Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE
President Obama stated that he believes that deficit spending is harmless. It follows that any amount of deficit spending will do no harm.
President Obama rhetoric causes him to contradicts himself.
The Life of Riley, with William Bendix in the title role as Chester Riley, was a situation comedy on radio in the 1940s and early black and white television in the 1950s.
Chester Riley always inserted his exclamation of indignation about a situation he experienced into in the comedy,
"What a revoltin' development this is!"
The statement became one of the most famous catchphrases in American popular culture.
Americans find themselves in a similar situation weekly just as Chester did in the 1950s
In the CBO's analysis of the president's preliminary 2013 budget, the spending is $3.72 trillion. The CBO predicted that collections will be $2.5 trillion dollars. The CBO predicted that there will be a $1.22 trillion dollar deficit added to America’s debt in 2013.
If the economy slows as many predict the projected deficit get worse.
On February 5, 2013, a day after President Obama missed his budget due date, the CBO revised its preliminary prediction.
The CBO said the deficit spending for 2013 would be reduced from a predicted $1.22 trillion to “only” $845 billion dollars without a decrease in unemployment, a decrease in government spending or an increase in the 1.2% growth of the economy.
This decrease in deficit spending is a result of the increase in taxes January 1,2013 to avoid the fiscal cliff.
The reality is that President Obama is increasing government spending yearly.
“Obama's yearly budgets are record-breaking.
Here's a summary of a fact-check analysis:
The correct figure to use is the CBO's analysis of the president's 2013 budget, which clocks in at $3.72 trillion.
So this is what we end up with:
2008: $2.98 trillion
2009: $3.27 trillion
2010: $3.46 trillion
2011: $3.60 trillion
2012: $3.65 trillion
2013: $3.72 trillion”
“Starting in 2008 as the base year and ending with 2012, the compound annual growth rate for Obama's spending starting in 2009 is 5.2 percent.”
President Obama's deficit-to- Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratio is huge. Democrats and the traditional media complained that George W. Bush was overspending.George W. Bush’s overspending was tame compared to President Obama’s.
“George W. Bush
2001-08 2.0
2002-09 3.4
Average 2.7
Barack Obama
2009-12* 9.1
2010-12 8.7
Average 8.9
*Fiscal 2012 ends Sept. 30, 2012, so this figure is estimated”.
The median annual income has dropped in the last 4 years under President Obama’s reign.
“Using constant 2012 dollars (to adjust for inflation), the median annual income of American households was $53,718 as of June 2009, the last month of the recession. Now, after 38 months of this "recovery," it has fallen to $50,678 - a drop of $3,040 per household.”
The Senate, controlled by Democrats, voted unanimously against Obama's 2012 and 2013 budget proposals 0-97 and 0-99 respectively. The House of Representatives voted 0-414.
Both the Senate and the House knew that continuing deficit spending is economic suicide.
The U.S. government’s economic problems are never solved by increased regulations.
Regulations costs the government billions of dollars to write and execute. It also costs businesses additional billions to comply with new regulations. This spending detracts from investments in economic growth.
Regulatory costs have skyrocketed during the Obama administration.
The costs of regulations have more than doubled since President Clinton’s administration and tripled President George W Bush’s administration. The present regulatory costs are almost double the combined costs of Presidents Clinton and Bush.
What does this have to do with Repairing the Healthcare System?
The massive increases in healthcare regulations are distorting the physician-patient relationship. They are commoditizing medical care.
The result is large increases in healthcare costs for consumers. The increases are occurring long before Obamacare has been fully implemented.
The administration’s regulations have not touched on the major causes of the rising costs in the healthcare system. The top two causes are defensive medicine and the need for tort reform and effectively challenging the abuse of the healthcare insurance industry.
The short-term effects will be devastating to the delivery of medical care to patients.
The long-term effects are not being talked about.
Physicians are blamed for the rising medical costs. Each year the government threatens physicians with a 25-30% reduction in reimbursement.
Physicians collect only 10% of the total healthcare dollars spent. A major question is what is the rest of the money being spent for?
How do you measure the value of physicians’ services? Medicare and Medicaid pay physicians a small percentage of the value for their services.
When Obamacare is fully implemented payment to physicians will be lower. Physicians will be responsible for their financial performance and penalized if performance is poor.
“When people don't get paid adequately, the quality of their work suffers over the long haul. The best and brightest would-be doctors won't sign up for medical school when they figure out they won't get paid enough.”
Another option is that physicians will unionize. They will hire effective negotiators to be paid their true value.
Obamacare’s hidden taxes are fudging our real unfunded obligations. The ballooning deficit will slow our economic growth. Millions will remain unemployed and uninsured.
The Independent Payment Advisory Board's cost-cutting measures will ration medical care. The board will decide what treatment is worthy of reimbursement not the consumers of healthcare.
“ Remember the recent replacement refs for the NFL? The NFL went downhill, and the fans booed and demanded a change.
Imagine replacement doctors in our medical care.”
Healthcare consumers are confused and angered by swiftly rising premiums and high deductibles, according to focus groups in four U.S. cities conducted by researchers for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.These focus groups were likely to question physicians’ recommendations and compare costs and quality information just like shopping for a car or a TV set. They knew their costs “practically down to the penny.”
Consumers are not stupid!
They are starting to say, as Reilly did on his weekly sitcom,
“ What a revolting development this is.”
The opinions expressed in the blog “Repairing The Healthcare System” are, mine and mine alone.
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