Filed under: Democrat Corruption, Domestic Policy, Economy, Health Care, Liberalism, Politics, Progressivism, Statism | Tags: Administration Incompetence, Doc Shock, It is Known as ObamaCare
The White House knew all along that the “you can keep your policy if you like it” was pure hogwash. But perhaps the worst slip-up was the president’s admission that— gee, he didn’t know. He wasn’t informed that the website would not be working the way it was supposed to. Is this simply the usual “don’t blame me” evasion, or to what extent was he simply uninformed — and uninformed is not an acceptable excuse.
Reporters have been caught with their journalism degrees tucked safely away in some drawer, and they are beginning to realize that they didn’t ‘read the bill to find out what is in it’ either. Nancy Pelosi said no one ever told her that they liked their health care policy. Funny, it has never come up in my conversations with friends either.
Some few reporters are beginning to realize that they have been had, along with the rest of us. Some are free-lancers and are learning about ObamaCare first hand. So there are new revelations daily. We have learned that Obama seldom attends his intelligence briefings. We have learned that the White House staff is also inept. Their job is to keep the president informed about everything. The Chief of Staff is supposed to keep things faultlessly organized. Any president needs a team of competent people to can keep him and his projects humming along faultlessly. Not only are there serious questions about that signature initiative, but there are serious questions about the competence of the White House.
The White House is spinning like mad, attempting to find better vocabulary, to sell the unsaleable. ObamaCare will no longer be called “Obamacare” but referred to only as the Affordable Care Act. Dennis Miller tweeted that’ he would call it the Affordable Care Act when Obama changed his name to Barack Affordable.’ Most people will call it Affordable when it becomes affordable.
Democrats point to examples of people who have gotten cheaper premiums through the ACA. But lower premiums are the result of restricting provider networks. Pundits are calling it “Doc Shock.” We are already hearing stories of patients who are surviving their cancer because of specific treatment from specific doctors — and under ObamaCare are losing those doctors. Here in the Northwest:
In one closely watched case, Seattle Children’s Hospital has filed suit against Washington’s insurance commissioner after a number of insurers kept it out of their provider networks. “It is unprecedented in our market to have major insurance plans exclude Seattle Children’s,” said Sandy Melzer, senior vice president.
A number of the nation’s top hospitals — including the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, and children’s hospitals in Seattle, Houston and St. Louis — are cut out of most plans sold on the exchange.
Those who are defined as “poor” are being funneled into Medicaid, but most doctors will not accept Medicaid patients. Newly minted doctors avoid general practice, and train for a specialty. The problem is that Democrats view doctors as part of “the rich,” and Obama’s all-encompassing share the wealth ideology believes that :
Fat cats” and “corporate jet owners” have preyed on the body politic. Profit-driven doctors have unnecessarily lopped off limbs and yanked out tonsils. In a more philosophical vein, Obama advised that an individual should recognize a point beyond which he need not make any more money. The subtext is always that in this zero-sum world, personal success comes not through the individual’s efforts, but at the expense of someone else.
The multimillionaires in Congress and in the administration are, of course, different. They are doing “public service” and helping to transform America. They get raises. Patients on Medicaid will have trouble finding a doctor, will have long waits to see one, and will soon be assigned to nurse practitioners rather than physicians. Ignorance of basic economics keeps them from understanding that increased regulation means hiring more people to keep up with the paperwork requirements.
The Affordable Care Act was not intended just to extend health insurance to the uninsured or to decrease premium costs. Indeed, so far Obamacare has had the opposite effect of raising costs and increasing the numbers of the uninsured. Aside from growing government, increasing federal jobs, and limiting free choice, Obamacare federalized healthcare to ensure Americans fairness, defined as the economic equality of result as technocrats decide who had wrongly acquired too much healthcare, who unfairly had access to too little, and so on.
Victor Davis Hanson, as usual, is spot on in his essay about “The Politicization of Everything.” Do read the whole thing.
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