This past week saw Obamacare turn five…and in the spirit of campaigning, Democrats could not resist self-congratulations by resorting to campaigning like it was 2008 and trying to gaslight Americans into realizing Obamacare is a GREAT REFORM. Nonsense.
CNN talked about the “5 ways Obamacare has helped Americans,” 3/23/2015, “CNN Money,” and even included a birthday cupcake graphic. The cupcake graphic was appropriately used by CNN in its simplistic regurgitation of the deceptive nonsense we’ve heard before about Obamacare.
Likely even those who systematically ignore “news” about our healthcare system could fill in the five reasons we should celebrate according to CNN. Can you?
First there was the FEWER UNINSURED. The government remains unwilling to really crunch numbers on this one having already decided to instead figure out ways to make “enrollment” look better. Most recently we learned the government decided to lower the number of uninsured there were in the first place.
On its face, the ONLY thing we’re sure of is that expanded Medicaid has proven successful in terms of enrollment and that exchanges have enrolled increased numbers of individuals, not necessarily those who were uninsured before. Then of course, the government will impose a tax on individuals who choose not to purchase health insurance. Hardly “cupcake” news.
Second there was the provision that no one will be turned away, the pre-existing condition feature. The feature attempted to address a really brutal health insurance company tactic, but fails because the ACA’s provision that everyone must be offered health insurance and those with pre-existing conditions cannot be charged higher premiums DOES NOT address the Act’s increased burden placed on individuals to carry more of the actual expenses of their needed healthcare.
This has increased the number of individuals WITH health insurance who cannot actually afford needed medical care and services in the face of ever-increasing copayments, deductibles and coinsurance payments and prices charged by providers in our healthcare system. Hardly “cupcake” news.
Third, CNN boldly listed that children can stay on parents’ plans until they’re 26, which has merely served to “allow” parents to support their children for a longer period of time by having them on the parents’ health insurance (for which health insurance parents are paying higher prices). Hardly “cupcake” news.
Fourth, and the most obvious deception, the “Free” preventive care…I’m reluctant to even address this one because anyone who still believes that a list of preventive services that we’re required to purchase whether we need them or not, that are built into our expenses for health insurance combined with the increased expenses of getting actual care in the event a checkup indicates a NEED for medical care and services is a good thing is simply either healthy and/or uninformed. Not “cupcake” news.
Fifth, paying for “care” not visits is virtually gibberish as presented by CNN focusing on a bunch of things designed to save the government money.
There is "celebration" of incentivizing “doctors and hospitals to…keep them [patients] well,” the “preventive” services again, which should NEVER be part of health insurance because we overpay for non-insurance events, meaning non-contingency events, so that we’re paying for insurers to cover the risk of things that don’t have a risk. A checkup is a finite cost that we can only overpay for once it’s treated as something insurers are covering as a “risk.”
Then CNN mixes in Medicare models moving towards bundling services which is a way for the GOVERNMENT to save money by treating medical services by episode instead of by service, and finally CNN mixes in lowering hospital readmission rates by penalizing hospitals if patients are readmitted too soon after a hospital stay. Hardly “cupcake” news.
On Sunday, January 25, 2009 in, President Obama takes a dive...tell us it ain't so, http://conoutofconsumer.blogspot.com/2009/01/president-obama-takes-divetell-us-it.html, I wrote:
“In his first weekly address, President Obama uttered his first political cave in as he went over a laundry list of money the government will throw out in support of maintaining the status quo. It isn't pretty, it isn't presidential and it certainly isn't change. As citizens waited to hear how his immense authority and moment of opportunity would be used to fulfill the pretty campaign promise that all Americans would have access to the same health care his family has as federal employees, we sighed to hear the transition from Obama the candidate to Obama the President as he stated his goal: To lower health care cost, cut medical errors, and improve care, we’ll computerize the nation’s health record in five years.”
As someone who had voted for Obama the first time, in 2009 I concluded that in my opinion: “As for consumers: We're sunk. President Obama has told us to expect nothing that Candidate Obama promised. Instead he satisfied the stakeholders in the health care industry and hopes that you'll shut up because he did something...he committed to five years to transition from a paper bureaucracy to a paperless bureaucracy that will save money eventually but that money will never pass on to consumers.”
Obamacare at five is hardly "cupcake" news and how do we know? We're being told the same campaign lines of 2008, not true then, not true now. Hardly a “cupcake” moment then and hardly a “cupcake” moment now.
