President Obama promised that his health-care overhaul would not raise deficits by “one dime,” but the “doc fix” that it neglects to cover will raise deficits by $247 billion.
In three years a majority of workers will be forced to change their current health insurance plans, according to draft regulations being written by the Obama Administration. Despite promises that current plans will be “grandfathered” and allowed to continue once ObamaCare is fully implemented, minor changes will qualify plans as “new” and be forced to make broad, new changes to comply with the new law. To avoid ObamaCare’s new regulations, employers might drop their employer-provided insurance altogether.
The Administration has been using taxpayer funds to have the IRS promote ObamaCare under the guise of informing the public about the effects of the new law. But if the Administration is really just trying to inform and not to propagandize, why isn’t the IRS advertising the new tax on indoor tanning services, set to start July 1st?
“[T]he push to replace physicians with ‘physician extenders’ could end up increasing costs.”
“As a practicing physician with more than 25 years of experience, and as a former business owner in the health care sector, I’d suggest this new PR campaign is grounded in politics rather than reality.”
As difficult as passing ObamaCare was, implementing the massive health care overhaul, with its countless provisions, will no doubt be even more of a challenge — and with several missed deadlines already, the Obama administration is off to a less than auspicious start.
If Americans want a glimpse into what their future would be like under ObamaCare, they simply need to look north of the border, at Canada’s failing socialized medical system.
The official at the Massachusetts Division of Insurance in charge of monitoring insurer-solvency sent an internal e-mail warning that the state’s government-imposed insurance rate price controls “have no actuarial support” and could lead to “a train wreck.”
The Administration is touting new $250 checks for seniors who hit the Medicare Part D coverage gap. But the State of Vermont is arguing that if the money is to defray drug costs, and not just a political giveaway, then they should be receiving those checks for the seniors who get their drugs paid for by the state Medicaid program. “The dust-up over rebate checks and who should receive them underscores the challenges of the federal-state partnership in health reform’s implementation. While rules and regulations are written within the Beltway, most of the heavy-lifting, in terms of implementation, rests with state governments.”
HHS Secretary Sebelius wrote a letter to Medicare Advantage insurers and threatened the companies not to increase costs or decrease benefits for seniors. Since ObamaCare includes $200 billion in cuts to Medicare Advantage, it will be nearly impossible for insurers not to cut benefits or raise costs for Medicare Advantage beneficiaries, and Democrats are maneuvering to avoid taking the blame.