Obamacare: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Jack-booted Obamacare thugs will be knocking down the doors of servicemen's homes, along with many others.

George Orwell: “Told ya!”

Obamacare: Consequences...

One of the “features” of Obamacare is an absolutely enormous transfer of wealth from the young (through their mandate to purchase health insurance) to the old (the dominant consumer of health care, and therefore dominant cause of health care expenses).  In other words, Obamacare purports to solve the problem of healthcare expenses for the elderly by making the younger folks pay for it.

Many opponents of Obamacare imagine that in the long run this theft of young people's money will drive young people away from the Democratic party.  Since this is one of the Democrats' key constituencies, this possibility is seen with some glee by the Republicans (the likely beneficiary of youth disenchantment with Democrats).  This would then give the Republicans the legislative and executive authority to repeal Obamacare.

Personally, I think it's more likely that if the Republicans ever gain the political power to repeal Obamacare, they won't (all their campaign promises notwithstanding).  Instead, I suspect they'll modify Obamacare in ways that retain the popular part, make some nominal (but electorate appeasing) adjustments to the wealth transfer aspects, and keep every bit of the opportunity for regulation and exception carve-outs – so they can keep the lobbyists coming, cash in hand.

But something I hadn't considered before is that there is a completely different solution to the wealth transfer problem.  Think about this from a younger person's perspective.  They're getting taxed, heavily, to pay for older people's health care.  Why not just get rid of the older people?  No old people, no healthcare expenses to pay for.  Problem solved!  And apparently, there's solid support for this idea:


I think I'll do a little preliminary research on other countries Debbie and I could live in...

Everything You Need to Know About Obamacare...

...on a single entertaining web page.  A sample:

When Obama promised everyone making under $250,000 a year that he wouldn’t raise our taxes, I was like:

But then he introduced Obamacare and it had 18 tax hikes…

Quote of the Day...

From Jay Lehr, writing in the Wall Street Journal (via reader Simi L.):

After decades of federal subsidies—almost $24 billion according to a recent estimate by former U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm—nowhere in the United States, or anywhere else, has an array of wind turbines replaced a single conventional power plant. Nowhere.

And the left wants the same government that brought us this debacle to run our health care.  It's easy to predict (but very sad) that at some point, our Obamacare bureaucrats will most likely spend billions on something most of us would immediately recognize as snake oil.  Homeopathic “medicine” is a good candidate...

Of Burgers, Bikinis, and ObamaCare...

How can you resist a headline like that?  Here's the sub:

Andy Puzder, the man who revived Carl's Jr., explains why he's not expanding in California and how the Affordable Care Act is hurting employment. Expect to order with an iPad.

You should definitely read the whole thing...

Not True...

Last week Covered California officials were crowing about how the Obamacare health insurance exchange prices turned out to be less than the pre-Obamacare prices.  I dismissed that as ludicrous on its face, but didn't dig in to find out how they got those numbers.  Now others have done so, and as I expected, the Covered California claims are bogus.  Basically, they compared 2013 individual rates to 2014 employer rates – very much apples and oranges.  But it made a good sound byte, and the lamestream media faithfully picked it up and repeated it – so now all the low information voters are convinced their insurance rates are going down. 

They have a surprise awaiting them.

Not a happy surprise.

California.  Doom...

This is America?

Sarah Ingram headed the IRS' unit that oversaw tax-exempt organizations up until a short time ago.  She was the boss of that unit when conservative organizations were being targeted for tax-exempt application slowdowns and runarounds, and when conservative organizations and individuals were audited.  She's at the very center of the current scandal, and a completely relevant questions (all as yet unresolved) are:

• How much did Sarah Hall know, and when did she know it?
• Did Sarah Hall direct any of the conservative targeting?
• Did Sarah Hall, directly or indirectly, condone any of the conservative targeting?
• Should Sarah Hall have had the processes and procedures in place to detect and prevent the conservative targeting?

That last point may sound like a no-brainer, but it's really not – it depends substantially on how the IRS organizes its oversight and audit processes (I'm making the large assumption that they actually have such processes).

Now, given all those questions hanging over Sarah Hall, what's the right thing for the IRS to do with her?  You and I might say she should be put on paid leave while the investigation unfolds.  The IRS says she should be promoted and put in charge of the implementation of the parts of Obamacare that the IRS is responsible for.

That should terrify any American – the possibility exists that an operative devoted to abusing the IRS for political purposes just got placed in charge of access to healthcare for millions of Americans.  If you're not terrified, you might want to play a little connect-the-dots...

As I read this, I felt like I was reading about East Germany or Romania in the '60s – but I double-checked, and that article really is about America in 2013.

I want my country back.

Obamacare is for the Little People...

The little people like you and me.  Our betters don't want it, that's for sure.  Will they have the gall to pull this off?  Wouldn't surprise me one bit.

Note that both parties are talking about this.

Rope.
Tree.
Congresscritters.
Some assembly required.
Speed may be of the essence.

Oh, Please! Pretty Please with Sugar On It!!!

Oh, please let this work!

Oops: Obamacare Strikes in California...

From the Los Angeles Times:

As the state moves to expand healthcare coverage to millions of Californians under President Obama's healthcare law, it faces a major obstacle: There aren't enough doctors to treat a crush of newly insured patients.

Some lawmakers want to fill the gap by redefining who can provide healthcare.

They are working on proposals that would allow physician assistants to treat more patients and nurse practitioners to set up independent practices. Pharmacists and optometrists could act as primary care providers, diagnosing and managing some chronic illnesses, such as diabetes and high-blood pressure.

"We're going to be mandating that every single person in this state have insurance," said state Sen. Ed Hernandez (D-West Covina), chairman of the Senate Health Committee and leader of the effort to expand professional boundaries. "What good is it if they are going to have a health insurance card but no access to doctors?"

Hernandez's proposed changes, which would dramatically shake up the medical establishment in California, have set off a turf war with physicians that could contribute to the success or failure of the federal Affordable Care Act in California.

Great. Nobody could have foreseen this, say the liberals. The trouble with with that assertion is that a whole bunch of people did foresee this, including your humble blogger.  It's Economics 101, folks: make a valuable good or service (like healthcare) available to everybody with no (or almost no) incremental cost, and shortages will promptly ensue.

If this doesn't make sense to you, try this simple thought exercise: imagine that you could go to the car dealer and have your choice of (a) a used, beat-up 1954 VW bug, or (b) a brand-new Mercedes CL65, and all you have to pay is a $25 “co-pay”?  Which would you choose – the beater worth a hundred dollars or so, or the $200,000+ Mercedes?  I know I'd be leaving with the Mercedes.  Healthcare under Obamacare works the same way: anybody can have whatever healthcare they want, for (at most) a modest co-pay.  Surprise, surprise, surprise – the demand for great healthcare is going up!

Free markets do a marvelous, organic job of scarce resource allocation...

Protect Yourself Against Obamacare...

Paul Hsieh has some advice for us...

What Do Doctors Think of Obamacare?

Anecdotally I know that many doctors despise Obamacare, and are planning major changes to their practices to deal with it.  Basically those changes involve them not accepting Obamacare-funded patients.  But is there a better measure than the stories I've heard locally?

Here's the best thing I've seen yet: a poll of doctors to see whether they supported Obama (a proxy for Obamacare) or Romney (who has repeatedly said that he'd repeal Obamacare).  The answer: doctors want Romney, by more than 2 to 1...

A Tale of Two Doctors...

Via reader Jim M.:

A Tale Of Two Doctors

Two patients limp into two different medical clinics with the same complaint. Both have trouble walking and appear to require hip surgery.

The FIRST patient is examined within the hour, is x-rayed the same day and has a time booked for surgery the following week.

The SECOND sees his family doctor after waiting 3 weeks for an appointment, then waits 8 weeks to see a specialist, then gets an x-ray, which isn't reviewed for another week and finally has his surgery scheduled for 6 months from then pending the review boards decision on his age and remaining value to society.

Why the different treatment for the two patients?

The FIRST is a Golden Retriever taken to a vet.

The SECOND is a Senior Citizen on Obama care...

In November if He and his Czars get another term, we'll all have to find a good vet.

We're in good shape – we have a great vet already...

One Sentence...

This is awesome – everything you need to know about Obamacare, in a single sentence (and under two minutes)...

A Tale of Two Vasectomies...

I suspect most adult men wouldn't expect an email from their mother with a subject line like that.  In my family, it's well within the bounds of normality :-)  A great joke with an unexpected political twist:

A man goes into the hospital for a vasectomy. Before the procedure a very attractive nurse comes in and takes his vitals, then tells him to take all of his clothes off. When he is fully undressed she instructs him to lie down on the table.

The man obeys. The nurse then takes all of her clothes off and climbs on top and has her way with him.

Upon the completion of the act the man catches his breath and asks what that was all about. The nurse informs the patient that studies have shown that before a vasectomy if the man has an ejaculation, he will be more relaxed and that the vasectomy is easier for the surgeon to locate and sever, thereby making the surgery safer, more efficient and quicker.

The nurse then wheels the patient to the operating room. While they are going down the hall the patient looks through a window to the right and sees six men in a room masturbating. Curious, the man asks, "What are they doing in there?"

The nurse responds, "They are getting vasectomies too, but you have Blue Cross and they have Obamacare."

I sense support for Obamacare rapidly declining amongst men...

Obama Built This, Too...

And there will be a whole lot more like this.  From the news article in the Indianapolis Business Journal:

Cook Medical Inc. had been planning to open five new manufacturing plants over the next five years in small communities around the Midwest, including Indiana, but has shelved those plans because of the hit it will take from a new U.S. tax on medical devices.

The Bloomington-based medical device maker estimates it will pay between $20 million and $30 million once the tax takes effect in January, Pete Yonkman, executive vice president of strategic business units at Cook Medical, said this week.

The 2.3-percent tax on sales of all medical devices was created as part of President Obama’s 2010 health reform law to help pay for its expansion of health insurance coverage to as many as 30 million more Americans. The tax is projected to raised about $2.9 billion per year.

From the perspective of a medical device manufacturer like Cook, the new tax imposed by ObamaCare is a clear message: take your manufacturing offshore, where you'll get lower labor costs and no punitive tax.  Exactly what we need in the middle of a recession, right?

Remember this when you vote in November...

ObamaCare Supporters: Please Consider This...

Tim Cavanaugh, writing at Reason magazine, has an excellent column on the failures of the light rail system introduced into Los Angeles over the last decade.  It's a story of the abject failure of top-down bureaucratic policy that completely ignores market forces.  The short version: after spending billions of taxpayer dollars, the results are (a) less mass transit available to the poor people who need it the most, and (b) more congestion on Los Angeles streets.  Read Mr. Cavanaugh's column to see how government failed so completely, and why a market-driven solution would have succeeded.

You may well ask why my post's title mentions ObamaCare.  What does the transit system have to do with health care?

Nothing, of course.  But what is relevant is that ObamaCare explicitly moves much of the control of our health care system to a huge federal bureaucracy.  The same bureaucracy that brought us the U.S. Post Office, guided the Los Angeles mass transit debacle, and a long string of other disastrous failures – and damned few notable successes. 

Why would anyone, even a rabid Obama supporter, want their health care controlled by people with such a wonderful record of expensive failures?  Why would anyone believe that this time things will be different, and the federal bureaucracy will magically become competent?  Ask the poor people of Los Angeles how happy they are with their shiny new mass transit system – and their greatly reduced cheap bus system.  Then ask yourself how happy you're likely to be with a bunch of overpaid, can't-be-fired, incompetent bozo bureaucrats deciding which treatment you're allowed to have, and when you can have it, the next time you badly need medical attention...

2012 Election Bumper Snickers...

Via reader Jim M.  I believe I detect a pattern here...

How Obamacare Will Screw You...

Why does this have the ring of truth about it???

Doctors Don't Like ObamaCare...

Now a report says that 83% of all doctors have considered leaving their practice because of ObamaCare.  This jibes with what I've heard from doctors I know, every one of whom is wondering what their future holds under ObamaCare, and whether that future will be in U.S. medicine.  Some are considering leaving the country, to practice where they can make more money.  Others are considering changing careers.  None – not one – believes that they have a viable career as a doctor being paid under ObamaCare.

This flight of doctors to higher-paying careers is actually not new – it began years ago with Medicare and Medicaid, two government programs that pay fixed (and very low) fees to doctors.  That flight, though, was to private medicine: an increasing number of doctors, over the years, refuse to take Medicare/Medicaid patients for the simple reason that they don't pay enough.  Under ObamaCare, however, that choice is removed – and now to make more money, they have to make a more drastic career change.

I would like to live out my years in a country where I at least have the choice to obtain the services of a great doctor, even if I have to pay for that choice myself.  If our great doctors tend to switch to another career, or move to another country, that's going to get a lot harder.  It's going to make options like traveling to India, Estonia, or Brazil for medical care look a lot better.  Some countries are already thinking about encouraging “medical tourism” like this as a major policy effort, most especially Israel, China, and India.  To them, ObamaCare is an enormous opportunity.  Good for them! But not so good for us...