Is ObamaCare Killing Americans?

One of the most frequent reasons the Democrats used to justify ObamaCare was that, among all the other wealthiest nations, we were last when it came to life expectancy.  Of course, the logic is simple.  Insure more people, and by doing so, give them greater access to healthcare; and as a result, people will live longer.

Unfortunately, that's not happening.  In the latest report from the CDC, in 2015, the average American's life span declined for the first time in decades. This, despite the fact that, in that year (the second year into ObamaCare), the number of insured fell to a decades low 11.9% versus 18% at the end of 2013.

The CDC report shows that 9 of the top ten reasons for death all showed increases, with cancer being the only bright spot (if you can actually call cancer a bright spot) in the whole report:

"The rate increased 0.9% for heart disease, 2.7% for chronic lower respiratory diseases, 6.7% for unintentional injuries, 3.0% for stroke, 15.7% for Alzheimer’s disease, 1.9% for diabetes, 1.5% for kidney disease, and 2.3% for suicide. The rate decreased by 1.7% for cancer. The rate for influenza and pneumonia did not change significantly."

Most all of the diseases that showed increases are somewhat treatable and should have seen better outcomes with the expansion of heath care access under ObamaCare.  So, what gives?

Well, one might think that it is due to the fact that we are living longer and our population is aging and more susceptible to disease.  But, the report also showed that the death rates for men and women age 65 and older, remained the same.  Instead, it was supposedly, the younger people whose lives were being shortened.  Another reason that researchers blamed the increase on was obesity and the rise of diabetes.  However, that were negated by the fact that the infant mortality rate also went up; and obesity and diabetes are not infant diseases.

In my opinion, this suggests that the quality of care is in decline since ObamaCare went into effect.  In discussions with my own doctors, I hear complaints that ObamaCare has burdened them with hours of paperwork and reporting; resulting in less time spent with each patient.  In fact, in a recent study, the average physician spends 785 hours a year reporting quality measures to the federal government.  That is almost 100 days of work based on an 8 hour workday.

The bottom line is that we may be seeing another reason why ObamaCare isn't working as promised and needs to be replaced.

References:

President Obama’s Health Care Reform Policies: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2697918/

Life Expectancy In U.S. Drops For First Time In Decades, Report Finds: http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/12/08/504667607/life-expectancy-in-u-s-drops-for-first-time-in-decades-report-finds

U.S. Uninsured Rate: http://www.gallup.com/poll/190484/uninsured-rate-lowest-eight-year-trend.aspx

CDC: Mortality in the United States, 2015: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db267.htm

Physicians Spend $15.4 Billion Each Year on Reporting Quality Measures: http://www.ajmc.com/newsroom/physicians-spend-154-billion-each-year-on-reporting-quality-measures

Another Reason For Obama To Hate Fox News

Last Fall, an internet-based polling firm, YouGov, asked people to tell them what source they trusted most to get any information about ObamaCare.  The results are reflected in this graph:

Almost 2-to-1, people trusted Fox News over President Obama as a source of news about the health care law.  Worse yet, the Democrats of Congress and the Obama Administration Officials only got 2% of the vote each as trusted informants.  Also, all the other news agencies did horribly. This just further proves that Democrats are suffering from a severe lack of trust over ObamaCare; re-enforcing the belief that they will suffer another tsunami of losses in this coming Fall election.

It's not too surprising that this polling data got zero coverage in the mainstream media.  What is surprising is that Fox News, itself, seemed not to be aware of this data.  A search of their site produced no results.

Now, if you think YouGov is some obscure or right-wing, 2-bit operation, they were the only polling service that accurately predicted that Obama would win by exactly 2% of the vote in 2012.

References:

Fox News: The Most Trusted Name in Health Care News?: http://today.yougov.com/news/2013/11/12/fox-news-most-trusted-health-care-law/

Wikipedia: YouGov: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yougov

Is ObamaCare Already Suffering From Old Age?

By March 2014, ObamaCare will reach a tender age of 4, but, due to its own ineptness, this near 4 year old already seems to be suffering from old age.  That's because, in order for it to be cost effective, 40% of the people enrolled in the program's exchanges had to be between the ages of 28 and 34.  However, recently released data shows that only 24% of the enrollees are in that much-needed young adult category.  This, then, means that 76% of those enrolled in the program are of the older and surely sicker types; and, because of this, the exchanges are sure to run at heavy losses this year.  Losses that will, also as part of the law, be fully covered by the federal government.  Essentially, ObamaCare has an old age problem.

This is no surprise to those who know how ineptly ObamaCare was slammed together.

First of all, ObamaCare, itself, undermined the 18 to 34 year old targets by saying that children, up to age 26, can stay on their parents health plans; theoretically slicing this pool of valued young adults in half. And, it doesn't matter if these  "under-26 children" are living with their parents or living on the moon; or, whether or not they are single or married. 

Further, ObamaCare set the penalty for not buying insurance so low that it actually becomes a disincentive to buying insurance in the exchanges.  Especially since most healthy young adults already know that, if they do get sick, they can simply go to the emergency room of any hospital that takes Medicare patients and they will be treated; regardless of their ability to pay or not.  This is guaranteed by another law that was passed in the 1980's: The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (aka. EMTALA).  And, if they do get seriously sick, the "pre-existing conditions" mandate under the law makes sure that no insurance company can deny them coverage; and, at a very reasonable rate, mind you.

My guess is that the only 18-34's that are signing up for health insurance in the exchanges are those getting hefty subsidies from Uncle Sam. Otherwise...fuggeddaboutit.

References:

Too Few Young Adults Enrolled In ObamaCare: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/01/14/numbers-key-obamacare-demographic-group-come-in-well-below-estimates/

New York Times: Rules Let Youths Stay On Parents Plans: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/11/health/policy/11health.html

Romney Needs To Admit That RomneyCare Was A Failure

Before the Massachusetts health care law became politically labelled as RomneyCare, it was called MassCare. MassCare was forced to come into being because health care costs in Massachusetts were some of the highest in the country and were rising much faster than salaries and wages.  Like the rest of the United States, hospital emergency rooms were being clogged with patients without insurance.

When passed into law in 2006, MassCare had the lofty expectations that health care insurance rates and costs would be reduced; that the quality of care would be improved; and, that health care access would be expanded to 95% of state's citizens.  But, as of today, Massachusetts health care problems have only worsened.

First of all, MassCare increased the amount of patients and patient visits and care.  That would be good thing if the number of doctors were also increased to handle the new volume of patient activity.  But, it didn't.  So the doctors got swamped; leaving patients with the only alternative but to go to emergency rooms for their health care.  Today, choked emergency rooms are even more common place than before MassCare.

Then, there is  the issue of controlling insurance costs.  When MassCare became law, it greatly expanded the number of Medicaid insured.  This forced doctors and hospitals to accept a lower fee structure when caring for this whole new raft of Medicaid patents.  The bottom line was that doctors and hospitals started operating in the red and losing money with every Medicaid patient they cared for.  So, to offset the loss of income, health care providers were forced to raise the prices for non-Medicaid insured patients.  That cost was then passed onto the insurance companies who, in turn, were forced to raise their prices.  In the end, MassCare forced insurance rates to rise faster than the rates in other states.  Now, the current Governor, Deval Patrick has imposed price controls on insurance companies.  But, this in no way solves the problem of costs going up.  All it does is guarantee that marginally profitable insurance companies will go out of business.

Lastly, when MassCare was proposed, it was only supposed to cost the state $88 million.  Today, the expense is in excess of $4 billion and rising.

MassCare was a poor attempt to rein in costs and improve care and, Romney needs to come clean on that.  Otherwise, he will never be convincing in criticizing ObamaCare and talking about its repeal.

More ObamaCare Stupidity

First, we find out that any children with pre-existing conditions had been completely excluded from ObamaCare; embarrasing Obama who had been touting, both before and after the bill's passage, that these children would be taken care of. Then, Corporations started declaring that ObamaCare will cause them to lose billions of dollars in tax benefits. Benefits they had been receiving to continue private health insurance for their retirees; rather than discontinue that benefit at age 65 and force those people onto Medicare. Now, it is apparent that the affected companies will now pay less taxes because of higher expenses and, more importantly, they no longer have any incentive to keep from throwing their retirees onto Medicare at age 65. Subsequently, Medicare costs will go up higher than expected.

Now, we find out the most laughable impact of all under ObamaCare: That Members of Congress will lose their own "rich" health care plans. Apparently § 1312(d)(3)(D)(i) states that members of Congress must either subscribe to health plans that are formulated under the new dictates of ObamaCare or buy their insurance from any one of the newly created health care Exchanges (Click to See Full Story: Ooops! Congress loses health care plan under Obamacare?).

And, added to both the laughability and stupidity factor, you now have Democratic members of Congress questioning how this could happen. Maybe if these idiots spent more time reading the bill, rather than scheming on how to pass it against the will of the people and the rules of Congress, they would have realized what they had done. But, when you "intentionally" draft legislation that is so large and so cross-referenced it takes a doctorate to decipher, this is what happens. It just proves that Congress could have cared less about what was in the law. They could care less if it helped or hurt Americans. Their only interest in passing it was that it would give the Federal Government complete control of health care in America.

Another Worthless Frank Rich Hit Job

According to Frank Rich, an editorial writer for the New York Times, you are a racist if you object to ObamaCare. However, Frank apparently doesn't understand that ObamaCare is a fully color-blind system. Black or white, Hispanic or Asian, it will ultimately screw people over equally, by financial, and not racial, classes. Surely, the poorer of our society will benefit the most and, typically, these are minorities. However, the middle class and above, no matter what their race, will suffer greatly under the heavy hand of ObamaCare. They will suffer financially in higher premiums, taxes, and what they will have to pay for consumer products and, most importantly, in the quality of care that they receive. Those that are complaining know this to be true and they absolutely know where ObamaCare is taking this country. If they are mostly white, then its because whites make up 75% of our society.

However, what Frank doesn't seem to understand is that Obama had a near 70% approval rating when he took office and, at that same time, more than 65% of Americans wanted "change" to our health care system. Obviously, now, the tables have turned with most people viewing both him and his health care reform unfavorably. It's hard to believe that 30 to 40% of Americans suddenly became racists because they now hate ObamaCare. I think Frank would be better served looking at the true rationale for anger against ObamaCare and not quickly blame racial motives. Like Janeane Garofalo against the Tea Party movement, Frank is using race as an argument because he has no other rational way to defend this health care legislation. As I have stated before, racism is always the easy out when no one buys their B.S. But, like crying wolf, I think America is getting up to "here" with it. To Frank and other Democrats who constantly play the race card, I have to say that using race in this way is, in itself, racist.

Apparently, the American Public Is Easier to Screw With Than The Trial Lawyers

To Hollywood: BYO-TP!

Just a few weeks ago, Hollywood decided to pack their bags and journey to the place where they seem to feel the most at home: Good Ole Commie Cuba (Click to See Full Story). Finally, they have a President that would fulfill their deepest desires and allow them free travel to that mini-version of the former U.S.S.R. Time was running out and all those lefties of Hollywood were getting desperate to see their hero, Fidel, before he was no longer on this earth. Obama was a complete answer to their little marxist prayers.

Cuba is the absolute home of socialism and communism in the Northern Hemisphere of these Americas. No self-respecting Hollywood leftist would be worth his or her salt if they hadn't said they visited Cuba at least once in their lifetimes. It would be sure to be a big hit at all those Hollywood cocktail parties and social events. God knows that any A-lister's trip to Cuba would trump any other small talk at a party about someone's charity work or their so-passe testimony before the Democrats in Congress. For Hollywood, a visit to Cuba is almost as paramount to them as a Muslim having visited Mecca at least once in their lifetime.

Well, I think they'd better pack an extra bag and just completely fill it with toilet paper! Besides the lack of cars, cell phones, electricity, and all the other things that Hollywood can't seem to do without; Cuba now has a toilet paper shortage (Click to See Full Story). Isn't communism/socialism great! You can get all the free health care you want but you can't wipe your own you-know-what!

So, where's Michael Moore now? He never seems to be around when he can't just give complete and glowing praise to his favorite little island in the sun: Fidel's Disneyland of the Caribbean.

Actually, Cuba might not be too happy to see Michael Moore, again. At least until the T.P. shortage is over. That chub would probably run the whole country of Cuba out of T.P. in a single day! In the midst of our public health care debate: Moore seems to think that Cuba is the epitome of health care because it's free! That's because, in Cuba, health care just grows on trees! He even took 9/11 victims to Cuba to get their health care so he could make props of them for another one of his anti-American movies called 'Sicko'. While health care might be free, toilet paper just might warrant a virtual king's ransom.

I guess if the Democrats get their way, America won't just be making a choice between paper and plastic. We'll have to add the choice of either free health care or toilet paper! It will be another one of the "life choices" that we'll all have to make on our path to socialism. One of those sacrifices and tough choices that Obama seemed to have talked about in his campaign.