• What Do You Do When The Health Planners Are Insane?

    Posted July 29, 2013: by Bill Sardi

    What Do You Do When The Health Planners Are Insane?  Answer: you get them some Botox.

    There are lots of cosmetic answers in the world of overpriced health care but no real savings.  Do you really think a country with a hobbled $16 trillion economy is really going to cut $1 trillion of needless care out of a $3 trillion annual bill for health care?

    The original documents written to describe the Affordable Care Act (ACA) said no real savings would be realized in the first decade of its inception.  That is because millions more Americans will be forcefully herded into buying health insurance and even more millions are now going to be going to doctors for care.

    Don’t get caught in the act

    The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is precisely that.  No, it is not affordable; it is an act, and you are in the stage play whether you like it or not.  You pay a penalty if you don’t decide to buy your way onto the stage. Those are the new rules, comrade.  Your role in the stage play is that of a naïve serf who feels deprived of health insurance and must have some like every other American, despite the fact you won’t be any healthier.

    Insurers were always trying to figure out how to get millions of insured Americans who made enough money to buy insurance to actually purchase it.  Now they figured out how to force them to buy.  Make it a law, you pay a penalty if you don’t buy (recall Supreme Court Justice John Roberts’ ruling that the Federal government cannot Constitutionally force anyone to buy anything, but it can invoke a monetary penalty if you don’t buy).

    Buying political votes with rebate checks

    The Federal government is putting on this “act” and bragging that it has finally forced insurance companies to spend 80 percent of premium dollars towards medical care or deliver rebate checks to Americans who have chosen (been coerced) to buy health insurance.  But all that is happening is insurance companies are playing footsy with politicians to make them look good.

    The White House is bragging that 13 million rebate (kickback) checks averaging $100 have already been mailed and Americans are already benefiting from the Affordable Care Act, and gullible Americans can’t see that this is a ruse.  The insurers simply over-price their product as they always have, use your money for a year and then send back the overcharge without interest.  Don’t you feel good getting that rebate check?

    Bottom line, all that has happened is doctors, hospitals and drug companies are ensured that are going to get paid, whether you elect to utilize their health plan or not.  With high deductibles, there is little chance most insurance plans will have to fork out much for delivery of health care.  That is why you will likely receive a kickback check (form of bribery to influence your vote in the next election).

    Not socialized but fascist medicine

    Forget the lofty promises of health care for all.  This isn’t socialized medicine like what is delivered in Canada, Great Britain or Sweden.  The Federal government has become a front for the private insurance companies in what has become yet another example of fascism in health care.  What the insurance companies couldn’t accomplish with marketing and advertising they have accomplished under the threat of law.

    In fact, it has established telephone rooms to take orders for private insurance plans, thus reducing the marketing and overhead costs for the nation’s health insurers.  Frankly, this is a sell-out to the insurance companies while making it look like the White House pulled out a big stick and disciplined the insurance plans.

    Everything government subsidizes is over-priced

    Does anybody really think health insurance rates are going to decline?  No, they are going to soar, just like the price of a college education soared beyond affordability when the Federal government said it would underwrite student loans.  Colleges simply raised their prices knowing it was a no-lose situation.

    Remember way back when, when the Federal government established quasi- governmental agencies to make home buying more affordable? That effort resulted in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, both which became a dumping ground for bad home loans issued by reckless lenders.

    The bad loans were simply placed on the government’s (public’s) ledger and lenders had no real risk.  The banker who issued your home loan is at zero risk while the home buyer is at great risk.  When Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae became insolvent, the Federal Reserve stepped into the breach and took over an additional $1 trillion of bad home loans off the accounting books of the banks.  Don’t you wish your business had such a rich uncle to bail you out?

    Advertising costs and dubious sales pitches

    An estimated $684 million is going to be spent advertising the Affordable Care Act via state-managed health insurance exchanges.

    Read of the plight of ACA poster patient Caryl Mauk, a 46-year old nurse who had to quit her nursing job in 2011 because of a heart condition.  A report in Time magazine says she “has been struggling with chest pains, arthritis and fatigue.”  But will she be any healthier under the Affordable Care Act?  Not likely, but she will surely be taking a lot of expensive drugs.

    The sales pitches for the Affordable Care Act should be submitted to the Federal Trade Commission for false advertising.  A few TV commercials already screened show Americans “magically transformed into champions, one minute shopping for health insurance on a computer and then next winning at a horse race in a casino with champagne corks flying,” says a Time magazine report.

    An example of one ad can be viewed online.  Its headline reads: “When health insurance plans compete, there’s only one winner: you.”  Let’s re-word that: “When health insurance plans collude with each other and the Federal government forces you to buy their product, there’s only one winner: politicians and the insurance companies.”

    When health insurance plans collude with each other and the Federal government forces you to buy their product, there’s only one winner: politicians and the insurance companies.

    Wasn’t it all about health?

    Bottom line, are more Americans going to be healthier under the Affordable Care Act?  No, but they sure are going to be medicated with those risky drugs the FDA keeps approving and recalling, and their doctors are now going to get paid.  And cash back too!  Don’t you feel better knowing that?

    Is the total cost of healthcare going to decline?  No, not with millions more Americans now holding insurance cards and demanding care.

    Why did the President “get out of Dodge?”

    If the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is such a predestined success, why did the President “get out of Dodge” and fly to Africa for a lengthy tour when it became apparent the ACA was going to shift millions of Americans from full-time to part-time work?

    When Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi realized a survey reported that three-quarters of small business owners were going to shift their full-time workers to part-time, she asked: “Are you serious?”  Yes, they are serious.  In Africa the President couldn’t be pinned down on the realities of an already failed health plan.

    Then why did former President GW Bush inexplicably fly to Africa to be showcased standing next to the President and present some semblance of support for a Chief Executive that was struggling with a way to politically win back public approval in the wake of this and other scandals back at home?  Before the President flew back of America in Air Force One, the Federal government announced it would delay implementation of the Affordable Care Act till next year, most likely till after the next mid-term election.

    (Can we ask, what kind of behind-closed-doors deal did the opposing political party make to help the President regain some semblance of public respectability so he could return to the USA without his tail dragging?)

    Government has laid a big egg.  It is already cracked.  The Affordable Care Act appears to be destined to become one of the worst social and financial disasters ever cooked up in Washington DC.  Politicians bought votes and insurance companies locked in premiums while doctors, hospitals and drug companies will finally get paid.  Everybody wins but the public.  But the advertising will tell you “you are a winner!”

    The lunatics in the asylum somehow became health care planners and there is no effective medicine to quell them.  Straightjackets are required.  They need a taste of their own medicine.  ©2013 Bill Sardi, Knowledge of Health, Inc.

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