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Obamacare Implodes
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The Public Policy
Obamacare Tragedy Primed To Further Explode the Deficit
But there is a way out.
President Obama bludgeoned Obamacare through Congress on the claim, backed by CBO, that it would not add to the deficit, even though it adopts or wildly expands three entitlement programs. As I discuss in my new book, America’s Ticking Bankruptcy Bomb, close analysis of the CBO score and additional new data indicates that, quite to the contrary, Obamacare will likely add $4 to $6 trillion to the deficit over its first 20 years, and possibly more.
Of course, the deficit is not the biggest problem. Even bigger is that regardless of the deficit, Obamacare involves trillions of increased government spending and taxes. Worst of all is that it involves a loss of control over, and the quality of, our own health care. All of this is ultimately a tragedy because as my book also explains, the uninsured could all easily be covered without any individual or employer mandate for just a small fraction of the cost of Obamacare, as discussed below.
Deficits and Debt
CBO made three enormous conceptual errors in scoring the program as not adding to the deficit, explained in detail in my book. The first relates to the new middle class welfare entitlement adopted by Obamacare, providing government handouts for the purchase of health insurance for families earning up to four times the poverty level, or $88,000 for a family of four, indexed to grow to over $100,000 shortly.
These health insurance handouts go only to those who buy insurance on their own individually through the state based health insurance exchanges established under the legislation. Those who receive employer provided coverage are not eligible. CBO assumed that only 19 million workers will qualify for the handouts, out of a work force estimated at 162 million in 2014 mostly still receiving employer provided coverage. It consequently estimated the cost at only $450 billion over the first 10 years, or actually first 6 years of implementation of Obamacare.
But with the mandated insurance likely to cost $15,000 or more by 2016, employers will have powerful incentives to dump their employee coverage and pay the $2,000 per worker fine that applies to such termination of coverage. Employers are all the more likely to do this, and just pay their workers higher wages in place of the health coverage, precisely because the workers would then be able to get the huge welfare handouts for purchasing their insurance through the exchanges, resulting actually in a net income increase. As former CBO Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin reported in a paper for the American Action Forum,
“For example, a family earning about $59,000 a year in 2014 would receive a premium subsidy of about $7,200. A family making $71,000 would receive about $5,200; and even a family earning about $95,000 would receive a subsidy of almost $3,000. By 2018,…a family earning about $64,000 would receive a subsidy of over $10,000, a family earning $77,000 would receive a subsidy of $7,800 and families earning $102,000 would receive a subsidy of almost $5,000.”
In fact, in the exchanges, qualifying workers can even get subsidies covering their out-of-pocket expenses.
These are the reasons why a new study released by McKinsey & Company earlier this month concluded that Obamacare will result in “a radical restructuring of employer-sponsored heath benefits.” It found that “30 percent of employers will definitely or probably stop offering” employer health coverage after Obamacare is implemented, and “among employers with a high awareness of reform, this proportion increases to more than 50 percent.”
In the Wall Street Journal on June 8, Grace-Marie Turner, President of the Galen Institute, estimated based on the numbers in the McKinsey report that as many as 78 million Americans would lose their employer provided coverage. If those workers ended up receiving the new Obamacare exchange handouts, the estimated costs for those subsidies in the first 6 years alone would soar by 4 times, adding nearly $2 trillion to the costs and deficits of Obamacare during that time.
What happened to President Obama’s oft-repeated pledge that if you like your health insurance you can keep it? Another transparent manipulation of the public was Obama telling us on national television there is no way Obamacare’s individual mandate can be considered a tax, and then sending his government lawyers into court to argue that the individual mandate is constitutional because it is simply a tax. I predict that the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals will issue a ruling soon upholding the individual mandate on the grounds that it is a tax.
The second conceptual fallacy in the CBO score was revealed in full by the 2010 Financial Report of the United States Government, released last December by the Treasury Department. It documents the total present value of the future cuts to Medicare under President Obama’s policies already enacted under current law as $15 trillion, primarily in payments to doctors and hospitals for health care provided to seniors.
Such draconian cuts in Medicare payments would create havoc and chaos in health care for seniors. Doctors, hospitals, surgeons and specialists providing critical care to the elderly such as surgery for hip and knee replacements, sophisticated diagnostics through MRIs and CT scans, and even treatment for cancer and heart disease would shut down and disappear in much of the country, and others would stop serving Medicare patients. If the government is not going to pay, then seniors are not going to get the health services, treatment and care they expect.
In fact, within a decade after Obamacare is implemented, Medicare’s payments to doctors and hospitals will be less than under Medicaid, where the poor face grave difficulties in finding timely treatment, and are documented to suffer worse health outcomes as a result.
About the Author
Peter Ferrara is Director of Entitlement and Budget Policy at the Heartland Institute, General Counsel of the American Civil Rights Union, Senior Fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, and Senior Policy Advisor on Entitlements and Budget Policy at the National Tax Limitation Foundation. He served in the White House Office of Policy Development under President Reagan, and as Associate Deputy Attorney General of the United States under President George H.W. Bush.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (72) | Leave a comment
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wodiej| 7.6.11 @ 6:09AM
I am an optimist but even this president's policies have gotten so far off the rails that I am frightened. Batten down the hatches and hope we make it to 2013.
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 7.6.11 @ 6:49AM
The article skips over the fact that it will be far cheaper, and therefore a significant market force option, to simply quit your health care altogether and simply stay out of the system.
Since the law requires that you must be provided with health care, you can simply wait until you are ill or need a doctor, then pay a fine, then you will receive whatever health care remains.
The significance of guaranteed coverage at any time should not be underestimated.
Other side effects of this provision will be that the health insurance companies will fold in 2013 or 2014. There is no way they will survive after that because everyone will ditch them.
This will throw an additional 5 million people out of work and on the public rolls, significantly increasing unemployment and reducing the number of professionals around who can really analyze health care risks.
It's obvious the government has few who can do that.
The other effect will be to overload doctors with high risk, high liability cases and ask them to do it for peanuts. That won't work either.
In short, free market forces are Obamacare's greatest enemies, where the system will make foolish choices look intelligent and will permanize foolish decisions by government officials.
In the offing, the entire health care system will spin out of kilter with many health care professionals leaving the field due to low wages and high traffic.
The high traffic will be highlighted by the public freeloaders who will overload the system with hangnails and headaches while serious cases wait in line.
The final result will be the destruction of the best health care system in the world, and in very short order.
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 7.6.11 @ 11:47AM
That democratic socialism, the great utopia of the last few generations, is not only unachievable, but that to strive for it produces something so utterly different that few of those who wish it would be prepared to accept the consequences, many will not believe until the connection has been laid bare in all its aspects.
The Road to Serfdom, page 23
Grzmlyk| 7.6.11 @ 2:01PM
This is what comes of the liberal magical thinking that if we reject the free market and empower government to replace economic decisions with political decisions, the money fairy will bring a cornucopia of goodies to everybody in this country.
The basic laws of economics be damned!
Government will combat the inevitable collapse of health care in this country by imposing an ever-expanding regimen of tighter and tighter price controls, which will put health care in the U.S. into an ever-accelerating death spiral.
That is what we are already seeing with doctors throwing in the towel with Medicaid - a trend, as you say, that will only pick up steam under Obamacare - price controls always lead to shortages, and in very short order.
That's why the Soviet Union, with one of the largest areas on earth of arable farmland ideal for growing wheat, could not put bread on bakery shelves.
It's why there were gas lines in the wake of the price controls on fuel imposed by Nixon in 1973.
It's why if you put Democrats in charge of the Sahara desert, in three years there would be a shortage of sand.
On the bright side, the repercussions from all of our other profligate spending and foreign policy folly will likely cause us to collapse long before Obamacare does.
I can't imagine what health care will look like when we've devolved to a Lord-of-the-Flies existence.
But I'm guessing it won't be pleasant.
darcy| 7.6.11 @ 4:11PM
If the American people acquiesce to the tyranny that is Obamacare -- and do not have the will and the courage to give their lives to stop it -- then the American people deserve to be enslaved, not only by Obamacare, but by the thousand other cuts into the heart of their freedoms that have festered these past 70 years with nary a whimper from the Republican power-sharing megalomaniacs who have trampled on the will of the people just as much as have their Democrat "colleagues."
Like the sheep the people have proven themselves to be, they are far happier not thinking about what's happening all around them that gradually starves them of their freedom; they'd rather watch American Idol and be fed the lies promulgated by the government-controlled MSM. They'd much rather be soothed with liberal garbage talk about "fairness," "tolerance," "social justice," and thereby stave off the uncomfortable gnawing at their innards any reference to the truth of their lost freedoms might engender. They willingly go to the slaughter rather than man-up and look into the face of the serfdom that daily becomes more certain -- even as they already experience that serfdom in ways that are lost on them, having had freedom "re-educated" out of them.
Founding freedoms are like a jug of pure, whole milk, nourishing our lives and American culture. But everyday that Congress meets, and with every new act of legislation, that jug is poured out, drop by drop, until we face now an almost empty container. That is how thirsty the Congress, the President, and the Supreme Court have been in consuming our birthright, indeed, in refilling the jug with one poison after another, until the pure milk is unrecognizable by its dilution. That is what Obamacare's implementation will do -- take the last remaining milk and turn it noxious. Either Obamacare is UNDONE in entirety, or this country will be UNDONE in its entirety.
Grzmlyk| 7.6.11 @ 10:38PM
Excellent post, Darcy.
Would that it were not already too late. For even if we beat back the encroaching suffocation of Obamacare, some other politician/crony capitalist scheme will be hatched to kill the golden goose of American liberty and then shoved down our throats before we get back on our feet.
The Democrats may do the shoving, but the Republicans will be holding our mouths open.
We have decided as a culture to continue this mad frenzy, this fiscal bender, and to twirl ever faster in a grotesque dance of death.
The metric that will serve as this nation's heart monitor is the dollar; once it's dead, the game is over. And it's in free fall.
Game, set, match to the forces of evil.
Stephen Barlow| 12.25.11 @ 7:29AM
Are you saying 5 million people work in the insurance industry as a fact, or just a number that found it's way onto your fingertips when your toilet paper ripped?
Are you saying that the minds capable of wording a contract so thoughtfully as to include absolute deniability for any and all charges won't be able to think up a new profit path in the 3 years that obama gave them to restructure and scam the American people once again?
Are you saying that selling the 3-40 million more of the same, almost worthless paper promise (policies) won''t entice them to keep printing more falsely advertised promises of quality care?
YOU REALLLY think that insurance industry kingpins aren't just ACHING to underwrite 40M x $15,000 a year in premiums? That's $600Billion a year, in perpetuity.
@ 1%, that's SIX BILLION DOLLARS in bonuses!!!
Handy| 7.6.11 @ 6:54AM
As long as opponents of socialized medicine grant Obamacare's premises, those opponents will lose. Doctors and other health care providers think they are getting a good deal, because insurance companies, or the government will always pay. But, they will be paid considerably less, because of the administrative overhead involved in all of this nonsense.
Mr. Ferrara and others should stop with their brilliant solutions of tweaking this and nudging that. Socialized medicine should be opposed on principles, not on the details.
Bevo| 7.7.11 @ 4:56PM
shows what you know... Medicare is run with far less overhead than the average private insurance company... as is veterans care.
Yes, the government run health care "companies" are far more efficient at delivering health care than the private ones.
No CEO drawing 50 million a year, no corporate jets, millions of dollars not spent lobbying.
Stephen Barlow| 12.25.11 @ 7:20AM
AMen!!! improving VA and Medicare would mean HIRING. JOBS, nationwide , for all sorts of skilled, quality jobs. America and the Soviet union are the only 2 WWII nations that put militarism ahead of healthcare. BRitain needed to, because of all the war related injuries, as did Germany and France. We just needed to make a buck, and ewe would rather kill than heal to do it.
LindaF | 7.6.11 @ 7:21AM
Too many people who have government-provided health care become convinced that's it free.
It's not free - SOMEONE had to pay for it (people like me). If that cost was more localized, they would feel the pinch more, and be more inclined to investigate abuse.
Melvin| 7.6.11 @ 7:25AM
I'm so sick and damn tired of hearing about what Obama care is going to do. Obama Care is going to do this, Obama Care is going to do that.
This whole Country is full of naysayers, myself included. For the sake of conversation pull Obama out of Obama Care, and what do we have left? We have the House, the Senate, and the Congressional Budge Office. All are now saying the direct opposite of what they were saying last year before Obama Care became law.
And we are all pretty much in the agreement that the Senate lied to us, the House of Representatives lied to us, and the Congressional Budge Office lied to us.
Now people, this isn't some little tiny, teeny lie, that only effects the body that did the lying. To begin with we need to stop calling it a lie and call it what it is. How Obama Care became law was nothing short of fraud. Members of the Senate, the House of Representatives, and the Congressional Budget Office all participated in a Financial Fraud against the tax paying citizens of the United States.
So what is our recourse? This is where I am at a loss. The checks and balances in our government that is supposed to prevent fraudulent legislation in becoming law, all were willing participants.
I supposed one could say that what took place last year is a precedence, because of the massive governmental scale of the fraud that was foisted upon the public which overwhelmingly was against the current version of Obama Care.
It is not that Obama Care is singularly responsible for this fraud, but it is the vehicle that carried the financial fraud into law.
I don't know why the Republicans are not pursuing this aspect? Since parties concerned in the Congressional Budget Office lied, with doctored financial data, that was presented to Congers and the Senate surely there is redress of our grievances with that governmental organization that is supposed to be immune from the politics of legislation.
If in a Federal investigation and hopefully a court of law that we the people can make the little piggies in the CBO squeal that they doctored the numbers, that in-itself could be enough to have the Obama Care House of Cards come tumbling down.
But where are the American People going to find a body of lawyers that has the guts to undertake a task to expose the fraudulent financial data, the the Senate, House of Representatives and the Congressional Budget Office used to make Obama Care become Law?
People, we cannot stick our heads into the sand, and think to ourselves that someone else will do the heavy lifting. We cannot depend on the Publican Party, we can only depend upon ourselves to expose that den of White Collar Criminals that reside in Washington D.C.
squalis| 7.6.11 @ 10:13AM
I am a radiation oncologist, not in private practice, but employed by a hospital. This is what I think about this mess. We are so screwed. Thank you Dems / Libs / Obama / AMA. Thank you to the intellectually lazy electorate for the catastrophe that was Nov. 2008 ( a special thank you here for the MSM). Thanks for those who believe you can get something for nothing (another thank you here goes to the MSM). Thank you trial lawyers. Thanks to those greedy entrepreurneurial MD's that are out there (thanks here again to the AMA for not establishng firewalls between specialties). Thanks to the repubs who for years bought into Dem lite thinking which, in its own way, gave support to entitlement thinking. Thanks to Senate Rino's who did not vote to fillibuster debate on what ultimately became Obamacare. (I think I remember this correctly.) And a final, anticipitory thanks to the Federal judges who should be acting like refs in a football game by strictly adhering to the rule book (U.S. Constitution), but instead will inject their own personal bias into the process (think rabid Philadelphia Eagle fan reffing a game of Eagles vs. Cowboys) completing this destructive act.
buckeyeman| 7.6.11 @ 10:45AM
saulis - Sucks to be you, but I feel your pain. I got out (general surgery) four years ago. But I gotta admit, I'm terrified of getting sick. My father in law was in our local hospital a few months ago. All the records were "electronic" but nobody could find anything - consultant reports, X-ray reports, progress notes, whatever. The nurses didn't know ANYTHING.
The gastroenterologist recommended a subtotal colectomy. We couldn't find any path reports. The general surgeon (one of my former collegues) wouldn't return my calls. We took him to a different gastroenterologist and had him re-scoped. He snared a few polyps, said he didn't need a colectomy and wants to see him again in six months. WTF?????
On second thought, it sucks to be all of us. O is destroying the country literally before our eyes. Healthcare is just one facet. Do what I did and stock up on peanut butter, firearms and gold/silver.
We have passed the point of no return and it is going to get ugly.
Maddox| 7.6.11 @ 11:34AM
The only way to save not only healthcare, but America is to euthanize the federal government and start over with The Constitution. This is not going to happen. It IS getting ugly, and fast.
Melvin| 7.6.11 @ 11:51AM
Your view is one way to look at it. But Maddox, thousands if not millions of Americans will suffer or die under this abominable plan for Eugenics. Only when this happens and the elites are the ones doing the suffering and dying, will someone say, "Wait a minute, this isn't working."
How many will be denied procedures because their not economically viable. How many will die because life saving drugs are deemed to expensive. And how many will suffer and die because some bureaucrat on the IPAB panel is on vacation and the patient has to wait for them to come back t work.
"Oh, Melvin that isn't going to happen, patients won't have to wait for health care." People, we're dealing with bureaucrats who bonuses will be based upon how much health care they deny to someone.
Maddox| 7.6.11 @ 6:52PM
Melvin, I think you misunderstand me. I want to abolish the oppressive government that has passed the tragedy that is Obama care. I agree with you.
gaetano| 7.31.11 @ 6:56AM
Remember this: If you read the healthcare bill, it tells you that Obamacare Will NOT cover cancer or heart problems of seniors over the age of 70. It will be up to the government doctors to do what they feel is best.SO, KISS YOUR ASS GOODBYE.
gaetano| 7.31.11 @ 6:57AM
Remember this: If you read the healthcare bill, it tells you that Obamacare Will NOT cover cancer or heart problems of seniors over the age of 70. It will be up to the government doctors to do what they feel is best.SO, KISS YOUR ASS GOODBYE.
squalis| 7.6.11 @ 11:48AM
Don't worry about those e-records, another mandate courtesy of the Federal Government. Maybe your father's-in-law caretakers could not find the records, but rest assured the Fed's and other hackers will have no problem with that.
Stephen Barlow| 12.25.11 @ 7:15AM
How is The President respnsible for YOUR local hospital's failures? GET REAL!
Von Mises Jr.| 7.6.11 @ 11:08AM
The answer is quite simple. Return health care to a real insurance program. The third party system should only pay for catastophic medical needs.
The problem is that people utilize health care for virtually free, and have no concern for the costs since they only pay a small co-pay. If it is not life threatening, then it should not be covered under insurance.
Bevo| 7.7.11 @ 5:13PM
All insurance is a scam. It's stealing. Health care should have nothing to do with the insurance industry period.
It doesn't take a genius to figure this out. If an insurance company were run perfectly it would take in as much in premiums as it needed to pay in claims and pay its employees. However, these are business that are designed to make money.
How do you turn a profit in the insurance business? You can overcharge in premiums, deny legitimate claims, or underpay providers... all three of which insurance companies were/are doing.
Say what you will about ROMNEYCARE but leaving things as they were would have only increased costs more and increased the deficit and debt more.
I for one am for single payer system... not only because EVERY OTHER INDUSTRIALIZED COUNTRY HAS it.... but because IT'S CHEAPER for the patients and for the government.
Stephen Barlow| 12.25.11 @ 7:10AM
I am glad that someone sees it too. Insurance is total risk/expected loss/insureds. 100M/ 100K/ 1000 people = 1 1000 premiums should = 100K of expected loss plus administrative expenses and a reasonable (10%) buffer for extreme loss (which is made up in diminished loss years.
Take the advertising budget, the stock option and bonuses, golf junkets and bribery contributions out of the healthcare budget, and you might just save 40%. Obamacare is geared to do exactly that.
Stephen Barlow| 12.25.11 @ 7:14AM
Do you check the oil in your car, or just run it until the light goes on. Preventative care IS the most efficient and cheapest form of medicine. Just like checking the oil. it should have NO copay and insurance companies should be grateful to have medical issues nipped in the bud BEFORE they have to litigate, stall and deny their contractual obigations.
Health insurance contracts should be one page simple. You pay the premium and get sick, we pay the bill.
Tired Taxpayer PRM| 7.6.11 @ 12:12PM
Why does every Conservative solution to a Socialist problem contain Socialist elements? We can be Socialist, but we will charge you less and be more efficient. Sort of like Socialism-Lite.
The biggest problem with health care is that the government is involved. Remember the first rule of Conservatism:
When government is the problem more government is NEVER the solution.
Need proof in the health care business? Look at Lasik and Plastic Surgery. Not covered by insurance or paid for by government so the costs keep going down while the results keep getting better. Imagine if this dynamic could work for all of our health care?
We have people who go without insurance (for whatever reason) and use expensive emergency rooms for their healthcare. Why? Because the government forces hospitals to provide health care to anyone who wanders in, regardless of their ability to pay.
The solution? Eliminate the law. As a country we managed very well before this law came into effect in 1986 and we will manage after it goes into the dustbin of history. People who can afford it will buy insurance. People who cannot, will have to go to charitable organizations for theirs. People will NOT be dying in the streets.
Eliminate Medicare, Medicaid and the separate (and most definitely NOT equal) VA health care systems. Phase them out if you have to, but get the government out of the health care business. The government does not provide old or poor people with “free” car insurance, why should we provide “free” health insurance? Pay Veterans more and let them purchase the health insurance that is right for them.
LET US ALL BUY THE HEALTH INSURANCE THAT IS RIGHT FOR US OR GO WITHOUT, AS WE WISH.
We can also work to eliminate other government laws affecting health insurance like allowing insurance to be sold across state lines, eliminate the employer provided health insurance tax breaks and limit (eliminate) malpractice awards (lottery), but the biggest bang for the buck is to get the government out of the health care business.
Bevo| 7.7.11 @ 5:27PM
At least you have the guts to stand behind your convictions and advocate the end of Medicare and Medicaid.
That being said your illustration using lasik surgery is poor. Of course the costs have gone down the quality better... it was a new technology/procedure... prices always go down... like TVs, computer, blue ray players etc.
The problem is that nobody will insure the elderly. So we just let them get sick and die?
Stephen Barlow| 12.25.11 @ 7:03AM
Actually, since Reagan started PUTTING citizens in the street to live (note the huge jump in homelessness post Reagan) with his profitizing restructuring of healthcare for big businesses benefit, 1,125,000 people have died in those streets because healthcare prices have risen @ 50% more than actual costs. Take the profit out of healthcare and you will see a 60% reduction in prices.
The VA system has stagnated because the RED party likes making promises to soldiers it knows it cant keep without boosting revenue from those Americans that will not loose one iota of life quality for the privilege of paying affordable taxes.
The same RED party that demands blood and bone from our youth, refuse to educate and provide healthcare for them unless their wall street buddies can scam a buck off it in the deal.
Oldefarte| 7.6.11 @ 12:15PM
As indicated, Obamacare was/is and forever will be GOVERNMENTAL WELFARE PRIMARILY FOR THE YOUNG AND THE INDIGENT! It throws seniors who have PAID FOR their Medicare [mostly, not totally] under the bus, so that the drug cultured 18-30 year olds, the purposefully uneducated, the unwed mothers and deadbeat dads, etc can once again game the system to their advantage. Any WHY is this true, you ask? Simple, for political VOTES [for Democrats since that is who promoted this welfare scheme for thie own political advantage]. Medicare [paid for by seniors-beneficiaries] will be eliminated/replaced by Obama-Welfare Care [not paid for by it indigent-beneficiaries], and the Democrats will profit politically accordingly. Let's have a drink-toast and a cheer to Pilosi, Obama, Schumer, Durbin, Conyers, Reid, Kennedy, etc for their screwing of the American taxpayer, shall we???????????
Stephen Barlow| 12.25.11 @ 6:56AM
Could it be that the drug cultured 18-30 year olds, the purposefully uneducated, the unwed mothers and deadbeat dads are more valuable to this country healed and contributing to society than you are itching to bitch and grumping about YOUR hard earned benefits. As old farts earn and urn or a casket, the need to pay for your used up, worthless sandbagging ass becomes less and less of a monetary strain on those of us who are valuable for the next 3 generations.
Redstateboy| 7.6.11 @ 12:31PM
I really enjoy TAS but sometimes..... it's like we don't need to be informed we're F'd under Hussein. Do ya ever notice... with articles written in depth and irrefutible data.. fawning Liberal syncophants like Alan Brooks, Purpleguy and RCV don't dare offer a comment?
Grzmlyk| 7.6.11 @ 2:25PM
Don't forget DRed.
Our only consolation is that, when the shit hits the fan, Alan Brooks, Purpleguy, RCV, DRed and all the other trolls will be ejected from their comfortable little positions as armchair warriors along with the rest of us.
Having never spent one moment in it, these fools will not do well once they're forced to deal with reality.
TennesseeVolunteer| 7.6.11 @ 2:06PM
The body politic of common sense voters are biding their time. We know it is really bad. Friends, coworkers, other small businessmen are hanging in until 2012. Then the tsunami of Patriots will take back our country with the Vote.
But, until then, we conserve, take care of our health the best we can and hope there will be enough wealth and seed corn to build it back up so we can leave our kids and Grandkids a country to be proud of again.
You don't hear about us because the MSM subverts free information. We don't send as many informative emails because the lines are clearly drawn. anyone who is not a Progressive needs no more education. We are not asleep, we are biding our time when the Great Unwashed will take over this country at the ballot box in a Tide that will smash the progressive left out of office.
It will be a close call but God is on our side, the Left wants nothing to do with Him.
Grzmlyk| 7.6.11 @ 2:16PM
Yeah, that would be a MARKET decision. Too bad the purpose of politics is to entirely destroy the market.
This country has as much to do with the free market as Michael Moore has to do with the truth.
These people do not give a damn that they're destroying the country - and, like many comments above, I blame Republicans almost as much as I blame Dems.
As long as our elite political class have their health care and their pensions and their other perks - and can wield the business end of the State's power by declaring martial law so they can keep fiddling in their Georgetown townhouses while Rome burns - they do not give a shit what happens to any of us - either the feckless conversatives or the Democrat dupes they used as pawns to advance their tyranny lo these many years.
This is not going to end nicely. This is going to end in violence and collapse. I hate to tell you this, folks, but we are WAY more screwed than Greece or Portugal or Ireleand or Spain or anyone else. Think what's happening in Greece is bad? It's coming to a street corner VERY near you. And me. And all of us.
Frankly, as a country, we are getting what we deserve. We've allowed insanity and moral vanity to utterly destroy the culture of this country. We are now a country with no future, unless you can call decline a future.
When asked what type of government the Constitution was going to bring into existence, Ben Franklin is reported to have replied, "A republic, if you can keep it."
Well, Ben, we couldn't.
Grzmlyk| 7.6.11 @ 2:22PM
Oops - this was supposed to be a reply to Von Mises, Jr.
Von Mises, if politicians weren't out to destroy the free market, this country would still be great. But, as you nom de plume suggests, you know it's been a very, very long time since we made domestic policy decisions based on economics and not politically expedient demagoguery.
TrueBlue| 7.6.11 @ 5:04PM
Reasons to buy a gun and lots of ammo. I also recommend several bladed weapons or baseball bats, as you'll likely need them given the shear numbers we'll be dealing with.
Melvin| 7.6.11 @ 3:03PM
People, I have something very important to announce. After four months I received my VA appointment. Oh, the joy because four months in the VA health system is moving up to the head of the line.
My appointment was today, and I dutifully reported in at 1:00, and guess what? The VA canceled my appointment without letting me know, and now lucky me gets to wait another 2-1/2 months.
Goooood thing I wasn't sick or something. The charming lady at our local VA clinic profusely apologized for the mix-up that the VA hospital at Fayetteville, NC caused. She spoke with 5 different people over the phone and all they did was keep transferring her to someone else, and she had to tell the whole story over again, how a patient showed up at his prescribed appointment only to have the doctor not there.
I was given a 1-800 number and told to call Friday.
This incident isn't the worst. I went to the Fayetteville VA hospital and the Pakistani doctor, to me in his most condescend tone. "cannot keep prescribing you medication for the rest of your life."
I just can't tell you all how comforting that was to me after driving for over 2-1/2 hours.
If you hadn't made it a personal obsession to fight Obama Care, I think you should. "By the way if you see me sitting on the bench at the hospital while your waiting for your appointment, say hi will ya. My name is Melvin, you won't be able to miss me, I'll be the one with cobwebs growing on me."
Drunken Sailor| 7.6.11 @ 3:19PM
Melvin, you unfortunately have summed up why goverment healthcare (as you know all to well) is not the answer. I retired from the Military and as much as possible, stay out of the VA system. Yes, it cost me more but my experience as a patient, as a hospital corpsmen (seeing the other side) and 3 years in Italy taught me all I need to know about goverment run healthcare systems and socialized medicine. Sorry for your pain and if I pass you, the cup of coffee is on me.
Melvin| 7.6.11 @ 3:26PM
I know Drunken Sailor, but the picture I was trying to paint to people who read this is, what we experience in the VA system and to some degree aboard a military base is going to be what Obama Care will be, only worse.
Heck, for all I know the VA system could very well turn into a gold plated health care plan, compared to Obama Care.
Drunken Sailor| 7.6.11 @ 3:33PM
That was the message I took from your post.
Melvin| 7.6.11 @ 3:50PM
You know something?.....The American public has absolutely no idea what is about to slam into them. And when it does, stand back and watch the fireworks.
Grzmlyk| 7.6.11 @ 4:07PM
You are so right, Melvin.
And you know what? Instead of placing blame where it belongs - on a corrupt bureaucacy masquerading as a health care system infused with "social justice," they'll blame republicans, conservatives, the tea party, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, George Bush and, of course, Dick Cheney.
The thing that stuns me the most as I get older is the overwhelming number of people who choose to remain willfully ignorant of reality in order to preserve their fantasyland vision of the way the world works.
Barack Obama could stick a knife in somebody in the middle of a press conference, gut them like a deer and then lick the knife, and the vast majority of people in this country wouldn't even see it.
skip| 7.6.11 @ 6:21PM
It's as if RCV, DRed, vtwin, Purpleguy, Kingofthenet, jharp, Lagiusmeatius, Jack London, David, Canuckistan, Alan Brooks and the other idiots don't have the free will that would allow them to be something other than pathetic, despicable, unintelligent, and dishonest.
Reason and experience show when taxes are lower the 'rich' provide more jobs, provide more overall tax revenue, provide a larger share of overall tax revenue, and eliminate more poverty, than when taxes are higher on the 'rich'.
Grzmlyk| 7.6.11 @ 10:44PM
I think it was Obama himself who said increased revenue was less important than making the system "fair."
It's not about prosperity; it's about either settling scores or assuaging one's own moral vanity or getting a free lunch or looting other people's wealth.
Funny, they don't realize that, like all cancers, eventually the parasite kills the host, and then the parasite itself dies.
And who will be the most suprised when their utopia comes crashing down around them and rips them out of their fantasy? RCV, DRed, vtwin, Purpleguy, Kingofthenet, jharp, Lagiusmeatius, Jack London, David, Canuckistan, Alan Brooks and the other idiots.
skip| 7.6.11 @ 10:59PM
Briefly.
They do not exhibit the intelligence and honesty necessary for any lengthy survival.
Hey, there will be a silver lining even then.
Huh.
Stephen Barlow| 12.25.11 @ 6:51AM
Taxes are low andthe rich are sitting on 3 trillion in corporate cash. they would rather spend it on elections than hire new workers and grow. They REALLY hate knowing a BLACK man is not only smarter than they are, but stands taller on ethics and morality then most of them good ole white boys can even pretend to appear.
Purpleguy| 7.6.11 @ 8:03PM
Since Obamacare empowers private insurance companies to provide our health insurance with oversight by government - it is the market forces at work. Before you go all nuts over government oversight - that is EXACTLY what we have today - only most insurance companies are highly regulated at the STATE level - which produces huge inefficiencies, redundancies and waste. Just ask any two large corporations that plan on merging - what do they do when they merge - they consolidate, eliminate redundancies, inefficiencies and waste. Precisely what Obamacare will do for our healthcare system The current system was killing us and our country and anyone who doesn't want it changed is uninformed, un-American, ignorant or just plain stupid.
Grzmlyk| 7.6.11 @ 10:49PM
Right. And, like all liberals, your solution to too much regulation is. . . . drumroll please . . . MORE REGULATION!
You remind me of George Bush. After 09/11, he thought that all of the various fiefdoms and departments that had anything to do with protection of the citizens - I believe it was 23 separate agencies in all back then - made for too unwieldly a bureacuratic labyrinth. His solution? ANOTHER BUREAUCRACY to ride herd on all the others! BRILLIANT!
When you're in a hole, moron, STOP DIGGING.
Grzmlyk| 7.6.11 @ 10:50PM
By the way, if you think government can consolidate and eliminate redundancies, inefficiencies and waste, you are INSANE.
But there's a liberal: The triumph of hope over experience time and time again.
Grzmlyk| 7.6.11 @ 10:50PM
By the way, if you think government can consolidate and eliminate redundancies, inefficiencies and waste, you are INSANE.
But there's a liberal: The triumph of hope over experience time and time again.
Grzmlyk| 7.6.11 @ 10:53PM
One other thing: Most huge corporate mergers are failures for the very reasons you seem to think they succeed: they are unable to reduce inefficiencies and waste for years on end, and the different fiefdoms are constantly engaged in infighting, territorial disputes and chaos. I'm guessing you aren't in business, because you talk like an eternal undergrad who knows nothing of the way the world really works.
Just look at your own Huffington Post. How's that merger working out?
skip | 7.6.11 @ 10:53PM
...said the thoroughly discredited idiot with a staggering number of posts on AmSpec documenting a staggering unintelligence and a staggering dishonesty.
How are the more than 150 new bureaucracies created by pricklyditheringidiotliarinchiefcare going to eliminate redundancies, inefficiencies, and waste, exactly?
How do the more than 1300 exemptions from pricklyditheringidiotliarinchiefcare issued to corporations explain the behavior of corporations eager to eliminate redundancies, inefficiencies, and waste, exactly?
How do you sleep or look in a mirror when you are such a pathetic, despicable stupid liar, exactly?
Stephen Barlow| 12.25.11 @ 6:48AM
Please cite your references, or you just counting the hairs in your nose to come up with these numbers?
Ron| 7.6.11 @ 3:05PM
I keep wanting to add something lucid to this conversation, but I cannot...No where, is "health" guaranteed...The Democrats tried to argue that we are "guaranteed" that under "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" but studiously neglected the fact that we are only allowed the opportunity to earn these things. Good health is not promised.
Melvin| 7.6.11 @ 3:22PM
Well Ron, at least as the VA is concerned, it was promised, just like to was promised to me in 1979 that if I completed 20 plus years of honest and faithful service to my Country I would receive free dental and health care for the rest of my life for me and my family.
The first benefit to go was dental, now I have to pay premiums and co-pays. The DOD doesn't consider me a Veteran any more, thanks to Robert Gates former Sec. of Def. I am now classified as a, "Working Age Retiree," don't ask how they came up with that one, but I imagine some staffer was paid very healthy to come up with that title.
You know I kind of feel like the American Indians felt when they made agreements with the US government, and we all know how that turned out for the American Indian.
Bottom line don't trust any damn one in the government, they'll promise you anything, just to use you up and cast you aside when it's done with you.
Nothing but a bunch of lying SOB's the government is.
The point of this post is, I signed a contract with the United States government, for said benefits and the government keeps changing the rules. Should I feel bitter, what do you think after signing a worthless piece of paper every four years.
Stephen Barlow| 12.25.11 @ 6:46AM
It is sad that you can not take the Government to court for Breach of contract. I'd like to see Congressmen be guilty of fraud if they vote any different than their campaign promises.
Arizona Bob| 7.6.11 @ 8:28PM
Lucid article, thank you, I will look for the book.
Bill S| 7.6.11 @ 9:28PM
It's too late for America anyway. The US government has $5 trillion a year in unfunded liabilities. The Federal Reserve is monetizing the debt. It's just a matter of time before we see hyperinflation and the loss of the dollar as the world's reserve currency. America will become a third world country in the next five years.
Stephen Barlow| 12.25.11 @ 6:44AM
Relative to all other currency, the dollar is stable and unless the EU hits the lottery, it will stay that way. the 1% interest on the debt does bother Me too, but consider what is earned as interest on all the loans we shelled out to third world nations like Saudi Arabia. They are trapped holding trillions in AMerican bonds and if they sell out, the dump the price and take a bath. We will hold out for decades until ONLY 1% American debt is on the books of Foriegn nations.
Nite| 7.6.11 @ 10:59PM
I am a Senior citizen, but also a Nurse with many years experience in numerous facets of healthcare. Obamacare will be the final straw that breaks the camels back that is the economy in this country. I know numerous physicians, that will retire rather than let government bureaucrats tell them how to treat sick patients. There is a big shortage of primary care physicians now, and it will only get worse. Medicare patients will be lucky to find anyone to treat them. Medicare is currently unstable, and once Obama takes half a trillion dollars from Medicare and spends it elsewhere, things will be a lot worse. The next thing is the IPAB made up of 15 unelected unconfirmed so called experts, which reports directly to Obama. These people love rationing and denying care. Get ready Seniors, because you will be lucky to even get basic care. This is what Obama and the Democrats have planned for Medicare patients. Democrats and the AARP have been lying to Seniors all along. Republicans at least give us the same as the Federal Employee Plans. Obamacare is a monstrosity foisted on the country by the Democrats behind closed doors and over the objections of Republicans. Remember than when you go to vote this next election.
Stephen Barlow| 12.25.11 @ 6:40AM
WOW, Did you fight this hard when round headlight went square. The people you know in healtchcare today are due to be alzheimer's patients in this decade. The DEATH PANELS already exist @ insurance companies who would rather litigate than pay a claim.
your mistaken belief that the REDs will give you the same healthcare that they have is blissful ignorance on your part. if they don't want to pay for Soc Sec and Medicare at ALL, why would they give you the good stuff?
weddingdress | 7.7.11 @ 5:14AM
It's too late for America anyway. The US government has $5 trillion a year in unfunded liabilities. The Federal Reserve is monetizing the debt. It's just a matter of time before we see hyperinflation and the loss of the dollar as the world's reserve currency. America will become a third world country in the next five years
Johnny| 7.7.11 @ 5:36AM
There is a point that fails to be mentioned in the discussion of obamacare. Remember that the democrats wanted a one payer system, government controlled and run health care for everyone. It was the largest battle of the whole war on the health care reform. What few people understand is that the democrats ultimately won that battle. What do you think will happen when all the regulations go into effect concerning insurance? It will drive the insurance companies out of business in short order because there will be not profit to be had. Ohhhh, then the all knowing democrats can say, "see we told you the insurance companies were greedy and the government was the solution all along". See how they really won that battle, just on a delayed time frame. Patience is a virtue, the socialists have learned that lesson well.
lost| 7.7.11 @ 3:19PM
What I find funny is that conservatives do not understand is from Obama on down believe public worker taxes actually pay public workers wages. Why do you think that Obama believes adding to the public payroll will help fix the economy? They believe in the perpetual motion engine works. They believe that the private sector is a necessary evil until they can convince everyone that the private sector is not needed.
Bevo| 7.7.11 @ 5:33PM
Well having read the whole article Mr. Ferrara fails to provide any information as to what health care costs would have been had ROMNEYCARE not been passed.
Complain that it may cost more than the CBO original estimate, but if it's cheaper than what things would be had we not changed a thing then this entire article (and the whole book) is simply a complaint against the CBO.
And don't tell me that the Senators, and Congressmen were lying. They aren't accounting majors and like pretty much 99.9% of the population have to rely on what the experts best estimates are.
Texas Sandman| 7.7.11 @ 7:39PM
It's not going to be cheaper. That's a big part of the point. The government put 25% more consumers into an already strained (by aging baby boomers) system without making a single new doctor, hospital or MRI machine. The doctors who are practicing are going to stay home in the unpleasantness that results (I've already seen the future & acted accordingly). This is econ 101. You don't need an accounting or economics degree to figure this one out. Where the supply & demand curves meet is what the cost will be. It ain't pretty.
TheSkyIsFalling| 7.7.11 @ 6:48PM
What a remarkable place.
It's a national healthcare regulatory scheme. Support it, don't support it, but there are dozens of democracies in the world that have had full-fledged public healthcare for a half century. Perhaps this has retarded their innovation or services or what have you, we can have that debate, but thus far they haven't been seen in any of your apocalyptic visions. And seventy years ago, the same grave warnings were being given over social security and public works projects. Perhaps, again, they retarded our growth. Perhaps we would be better off without them. On the other hand, the Republic still stands. The economy has thrived and boomed and advanced to a degree unimaginable in 1933.
If the sky is always falling, it stands to reason that it is never falling. And if you never make any arguments other than "Everything other than exactly what I believe is EVIL, STUPID and DOOM!" you'd best be absolutely right about absolutely everything, because you will never learn anything else.
Texas Sandman| 7.7.11 @ 7:34PM
As a physician, I can usually find something non-physician policy wonks have skipped over or neglected. I look for these things, holes I can pick. I can't find any here & that is significant in itself. This is a nice, comprehensive look at the swamp we're wallowing into as a nation. I've already largely retired at an age most would consider mid-career for my specialty simply because it doesn't make any sense at all killing myself with 60+ hour weeks & being constantly tired only to have the government take an ever larger bite. Add to that the picture of healthcare I see coming from a provider perspective & it makes sense to just go fishing. Life is too short. And I happen to know throngs of my colleagues, basically anybody over 50 without medical school debt is looking at this & thinking... I may be a few years ahead of the pack, but only a few.
POST American| 7.8.11 @ 12:12AM
---Speaking of 'healthcare' solutions---
Having just received of yet another neighbor
expiring from bizarre, and within their famillies,
unprecedented cancer----
IS anyone going to stand up about this hideous
GM food issue and its undeniable links to not
only the disappearance of honeybees ---but
organ failure, sterilty and cancers?
Surely such figures as PM Harper, who secretly
green-lighted the covert saturation of the food train
with GM should be facing Death Row.
THIS IS NOT A JOKE
Surely, tainting food and water, to say nothing
of the weaponized vaccines and meds ---should
be classified as a capital crime of the very, very,
very highest order.
STAND UP PEOPLE!
summer| 7.10.11 @ 9:34PM
What I find funny is that conservatives do not understand is from Obama on down believe public worker taxes actually pay public workers wages.
http://www.ainibag.com
Stephen Barlow| 12.25.11 @ 6:32AM
you post some impressive quotes, but then toss out 15 trillion without any mathematical basis. I find your work worthy of the deepest scrutiny. Considering you penchant for collecting titles and fees, I suspect your work is more about what your benefactors want you to say than anything you actually learned at harvard would lead you to discern.