FedGov and Healthcare

FedGov and Healthcare

© 2014 Rick Adamson

By Rick Adamson 5.21.14

  

The VA health Care system is run entirely by FedGov.  FedGov operates the clinics and hospitals, employs the doctors, nurses and support personnel.  It is unique in that regard and it is a mess. Further, the VA hospital system has no competition and no benchmarks to compare itself to in order to access its effectiveness. It is inefficient and bloated.There are long wait times for needed services, inadequate service (when it's provided) and most recently it has come to light that there has been fraud committed as it relates to reporting of wait times and services provided. Cost per person is about $10,000.00 annually.

See this video of Megyn Kelly interviewing Charles Krauthammer. 
See this video of O’Reilly Slamming the Administration on VA Scandal.
See this video of Charles Krauthammer on how the Obama administration is handling the VA scandal.
See this video of Megyn Kelly 5.21.14

• Duncan Hunter a representative from California said "all government organizations run like this. Its just that no one dies.  This is what government Bureaucracy‎ brings you.  Obamacare will look like this in 10 years. This is government run bureaucracy - it is not compassionate."

And as it turns out, the very people (administrators,doctors, nurses and others) assigned to provide care for our vets are members of a UNION and apparently are more concerned with their pay and advancement then with taking care of our of our vets.

The Medicaid (welfare) system is funded entirely by FedGov but it uses private clinics, hospitals, doctors, nurses. And, it is a mess.  Ask your doctor how he or she feels about Medicaid.  Mine and many many others refuse to see people covered by Medicaid because FedGov will not pay them enough to make a profit on the services rendered.  Additionally, there is rampant waste, fraud and misuse of this system.  Cost per person is about $15,000.00 annually.

The Medicare system is funded by workers by having a portion of every paycheck withheld and sent to a trust fund which FedGov administers.  The system is funded by FedGov in times of shortages in the trust fund.  The system uses private clinics, hospitals, doctors, nurses who are paid by FedGov from the trust fund.  It is a mess but not as bad as the first two.  FedGov pays the service providers more under this system than under the Medicaid system, however, there is rampant waste, fraud and misuse of the system.  Cost per person is about $8,000.00 annually.

Obamacare is administered by FedGov (or a few States that have to follow the federal model).  It is unique in that it uses health insurance policies to pay the private clinics, hospitals, doctors, nurses and is paid for by users of the system except for those dumped off to the Medicaid system. Obamacare sets minimum coverage requirements for the insurance policies and restricts the insurance companies’ ability to price their product based on their assessment of risk.  For example, historically, the health insurance premiums for a man were less than that of a woman the same age. This was because, as a general rule, females consumed more services than males; therefore the risk involved to cover a female with a policy was higher. This was not discrimination because the numbers proved that this was so.  I wonder if the higher consumption of health service contributes to the fact that females live longer than males.

Obamacare requires that the premium be the same in this circumstance, regardless of the risk involved. There many other examples of this type of situation which results in antiquating the traditional business model followed by insurance companies as they become minions of FedGov.  But, they are smart and will figure a way to exploit the system set up by Obamacare. Cost per person in 2013 was about $4,000.00 annually, excluding bailout funds.

Because Obamacare relies on insurance companies to provide the needed policies (and due to their inability to price their policies in the traditional way) Obamacare added an incentive for them. Obamacare guarantees that the insurance companies’ earn net income of 3% of the policy premiums collected.  In other words, the risk that insurance companies traditionally assumed has been eliminated. If they lose money or net less than the guaranteed amount FedGov will write them a check (bailout).

So, under Obamacare FedGov writes the rules of the game and in order to get the players (insurance companies) to play they are guaranteed a profit.

What a deal, I wish I was in the health insurance business.

The point of this is to show that FedGov cannot manage. Their mismanagement costs the taxpayers’ money thru higher taxes.  Maybe the whole idea that FedGov be in the health care business should be scrapped and privatized.