The Path To Protecting Patients Is A Shut Down In DC

Proponents of The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act would have you believe the necessity of passing the bill justified NOT READING it and NOT PREPARING for rolling out the program with a cost analysis.

Consider this – The PPACA was passed, Dec 24th 2009.  That is THREE and a half YEARS ago.  Congressional Campaign/Town Hall meetings earlier this year by Henry Waxman and Brad Sherman revealed the mysterious details of the bill would be made known as we came closer to October, all because the bill had to be passed in a hurry.  Brad Sherman detailed the impending doom this past September, by using the dramatic example of the cost of aspirin being distributed by massive numbers of people at ER’s, for upwards of $10.00 a pill.  And everyone in the room succumb to this hypothesis as justification for not reading the bill, passing a bill without any detailed infrastructure, and NO clear identity of enforcement (AKA use of the IRS).   

So let’s go over some details

1.        A study in 2011, by the government, entitled “ National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) for the civilian noninstitutionalized adult population”, pronounced this interesting fact: 61% of adults surveyed over 18 were in good to excellent health.   Huh?  I thought, according to the proponents and doom-and-gloom statisticians Americans were dying in droves along the roadside.  They had no hope.  Which is why we had to hurry up, find a solution, and spend the money to implement it  NOW without reading the bill. http://www.LetsAskADoctor.com

2.       ER’s dispensing aspirins at $10 a pill is/was breaking the “system”.  Bankrupting families.  People were going to ER’s instead of a regular provider because they did not have insurance and therefore could not afford to have a traditional office visit.   FACT: ER’s stopped handling non-emergency services over 10 years ago.  The Urgent Care facilities INSIDE a hospital, operating 24/7 is an automatic receiver of all non-emergency patients, even if they walk in the emergency room at 2am.    The responsibility of the cost is determined AND at a reduced rate of ER services.

3.       October 1st is here and I think the legislators realize the only way out is to across-the-aisle save face and defund the PPACA because everyone now realizes the subsidizing of premiums is basically a bail-out for insurance corporations, the rates are not any lower than they have been; even taking into consideration the reduction of commissioned sales agents and employing state “exchange” enrollers. 

4.       Until the Supreme Court ruled the PPACA was a tax the IRS had no legal authority to administer penalties and enforce enrollments. Hmm IRS has control cradle to grave and then some.

5.       The deadline of mid-Dec for enrollment is not the end of the world but it will push out your coverage to a later date.  WHAT?  If I don’t act now I won’t have insurance?  I thought this was the plan to get 100% enrollment so we wouldn’t have people dying in the streets.

So the Federal Shutdown is blamed on politics and in reality if we had enough money to run the government we would not have a reason to NOT PASS the budget.  Think about this.  If the government was not so busy trying to do everything at twice the cost, people would not be forfeiting health options because taxes would not be at record high for middle-class families out-of-the-loop of loopholes afforded the elitist.

So maybe, just maybe the government shut down is the best path for the legislators (who are still being paid) to see how Americans have had to operate , to get by:  cutting things out of their lives – just so they can pay higher taxes to afford wars that benefit multi-nationalists.   Maybe, just maybe the Republi-Crats legislators  will wake up and realize less is better.