Healthcare should be determined by the marketplace
Instead of further removing healthcare from the market, in which doctors and patients and other providers work together to help patients, we should return to that true free market in healthcare.
In that market, everybody is empowered --- but mostly individuals and definitely not bureaucrats. The bad guys will not control your healthcare dollars in a real marketplace.
Ron Paul is an American hero. When he was in Congress, he put out a bill, HR 1495, called the Comprehensive Healthcare Reform Act. It provides tax credits and medical savings accounts designed to do just that. This is a start and a good start but like most good ideas with a completely partisan Congress with a full takeover in mind, there was no action on the bill.
Dr. Paul also has a frank prescription for the Obamacare bill that passed in 2010 despite his objection:
"Scrap it."
Is Barack Obama a Doctor?
Listen to Ron Paul, who by the way is a Medical Doctor -- a Pediatrician who loves delivering babies.
What does he think of the healthcare bill that was rammed through the Congress?
"I think it's monstrous," Paul said.
"I don't think it will improve medical care in this country. I think it's very, very costly and we don't have any money. And they don't have any way of paying for it."
"On average, it's two or three times more expensive than they say. This is going to be incredibly expensive."
Has the government ever lied about anything before?
American Health Care Costs & Ron Paul
What happened to Health Care?
Until recently it seems that the U.S. healthcare system had been the envy of the entire world. In terms of advanced solutions, the US is still the leader but the system in which healthcare is offered, providers, patients, government, and insurance companies has deteriorated. It is more than coincidence that there was far less government involvement in medicine during the time America held a major leadership in healthcare.
Dr. Ron Paul adds:
"America always had the finest doctors and hospitals, patients enjoyed high-quality, affordable medical care, and thousands of private charities provided health services for the poor. Doctors focused on treating patients, without the red tape and threat of lawsuits that plague the profession today. Most Americans paid cash for basic services, and had insurance only for major illnesses and accidents. This meant both doctors and patients had an incentive to keep costs down, as the patient was directly responsible for payment, rather than an HMO or government program.
The lesson is clear: when government and other third parties get involved, health care costs spiral. The answer is not a system of outright socialized medicine, but rather a system that encourages everyone – doctors, hospitals, patients, and drug companies – to keep costs down.
As long as “somebody else” is paying the bill, the bill will be too high."
Ron Paul's conclusion: "Socialized medicine won’t work; nor will managed care. The simple solution is for employers to give tax exempt funds to individuals to buy their own insurance. The same market based solution would be open to all."
Socialized Medicine!!!
Hillarycare and Biden/Obamacare are socialized medicine. After Obamacare passed, Al Sharpton was quick to note that the people voted for Obama /Biden and later just Biden because they wanted a socialist government. They may have been hiding from using the S word or the P world (Progressive) because of negative overtones but now, they feel they have been empowered. Ask Bernie Sanders.
The Managed care system that saw its day and disappeared is a form of rationing that many see as the basis for Obamacare. Managed care exists today in many forms; it is just no longer called that. It seemed to work for everybody else but the doctor and the patient. The gatekeeper (Medicare. Medicaid, or an insurance company) decide what you get and don't get. Who decided that? With Obamacare, the insurance company's will have just a short while to decide and then it will just be Uncle Sam. And Uncle Sam has no problem saying "no" to your health care.
What is the real price of Obamacare
So, what is the best and lowest cost healthcare solution? Over the long haul, the only way to tame health care costs in the U.S. is to wrest control of medical dollars from third-party insurers such as employers and government--and hand it to individuals. We discussed this briefly in this essay. Once individuals become the paying customers instead of the government and the employers owning the show, then YOU can shop around for your own coverage and strike a deal that is best for YOU. Of course, that is not part of the Obama plan but then again, there is still hope that Obamacare may be repealed.
How can a system in which you theoretically can buy all you want with price as no object work anywhere. It's like those five minute shopping sprees that you can win in which you load shopping cart after shopping cart and it is all covered by the shopkeeper. Except in this Obamacare game, you can stay in the store forever until some bureaucrat or IRS agent calls your name.
Some will tell you that extending health care tax breaks to everyone would be unaffordable and too costly for Uncle Sam. It would cost a lot less than a $trillion. Besides, our employers are getting those breaks right now. It is illogical therefore to think that tax breaks for healthcare premiums and for services would put us in an even bigger hole. That would be possible only if Obamacare were free and we know that the visible number is now charted at least a trillion dollars. Let's not forget that we will be paying the price for about four years before any of the benefits for all can be used.
The huge numbers in the estimates of the price of ObamaCare are not looked upon so big because the public unfortunately is getting accustomed to the big deficit and debt numbers. Giving a few tax breaks to the public for health care costs would be far easier and substantially less expensive and something good for the people. -- So, don't expect it any time soon from this government.
The fact is that Obamacare comes at a painful price - higher insurance premiums, more taxes, and higher taxes, fewer jobs, lower wages, a reduced standard of living, an erosion of privacy and individual liberty, and rationing of healthcare. Whenever government has stepped in to make things better the costs go up, not down. Obamacare would be provided with the compassion of the IRS and the efficiency of the post office and soon the country would be out of business.
• Kentucky 1994 program premiums went up 36 - 165 percent
• Washington State premiums increased 76%
• State managed care in Massachusetts is the most expensive care in the nation
A recent Health Insurance industry study says Obamacare will add at least $4,000 for the family and $1500 per individual to your annual insurance costs. Blue Cross sees costs rising 50% with Obamacare. What does this mean? It means that $billions in new taxes on insurers, health care providers, device makers (pacemakers, defibrillators, etc.) will also need to be absorbed by patients in higher premiums.
There is no free lunch. It will be the largest tax increase in American History and they told you it would be free. Yet, logic suggests that nothing that cost even the underestimated $940 billion is free. That's impossible to do for free. On top of that to pay for Medicaid unfunded mandates, states would have to cough up another $33 billion at least and Medicaid is already bankrupting the states. And, thankfully, states cannot print money.
The truth is that government is not a huge magician that can provide free or subsidized care for someone without taking that money from someone else - and that someone else more than likely will be you. Welcome to socialism. Your checkbook will never rest until your account is empty.
Individual Mandate -- Healthcare & Your Freedom
On December 22, 2017, President Donald Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which eliminated the federal tax penalty for violating the individual mandate, starting in 2019. (In order to pass the Senate under reconciliation rules with only 50 votes, the requirement itself, at $0, is still in effect).
Obamacare -- More expensive as time goes buy
If you think healthcare is expensive now, wait until it is free! Can you really afford this kind of free healthcare? I don't think so.