (and never answered adequately) is why can't you fix the pre-existing conditions, insure the uninsured, etc, without messing with the insurance of those who are happy with their insurance. According to Rasmussen, almost 2/3 of American voters are asking the same question. Sixty-three percent of voters nationwide say guaranteeing that no one is forced to change their health insurance coverage is a higher priority than giving consumers the choice of a "public option" health insurance company. Not surprisingly, self described moderates and conservatives put guaranteeing that no one is forced to...

One of President Obama's mantras with regard to the Democrats' health care proposal (whatever it turns out to be) is that if you like your present health insurance coverage, you will get to keep it. More recently, when the fraudulent nature of that pledge was revealed, he changed the formula to "the bill won't require you to lose your coverage." That's right; it won't require you to lose your coverage, it will just cause you to lose your coverage. On Thursday, as the Senate Finance Committee was marking up the Baucus version of the bill, Senator Orrin Hatch tested the...

Free Speech: The Senate votes against transparency as the administration silences a private insurer for exposing the president's health care proposal. Meanwhile, AARP is allowed to tout reform as it awaits payday. We weren't surprised when the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday voted 12 to 11 against allowing two weeks for the Congressional Budget Office to complete its cost analysis of the health care bill pushed by Montana Democrat Max Baucus and to put the bill online in its original wording. Instead, the Senate panel passed another amendment to require the committee to post the full bill online in "conceptual"...

Entitlements: Democrats count on a deadly and declining revenue source to rob from the poor and give to the well-off. It kills private insurance and is income redistribution turned on its head.The House of Representatives on Wednesday passed 289-139 a bill to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program, something President Bush vetoed twice because it expands the program to those who arguably don't need it while increasing the dependence of millions on government. The bill would provide $32.3 billion over 4 1/2 years to add 4 million children to the 7 million already covered in the program. It pays...

OF all the wishful thinking, denial of realities and bla tantly false assertions that surround President Obama's push for government-dominated health care, the biggest whopper is the claim that public administration will be more efficient than private health plans. Taxpayers won't be subsidizing the public option, the president insisted to Congress last week: "By avoiding some of the overhead that gets eaten up at private companies by profits, excessive administrative costs and executive salaries, it could provide a good deal for consumers."

Federal Powers: Where in the U.S. Constitution does it say the government can force people to buy health insurance? And by what authority does it prohibit the purchasing of insurance across state lines?A key part of the administration's plan to reform health care is what is called the "individual mandate" — a requirement that everyone must have health insurance either through his or her employer or purchased individually. A good chunk of the uninsured are that way of their own volition. They are young and healthy and feel they have better things to do with their money at this point...

The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee wants levies on insurers to pay for Obamacare and fines for families who don't sign up. To keep Obamacare alive, Baucus has proposed a Rube Goldberg scheme of fees and fines on insurers and the uninsured designed to forcibly bring everyone into the loving and protective arms of the nanny state...