Thanks (for nothing) Obama!

People enter politics for a number of reasons, I suppose. How about obama? Glenn Beck makes a great deal about obama carrying on the socialist agenda of his father, but I don’t buy it. I mean really– obama is off on his 8th vacation, tripping around Spain with the fam. Does that sound like a Socialist? Yes, obama certainly acts like a Socialist in some ways; he is redistributing wealth, he is doing all that he can to destroy innovation and business, and he is taking everyone down to the lowest common denominator. But obama enjoys the high life way too much for a ‘Socialist.’

Meanwhile back at home, the latest round of unemployment filings took an ‘unexpected’ rise. Why does the press say ‘unexpected’, anyway? Thanks to ‘FinReg’, businesses are flush with cash but won’t even think about spending it to HIRE people. Thanks to the spector of cap and tax, large companies will wait to see how bad the damage will be. Many other businesses are licking their wounds from the health care bill disaster, waiting to see if the courts have the guts to honor the US constitution and throw it out. Then there are US small businesses, responsible for 2/3 of the job creation that goes in the country; they will be hit hard by the tax increases when the Bush tax cuts expire, and the last thing they will do now is take on more employees. Obama and his idiot advisors were to make this the ‘recovery summer.’

The unemployment rate is estimated to be around 17%, counting discouraged workers no longer looking for work. But obama parties on. Thanks (for nothing) obama..

By SCOTT GOTTLIEB

President Obama guaranteed Americans that after health reform became law they could keep their insurance plans and their doctors. It’s clear that this promise cannot be kept. Insurers and physicians are already reshaping their businesses as a result of Mr. Obama’s plan.

Now wait-- I got another offer...

The health-reform law caps how much insurers can spend on expenses and take for profits. Starting next year, health plans will have a regulated “floor” on their medical-loss ratios, which is the amount of revenue they spend on medical claims. Insurers can only spend 20% of their premiums on running their plans if they offer policies directly to consumers or to small employers. The spending cap is 15% for policies sold to large employers.

This regulation is going to have its biggest impact on insurance sold directly to consumers—what’s referred to as the “individual market.” These policies cost more to market. They also have higher medical costs, owing partly to selection by less healthy consumers.

Finally, individual policies have high start-up costs. If insurers cannot spend more of their revenue getting plans on track, fewer new policies will be offered.

This will hit Wellpoint, one of the biggest players in the individual market, particularly hard. The insurance company already has a strained relationship with the White House: Earlier this month Mr. Obama accused Wellpoint of systemically denying coverage to breast cancer patients, though the facts don’t bear that out.

Restrictions on how insurers can spend money are compounded by simultaneous constraints on how they can manage their costs. Beginning in 2014, a new federal agency will standardize insurance benefits, placing minimum actuarial values on medical policies. There are also mandates forcing insurers to cover a lot of expensive primary-care services in full. At the same time, insurers are being blocked from raising premiums—for now by political jawboning, but the threat of legislative restrictions looms.

One of the few remaining ways to manage expenses is to reduce the actual cost of the products. In health care, this means pushing providers to accept lower fees and reduce their use of costly services like radiology or other diagnostic testing.

To implement this strategy, companies need to be able to exert more control over doctors. So insurers are trying to buy up medical clinics and doctor practices. Where they can’t own providers outright, they’ll maintain smaller “networks” of physicians that they will contract with so they can manage doctors more closely. That means even fewer choices for beneficiaries. Insurers hope that owning providers will enable health policies to offset the cost of the new regulations.

Doctors, meanwhile, are selling their practices to local hospitals. In 2005, doctors owned more than two-thirds of all medical practices. By next year, more than 60% of physicians will be salaried employees. About a third of those will be working for hospitals, according to the American Medical Association. A review of the open job searches held by one of the country’s largest physician-recruiting firms shows that nearly 50% are for jobs in hospitals, up from about 25% five years ago.

Last month, a hospital I’m affiliated with outside of Manhattan sent a note to its physicians announcing a new subsidiary it’s forming to buy up local medical practices. Nearby physicians are lining up to sell—and not just primary-care doctors, but highly paid specialists like orthopedic surgeons and neurologists. Similar developments are unfolding nationwide.

Consolidated practices and salaried doctors will leave fewer options for patients and longer waiting times for routine appointments. Like the insurers, physicians are responding to the economic burdens of the president’s plan in one of the few ways they’re permitted to.

For physicians, the strains include higher operating costs. The Obama health plan puts expensive new mandates on doctors, such as a requirement to purchase IT systems and keep more records. Overhead costs already consume more than 60% of the revenue generated by an average medical practice, according to a 2007 survey by the Medical Group Management Association. At the same time, reimbursement under Medicare is falling. Some specialists, such as radiologists and cardiologists, will see their Medicare payments fall by more than 10% next year. Then there’s the fact that medical malpractice premiums have risen by 10%-20% annually for specialists like surgeons, particularly in states that haven’t passed liability reform.

The bottom line: Defensive business arrangements designed to blunt ObamaCare’s economic impacts will mean less patient choice.

Dr. Gottlieb, a former official at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a practicing internist. He’s partner to a firm that invests in health-care companies.

I don’t watch much TV, and I watch even less news on TV, and so I don’t watch tons of Fox (although the few comments I receive tell me that I get all my info from Fox– which is sort of funny.  I don’t know… maybe they are getting THEIR ideas from ME!)  (that’s a joke, but the way).  Anyway, this AM I watched some Fox guy interview a Democrat member of Congress named Debbie Wasserman Schultz (I imagine there is supposed to be a hyphen in there somewhere, but I’m not certain).  The scene is worth writing about for two reasons– one because it is just so rare to see a Democrat on Fox, and second because of something related to the first reason–  she made a total ass of herself, because she was asked some real questions!  I must admit that I found myself wondering why any Dem would WANT to go on Fox–  why put yourself through real questions when you have a bunch of patsies in the ‘traditional media’ begging to give you puff airtime?  The Fox guy had the nerve to ask the question why the representative considers Medicare and Social Security to be ‘well-run programs’ when both are projected to be insolvent, Medicare in as short as 3 years?!!  The question came after she talked about all the money that government-run  health care will save, and the reporter asked her to give an example of something that government has taken over that saved money and runs well.

To her credit, the representative didn’t storm off, as Barney does whenever he is asked a real question.  Barney.  BARNEY.  Baaaarrrrrnnney.  Who names a kid Barney, anyway?  She didn’t storm off, but she did toss her head back and laugh, laugh, laugh– such a silly topic, after all, the bankrupting of a country.   THAT’S a good one– a real knee-slapper!  Who is worse here– the dems in Congress for avoiding the tough questions, or the media for not asking them anymore?   Not that it matters– they’re both out for the same thing anyway.

Another clueless 'commander in chief'

Then I flipped channels and heard a quick update on obama’s day.  Did you hear, by the way, about the helicopter crashes in Afghanistan that left a number of our servicemen dead?  The worst loss of life for our soldiers in Afghanistan in over 4 years.  It is a horrible thing when you have an indecisive, ego-driven commander in chief at a time when servicemen and women are dying in battle.  Horrible.  Us older folks remember the Iran hostages, under Carter– he finally tried a rescue, and our military was in such disarray that the rescue helicopters crashed before even getting to Iran!  Funny how getting obama is like coming full circle, to where carter left off.   Today, obama started with– get this– another MEETING about Afghanistan.  We were told a couple weeks ago he was done with the meeting stage and was in the thinking stage.  Now we are back to meetings again.  As I’ve said before, think about all of his ‘present’ votes– he cannot decide on a vote, so how will he decide as commander?  Could you imagine him in uniform, having to ACT– like, today?  He would need to hold a meeting to decide whether to shoot back!

He was to spend an hour at this ‘meeting’ about WAR, then off to Florida to talk up his policies to troops and citizens, and then to a big-wheeled dinner tonight to raise some bucks for the cause.  More campaigning tomorrow.  I suppose I should be grateful he found an hour to spend on the meeting!

So– for taking an hour to meet about a war where our men and women are dying, Thanks, obama!