Obamacare

Affordable Care Act Revisited

So, the POTUS does not do deals very well. Who'd a thunk it!

Well there's a shocker! What does he do now? Blame everyone else? Call it fake news? Spit out his pacifier? Play more golf? One thing is for sure, he now knows that the business model of shouting at and bullying your opponent does not really apply in politics.

Regarding Health care of course, we have been here before:

http://malkauffman.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/obama-rescued.html

The real problem with the Affordable Care Act is in it's name. It's just not very affordable and that is what drives the Republican agenda for repeal and/or redrafting.

This is not an altogether bad idea. After all, the one thing most folks can agree on is that the “Affordable” moniker is a misnomer. It's just way too costly.

Why?

Voters should focus on facts. Healthcare in the US is about seven times more expensive than in other western industrialised countries. Yep that was seven, not six, not five, not four not nothin! That's a lot of money and by definition a lot of waste.

Most of the nonsensical objections are driven by the same agenda as opposition to Social Security legislation in the 1930's. Check out: http://classroom.synonym.com/opposition-social-security-1930s-23530.html

I assert and have always done so that having passed legislation to create Obamacare Congress will never repeal it. They may as well try to repeal Social Security.

Therefore critics of healthcare legislation should be working on ways to make it truly affordable!

Some simple improvements: stop doing so many unnecessary tests – doctors are so afraid of being sued for negligence that they order a barrage of tests for conditions that just don't require t hem. Not blaming them, so would you in that situation. Solution? Limit the amount of compensation to reasonable amounts for conditions ancillary to the original complaint. Simples. Move people through the system quickly and efficiently – too many patients are just hanging around waiting for this doctor or that doctor to show up. Doctors, I'm afraid need to work reasonable hours not play golf every Friday. Overhaul the hospital “ambience”. Do we really need barrels of flowers and haute cuisine? Cut down on the bureaucracy – how many admins does it take to change a light bulb?

I'm sure greater minds than ours can find lots of ways to save cash.

More affordable heath care is required – not a repeal of Obamacare. Get over it.

Obama Rescued?

Can he survive the healthcare onslaught?

A follow-up to my recent in depth look at the problems besetting Obamacare finds me indebted to the Sunday Times again this week.

In a editorial by Andrew Sullivan, the difficulties facing the President are analysed and prognostications proposed.

He starts out by reminding us that second-term crises are not new. Reagan, Nixon, Clinton and Dubbya all suffered from malaise in their second term. What seems to be different is the fact that Obama has painted himself into a corner with his own mouth (pardon the chillingly daft mixed metaphor) by promising that people can keep their healthcare plans if they like them. They cannot and if your plan does not meet minimum standards then you have to get a new one.

Question is – can Obama recover?

Nixon, of course, could not. His crime? He lied to the people. Is Obama any different? Categorically? Possibly? Inadvertently? The answer rather depends on you political persuasion.

Sunday Times: “The first issue is indeed healthcare. He is attempting something transformative and immensely difficult in the American context, even though every other developed country has long since passed the threshold of universal care.

Americans, after all, are a conservative bunch – and no-one likes to feel as if their health, of all things, is being jeopardised by a law that Obama need never have passed. Many will see their premiums rise. If the federal website isn't fixed, more and more people are going to go nuts as the “computer says no”.

If confidence collapses, the critical cohorts of young people may not join the system, tipping it into an insurance death spiral, in which there are too many sick people enrolled and not enough healthy people to balance them out. . . . .

If he succeeds, then, it will be by the skin of his teeth, and the odds of him clawing back to more than 50% approval are low. But it's worth remembering that the healthcare law has been declared dead several times. It was never expected to pass the Congress in 2009, which was already grappling with stimulus for the Great Recession. It survived – just – but then nearly collapsed again as the Republicans seized the late Ted Kennedy's Senate seat and the votes were suddenly in question. After that the Supreme Court, in a surprise decision, upheld it. The law is close to being zombie – dead but still alive, and staggering ominously forward.”

Can the Republicans kill it? Hard to do up against the Presidential veto.

Moreover the Republicans have yet to propose any kind of alternative except a return to the status quo – which has very little support. Even now in the law's darkest hour there does not seem to be anywhere near a majority for repeal – according to the Sunday Times.

Back to the Sunday Times: “For all those currently without adequate healthcare provision it will be a godsend. For those whose plans are randomly cancelled or changed just when they need them most it will offer peace of mind.”

Second-term Presidents are always looking to their legacy. Obamacare is going to be this President's legacy like it or not. He has no fall-back position – he must make it work.