One of the many reasons conservatives dislike government overreach is because government is so often wrong about so much. And what’s worse, regardless of the magnitude of the government’s failures, citizens are stuck with the consequences of those policies, in most cases forever.
This is not a new phenomenon. This has been going on for decades. Upon its establishment in 1965 the House Ways and Means Committee estimated that the cost of Medicare would rise to $12 billion by 1990. Unfortunately for American taxpayers that prediction was off by a power of nine, coming in at $110 billion. And things haven’t gotten any better since then. By 2011 Medicare costs ballooned to over $550 billion, having grown by 8.3% in a year when inflation was 3.2%.
But of course Medicare is but one example. Medicaid had a similar experience. The same House committee estimated that Medicaid’s first-year costs would be $238 million. Instead it came in more like $1 billion. It was projected to cost $9 billion by 1990 and, surprise, it came in at $67 billion. By 2011 the federal share of the program tipped the scales at $299 billion!
Tellingly, before government set its claws into healthcare it tracked very close to overall inflation. Since 1965 however, healthcare costs have increased by 2.3 times the rate of general inflation. To put that in perspective, inflation would have made something that cost $100 dollars in 1965 cost $718 dollars in 2012. That’s a pretty big jump, but if that $100 dollar item had increased at the rate of healthcare inflation since government got involved it would cost 2.3 times as much, or $1,651. At the same time, healthcare costs went from 5.1% of GDP in 1960 to approximately 18% today.
This record of financial incompetence (nevermind operational incompetence and malfeasance) could never survive for five decades in the private sector. But in government, no problem, and it’s not just healthcare. Think of Solyndra. Think of General Motors. Ethanol mandates. School lunches. The fact of the matter is, bureaucrats sitting in the otherworldly universe of Washington have a long history of making decisions about which they are unqualified and ill-informed, and more importantly, disconnected from the consequences of those decisions.
Now however we are about to embark on a journey that will make even the economic disaster of Medicare look like child’s play. Of course we’re talking about Obamacare. Although there were many warnings that Obamacare would be a disaster of epic proportions before it became law, today, less than a year from its true implementation, we are seeing the actual consequences begin to materialize.
Millions of jobs will be lost, one small company at a time. People will have a difficult time finding a full time job. Healthcare premiums will be going up. There will be a doctor shortage. Obamacare will become a regulatory anvil around the neck of American prosperity. Luckily though the Obama administration is on the job seeking to ensure that it doesn’t become a “third world experience“. Which, it’s looking like it just might become. And to put a cherry on top, with our practically no existent GDP growth, apparently we can look forward to China overtaking the United States by 2016.
As bad as those things are, it actually gets worse. Your individual liberty is simply going to disappear. Many employees are now going to have to begin reveling to employers their weight, body fat measures, cholesterol levels and more. Pharmacy giant CVS states that all its employees will now have to either quit smoking or enroll in an addiction program by 2014. That is of course because smokers generally have higher healthcare costs than do nonsmokers, and since CVS is paying for that healthcare, they get to make the rules. Don’t like it? Then quit.
But then it’s not only smokers who cost more. Fat people generally cost more than thin people. Does that mean that a company can dictate that employees must be Oreo or Doritos or Coke free by the end of the year or enroll in an addiction program? How about motorcycle riders? They are 5 times more likely to be involved in a traffic accident than are car drivers. Does that mean that companies can tell you what you what kind of vehicle you can drive? How about unmarried women having sex out of wedlock, particularly minority women, where 77% of black births and 53% of Hispanic births are to unwed mothers? Given that sick children inflict an increased financial & healthcare burden on unwed mothers than they do on married mothers, can a company demand that unmarried female employees purchase and utilize birth control? (If so, how would they ensure compliance with usage?) Sure, all of this sounds farfetched, but so too once did the idea of schools telling moms what they can put in their children’s lunchboxes, cities banning Happy Meals and soft drinks and companies actually firing employees for being smokers.
At the end of the day, Obamacare may very well be the last stake in the coffin of individual liberty and American prosperity. Think of it this way… through the tax code the government already exercises a tremendous amount of influence on your life by deciding how much of your money you can keep. It’s pretty personal, but it’s largely financial, even if it impacts much of the rest of your life. Through the EPA the government influences your life, although thankfully for most of us it’s at an arm’s length, via regulation of the companies we work for and the firms we buy from. With Obamacare that scant remaining barrier between government and individual choice will disappear. Government is indirectly harnessing employers to expand its power over every aspect of your life, including the most intimate parts of it. And you can be sure it will stay indirect for only so long. Once government mandates can decide what you can eat, how much you have to exercise, the kind of transportation you choose and how you have sex, what is left of liberty? Not much… Add to that the evisceration of the greatest economic engine the world has ever known and you wonder how long before it all comes crumbling down.  Now where does one go to get insurance to protect against that?
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Why do you repeat such blatant lies?
JOHN,
Do you know what “idiot/screwup care” is going to pay for an office visit? How many fingers do you have on both hands? Now, add two more fingers. That is correct, 12 or $12/office visit and your doctor will wait 3-6 months for payment.
Enjoy the future….
?At the end of the day, Obamacare may very well be the last stake in the coffin of individual liberty and American prosperity. Think of it this way… through the tax code the government already exercises a tremendous amount of influence on your life by deciding how much of your money you can keep. ”
“With Obamacare that scant remaining barrier between government and individual choice will disappear.”
Tons of people had “healthcare” through programs such as Medicare and Medicaid….so people having “healthcare” was not truly the “issue” …..This OFraud ‘care’ got ‘sold’ to America and the low information voter and freebie addict… under the guise that everybody should have health “insurance” (twist of words there) not ‘just’ heathcare….. And, many bought it hook, line, and sinker…
The health “Insurance” is ‘Mandated’ by the Law of the U.S. Government (the new “God” to many). Hefty trouble if you do not “Purchase” mandated [Hugely Expensive] “Health Insurance” through the now Huge Bureaucracy called the U.S. Government…
…Since they [the Government] will ‘control’ the ‘costs’ of Health Insurance….expect a ‘nanny’ state trickle down effect…and since they [the Government] are wholly incompetent in Business [except for
collectingstealing YOUR MONEY] via taxes….expect this to be a disaster for everyone, on many, many, many, many fronts….especially for those who cherish their “God given” freedoms and liberties….The shat is going to hit the fan…BIG….it’s going to be a real eye opener for the dull and ignorant…
Freedom is not ‘Free’….
….and neither is the new and ‘improved’ Government run Health Care…
Well, Good Luck to the ‘new’ Generation who voted for this…you will be feeding this growing, growing, growing Bureaucracy called the US Government for many many many years to come….
Cuba just may be down the road…
@John: Hey troll… if you’re going to accuse someone of telling lies, at least be ambitious enough to refute those “lies” with facts…. oh… you can’t… your ignorance is showing again.
This is second post of yours I have read today, both the same, your village is looking for ya…
I read the law because my 47 year old brother has progressive MS, has use of only one arm and lives in an ‘old folks’ home. Because of obamacare he is in jeopardy of losing the care he receives because he has no productive life. He can’t work, he can’t even go to the bathroom unless lifts him up and takes him. He is a burden on the healthcare system. obamacare will deny care or extensive care to those who have no productive life (e.g., MS, down syndrome), who are terminally ill and/or those who are over 75. Those ‘death panels’?, they are not listed by that name but they are there. Every five years after a certain age (and I don’t think that age has been established), a person will go before the panel every five years to ascertain their health . However if you have any of the ailments listed above (and more ), you will go before the board more frequently. Then it will be decided between you and the board (who ever that may be) whether it is best for you to take the magic pill and sit back and wait to die. Remember when obama held a town hall meeting and a woman stood up to speak and talked about getting surgery for her 95 year old mother? obama asked her why she didn’t just give her mother a pain pill and forget about the surgery since she was so old. Think about that statement when you think of your parents or elderly siblings or other family members. Just like in Great Britian, the old will be left on the gurney in the hallway to die.
From what I read the health care law is for the young and the healthy. However not ALL young. A congressmen during the heated debates when it was a bill demanded that abortion be part of the bill because babies being born place a burden on the health care system. So therefore, the health care law is for the young already on this earth and the healthy.
I found out the other day that if you smoke (which I do not), you are going to be forced to pay an extra $3,000 a year for insurance. The IRS has deemed that for a family of 4/5 for the bronze plan will be $19,000 a year. So if you smoke and have a family you will pay a minimum of $22,000 a year for healthcare. -and this is for everyone? of course not over 7 million people will lose their health care and will not be able to get this obamadeath care plan. Heaven only know what the gold and platinum will cost. Of course what each plan entails has not been disclosed (probably not even been thought about yet).
Now a bill has been introduced by the senate (hello that isn’t their job) to allow illegals to get on the obamahealth care plan. Who the hell do you think is going to pay for all of this? illegals? no they only want whatever they can get for FREE and we, the tax payers end up resourcing it. If you think it is bad now, just wait. Someone has to pay for all of this, and the 53% that pay taxes are going to be stuck (and the really wealthy are already jumping ship). O.K. the 47% ? For those work and are in the 47%. If you pay taxes through your salary and get 100% of those taxes back, you pay NO taxes, plain and simple.
For those who are still in denial, I will take a wild bet they will be one of the first to complain that their taxes are going up, the commodities they buy have increased in price and their doctor has either retired or left town because they can’t afford to practice because of obamacare. Reality is a bitch.
Reality. It exists outside of the bubble. If you were mistaken about what the outcome of the. last election would be then YOU WERE LIVING IN A BUBBLE. If you thought Romney was even going to come close to winning you were living in a bubble.
john said, “…YOU WERE LIVING IN A BUBBLE.”
Your inability to see ObamaCare instability issues reflects your refusal to understand anything but life through a rose colored bubble.
Ignore the premium increases the insurance companies say are coming.
Ignore the reduced coverage.
Ignore the rationing of services aka “death panels”.
Ignore the number of doctors either refusing to participate or becoming primary care physicians demanding cash payments.
Ignore the fact that fewer are becoming doctors.
You’ll still get to play.
John, you must be brain damaged. Your posts make little sense and add nothing to this serious issue.
The knucklehead democrats favored voting on this abomination before it was even completely written, why? Because they already knew, in essence, what it was going to say and accomplish. They hate this country and want to complete its destruction. This has been true for the many decades I’ve been around. This bill will end up bankrupting the country and in the meantime will destroy the lives of many people while doing so. The sad irony is that the empty headed young who voted for the dictator will live long enough to see the full impact of this garbage.
Freedom is dead or dying. There are so many side issues that go along with this it isn’t funny. Anything, literally, that some bureaucrat labels as ‘risky behavior’ can be outlawed. My grandfather smoked cigarettes for 70 years and never had cancer, lung disease, or any ‘smoking related’ illness. Now they want to regulate cigars. As if a cigar once in awhile is going to destroy your health. But the real inhibitor is the ability of government to say, OK, no more scuba diving, snow skiing, rock climbing, bike riding on roads, eating anything they say is bad for you, getting too much/too little sleep, etc., etc., etc.
So, all it’s ever taken for leftists to destroy the US is a generation or so. Thank government schools for providing a good solid socialist education for these people.
Everyone who is able to should be ready to practice full-on civil disobedience against this law, enough so that it will make the civil disobedience of old (segregation, prohibition, draft-dodging and marijuana use, etc) look like small potatoes. This is perhaps the only way (other than the inevitable total collapse) in which this abominable law can be weakened or killed (only other option is a congressional bloodbath in 2014 for the Dems). You can do this whether you currently have insurance or not. If you don’t have it and don’t want it, don’t buy it – but make sure you adjust your withholding so that at tax time you more or less break even, so there is nothing there for the IRS to confiscate. If you do have it, then stick to your guns and keep the plan you have, regardless of whether it is “acceptable” to the powers that be. As far as I know the plan I have won’t pass muster, but I don’t give a rat because NO ONE is going to tell me what kind of product or service I must buy simply because I am alive. PERIOD. I have insurance I can afford and that’s the way it’s going to be, at least unless my insurance company bites the dust under the constraints of Obamacare, and if that day comes, I’ll simply have to learn to do without or just pay cash to my doctor for what little care I already need. And then start saving up for some “medical tourism” for when I get older.
@john:
I feel a little pity for you that you are so drunk on the kool-aid your tongue is probably permanently green. No not really, I just believe that you are one of those people that do not conduct your research and believe everything that your liberal friends tell you. A shame. However it doesn’t matter what we say on this board, you will be able to experience it pretty soon – and then come back and tell us how it worked out.
You really want to go back to a time (just a few years ago) where insurance companies can cancel or deny coverage and you have to sell your house or hold a spaghetti dinner at the local VFW to pay for a family member’s surgery or treatment? Or are you just willing to die for your uninformed views?
@John: Well John, if the government takes complete control of health care (obviously your desire) and “they” decide to deny you care, you won’t be able to buy it no matter how many fund raisers are held at the VFW. Are YOU willing to die for your uninformed views? Do you ave any real idea what’s in the almost 3000 page bill? And how about the 61,000+ pages of uncontrolled regulations that it creates? You’re all good with that, right? And you really trust Obama and his administration?
Your village is still looking for you…
SchreckenLicht
hi,
your comment remind me of that young man selling paper in his boot,
he was approach by the tax man one day, given a date to pay a due amount,
he did not have the money ready, so he let it go,
a week after he go home after his work, the house is empty, his wife is gone,
he was so humiliate about it, he disappear from view,his busyness had been taken away,
he was well like and a good worker selling from early morning hours, never miss a day,
the person telling that story felt so bad for him and the abuse he had been target in by the tax-man,
he said he left and never return again.
is in it the murder of a poor man hard working and stable in his work, to one day rip him of his life,
I never forgot that story, so sad, and I saw the heartless way the government can break a life using their power without remorse of having destroyed a family.
bye
The above are not lies. Enjoy the imposition of the worst healthcare system in the world, modeled totally on the UK National Healthcare System, the current world’s worst healthcare system. It’s socialism at its best—equally bad healthcare for all. It is wealth redistribution at its best while beginning the long road to radically decreased population, a la the UN’s Agenda 21.
We do all kinds of research to increase longevity, but how long will one be able to live if a bureaucrat looks at your age and simply decides to with-hold any more healthcare for you based ONLY on your age and not your health? The doctor-patient relationship will be gone and bureaucrats will decide your life. Not lies—socialist reality.
John, the new reality is that doctors will be able to deny you care as well. They just can’t deny you insurance. Per-existing condition? Get ready to be thrown into the high risk Medicaid pool and wait several years for care. If you fall above the threshold of acceptable risk on the actuarial table you may never see any care at all. All I can say is, attempt to read the sections of the law that pertain to you. The point of this law was to overturn the republic and destroy what was left of our financial standing, not to deliver health care. Why do you think they passed a shell bill and filled it in later? Why do you think they wanted to deem it as passed?
John, as all leftists unable to think critically, you are overrruled by your emotions. Thinking that there is a magic rainbow bridge from which leprechauns carrying pots of gold while riding on unicorns to save all of humanity by paying to establish some liberal utopia where all problems can be solved by just wishing for them to be solved is the essence of liberal insanity.
Obamacare is destroying the highest quality medical care in the world. These dire problems are only the beginning. I know. I am a physician. There is a projected shortage of 50,000-90,000 physicians in primary care by 2020. There will be an even greater shortage as the inevitable rationing of care and cutting of physician salaries by 50% or more occurs. You will not be able to get doctors to do what we do at government mandated reimbursements. Why do you think the majority of physicians are no longer accepting new Medicaid patients?
The government pays Medicaid disbursements to physicians for services rendered at 11-15% of what it costs the physician to take care of the patient. Do you understand that? That means the physician LOSES MONEY taking care of Medicaid patients. Physicians have to raise their charges on patients who earn/pay for their health insurance in order to make up for the LOST EXPENSE of taking care of government Medicaid patients. How long do you think someone can stay in business where their operating expenses are 85% more than their accounts receivable?
That is only one of the reasons health care costs are rising the way they are. Government interference is the main reason it costs so much. When you buy car insurance, you get to choose your deductible. You get to choose if you want full coverage or just liability. You even choose how expensive a car you want to insure. Your car insurance does not pay for your oil changes, tire changes, wiper replacements or for putting gas in your car. But with the government taking over health care (which is what Obamacare is doing, make no mistake) everyone has to pay for every conceivable medical coverage issue regardless of whether they want it or not. So women have to pay for prostate screenings. Men have to pay for pap smears and mammograms. Older people beyond child bearing age have to have coverage for birth control and childbirth. Everyone has to pay for coverage for mental health, addiction recovery, and anything else that lobbyists bribed the marxists to put into obamacare. There is no choice. There is no individual decision on how much coverage and for what services someone decides they want versus things they obviously don’t need. This makes increases in insurance costs inevitable, which is, frankly, what I believe the obamunists intended on doing in the first place.
Do you understand that obamacare does NOTHING to increase the number of physicians to care for all the people who are supposedly getting “free” health care? In what alternate universe can you cut reimbursements to physicians yet expect them to see even more patients? Yet the obamacare bill specifically mandates an additional 15,000 IRS agents to steal even more money from hardworking Americans to piss away on this intentionally deceptive marxist scam. How many patients are these 15,000 new IRS agents going to see do you think? Bet you can’t wait to get your vasectomy from your friendly federal IRS agent, right? Or have your wife get her next speculum exam from that IRS agent, right?
One of the other problems making medical care so expensive is the ambulance chaser industry. These despicable pieces of filth known as malpractice attorneys are the lowest of the low. They prey upon people who have had some medical tragedy occur, promise to make someone else pay them for their misery, then they get a jury of people (selected for their lack of medical experience and total susceptibility to emotional manipulation of the most egregious sort) to blame the doctor…the ambulance chaser takes a “contingency fee” from the jury award that is at least 40-50% of the award, PLUS LEGAL EXPENSES. Yet they want you to believe they “care” about their client…. This causes physicians to perform defensive medical tests and procedures to protect themselves from being accused of malpractice. …and increases the cost of medical care for everyone.
You keep thinking your socialist scam of obamacare is better than free market medicine. If you think we have had free market medicine while we have been fighting the idiocy of Medicare and Medicaid and the inherent government bureaucratic inefficiency, then you simply do not know what you are talking about. You are a slave to your need to feel good about yourself by “doing something” to avoid feeling guilty about the fact that life is not fair and some people suffer because of that fact.
You might have a shred of credibility in supporting obamacare if you were in the medical field and were happy about becoming a slave to government bureaucrats with no experience taking care of patients shackling you and telling you what you are allowed to do to take care of your patients. But I am certain from your pontificating bloviations that you are nothing but a lost leftist soul.
Also, if obamacare is so freaking wonderful, then please explain to me why the bill EXEMPTS members of Congress, their family members, as well as the congressional staff workers and their family members from participating in obamacare?
Obamacare delenda est.
Pete
thank you,and may GOD bless you and protect you from the those who
have no scrupuls in stealing your valuable knowledge and work,
by using their power to humiliate your profession of healing the citizens,
which they try to impose on you more burdens,than you can take
on a devalue scale they dictate, which is a failure as the other restrictions they already impose to all AMERICANS, abusing their tolerance and humiliate them all constantly.
which has never happen before,
telling us they are ANTI AMERICANS,
and must be charge for their fraudulent actions,
and sent out and cut of of the power they use to hurt AMERICA on so many failed decisions,
apart from ruining AMERICA
@Pete: It’s always good to get an insider’s view. Thanks for the services you provide to people. A buddy of mine from the VFW returned from Florida after the election and people he knows down there who are from Canada and Europe were asking how the American people could have made the choice they did. They said they live in the world that Obama wants for us and it’s no prize, specifically mentioning healthcare. The ones from Canada go to Buffalo for their healthcare needs.
@Scott Malensek; These IS no government take over of health care. Don’t you remember, the GOP got the insurance companies involved so they can still make their billions.
Show me where and how Obamacare will ‘ration health care.” The insurance companies before Health Care Reform were doing just that! It’s how my friend’s grandmother finally succumbed to her disease. Aetna refused to pay for any more treatments. He sold her house, had benefit dinners but in the end, couldn’t afford it out of pocket. Wake up, please. And stop with the ‘treasonous’ crap.
Obamacare does not ‘exempt members of Congress…’ they have their own free Cadillac plans. Something we should all have.
Get some facts: http://obamacarefacts.com/benefitsofobamacare.php
I was looking for a Medicare doctor in southern Maine. Only three of thirty four doctors contacted were accepting new Medicare patients. My Congresswoman and Obamacare supporter, Chellie Pingree’s (a blow-in from MN) office tells me I am the only one who has this problem. After sending the list of doctors who are refusing new patients, I haven’t heard a word, but I’m sure they are still telling every individual senior who calls that they are the only ones complaining.
PS Pingree’s husband is a billionaire hedge fund owner who also owns the Maine’s “Premier” newspaper the Portland Press Herald. They also own houses all over the country including two (!) mansions in the Virgin Islands. But, they do understand the plight of the great unwashed. I’m sure your congressman is no better
@John:
I see you are still pushing Obamacarefacts.com. Since it is not a government website, why don’t you tell us who is behind that website? Most websites of that type put a “who we are” link on them. Not your linked site. It is a shadow group who doesn’t want anyone to know who they are, yet you trust them?
And you wonder why we think liberals/progressives are dumb?
@John:
You remind me of a woman in my office. She is a friend and as long as we talk nothing about politics, things are fine. She only reads the local papers and is a dyed in the wool democrat (rather chew off her arm than vote anything else). She is a low information voter and believes everything the demoncratic party tells her. Everytime you tell her something about what the current administration has done or is doing, she says it is a lie or it is the Republicans fault (without any research whatsoever). She is a political zombie.
@Thomas:
While the left loves to complain about an Oligarchy ruling the US, comprised of the 1%er’s, they are blind to the new Aristocracy that’s been taking over the government. When the people that We, the People, task with representing us look nothing like us, when they exempt themselves from laws the rest of us have to live by, when they willingly engage in extravagant and lavish lifestyles, at our expense, while We, the People, are finding it harder and harder to just pay the bills, a class of people has developed that run the country at the same time they are freeloading off the backs of the rest of us. And they expect it to remain that way, and that We, the People, will and should be happy about it.
If the zombies who continue to place these kinds of people in positions of power ever wake up, the resultant revolution may just make the French Revolution look like a kid’s birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese’s.
@Enchanted:
Yesterday I was at a CVS. There was a young man at the check out counter that was complaining because he had driven 75 miles to our local Wal-Mart trying to find .22 ammunition, since all the stores in his town were out. I told him the names of a few dealers that might have that caliber. The cashier chimed in and said she was glad guns were going to soon be illegal since no one needs to own a machine gun. I asked her if she thought she could buy a machine gun if she wanted one and she said “Yes, and I don’t think that’s right.” I informed her that machine guns had been illegal for 99.9% of Americans for 80 years. So then she says “Well, I don’t think anyone needs an automatic weapon for self defense. You know, an assault weapon.”
So………….I asked her if she was a Texan. She said she was, and I asked her if she knew about the battle at Gonzalez during the Texas revolution. She said she did. So I said to her “Do you know what that battle was about?” “Yes,” she said “about freedom for Texans.” “Nope,” I told her, “it was about the Mexican government taking away the cannon the Texans owned. You know, the assualt weapon of the day. Do you think those Texans should have given up their cannon, their assault weapon?” She became speechless.
This is a clear example of the low-information voter. She was simply parroting what she had read and been told. I knew who she was (she is a big Dem in my county) but she didn’t know me. But the joke is on her. CVS is going to implement BMI standards for all its employees to determine the cost of their health care. What until she gets the bill. She was at least 50 lbs. overweight.
@Thomas:
There was a report in the Houston Phycians Journal a couple of years ago how 52% of all doctors in Texas were either not taking any new Medicare patients or not taking them at all. As seniors move to Texas to avoid state income taxes, they are having a hellofa time finding a doctor, especially primary care physicians. There are no doctors in my county, or the two neighboring counties, that accept new Medicare patients. So people who move to my county have to drive 50-75 miles to Austin just to find a PC doctor.
Most of the doctors in my area have closed their practices to any new patients. This prevents them from having to participate in Obamacare. What good is free health care if you can’t find a doctor to treat you?