Personally I do not like the term “ObamaCare being used in place of the Affordable Care Act. President Obama’s name creates an immediate political and sociologic issue for many Americans. Some may notice I often title my posts “ObamaCare” Why ? My rational has been “Obamacare” has a very high rank on search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, or Bing. It makes it easy to find “Health Train Express”.
Even the title of the law is deceptive. It is not affordable, either for patients, employers, or the taxpayer. The subsidy is a hidden tax, and the Supreme Court of the U.S. recognized this when it determined the issue was not a constitutional conflict. John Robertson, the Chief Justice in his statement stated this in his decision. It is not designed to ‘care’ for Americans. Caring is an individual matter, and the broad sweeping broad law is an attempt to address many divergent problems such as abortion. The complexities of health and life are an individual challenge financially. Some Americans use lots of medical care in short mild illnesses and some have catastrophic illness with only one or a few very expensive encounters.
The ACA is inadequate because of short term thinking and a need for a quick “political’ fix.
During the past several months we have been focused on the ‘negative’ about the Affordable Care Act. The number of articles and discussions criticizing Obamacare are overwhelmingly opposed to the law. Some are written by Democrats but most are written by Republicans. It has nothing to do with the content, nor goals of the law, but is now a purely political tension. Ultimately this problem is the upcoming mid-term election and the eventual Presidential Election in 2016.
In our already complex health system the Affordable Care Act adds further confusion, and bureaucracy and expense. The goal of decreasing health care expense is far outweighed by the added layer of HIT and new agencies designed to control use by limiting benefits and preventing access by high co-pays and deductibles. The Act flies in the face of it’s stated goals of prevention and early care of potentially serious conditions.
Who was it that said “Nothing Good Comes from …….? The same can be said to sum up my opinions about a mixture of health and politics.
Backlash already appeared as Hillary Clinton cancelled her planned appearance as the headline speaker at next week’s Western Health Leadership Academy in San Diego due to planned protests over her failed leadership involvement in the Benghazi attacks. Ironically President Obama was denied coverage by all 3 major networks refusing to grant him airtime for a ‘victory lap’ to announce that Obamacare had reached 7.1 million enrollees.
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