Dr. Theodore Levy explains how a decline in our health care system could happen a little at a time, so citizens might not even realize the cause of their problems.
Archive for the ‘health care freedom’ Category
Time to take ‘Bad Medicine’
Wednesday, July 14th, 2010
The Cato Institute’s Michael D. Tanner has written a white paper on the new health care law. “Bad Medicine: A Guide to the Real Costs and Consequences of the New Health Law” is available here. Below is the executive summary.
For better or worse, President Obama’s health care reform bill is now law. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act represents the most significant transformation of the American health care system since Medicare and Medicaid. It will fundamentally change nearly every aspect of health care, from insurance to the final delivery of care.
The length and complexity of the legislation, combined with a debate that often generated more heat than light, has led to massive confusion about the law’s likely impact. But, it is now possible to analyze what is and is not in it, what it likely will and will not do. In particular, we now know that:
- While the new law will increase the number of Americans with insurance coverage, it falls significantly short of universal coverage. By 2019, roughly 21 million Americans will still be uninsured.
- The legislation will cost far more than advertised, more than $2.7 trillion over 10 years of full implementation, and will add $352 billion to the national debt over that period.
- Most American workers and businesses will see little or no change in their skyrocketing insurance costs, while millions of others, including younger and healthier workers and those who buy insurance on their own through the non-group market will actually see their premiums go up faster as a result of this legislation.
- The new law will increase taxes by more than $669 billion between now and 2019, and the burdens it places on business will significantly reduce economic growth and employment.
- While the law contains few direct provisions for rationing care, it nonetheless sets the stage for government rationing and interference with how doctors practice medicine.
- Millions of Americans who are happy with their current health insurance will not be able to keep it. In short, the more we learn about what is in this new law, the more it looks like bad news for American taxpayers, businesses, health-care providers, and patients.
Mandates to cause rise in health insurance costs
Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010Michael F. Cannon of the Cato Institute points out that health insurance premiums will be going up between 1 and 7 percent for Americans thanks to the new health care law:
All told, ObamaCare’s unlimited-coverage mandates will increase the premiums of affected consumers by an average of about 1 percent, and as much as 7 percent for some consumers. Or maybe more: the administration acknowledges that a “paucity of data” about the impact of these mandates means that there is “tremendous,” “substantial,” and “considerable” uncertainty about the mandates’ costs.
Yet another reason to be thankful for the health care sharing ministry exemption.
Health care freedom advances in Louisiana
Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010Louisiana’s health care freedom act is expected to soon be law.
WASHINGTON, June 21 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Last Friday, June 18, 2010, Louisiana became the first state with a Democrat-controlled legislature to oppose a requirement to purchase health insurance—the centerpiece of President Barack Obama’s health reform agenda. Louisiana House Bill 1474, which passed the Louisiana Senate with strong bipartisan support, will soon head to Gov. Bobby Jindal’s desk. The measure is modeled after the American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC) Freedom of Choice in Health Care Act now introduced or announced in 42 states.
MSNBC.com posts piece on health care sharing
Wednesday, April 14th, 2010MSNBC.com reporter JoNel Aleccia published a piece on health care sharing ministries today, with a heavy emphasis on Samaritan Ministries International. JoNel’s story focused on members Mike and Mary Suitter of Hayden, Idaho.
HAYDEN, Idaho – Mary Suitter is sporting fresh bandages on her face and arm, markers of two new biopsies that may reveal yet another bout with melanoma.
Though she lacks conventional health insurance, the 57-year-old mother of four says she isn’t worried about the costs of a recurrence of her 2006 diagnosis with the deadliest form of skin cancer.
Suitter — and her husband, Mike, a handyman and builder — are members of a health care sharing ministry, a religious co-op whose participants agree to support each other — and to pay each others’ medical bills.
Also quoted were Tracy Kamprath of Texas
Tracy Kamprath, 49, of Chappel Hill, Texas, admits she had doubts about the program when she was diagnosed with a brain tumor two years ago.
“We weren’t sure, but we joined in faith,” said Kamprath, a former Christian school teacher whose family had no other option for health insurance when they signed up two years before she became ill.
The bill for her successful treatment topped $240,000, but with discounts for paying cash and some negotiations with providers, the Kampraths were able to reduce it to $60,000, which was covered by dozens of Samaritan members.
“Every penny was paid for,” she said.
and Samaritan VP James Lansberry:
The federal exemption to mandatory insurance may fuel even more interest in the health care sharing ministries. Samaritan is already enrolling 200 new members a month, Lansberry says, numbers that may grow as the 2014 deadline for mandatory insurance looms.
There’s also a poll about the value of health care sharing ministries and, on the poll page, a place for comments. Please weigh in with your opinion and add some comments if you see the need.
Thanks to the Suitters and Tracy Kamprath for agreeing to be interviewed and for representing Samaritan members.
New law ‘final nail in coffin’ for primary care docs: physician
Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010Samaritan’s July 2009 newsletter featured Dr. Steven Knope, a pioneering direct-services doctor in Tucson, Ariz. He told us then he was adamantly opposed to the type of health care legislation being proposed in Congress. After the Senate health care bill became law on Tuesday, we asked him for his thoughts, and it was clear he is just as much opposed to it now as he was then. He says insurance does nothing to improve people’s access to quality health care.
What nobody is discussing is the simple truth that “health insurance” is NOT “health care.” Insuring people per se does nothing to improve their access to quality health care. In fact, insuring all Americans by government fiat will ironically lower the quality of care for all Americans, including the majority that previously had the best healthcare in the world.
This bill will add roughly 15 million people to the Medicaid rolls, yet there will be no new physicians who will be willing or able to care for them. I know of only a couple physicians in my community that accept new Medicaid patients. Medicaid and Medicare do not pay physicians enough to stay in business. Accepting these state-run insurance plans creates an unsustainable business model for physicians.
If this bill stands, it will be the final nail in the coffin for the future of internal medicine, pediatrics and family practice. The best and the brightest will no longer be attracted to these critical areas of primary care medicine. This will lead to a vacuum in primary care medicine. The vacuum will be filled by nurse practitioners and physician assistants. People will no longer see their doctor; they will see their nurse. This decline in the level of care will be only one of the unintended consequences of the de facto nationalization of medicine.
Dr. Knope is the author of Concierge Medicine: A New System to Get the Best Healthcare.
