“ObamaCare is not that better way. In its attempt to reform healthcare, the administration has created overlapping layers of laws and regulations intended to anticipate everything that could go wrong and prevent it. Every problem—the uninsured, rising insurance premiums, ineffective and expensive care—is addressed. Every solution further centralizes power and decision making in Washington. The promises do not come cheap.”
“Competition used to discourage insurers from providing lousy access to care, but under ObamaCare competition will reward skimping. Under ObamaCare’s price controls, insurers that gain a reputation for providing quality coverage to the sick will attract sick people and go out of business. Insurers that gain a reputation for providing lousy access to care will drive away sick people and thrive.”
“Senator Max Baucus recently admitted that he never read the new health care law. But that hasn’t stopped him from trying to re-write it after the fact, in a way that would drive more health plans from the market and give consumers less choice.”
A wave of new ObamaCare mandates are starting soon, and insurers are alerting customers than the mandates will cause premium increases. “CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports starting next week, your insurance company can no longer put dollar limits on essential benefits such as hospital and lab services. Dependent children will be covered to age 26. You’ll get preventive care with no deductible or co-pay. But there’s a price.”
“The new law gives the Administration extensive authority to achieve broadly outlined goals, allowing it to control every aspect of health care finance and delivery and to impose its view of how the health care system should operate… The structure of the health care system will be determined by one central authority, reducing flexibility and denying Americans the ability to make their own choices.”
“Faced with the fact that the new health-care law was driving up insurance premiums, Health and Human Service Secretary Kathleen Sebelius warned that the administration would have ‘zero tolerance’ for anyone who blamed them for those price hikes… At the very least, she noted ‘bad actors’ could be excluded from new government-run health-insurance exchanges that will begin operation in 2014 under the law. That could cost insurers as many as 30 million customers nationwide. People also might not be able to use government subsidies to buy insurance from companies that don’t toe the administration line. What’s next? Only companies that write checks to the Democratic National Committee can participate? Have too many employees contribute to the wrong candidate, and you get a visit from the insurance commissioner?”
“Sebelius is threatening to put health insurers out of business in a substantial portion of the market if they state that Obamacare is boosting their costs. ‘Congress shall make no law,’ reads the First Amendment, ‘abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.’ Sebelius’ approach is different: ‘zero tolerance’ for dissent.
The threat to use government regulation to destroy or harm someone’s business because they disagree with government officials is thuggery. Like the Obama administration’s transfer of money from Chrysler bondholders to its political allies in the United Auto Workers, it is a form of gangster government.”
“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.”
“While many of Obama Care’s major pieces won’t kick in until 2014, a few big changes are already under way–and offering an early taste of what’s in store for American health care. It ain’t pretty. Think: greater government control, less competition and fewer options for consumers.”
A consequence of the government take-over of the health sector is the vast new influence that health lobbyists will have. On the federal and state level, influence-peddlers will become more important, violating a key campaign promise that President Obama would reduce corporate influence in government.