Obamacare as gateway drug to single-payer is working just fine
Leaving no alternative to government healthcare failure but to seek more government.
Single-payer healthcare is the Democrats’ holy grail, because it put the government completely in charge of one-fifth of the economy and every single person’s healthcare.
It’s total control, but at least as of 2008, it wasn’t a platform on which Obama could run. But as this early video shows, single-payer was always the goal.
Similarly, failed 2014 NY-23 Democratic challenger Martha Robertson was a big single-payer supporter. But in NY-23, a Republican +4 district that has a hardcore liberal Ithaca-area contingent from which Robertson hailed, single payer won’t fly. So Robertson didn’t run on single payer, she ran on Obamacare.
But in moments of candor uncovered by Legal Insurrection, Robertson admitted that Obamacare was just the stepping stone to single payer.
Obamacare now is the “law of the land” and unlikely to be overturned in the courts. Been there, tried that. Additionally, as Obamacare embeds itself into every aspect of the economy, it will be harder to extricate.
Obamacare is succeeding if you understand the goal, which was not Obamacare. The goal was single-payer. Failure is success because the alternative becomes not a return to a more private, patient-controlled system, but to complete government control.
The failure is in premiums that are becoming unaffordable for individuals. I’m insulated from that, because I’m on a large university group plan.
But just in the past couple of weeks as we’ve been getting our Rhode Island waterfront cottage cleaned up, I’ve heard horror stories from multiple contractors. Unsolicited, both an electrician and plumber we’ve known for a long time mentioned about what long hours they have to work just to pay health care premiums approaching $2000 per month. A woman hired to clean out the house (it had been unoccupied for almost a year) apologized for how much she had to charge, but she had large health care premiums to pay.
These may be anecdotes, but enormous premium increases are happening in many states. The Chicago Tribune reports, Illinois Obamacare rates could soar as state submits insurance premium increases to feds
Illinois consumers are one step closer to facing sky-high increases for individual health insurance plans purchased through the Affordable Care Act’s marketplace.
The Illinois Department of Insurance said Wednesday it has submitted rate increases to the federal government that for some types of plans average 43 percent to 55 percent.
The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services will decide rates. But the numbers released Wednesday confirm the fears of consumers, who’ve already watched a number of insurance companies withdraw from the Obamacare exchange because of financial losses, limiting choices as people prepare to enroll for 2017.
Rates could increase by an average of 44 percent for the lowest-priced bronze plans, 45 percent for the lowest-priced silver plans and 55 percent for the lowest-priced gold plans, according to a preliminary analysis released by the state Wednesday.
This is not an isolated phenomenon, as Politico reports:
As insurers push large premium increases for 2017 Obamacare plans, some of the steepest hikes have been requested by insurers in crucial swing states that could determine control of the Senate.
In nine of 11 states with competitive Senate races, at least one insurer seeks to hike rates for Obamacare customers by at least 30 percent next year: Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield in Pennsylvania wants to jack up average premiums by more than 40 percent. In Wisconsin, three insurers have asked for rate hikes of more than 30 percent. In New Hampshire, two of the five carriers want to sell plans with rate increase above 30 percent.
In at least 19 states double-digit increases are sought, and even with that, insurers are dropping out of exchanges:
Consumers in 19 states will see increases to their health insurance rates, most in the double digits, for 2017, according to publicly available data filed with state insurance regulators.
Since June, insurance companies have been submitting proposed rate requests to state departments of insurance for the 2017 plan year. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services also has to approve rates for insurers selling on Obamacare’s exchanges.
What is the answer? The government says to keep Obamacare premiums lower, states should shift more people to Medicaid, Expand Medicaid and Obamacare will cost less, federal government says:
Want to cut Obamacare prices in your state? Expand Medicaid.
States that allow nearly all poor adults to enroll in their Medicaid health coverage programs saw prices on Obamacare private insurance marketplaces about 7 percent lower than states that haven’t expanded Medicaid eligibility, the federal government said Thursday.
The findings reflect the fact that poorer people tend to be less healthy than people with higher incomes, who make up the lion’s share of Obamacare enrollees in expansion states.
It’s working, if working means transferring more people to existing single-payer (Medicaid) and creating such a burden on the working class that government help will be demanded from people who otherwise are self-sufficient.
[Featured Image: Obama reacting to passage of Obamacare]
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Comments
They’ve beaten me.
I no longer care.
Good thing there weren’t more of you at Pearl Harbor. Or Lexington and Concord. Or Gettysburg. Or Normandy. Or the Kasserine Pass.
Then what happens when those transferred to that single payer can’t find a doctor? Those getting to see a doctor will be paying cash. The single payer will crash and burn just like obamacare has.
The framers of the Constitution knew what they were doing when there were limits placed on what the fed gov could do. Too bad the 3 branchs of gov decided to ignore those limitations.
Come on, it’s Big Government and they’ve got that figured out too. Should you get a denial of anything under Medicaid, you receive a 16 page (in NY at least) letter giving you ‘appeal rights’. An advocacy group (taxpayer supported, filled with ex-campaign workers) will take your case, call every congressman and State Senator, call the local papers, file motions in the local court, demanding you get what was ‘denied’.
There are literally a dozen ways someone who doesn’t get enough Viagra, or get to use the “best” plastic surgeon in town can appeal. The doctors and payers then have to decide if the $5,000 case is worth giving in view of a 4 month $10,000 appeal fight.
When you’re a friend of Hillary, you get a vast army of whiny advocates to make sure the rules are bent for you. And the single payer ‘budget’, well it goes over by 35%, nothing a tax increase can’t fix.
This is why Medicaid plans don’t work now, just wait and see what happens if all the unhappy voters don’t come out and vote for Hillary’s opponent.
I’m curious. Does your handle in any way stem for Cunningham’s and Driscoll’s Phantom, Showtime 112?
It’s time to dispense with the Orwellian euphemism “single payer.” Its accurate name is “socialized medicine” or “government controlled healthcare.”
I said “NO!” back years ago. I still do. I’m not part of that ObamaDoggle. I have a doctor who takes money, and will not give my health records to anyone but my children.
It’s a legal insurrection.
That works great until you have to take a $52,000 helicopter ride to the hospital as a friend recently did. As he was unconscious, he had no opportunity to decline it, though I doubt he would have.
“Thank Heaven for Chapter Seven”
don’t want to bust your bubble but we have ‘socialist’ medical system now, we are headed for a ‘communistic’ health care system.
socialist – private ownership government controlled. tell me something in medical care the government does not control.
“socialist – private ownership government controlled.”
According to Merriam-Webster Socialism,”a way of organizing a society in which major industries are owned and controlled by the government rather than by individual people and companies.”
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/socialism
Private ownership, but state control, sounds more like Fascism – or current U.S. Democrat leaders.
From http://www.diffen.com/difference/Communism_vs_Fascism on Fascism, “Union between businesses and the State, with the state telling the business what to do, with nominally private ownership. Corporatism in Italy, National Socialism in Germany. Central planning of National economy. Redistribution of wealth (Nazi).”
The “polite” name now is “crony capitalism”. IOW what the democratic socialist party does with it’s “contributors”. Solandra, Fisker and the other boondoggles that cost TRILLIONS of dollars. All went to line the pockets of the “crony capitalists”.
I’m probably missing something here, but why do people knock themselves out to pay outrageous premiums for insurance with outrageous deductibles? Sure, there’s a penalty, but the penalty is nowhere near the annual amount of the insurance. Save the difference and pay cash – as high as the deductibles are, that’s what you’d be stuck doing anyhow.
The only possible reason for sticking with insurance at this point – excluding the mandate, which is a travesty to begin with – is because of the “what if” of some dread disease. But if Zerocare rules let you sign up for insurance at any time and you’re guaranteed coverage regardless of pre-existing conditions, just wait until you get the diagnosis, sign up then and only for as long as you need the coverage, and then cancel when you’ve recovered.
Either that, or change your name to Jose Garcia, show up in the emergency room and say “No habla ingles.” Seems to work fine for untold numbers of illegal aliens ~
We can’t rely on the crying boehners to protect us. We have to vote them all out of office, or abandon the GOP for the Tea Party.
Then you’ll see an opposition party.
Follow the likes of Louie Gohmert.
Single payer reduces us to livestock. They will have to control all our behaviors to keep costs down. Want to go skiing, scuba diving, play rugby? Nope, too risky. And forget about booze sugary food, etc. Oh, and by the way, you need to loose a few pounds. Finally, when they realize that a healthy live style produces too may nursing home candidates, euthanasia.
Elect shrillary, she’ll fix your healthcare.
She’s more likely to fix your wagon ~
From Gateway Pundit ;
A week ago in Minneapolis T-rump supporters attending a fundraiser were set upon by a leftist mob as they were leaving & spit upon, harassed, assaulted, & in some cases robbed as police stood by & did nothing. No one was arrested, no charges were filed. Have you seen anything on the news about this?
Come-on you #never T-rumpers, tell us how the supporters likely brought it on. Tell us how it’s likely some of T-rumps alt-right supporters are likely racist. Tell us how T-rump supporters are known crybabies.
Tell us, it’s what you do.
Trump~Pence 2016 ; Rick Perry 4 senate 2018
This has what to do with the professor’s post? ObamaCare? Single-payer?
We already have a single payer system more like England and Canada, it’s the VA.
When you manage peoples needs via a fixed budget, with no profits to subsidize losses, you get queues and limited treatment based on age and social status. Like gas lines in the ’70’s.
We all know these elected officials are more than happy to put our parents into Medicaid, these guys will program in a lifetime exemption for themselves, or use their connections to forever jump the queue. Politicians and all government workers should go into the VA, mom can go to Medicaid.
We’ll be back to 100% support of the old system three years after that.
The American Association of Physicians and Surgeons has been fighting this for decades. They help doctors find ways to opt out of the government system. Their annual meeting is coming up, in Oklahoma City.
In the 90s, they sued about Hillary Clinton’s secret advisory panel.
If you do not work in the medical field you can join for free:
http://www.aapsonline.org/index.php/join
The more people that join, the more they can say they represent.
Mo gubmint means mo gubmint employees means mo hidden entitlements. Welcome to full employment at the Lazy G.
The whole point of Obamacare is to seize what’s left of capitalism in the healthcare “market” by the throat, throw it to the ground, stomp on its head, so the central planners can turn to idiot students a quarter of a mil in debt to government for their degrees in bullshit and say, “Your perfessors were right. capitalism doesn’t work.”
And the idiot students will say, “Thank you tenured perfessors and central planners. Let’s kill all forms of economic freedom.”
I am currently on gov’t managed healthcare. Every time I have some ailment and go to the clinic, you know what they say? Here’s a prescription for 1000mg Motrin. Literally every pain can be masked by Vitamin M. And I’m not even in the VA system which is so much larger than Tricare and the healthcare is so much worse. If you want to see what gov’t-run healthcare looks like, look no further than the VA. And that’s for less than 5% of the population. Can you imagine what it would look like with 100% on their dole?
Try and go easy on that stuff or it will trash your kidneys. See if you can get tramadol for pain. Generic and cheap.
Doctors in the county I live in can deny you service and do not have to disclose the reason. The reason is Medicare. You can see doctors elsewhere under Medicare if you had seen them when you had juicy insurance. They won’t see you as often, but they’ll throw you a bone. Go to single payer and you can just fast forward to the funeral parlor.
Actually there is an alternative to more government in healthcare and that is to do nothing. Several years ago Obama said it was a settled issue and to move on. Congress needs to use his own words and say “according to Obama, this is a settled issue and we’re are moving on”.
Make the Dems live with their own rules.