By its built-in logic, Obamacare will cause the health care industry to go bankrupt within months

James N., an MD, writes:

A Free Republic post, “A doctor’s perspective of Obamacare—Healthcare delivery bankruptcy,” explains it all. Wish I wrote it. Explains the impending crisis very well. Pure Leninist destruction, that’s what it is and that’s all it is.

LA writes:

The logic of the article and the unfolding consequences it describes are similar to Kristor’s extraordinary VFR post which I’ve repeatedly linked. Here is the culminating section of the Free Republic post:

Ok, so now—how can anyone not see the obvious outcome? Government patients = significant loss of profitability. Initially the private insurers will do their best to continue to subsidize this loss, and there will be a huge escalation of premiums. But within a few months this will be unsustainable. It’s a cycle that cannot be stopped. Higher premiums = higher recidivism to government plans = higher premiums etc. Within months, every single hospital, every single doctor office, clinic, nursing home, pharmacy—every delivery system reliant on private insurers will no longer be profitable, i.e. they will go bankrupt. These will most certainly be the headlines to come: Hospital XYZ shockingly announces bankruptcy; Hospitals can no longer remain open; Clinics across the country file for bankruptcy; Loss of Pharmacy access shocks the Nation; Doctors going bankrupt en masse creating healthcare delivery and access to care crises; Where can you go to get care?; Loss of access reported Nationwide.

Yes a crisis. A crisis of access due to widespread business failure. You will not be able to get care for as long as it takes for the government to devise their emergency bailout package and as long as it takes for those insufficient dollars to try and get those doors back open again. But it will be too late, and it will be too expensive. There is absolutely no way that our government can capitalize our entire healthcare system. Try as they might, only a percentage of what we have now will ultimately survive. And those that do survive will be a shell of what they once were. The conditions will be frightening, and the consequences will be dire. The degree of disarray will be unimaginable and the underlap in access to care will be gaping….

I am not certain why this very obvious outcome has not been openly discussed more often—i.e. the rapid and massive bankruptcy of all of your health care providers and their delivery systems. But this is the inevitable outcome should this bill ever become law and implemented.

[end of excerpt]

How is it that the Republicans have not understood these basic facts about the health care plan? They’ve been talking about an increase in health care costs, when in fact what the plan will mean is the end of the health care industry.

- end of initial entry -

James P. writes:

I wish the guy who wrote the free republic article were more literate. There are a shameful number of grammar and spelling errors in it.

LA replies:

I cleaned up the punctuation a bit in the part of the article that I reproduced. I think it’s well written.

A reader writes:

The single most important sentence in the Free Republic article linked by James N.:

So, in a way, you could say that your increasing premiums are a tax that you are paying to cover the losses that are Medicare and Medicaid.

Why did I somehow know that not a single Republican would make this point in the entire year-plus of Obamacare debate (and certainly not at the so-called health care summit)?

LA writes:

The author of the FR article says that doctors treating Medicare-Medicaid patients only get reimbursed 70 percent of their costs. Meaning they are losing money for every Medicare patient they see. Can someone explain how such a system came into being, and why the doctors ever accepted it at all?

Carol Iannone writes:

Do you understand why the insurance companies have not made this loud and clear, that their higher premiums are due to the fact that they must pay the higher fees that doctors and hospitals charge to insured patients in order to offset the loss they take on government patients on Medicare and Medicaid?

LA replies:

I don’t. Maybe they’re so morally exhausted from being demonized and hated that they’ve hunkered down and lost ability to defend themselves and so always look vaguely guilty. Sort of like the Israelis in recent years. That’s what liberalism does to its targets.

Carol Iannone replies:

That’s why we can’t let it get under our skin; we must resist. And we can’t go halfway with it, as centrists and moderates try to do. It’s like an alcoholic, don’t take that first drink!

Kathlene M. writes:

I agree with the logical outcome presented here, but I have a question: When do the bill’s mandates and taxes begin? I keep reading that the 3.8 percent investment tax on people earning AGI of $200,000/$250,000 will begin in 2013 but the taxes on the insurance companies and drug companies begin immediately.

Also, I’ve read nothing on when the mandates to purchase insurance begin. It seems that should this bill become law, many of those uninsured will simply ignore the mandates (if they begin now) and continue as they’ve been doing. If the mandates don’t begin now and the health “reform” doesn’t start for four years, I can envision some uninsured people becoming irate that they’re not getting help immediately when they try to see doctors.

As I understand it, the Dems are hoping to collect tax revenues immediately and thereby “appear” to be reducing the deficit, but won’t enact the mandates and health insurance “reform” until 2014. So the bad effects won’t be felt immediately, and the Dems think they can coast on until then. Can Kristor or someone who knows more about this help clarify?

Also two other concerns:

1. I’ve read (I think at NRO) that the drug companies are very happy with this Senate bill and are actively promoting it. Why is that? Are they happy because they’ll be getting more potential customers? I’m worried about how the government (if this bill passes) would handle the potential prescription drug abuse that is second only to marijuana usage in this country as a real medical concern.

2. If this bill becomes law in the tricky manner the Dems hope to pass it (deem and pass) or as A. Zarkov noted “by decree,” then Obama is going to go for everything he can before the November elections: immigration, cap and trade, etc. and he’ll use these same tricky maneuvers to pass them as well. This is why this whole process matters and must be stopped.

Mark D. writes:

The HMO’s aren’t protesting their imminent destruction by way of Obamacare because they were created as a bridge to federalized medical care. Since the HMO’s are were created as part of one stage of the plan, they remain silent to allow the next stage of the plan to be implemented. And since the HMO’s are based on rationing and centralized health planning they probably see having a single organization doing the planning and rationing as an improvement, if not the final evolution of managed care.

My point may seem somewhat farfetched, but it is based somewhat on the following article that covers the short history of HMO’s.

John Dempsey writes:

Given the probability of outcome that is described in this scenario, think of what the implications will be for something as simple as purchasing an affordable life insurance policy. Average age for life expectancy would plummet.

Obamacare has disastrous diktats written into every legislative page.


Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 20, 2010 11:49 AM | Send
    

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