This coming year we’ll see a scramble to come up with health insurance exchanges in time for them to go into effect by law on Jan. 1, 2014. Those familiar with the process say the federal government will likely burn through its $1 billion set-up budget and will have to start cannibalizing other parts of the Health and Human Services Department to pay for it.
So far 16 states have said they will not set up their own systems leaving the federal government to do it. The message they’re sending is they don’t want any part of Obamacare. However, those states’ citizens will still be impacted by the law, only now the federal government will be calling the shots. These states would also point out that the federal government will also be footing the bill, but I wouldn’t count on that. If the Supreme Court says the feds have the right to implement Obamacare then you can bet they’ll be sending the states the bill.
On the other hand, states that have opted for the state exchanges argue they will be more in control of how the program is implemented thus having a say-so in its cost. Could be, but even if the states control their own exchanges you can bet the heavy hand of the federal government will be dictating who they cover.
It’s crazy. We’re going to take a system that was working for the vast majority of citizens and throw it out the window in favor of a system that supposedly helps the relative few who are uninsured. The consequences are incalculable.
As Nancy Pelosi said at the time, we had to pass the bill to find out what was in it. Even now no one is sure what exactly it entails. To think that we’re going to plow head-long into this without fully understanding it is mindboggling.
We need only look to the United Kingdom to see how socialized medicine is working out. Ambulance stacking is a regular occurrence. This government-induced phenomenon is caused by a government mandate in the UK that patients can’t spend more than four hours in the ER. Subsequently, ambulances stack up outside waiting to be admitted to the ER, many spending four or five hours in the ambulance. That doesn’t count the time they waited for an ambulance, many times well over an hour.
Ambulance stacking is the symptom. The problem is a lack of doctors who will agree to treat patients outside of regular working hours in hospitals. This is commonly known as being “on call” in the trade and the socialist system gives little incentive for extra work.
So now the same geniuses who created this whole mess have devised a cure—virtual office visits. Yes, indeed, in an effort to save about $5 billion the health secretary is planning on Skype visits instead of real visits for millions of UK citizens. That’s just one idea to close a $32 billion deficit in the country’s health program.
Of course, no matter who runs the exchanges in the United States, Bloombergian mandates will surely follow. The government—state or federal—will claim a vested interest in your health from a cost standpoint and will begin taking away anything and everything they deem unhealthy. Too few protested when they banned smoking so now that door has been swung wide open to anything and everything they want to ban.
The speed at which this all has happened has caused us to take a collective big gulp across the country. Except for you folks in New York. Mayor Bloomberg has already banned that.
