Obamacare: Live by the lie, die by the lie

Remember how Barbie and Obama agreed that math is hard?

Now we know why President Barack Obama couldn’t recall the national debt during a chat with David Letterman a few weeks back.

He’s got something in common with a certain iconic doll – Math is hard.

Obama appeared on “The Tonight Show” last night, and he got into a soft and fuzzy exchange with host Jay Leno about his daughter’s homework.

“The math stuff I was fine with up until about seventh grade … Malia’s now a freshman in high school, and I’m pretty lost,” Obama confessed to Leno.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEEpVXspflM[/youtube]

Well, he was right. Math is hard for him. And it is hard for those who wrote Obamacare.

In order for Obamacare to succeed, the financial contributions of young healthy are a necessity:

Now Simas, a sad-eyed Massachusetts native with a facility for PowerPoints, needs to reach those same groups again — with a much harder ask. This time, he doesn’t just need them to vote. He needs them to buy health insurance, and, in some cases, spend hundreds of dollars a month for it. If they don’t, the new insurance marketplaces — the absolute core of Obamacare — will be filled with older, sicker people, and premiums will skyrocket. And if that happens, the law will fail.

They desperately need the young and the well to ante up. So what is happening?

Young people are signing up, alright. For Medicaid.

CBS News has confirmed that in Washington, of the more than 35,000 people newly enrolled, 87 percent signed up for Medicaid. In Kentucky, out of 26,000 new enrollments, 82 percent are in Medicaid. And in New York, of 37,000 enrollments, Medicaid accounts for 64 percent. And there are similar stories across the country in nearly half of the states that run their own exchanges. …

And let us not forget that Obamacare provided for those 26 and under to remain on their parent’s plan.

And let us also not forget that Obamacare provides perverse incentives, i.e. it’s cheaper to pay the penalty than to buy the insurance. Supporters, of course, throw in this caveat:

“People buy health insurance for stability, making sure they aren’t bankrupted by a car accident or heart attack,” said Timothy Jost, a law professor who studies health policy at Washington and Lee School of Law who supports the law. “For a lot of those people they’re going to decide they’d rather pay a bit more for insurance and have something than pay the penalty and be uninsured.”

A couple of things. First, that’s always been true, and second, it points to the need for catastrophic plans, most of which no longer qualify under Obamacare.

So will those young adult who already have insurance see their premiums soar? Yep.

Health care rates could increase by as much as 102 percent in Wisconsin under Obamacare according to an analysis released by the MacIver Institute on Friday.

MacIver released data earlier in the week that showed the average health care premiums for three different groups: a 27 year-old, a 50 year-old, and a family of four. The free-market think tank then compared the rates to what these same groups can find on the current private sector market.

Current insurance rates are available through eHealth, a website that allows individuals to search for health insurance from a variety of insurers all in one place. MacIver calculated the average rates available in each group and compared them to data available on the HealthCare.gov website.

The analysis shows that rates will spike, especially for young individuals in Wisconsin.

A 27 year old in Brown County will see rates more than double beginning in 2014. That same age group will see rates increase 93.6 percent in Madison, 91.2 percent in Milwaukee, and 72.6 percent in Eau Claire.

It’s cheaper not to buy the insurance and it’s cheaper to stay on Mom and Dad’s plans. Facts.

And who are you going to get to treat you?

For the government, to help make this math work, the Medicare billing rates are an obvious target. Much of the private market is priced off these schedules. But physician pay is likely to be in the crosshairs for a long time.

Last year, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission proposed to cut what Medicare pays specialists and then freezing these lower rates for years. Under that plan, everyone except primary-care docs would see payments for their services cut by 5.9 percent a year for three years (totaling a 16.7 percent cut in income), followed by a seven-year freeze at the reduced levels. Primary-care providers would have their reimbursement rates frozen at today’s pay levels for the whole decade.

While these are just proposals, they have to be taken seriously. The Medicare Commission’s recommendations are typically a harbinger of future policy decisions.

Doctors are retiring early, rather than endure this abuse. I know several of them personally.

Funny how politicians’ salaries are never in the crosshairs.

But just give it time, it will work, they say. Perhaps we need to wait until those seniors who are losing their doctors die off:

ObamaCare is making seniors sick.

Elderly New Yorkers are in a panic after getting notices that insurance companies are booting their doctors from the Medicare Advantage program as a result of the shifting medical landscape under ObamaCare.

That leaves patients with unenviable choices: keep the same insurance plan and find another doctor, pay out of pocket or look for another plan where their physician is a member.

New York State Medical Society President Sam Unterricht is demanding a congressional probe after learning that one health carrier alone, UnitedHealthcare, is terminating contracts with up to 2,100 doctors serving 8,000 Medicare Advantage patients in the New York metro region.

In the interim, Obama is doing the best thing he can do:

Obamacare is doomed, and as Curt noted, we should do absolutely nothing to change it, especially as the loss of plans and loss of doctors and the reality of skyrocketing premiums settle in. You’re not going to be able to keep anything except for the memories of Obama’s lies.

Born of the lie, die by the lie.

DrJohn

DrJohn has been a health care professional for more than 30 years. In addition to clinical practice he has done extensive research and has published widely with over 70 original articles and abstracts in the peer-reviewed literature. DrJohn is well known in his field and has lectured on every continent except for Antarctica. He has been married to the same wonderful lady for over 30 years and has three kids- two sons, both of whom are attorneys and one daughter on her way into the field of education.

DrJohn was brought up with the concept that one can do well if one is prepared to work hard but nothing in life is guaranteed.

Except for liberals being foolish.