Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE
The truth about President Obama’s healthcare reform act is becoming obvious. The problem is the traditional media is not covering the true implications of President Obama’s healthcare reform act. The traditional media simply prints the administrations press releases. While the media covers some of the problems, it does not connect the dots to produce the true picture.
There are so many problems with President Obama’s healthcare reform act that the only way to fix it is to repeal it and start over again.
President Obama used tricky tactics to get the bill passed. They are now catching up with him. This week several problems became obvious. A significant problem as putting all the decision making power in the hands of the Department of Health and Human Services(HHS).
Kathleen Sibelius admitted to the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee that the books were cooked in the passage of the healthcare reform act. Kathleen Sibelius and CMS made fools of themselves at an Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee committee hearing admitting that President Obama cooked the books by double counting.
It was also clear that HHS did not have a handle on the potential unintended consequences of the healthcare reform act.
Representative Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), asked Kathleen Sibelius to estimate the amount of money lost to Medicare and Medicaid fraud in those programs. She said, “We don’t know.” The Democratic congress and President Obama has put vast power in Kathleen Sibelius’ hands.”
She is in control of 18-25% of America’s gross domestic product, yet she did not know the answer to this basic question.
Do you think anything else could be overlooked?
Representatives of CMS admitted they did not know the extent or cost of Medicare and Medicaid fraud. Neither any of the CMS representatives nor Kathleen Sibelius knew the real estimate of the costs of healthcare reform.
It is becoming clear that President Obama’s “seminal accomplishment”, his healthcare reform act, will make medical care unaffordable, balloon the federal and state deficits even further, raise taxes and provide less care. The law will include healthcare insurance with less coverage and provide a decrease of access to care. The quality of care will not improve.
Last month, Judge Vinson’s opinion effectively put an injunction on the law. He expected the Justice Department to appeal immediately. President Obama and HHS ignored the judgment and continued to implement the law. The Justice Department has not filed an appeal after 30 days. Judge Vinson was annoyed at the administrations delaying tactics, and its attempt to ignore his ruling.
He is trying to force President Obama’s administration to file an appeal within one week.
The House passed a bill repealing the provision in “Obamacare” requiring everyone who pays more than $600 for a product or service to provide the vendor with a 1099 form. The purpose was to collect more taxes to pay for President Obama’s healthcare reform act.
The provision created a tremendous paperwork burden for small businesses for relatively small payments. The IRS estimated it would increase revenue by $17 billion dollars. Seventeen billion dollars is a long way from covering the $1.5 trillion dollar budget deficit this year. The cost to small business owners would be great enough to bankrupt some of them.
The provision would have increased the number of 1099 forms filed each year by something like two thousand percent. In the end, 70 percent of the House voted in favor of repeal, including 238 Republicans and 76 Democrats.
President Obama said he supported the repeal. His trick is he did not suggest a source for potential revenue replacement. Senate Democrats are balking repeal. They complain there is no revenue replacement. Repeal will increase the healthcare reform act’s deficit even further.
Harry Reid and the Democratic Senate do not want to pass the law. Mr. Reid is demanding a provision to fund the $17 billion dollar loss.
The weeds are getting higher each day for President Obama and his healthcare reform act. The truth of the high costs are coming out.
The opinions expressed in the blog “Repairing The Healthcare System” are, mine and mine alone.
I think this bill should be reviewed thoroughly before it will go to voting stage in the House. They should look for any loopholes and revised it or amend it before it will become a law and later on poses conflict.
Posted by: Brad Fallon | March 10, 2011 at 01:10 AM