Local radio talk show host KIM Waaaaaaaaaaaaade sent out this email today with the title "Open letter to Gov.Bryant,Chaney, Super Talk Ins Ind and Hosp Assc". Needless to say, he's been on a tear lately accusing them of Supertalk, the Governor, and Chaney selling out to the insurance companies on Obamacare although I must confess, I don't see it. Here is the email.
How States Can Reject and Replace Obamacare
By Ken Blackwell and Ken Klukowski 27 Jul 2012
Here’s the blueprint for how the states can eviscerate three central pillars of Obamacare, crippling it, and set the stage for replacing it if Mitt Romney takes the White House and the GOP takes the Senate this November.
Many are focusing on whether Congress will refuse to fund all the provisions of Obamacare that require federal money. While very important, this is only one barrel of what must be a double-barreled approach. The other is what states can do to dismantle Obamacare. And if we pursue both of these simultaneously, we can defeat Obamacare and safeguard the greatest healthcare system the world has ever known.
Two reasons compel dismantling Obamacare. First is restoring individual liberty by empowering states against the national government and citizens against both. Second is recognizing that free markets outperform centrally-planned markets, so private-sector healthcare will better serve Americans than government-controlled Obamacare ever could.
However disappointing the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold Obamacare’s individual mandate in a 5–4 decision, by a separate 7–2 vote the justices opened the door for the states to assert their sovereignty in an equally-unprecedented opportunity. The Court has declared for decades that it’s theoretically possible for federal spending to exceed Congress’ power under the Spending Clause of the Constitution, thereby violating the Tenth Amendment. That possibility became reality on June 28.
Medicaid is nominally a federal-state “partnership” consuming 20% of state budgets. Obamacare grows Medicaid by an additional $434 billion per decade to cover all Americans up to 138% of the poverty line. The feds promise to pay for 90% of this expansion (though they cannot be held to that), leaving states to pay at least another $50 billion.
If any state declines to participate in the expansion, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) could strip that state of 100% of its Medicaid dollars. Every voter in that state would continue funding Medicaid through payroll taxes twice a month, but now would be subsidizing the other 49 states. Rejecting the expansion would thus be a political death wish for any governor or legislature.
This coercion is an unconstitutional violation of state sovereignty, so the Court struck down that part of Obamacare’s massive Medicaid expansion. The four justices against the individual mandate would have invalidated this entire expansion. While Chief Justice Roberts wouldn’t go that far, he was willing to strike down the provision authorizing stripping all Medicaid funds. So now states can refuse to expand Medicaid by foregoing the additional funding.
So first, states must reject the Medicaid expansion. This will leave millions of people subject to the individual mandate unable to get coverage from this government entitlement. Many of those people are exempt from the penalty (tax?) anyway, but others are not. Those people vote heavily Democratic, and they’ll surely demand the mandate be amended to exempt them.
Second, states must refuse to create state-based exchanges, which provide heavily-subsidized insurance policies to middle-income Americans not provided healthcare by employers. Because it would violate the Tenth Amendment’s anti-commandeering principle to require states to create or run the exchanges, if a state doesn’t do it, HHS will directly create and run it.
But there are no tax subsidies if HHS runs an exchange, so there is no incentive for people to flock to the exchanges; they’d pay full price. While many high-risk individuals would do so, it would still be vastly more expensive. Many will instead choose to pay the penalty (tax?) for violating the individual mandate.
Third, if employers with 50+ employees do not provide federally-approved healthcare, Obamacare imposes a $2,000 penalty per employee, per year. (Minimum penalty $100,000.) However, that penalty is triggered when those employees receive tax subsidies from a state-based exchange.
Since HHS-run exchanges have no subsidies, for states refusing to create exchanges, no employer in that state will be subject to that penalty. Kim's comments,(this is where Chaney, the Governor, the Hospital Association and the the Insurance industry is throwing every body else under the bus)This means business owners will band together to lobby their state not to set up exchanges.
More than half the states sued to have Obamacare struck down. Presumably, most will now pursue their options to decline the Medicaid expansion, not create exchanges, and thereby also save their companies from federal penalties. Medicaid, the exchanges, and the employer mandate are three of the central pillars of the Obamacare system.
This will create an unworkable patchwork nationwide, between states with semi-socialized medicine and healthcare costs spiraling out of control, versus those with private-sector medicine. Expect doctors, insurers, and providers to flock to these friendlier states, creating an increasingly unbalanced system. Then Obamacare will start coming apart at the seams, and momentum will build to repeal and replace.
Breitbart News legal contributor Ken Klukowski and former Ohio Treasurer Ken Blackwell are on faculty at Liberty University, and explain these issues in Resurgent: How Constitutional Conservatism Can Save America.
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Kim Wade challenges the GOP establishment
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17 comments:
Mr. Wade is asking some valid questions .
I look forward to the Governor and Insurance Commissioner's rebuttal .
You gotta love Kim and his fire, but sometimes he gets all half cocked and outa step back, take a breath, ask some questions and LISTEN to what others have to say.
These are indeed valid questions. Questions that demand answers from the leaders of the State of Mississippi. However, we will not get answers from Bryant until his puppet masters tell him how to respond. He is in as far over his head on the issues that concern our State as Obama is on Federal Government issues.
How does an article from two fellows up north become an 'email from Kim Wade'? If Wade posted any original thoughts, I missed them.
Fair question Shadow. This is a an email he sent out today to alot of people. The title was his creation.
OREI
Chaney is showing his left side with Obamacare. He needs to realize we dont want medicare in MS. It is a political death sentence for anyone supporting it.
You gotta love Kim and his fire, but sometimes he gets all half cocked and outa step back, take a breath, ask some questions and LISTEN to what others have to say.
When and on what station may we catch your radio program anonymous?
If Wade posted any original thoughts, I missed them.
I've been wading through your myriad of comments for the same and still haven't found squat.
Go down Chaney's path and the resultant tax increases and government regulation/intrusion will be solely the fault of GOP incompetence.
If the collective minds in the party can't figure this out then they should have no quarrel if voters go back to the Donkeycrats since that party provides a bend-over screwing Mississippians are already very familiar with receiving.
We also have to wait for KF's true thoughts on the matter that he "don't see" until DoubleCheeseBurgerTaterFries checks in.
Do we have throw it all out? I like some of the reforms in the bill. I don't want to go back to letting the insurance companies dictate EVERYTHING and I want to be able to shop insurance coverage. And,I'm tired of paying more for a bandaid to cover the uninsured's bandaids.
How about if you throw it out, also let health care provided refuse care to those who can't pay their way so I don't have to pay for them?
Like it or lump it. Fact is, the email Wade 'sent out' wasn't written by Wade. He only copied and pasted it. I've listened to him (and enjoyed him) for a decade and have yet to hear him say much of substance other than a little slapstick about those he calls 'KNEEgrows'. Well, he DOES get on Harvey's case once in a while.
PS: @ 9:51; this post was an original thought. Try to have one, you'll be surprised how it feels.
Oh I love our medical system just as it has been before the bill. The greatest in the world, right?
I love that BCBS has a recent college graduate who is rewarded for finding ways to deny coverage deciding if I need the treatement my doctor thinks I need.
I love that if I were to fall and injure my arm AND my leg, I have to see two doctors instead of one.
And,it's not just the orthopods on this invented specialization scheme, now there are opthamologists for cataracts and dry eye separately, too. I actually was "referred" to go to THREE eye doctors when ONE should have been all I needed. But, I have good coverage so spread the wealth, right?
I love that I get treated by a PA and have never even SEEN one of my doctors in two years.
I love that no doctor has listened to my chest,looked down my throat or in my ears in years but just draws blood and decides everything from tests.
My friend is thrilled too since she just found out no one really looked at her test results and the meds they put her on has done serious damage to one of her organs.
So I also love how doctors rely on pharmaceutical reps to decide the drugs I need. That makes me feel really confident that if the illness doesn't kill me, the drug might.
I also love how the US keeps dropping in every health category because our current for profit system of health care delivery is working so well. After all, why shouldn't everything be about money and what's wrong with taking advantage of the illnesses of others? It's no different than charging more money for plywood after a hurricane after all. Every thing should be about supply and demand.
It's the patient's fault they are sick and people shouldn't live on the coast, right?
And, I really especially don't mind that three of my women friends are dead because their complaints were dismissed. Women just complain about every little thing,after all. So what, if there's a history of heart attacks in her family and she knows she has the symptoms, still she gets sent home from not ONE but TWO ERs and dies within a couple of hours of returning home.
note to literalists...this is sarcasm
My thoughts? Blow it up. Just have a replacement plan in place as ignoring it after 1994 is what hurt Republicans in the first place. I like the idea of exchanges as Haley proposed but if that means they are a tool to implement Obamacare, no thanks. Blow it all up. Good enough for you?
7:42, all valid points. However, even in a better system some things will be misdiagnosed or missed altogether. Not many, but it happens to the best. The problem with US health care began when some genius decided to take the physicians out of the loop. Doctors are smart people, every one of them. They made it through college, got into medical school, survived an internship, many went through residencies to gain specialized skills. I know the popular misconception is that they don't understand business and will over prescribe or over test just to cover themselves, but I believe that a new system with physicians and patients making the decisions together will be an improvement over the bureaucratic one we have now. Further, I have no problem with for-profit anything. Profits have to be possible in order to bring investment necessary for growth, not to mention it will become much harder to convince our best and brightest to enter the medical field if they know they're going to end up as $50,000 a year civil servants like they do in France. It sounds like I'm suggesting a return to the old days, which I guess I am, but I think the lessons we've learned since we "improved" that system will enable us to fix the problems that caused us to leave it in the first place.
8:59am We don't disagree that taking doctors out of the loop is and letting insurance companies dictate what care is given and how much it's worth is partially responsible.
I would argue that the patient is taken out of the loop as well.
I think we disagree about where profits are being made in the health care system these days and how methods of delivery of the same care has increased in cost and why.
I would point to all the construction at our local hospitals, for example, that is disportional to the population changes. I'm not persuaded that competition between hospitals is resulting in better services or reduced delivery costs but rather fancier facilities in hopes of attracting patients and doctors.
I would point to fewer nurses.
There is now a business mind set rather than a service mindset.
Having worked in a major university teaching hospital that served a region in the 60's and into the early 70s, the mind set was very different as the focus was on what the region needed to improve health care delivery. If the region didn't have enough dermatologists or opthalmologists, the hospitals and doctors would have getting those services as a goal rather than increasing the competition between internists and cardiologists.
Can you even imagine a Jonas Salk today? Someone who cares more about curing polio than personal profit?
The insurance industry was very different as well. The concept of shared risk has been abused by the insurance industry and medical industry. They do not share in risk proportionally, the burden has shifted to paying patients who carry the risks ie. pay for those unable to pay. In business, profit is not supposed to be guaranteed. It is supposed to be related to the delivery of services and product satisfaction. That's a part of the demand in supply and demand.
Without that element you don't get innovation ..." the better mouse trap".
I'd be more comfortable if the gop/tea party had an alternative as to how to cover the uninsurd folks. Bennett/Wyden had a plan to end employer sponsored care by taxing the employers, and transferring the money to individuals with a "mandate" to get insurance. But that got Bennett retired.
Alternatively, the govt could progressively tax and use the money to have tax credits for all citizens to get basic preventative car, and allow citizens to allocate the money to what they think most necessary. And then have either mandatory, subsidized insurance for stuff like knees and busted bones. And then cover the really sick with medicaid, which is pretty much where everyone with a chonic illness winds up after exhausting their private insurance max benefits.
But, the gop/tea party seems unwilling to consider any taxes or requirements to buy insurance, regardless of whether the policy itself is selected by the individual.
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