WSJ: Health Care Plans: Something Must Be Done

The Wall Street Journal (Letters, March 21, 2017) published a letter from a New Jersey physician which included this excerpt on-target excerpt:

“If costs of delivering world-class health care are driven downward, then government mandates, overregulation and new taxes may not be necessary. Those of us who provide medical and surgical services each day know what it takes to stop the bleeding.  All the politicians need to do is ask.

Lack of price transparency, drug advertising hype, defensive medicine, self-referrals, pre-approved hurdles, insurance billing labyrinths high overhead,  big patient subsidies, discontinuity of care, electronic data keeping, specialty fee disparities, top-down decision-making, emerging hospital cartels, and case work overload are some of the systemic flaws that must be addressed sooner rather than later.”  – Jonathan L. Fox, M.D. Orthopedic Surgery and Sports Medicine, Northfield, N.J.

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And here is how to address those “systemic flaws,” and gain immediate control of skyrocketing premiums, runaway government health care spending, unfriendly and complicated access mechanisms, and the diminishment of freedom:

The U.S. Health Care Freedom Plan offers a powerful new access strategy for patients receiving medical and pharmaceutical services, home medical equipment, and home care services.

It is as simple as renting a movie.

The Plan grants citizens the freedom to pay directly, in person, for their week-to-week health care purchases. It cuts out layers of bureaucracy and middlemen … simplifies access to health care and restores genuine ‘patient-provider’ relationships.

The U.S. Health Care Freedom Plan is the only comprehensive, citizen-centered health care plan in America.  It ‘resets’ the health care industry to present a clean, efficient and responsible system.  Most importantly, this plan restores individual freedom and liberty for all participating Americans.

The Plan:

  1. The U.S. Health Care Freedom Plan is available to each and every U.S. citizen – with no coverage mandates. Each U.S. citizen who wishes to participate will be granted a full and complete exemption from the ACA.
  2. This plan offers freedom of choice and equal justice for all. Those Americans who might wish to stay with the ACA may stay (‘If you like your ObamaCare, you can keep your ObamaCare’).
  3. Each participating U.S. citizen shall receive a credit extension, through a special Federal Reserve Citizens Credit Facility, of $25,000, electronically deposited into a Medical Savings Account (MSA) – for direct allocation toward family health care needs.
  4. Private insurance – Families shall be allowed to enroll in high-deductible ($10,000 – $15,000) major medical plans, to include basic, ‘no frills’ medical plans which best suit their individual needs and desires. These streamlined plans would lower premium costs for employees and employers, encouraging employers to cost-share savings with employees through incentive-based employer MSA contributions.
  5. Policies would not be automatically loaded with expensive government healthcare mandates.
  6. Those with extraordinary medical issues may be included in a high-risk category, with such plans being eligible for a government subsidy (similar to current Medicare Advantage).
  7. Federal / state programs – Individuals enrolled in Medicare / Medicaid / VA / TRICARE / FEHB programs would maintain their covered status, with an annual deductible of $5,000 per year per enrolled family member, for a period of five years for those benefits. The dedicated MSA funds would fully fund the offset for the higher ($5,000) deductible feature for that five-year period. MSA funds could also be used to pay Medicare supplement premiums and other potential co-pay obligations.
  8. Where health care services paid by patients directly with MSA funds, providers would not be bound by federal / state rules pertaining to Electronic Medical Records (EMRs), and other unnecessary administrative burdens.

ContinueThe U.S. Health Care Freedom Plan 2017: America’s clean and affordable alternative to ObamaCare. Ready to Launch.

 

ObamaCare replacement bill fails. Solution: The U.S. Health Care Freedom Plan.

The ObamaCare replacement plan sailed into some stiff headwinds in the U.S. House on Friday over a number of significant concerns:

1. 14 million Americans would lose insurance by 2018, rising up to 24 million losing coverage by 2026.

2. The new ObamaCare replacement plan remained ‘mandate-heavy.’

3. It was too costly and inefficient, with the already high ObamaCare premiums spiking another 15-20% in 2018-19.

Meet the comprehensive health care plan that overcomes these objections: The U.S. Health Care Freedom Plan.

Number of Americans that will lose coverage: 0

If you like your ObamaCare you can keep your ObamaCare.  All others who wish to be granted an exemption, along with a $25,000 HSA deposit per citizen (see plan for further details).

Mandates: 0

Citizens may choose their providers and insurance plans, and allocate their health care resources in the manner that suite fulfills their needs and desires.

Efficiency: 99%

The U.S. Health Care Freedom Plan eliminates government red tape and enormous amounts of ‘middle-man’ cost and interference.

The U.S. Health Care Freedom Plan 2017: America’s clean and affordable alternative to ObamaCare. Ready to Launch.

A part of America’s dynamic, comprehensive economic acceleration plan:

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 –  $75,000 per U.S. citizen

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 (2192)

The U.S. Health Care Freedom Plan 2017: America’s clean and affordable alternative to ObamaCare. Ready to Launch.

March 24, 2017: ObamaCare is “ready to explode,” and the U.S. House of Representatives alternative plan died today.

It is time for a new strategy – that puts citizens back in charge of their health care resources and decision-making..

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The U.S. Health Care Freedom Plan is the only comprehensive, citizen-centered health care plan in America.  It ‘resets’ the health care industry to present a clean, efficient and responsible system.  Most importantly, this plan restores individual freedom and liberty for all participating Americans.

The Plan:

  1. The U.S. Health Care Freedom Plan is available to each and every U.S. citizen – with no coverage mandates. Each U.S. citizen who wishes to participate will be granted a full and complete exemption from the ACA.
  2. This plan offers freedom of choice and equal justice for all. Those Americans who might wish to stay with the ACA may stay (‘If you like your ObamaCare, you can keep your ObamaCare’).
  3. Each participating U.S. citizen shall receive a credit extension, through a special Federal Reserve Citizens Credit Facility, of $25,000, electronically deposited into a Medical Savings Account (MSA) – for direct allocation toward family health care needs.
  4. Private insurance – Families shall be allowed to enroll in high-deductible ($10,000 – $15,000) major medical plans, to include basic, ‘no frills’ medical plans which best suit their individual needs and desires. These streamlined plans would lower premium costs for employees and employers, encouraging employers to cost-share savings with employees through incentive-based employer MSA contributions.
  5. Policies would not be automatically loaded with expensive government healthcare mandates.
  6. Those with extraordinary medical issues may be included in a high-risk category, with such plans being eligible for a government subsidy (similar to current Medicare Advantage).
  7. Federal / state programs – Individuals enrolled in Medicare / Medicaid / VA / TRICARE / FEHB programs would maintain their covered status, with an annual deductible of $5,000 per year per enrolled family member, for a period of five years for those benefits. The dedicated MSA funds would fully fund the offset for the higher ($5,000) deductible feature for that five-year period. MSA funds could also be used to pay Medicare supplement premiums and other potential co-pay obligations.
  8. Where health care services paid by patients directly with MSA funds, providers would not be bound by federal / state rules pertaining to Electronic Medical Records (EMRs), and other unnecessary administrative burdens.

Benefits:                                                                                 

Lower health care costs – With the elimination of millions of minor insurance claims across the nation over the course of each month, system-wide efficiency would improve, medical costs would drop significantly, and the direct patient-provider relationship would be restored. Medical professionals would not have to answer to HMOs, insurance companies, or government agencies in providing basic day-to-day healthcare access for their patients.

Scoring – if 300 million U.S. citizens were to participate in the plan, the total dollar transfer into family-based Medical Savings Accounts (MSAs) would amount to $7.5 trillion.

The potential cost savings from the $5,000 deductible provision for the approximate 150 million people currently enrolled in Medicare (55 million), Medicaid (72 million), VA (6.16 million), TRICARE (9.5 million), and FEHB (8.2 million) would amount to just  under $3.75 trillion over the first 5 years (or, one-half the $7.5 trillion initial roll out cost).

Summary:

This plan would generate trillions of dollars in cost savings from streamlining, vastly improved efficiency, and reductions in waste and fraud.

This plan would improve quality and ease of access to health care for all participating Americans.

 For patients: It would dramatically lower the cost of health care, while improving quality and access for all who chose to participate.

 For providers:  It would restore the patient-provider relationship and significantly reduce massive cost and time burdens imposed by a centralized system.

 The U.S. Health Care Freedom Plan an integral part of a larger, comprehensive economic plan:

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 –  $75,000 per U.S. citizen

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 (2179)

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Notes:

Exemptions:                                                                                         ObamaCare currently offers hardship exemptions for individuals who have a recognizable inability to pay for a plan or pay the penalty. The ACA also currently offers exemptions from certain provisions within the health care law, such as the reinsurance provisions, for various union organizations.

And certain U.S. Territories are exempt from specific ACA measures: The Hill, 7-17-14:  “Insurance companies in Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the Northern Mariana Islands are no longer required to implement a number of ObamaCare measures such as the community rating system, a single-risk pool, the medical loss ratio or guaranteed benefits.”

Administrative costs – bureaucracy:               

The Federal government has spent hundreds of billions of dollars to construct the monstrous ACA ‘machine.’

Billions of dollars have been spent on the roll out costs, insurer subsidies, management, monitoring, advertising, technical ‘fixes,’

There will be hundreds of billions of dollars yet to come with legal costs/prosecution, audits, regulatory costs/burdens, and much, much more.

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News headlines from the past two years:                                  

$2.1 billion cost for ACA federal exchange

Obamacare Adds 3,322 Pages of Regs to $234 Billion Tax Complexity Burden…

Analysis: Feds gave states $4.4B for ObamaCare exchange site rollouts

TAX DOLLARS FOR NFL TEAM TO PROMOTE OBAMACARE…

HHS plans to spend up to $7B — to cut costs…

Administration spends $17 million a month on paid advertising…

REPORT: Taxpayers Shell Out $14,000 per Obamacare ‘Enrollee‘…

Feds Spend Another $20M on Healthcare.gov…

None of these hundreds of billions of dollars have had anything to do with “you” getting direct access to health care… and allocating resources directly for medical attention that you need and desire for your family.

 

The Hill: ObamaCare administrative costs “shocking”…

When government controls the allocation of resources in a given economic sector (‘for the public good’) … bureaucratic red tape, systemic inefficiencies, pricing distortions, and other economic dislocations  become the rule of order.

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Overhead costs exploding under ObamaCare, study finds | TheHill

by Sarah Ferris 05/27/2015 – Excerpts:

The administrative costs for healthcare plans are expected to explode by more than a quarter of a trillion dollars over the next decade, according to a new study published by the Health Affairs blog.

The $270 billion in new costs, for both private insurance companies and government programs, will be “over and above what would have been expected had the law not been enacted,” one of the authors, David Himmelstein, wrote Wednesday.

Those costs will be particularly high this year, when overhead is expected to make up 45 percent of all federal spending related to the Affordable Care Act. By 2022, that ratio will decrease to about 20 percent of federal spending related to the law.

The study is based on data from both the government’s National Health Expenditure Projections and the Congressional Budget Office. Both authors are members of Physicians for a National Health Program, which advocates for a single-payer system.

“This number – 22.5 percent of all new spending going into overheard – is shocking even to me, to be honest. It’s almost one out of every four dollars is just going to bureaucracy,” the study’s other author, Steffie Woolhandler, said Wednesday.

She said private insurers have been expanding their administrative overhead despite some regulations from the Obama administration to control those costs, such as the medical loss ratio, which requires a certain amount of premium dollars to be spent directly on healthcare. She argues that a better approach would be a type of Medicare-for-all system.

The extra administrative costs amount to the equivalent of $1,375 per newly insured person per year, the authors write.

About two-thirds of the new overhead costs are the result of rising enrollment in private plans, which the authors say carries “high costs for administration and profits.”

The rest is the result of expanded government programs, such as Medicaid. It also includes the cost of running ObamaCare exchanges at both the federal and state levels.

The federal exchange, as well as the 13 state-run exchanges, have all been boosted by grant money, though those funds will run out by 2016. The exchange will then need to rely on fees to plan premiums.

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The U.S. Health Care Freedom Plan allows U.S. citizens to allocate resources directly and take ownership of their own health care needs and decisions.

This dynamic new plan is the only comprehensive, citizen-centered health care plan in America.

Freedom starts at ground level:

The U.S. Health Care Freedom Plan 2017: America’s clean and affordable alternative to ObamaCare. Ready to Launch. 

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“He who will not apply new remedies must expect new evils.” – Sir Francis Bacon

The Leviticus 25 Plan is a dynamic economic initiative providing direct liquidity benefits for American families, while at the same time scaling back the role of government in managing and controlling the affairs of citizens.  It is a comprehensive plan with long-term economic and social benefits for citizens and government.

The inspiration for this plan is based upon Biblical principles set forth in the Book of Leviticus, principles tendering direct economic liberties to the people.

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 –  $75,000 per U.S. citizen

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 (2150)

GOP Healthcare Plan – pulled… Enter the GOP’s bold, outside-the-box plan: The U.S. Health Care Freedom Plan

The GOP’s new Patient Care Act is a big step in the right direction as an ObamaCare replacement strategy, but it is hitting some choppy water...

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“It’s A Train Wreck”: Conservative Groups Savage GOP Healthcare Plan

As discussed earlier, the Obamacare repeal and replace effort, derisively called by some either “Obamacare Lite”, “RyanCare”, “ObamaCare 2.0″,  and even Trumpcare”. is running into major hurdles as prominent conservative groups threaten to derail Trump’s broader economic agenda.  ZeroHedge – Mar 7, 2017

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There is a very simple answer to all of this –

Dear Republican Party: 

Be bold. Think outside the box.

What American families need is a powerful, new replacement strategy for ObamaCare that is citizen-centered, putting people back in charge and allocating resources themselves for their week to week health care needs.

And here it is:

America’s dynamic new health care strategy:

The U.S. Health Care Freedom Plan 2017: America’s clean and affordable alternative to ObamaCare. Ready to launch.

The U.S. Health Care Freedom Plan is the only comprehensive, citizen-centered health care plan in America.  It ‘resets’ the health care industry to present a clean, efficient and responsible system.  Most importantly, this plan restores individual freedom and liberty for all participating Americans.

The Plan:

  1. The U.S. Health Care Freedom Plan is available to each and every U.S. citizen – with no coverage mandates. Each U.S. citizen who wishes to participate will be granted a full and complete exemption from the ACA.
  2. This plan offers freedom of choice and equal justice for all. Those Americans who might wish to stay with the ACA may stay (‘If you like your ObamaCare, you can keep your ObamaCare’).
  3. Each participating U.S. citizen shall receive a credit extension, through a special Federal Reserve Citizens Credit Facility, of $25,000, electronically deposited into a Medical Savings Account (MSA) – for direct allocation toward family health care needs.
  4. Private insurance – Families shall be allowed to enroll in high-deductible ($10,000 – $15,000) major medical plans, to include basic, ‘no frills’ medical plans which best suit their individual needs and desires. These streamlined plans would lower premium costs for employees and employers, encouraging employers to cost-share savings with employees through incentive-based employer MSA contributions.
  5. Policies would not be automatically loaded with expensive government healthcare mandates.
  6. Those with extraordinary medical issues may be included in a high-risk category, with such plans being eligible for a government subsidy (similar to current Medicare Advantage).
  7. Federal / state programs – Individuals enrolled in Medicare / Medicaid / VA / TRICARE / FEHB programs would maintain their covered status, with an annual deductible of $5,000 per year per enrolled family member, for a period of five years for those benefits. The dedicated MSA funds would fully fund the offset for the higher ($5,000) deductible feature for that five-year period. MSA funds could also be used to pay Medicare supplement premiums and other potential co-pay obligations.
  8. Where health care services paid by patients directly with MSA funds, providers would not be bound by federal / state rules pertaining to Electronic Medical Records (EMRs), and other unnecessary administrative burdens.

ContinueThe U.S. Health Care Freedom Plan 2017: America’s clean and affordable alternative to ObamaCare. Ready to launch.

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 –  $75,000 per U.S.

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 (2131)