“The Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act (PPACA) is projected to yield $575 billion in Medicare savings over the next 10 years, mostly from Medicare payment reductions to doctors, hospitals, and health plans. But beneath these payment reductions, the PPACA also makes statutory changes that could challenge the autonomy of physicians to treat patients as they think best, undercut the freedom of physicians to remain in private practice, and threaten the continuation of fee-for-service medicine regardless of the preferences of doctors and patients.”
Despite promises from the President that his health care law would not make anyone lose their current health plan, colleges will soon stop offering low-cost plans to students. Since young people are unlikely to need the expensive plans mandated by ObamaCare, colleges are able to offer inexpensive plans. ObamaCare will change all that, as new coverage mandates will be implemented. “Without a number of changes, it may be impossible ‘to continue to offer student health plans,’ says an Aug. 12 letter sent to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius from the American Council on Education and signed by 12 other trade associations representing colleges.”
Insurance agents are looking at the government’s plans to create insurance exchanges and are worried that they’ll be made obsolete and driven out of business. They are assuming that the fee insurance companies pay to brokers will be considered an administrative cost by new “medical-loss ratio” regulations and that insurance companies will be forced to lower those costs to comply with ObamaCare.
As one of the backroom deals required to pass ObamaCare through the Senate, Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) earmarked special funding for Libby, Montana to deal with an asbestos problem. At a town hall meeting featuring HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, residents weighed in with strong objections to the new law, even though they were the recipients of special treatment. “And while some Libby residents thanked Sebelius and Baucus for the health care reform law that passed last year and extended Medicare coverage to those sickened by asbestos, others questioned whether the changes to America’s health care system were Constitutional. “
“From 1990 to 1995, we served as public trustees for Social Security and
Medicare. As a Democrat and a Republican (now an independent), we worked
together on a professional and nonpartisan basis with the other trustees – the
secretaries of health and human services, labor and Treasury – to ensure the
integrity and credibility of the annual reports on these critically important
social insurance programs. [T]he conclusions expressed in this year’s Medicare
report were, to our minds, based on unreasonable assumptions that produced
unrealistic and misleading results. The unwarrantedly optimistic report could
produce a serious misunderstanding of the true financial condition of Medicare
and result in significant public confusion.”
“Fewer than 2 million of the nation’s 6 million companies with employees qualify
for the small-business tax credits included in the new health insurance reform
law, says the National Federation of Independent Business. The law’s supporters
had projected that twice as many small businesses would qualify for the tax
credit.”
Doctor-owned hospitals were virtually banned by ObamaCare, making them the
“biggest losers in federal health care reform.” Existing ones are looking to
merge, or be acquired by existing hospital systems, restricting choice and
competition in the market.
The Florida chapter of the American Medical Association expressed “no
confidence” in the national organization for their endorsement of and
campaigning on behalf of ObamaCare.
Many doctors acquire their own imaging equipment so they can conduct CT scans,
MRIs, and other services directly in their office without an outside referral.
They say this allows them to better treat their patients in a more timely and
efficient manner. ObamaCare put new regulations on doctors providing
self-referrals, because bureaucrats mistrust the motives of doctors, believing
them to be ordering wasteful, extra tests.
ObamaCare supporters are abandoning their campaign to tout the law, instead advising lawmakers running for reelection to promise to “improve it.” Their polling shows that Americans have not been persuaded by advocates’ claims that the law will lower costs or reduce deficits.