November 27, 2016 President-elect Trump has promised to repeal Obamacare but thus far has been vague about alternatives. Rather than tinker with the system, Mr. Trump should boldly propose that all Americans have a Universal Health Safety Net that protects individuals and families from huge health care bills while lowering premiums for the middle class and working poor. The most straight-forward solution is to provide every American with government-backed catastrophic health insurance. Because of technological advances, bureaucratic mandates and an out-of-control legal system, the average annual health care costs according to the actuarial firm Milliman, Inc. is $24,671 a year for a family of four. Those who are not self-employed pay $10,473 out-of-pocket while the employee pays the balance. Middle class wages have been stagnant for over two decades and now average $53,657 a year. When the employee contribution is included, many workers are paying almost 30% of their wages for health care. Providing a Universal Safety Net does not require a new government program. It already exists. It is called Medicare – a plan that protects our elderly and … [Read more...]
ObamaCare – Poor Health Care Policy but Political Ingenuity
November 29, 2015 Detractors of ObamaCare are forever reciting the program’s failings: unworkable web sites, skyrocketing premiums, endless cost overruns, silly bureaucratic mandates, useless medical record requirements, bankrupt insurance co-ops along with the random cancellations of perfectly fine policies. They like to recount one of President Obama’s most famous mendacious declarations: “If you like your health insurance, you can keep it.” This is because these detractors assume that the purpose of ObamaCare is to provide health insurance. It is not. The purpose of ObamaCare is threefold: Redistribute wealth, increase the number of baseline Democrats and enrich wealthy contributors. Once this is understood, it becomes obvious that not only is ObamaCare a huge success; it is political genius. Let’s look at these points individually. 1. Redistribute Wealth. The President and his minions tacked on several taxes to finance ObamaCare, mostly on the upper middle class. Married couples who file jointly with incomes exceeding $250,000 annually ($200,000 if you are single) have to pay another 0.9% income tax and 3.8% on interest income and capital gains. While these … [Read more...]
Cadillac Health Care Syndrome
May 19, 2015 I describe a new condition called Cadillac Health Care Syndrome. Those afflicted are relatively healthy people who have numerous diagnoses, take multiple medications and have frequent surgical procedures because they have excellent health insurance with little to no out-of-pocket expenses. Risk factors include early retirement, lack of hobbies, jobs with paid sick days, excessive television watching and overuse of the Internet to investigate symptoms. It has been widely assumed that better access to health care improves one’s health. Yet this is a relatively recent concept. For most of human history, patients were aware that allowing physicians to intervene had considerable risk. Hippocrates famous nostrum that persists in every physician’s conscience to this day is “Primo non nocere,” “First do no harm.” Most historians believe that George Washington died because of bloodletting. When President Garfield was hit with an assassin’s bullet in 1881, he died as a complication of surgery. In fact, the lawyer for the assassin argued that his client merely shot the President; his doctors had killed him. But with the advent of antibiotics, sterile technique, … [Read more...]