“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.”
“They now understand that the public has not, and will not, buy the argument that a government takeover of American health care will somehow lower costs. Americans have long understood that Obamacare is a massive new spending commitment, piled on top of the unaffordable ones already on the federal books. That’s a recipe for financial disaster, not deficit cutting. The solution is repeal coupled with a reform that puts consumers, not the government, in charge of controlling costs. That’s the way to fix health care — and the budget too. And, yes, it can be done.”
“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.”
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.
Medicare spending is growing rapidly, and ObamaCare will do nothing to slow it. The two main reforms, Accountable Care Organizations and the Independent Payment Advisory Board, are poorly constructed and won’t result in significant savings. Only real, market-driven reforms will be able to lower the growth rate.
With ObamaCare unlikely to be repealed until 2013 at the earliest, the promising tactic to defeat it is through defunding implementation. “Should Republicans regain control of Congress, they could theoretically use their new power of the purse to deny Obama the funding needed to administer his signature accomplishment. This prospect is already gaining steam among opponents of the law. The new group DeFundit.org has gotten more than 90 candidates and current members of Congress to sign a pledge supporting stripping ObamaCare of money.”
ObamaCare cut over $500 billion in Medicare payments to health care providers over the next 10 years. These cuts were in an arbitrary, across-the-board manner, and are unlikely to work properly because it’s difficult to second-guess how medicine will advance over the next decade. “This is an inherent defect of Medicare not found in markets. Competitive markets automatically translate productivity gains into lower prices for consumers. Medicare protects providers at the expense of enrollees and taxpayers.”
The Medicare Trustees issued their annual report outlining the financial status of Medicare last week. At the end of the document was a formal rebuke from the chief Medicare actuary, casting doubt on the rosy portrayal of the main report. “It is difficult to overstate how unusual this development is. The normal process with the annual Trustees’ Reports is for the Trustees to develop and publish the best available projections for the future finances of Social Security and Medicare. The respective Social Security and Medicare actuaries then sign a pro forma blessing of those projections, which is tacked to the back of the report when released to the public.”
“The American people can kill this monster in its crib. Handing Republicans the keys to Congress on November 2 could smother this $2.5 trillion extravagance in its infancy. While a GOP repeal vote surely would earn a presidential veto, a Republican Congress could defund this law’s implementation. Instead, Republicans should administer a pro-market antidote to ObamaCare’s poison: health-insurance vouchers, Medical malpractice reform; universal, tax-free Health Savings Accounts; and individual, portable medical plans — all available across state lines.”
“The ‘spin’ surrounding the Trustees Reports will largely involve what the new health care bill did and did not do to ‘solvency’ and other metrics. Unfortunately, the real ‘news’ in the reports is that the window for reform to slow the growth of these programs and to keep taxes at historical levels has nearly closed. Program beneficiaries need to be told of changes before they retire so they can adjust their life plans accordingly. If someone knows in advance that Social Security benefits will be lower or Medicare Part B premiums higher, they can delay retirement and make other changes. When people are informed of these changes in retirement, that flexibility has been taken away, leaving them worse off. Yet, if reforms are passed in say 2013 (a soon but reasonable timeframe) and they exempt future beneficiaries within 10 years of retirement, the reforms will (or can only) address less than 40% of the entitlement cost growth. In short, the painful process of adjusting to a much larger government will have already been baked into the cake.”