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(HealthNewsDigest.com) – Americans who voted for “hope and change” are probably hoping that there is not too much change.
They hope that the emergency room will stay open; that their doctor will stay in practice; and that if they have to go to the hospital it will be warm (or cool enough), clean, and well stocked. They hope that their government checks will arrive on time, and will cover about the same amount of food and medicine that they did before. And of course that those items will be readily available.
These hopes depend on a sound economy—and the willingness of foreigners to accept dollars for oil and other necessities, and to buy or hold our debt.
In the State of the Union message, Obama acknowledged that all is not well, but did not level with Americans about the enormity of the problem, or its causes. Since “Y2K” (the year 2000), when the forces of progressive socialism took effect in earnest, the U.S. has lost 12 factories and 2,400 manufacturing jobs per day. Between 2000 and 2010, the percentage of U.S. industrial workers fell from 19% to 9%. Productive industries are fleeing—and medical tourism is also becoming a multibillion dollar industry, attracting Americans to India or Singapore.
The United States is no longer the best place in the world to do business or practice medicine. And the reason is government policy: taxation, regulation, and litigation.
Some of our productive jobs have been replaced with economy-killing jobs, as for tax collectors and regulators. We have nearly 100,000 compliance officers in the federal government alone. The world, however, does not want to trade useful stuff like oil or food for papers or computer files generated by these “knowledge workers.”
And the entitlement meteor is going to strike. Between 2010 and 2030, the population aged 65 and older will increase from 41 million to 71 million. The liabilities of public and private pension funds and Medicare are at least $50 trillion, perhaps $130 trillion or more, while the entire global GDP is about $60 trillion per year.
Redistribution—even if Obama calls it “investment”—will not get us out of this hole; it will only bury us deeper. We need two generations of hard work and self denial by Americans to recover. They must have the freedom to work, to innovate, and to save. They cannot succeed if their capital is siphoned off into subsidies for the government’s preferred recipients.
Obama has already acknowledged the harmful effect of bleeding the productive through tax increases, although in the SOTU he still calls for taxing the rich more. And he wrote a prominent Wall Street Journal editorial calling for relief from oppressive regulation. But what will change?
The “healthcare reform” law embodies many examples of economy-crushing policy, but Obama mentioned only the wild proliferation of IRS form 1099. The law explicitly requires redistribution of wealth. It imposes around $800 billion in new taxes. It loads doctors down with so many compliance duties that most independent practitioners will be driven out of business—on purpose. It creates some 159 new agencies to dictate insurance coverage and medical treatment decisions. It is rife with price controls. For all the talk about “payment for value,” the bill assures expanding the Medicare model to everyone: The only way doctors can profit is by churning out a high volume of low-value services and/or by denying expensive care.
Congressional leaders who rammed ObamaCare through admit that they didn’t read it. And neither did Obama. Now that we are finding out what is in it, the need for repeal is increasingly clear. This must be done now, before the fat special interests who are rushing to implement it to their own benefit become still more entrenched. This includes insurance cartels, those purveyors of information technology who have an inside track in government, and, alas, organized medicine.
Before the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) passed the Senate, 41 votes would have stopped it. (The 41st arrived a bit too late.) Now it appears to take only one person to stop repeal, despite the wishes of the majority of Americans and of the sovereign states. Harry Reid could refuse to allow a vote in the Senate, or Obama could veto the repeal. Both of these men, ironically, call themselves “Democrats.”
Some have objected to calling PPACA “ObamaCare.” But if Obama vetoes repeal, he will obviously own the program. The House vote was by no means just symbolic. It carries out the will of Americans, expressed at the ballot box.
The Senate, and the President, should respect their voice. Or take responsibility for the consequences.
The change we should hope for starts with correcting a massive mistake—before the prosperity and excellent medical care we take for granted change irreversibly.
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Jane M. Orient, M.D., On Air contributor speaking on Healthcare Reform. Dr. Orient has appeared on some of the largest TV and Radio networks in the US. Her op-eds have been published in hundreds of local and national newspapers, magazines, internet, followed on major blogs and covered in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.
Dr. Orient is the Executive Director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. She has been in solo practice of general internal medicine since 1981 and is a clinical lecturer in medicine at the University of Arizona College of Medicine. She received her undergraduate degrees in chemistry and mathematics from the University of Arizona, and her M.D. from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. She is the author of Sapira’s Art and Science of Bedside Diagnosis; the fourth edition has just been published by Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins. She also authored YOUR Doctor Is Not In: Healthy Skepticism about National Health Care, published by Crown. She is the executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, a voice for patients’ and physicians’ independence since 1943. Complete curriculum vitae posted at www.drjaneorient.com. Additional information on health-related issues: www.aapsonline.org and www.takebackmedicine.com.
Dr. Orient’s position on healthcare reform: “The Healthcare plan will increase individual health insurance costs, and if the federal government puts price controls on the premiums, the companies will simply have to go out of business. Promises are made, but the Plan will deliver higher costs, more hassles, fewer choices, less innovation, and less patient care.”
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