August 20th, 2016
We have been warned about the consequences since the Democrats rammed Obamacare through the House and the Senate almost six and a half years ago. Many said that the promise that we could keep our doctors was hollow and it was. They also said that premiums would increase and they have. They said that the insurance companies would lose money and leave the exchanges and the latest headlines have proven that prediction to be true also. This is frightening news for mature Americans because these failures of Obamacare will require more money to be squeezed from Medicare to finance this ill-advised answer to healthcare reform.
While the President would like us to focus on drug prices, the truth is that in the last six and a half years, hospital and doctor costs have risen faster than drug prices. It is the Medicare payments to doctors and access to healing medicines and home care and device payments that have suffered. This is the real problem for those of us that depend on Medicare.
It is my belief that the President’s end game, and the end game of the woman that the polls right now say will be his successor, is to centralize the government’s control of healthcare. Obamacare is forcing doctors to become employees of huge hospital conglomerates that are more easily regulated by the government. The attack on Medicare is cutting down our options, making doctors less willing to even treat Medicare patients, even working to reduce payments on Medicare Advantage so we have less supplemental insurance choices. Not only do they want to get insurance companies out of Obamacare they want to get them out of Medicare also. I think government controlled healthcare at all levels has been the end game all along.
Each year, at a Florida Council on Aging conference, myself and a more liberal colleague offer a seminar where we debate issues and problems and offer often differing solutions. This conference is attended by healthcare service providers and the seminar was full again this year. The debate was open and interesting. One very interesting part of the seminar was a show of hands poll, answering the question of who would welcome a single payer form of healthcare in America. . . more than half the room raised their hands.
With the continued disintegration of Obamacare, the loss of access, choice and service in Medicare will continue. I think Americans are beginning to lose faith in our healthcare system and in our weakness many are beginning to look to the government to “rescue” us. Many healthcare providers in Florida already would welcome government controlled healthcare. Many have succumbed to the siren song that the government can solve all of our problems. We forget that it was the free market that fueled our rise to become the greatest country in the world. It was the greatness of the individual, not the government, that made it possible.
RetireSafe respects the hard work older Americans preformed to continue to build this great country and we will continue to work to stop those who would let the government control healthcare. Public/private partnerships like Medicare Part D, have proven that we can capture the power of the free market and make it work in a regulated healthcare environment. We should explore more of these type of solutions.
While the headlines are all about the Presidential candidates, we cannot ignore the battle of who should represent us in the House and the Senate. Those candidates who respect the individual and want to keep the government out of our lives ought to win our vote.
We all need to work to stop this insidious end game and keep the government from totally controlling healthcare.