Healthcare Spending Growth is Down

Obamacare is working!

The growth in healthcare spending is slowing!

In totally unrelated news, fewer people have full time jobs than they did before and therefore have less health insurance, and so spend less on healthcare than they did before.

In other words, success for Obamacare!

In 2011, national healthcare spending climbed 3.9 percent, the same as the year before. That was the slowest increase since the 1960s - See more at: http://lfb.org/today/obamas-2009-promise-of-cheaper-health-care-has-morphed-into-2013-price-hikes/#sthash.JAe7b9hf.dpuf

Obamacare will be Awful: Links

No kidding, right?

Socialized medicine is bad in Canada.

Universal healthcare is bankrupting Japan.  Let the elderly die, says one politician.

And our politicians, who lovingly voted for Obamacare, have opted themselves out of it.

How wonderful.


"Everyone has a right to free medical care, but there is, in effect, no medicine and no care."

-Murry Rothbard

***

Also note that I was going to add a few select quotes from the linked articles, but Blogger was not allowing me to copy and paste.  Stupid Blogger.  Use Wordpress for blogging.

“everyone has the right to free medical care, but there is, in effect, no medicine and no care.” - See more at: http://lfb.org/today/a-cure-for-obamacare-from-canada-with-love/#sthash.XwMKTzFG.dpuf

A recent study on Canadian health care has been released late last year. In it, the authors examine the deleterious effects of socialized medicine on patient wait times and the delivery of care. It offers Americans a revealing glimpse of the future economic implications of Obamacare.
Released by the Fraser Institute, the December 2012 survey of specialists reveals that Canadians are now waiting 17.7 weeks between the referral to a specialist and the delivery of treatment. This is 91% longer than in 1993, when the institute began studying wait times.
In essence, wait times in Canada have doubled in the past 20 years. Sadly, the rationing of care that results in lengthy wait times for patients is a predictable consequence of government interference in the medical system.
- See more at: http://lfb.org/today/a-cure-for-obamacare-from-canada-with-love/#sthash.Zqh8Adkr.dpu

A recent study on Canadian health care has been released late last year. In it, the authors examine the deleterious effects of socialized medicine on patient wait times and the delivery of care. It offers Americans a revealing glimpse of the future economic implications of Obamacare.
Released by the Fraser Institute, the December 2012 survey of specialists reveals that Canadians are now waiting 17.7 weeks between the referral to a specialist and the delivery of treatment. This is 91% longer than in 1993, when the institute began studying wait times.
In essence, wait times in Canada have doubled in the past 20 years. Sadly, the rationing of care that results in lengthy wait times for patients is a predictable consequence of government interference in the medical system.
- See more at: http://lfb.org/today/a-cure-for-obamacare-from-canada-with-love/#sthash.Zqh8Adkr.d

A recent study on Canadian health care has been released late last year. In it, the authors examine the deleterious effects of socialized medicine on patient wait times and the delivery of care. It offers Americans a revealing glimpse of the future economic implications of Obamacare.
Released by the Fraser Institute, the December 2012 survey of specialists reveals that Canadians are now waiting 17.7 weeks between the referral to a specialist and the delivery of treatment. This is 91% longer than in 1993, when the institute began studying wait times.
In essence, wait times in Canada have doubled in the past 20 years. Sadly, the rationing of care that results in lengthy wait times for patients is a predictable consequence of government interference in the medical system.
- See more at: http://lfb.org/today/a-cure-for-obamacare-from-canada-with-love/#sthash.Zqh8Adkr.dpuf

A recent study on Canadian health care has been released late last year. In it, the authors examine the deleterious effects of socialized medicine on patient wait times and the delivery of care. It offers Americans a revealing glimpse of the future economic implications of Obamacare.
Released by the Fraser Institute, the December 2012 survey of specialists reveals that Canadians are now waiting 17.7 weeks between the referral to a specialist and the delivery of treatment. This is 91% longer than in 1993, when the institute began studying wait times.
In essence, wait times in Canada have doubled in the past 20 years. Sadly, the rationing of care that results in lengthy wait times for patients is a predictable consequence of government interference in the medical system.
- See more at: http://lfb.org/today/a-cure-for-obamacare-from-canada-with-love/#sthash.Zqh8Adkr.dpufecent study on Canadian health care has been released late last year. In it, the authors examine the deleterious effects of socialized medicine on patient wait times and the delivery of care. It offers Americans a revealing glimpse of the future economic implications of Obamacare.

Released by the Fraser Institute, the December 2012 survey of specialists reveals that Canadians are now waiting 17.7 weeks between the referral to a specialist and the delivery of treatment. This is 91% longer than in 1993, when the institute began studying wait times.
In essence, wait times in Canada have doubled in the past 20 years. Sadly, the rationing of care that results in lengthy wait times for patients is a predictable consequence of government interference in the medical system.
- See more at: http://lfb.org/today/a-cure-for-obamacare-from-canada-with-love/#sthash.Zqh8Adkr.dpuf

A recent study on Canadian health care has been released late last year. In it, the authors examine the deleterious effects of socialized medicine on patient wait times and the delivery of care. It offers Americans a revealing glimpse of the future economic implications of Obamacare.
Released by the Fraser Institute, the December 2012 survey of specialists reveals that Canadians are now waiting 17.7 weeks between the referral to a specialist and the delivery of treatment. This is 91% longer than in 1993, when the institute began studying wait times.
In essence, wait times in Canada have doubled in the past 20 years. Sadly, the rationing of care that results in lengthy wait times for patients is a predictable consequence of government interference in the medical system.
- See more at: http://lfb.org/today/a-cure-for-obamacare-from-canada-with-love/#sthash.Zqh8Adkr.dpuf

Mandated Gun Ownership

How would requiring the ownership of a gun be different from requiring the purchase of healthcare?  Its just a tax if you don't buy one, so why not the other?

The small town of Nelson, Georgia, (pop: 1,300) passed an ordinance in April requiring the head of each household to own a firearm (with exceptions for convicted felons, those not capable of owning a gun, and anyone who conscientiously objected. Despite the exceptions, and that the town’s police chief (and only cop) said he had no intention of enforcing the ordinance, the Brady Center for Gun Violence (an anti-gun more than an anti-violence group) is suing the city over what it calls an “unconstitutional” law.

-reason

from the comments:

The GOP should quietly threaten to pass a mandatory gun law if the Democrats don't repeal ObamaCarousel. Sure, deny it publicly, but make it clear that they'll do it as soon as they have the votes.

What part of the constitution grants the government the power to enact such a regulation?

The same part that says that the government can compel you to purchase a product from a third party.

In my book, the people in a state or a municipality can pass their own local constitution which grants their local government powers which do not conflict with the Federal constitution. Any authority the people have not granted to the local government in such way, the local government should not have.

If government can force you to have fire extinguishers, smoke detectors, and low flow toilets and showerheads why can't they force you to own a firearm?

According to the FedGov, the National Militia includes every able-bodied man between specific ages. Requiring that everyone own a firearm supports this definition of "militia" in a very practical way. Too bad towns are having to do the work that the FedGov just isn't willing to do.

The government can't require people to do something unless there's some plausible argument that it serves a legitimate government objective, Perry said. While deterring crime could be considered a legitimate objective, it would be hard for the city to prove the ordinance accomplishes that goal, he said.

Step 1. Fight this lawsuit and ultimately lose because "it's hard for the city to prove the ordinance accomplishes that goal."

Step 2. Sue Chicago and demand they prove that their "common sense gun control" laws accomplish the goal of reducing gun violence.

Step 3. Sue D.C. and demand they prove that their "common sense gun control" laws accomplish the goal of reducing gun violence.

Rinse-repeat.

Just which Constitutional right does this law violate, again?

Note that this has nothing to do with any of purportedly limited grants of power to the feds, so the Commerce Clause and all that are irrelevant. If this is unconstitutional, it can only be because it violates a Constitutional right. So, which one?

In light of the Obamacare decision, which one indeed?  And why not try it?

Public Opinion

I was looking at a post about Sen. Baccus wondering about the flaws in Obamacare. 

One commenter pointed out that Obamacare is unpopular.  I wonder if that's true.  If I talk to my white middle class friends, then they're not fond of it.  But if I went to talk to the poor inner city blacks, then I'd bet I'd hear about how good Obamacare will be.

How do we know what public opinion is?

Isn't polling largely based on who gets polled?

I recommend that the government do nothing.

Clearly the U.S. budget is not balanced. 

Clearly it cannot be balanced unless significant changes are made to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, and unemployment benefits.   Because spending on these programs, alone exceed the total revenues of the U.S. government.  tables 1.1 and 3.1

Clearly there is no plan to make any changes to entitlements.

Since these are the facts, what should our government do to improve our economy?

I suggest that it do nothing.  It is true that an unbalanced budget is bad.  Adding more than $1 trillion to the national debt each year is bad.  But our government is so incompetent that even their attempts to fix these massive problems only make things worse.

Our government is thoroughly incompetent at everything. (see: literacy rate in publicly schooled cities like Detroit and Milwaukee, see: the war on drugs, see: border security....)

Incompetently changing the laws every so often can only complicate things.  Adding new rules and regulations can only complicate things.

I suggest holding all laws exactly as they are now through at least the next four years.  It is more difficult to make plans when we don't know what the laws will be.  Businesses will be better able to plan the next four years if they know that there will be no new laws and regulations that they need to comply with.  Entrepreneurs will be better able to make plans if they know what the laws are going to be. 

We'd all have four years to make the most with our known quantities and we'd not need to spend time trying to figure out what all the new rules will be.

Stability in the awful economy may be the best way for people to work to improve the economy.

Its not a good solution.  A balanced budget should be the first priority of every government, business, and person all the time always.  But since their is no prayer at all for any sort of good solution, let's stick with the terribleness that we know, rather than add more to what we don't.

Obamacare for the lulz

RWC&G doesn't seem to think that Obamacare is going to be all that much fun for doctors:

Quick doctors/hospitals, who wants to get to administer time-consuming experimental or at least palliative care to this incurably-diseased patient on a ‘fee for health’ basis? Don’t all raise your hands at once. Meanwhile, I sense some good business opportunities for PR and advertising firms offering services to doctors helping them sign up a bunch of ‘healthy’ patients that they can almost-never-see but regularly bill for…’Dear Health Ins. Co.: I kept this 19-year-old athletic male healthy again this week. No visits/tests/treatments. Send me $370 please!’

Obamacare Lies are More Obvious Than You'd Think

It would be nice if these were sourced better.

from here:

Most of us who were opposed to Obamacare already knew about this one.

MYTH OF 50 MILLION UNINSURED

For example, we were told that there were as many as 50 million uninsured people in this country. But as Atlas explained, that number was greatly exaggerated.

First, as we discussed on this blog previously, somewhere between 10 and 15 million of that group are not U.S. citizens. That may be a problem, but it’s more of an immigration problem. That does not seem like a reason to turn our health care system upside down.

What about the remaining 35-40 million? Atlas explained that those numbers came from a survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. And there were about 10 million people who said they didn’t have insurance, but did — as was discovered by cross-referencing the claims with medical records that contradicted the claims. For the most part, these people were using Medicaid, which they may not have considered insurance. Apparently people thought the question was asking about private insurance. But someone who is getting health care through Medicaid is hardly “uninsured.”

Then, it turns out that there was another group of about 13 million people who were eligible for public insurance (Medicaid, Medicare, SCHIP/CHIP) who are eligible for state health insurance but did not access it yet.

Ultimately, Atlas says “you are left with a population of less than 5% of people in the United States who don’t have insurance or who are not already eligible for current government insurance programs. I would not call that a crisis in the uninsured.” Indeed.

This is something that I always wondered about but have not heard elsewhere.  Since we're overweight doesn't that mean we will be much less healthy than the places where the people are thinner? 

Once again we learn that lots of people are killed on government run roads.

MYTH OF POOR LIFE EXPECTANCY IN U.S.

But weren’t we told that governments with more involvement in health care have better systems? For example, our life expectancy is pretty wretched according to most measures. Except Atlas points out, when you control for “suicide and immediate death from high speed motor accidents” — things where the health care system can’t save you anyway — all of a sudden we shoot to #1. Plus there is another thumb on the scale that has to do with society and not our health care system, because we are an obese society, and obesity lowers life expectancy quite a bit. But that’s not the health care system’s fault. It’s not your doctor’s fault you are fat. So if we’re #1 even with all the obesity, after you control for things doctors can’t fix, then we’re doing pretty well.

 Read some more.  Found thanks to Rhymes with Cars and Girls.

Oklahoma Doctors vs. Obamacae

from an article at reason:

Three years ago, Dr. Keith Smith, co-founder and managing partner of the Surgery Center of Oklahoma, took an initiative that would only be considered radical in the health care industry: He posted online a list of prices for 112 common surgical procedures. The 51-year-old Smith, a self-described libertarian, and his business partner, Dr. Steve Lantier, founded the Surgery Center 15 years ago, after they became disillusioned with the way patients were treated at St. Anthony Hospital in Oklahoma City, where the two men worked as anesthesiologists. In 1997, Smith and Lantier bought the shell of a former surgical center with the aim of creating a for-profit facility that could deliver first-rate care at a fraction of what traditional hospitals charge.

The major cause of exploding U.S. heath care costs is the third-party payer system, a text-book concept in which A buys goods or services from B that are paid for by C. Because private insurance companies or the government generally pick up most of the tab for medical services, patients don’t have the normal incentive to seek out value.

The Surgery Center’s consumer-driven model could become increasingly common as Americans look for alternatives to the traditional health care market—an unintended consequence of Obamacare. Patients may have no choice but to look outside the traditional health care industry in the face of higher costs and reduced access to doctors and hospitals.

The Surgery Center demonstrates that it’s possible to offer high quality care at low prices. "It's always been interesting to me,” says Dr. Jason Sigmon, “that in any other industry, tons of attention is devoted to making systems more efficient, but in health care that's just completely lost." Sigmon, an ear, nose, and throat surgeon, regularly performs procedures at both the Surgery Center and at Oklahoma City's Integris Baptist Medical Center, which is the epitome of a traditional hospital. It's run by a not-for-profit called Integris Health, which is the largest health care provider in Oklahoma serving over 700,000 patients a year.

Sigmon says he can perform twice as many surgeries in a single day at the Surgery Center than at Integris. At the latter institution, he spends half his time waiting around while the staff struggles with the basic logistics of moving patients from preoperative care into the operating room. When the patient arrives, Sigmon will sometimes wait even longer for the equipment he needs.

Except for the clerical staff, every employee at the Surgery Center is directly involved in patient care. For example, both human resources and building maintenance are the responsibility of the head nurse. "One reason our prices are so low," says Smith, "is that we don't have administrators running around in their four or five thousand dollar suits." 

Because bills charged by Integris are paid primarily by insurance companies or the government, the hospital gets away with gouging for its services. Reason obtained a bill for a procedure that Dr. Sigmon performed at Integris in October 2010 called a “complex bilateral sinus procedure,” which helps patients with chronic nasal infections. The bill, which is strictly for the hospital itself and doesn't include Sigmon's or the anesthesiologist's fees, totaled $33,505. When Sigmon performs the same procedure at the Surgery Center, the all-inclusive price is $5,885.

The Integris bill for the same nasal procedure went to Blue Cross of Oklahoma, so the patient had no compelling reason to question its outrageous markups. They included a $360 charge for a steroid called dexamethasone, which can be purchased wholesale for just 75 cents. Or the three charges totaling $630 for a painkiller called fentanyl citrate, which all together cost the hospital about $1.50. ...

The only reason we don't move all healthcare towards this successful example is an irrational fear of free markets.

Perhaps it is not irrational.  If you pay attention to democrats, the media, or the uninformed you too will probably begin to fear the market.  

Update: Monopolies only exist as the government or with the help of the government. 

Huffington Post Comment Rebuttal

I recently received this reply to one of my comments over at the Huffington Post. 

Me:

How is ACA supposed to help balance the budget?

With it the government will be paying for more peoples' healthcare, and many more bureaucrats will be hired, whose salaries need to be paid.

egdot

So you should just leave these people without healthcare? Which bureaucrats? It's still a private insurance system by and large - not a government takeover. And even if it were - at least you'll be creating jobs which will increase demand which will stimulate the economy.  Healthcare costs money. You will never get away from that. Not insuring people is immoral as well as costly too.  Conservatives don't get it - even in the face of all the evidence from countries where they do cover all their people and have strong economies - Germany, Australia, France...Sweden, Norway, Denmark.. 

I would like to rebut it, but first let's look at what Dilbert Blog commenter Hankfu left as a description of how the left likes to debate:

Hankfu

See how the Obama supporters will try everything to deflect the argument using the classic approach:

1) Admit nothing
2) Deny everything
3) Make counter-accusations

the arguments typically follow the pattern of ignoring the basic argument you made, arguing the facts to say you got it wrong to suit their beliefs, and attack your motivations for making such an argument in your voting preference.

Let's see how well egdot compares to Hanfu's description of how those on the left debate:

1) "Admit nothing"

egdot did not mention how ACA is supposed to help balance the budget (as was said in an earlier comment).

2) "Deny everything"

egdot: "It's still a private insurance system by and large - not a government takeover."

That's 2/2.

3) "Make counter-accusations"

egdot: "So you should just leave these people without healthcare?"

Looks like 3/3.

4) "ignoring the basic argument you made" ("How is ACA supposed to help balance the budget?")

Did you see any mention of the costs the government will have to pay with ACA in egdot's comment? I did not.

That's  4/4.

5) "arguing the facts to say you got it wrong to suit their beliefs"

egdot: "even in the face of all the evidence from countries where they do cover all their people and have strong economies"

Does that not make 5/5?

6)  "attack your motivations for making such an argument"

 egdot: "Not insuring people is immoral as well as costly too."

6/6

My compliments Hankfu.  You have excellently described how egdot responded to my comment.

Not all liberal comments would meet these 6 points, many are too short, etc.  But egdot's comment just happened to be the first one I looked at after reading Hankfu's.

In future Debates in the Comments perhaps I'll list which number the responses I get fall under.  I'd like to add two, however:

7) name calling

8) insults

With these 8 ways that liberals respond in my debates the comments the debates may become much more amusing.

***

On Monday, or so, I plan on a whole long post describing why egdot's comment is wrong.

My arguments will be:

1) more government always means people are worse off

2) socialized healthcare has not worked well in the places that it has been tried

3) egdot has called me "immoral" for not wanting to insure everyone.  I will point out why his position is immoral.  And even more so.

egdot accuses me of not wanting to help someone who is injured.

egdot's preferred healthcare plan does the injuring in the first place.