Thread: Howard Dean: Please Fund Obamacare, Even Though It Can't Work

Howard Dean: Please Fund Obamacare, Even Though It Can't Work

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by Joel B. Pollak 29 Jul 2013, 5:50 AM PDT 362 post a comment
In an op-ed in Monday's Wall Street Journal, former Democratic presidential candidate and Vermont Gov. Howard Dean argues that Obamacare's main cost-control mechanism, the Independent Payments Advisory Board (IPAB), will not work. Nevertheless, he says, Congress should reject attempts to defund Obamacare.

The IPAB is fundamental to the design of Obamacare, rivaling the individual mandate in importance. It would consist of fifteen experts with final authority to decide what treatments public insurance will cover. Former Office of Management and Budget director Peter Orszag, who championed the IPAB, said in 2010 that it has "an enormous amount of potential power" to control health-care costs in Medicare and Medicaid:

...this is a very substantial change. Statutory power to put forward proposals to reduce health care cost growth over time, and improve quality, and those proposals take effect automatically if Congress ignores them, if Congress votes them down and the President vetoes that bill.

Orszag also described the IPAB as critical in moving the U.S. health care system away from fee-for-service and towards prioritizing quality.
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin described the IPAB as a "death panel" because of its ability to ration care. Dean's objection to the IPAB is, in essence, the same: "The IPAB is essentially a health-care rationing body," he writes in the Journal. "By setting doctor reimbursement rates for Medicare and determining which procedures and drugs will be covered and at what price, the IPAB will be able to stop certain treatments its members do not favor by simply setting rates to levels where no doctor or hospital will perform them."
Citing his own experience in Vermont, Dean--who is also a physician--recounts the main objection to independent cost-control panels: "patients and physicians get aggravated because bureaucrats in either the private or public sector are making medical decisions without knowing the patients." That aggravation, he argues, does not actually produce cost control. In fact, he says, further bureaucracy drives costs upwards.
There is "no possibility," he says, that the IPAB will fulfill Orszag's goal of moving away form fee-for-servive.
And yet, Dean argues, Congress must still fund Obamacare and see it implemented as fully as possible. He joins those who call conservative proposals to defund the law the "dumbest idea I've ever heard." But given that there is no legislative effort by Democrats to drop the IPAB from Obamacare--certainly none that would win President Barack Obama's support--Dean may have to take his medicine. And pay for it.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Governm...-It-Won-t-Work

IRS Wants Exemption From Obamacare

Posted by Philip Hodges


The IRS is supposed to be the agency responsible for enforcing the (un)Affordable Care Act on everybody. But they want to make sure they get to keep their current coverage through the Federal Employee Health Benefit Plan (FEHBP).
One of the early promises from Obama regarding the healthcare plan that bears his name was that if you’re happy with your current insurance, you can keep it. Employees, small businesses and even many unions are finding out that that isn’t actually true, and they’re now opposing Obamacare on those grounds.
A group of unions appealed to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, complaining about Obamacare:
“When you and the President sought our support for the Affordable Care Act (ACA), you pledged that if we liked the health plans we have now, we could keep them. Sadly, that promise is under threat. Right now, unless you and the Obama Administration enact an equitable fix, the ACA will shatter not only our hard-earned health benefits, but destroy the foundation of the 40 hour work week that is the backbone of the American middle class.”
Another union feeling a little threatened by Obamacare is the National Treasury Employees Union, the union representing most IRS employees. They’re concerned that a piece of legislation sponsored by Congressman Dave Camp would force them to lose their current federal government healthcare and to be dumped in the Obamacare exchange market.
Congressman Dave Camp is of course opposed to Obamacare. He wants every American to be exempt from its mandates:
“House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp offered the bill in response to reports of congressional negotiations that would exempt lawmakers and their staff from Obamacare. ‘Camp has long believed every American ought to be exempt from the law, which is why he supports full repeal,’ Camp spokeswoman Allie Walker said. ‘If the Obamacare exchanges are good enough for the hardworking Americans and small businesses the law claims to help, then they should be good enough for the president, vice president, Congress and federal employees,’ she also said.”
So, this bill has IRS employees concerned that they might actually have to take part in the very healthcare mandates that they will be assisting the feds in enforcing on most Americans. They’ll work to force Obamacare on everybody and make sure everyone without exception is in perfect compliance with fees, fines and regulations, but they don’t want any part of it themselves. I thought Obamacare was going to be “a freedom, a liberation,” as Pelosi claimed recently. It was supposed to be the greatest thing since sliced bread. So, why are these federal employees terrified of it? What’s there to be afraid of?


http://godfatherpolitics.com/11924/i...rom-obamacare/

I bet they do..everyone with half a brain does!!! I think all politicians,government employees and their families, and that is including the commander and chief along with his whole family, and his so called cabinet of misfits and hidden counterparts. It would be a great idea and very fitting for them all to test it out before any one else is forced to use the program they foisted on the American public with our funds. I would say for at least 15 years to iron out the creeks in it... After all they helped design it and they were so eager to pass it with out reading it and the full approval of the American people, that seems very fair for them to do, I mean they keep saying how good it is don't they???? They all like it so much they are exempting themselves well I think the Buck needs to stops with them....

Both Obamacare and Illegal Amnesty are all about profits for all the them from all of us!!!!