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« Reply #1 on: August 01, 2017, 03:45:34 PM » |
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The Patriot Post Digest 7-31-2017
From The Federalist Patriot
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OpenSecrets.org provides tremendous insight regarding why members of both political parties have focused primarily on lining the pockets of those third-party payers. It’s because senators27 and House members28 were getting their pockets lined in return during the 2016 election cycle. On the Senate side, the top three recipients of insurance company campaign contributions were Republican, including Ohio’s Rob Portman, whose vote in favor of ObamaCare repeal in 2015 — when it faced a certain veto — became a “no” vote last week when it really mattered. On the House side, the four top recipients were also Republican, led by “mercurial” House Speaker Paul Ryan, who garnered $666,849.
This dynamic reveals why Americans have endured the default ideologies and false dichotomies both parties contemptibly pitch as “reform.” ObamaCare was built on a foundation of lies29 and foisted on a “stupid” American public. The GOP “repeal and replace” effort?
Titanic deck chair rearranging.
Horowitz cuts through the bipartisan obfuscation with some essential guideposts. The first one is apparently as elusive as it is obvious: Medical insurance is not health care. Thus the cost problems of health care itself must be solved before the cost of insurance is determined.
When poverty necessitates government involvement? “The best way to offer a hand out is to give a direct handout — to empower the poor consumers to pay their bills directly rather than creating a market-distorting government program or lining the pockets of the venture socialist insurance cartel to administer a convoluted third-party program,” he explains.
For the rest of America, currently enduring the increasingly catastrophic permutations of ObamaCare’s death spiral, we begin with price transparency. A system where “all health care providers, from hospitals and surgery centers to doctor’s offices, medical labs, and pharmacies, post their prices online,” Horowitz states.
The far more critical component? Once again, sending the bill directly to the consumer, not the insurance company. “Consumers would then be able to decide whether they want to submit the claim or negotiate with the insurer to cover a certain percentage, just like they do with auto insurance claims,” he explains. “Except now they would be negotiating from a position of strength, because they are not flying blind without prices. Watch the dominos of government-run health care fall and the heads of big-insurance lobbyists explode.”
One additional component is equally critical. No provider should be allowed to “charge a different rate for each patient,” explains30 former hospital president Steven Weissman.
Another cartel-busting idea that already exists should be expanded. A section of the “Affordable” Care Act “allows ministries to get together and form non-profit health-sharing organizations that are exempt from Obamacare’s regulations and subsidies and immune to the crony capitalist greed inherent in the insurance cartel,” Horowitz reveals31. Non-religious organizations should be able to form similar sharing organizations and receive “the same tax benefits through the individual and employer tax scheme as the insurance cartel has enjoyed for 60 years,” he adds.
On to the proverbial elephants in the room. The cost reductions arising from making a private sector approach the root of health care reform would make Medicare and Medicaid reform far simpler to accomplish.
In fact, Medicaid could be eliminated. “Instead, we can directly pay most of the bills of the indigent and chronically ill without a government insurance program,” Horowitz writes. For those who can’t even afford reduced rates, “regulated escrow accounts” that directly pay medical bills, much like food stamps pay directly for food, could be created.
Such a system would not only eliminate the middleman but fraud as well — fraud that ranges somewhere between $68 billion and $230 billion every year, according32 to the National Healthcare Anti-Fraud Association.
Conservative Review offers an additional list of 20 other ideas33 that would radically reduce health care costs. They include ending the malpractice boondoggle, making more drugs available without prescriptions, and breaking up the AMA monopoly on medical school accreditation and physician licensing that fuels the nation’s doctor shortage, to name a few.
Why should Americans endure a system that empowers insurance cartels and government bureaucrats when they can have one that empowers patients and health care providers? If anything should die — with or without dignity — let it be the “default ideology” of false health care choices.
MORE ANALYSIS FROM THE PATRIOT POST
The Republican Party — Home to Conservatives and Patriots34 — Or at least it should be. It’s time the GOP took note of its own platform and started working to unify the party.
BEST OF RIGHT OPINION
Peggy Noonan: Trump, ObamaCare and the Art of the Fail35
Hans von Spakovsky: New Report Exposes Thousands of Illegal Votes in 2016 Election36
Kathryn Jean Lopez: Seeking Wisdom and Faith, Not Knowledge and Anger37
For more, visit Right Opinion38.
OPINION IN BRIEF
Burt Prelutsky39: “For not being able to agree on a bill with which to replace ObamaCare, some Republican senators, including Rand Paul, Jerry Moran, Lisa Murkowski, Mike Lee and Susan Collins, deserve to lose their next elections. As everyone knows, the original 10,000-page piece of legislation was studded with landmines set to explode the second the Republicans tried to dispose of it. But that was a given. The fact that so many holier-than-thou Republicans couldn’t bring themselves to agree on a compromise bill proves once again that they don’t know the first thing about governing or supporting their president so that he can proceed with his agenda to lower taxes, build a wall and renew the nation’s infrastructure. I understand these hold-outs like to think that they’re principled and therefore above the fray. However, if their dream is to hover above the common herd and remain squeaky clean, I suggest they leave Washington and pursue a career in the ministry. As I see it, if you’re afraid of getting a little muck on yourself, you are clearly unsuited to work in the slaughterhouse we call the U.S. Senate.”
SHORT CUTS
The Gipper: “I was 21 and looking for work in 1932, one of the worst years of the Great Depression. And I can remember one bleak night in the thirties when my father learned on Christmas Eve that he’d lost his job. To be young in my generation was to feel that your future had been mortgaged out from under you, and that’s a tragic mistake we must never allow our leaders to make again.”
For the record: “I don’t know if any Republican could have won in 2008. But John McCain surrendered any chance he had when he decided it would be too divisive to make an issue out of Barack Obama’s attendance at a church led by an America-hating, bigoted pastor. That decision guaranteed Obama’s election and the senator has now guaranteed that Obama’s legacy will survive.” —Gary Bauer
Non sequitur: “Well I think that [Russia and Comey] had an influence [on Hillary Clinton’s loss]. There is absolutely no question about that. But when you have a campaign, you’re responsible for your campaign. I don’t even want to go into that.” —Nancy Pelosi
“Look, taking on the insurance companies and the drug companies, taking on Wall Street, taking on a lot of very powerful forces that make millions of dollars a year from the current health care system is not going to be easy.” —Bernie Sanders’ explanation for why blue states have been unable to implement single-payer health care
Non Compos Mentis: “Let’s work together to improve our health care system in the way our Founding Fathers intended us to improve it.” —Chuck Schumer
The BIG Lie: “Obamacare is not hurting people. In fact, what would have really hurt people was if we would have passed Trumpcare.” —Sen. Chris Van Hollen
Late-night humor: “The publisher of Hillary Clinton’s upcoming memoir announced … that the title of her book will be the statement ‘What Happened.’ Well, that’s the censored version.” —Seth Meyers
Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis
Managing Editor Nate Jackson
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