IS OBAMACARE FAIR OR UNCONSTITIONAL?

Ignoring the fact that the original estimated cost of O'Care was 940 Billion and now is estimated to be 1.7 Trillion, there are other factors that a Kid like you have no clue about. While I and others who depend on the care have a good idea of what is coming.

Why do wealthy canadians come to the USA for care?

"The core problem here is that the Canadian health-care system is relying on an inefficient model for health-care policy, that is we have a preponderance of government in the health-care system," Esmail said. "Government is delivering health care and government is regulating health care."

http://www.canada.com/health/...

We met some folks during my wife's Cardiac treatment from Canada. My Wife had heart attack at 6 PM, and by 11 PM had been Helicoptered to the nearest Cardiac Care unit, had the procedure, and was in her room out of recovery.

Lady from Canada had a Heart attack requiring Angioplasty, and they told her that it would be 10 days before they could get her the procdure. Husband loaded her into his car, drove to a Clinic in Blain, where she got Helicoptered to the same place as my wife and had the same quick results.

If he was not a Successful Business man and able to afford immediate care, she might have had a Massive Coronary, or stroke during the 10 day wait for surgery.

Then there is the wait times and cost problems that are cropping up in Massechusetts after 5 yrs.

Five years ago, Massachusetts’ then-Gov. Mitt Romney approved a new medical plan that requires almost all state residents to have health insurance, just as Obamacare’s individual mandate would for the entire nation.

Today in Massachusetts, the wait time to see a doctor can be as long as seven weeks, and many doctors won’t accept patients in the subsidized insurance program. That does not bode well for national healthcare reform if it is fully implemented as planned by President Barack Obama and the Democrats.

A new study by the Massachusetts Medical Society (MMS), which has 23,000 physicians and student members and publishes the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, takes an in-depth look at healthcare in Massachusetts under the state program, which is often regarded as a model for Obama’s 2010 healthcare reforms. Among its findings:

• The average wait time for an appointment with an internist is 48 days, and the wait time to see a family physician is 36 days.

• The average wait time for pediatricians is 24 days, according to the MMS’s “2011 Study of Patient Access to Health Care.”

• Access to primary care physicians is becoming more restricted — 53 percent of family physicians and 51 percent of internists are not accepting new patients.

• Patients wait an average of 43 days to see a gastroenterologist, and 41 days to see an obstetrician/gynecologist.

• While 87 percent of family physicians accept Medicare, only 62 percent accept MassHealth, the state’s version of Medicaid.

• Only 56 percent of family physicians and 43 percent of internists accept Commonwealth Care, an insurance program for adults who don’t have private health insurance and don’t qualify for Medicare. Just 44 percent of family physicians and 35 percent of internists accept Commonwealth Choice, a program for uninsured adults that offers unsubsidized health insurance to people who are not eligible for Medicaid or Commonwealth Care.

• Due, in part, to a shortage of doctors participating in the program, the number of emergency room visits has actually risen under the Massachusetts plan.

“Massachusetts has made great strides in securing insurance coverage for its citizens, but insurance coverage doesn’t equal access to care,” said Alice Coombs, M.D., president of the MMS. “We still have much work to do to reduce wait times and widen access. This has important implications for healthcare cost control, as difficulty or delay with routine access to care leads people to seek other options, such as the emergency room, which is much more costly.”
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Researchers at the Beacon Hill Institute (BHI) at Suffolk University in Boston found that the Bay State healthcare reform plan has led to increased healthcare expenditures and private health insurance costs, as well as additional payments for Medicare and Medicaid, for a total of $8.5 billion in new outlays.

In 2006, Massachusetts enacted healthcare reform legislation that promised to extend healthcare coverage to all citizens while significantly lowering costs. The law imposes mandates on residents to obtain health insurance and on employers to provide it if they have 11 or more employees.

It also expands Medicaid coverage, establishes a health insurance subsidy program, and creates an insurance exchange that helps those who are ineligible for Medicaid buy competitively priced health plans.

The BHI report states: “Now that the law has been in effect for more than five years, we can begin to assess its impact on the state of Massachusetts.”

Among the findings:

• State healthcare expenditures have risen by $414 million over the five-year period.

• Private health insurance costs have risen by $4.31 billion.

• The federal government has spent an additional $2.41 billion on Medicaid in Massachusetts.

• Medicare expenditures increased by $1.42 billion.

The total cumulative cost over the period is just over $8.5 billion.

But the state has been able to shift the majority of the costs to the federal government, which continues to absorb a significant part of the cost of healthcare reform through enhanced Medicaid payments and the Medicare program — meaning Americans outside Massachusetts are helping to pay the bills for the healthcare plan.

In analyzing the study’s results, the researchers observe: “Cost-containment is often a major goal of health reform plans. However, this particular healthcare reform legislation did not provide an effective means for containing costs.

“The promise of cost-containment rested on a vague hope that the newly insured would seek preventive care, access their primary care physicians earlier in their illness and avoid costly emergency room visits. Yet the number of emergency room visits rose from 2.351 million in 2006 to 2.521 million in 2009, or by 7.2 percent over the period. The total cost of emergency visits has soared by 36 percent over the period, or by $943 million.”

The large number of newly insured residents in the state has increased demands on the primary care system, forcing patients to visit emergency rooms at a rate significantly higher than expected.

The BHI report also states that “by increasing demand for healthcare services without an equal increase in their supply, the universal healthcare law guaranteed that the price of healthcare services and health insurance would increase.”

Modernizing the Medicaid Benefit and Protecting Medicare Beneficiary Choice. The health security for low‐income families and American seniors is threatened by the outdated formulas and exploding costs of Medicaid and Medicare. These vital programs require significant reforms to better balance value for those beneficiaries in greatest need and protection for U.S. taxpayers.

The Patients’ Choice Act would make important improvements to both programs without limiting eligibility or benefits by:
• Integrating low‐income families with dependent children into higher‐quality private plans through direct
assistance
• Removing the stigma of Medicaid and providing access to the same coverage options available to all Americans
• Realigning responsibility between federal and state governments in order to better coordinate benefits by
requiring the Medicare program to assume Medicaid responsibility of premiums, cost‐sharing, and deductibles
for low‐income seniors
• Rebalancing long‐term care services to ensure choice between institutionalized and home‐based care
• Empowering Medicare beneficiaries with more choices and more power by reforming Medicare Advantage
• Allowing for the creation of Medicare Accountable Care Organizations that would improve payment to
physicians, hospitals, pharmacists, and nurses for demonstrable improvements in quality and patient satisfaction
while reducing costs
• Requiring wealthy Medicare beneficiaries to contribute a little more for their care under Medicare Part D

http://paulryan.house.gov/Upl...