If you had your choice of any car in the world, what would it be? Now ask yourself why don’t you have it? For most of you, the answer to the second question is money. Goods and resources are scarce, and as a result there is a rationing process and that process is generally money. But what happens if a service or good is free? This would have been the case if Nancy Pelosi and President Obama had their way with healthcare. Both favored a plan where taxes would increase drastically, and the government would be the single payer/provider. Since healthcare would not cost the recipient anything at point of service, what would then become the rationing process? We need go no further than Canada and many European nations where healthcare is provided in that fashion. The rationing process is now time. The chart on the left is provided by the Canadian Ministry of Health and shows the wait times for various procedures. We saw this in last month’s blog, but it is also the case in many European countries.
Recently, one of my uncles experienced chest pains on a Thursday. That Saturday he was in the hospital and received triple bypass surgery. In three weeks, he was golfing. In their book, The Economics of Public Issues, Miller et al look at healthcare in the Netherlands where the government pays for all procedures. If you need heart bypass surgery, there is a three month wait. During that time, nearly 15% of all patients awaiting that surgery die. In that same study, they found that diabetics wait an average of 3 months to obtain laser treatment for retinal hemorrhaging, and risk blindness; and the average wait for removal of gallbladder stones and hernia repair is from four to eight weeks.
Recently, one of my uncles experienced chest pains on a Thursday. That Saturday he was in the hospital and received triple bypass surgery. In three weeks, he was golfing. In their book, The Economics of Public Issues, Miller et al look at healthcare in the Netherlands where the government pays for all procedures. If you need heart bypass surgery, there is a three month wait. During that time, nearly 15% of all patients awaiting that surgery die. In that same study, they found that diabetics wait an average of 3 months to obtain laser treatment for retinal hemorrhaging, and risk blindness; and the average wait for removal of gallbladder stones and hernia repair is from four to eight weeks.
You may next be asking yourself, since everyone gets healthcare for free, aren’t survival rates may should be higher? It’s not even close. If you look at the charts, the United States beats Europe in all forms of cancer survival rates, now and historically. I can continue, but I believe the point has been made; back to The Affordable Care Act (the poster child for false advertising).
What does the Affordable Care Act (ACA) do? It increases the number of people in the system while not addressing costs. Obamacare for business was supposed to be implemented this January 1, 2014. All businesses with 50 or more employees had to provide insurance for their employees or face stiff penalties. This has been postponed until 2015; their excuse was that many Republican governors had not set up statewide exchanges. The Administration is very good at blaming everyone else for their shortcomings. In an article in the Washington Post, a paper with a decidedly liberal bias, they reported that the Administration has missed over half the deadlines for procedures in Obamacre that should have been implemented. As I said in a recent daily advisory, “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time” (Abe Lincoln). Who does the Obamacare administration think they’re fooling? Obamacare was postponed for a year so the democrats don’t get killed in the mid-term elections of November, 2014.
What are some of the other reasons why healthcare coast are so high?
Healthcare is often times an emergency service. In all my years as a police officer, no one who was being loaded in an ambulance ever asked what it was going to cost
Our population is overweight. Over 2/3’s of the population is overweight or obese. The average adult is 25 pounds heavier now than in 1960 (CNN) and obesity related problems are accounting for $200 billion/year in healthcare costs.
Life expectancy is increasing and so are end of life costs. In a recent CNN article, 90% of all an individual’s healthcare costs are in the last 3 years of their life.
Insurance Malpractice premiums have skyrocketed and this is being passed on to the consumer.
Healthcare is often times an emergency service. In all my years as a police officer, no one who was being loaded in an ambulance ever asked what it was going to cost
Our population is overweight. Over 2/3’s of the population is overweight or obese. The average adult is 25 pounds heavier now than in 1960 (CNN) and obesity related problems are accounting for $200 billion/year in healthcare costs.
Life expectancy is increasing and so are end of life costs. In a recent CNN article, 90% of all an individual’s healthcare costs are in the last 3 years of their life.
Insurance Malpractice premiums have skyrocketed and this is being passed on to the consumer.
How will Obamacare raise premiums? The list is too long but I’ll condense it:
Medical claims will become more expensive because of Obamacare regulations. The Society of Actuaries released a report concluding that medical claim cost will rise more than 30% for individual policies, and by 2017 to more than 60% in some states.
According to the Government Accountability office, the implementation of Obamacare will increase the federal deficit by $6.2 trillion in the long term.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, taxes will be increased by $1trillion in the next 10 years to pay for Obamacare. Also as a result of increased taxes and costs to businesses, there will be a loss of 800,000 jobs in this time period; 1 million according to Duke University Prof. Chris Conover.
The House Ways and Means Committee estimated that about 30% of private sector firms will drop their insurance plans and pay the less costly penalties. These employees must now get insurance on the state exchanges where part of the premium cost will be borne by the taxpayer. Most employer plans cover 80% of costs whereas the state exchanges are estimated to cover 70%
The mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emmanuel, Obama’s former Chief of Staff, plans to exclude retired city workers from the city’s insurance and “dump” them onto the state exchange.
And finally, Obamacare’s burdens fall most heavily on people under 25 where they can see premium increases ranging from 145% to 185%.
I can go on but you get the idea. As I said initially, The Affordable Care Act is a lot of things, but Affordable isn’t one of them
Medical claims will become more expensive because of Obamacare regulations. The Society of Actuaries released a report concluding that medical claim cost will rise more than 30% for individual policies, and by 2017 to more than 60% in some states.
According to the Government Accountability office, the implementation of Obamacare will increase the federal deficit by $6.2 trillion in the long term.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, taxes will be increased by $1trillion in the next 10 years to pay for Obamacare. Also as a result of increased taxes and costs to businesses, there will be a loss of 800,000 jobs in this time period; 1 million according to Duke University Prof. Chris Conover.
The House Ways and Means Committee estimated that about 30% of private sector firms will drop their insurance plans and pay the less costly penalties. These employees must now get insurance on the state exchanges where part of the premium cost will be borne by the taxpayer. Most employer plans cover 80% of costs whereas the state exchanges are estimated to cover 70%
The mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emmanuel, Obama’s former Chief of Staff, plans to exclude retired city workers from the city’s insurance and “dump” them onto the state exchange.
And finally, Obamacare’s burdens fall most heavily on people under 25 where they can see premium increases ranging from 145% to 185%.
I can go on but you get the idea. As I said initially, The Affordable Care Act is a lot of things, but Affordable isn’t one of them
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