The U.S. Healthcare Fix

Most Americans anxiously await the details of the “fix” passed Thursday by Congressional House Republicans for Obamacare.  While pretty much everyone knows Obamacare is failing because of unforeseen economic impact, few of us know the intimate details of the hows and whys for the failure.  It is no secret that President Obama’s signature legislation was to be the centerpiece of his Presidential legacy.  He for many reasons drew from all of his considerable political resources to get the ACA passed in disregard to the importance of existing insurance policies for most Americans and with NO regard for what any Americans thought about his proposal that he later signed into law.  In fact he even hid the details of the ACA from House and Senate members until after the vote that passed it.

As a Healthcare professional, let me make a knowledgeable distinction in our conversation:  Obamacare is NOT a healthcare program.  It is a healthcare “finance” program.  The only way it has affected American healthcare — which is the care provided by medical professionals to American citizens that is paid for by multiple sources — was to diminish the level and quality of care given by healthcare professionals from inside of the greatest healthcare system on Earth.  How?  Doctors have abandoned their profession by the thousands because the ACA has stifled their ability to not only provide levels of care they offered patients prior to Obamacare, but have financially been unable to continue the storied growth from improvements in American healthcare that come from research and development — both in finding and developing new medical procedures and devices, and in finding, testing, and implementing new pharmaceutical treatment options.

Obamacare as a healthcare finance instrument is failing on its own.  The insurance companies which contracted with the Obama Administration to implement and operate exchanges for Americans to obtain insurance under this plan are almost all gone.  Within 12 months if left alone, every one of those companies will for lack of financial viability be totally out of the system.  They cannot sustain the costs.  If something is not done immediately to right the ship, American healthcare as it has been known for decades will be gone within a year.  And if we wait to correct this, the necessary medical professionals — doctors, nurses, technicians, researchers, emergency transportation operators — will all be gone by necessity to find financial opportunities elsewhere.  It will take decades just to get American healthcare back to the level of excellence it held when  Obamacare was passed and signed into law by only Democrats in the House, the Senate, and the White House.

We have today two options:  fix Obamacare or replace Obamacare with something else.  That’s a tall task!  The problem:  there is no “how to” manual on the shelf titled “How to Successfully Create a Healthcare Finance System, Part II.”  It is not there.  Unfortunately we had a good system before Obamacare that needed some repair.  but Democrats blew it up.  And in their starting over they pretty much dynamited the chance to smoothly move into any realistically successful replacement.

The House of Representatives Thursday passed a replacement plan.  Reportedly they have addressed the major negatives that killed the ACA, replaced those that needed replacement and fixed others.  I say “reportedly” because even though it was discussed, drafted, and then passed, details of their plan have not been disseminated yet.  (I’ll come back with my detailed analysis when they do)  “The devil is in the detail,” is an appropriate comment about the proposal at this point.  Any House bill House must go to the Senate.  And this bill passed by the House will certainly look different on the other side.  But with GOP control of both Houses, we should get a bill for the President to sign into law.

The Democrats on the other hand STILL argue over and over again and louder and louder that we don’t need to replace Obamacare — that it is a successful program that needs some tweaking.  But it definitely does not need to be thrown out.  They do not acknowledge its pending death either, which is uncanny.  So let’s look at their plans offered up in the last few months to fix the issues in Obamacare:

First, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s plan to repair Obamacare: ?????????????????????????

Secondly, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s plan to repair Obamacare: ??????????????????????????

Next, the proposed plan by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to make Obamacare financially viable: ???????????????????????????????

You get my point?  Democrats have cried for months “Obamacare just needs to be fixed.”  None have even offered a plan to fix it.  The only plan on the table is the one passed Thursday by the GOP controlled House of Representatives.

In closing, let me frost you a little.  You probably don’t know this, but President Obama knew there would be huge financial shortfalls in Obamacare.  He also knew he would be hard pressed to get Congress to bailout his signature program for those shortfalls, especially in light of his constant financial promises to Americans that were false when he made them.  His Pinocchio nose grew longer and longer as the life of Obamacare grew as did the massive losses to the Federal Government because of the healthcare program.   But the innovative Constitutional Attorney/President from Chicago had a plan to pay for failing Obamacare.  And he used it.  Here it is (and it’s going to hack you off):

Do you remember the last few years the Obama Justice Department attacked a number international banks, international companies, and U.S. companies through the EPA, the Treasury Department, and the Justice Department?  These “attacks” all resulted in huge fines for various violations.  Obviously banks were charged with multiple financial violations while non-financial companies were charged with massive environmental improprieties.  Fines for the banks and companies have totaled in the BILLIONS of dollars — several hundred billion.  Wouldn’t that money have been nice to be dropped into the U.S. General Fund to pay some debt or take up slack in some programs that lost funding?  But no, President Obama and his Justice Department had a plan.

When it came time to execute collection action to collect these huge fines, the Justice Department turned into negotiators.  Here’s how their “program” worked:  “Hey, Mr. CEO.  You know you owe us more than $1 billion.  We know that’s a lot of money.  We will help you out.  We have the authority to, and will drop that fine amount to $200 million — half of which you’ll pay to the U.S. Treasury.  The other half will go to a not for profit entity in the U.S. that the Justice Department designates.”  Of course Mr. CEO was excited to cut his losses and he complied.

There are two rubs here:  one is that the not for profits have all been liberal political activist organizations propped up by liberal political and corporate activists who gladly add these fine dollars to their piggy banks to prop up their liberal causes and support their choices of Leftist political campaigns.  The second half goes to the “gar hole” in the “Swamp” to quietly pay some of the shortages and losses from Obamacare.  ALL OF THESE FINE DOLLARS ARE “OFF LEDGER” ITEMS SO THEY APPEAR NOWHERE ON FEDERAL BOOKS SO NOBODY KNOWS ABOUT THEM, THEIR SOURCES, OUR HOW THEY ARE SPENT!

But even with that money paying some of the Obamacare losses, we are still upside down in the program financially.  (By the way:  you can bet there are numerous Democrat legislators and maybe even some Republicans who have been designated recipients of contributions from these liberal not for profits during their 2016 campaigns)

Do you feel a little dirty now like you need to take a shower?