Repairing the Healthcare System

Healthcare Insurance Industry Moves Against Obamacare

Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

The 3 R’s are not working out well for the government, the patients or the healthcare insurance companies.

The temporary reinsurance portion of the 3R’s is about to expire. It was meant to support the healthcare insurance industry as enrollment in Health Insurance Exchanges grew.

Patient enrollment figures in State and Federal Exchanges have not grown significantly in the last two years. Enrollment ii exchanges has been from high risk and elderly patients.

High risk and comprehensive coverage has meant decreasing profit for the healthcare industry.

 The numbers the Obama administration publishes are confusing and mostly false. State exchanges are failing. The State Health Insurance Exchanges are causing (in states that have State Health Insurance Exchanges) greater budget deficits.

The reinsurance program is not covering the healthcare industry’s expected profit because of the redistribution of wealth component in the 3R’s.

The significance of the redistribution of profit and wealth component of the 3R’s was not fully appreciated by the healthcare insurance industry as was the reinsurance subsidy was.

The industry’s first step to combat this barrier to profit was to increase next year’s insurance premiums by 20-30 percent in both the private sector and the State and Federal Health Insurance Exchanges.

This has created inflationary pressure on the private sector and unaffordable healthcare in both the private and public sectors for consumers and companies that provide healthcare coverage to their employees.

Its effect is the opposite of what President Obama promised. He promised to make healthcare insurance coverage affordable to all.

It is also forcing corporations to switch their healthcare coverage plans from defined benefit plans to defined contribution plans. The net effect is to increase employee out of pocket expenses.

We do not know how many more people have lost healthcare insurance because of Obamacare’s rules and regulations.

 The public is also unaware of the exact number of people who have gained healthcare insurance through the Health Insurance Exchanges.

 The real figures are not easily available.

The next step by the healthcare insurers is to merge.  A series of merger negotiations are occurring. In the last three weeks two merger negotiations have been completed.

 “Anthem Inc. agreed to buy Cigna Corp. for $48 billion, capping months of merger frenzy among top U.S. health insurers that is set to reshape the industry.”

“The merged company is projected to have around $115 billion in annual revenue and cover about 53.2 million people.

The deal, which needs regulatory approval, would help reshape health insurance industry.”

 Three weeks ago Aetna agreed to buy Humana for $34 billion. The two deals accelerated the rapid-fire reconfiguration of the U.S. health-insurance industries. The two deals would decrease the industry from five major companies to only three.

The traditional media has not discussed the reasons the healthcare insurance industry is merging or the details of the mergers.

I will try to connect the dots.

The healthcare insurance industry realizes that the Obama administration is trying to play one insurance company against another. The redistribution of profit from insurance companies that profit to those that make less profit must be irritating to the healthcare insurance industry.

Perhaps they did not appreciate the intricacies of the 3 Rs. Maybe there was a small window where the temporary reinsurance was profitable.

 I would guess that the healthcare insurance industry would try to stop the redistribution of profit. These mergers will increase their individual profits.

The companies will be in a position to force the government to discontinue the redistribution of profit or lose a company that is an administrative service provider.

The losers will be taxpayers and non-subsidized insurance consumers. The increases in premiums to consumers that are subsidized will be passed on to taxpayers. Non-subsidized taxpayers will also be paying increased healthcare premiums.

This will create non-affordable insurance premiums for all as a result of the Affordable Healthcare Act (Obamacare).

The healthcare system will collapse. The government will move in with a single party payer system and a bloated and wasteful government bureaucracy.

Remember Senator Kerry and Representative Barney Frank saying the ACA would not work without a Public Option? Remember President Obama saying we don’t need a Public Option?

President Obama is backing healthcare insurers into a Public Option corner and a single party payer system.

The government will be forced to limit access to care and ration care. Americans will not have freedom of choice.

The problem is the government will still have to hire one of the three healthcare insurance carriers for its administrative services instead of one of five major carriers. The price to the taxpayer will probably be high along with all of the government’s bureaucratic inefficiencies.

Remember the VA? The VA scandal is continuing without any apparent improvement in VA services or in reforming the dysfunctional VA system.

Congress is simply giving the VA more money to continue its dysfunctional ways.

The latest step in the healthcare insurance industry’s attempt to protect itself is the hiring of Marilyn Tavenner as CEO of America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) the lobbying group for the healthcare insurance industry.

Marilyn Tavenner is the former head and CEO of CMS overseeing Medicare, Medicaid and ACA (Obamacare) implementation.

Marilyn Tavenner oversaw the botched rollout of the federal insurance exchange and the ACA-mandated cuts in payment rates to Medicare Advantage in additional to a myriad of new Obamacare generated Medicare and Medicaid regulations.

Some of these regulations are unconstitutional according to lawmakers. However, the legislators have done nothing about these unconstitutional regulations.

 They have not even attempted to make Americans aware of them.

 Health Insurance Exchange plans and Medicare Advantage plans are two areas of tremendous profit and significant growth for private insurers. The Obama administration knows this and has tried to limit or eliminate this growth.  AHIP hopes Marilyn Travenner can help the industry continue this growth by pointing out the bureaucracy’s weaknesses to healthcare insurance company’s executives.

“The healthcare industry (AHIP) hired her for her political connections inside the administration, inside the CMS bureaucracy and inside the congressional committees that regulate them,” said Tim LaPira, political science professor at James Madison University.”

 The mainstream media parroting the AHIP’s press release said, “that the insurance industry has accepted Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act) as the new business environment. AHIP wants a CMS insider to help during the next phase of its market development.

According to the AHIP press release, “her government experience will be invaluable to AHIP given how rapidly the public sector is dominating the financial, market and regulatory facets of health plans”

It is obvious to me that AHIP did not hired Ms. Travenner in order to understand the new business environment better for an instant.

I believe AHIP hired her as CEO for her connections in,

       1.   CMS,

       2. The Obama administration,

       3. The administration’s bureaucracy.

       4. Congress

Along with her impressions of CMS’s weaknesses.

Weaknesses the AHIP can exploit.

Neither the Obama administration nor AHIP are working for the benefit of the American consumer of healthcare.

This behavior must be stopped somehow.

  The opinions expressed in the blog “Repairing The Healthcare System” are, mine and mine alone

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What Are The 3R’s?

Stanley Feld M.D.FACP,MACE

The 3R’s are the Risk Adjustment, Reinsurance, and Risk Corridors program built into The Accountable Care Act (Obamacare). The 3R’s were meant to encourage the healthcare insurance industry to participate in providing insurance to participants in the State Health Insurance Exchanges. President Obama has extended the 3R’s to included Federal Health Insurance Exchanges.

The 3R’s were activated because of the poor enrollment in the State and Federal Healthcare Exchanges. It was billed to offer protection to the healthcare insurance industry against any losses incurred by participation in Health Insurance Exchanges.

The healthcare insurance industry’s participation in Obamacare’s Health Insurance Exchanges was negative at first.

The Health Insurance Exchanges were viewed as a trap set by the Obama administration to control the healthcare insurance industry. In the process the healthcare insurance industry would ultimately lose money.

The healthcare insurance industry did not participate widely in the health insurance exchanges at first.

 “These risk-sharing programs are often called the “3 Rs” because they are Risk Adjustment, Reinsurance, and Risk Corridor.” The three risk-sharing provisions were intended to protect insurers financially, especially in the first few years the Exchanges are in effect if activated.”

The ACA includes various mechanisms to accomplish this goal including requiring insurers to cover everyone who applies, prohibiting insurers from imposing preexisting conditions limitations, and severely limiting the factors insurers can consider in setting premiums.  Obviously, these mechanisms put insurers at financial risk, since their underwriters won’t have sufficient data to predict claims costs, such as the number of people likely to enroll, their health status or claims history, or other demographic information on enrollees.

The Obama administration included this safety net for healthcare insurers. It also set the traps for the healthcare insurance industry.

Purpose of Permanent Risk Adjustment

To combat overall adverse selection since health insurance is now guaranteed to anyone who applies. Healthcare insurance carriers cannot impose pre-existing conditions limitations. They cannot vary premiums based on individual’s health status.

The trap is that the government will redistribute money between insurance carriers. The Permanent Risk Adjustment scheme is supposed to redistribute profit from insurers with lower claims enrollees to those with higher claims enrollees and losses.

All non-grandfathered insured plans in the individual and small group market, in or out of the health insurance exchanges, are supposed to pay for this redistribution of money. This redistribution is to be monitored by the federal government. (Another bureaucracy)

Does anyone think this can work? I don’t.The second R is the Transitional Reinsurance Program. It is to run from 2014-2016 and then stop running.

The Transitional Reinsurance Program’s purpose is to stabilize premiums in the individual market during the first 3 years the exchanges operate, because higher-cost (sicker) individuals are more likely to enroll early.

This program’s purpose is to redistribute money from group health plans that make a profit to certain insurers with Qualified Health Plans on the individual State and Federal Exchanges that have high cost (claims) enrollees to prevent loses for those insurance companies. This is supposed to encourage insurance companies to join the exchanges.

All group health plans are required to pay for losses in 2014. There has been no reporting as yet to let anyone know how this has worked out in 2014. This provision further exposes President Obama’s lie that “if you like your plan you can keep your plan.” He knew no one could keep their healthcare plan as the bill was written.

A specific waiver was provided for 2015 & 2016. There are a few self-insured plans that self-administer their claims. Most corporations use healthcare insurance companies as third party payers. Therefore, the wavier is essentially eliminated.

The traditional reinsurance program is going to be very difficult to administer.

The Temporary Risk Corridor for 2014-2016 makes the 3R program even more complicated and more difficult to administer.

The goal of the temporary risk corridor is to limit insurer gains and losses in first 3 years of Obamacare and place all healthcare insurance company risks on a level playing field. The healthcare insurers have a limited amount of data on the risk of claims for Health Exchange enrollees. The healthcare companies have histories of claims for Qualified Health Insurance Plans and the expected enrollment. The health Insurance companies have to guess at their actuarial risk if they participate in Obamacare in order to set premiums.

Limiting the healthcare insurance industry’s risk will be complicated for the government.

Insurers who have actual claims more than expected claims will be paid the excess if funds from these insurers are not sufficient. HHS is directed to pay the excess. 

The problem is Obamacare (ACA) did not provide for creation of a specified source of funds or a revolving fund for HHS to pay this excess.

In 2014, the first year of the exchanges insurers received $450 million dollars. The source of the government funds is unclear.

An important concept about insurance reimbursement is always ignored. Insurance claims have nothing to do with the actual insurance reimbursement. Reimbursement is usually 50% less than the claims.

Therefore, the amount of supposed payment is doubled using claims to calculate payment and probably future premiums.

The government is hoping that the entire scheme is budget neutral. It will collect and redistribute the profit made by one insurance company to the insurance company that loses money from the high-risk patients.

The government thinks it will have no out of pocket reimbursement obligation.

 The government plans to compare insurers within a state based on the average financial risk of their enrolled population.

 “ To more evenly spread the financial risk among insurers, government payments are made to insurers who cover a higher-risk population (e.g., people who are older, sicker or have more chronic conditions) from the profit of lower risk insurers. “

Theoretically, the insurers who make a profit from the lower risk population pay the insurers who make less from their older, sicker population with many chronic diseases.

This is called redistribution of profit and wealth. I have a tough time believing that profit making companies will sign up for that.

Below are the formulas that will be used in 2014 and 2015 for the redistribution of profit of healthcare insurance companies.

 "2014: Once an insurer has paid $45k in claims for an individual (the attachment point), the insurer is reimbursed for 80% of costs between $45k & $250k per person.  (Originally $45k was $60k)"

"2015: $70k attachment point per insured, then insurer will be reimbursed for 50% of costs between $70k & $250k per person.  HHS publishes a Notice of Benefit & Payment Parameters each March, with the numbers for following year."

"If actual claims are within 3% of expected claims, insurers in Exchanges keep the profits or bear the risks.  If claims are 3-8% more (or less) than expected, insurer pays the gov’t (or is reimbursed by the gov’t) 50% of the gains (losses) and keeps (or bears the loss of) the other 50%." 

"If claims are at least or > 8% more (or less) than expected, insurer pays the gov’t (or is reimbursed by the gov’t) 80% of the gains (losses) and keeps (or bears the risk of) the other 20%."

It is all very complicated. It will be impossible to enforce. This is another Obamacare trick to fake out the very profitable healthcare insurance industry.

I think the healthcare insurance industry knows all this. They are taking steps at this very moment to dodge the Obama administrations trap.

The losers will be the American people who will experience an increase in healthcare insurance premiums and higher taxes.

The opinions expressed in the blog “Repairing The Healthcare System” are, mine and mine alone

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CONGRESS DOES IT TO US, AGAIN

Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

Americans have lived through scandal after scandal and lie after lie during the Obama administration.

None of the guilty parties have been penalized.

President Obama lied about Obamacare. “If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor.” “If you like your insurance plan you can keep your insurance plan.”

Yet Obamacare continues to destroy our healthcare system as well as our economy with unconstitutional changes in the law, lies, increased regulations and an expanded bureaucracy.

Notable scandals have included the Benghazi affair, clandestine weapons to Syria, red line foreign policy retreats, IRS scandals, the Clinton email scandal, and now the Iranian nontransparent nuclear agreement scandal. I can go on and on.

The traditional media does not report the details of the scandals. There is little complaining from the traditional media about these scandals that President Obama reports as insignificant.

The scandals last only a few news cycles. Most of the scandals are then ignored. There is hardly ever accountability from or punishment for the guilty parties.

Republicans just sit back and do nothing to expose the scandals. 

The number of uninformed Americans amazes me. Government policies are mentioned but are deemed by progressives as being insignificant. There is hardly ever any correlation between the scandals and the effect on our budget deficit and our economy.

I think Americans are finally starting to get it. They are becoming fed up with the unbridled arrogance of President Obama and congress.

The government is shafting American taxpayers without anyone knowing it.

 The most outrageous scandal in Washington has been kept under the radar and away from the press.

The House and Senate have both falsely certified themselves as small businesses in order to fund health insurance for themselves and their staff with taxpayer dollars, sidestepping provisions of Obamacare.

How did this happen? Why wasn’t this reported in the press?

When President Obama and the Democrats were rushing the health care law through Congress without even knowing what was in it, Chuck Grassley (R-IA) managed, with strong public support, to insert a provision in the law requiring members of Congress and their staff to purchase insurance through the new health care exchanges.

Senator Grassley’s goal was to have Congress and their congressional staffs have the same healthcare insurance experience that millions of Americans were going to have.

His hope was to create a strong incentive for Congress to make sure that President Obama’s new healthcare insurance system worked.

When congress and the congressional staff realized the cost of being in the healthcare exchanges and they needed to give up Medicare C, Congress’ special Medicare program, congressmen and their congressional staff bitterly complained to President Obama.

 President Obama had the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issue a rule in 2013 allowing Congress and congressional employees to once again have taxpayers continue pick up most of the cost of their premiums.

State and federal health insurance exchange rules do not permit employers of large organizations to pay the premiums for their employees.

“Like many Americans being dumped into Obamacare exchanges, members of Congress and their staff stood to lose their employer contributions - in this case, the generous financing of their health benefits by taxpayers that they had before the law passed and took it away.”

The OPM ‘s rule makes clear that congressional members and staff  still can receive the contribution from the government even though they have purchased their insurance from their exchange.

Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) changed the rule in 2013. The rule insulated these insiders from the premium increases of between $5,000 and $10,000 per person they would have otherwise faced if they were forced give up their taxpayer-subsidized policies and buy their insurance through the Obamacare exchanges.

This rule is illegal because it separates Congress and staff from the rest of the population. The only employers that can make contributions for their employees purchasing insurance through the exchanges are small businesses with less than 50 employees.

“There is no mechanism for employer contributions in the individual healthcare exchange market.”

Congress also filed false documents claiming the House and Senate each have less than 50 employees to qualify as "small businesses," even though over 13,700 congressional employees have in fact signed up.”

 “ That's fraud.”

 Judicial Watch obtained these false documents in Freedom of Information Act litigation.

However, the documents were heavily redacted including the names of Senators and Representatives who signed these false documents under penalty of perjury.

The blatantly false documents stated that the Representatives and Senators each have only 45 employees. The congressional staff is not an individual Representative or Senator's employee. They are government employees.

The employer, the federal government, has more than 49 employees and is not a small business.

“The House and Senate have both falsely certified themselves as small businesses in order to fund health insurance for themselves and their staffs with taxpayer dollars, sidestepping provisions of Obamacare.”

An important question the public has to know the answer to is which Senators and Representatives signed the false declaration.

“Senator David Vitter (La.), chairman of the Senate Small Business Committee recently tried to subpoena the documents in which the false declarations were made, but he ran into strong bipartisan opposition.”

Senator Vitter wanted to know how the House and Senate, with thousands of government employees, came to be officially designated as small businesses. He wanted to know who signed the false documents and have his committee question these representatives.

Fourteen (14 of the 19) members of his committee objected to Senator Vitter proceeding with the subpoena of documents.

 Democratic senators on Senator Vitter’s committee all voted in lockstep to keep the signed documents a secret from the American people.

They are: Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.), Maria Cantwell (Wash.), Ben Cardin (Md.), Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.), Ed Markey (Mass.), Cory Booker (N.J.), Chris Coons (Del.), Mazie Hirono (Hawaii), and Gary Peters (Mich.).

  Republicans on the committee who voted to keep the documents secret from the people are Mike Enzi (Wyo.), Jim Risch (Idaho), Deb Fischer (Neb.), Kelly Ayotte (N.H.) and Rand Paul (Ky).

Republicans on the committee voted with Chairman Vitter to issue the subpoenas to those whose signed the false documents were Marco Rubio (Fla.), Tim Scott (S.C.), Cory Gardner (Colo.), Joni Ernst (Iowa).

 These Republicans were the only ones that voted for the vested interest of the American people.

 This is a very significant scandal.

The traditional mainstream media should be reporting this scandal. I think the Representatives and Senators who signed the false documents should be booted out of office.

It is a perfect example of Congress and the President making backroom deals for the benefit of Congressmen their congressional staff.   

The congress is ripping off taxpayers while taxpayers not only are paying for their illegally subsidizing healthcare insurance.

Taxpayers have to pay the increased premiums for their own insurance while they are paying for congress’ healthcare insurance by on illegal congressional maneuver.

This corruption should make the American people madder than hell if they knew this was going on.

However the media is the message. The media is keeping us stupid. This scandal like others will fade away as being insignificant.

 The opinions expressed in the blog “Repairing The Healthcare System” are, mine and mine alone

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I Still Don’t Understand The Supreme Court’s Decision

Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

I still do not understand the logic of the Supreme Courts decision in King vs. Burwell.

The solution to the healthcare insurance exchange subsidies is simple. Congress needs to change the law to include subsides for people buy healthcare insurance in federal exchanges. It is not the Supremes courts job.   

The Supreme Court changed the law because it believes that federal health insurance subsidies were implied in the law when there is evidence that federal insurance subsidies were specifically restricted.

Chief Justice Roberts wrote, “Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them,”

“If at all possible, we must interpret the act in a way that is consistent with the former, and avoids the latter,” he continued, echoing language he used in 2012 to uphold another centerpiece of the law, the requirement that most Americans carry health coverage or pay a penalty. In that ruling he defined the penalty for noncompliance as a tax.”

Obamacare is a partisan law that is destroying the health insurance markets not improving them. A vote to repeal it now might be bipartisan even though President Obama would veto it.

Obamacare has been more destructive than helpful to the healthcare system. There is a better way to "improve the health insurance markets."

Chief Justice Roberts took the opposite view in dissenting against gay marriage (Obergefell).

“Roberts’s Obergefell dissent is, at its heart, an attack on the method Justice Anthony Kennedy used to reach the majority’s conclusion that the Constitution forbids states from denying equal marriage rights to same-sex couples. Kennedy held that marriage is a fundamental right, and that this right extends to same-sex couples.”

Roberts offers a harsh response:

“Stripped of its shiny rhetorical gloss, the majority’s argument is that the Due Process Clause gives same-sex couples a fundamental right to marry because it will be good for them and for society. If I were a legislator, I would certainly consider that view as a matter of social policy. But as a judge, I find the majority’s position indefensible as a matter of constitutional law.”

As Roberts explains, “the Obergefell plaintiffs’ “‘fundamental right’ claim falls into the most sensitive category of constitutional adjudication.”

 This claim does not rest upon a right that is specifically mentioned in the Constitution. Rather, the plaintiffs argued that marriage discrimination violates “a right implied” by the Fourteenth Amendment’s requirement that ‘liberty’ may not be deprived without ‘due process of law.”

A right implied is called “substantive due process.”

Chief Justice Roberts argued that federal health insurance exchanges’ subsidies were implied in Obamacare in his support in the King vs. Burwell case.

He rejected what is implied in the Obergefell gay marriage case.

Article 1, Section 7 is the part of the Constitution that gives us the process for creating laws in this country. This is the only method the Constitution permits for changing laws in this country.

1. Both the House of Representatives and the Senate must pass a bill.
2. Once a bill has passed both houses of Congress, the president can either sign it into law or veto it and send it back to Congress.
3. If the bill is vetoed, Congress can over-ride the president’s veto and enact it into law with a 2/3 vote.

 

 The Supreme Court has absolutely no role to play in creating or amending our laws according to the constitution.

The Supreme Court only has the power to make a judgments on the constitutionality of the laws enacted. It should not have the power to change the meaning of the written law.

This is especially true since a crafter of the law (Jon Gruber)  clearly stated the reason it was written that way.

“One of the architects of this law, Jon Gruber, has made it very obvious that this phrase was intended to mean exactly what it says.

Gruber has also emphasized that it was designed this way deliberately in hopes that it would pressure states to create their own exchanges”

Chief Justice Roberts used the role of the courts argument in his dissent of the Obergefell gay marriage case. His reasoning is contradictory in both cases.

The Supreme Court decided that this law does not mean what Congress intended it to mean.

Applying this law as it was written would have some unpleasant consequences. Six of the nine justices on the Supreme Court have taken it upon themselves to re-write Obamacare to spare 6 million people loss of insurance.

The Obamacare cost to taxpaying Americans is $50,000 to $80,000 per person insured. There is a cheaper way to insure these 6 million people.   

He did consider the cost of the EPA regulation to eliminate mercury from the air in the court’s decision to eliminate the regulation.

Did Chief Justice Roberts consider Obamacare costs to individual and group insurance plans? Individual and group plans are scheduled to increase by as much as 47% in Oregon. The Obamacare mandated penalty for not purchasing insurance in 2016 will be increased to $695 per person or 2% of the household’s income, whichever is greater.

The maintenance of the separation of power is a critical principal of the constitution and the Republic.

“It isn’t the Court’s job to save Congress from itself. If our politicians pass a boneheaded law that will have terrible effects on this country, it’s not the Court’s job to clean up the mess.

It is the role of Congress to figure out how to fix their own mess. If Americans recognize the mess Congress will face the consequences at the ballot box.”

President Barack Obama has consistently and unilaterally changed several of the deadlines.

He has constantly provided waivers from the law for people of consequence and labor unions who have protested. He has even given waivers from Obamacare to congress. 

Article 1. Section 7 of the constitution doesn’t allow the Supreme Court or the executive branch to make changes in the law without the consent of congress.

Few in congress have questioned whether President Obama has exceeded his authority with his numerous controversial executive orders. When some congressperson does he/she have been immediately marginalized by the President, his administration, and the traditional media.

The media is the message.  Millions of people repeat the same nonsense.

If you repeat a lie enough times it becomes the truth.

  “Even if you are someone who loves Obamacare, you should still hate this decision. The process of how you enact a policy is every bit as important as what policy is enacted.”

“And the way Obamacare has been manipulated demonstrates that our politicians are no longer restrained by the Constitution in any way.”

Everyone should be upset with the Supreme Court’s decision. It shows how irrelevant the Constitution and the rule of law have become in this country.

It demonstrates how close to tyranny our country is coming.

 It’s our country’s 239^th birthday.

Wake up America!

 The opinions expressed in the blog “Repairing The Healthcare System” are, mine and mine alone

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King vs. Burwell and The Supreme Court

Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

I have received a couple of emails asking me why I have not responded to the Supreme Court’s ruling in King vs. Burwell.

A ruling in King’s favor seemed so clear to me. I thought the case would be decided in favor of the letter of the law. This seemed obvious since Jonathan Gruber, the author of Obamacare, admitted the words “state health exchanges are the only exchanges that could provide subsidies” were intentional.

It was clear that the author of the law (Jonathan Gruber) and President Obama wanted to encourage states to create State Health Insurance Exchanges.

The carrot was money. If the states did not create State Health Insurance Exchanges they would lose their government grants.

The legislators of the states that refused the Obamacare trap would experience angry voters and get kicked out of office.

Dr. Gruber also admitted that if there was transparency during the law’s creation it would never have been passed. Jon Gruber called Americans stupid.

This comment motivated President Obama to distance himself from Jonathan Gruber. He said Dr. Gruber was not a major player in the creation of Obamacare. President Obama claimed that he barely knew him.  He claim Jonathan Gruber had only been to the White House a couple of times.

President Obama’s statement has been proven to be a lie.

 http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/06/24/editor-says-owes-gop-sources-apology-after-new-gruber-emails/?intcmp=ob_article_sidebar_video&intcmp=obinsite

 The Supreme Court’s decision has been a mind blower to me. I still have not figured out how to respond.

I thought the Supreme Court Justices’ job was to interpret laws within the context of the constitution. They should not create new laws or create new meanings for laws.

They also should not allow themselves to be bullied by the executive or legislative branch of government.

President Obama has been doing heavy duty bullying of the Supreme Court to rule in his favor in the last four months. President Obama’s goal is to not let anyone stand in his way on the road to control the entire healthcare system.

The justices live in our society. They are aware of the media and have access to the same information as everyone else.

It should be obvious to them that all the stakeholders dislike Obamacare now that they “know what is in it.”

Obamacare is a terrible law. President Obama told many lies and has taken many unlawful steps to hide the law’s failures.

The justices should have recognized that Obamacare is not a bipartisan law. Only Democrats voted for the bill even though many have admitted they did not read it.

It hardly represents the will of the people as they are now recognizing all its faults and deficiencies.

The Supreme Court’s codifying the law seems bizarre to me.

I also thought that the Supreme Court’s decisions had to be made in the context and spirit of the law and the meaning of the constitution. 

I am especially disappointed in Chief Justice John Roberts. His reasoning for ruling on King vs. Burwell was just the opposite of his reasoning for his ruling on gay marriage.

It is as if he has been influenced by outside sources in each ruling. 

I know the ruling has stunned many people. Congress made the law. Congress should change the law to mean what the Supreme Court said it meant.

I have not figured out what an appropriately reasoned response should be.

I believe the will of the people will prevail once people understand the harmful effects of this law. Its affect on the economy is becoming obvious. Its affect on Americans individually is also becoming obvious.

Obamacare will eventually die under its own weight. The Democratic Party will never be able to get rid of the label “tax and spend party.”

The Democratic Party and President Obama are putting America into greater debt.

I believe the lower socioeconomic groups, who President Obama claims to help, are realizing President Obama is doing them more harm than good.

His goal is to make Americans more dependent on the central government.

I do not think President Obama or the Democrats are going to be able to survive the coming tsunami of a plebiscite against Obamacare.  

In the end Americans are not fans of socialism. They know it doesn’t work.

The opinions expressed in the blog “Repairing The Healthcare System” are, mine and mine alone

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