No matter whether you view your physician as a federal employee, a robot, a computer program, an indentured servant, or a slave, the answer to the title question is no: your doctor is not free in the practice of medicine for your best interest.
Instead of mandating ObamaCare, RyanCare, TrumpCare, or some other Washington-centric approach, let’s have StatesCare. Release the states to choose whatever healthcare structure each wants.
Republicans and Democrats; right and left; conservative, progressive and everybody in between all oppose IPAB and for good reasons. It reduces care for seniors. IPAB raises costs and grants total control of healthcare to the federal government. IPAB replaces your doctor with a federal bureaucrat who decides your care.
Between Medicaid, Medicare, and other public programs, the federal government is by far the largest single U.S. insurer, covering 120 million Americans. The federal government has given them the expectation of care when and where they need it. But coverage does not lead to that happy result. In fact, as coverage has increased, care has gone down—the seesaw effect.
If the Senators are forced to approach health care defensively due to ad hominem attacks, constrained by party dicta, and consumed with tactical concerns over midterm elections, they will be unable to craft a bill that puts health care in its proper perspective: access to timely care first and foremost, with everything else secondary: cost, coverage, national spending, and lastly, politics.
HB 2766, SB 1130: “Granny Tax” Overview by Dr. Deane Waldman
ObamaCare has driven up healthcare costs so that average annual expenditures for a family of four have reached $25,826 a year, which is close to half of all of their income. As a nation, the U.S. is now expending more than $3 trillion per year on its healthcare system, an amount greater than the entire GDP of the United Kingdom.
Instead of imposing a one-size-fits-all solution, the 114thCongress could become our national hero. Simply listen to the people and let them have the healthcare they want.
This commentary originally appeared on The Gilmer Mirror on April 27, 2017. Grandma in her wheelchair is back on the ledge. Do we want a new tax pushing her over? Texas’ elder population cannot get the care they need. Resources are insufficient such as: lack of support to avoid institutionalization; inadequate numbers of nurses; lower skill levels...
The shortage of primary care providers isn't just a rural issue. Shortages are found in major metropolitan areas and impact Texans of all coverage stripes — those with private insurance, no insurance, CHIP or Medicaid. A recent survey by Dallas-based Merritt Hawkins showed the nationwide average wait time to see a family practice physician in mid-sized cities was up to 122 days. That’s four months to find out if your belly pain is gas, an ulcer or cancer.
How many failures of ObamaCare must we suffer before we accept that it can’t work?
The burning platform that is consuming health care is not made of venal insurance executives, uncaring doctors, or gouging pharmaceutical companies. The burning platform is federal control — Washington itself.