The government is just here to help
They're from the government, and they're here to help…. Really?
Democrats, RINOs, progressives, mainstream media, academia, and other irrational beings believe the government can guarantee affordable health insurance and easily accessible full-service healthcare for every person living in America. It's more complicated than one might think, especially when multiple government agencies and bureaucracies oversee every moving part in all the processes involved.
Last week Senate republicans failed to pass a “skinny” repeal of parts of the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. Among other things, the bill would have ended the employer mandate, the individual mandate, and eliminated the medical device tax for three years. Senators John McCain, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski joined democrats and voted against the GOP plan.
Before Obamacare, approximately 15-percent of Americans did not have health insurance. Granted, everyone had access to healthcare, but 15-percent of us did not have health insurance. Perhaps the simplest way to provide health insurance for these folks would have been to come up with a plan to provide health insurance for just these folks. But nooooooo! The government said we needed to include every American in this problem, and then dump reams of new paperwork and instructions onto healthcare workers teaching them how to do their jobs. What could possibly go wrong?
Obamacare was so popular that democrats forced every American to purchase insurance or pay a tax; in 2016 the minimum tax for not having insurance was $695. The 2,700plus page bill required medical records to be computerized. Formerly doctors used 18,000 codes to identify diagnoses; since October 2013 the government has made them use 140,000 codes because the government just wants to help. On the upside, medical providers have had to hire more people just to deal with the paperwork, and raise prices for their services to pay for new employees.
With apologies to Will Rogers, the democrats have been much more organized than the republicans. They passed the humongous bill with no republican support. Republicans can't pass a “skinny” bill to make a few modest changes.
So, comrades, we have Obamacare to live and die with! Since the bill didn't pass, we can presume the millions who would have died with its passage can rest easy now. We have Obamacare to save us. The government is here to help.
In the meantime, health insurance rates continue to rise dramatically along with deductibles. They're both rising because costs of medical services are rising dramatically. Americans pay more for healthcare by far than any nation on earth. And, Obamacare raised income taxes by raising the medical deductibles from 7.5-percent to 10-percent. So, we're all just paying more and more because that's the government's plan!
What if the government got out of medical care providers' business, stopped telling doctors what they can and cannot do as well as how to do it, and let folks in the medical field do what they know how to do? Likewise, with insurance companies. Let insurance companies create as many packages and choices as consumers demand, and let us decide what kind of coverage we need.
Unfortunately, we live in a nation whose voters believe politicians, bureaucrats and lobbyists can guarantee affordable health insurance and easily accessible full-service healthcare for every person living in America. After all, the government's just here to help.
Daniel L. Gardner is a syndicated columnist who lives in Starkville, MS. You may contact him at PJandMe2@gmail. com, or interact with him on the Clarion-Ledger web site http://www.clarionledger.com/story/opinion/