Obamacare
The Good and the Bad…
Thank You Bill Press, the Liberal voice who for years faced off against Pat Buchanan on CNN 's 'Crossfire'.
Who has written the book on the Obama Year's? I think Barack just signed a book contract. One of the least transparent President's in history but the greatest speechmaker of our time, that would be a tough book to get me to read.
The one you have never heard of, Bill Press's book of the Obama Years. It's called 'Buyer's Remorse' subtitled 'How Obama Let the Progressives Down'…. A book about the Obama Years that is pretty critical. A friend tells me he thinks Bill Press is a whining liberal, after borrowing my book. I think Mr. Press left out a good number of things that would upset environmentalists and I think it would have been very interesting if a book could be done from a Conservative viewpoint with as conscientious a job as providing citations for just about every subject as Mr. Press has done.
ObamaCare….
From the Book …. let's let Bill Press take over… page 90 ...
' I'll now turn the floor over to Connecticut congresswoman Rosa DeLauro to tell us whats right about the Affordable Care Act. In September 2013 she gave one of many speeches trumpeting 'the Benefits of Obamacare'. In her words:
(Bullet) --- Because of the Affordable Care Act, men women and children can no longer be denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition.
(Bullet) --- Women's health is now on an equal footing. Women are no longer charged more than men for the same coverage.
(Bullet) --- Young people all across the country can now stay on their parents plans until age 26, and seniors are getting much-needed help in the prescription drug "donut hole."
(Bullet) --- Pediatric and maternity care are now covered. And Americans can now get access to key preventive health services, like cancer and STD screenings and contraception, with no out of pocket costs.
(Bullet) --- Individuals, families and small businesses are able to take advantages of federal subsidies to help pay for their coverage.
(Bullet) --- Consumers shopping for a family plan now benefit from unprecedented transparency about what is and is not covered by plans.
(Bullet) --- In Sum the Affordable Care Act will help save lives, reduce health care costs, and help families attain the quality of life they deserve.
(Back to Bill Press) : And the ACA has already made a positive difference in the lives of millions of Americans. Often lost in the debate over Obamacare is the fact that, in it's first year, over 8 million people who never before had health insurance
or their families signed up for plans on either the federal or state exchanges and paid their premiums-- and millions of them now renewed their plan. They're in. They're covered.
On March 19, 2015, David Blumenthal, president of the Commonwealth Fund, testified before the Senate Finance Committee on the status of the ACA….
.." As a result, the number of uninsured adults has fallen. This week, the US Department of Health and Human Services reported that 16.4 Million previously uninsured people had gained coverage since the law passed in 2010. Similar gains have been documented in number of government and private-sector surveys, Furthermore, groups that historically have been most likely to lack insurance -- young men and women, and adults with low or moderate incomes
--- have experienced the greatest gains in coverage. These gains have occurred
across racial and ethnic groups."
Unfortunately governors in 21 states, taking advantage of a Supreme Court ruling, have refused to accept the expansion of Medicaid--purely out of political spite.
(for the above comment Press cites "Where the States Stand on Medicaid Expansion" The Advisory Board, September 1, 2015 www.advisory.com) {Whether it was political spite or political philosophy might be subject to debate.. GM}
Here in brief is what's wrong with the Affordable Care Act:
* It's no single payer plan, which has proven in many countries to be the best way
to deliver universal quality health care and lower costs.
* It does not achieve the goal of "universal health care." It does not cover everybody. For years to come, it will leave some 30 million Americans, the vast majority between the ages of 18 and 34, without health insurance, either because they can't afford it or because they choose not to buy it.
(citation:Rachel Garfield and Katherine Young "Adults who remain uninsured at he end of 2014" Kaiser Family Foundation January 29, 2015 www.kff.org)
* It offers no public option, no alternative to buying insurance from private insurance companies.
* It is therefore a huge bonanza for private insurance companies, forcing millions
of Americans to buy their product -- with little competition and no price controls.
* It leaves those who do purchase health insurance vulnerable to annual increases in premiums by their insurance carrier.
* It does not allow the federal government to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies for discount prices for prescription drugs, nor allow consumers to purchase drugs cheaper in Canada.
* Policyholders have to renew their insurance policy every year, with no guarantee that their existing plan will still be available, that premiums won't go up astronomically, or that federal subsidies they now enjoy will still be available.
You can't deny that Obamacare has done a lot of good. But it's still a half-baked
measure that falls far short both of what is needed and what was politically possible. It's main provision is to force people to buy health insurance from a private insurer if they are not already insured by their employer. That is certainly not a progressive idea. In fact government forcing people to buy a product from a private company is not even a good conservative idea. '
Those were the words of Bill Press from his book 'Buyer's Remorse:How Obama Let Progressives Down' Simon and Schuster 2016.
I question Bill's emphasis on the huge bonanza to the Insurance companies. Not so much that the bonanza doesn't exist but that that is the primary private drain on the people's wealth. What I see is a huge Medical Industrial Complex that drains, that robs, Americans of their life savings and their daily bread. The Insurance companies attempt to wrap up all the various care giving, products, medicines, personnel, places of healing and modalities into a package - that can't be insured.
There is simply too much profit taking up and down the line. It is unsustainable.
The following requires me to dig in and get some citations to back up these assertions or maybe you can think of them currently as questions.
Examples:
the costs of pharmaceutical treatment of psoriasis, :
(Biologic therapies designed for continuous use cost roughly $1,300/month. from Medscape.com) * someone gave me a much higher price that they were paying....
Hepatitus C:
But there was one big problem: Gilead wants $1,000 a pill for the 12-week treatment, or $84,000 for Harvoni and only slightly less for Sovaldi. In the United States, there is nothing stopping pharmaceutical companies from charging whatever they think the market will bear. Martin Skreli, the infamous "Pharma Bro," may be the poster child for pharmaceutical price-gouging, but the executives at Gilead certainly deserve at least a (dis)honorable mention. Gilead has grown fat off of hep C drug profits, generating billions in sales each quarter and sitting on a $26 billion pile of cash at the end of last year, with hepatitis C sufferers, insurance companies and state Medicaid plains generating the wealth of Croesus for the company.
or Schizohprenia/BiPolar :
The High Price of Sanity: What Antipsychotics Cost
| DRUG | Walgreens | CVS |
|---|
| Risperidone (Risperdal brand), 3mg | $339 | $385 |
| Risperidone (generic), 3mg | $170 | $203 |
| Quetiapine (Seroquel brand), 25mg | $ 85 | $103 |
| Quetiapine (Seroquel brand), 200mg | $265 | $324 |
etc…
July 10, 2009
I take Zyprexa Zydis - the melt-in-your-mouth version of Zyprexa which I tolerate better then regular Zyprexa (no weight gain or cravings) and the retail price for sixty 5mg pills (a one month supply) is a whopping $741.99.
Luckily I pay only $50 of that.
Any wonder why our national cost of healthcare is through the roof?
Back to me --- further research needed:
the costs of an MRI versus the costs in Japan, Germany, England …
the costs of a bag of saline solution
the costs of a hospital bed and the name of the company that
makes the beds in Wisconsin, where Hospital Executives are flown in on
the private airport. (Hearsay from an Emergency Room Doctor at MGH)
The costs of a TV set approved for Hospital rooms.
the costs of a a chief executive of a modern 'Community' Hospital
in Marin County.
..... alternative insurance plans might exist if we can redirect the power of the people into not supporting and sustaining the Millionaire Class in America.
Note …. How much ill health of those over 50 is a direct result of terrible nutrition
sugar, fat and refined and overly processed food?
Our self destructive habits, cigarettes and alcohol addiction?
The exposure of the people of America to chemicals, air pollutants, electrical fields the continuing loss of bio-mass (AKA Trees); a life removed from nature. The stress of putting money in your pocket, keeping a roof over your head, as the outside world sucks it up at such a rate.
My guess, my uneducated opinion, is that we could have a health care plan that could come in 75% lower than current costs if we could corral the gross profiteering of the Medical Industrial Complex as well as get out of our environment destroying system of growth...
Replacing the Mandate of Obamacare and finding alternative paths to health and fighting to end our global system of 'Economic Growth' that defines our current ideas of success is a big challenge. (Hah! hah.. still you never know, positive change is working in ways we don't even know).
