Audits and investigations into the effects of ObamaCare from congressional committees, government auditors, advocacy groups, and others.
ObamaCare is filled with perverse incentives and unintended consequences which will lead to declining patient care. “Consumer advocates fear that the health care law could worsen some of the very problems it was meant to solve — by reducing competition, driving up costs and creating incentives for doctors and hospitals to stint on care, in order to retain their cost-saving bonuses.”
“Dr. Donald Berwick has his coming out party today in Washington. After President Obama snuck him into office during a recess appointment as the head of the second largest health insurance company in the world- CMS (Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services) without so much as a single hearing, Senators finally have an opportunity to meet him during a Finance Committee meeting.”
“My conversations lead me to believe that many people are expecting that the plans offered in the exchanges will be Medicare-like in many ways. I feel like many people think they will have choice of doctor, choice of hospital, and the ability to dictate care. I’m not seeing how insurance companies will be able to offer such products at prices people can afford. As I talk to more and more people in the insurance industry, my thoughts seem confirmed. I may be wrong, but I think it’s worth addressing. Mistaken expectations have been, and continue to be, a real problem in health care reform.”
Medicare is facing a huge 23% cut to doctor reimbursements starting December 1. Doctors are panicking, and it will likely be overturned, but ObamaCare is paid for with the same type of across the board cuts to Medicare payments. “Breast cancer surgeon Kathryn Wagner has posted a warning in her waiting room about a different sort of risk to patients’ health: She’ll stop taking new Medicare cases if Congress allows looming cuts in doctors’ pay to go through.”
“Health providers dropping Medicare patients is the worst case scenario, especially in light of the flood of baby boomers set to retire and join Medicare. For now, many hospitals are preparing for revenue cuts as best they can. For Memorial Hospital, this means reducing the work force.”
ObamaCare is planning to achieve significant savings in Medicare through creating Accountable Care Organizations to coordinate patient care. But these ACOs are unlikely to work because very few doctors and hospitals are equipped to set them up any time soon.
“While hospital leaders admit the economy sparked this problem, it says the Obama Health Care Reform Act gave the hospital a one-two punch. While more people may soon get more health coverage, Obama’s plan cuts reimbursement dollars for hospitals at a time administrators say they could use them most.”
“Democrats and their media apologists just can’t bring themselves to believe that there is anything substantive behind opposition to Obamacare. And so, instead of engaging in serious argument, they offer up condescending nonsense — such as this New York Times editorial which supposedly debunks the myths being peddled on the campaign trail by candidates trying to stir up opposition to Obamacare.”
“Patient choice looks to be the first casualty of Obamacare. The new healthcare law gives the federal government unprecedented control over medical decisions. And one bureaucrat in particular looks to be leading the crusade for more public power: Dr. Donald Berwick, the new director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). CMS may be obscure. But it wields enormous influence over the availability of treatments. If CMS decides a treatment isn’t worth its price, public insurance programs like Medicare and Medicaid will stop covering it, and patients will lose access to the treatment.”
“The overhaul left virtually untouched one big element of our health-care dilemma: the price problem. Simply put, Americans pay much more for each bit of care — tests, procedures, hospital stays, drugs, devices — than people in other rich nations.”