ObamaCare puts Washington in charge of most of the health care sector. And Washington bureaucrats are planning to micromanage every aspect of it, but Washington will never be able to properly run such a complex system. “The U.S. government’s plan to base Medicare payments to hospitals on certain quality-of-care measures could end up transferring funds away from hospitals in the nation’s poorest, underserved areas, an analysis published Tuesday suggests.”
Congress claimed that ObamaCare would be paid for largely by cutting roughly $1 trillion from Medicare over ObamaCare’s real first ten years (2014 to 2023) and $455 billion through 2019 alone, but Congress’s latest game of kick-the-can-down-the-road suggests that these cuts might not get made, in which case ObamaCare would cause deficits to rise by about $1 trillion over a decade.
When it comes to the young and the old, ObamaCare would force an unconventional redistribution of wealth — as its price controls would force insurers to raise rates on younger (generally poorer) Americans relative to older (generally wealthier) ones. This distortion of the market and of nature would likely lead to a host of unpleasant consequences — including, for young adults, the likely consequence of having to forego insurance, getting fined as a result, and having more trouble finding a job.
Four decades of empirical evidence have shown that the costs of government-run health care have risen far more than the costs of privately purchased care, suggesting that American health costs will likely accelerate if ObamaCare goes into effect. Since 1970, Medicare’s costs have risen 34% more, per patient, than the combined costs of all health care in America apart from Medicare and Medicaid. This is true despite very generous treatment of Medicare, such as counting the Medicare prescription drug program as part of privately purchased care, counting health care purchased privately by Medicare beneficiaries (including Medicare copayments and Medigap insurance) among the costs of private care, and not adjusting for significant cost-shifting from Medicare to private entities.
The history of federal health-care programs shows that costs have surpassed estimates by tremendous margins. The exception has been the Medicare prescription drug program, which has controlled costs by injecting the sort of private competition and choice that ObamaCare would dramatically diminish.
If not repealed, ObamaCare would expand and cement a system that is replete with fraud, without getting serious about reducing that fraud.
Obamacare would limit Medicare spending by cutting Medicare’s payments to providers, leading to reduced access for seniors as the supply of willing providers dwindles.
The culture of Washington doesn’t like to admit mistakes and, if necessary, to correct them — and Obamacare is one giant mistake in need of correction via repeal.
Those concerned that ObamaCare would produce an American health-care system that’s all-too-similar to Britain’s National Health Service will find no solace in President Obama’s nomination of Donald Berwick, Harvard professor and staunch advocate of the NHS, to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.