Presidential Lies: NO Right to Healthcare in US 2016

The President's public lying has no bounds when it comes to Obamacare as he proved when he spoke with the Canadian PM bragging that the US has a right to health care. Not true. There is no universal right to healthcare in the US. As consumers face their fears and frustrations in this election season, raising the stakes, as if hating or repealing Obamacare will "take away" a right to health care should not be one of them--You can't lose what you don't have.

Gloating over the Supreme Court's perversion of Obamacare and removing its alleged respect for States rights by justifying premium assistance payments to anyone registering for an Obamacare plan, (King v. Burwell) was designed to preserve OBAMACARE, it expanded the RIGHT TO GET MONEY FROM THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IF YOU PURCHASE AN OBAMACARE PLAN, nothing else. Obamacare fans carry fantasy to an extreme in asserting a "right" to healthcare.

Can anyone see a physician regardless of ability to pay in the US? No. Can anyone overcome the barriers of income in order to access public funding for health care? No. Simply refer to the Supreme Court's 2012 Medicaid decision creating an option rather than an obligation on states to create expanded Medicaid, or live in a state without expanded Medicaid and you'll realize that as the facts show millions of Americans do NOT have access to or the right to health care because they can't afford it.

Whether you support universal coverage or not doesn't change the facts--the US has no right to healthcare regardless of income, regardless of disease, regardless of condition. Obamacare narrowly created the universal citizen OBLIGATION to PURCHASE health INSURANCE, a FINANCIAL product produced in a capitalistic society where insurance is big business.

The imposition of a new tax on consumers, a penalty for NOT purchasing a private sector product of health insurance includes the accompanying mandate that insurance companies SELL those policies to individuals. For those who cannot afford such private sector products, the government has piecemeal system where SOME people who cannot afford the private sector health insurance product receive a product paid for by the government, or partially paid for by the government, or are EXEMPTED FROM PURCHASE of the health insurance product.

There is no assurance that every citizen has access to a health insurance policy regardless of income. There is no assurance that every citizen has access to care. Individuals can be turned away by physicians for any variety of reasons including that they don't have an insurance plan that the physicians want to accept to help pay for the services they receive.

The closest the law comes to addressing a "right" to health care is regarding emergency rooms, and even there, once a crisis is handled, patients can be shipped out once STABILIZED AND-OR charged exorbitant rates.

As the fear-mongering continues, there should at least be no fear when it comes to Obamacare and losing a so-called "right" to health care in the US. There is no such right and Obamacare did nothing to change that.

Can You be Denied Health Care under the PPACA?

The answer is yes under certain circumstances. The Affordable Care Act, (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) does not address situations where patients are denied health CARE. The Affordable Care Act is about health insurance. Affordable Care operates on the assumption that if people have health INSURANCE it will increase access to HEALTH CARE, it does not alter our current healthcare environment to include new protections from being denied HEALTH CARE.

There are many reasons that people can be denied access to healthcare from one provider or another. There are instances where physicians FIRE patients by terminating relationships for any number of vague reasons. There are situations where transplant teams deny eligibility for transplants. There are instances where emergency rooms will transfer patients brought in to different hospitals once stabilized. The Affordable Care Act changes none of this, not now, not ever.

Places where you are guaranteed health CARE include only hospital emergency rooms regardless of whether you have health insurance or whether you are financially able to pay for health care. Since 1986 and the passage of the Federal legislation known as the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, hospital emergency rooms must try to stabilize patients that come into their emergency rooms and hospital transfers can NOT be based simply on a patient’s ability to pay.

You will not escape being billed for health CARE you receive in a hospital emergency room which can result in enormous health bills.

When it comes to organ transplants, NO PERSON HAS THE RIGHT TO AN ORGAN TRANSPLANT and financial considerations may very well become part of an organ transplant team’s consideration of whether a patient should receive a transplant. Usually these considerations are bundled into more benign-sounding concerns such as whether the patient is unlikely to attend follow-up appointments or maintain physician involvement because of patient’s lifestyle, including financial limitations.

It’s important to understand that there is no RIGHT to healthcare in this country which means that there is no obligation for most healthcare providers to see and treat patients for any variety of reasons.