DOCTOR'S ORDERS
HOW ABOUT TRUMP RETURN TO HIS OWN HEALTH-CARE PLAN?
Elizabeth Lee Vliet, M.D., Notes Campaign Promises Weren't Part of Ryancare
World Net Daily ~ March 29, 2017
Note: Dr. Vliet is a member of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, AAPS.
The sentiment behind the slogan “drain the swamp” was part of President Andrew Jackson’s effort to rid Washington of cronyism and corruption in 1828. This call has new meaning in 2017, intensified by the saga of House Speaker Paul Ryan’s failed American Health Care Act (AHCA).
Obamacare, ironically called Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), has created a swamp of metaphorical alligators devouring patients, physicians and the economy. A partial list includes:
* rising out-of-pocket costs;
* higher deductibles before “coverage” (if allowed at all) kicks in;
* restricted networks of doctors and hospitals;
* reduced availability of medications;
* reduced availability of home health services and medical devices;
* greater difficulty getting surgical approvals;
* reduced access to specialists and longer wait times;
* overcrowded emergency rooms;
* devastating regulatory burdens on physicians and hospitals, forcing many to close their doors;
* stunning job-k*****g effects of the employer mandate; and
* rising taxes, and more due to go into effect in 2017.
Despite fervent Republican promises to “repeal” Obamacare, Ryan’s AHCA has retained most of the ACA’s problems. Ryan’s plan would not have “drained the swamp.” It maintained the swamp of cronyism, rewards for special interests, artificial controls on free market options and the features that guarantee more of the unaffordable costs that drive younger, healthier, low-risk patients out of the market.
Mocking the idea of t***sparency promised by President Trump, Speaker Ryan’s plan was crafted in secret behind closed doors without public review – just like Democrats did with Obamacare. GOP congressional leaders excluded prominent free-market advocates such as Dr. Rand Paul, Dr. Tom Price, Freedom Caucus members and others.
The conservative Freedom Caucus members of the House held firm, and Ryan did not have enough v**es to pass his bill. This “failure” could be a victory for those who truly want to drain the swamp of bureaucracy and special interests, and restore medical freedom to patients.
Ultimately, patients will be better off if the Republicans start over. The GOP should follow proposals put forth by successful businessman President Donald Trump, who proposed excellent recommendations for medical freedom and patient-centered reforms:
* lower-cost “plain vanilla” risk-based insurance policies;
* expanded health savings accounts, controlled by patients;
* ability for patients to buy insurance across state lines, to select policies from
* states with lower-cost options;
* state control of Medicaid by block granting federal Medicaid dollars to states;
* tax deduction of health insurance payments to equalize tax treatment of individually owned and employer-sponsored policies;
* price t***sparency to eliminate the confusing and discriminatory price structure created by insurance contracts; and
* patient freedom to purchase medications overseas.
Trump’s plan brings the greatest benefit to patients, with more freedom to choose how to spend their own money based on individual needs and values rather than buying required coverage mandated by Washington bureaucrats.
Taxpayers should also pressure Congress to eliminate the $500 million (half a billion) tax dollars going to Planned Parenthood, whose primary business is a******n in their estimated 400 U.S. clinics. Low-income women already have access to health services in several thousand federally qualified health clinics across the country. This taxpayer funding for women’s health would be preserved in block grants of federal Medicaid dollars to the states.
If one goal of “health-care reform” is to eliminate “disparities,” eliminating tax funding to Planned Parenthood would help save lives of minorities. Approximately 80 percent of a******ns in the U.S. are done for two minority groups: African American and Hispanics. The numbers are staggering: more than 17 million of the 60 million lives lost to a******n since Roe v. Wade have been black lives.
Most congressmen lack real-world business experience in the Milton Friedman model, which teaches that for free markets to work, there must be less regulation and more competition. Americans need to seek better-qualified candidates.
One to consider is former tech industry CEO and international businessman Bob Gray, running in Georgia’s 6th Congressional District to replace Dr. Tom Price, who is now Secretary of health and human services. We also need representatives truly dedicated to life and liberty, and able to envision innovative solutions (e.g., the Grays were the first couple in the U.S. to use an open-adoption for their frozen embryos).
As the Ryan plan’s debacle shows, draining the health-care swamp is no easy task – not when the swamp dwellers have so many friends in high places. The bad decisions that caused the crisis were based on deeply ingrained and flawed assumptions in the D.C. “swamp” culture, with very few “outsider” representatives with real-world business experience.
Obamacare cannot survive. It is in a death spiral as many on both sides of the political spectrum have painfully realized. We need fresh approaches, not just new names for old ideas. We need patient-centered options and political decisions based on America’s core principles of preserving liberty and life.
A window of opportunity is open for true reform with a businessman as president, a physician leading Department of Health and Human Services, and electing principled reformers and problem-solving businessmen and women to Congress. This is the “strong medicine” this doctor thinks America needs to rid us of government control of our medical care.
http://www.wnd.com/2017/03/how-about-trump-return-to-his-own-health-care-plan/