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COLONEL’S
CORNER
Maintaining the status quo was not an option
given the large majorities that the American
people gave to the Democratic leadership
which had promised reform. In addition, it
has long been a goal of the liberal
establishment to make health care an
“entitlement”.
The second option was
never considered by the Democratic
leadership for political reasons. Taking
these steps would significantly reduce the
need for a government driven health care
system which would temper the objective of
the left to expand the federal government.
Do you think that this is paranoia? Did you
notice that quietly inserted into the bill
is a provision that closes down the student
loan programs and consolidates them in the
hands of Washington bureaucrats? And that
during the recession, only government
employment rose.
The Democratic
political strategy was to ensure that none
of the reforms were passed unless they were
part of the massive overhaul to create the
entitlement. The cost savings and health
care systemic improvements that would be
made by reforming the tort system and
defensive medicine practices, permitting
insurance companies to give consumers
choices across state lines, reducing drug
costs through patent reform, legislating
policy continuance and transferability, etc.
were needed to justify the creation of the
health care entitlement. Reforming the
system would eliminate the need for the
dismemberment of the current health care
system.
To pay for this new
entitlement everyone must participate,
especially the younger generation whose
medical costs are lower than those for the
general population. The money collected from
them is required to support the less healthy
Americans. This should be no surprise since
during the campaign for President, Obama was
very honest that it was his intention
redistribute the wealth of the nation. This
is effectively a tax on the younger, working
class citizens. The Administration and
Speaker Pelosi are doing exactly what they
told us they would do.
Do not kid
yourself about one thing. The end state of
this bill will be a two tier hospital
system. The first tier will be hospitals
that do not accept government payments. If a
person with government insurance uses their
facilities, they will bill the patient, and
help with filling out government paperwork.
However, the patient will be responsible for
the full amount of the bill, and will have
to make up the difference between what the
government pays them and what the hospital
charges. This will include Medicare
patients. The hospital charges will be less
than the government run hospitals because
they will not have to make up for Medicare
and government program losses. This will
reduce their premiums to their clients,
individual and insurance companies. Some
premier hospitals are already moving in this
direction.
The second tier will be
hospitals that accept government payments.
But the government, as the deficit grows,
will continue to reduce payments to these
hospitals. Currently these hospitals make up
the losses incurred by treating Medicare
patients (the government only pays about 80%
of the costs) by charging insurance
companies about 50% more than Medicare pays.
But as the percentage of Medicare and
government plan participants grows, at some
point the insurance companies will only
contract with first tier hospitals that do
not accept government plans since they do
not need to offset the spiraling losses
incurred by the hospitals that accept
government patients. Eventually this will
force the second tier hospitals into
insolvency.
But the government has
declared that health care is an entitlement,
so they must have hospitals that accept it.
The solution is obvious, the federal
government will nationalize insolvent
hospitals. Of course the SEIU (Service
Employees International Union which
unionizes a large percentage of the
government employees) is excited at the
opportunity to add dramatically to their
rolls. After all, they should be rewarded
for the $60 million that they spent on the
last election. Nuts, they will be able to
spend $80-100 million for the future
election cycles. Don’t believe it? Check out
how they killed the tax on the “Cadillac”
health care plans, most of which are union
plans. Folks, the government unions have
REAL power!!
Take it one step
further. With the SIEU driving up costs,
pushing down efficiency with restrictive
work rules, and preventing the firing of
poor employees, the government run hospitals
will devolve into second class institutions.
The government cannot allow that to happen,
so I would expect that as this cycle plays
out over the next 10-12 years, they will
push to nationalize the premier hospitals
that cater to companies with insurance
plans, or they will force them to accept
government plan patients at government
directed reimbursement rates. This will set
up an interesting confrontation. The unions
will, of course, will require their
companies to provide insurance that will
give them access to the first tier
hospitals. Yet, they have supported the
concept that all Americans are entitled to
quality health care. Will they allow the
government to take over the first tier
hospitals that support their members knowing
that the quality of care will decline as the
SEIU and its contemporaries unionize them?
That should be interesting….
I
predict that in 15 years we will finally
reach the quality of the Canadian health
care system, whose creator, Claude
Castonguay (father of the Quebec universal
health care system that evolved in the
Canadian system), recently stated:
"We thought we could resolve the system's
problems by rationing services or injecting
massive amounts of new money into it," says
Castonguay. But now he prescribes a radical
overhaul: "We are proposing to give a
greater role to the private sector so that
people can exercise freedom of choice."
He who does not study history, is destined
to repeat it…
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Bendas
For Congress