Many of the Democrats who are either up for re-election or are seeking political office for the first time are claiming that they oppose much of Obamacare and plan to fix it if elected/re-elected.
Don’t believe any of this rhetoric. There is an ulterior motive to these specious statements: to win election by whatever it takes. After that, expect most of these Democrats to toe the party line, either by coercion or personal convictions, and therefore not repeal Obamacare.
Only the Republicans can be trusted to attempt to repeal or defund Obamacare.
Vote Republican in November if you want to fight Obamacare … and to take back our country from the arrogant, elitist and radical Democratic politicians.
Dear Patients: Vote to Repeal ObamaCare Don't believe Democrats who promise to fix the bill once they're re-elected.
By Hal Scherz
Facing a nationwide backlash, Democratic congressional candidates have a new message for voters: We know you don't like ObamaCare, so we'll fix it.
This was the line offered by Democrat Mark Critz, who won a special election in Pennsylvania's 12th congressional district after expressing opposition to the law and promising to mend it—but not to repeal it. As a doctor I know something about unexpected recoveries, and this latest attempt to rescue ObamaCare from repeal needs to be taken seriously.
For Democrats who voted for ObamaCare, this tactic is an escape route, a chance to distance themselves from the president with a vague promise to fix health-care reform in the next Congress.
To counter this election-year ruse, my colleagues and I at Docs4PatientCare are enlisting thousands of doctors in an unorthodox and unprecedented action. Our patients have always expected a certain standard of care from their doctors, which includes providing them with pertinent information that may affect their quality of life. Because the issue this election is so stark—literally life and death for millions of Americans in the years ahead—we are this week posting a "Dear Patient" letter in our waiting rooms.
The letter states in unambiguous language what the new law means:
"Dear Patient: Section 1311 of the new health care legislation gives the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services and her appointees the power to establish care guidelines that your doctor must abide by or face penalties and fines. In making doctors answerable in the federal bureaucracy this bill effectively makes them government employees and means that you and your doctor are no longer in charge of your health care decisions. This new law politicizes medicine and in my opinion destroys the sanctity of the doctor-patient relationship that makes the American health care system the best in the world."
Our doctor's letter points out that, in addition to "badly exacerbating the current doctor shortage," ObamaCare will bring "major cost increases, rising insurance premiums, higher taxes, a decline in new medical techniques, a fall-off in the development of miracle drugs as well as rationing by government panels and by bureaucrats like passionate rationing advocate Donald Berwick that will force delays of months or sometimes years for hospitalization or surgery."
We cite the brute facts of ObamaCare's passage:
"Despite countless protests by doctors and overwhelming public opposition—up to 60% of Americans opposed this bill—the current party in control of Congress pushed this bill through with legal bribes and Chicago style threats and is determined now to resist any 'repeal and replace' efforts. This doctor's office is non-partisan—always has been, always will be. But the fact is that every Republican voted against this bad bill while the Democratic Party leadership and the White House completely dismissed the will of the people in ruthlessly pushing through this legislation."
Then we address the Democrats' evasive campaign maneuver:
"In the face of voter anger some Democratic candidates are now trying to make a cosmetic retreat, calling for minor modifications or pretending they are opposed to government-run medicine. Once the election is over, however, they will vote with their party bosses against repealing this bill."
The letter's final lines are the most important:
"Please remember when you vote this November that unless the Democratic Party receives a strong negative message about this power grab our health care system will never be fixed and the doctor patient relationship will be ruined forever."
This message is going out to an electorate that is already frustrated over what they see happening to health care. Missouri voters rejected ObamaCare overwhelmingly in August, voting by a margin of 71%-29% to reject the federal requirement that all individuals purchase health insurance. Democratic pollster Douglas Schoen has assessed that ObamaCare is "a disaster" for Democrats. And around the country many little-noticed primaries have reflected voter rage—including the Republican primary victory of surgeon, political newcomer, and advocate of repeal Daniel Benishek in Michigan's first district.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration's damage-control efforts have fallen flat. The latest round of pro-ObamaCare television spots targeting the elderly and starring veteran actor Andy Griffith have not only failed to move the polling numbers. They have caused five U.S. Senators to ask for an investigation of the ads as a violation of federal laws barring the use of tax dollars ($750,000) for campaign purposes.
America's doctors have millions of personal interactions each week with patients. We have political power. And we intend to use it by working to defeat those who have disrupted and gravely endangered the best health-care system in the world.
Dr. Scherz, a pediatric urological surgeon at Georgia Urology and Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, serves on the faculty of Emory University Medical School and is president and cofounder of Docs4PatientCare.
Even before the true implementation of Obamacare, we are witnessing insidious changes, rules and regulations that comport with it agenda and will ruinous to the American health care system. Few people are aware of these issues which are largely under the radar.
Fast Track To Government Health Care
Grace-Marie Turner 08/20/2010
While there is broad agreement there are problems in our health sector that must be solved, the American people consistently have said they oppose government control. Yet many of the decisions now being made in the bowels of the bureaucracy could lead to a government system that people fear.
The consequences of government involvement in health care have become more and more apparent as people have become informed about what the health overhaul law would do. No longer does the government seem to be a fairy godmother but rather a tough enforcer of an avalanche of new mandates, taxes and regulatory requirements.
The assurance that government would make sure all Americans have health care coverage has turned into a mandate that we all must have insurance defined by the government and with the government determining what our "choice" of health policies will be.
The latest example of our loss of individual control over health care decisions is playing out deep in the weeds of definitions over what must be counted as medical care and what counts as administrative expense in health insurance — the so-called "medical loss ratio," or MLR. According to the new law, at least 85% of premium dollars must be spent on medical care for large firms and 80% for smaller ones.
It sounds like a simple and straightforward issue, but a world of challenges and complexity lies beneath the surface. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) has been charged with making recommendations to the federal government about what should and should not be counted in the equation.
To show how consequential the decision is, President Obama briefly scheduled, then canceled, a trip to speak to the NAIC meeting in Seattle in mid-August where the MLR issue was being debated.
Many of the decisions being made by regulators could make it almost impossible for private insurance companies to comply, leading inevitably to a government-run health system.
Connecticut state insurance commissioner Thomas Sullivan warned, "What we've learned since March, is that if you like your health insurance you may not be able to keep it," he told the Seattle meeting, "and state regulators will have a role in implementing health care as long as that role supports the goals of HHS (the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services), which may not necessarily be what's in the best interest of consumers."
He later told reporters: "I'm concerned there's still a lot left to be done in interpretation ... I fear that some have an agenda to interpret ... with the express purpose of getting to a single-payer option."
Many other health actuaries and experts at the Seattle meeting said they believed the MLR was meant to be so disruptive to private insurance that it would eventually push us into a single-payer system.
HHS is not obligated to take the recommendations of the NAIC. Ultimately, the bureaucracy will decide. And their decision will be hugely consequential.
An issue that is being most hotly debated right now is whether the federal, state and payroll taxes that insurance companies are required to pay must be counted today as administrative expenses or whether they can be subtracted from premium collections before the calculations are made.
Health insurers say the decision could determine whether they have the money to invest in fighting fraud, setting up networks of qualified physicians and updating information technologies. For other companies, the decision very well could determine whether they survive.
Six senior members of Congress also weighed in on the issue with a letter to the president of the NAIC, saying they meant for taxes to be counted as an administrative expense.
America's Health Insurance Plans, which represents insurance companies, countered that the legislation specifically says taxes shouldn't be counted. Other independent analysts have validated the AHIP position.
So the politicization of health care begins, with even the president set to weigh in on a decision that would make most people's eyes glaze over in the minutia. The president will meet with the NAIC at the White House in September or so to discuss the issue.
It now is clear that decisions about what kind of health insurance we have, how much we must pay, what it covers or doesn't cover, will be made by politicians and bureaucrats.
This evokes a statement by health economist Paul Starr in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, "The Social Transformation of American Medicine": "Political leaders since Bismarck seeking to strengthen the state or to advance their own or their party's interests have used insurance against the costs of sickness as a means of turning benevolence to power."
The process has begun. Unless ObamaCare can be rolled back, the politicization of American medicine will reach into the smallest decisions affecting our medical care for decades to come.
And, just five months after the health overhaul law was enacted, we see how the regulatory bureaucracy may well push us into the single-payer, government-run health care system that even the very liberal 111th Congress couldn't enact.
Turner is president of the Galen Institute, a nonprofit research organization based in Alexandria, Va., that specializes in patient-centered ideas for health reform.
In the following video, Stuart Varney discusses the significance of the refusal by U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson to agree to the federal government’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the state of Virginia which challenges Obamacare and its Constitutionality. This case specifically focuses on one of its most inherently important yet egregious requirement that compels all citizens to purchase health insurance. If it is ruled unconstitutional, the viability of Obamacare may thankfully be jeopardized.
It is expected that this case ultimately will be heard by the Supreme Court.
In the first of many state referendums that challenge Obamacare, the voters of Missouri resoundingly rejected a key provision of the federal plan with more than 70% of voters against it. The sentiment against Obamacare was very strong and may presage similar outcomes in other states with similar propositions.
This is a propitious sign but we must keep the fight up in order to defeat the federal government’s unconstitutional intrusions into our lives.
Mo. voters reject key provision of health care law
David A. Lieb Associated Press Writer 8/3/2010
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – Missouri voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected a key provision of President Barack Obama's health care law, sending a clear message of discontent to Washington and Democrats less than 100 days before the midterm elections.
With about 70 percent of the vote counted late Tuesday, nearly three-quarters of voters threw their support behind a ballot measure, Proposition C, that would prohibit the government from requiring people to have health insurance or from penalizing them for not having it.
That would conflict with a federal requirement that most people have health insurance or face penalties starting in 2014.
Tuesday's vote was seen as largely symbolic because federal law generally trumps state law. But it was also seen as a sign of growing voter disillusionment with federal policies and a show of strength by conservatives and the tea party movement.
Legislatures in Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana and Virginia have passed similar statutes, and voters in Arizona and Oklahoma will vote on such measures as state constitutional amendments in November. But Missouri was the first state to challenge aspects of the law in a referendum.
Federal courts are expected to weigh in well before the insurance provision takes effect about whether the federal health care overhaul is constitutional.
The intent of the federal requirement is to broaden the pool of healthy people covered by insurers, thus holding down premiums that otherwise would rise because of separate provisions prohibiting insurers from denying coverage to people with poor health or pre-existing conditions.
But the insurance requirement has been one of the most contentious parts of the new federal law. Public officials in well over a dozen states, including Missouri, have filed lawsuits claiming Congress overstepped its constitutional authority by requiring citizens to buy health insurance.
The Missouri Hospital Association spent $400,000 warning people that passage of the ballot measure could increase hospitals' costs for treating the uninsured, but there was little opposition to the measure from either grass-roots organizations or from the unions and consumer groups that backed the federal overhaul.
Here we have Exhibit #25899907564A which once again reaffirms the maxim that government intervention creates unintended consequences. In this situation described below, it is the exact opposite of what the purported intentions of Obamacare were. That is, to “provide” health insurance coverage for more people.
According to the report, over 1 million people may lose coverage later this year due to the inherent rules of the Obamacare legislation.
And the lies and deceptions continue to be exposed…
Health law could ban low-cost plans
Jennifer Haberkorn June 8, 2010
Part of the health care overhaul due to kick in this September could strip more than 1 million people of their insurance coverage, violating a key goal of President Barack Obama’s reforms.
Under the provision, insurance companies will no longer be able to apply broad annual caps on the amount of money they pay out on health policies. Employer groups say the ban could essentially wipe out a niche insurance market that many part-time workers and retail and restaurant employees have come to rely on.
This market’s limited-benefit plans, also called mini-med plans, are priced low because they can, among other things, restrict the number of covered doctor visits or impose a maximum on insurance payouts in a year. The plans are commonly offered by retail or restaurant companies to low-wage workers who cannot afford more expensive, comprehensive coverage.
Depending on how strictly the administration implements the provision, the ban could in effect outlaw the plans or make them so restrictive that insurance companies would raise rates to the point they become unaffordable.
A cadre of employers and trade associations, including 7-Eleven, Lowe’s, the National Restaurant Association, the National Retail Federation and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have asked the administration to allow the plans — at least through 2014, when the insurance exchanges are set up and tax credits become available for low-wage workers.
The struggle over the provision highlights the importance of the new law’s implementation timetable and the way its parts interlock with one another. The legislation was front-loaded with consumer-friendly reforms, such as the ban on most annual limits, in hopes the law would become more popular. Polls show the legislation is supported by about half the public.
But many of the more comprehensive features of the overhaul, such as the insurance exchanges and tax credits that would help cover those who use limited-benefit plans, don’t come into play until 2014.
That means, for nearly three years, the effect of the ban on annual limits could be costly for the low-wage, seasonal or temporary workers who most often use limited-benefit plans. The full effect won’t be known until the administration releases regulations that detail how the provision will be implemented.
The ban on annual caps is designed to improve the quality of all health coverage. It will prevent patients from “maxing out” of their health coverage if they are diagnosed with catastrophic illnesses or sustain costly injuries.
If the ban is strictly implemented, “this population would likely be left with no coverage until 2014,” employer groups wrote last week in a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis.
“While it surely was not the intent of Congress or the administration to increase the number of uninsured, this provision will likely produce exactly this result for some of the most vulnerable of our population, e.g., lower-wage, part-time, seasonal and temporary workers who can only obtain and afford limited-benefit medical insurance coverage.”
The letter was signed by nearly three dozen organizations, including many trade groups that did not support the Democrats’ legislation. Industry groups estimate that about 1.4 million people use these plans.
HHS spokeswoman Jessica Santillo said that the department was considering input from “all stakeholders” as it develops the rules surrounding the ban on annual caps and that everyone will see improvements in quality from provisions of the overhaul implemented this year.
“Under the Affordable Care Act, millions of small businesses and their employees will see a significant decrease in the cost of health insurance and will have access to higher-quality-coverage options. In the short term, employers will benefit from administrative simplification and greater insurer accountability on their overhead and rate increases,” Santillo said. “And starting this year, an estimated 4 million small businesses who offer health coverage for employees will see immediate relief through a small-business tax credit.”
Once the exchanges open and the tax credits become available in 2014, many of the low- and middle-income people who use limited-benefit plans are likely to qualify for the credits. But that’s after three years of limbo.
Employers admit the plans aren’t comprehensive but say they offer them because their employees can afford them.
“It’s not top-notch coverage by any stretch, but it is better than no coverage,” said Neil Trautwein, a health care lobbyist at the National Retail Federation. “There’s slight irony, given the president’s repeated assertion that if you enjoy your coverage you can keep it, that this would take the coverage away from part-time employees until 2014.”
Rules to implement the provision could be written to allow the limited-benefit plans until just 2014 or, with some flexibility, longer.
“If the limits are too restrictive, these products are not going to be able to be in the marketplace because that’s what makes them affordable,” said Jessica Waltman, senior vice president of government affairs at the National Association of Health Underwriters, which represents insurance agents and brokers.
Print This Post
Subscribe to Our RSS Feed
Follow Us on Twitter
Comments