“According to a new survey, the majority of doctors do not believe that the AMA represents their views and interests. Much of that dissatisfaction stems from the organization’s support for President Obama’s contentious health care reform package. That shouldn’t be surprising. The AMA declares that its core mission is to ‘help doctors help patients.’ But ObamaCare undermines that pursuit by making life harder for physicians and driving down the quality of care available to patients.”
“In the end, the fate of Obamacare will almost certainly be decided in the political and legislative arena, not the courts, and the 2012 election is likely to be the decisive battle in that regard. Keeping this in mind, Republicans and conservatives should be doing all they can to make the 2012 election another referendum on the damage Obamacare will do to the American economy and health system.”
“The Obama administration is closing down the office charged with putting in place one of the most controversial provisions of the healthcare reform law, the long-term care program’s actuary writes in an email obtained by The Hill…
The actuary in charge of implementing the long-term care program for people with disabilities, the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Act, sent an email to colleagues Thursday informing them that HHS is closing down his office on Friday.”
“The White House is quietly implementing a shrewd new strategy of silence on Obamacare. Its goal: making sure the revolt against the unpopular health care overhaul that swept Republicans into power across the country in November 2010 isn’t repeated in 2012. After two years of nonstop focus on health care, the president has stopped talking about the law’s far-reaching effects. Now he is concentrating on a few micro changes. Meanwhile the administration is working hard to dampen controversy by handing out buckets of waivers and attacking Republicans over Medicare.”
The Obama White House is grappling with an unusual reality as next year’s election looms: the signature domestic achievement of the president’s first term seems, at best, as much of a liability as an asset… Friday’s news that the economy added zero jobs for the month of August only deepens Obama’s problem.
Republicans, who opposed healthcare reform from the beginning, are bullish on the issue.”
“That law’s supposed beneficiaries are the uninsured. Yet 61 percent of them think the law will either not help them or will hurt them (see pie chart below). The main takeaway: Congress can repeal ObamaCare and its supposed beneficiaries won’t even care.”
“President Obama says he wants a grand bargain on the budget with no ideological ‘lines in the sand.’ Yet he insists that the costliest and most controversial program in decades — the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) — be taken off the table. That won’t fly. Congress should unwind the health law in three quick steps: freeze, investigate and replace.”
“Americans are pessimistic that the new health care law will improve the quality of medicine, do a better job protecting consumers or lower costs, a new poll shows.”
“For a while, backers of last year’s health care overhaul have argued that it will become more popular as more people are exposed to its benefits. In particular, they’ve hoped that the supposed consumer protections that were front-loaded into the law’s implementation schedule would bolster the law’s sagging popularity. It hasn’t happened. A new poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation suggests one reason why that might be the case: ‘Only 20 percent of people believe consumer protections will get better under the law, while most others think protections will stay the same or get worse.'”
“Lawmakers in the House and Senate introduced bipartisan legislation Thursday to remove restrictions on tax-exempt health spending accounts, the latest provision of the healthcare reform law to come under attack by Democrats.
The bill would nix a provision that since January has required a prescription for buying over-the-counter medicines with medical savings accounts such as Flexible Spending Arrangements and Health Savings Accounts. The language was added as a way to keep the bill’s costs down because it was estimated to save $5 billion over 10 years by cutting down on unnecessary drug purchases.”