Let's Go Brandon!
2022-10-04 08:45:59 UTC
Everybody say, "THANKS DEMOCRATS!" "YOU FUCKING ASSHOLES!"
Democrats insist that further tinkering with health care willmake it more accessible, but evidence suggests it will cost
people dearly.
The Biden administration announced it would again reduce
payments to Medicare physicians, this time by 8.42 percent.
According to a recent survey, 92 percent of medical group
practices report that Medicare payments do not cover the cost of
providing care.
The federal government can stay in business when it takes in
less revenue than it expends. Why? Because it can print money
and no one else can. To stay in business, physicians will have
to reject Medicare patients; access will decrease once again.
And with Democrats pushing legislation like the wrongly named
Inflation Reduction Act, things will only get worse.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) took $716 billion from Medicare to
pay for non-medical, bureaucratic spending. Before the ACA, the
average maximum wait time to see a primary care doctor was an
unacceptable 99 days. After Obamacare was implemented with its
cuts to physician payments, wait times increased to a medically
unconscionable 122 days. Patients have to wait four months to
find out if belly pain is gas, an ulcer, or cancer. With the
latest round of cuts, the wait times could stretch from months
to years.
In hearings prior to the passage of the ACA, Robert Moffit of
the Heritage Foundation warned Congress, You cant get more of
something by paying less for it. Democrats disregarded this
obvious economic truism in 2010 and are doing so again in 2022.
If further cuts are made to Medicare in the pursuit of spending
health care dollars elsewhere, this will literally cause death
by preventing Medicare patients from getting access to care.
Accountants for the Medicare Trust have reported the trust will
be insolvent by 2026, less than four years hence. At that time,
Medicare will run out of money, there will be no accepting
physicians, and seniors will die from lack of hospital care.
Death-by-queueing refers to patients dying waiting in line for
technically possible but unavailable life-saving care. Such
avoidable deaths have been documented in Medicaid programs as
well as government-supported Tricare for veterans. Twelve-year-
old Deamonte Driver died from a dental cavity because no
pediatric dentists in his area would accept the low Medicaid
rates. In Illinois, 752 Medicaid enrollees died waiting for life-
saving care that never came. An internal VA audit reported that
47,000 veterans may have died waiting in line for care. The
bottom line is that as the government increases its spending on
expensive insurance policies, the publics access to care
decreases.
The reality of cant get more by paying less is ignored by
Bidens latest health care scam built into the Inflation
Reduction Act. The bill allows Medicare to directly negotiate
drug prices with pharmaceutical companies. Through the Centers
for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Washington will simply
dictate drug prices similar to how a 4-year-old negotiates with
a tyrannosaurus rex.
History shows what invariably happens when prices are pre-
determined: shortages occur of current drugs, and the
development of new drugs halts. However, despite this, market
forces work even when government distorts the market. When
prices are fixed by the government rather than market variables
and determined by millions of consumer choices, suppliers must
react or go out of business. When revenue goes down by fiat,
suppliers manufacturers or service providers compensate by
cutting their costs by reducing quality, lowering production, or
both.
Bidens negotiated Medicare prices will cause shortages of
desperately needed drugs, and worse, the development of new
medicines will cease.
Federal price fixing in health care is neither new nor limited
to drugs. The government has been pre-determining payments to
physicians for decades. Washington decrees what Medicare and
Medicaid programs pay for physician services, and physicians can
take it or leave it. More are leaving it. One-third of U.S.
doctors already refuse to accept new Medicaid patients. The
death-by-queueing noted previously is directly due to a shortage
of physicians, and the shortage is largely due to low payment
rates along with bureaucratic burdens.
As a pediatric cardiologist, I have done several complex life-
saving catheterization procedures on babies with congenital
heart defects. When these devices are implanted, these bills can
range from $1,500 to as much as $9,000. Medicaid will pay me
$385 for every single one.
The bottom line is that when Democrats divert health care funds
or fix prices for medical goods and services, American patients
suffer.
https://thefederalist.com/2022/09/30/good-luck-getting-
affordable-care-with-democrats-latest-medicare-maneuver/