Category Archives: ObamaCare

Finding the Faults and Repairing the Unaffordable Care Act

Democrats to Amend Obamacare

Posted on by

WASHINGTON (United Press Association, Monday, Sept. 16, 2013)–Congressman Hank Johnson (D-GA) introduced six amendments to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act today.

“I don’t believe the President needs Congressional approval to add these improvements to what we all call ‘ObamaCare’,” Rep. Johnson said. “I respect his decision to seek authorization through these amendments. At this time, I am deeply concerned that the current law harms seniors and that these amendments are in our national interest.

“The legacy of aging has left a severe economic and physical gap between seniors and non-seniors but the PPACA’s push for equality which has already spread to Hispanics, gays, immigrants and many others, can now hold its head high as it treats seniors with compassion and respect. The arc of justice seems to get a little better with each passing generation, as we all stand on the shoulders of the great leaders and visionaries who lead the march to pass universal health care four years ago.”

  • Amendment 1 bans lipofuscin deposits in muscle tissue.
  • Amendment 2 bans reduction of the hepatic blood supply as well as cellular multinucleararity and mandates phagocytosis.
  • Amendment 3 bans senescent changes of the cornea including a reduction in epithelial luster.
  • Amendment 4 bans the production of apolipoprotein, APOE4.
  • Amendment 5 bans magic dust.
  • Amendment 6 bans osteopenia.

Co-sponsors included Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA), Chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA).

“Building on House Democrats 2012 success, these outstanding leaders of our party are committed to standing up for the elderly and improving their quality of life!” said DCCC Chairman Steve Israel. “These exceptional Members will lead the charge to pick up seats in 2014 and continue reversing the Tea Party wave that would condemn our elderly to shortened lives of pain and deterioration.

“Rep. Johnson has determined that the United States Congress, through its ability to amend the laws of nature, can virtually eliminate these canons put into effect by another party.”

Click the banner below to tell Congressional Republicans to stop blocking this important Democratic effort to improve the “golden years” for our poor and elderly!

Stop Congress Button
–30–
 

Unhealthy Thoughts

Posted on by

“I had occasion to visit another blog for the first time in months,” my friend Dean “Dino” Russell said. “Either he has gone onto a tangent or else I have lost cognitive ability but I guess that is what bloggers do.”

I never do that. Last week, for example, I wrote about gas price gouging. This week, I shall share recipes for making cheese from mouse milk.

“Unfortunately I do not have access to lactating mice because I have them fixed almost at birth,” quoth Dino. “Now, if you ever do an Arts-and-Craft posting about tanning and using the tender skin of mouse scrotum for making everyday undergarb, then I’ll tune in.”

Coming soon, but that requires some high precision research and a government grant.

No MedicineMeanwhile, speaking of high precision research and government grants, Anthem Blue Cross/Blue Shield of NH became the Granite State (Slogan: No Choice or Die)’s only medical insurer on Saturday. The lack of insurance choice disappoints consumer and small business advocates, not to mention many actual patients, but it surprised no one. Only one company will sell insurance through the new online marketplaces required under the Obamacare “overhaul” of the healthcare system.

Hang on to that one thought: The lack of insurance choice disappoints patients, consumer advocates, and small business owners. The lack of insurance choice was driven by Obamacare, no matter what the politicals tell you.

Looks like New Hampshire employed the same strategy that didn’t work next door in Vermont.

Vermont laws whittled our choices down to one several years ago to force consumers onto a state plan. Voters rebelled but now, 21 years later, Gov. Peter Shumlin is poised to deliver a rout: no choice in insurance.

The history: The Vermont legislature created the Vermont Health Care Authority in 1992. That mostly-political body was to chart the course for health care reform. One of Vermont’s first reform actions was to pass laws that chased insurers out of the state. Then-state Sen. Cheryl Rivers (D-Windsor) and then-Gov. Howard Dean (D-VT) aggressively championed ideological health care changes.

The VHCA was the most highly centralized and powerful state agency in the country. They had regulatory and policy authority. They issued certificates-of-need and cut hospital budgets. They could change non-group community ratings of insurers. They expanded Medicaid access, developed uniform benefit rules and a global budget, and prepared two universal access plans.

Oddly, Vermont’s General Assembly failed to pass anything from VHCA in 1994. Or 1996. Or 1998…

Some on both sides of the aisle say they dumped a bunch of bad law. I believe the idea of giving the VHCA at least half a billion or as much as a billion 1994 dollars every year scared them all off. That’s more than the State of Vermont spent on everything else.

Vermont has bounced back, over the objections of the No-Choice Democrats who want one single one-size-fits-all plan with one payer for every man, woman, and child in the state. There are half a dozen companies offering a variety of private PPO and HMO plans now. As an aside, conservative Arizona still has 15 private plans plus a couple dozen more operating under Medicare/Medicaid.

Perhaps New Hampshire can bounce back.

I find it interesting that the “Pro-Choice” party is so determinedly No-Choice on every other issue. Don’t you?

 

You Can’t Fix Stupid

Posted on by

You Can't Fix Stupid t-shirtI saw a t-shirt at the Seafood Festival yesterday.

The local rocket scientists have been busy.

One day last week was unusually pugilistic for two of the furrier cops on the Key West police force: a police dog and a horse got punched out. In two separate incidents.

Incident one: A 21-year-old man punched the K-9 in the head when the suspect was found inside the Compass Realty office where cops had found a busted-out window and a trail of blood. They released the hound who hightailed it to the second floor of the building. The human cops followed the dog upstairs to find the soon-to-be-bustee wearing only shoes and socks, punching the dog in the head. [Editor’s Note: Officer Cyress is a 4-year-old German shepherd but Release the Hounds sounds far better than Release the Shepherds!]

Incident two (later that same afternoon): A 28-year-old “farmer” from Ramrod Key interrupted an investigation into underage drinking, leaned on the KW police horse (Key West has a police horse?), and punched it for no apparent reason.

As far as I know, it’s not even the full moon.

That’s just misdemeanor stupid.

We have to go north for the real thing.

“I’m willing to reduce our government’s Medicare bills by finding new ways to reduce the cost of healthcare in this country,” Mr. Obama said last year.

You Can't Fix Stupid But You Can Vote t-shirtThat was then.

Repuglicans and Demorats continue waging the soundbite fight over federal spending. One side claims that ObamaCare cuts Medicare by $716 billion, for example, mostly by squeezing providers. The other side claims that the “premium support” Medicare forces seniors to pay more out of pocket.

Both sides are right.

Both sides sing the constant chorus of “they’re cutting Medicare” to hammer the other guys and scare the seniors. Seniors vote, after all. Scared seniors vote early and often.

Seniors should be scared. Both sides think that the way to cut costs in any program is simple: just pay less. Both sides figure the way to fix government revenues equally simple: just pay more taxes.

Wow. Just pay less. I’ll do that at the grocery store today. “President Obama says I can pay you 2% less than the actual register tape. Cool.”

You Really Can’t Fix Stupid.

How hard is it to figure that cutting actual costs is better than raising actual prices?


Attorney Sues Self
Oh. Never mind.

 

Bad Citizenship

Posted on by

hurricane water damage“Citizens Insurance, or Citizens, is the popular name for government established, not-for-profit insurers in Florida and Louisiana,” Wikipedia explains. “[Here in] Florida, the insurer is Citizens Property Insurance Corporation. In Louisiana, the insurer is the Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance Corporation. Both were established in their respective states as insurers of last resort…

“Neither of these is connected with for-profit insurers with similar names.”

Citizens is government-owned and, as other companies pull out of this market, not the insurer of last resort but the insurer of only resort for most of us.

JULY–After six years without a hurricane in Florida, Citizens had an cash surplus of about $6.1 billion. That’s about the same as the entire public debt of the nation of Honduras. As a matter of fact, it is more cash in hand than the national debt of several small African countries (Botswana, Gabon, Libya, Mali, Mozambique, Nanibia, Uganda, or Zambia).

Citizens is trying everything it can think of to move its policies into Florida’s private insurance market while hanging on to our money. The other insurers discussed what to do in a back room meeting in July: They want to require Citizens to pay the private companies billions of dollars to take over the policies, and they will raise premiums.

AUGUST–With customers complaining about getting hit with higher premiums, Citizens announced they will revise their inspection program aimed at raising rates^H^H^H “helping prevent wind damage to homes.”

NOVEMBER–The state-backed insurance programs have angered hundreds of thousands of policyholders. The outcry from consumers followed a mind-boggling $137 million in premium increases. More than 175,000 property owners have already seen their premiums skyrocket by an average of $810 after an inspection. (My premiums here had already risen over $1,000 — about 48% — from 2006 through 2011, before my own inspection.)

I paid Citizens almost $3,300 last year. I paid the same amount this year because that’s the figure on their invoice. That was incorrect, but we’ll get back to that.

Citizens hires local inspectors rather than send their own employees out. I had put the inspection off all summer because I wasn’t here but I couldn’t do it forever because their default position is “no inspection no ‘discounts'” for our previously known hurricane protections, so my rates would get even worse.

The inspector, a nice fellow named Jose, took pictures of the roof straps and a piece of painter’s tape on a rafter on which he had marked nail locations, the window shutters, the door covers, and the roof.

Jose told me that, after Hurricane Wilma, he repaired his own loss by replacing (not just overhauling) his roof. He did the work himself so he never pulled a building permit. Citizens dropped him because they claimed he had not done anything on the roof since 1992. It took Jose six months and a lawyer to get covered again.

He strongly recommended that I get a copy of the inspection report from Citizens.

hurricane wind damageI did check to see that Citizens had properly credited my premium check to the account, only to find they have bumped my rates to over FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS per year. And put me on a “payment plan” in which my three grand check was merely the first installment. Good to have a government-run insurer helping us.

I talked with my agent. Looks like Citizens took away a $1,400 deduction for roof strapping and shutters. I expect to get that back. Sometime. See, they have to process the inspection which will take another 30-45 days. Then deny it. Then argue with my agent. Then argue with my lawyer.

That all means my policy will go up “only” $500 no matter what.

Most Florida homeowners pay Citizens far more for windstorm insurance alone than they pay in property taxes.

If you truly believe Obamacare will help you, understand that Citizens is the face of government-run insurance.

Shortfall

Posted on by

In just the Inland Empire of California, in the Mississippi Delta, in Detroit City, in suburban Phoenix, plus the major metropoli of both North and South Puffin, there may be a million people without commercial health insurance or Medicare or Medicaid. Mr. Obama says his signature health care law will extend coverage to more than 300,000 people by 2014 in that one region of California alone.

Good news?

Perhaps, but coverage may not translate into care: local health experts doubt there will be enough doctors to meet any of those areas’ needs. There simply are not enough docs even now.

THURSDAY, TWO WEEKS AGO
I had to wear comfortable, loose fitting clothes two weeks ago today (what, they don’t supply a johnny?) including a “button down shirt.” I wondered if they wanted one of my pinpoint oxfords or if poplin will be OK? They really meant a shirt with buttons, instead of one that pulls on and off over the head.

My cataracts have been growing for 3-4 years which is not enough for most insurance companies (many demand that vision diminishes to 20:40 corrected before permitting surgery) but mine said, “Just do it!”

eyeballWe got to the eye surgery center half an hour early only to find that the surgeon was running half an hour late. The IV Tech had trouble with my general furriness because he didn’t want me to have a Brozilian when he pulled the tape back off. I remember starting to roll out toward the procedure room and absolutely nothing from then to getting ready to be dropped at the curb. And it put my internal clock off so I have no idea of the elapsed time.

I felt like a tipsy old man when the put me in a wheelchair to wheel me out.

I was quite pleased to have things to hold on to for an hour or two after we left there. I napped part of the ride home.

FRIDAY
I said “you saw me but I didn’t see you” to the doc this morning but he told me I did see him and even asked a few questions.

He said surgery was routine.

Really good drugs: he could have said I cried like a baby and I wouldn’t know.

My white balance is back! It is amazing to see the difference in colors. Ditto the brightness. It may be about 4-6 weeks before the eye actually settles down to a steady focus.

Dr. Dowhan told me I can do my toe touches, tie my shoes, do dishes, anything that doesn’t involve lifting more than 25 pounds. He also figures the NSAID I take will have a synergistic effect with the steroid eye drops I’m using for a week.

That 25-pound restriction made me fear that I would need someone (else) to stack the winter supply when they do come in. And to pull the mower deck. And put up the storm windows. And so on. The Lumber yard finally got a shipment of pellets the day before my procedure and I arranged delivery for last Friday. Coincidentally, our son was here! Now I just need someone to Huck Finn the mower deck off the tractor and put it away.

SATURDAY
My eye was a little sore this morning, in the “eyelash caught under the lid” sense which the doc’s office told me to expect. The refractive error seems to keep changing ever so slightly each day.

TODAY
I have my second surgery this afternoon, opening my left eye to enormous possibilities, just two weeks after Dr. Dowhan had done the same to my right.

It might not have gotten done this year.

I’m fortunate. Some of the great eye centers of the country are within a day’s drive so I could have gone to Wills or Hopkins or even flown to Bascom Palmer in Miami without a second thought. I chose Thomas Dowhan here Vermont because he has as good a reputation as some of the other docs and because he passed Anne’s sniff test. Not only that, he could fit me in on my schedule.

Still, I couldn’t do it at my local hospital of choice because they had no openings until late November. I drove to an eye center an hour south of here.

Good that I got my eye patches this year.

The Association of American Medical Colleges forecasts that we’ll have a nationwide shortfall of 62,900 doctors (not patients, 62,900 doctors) in 2015. That number will more than double in just a dozen years, as we baby boomers and the 30 million newly insured drive demand for care ever higher.

“People will still get care,” Dr. Dowhan told me, “but the process gets slower and laborious and crankier.”

Federal Medicaid guidelines call for 60 – 80 primary care doctors per 100,000 residents in any region plus 85 – 105 specialists. The two counties in the Northwest corner of Vermont have 23 primary care docs associated with the one hospital and 67 specialists for about 56,000 residents. We’re on target today for specialists but we should already have 20 more primary care providers. And what do we do next year and the year after as our population rises? And today’s doctors age out?

Dr. Dowhan is just five years younger than I am. Can you spell r-e-t-i-r-e-m-e-n-t?

Obamacare makes all the metrics worse, from access to level of care to cost. That’s the story of this administration.

Even blind in one eye and can’t see with the other, we should all see that.