Posted on 09/01/2016 7:41:35 PM PDT by Mr. Mojo
It is becoming apparent that Obamacare, barring the influx of massive government cash, is going to implode, which is what it was destined to do from the get go.
Although almost nobody in the private sector even knows all the provisions in the convoluted and highly complicated legislation, and many of the members of congress who saddled us with it never even read it. The Affordable Care Act is a contradiction in terms.
First of all, it is not affordable, or at least, it soon won’t be, as major insurance carriers who signed on because they figured Obama had handed them a bonanza of millions of new subscribers are pulling out of state agencies right and left as they realize that the flower child pipedreams of our socialist-minded president could never come true.
The success of the program is predicated on the premise that millions of healthy people who rarely use the insurance would more than make up for the sick people who use it constantly.
This, of course, never materialized as the healthy people who could afford private insurance programs, for the most part, stayed with their employer-provided or personally funded programs, and the insurance companies were left holding a very heavy bag of losses numbering into the billions with no feasible end in sight.
Secondly, Obamacare was never about health care. It was designed and intended to allow the federal government to take over one sixth of the economy, eventually morphing into a single-payer system, whereby several new and bloated bureaucracies would be created and maintained on the taxpayer's dollar to administrate and enforce the program.
And when the president stood in front of the nation and intentionally lied about keeping our doctors and our private insurance coverage, it was probably the worst advertisement Obamacare could have had, as it eroded trust and magnified many apprehensions when it became clear it was not true.
America already has a single-payer system; it's called the Veterans Administration. Yes, the same one that spent one hundred million dollars on art while veterans are dying in the parking lot for lack of treatment.
It’s possible that the next president will take Obamacare and either be completely overhaul it or throw it on the scrap heap of socialism along with its other many total failures, Venezuela being the latest example.
But it’s also possible that the next president will probably just resuscitate Obamacare, and put it on life support at the cost of billions, if not trillions of tax dollars, until the day it becomes so top heavy it eventually falls on its own.
And this will happen because there is a hole in the bottom of this ship where the wealth of the nation leaks out, and when it's gone, so is socialized medicine, massive entitlement, never-ending unemployment benefits and all the other vote grabbing programs our out of control DC Circus has burdened the taxpayers with.
Let me ask you a question, and it's meant to be non-partisan because the blame I'm passing around stains both sides of the aisle and tars both parties with the same brush, some for their greed and ambition and some for their cowardice and failure to fulfill their oaths of office.
Question: after watching the IRS be used for personal vendettas, after watching the post office, with all the advantages of being a subsidized government service, fail and continue to lose ground to private carriers, after watching the VA get turned into the incompetent, unspeakable disgrace it is, and all the other bloated, redundant and unnecessary federal agencies and bureaucracies, do you feel comfortable in leaving your grandchildren a twenty trillion dollar debt?
Would you be willing to pass this nation into the hands of the children you love with an out-of-date, demoralized military, unable to meet the threats of a newly vitalized Russian military and China who could field millions of ground troops at the drop of a hat?
Are you willing to see your loved ones face a world where our politicians have turned political correctness into an art form and have become a doormat allowing free flow of aliens of every nationality – and it's happening now – to come across our border to one day reconstitute the terrorist cells who slipped across individually among the millions of Hispanics who walk across at will and hide in one of our sanctuary cities or in plain sight in some “hands-off” Muslim neighborhood?
The truth of the matter is that our government is far bigger than it needs to be, or has any business of being, with bureaucracies tripping all over each other, incapable of running a convenience store, much less the health care of a nation.
I agree that this nation should do its best to help its poorest citizens have health care, but it will never be accomplished by the federal government. The chance for personal or political gain is too great. Our politicians have proven again and again they cannot resist the temptation to attract a new voting block or stake out ground for their party.
And to politicians, to be better, everything has to be bigger, and it takes ten people to do a job one person could handle while the other nine just get in the way. They turn everything into an unaffordable, tax-hiking three-ring circus, and the more that can be accomplished in the private sector, the better off we are.
If the government really had healthcare on its mind, why not some subsidy program to help our poorer citizens obtain insurance in the private sector?
Why not provide the same thing for our long-suffering vets by allowing them to enter the private market?
How about we require American citizenship to obtain federal benefits?
How about the House and Senate be offered only the same programs the public is offered?
This would create a competitive atmosphere in the medical trade as hospitals and medical professionals would have to compete for patients who could go to any doctor, any medical facility they choose and all would be covered by private insurance policies.
When it comes to the government, folks, it’s about power and control, not public service and compassion, and anything that falls into their purview will be conducted with that in focus.
What do you think?
Pray for our troops, our police and the peace of Jerusalem.
God Bless America
Right on Mr. Daniels!!!!
Reminds me of Atlas Shrugged. They pass these laws to make everyone a criminal. You cannot control a law abiding citizen so you make laws that no one will obey and then guilt them into obedience.
“Did you really think we want those laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Reardon, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with.”After the crisis that Obama created, the government can then swoop in with its iron hand to "resolve" the social chaos.
Doctors, nurses, and med techs chained to their desks with a paltry living wage, bureaucratic death panels, years long waits for treatment, "natural" death rates reaching sky high and the surplus population culled.
obama wanted a Marxist health collective, but all he did was make healthcare more expensive for everyone.
Another obama triumph.
Right on Charlie!
Next time anybody complains about the government - its size, its failures, etc, - take a look in the mirror to see who is responsible for electing and reelecting the same people over and over again to screw us.
Primary opponents failed to oust Paul Ryan, John McCain and a host of other miserable incompetents. So we are saddled with more and more of the same crappy government. Is there a masochistic gene in all of us that makes us act this way?
The problem with imploding is that pesky neutron star left over, sucking in money. Ocare is a legislative improvised roadside bomb, and was designed that way.
Until Democrats, admit the shoved a failed law down the American Public’s throat, no Republican should try to fix anything. The moment that Dem's apologize to the American public then there can be bipartisan attempts to find something better, but until then.....let the Dem's keep saying it is working.
It'll be a cold day in Hell.
It'll be a cold day in Hell.....”
Great, then let the Dem's hang and slowly twist in the win with the full consequences of their program.
Bump to keep this on top
Bump to keep this on top
The problem is this is all being treated as a problem with how you pay for healthcare rather than addressing the root problem, which is how to bring down the cost of healthcare to the point where the average person can pay for the bulk of their own healthcare out of pocket, just as they do for almost everything else in life. For those rare but very costly situations you have insurance, whose function is to protect against unexpected but otherwise financially damaging or ruinous events.
You carry automobile insurance to cover the risks associated with things like theft and accidents. You do not have automobile insurance to cover the normal costs of owning a vehicle, like gas and routine maintenance. The same is true for every other area of life for which you buy insurance--except healthcare. That is the root problem and until this is addressed there is no possible "cure" for the problem of ever-escalating healthcare costs.
Too bad Mr. Daniels isn’t running for president.
I read that about 75% of healthcare costs go to treating chronic conditions. Chronic conditions aren't really a problem on a national scale until people hit their mid 40s. Then it is all downhill. It is really a question of who pays for healthcare as a person ages.
I've no doubt this is true, but there are several problems here. First, the current system is optimized to get as many people as possible into "chronic" conditions that require daily (insurance-covered) prescription medications. That's the cash cow that's consuming the system, and currently there are no incentives to try to reign in those costs.
Secondly, the notion that it's "all downhill" after you hit 40 is a complete myth. There's no reason that most people can't remain physically fit and healthy (without drugs) for most of their adult lives. We have an epidemic of Type-II diabetes, for example, mainly do to atrocious eating and lifestyle choices that are actively encouraged by both the tellingly-named "Grocery Manufacturers Association" and the Pharmaceutical industry, who supply expensive (read, profitable) treatments for these chronic conditions.
What's needed is a recognition that the patient bears primary responsibility for his or her own health, and that starts with things like not having a diet consisting of junk food, getting off one's butt to move, not smoking, etc. Not something that one can wave a wand to make happen, but you have to start by stopping incentivizing poor lifestyle choices and couple that with real education and getting people to know and understand that they can (often dramatically) improve their quality of life with relatively minor behavioral changes.
Price transparency and real competition in medicine is the other key reform needed. Combining these two is the only way to slay the healthcare cost dragon.
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