Radioactive Communist Zombies

More Indications of How Obamacare will Work?

Okay, I may have gone too far when I compared North Korean health care with Obamacare.  Or maybe not.  Nobody complained but then again, nobody reads this blog.

Anyway, another cautionary tale for the world of universal health care.  In the U.K., the health care system is having a "cash crisis" leaving patients to suffer.  The U.K. Telegraph reports:

Women in labour have been forced to wait while epidural equipment was borrowed from other hospitals, while other patients have been denied chest drains and radiology supplies, according to doctors at South London Healthcare Trust.

Minutes of a meeting between medical staff and the trust’s chief executive say “cash flow” problems at the trust which has a £50 million deficit, mean vital equipment is regularly not ordered . . .

Minutes of a meeting of the medical staff committee of Princess Royal University Hospital in Bromley say managers acknowledged that “crude measures” introduced to cut spending had affected clinical supplies, meaning that stocks had run out when they were needed.

So, the government-run health care system ran out of cash, couldn't afford supplies, and patients suffered.

When the government decides what's spent on health care, and not the market, this is the kind of situation you have.

And that is the slippery slope Obamacare is leading us to.

Cato on Health Care Reform

The libertarian think tank, the Cato Institute, has published a paperon Obamacare (a/k/a The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (and how long until it's known as PPACA?)).

What Cato has found is that (big surprise) the promises of Obamacare are not going to be kept.  It's going to cost more, increase the debt, and slow economic growth.  Cato's key findings are:

• It will cost $2.7 trillion over 10 years (which will probably be, by my estimation, about 10% of the federal government's spending)
• It will increase the debt by $352 billion
• Insurance premiums will increase faster than they would have without Obamacare
• New taxes and burdens on business will slow economic growth
• Chances are you won't be able to keep your insurance
• And, yet, still it leaves 21 million people uninsured in 2019.

So why did we pass this bad law?  Frankly, I think it's to screw things up so bad the American people will demand single payer (health care in the model of Canada or the U.K.) in the future.  That, and making as many people as possible beholden to the government for their health care, making them more likely to vote Democrat.

The Future of Universal Health Care?

Yanno what I hate?  When I decided to blog about something then find out it's all over the blogosphere already.  Well, I'm going to blog about it anyway, today.

For those of you who praise universal health care, comes a cautionary tale from a country that practices such health care.  But since the country is going broke (thanks to the failed leftest policies of its leaders) they've had to cut back on a few luxuries, like anesthesia during amputations (speaking of the Gone With the Wind hospital scene).  That radical right-wing magazine Newsweek (yes, I'm joking) reports:

North Korea has long boasted of its universal health-care system. But interviews Amnesty International conducted with defectors from the country paint a far more gruesome picture.

Amnesty International interviewed more than 40 people who had escaped the oppressive regime of leader Kim Jong-il. They painted a picture of hospitals without electricity or heat, where doctors work by candlelight, lack essential medicines, and sometimes amputate without anesthesia.

(Oh, the Dear Leader so loves the people.)

Of course, that's a lot worse than the horror stories out of, oh, Canada and the U.K.  But as governments go broke they have to squeeze where they can.  And health care is expensive.  It just might be the low-hanging fruit that the budget cutters go after.  Maybe not anesthesia-free amputation, but pain and suffering while you wait for an operation.

If You Like the IRS, You'll Love Obamacare

Thanks to Obamacare (a/k/a the Affordable Care Act a/k/a three lies in one) the IRS will have to grow, become more intrusive, and spend more taxpayer dollars.  And that's according to an IRS official:

Though the IRS's main mission is to collect taxes, it has been given a key role administering health insurance premium subsidies, tax credits for small businesses, assessments on employers and the mandate that beginning in 2014 everyone obtain insurance.

"I have no doubt the IRS is capable of administering social programs, including health care," [Nina E.] Olson said. "But Congress must provide sufficient funding and the IRS itself must recognize that the skills and training required to administer social benefit programs are very different from the skills and training that employees of an enforcement agency typically possess."

I, for one, welcome our new health care overlords . . . the IRS.  (Yes, that's a joke.)

So, you think insurance forms are bad now, wait until the IRS starts making them like 1040s.  Long form.

So now the IRS will be in your life whenever you need health care, not just April 15th.  How's that hope and change working for you? 

You May Not Get Health Insurance Under Obamacare

Wait a minute!  Wasn't Obamacare supposed to end people not being able to get health care insurance despite  . . . everything (pre-existing conditions, poverty, jobless, etc.)?

Apparently not.  According to a piece in The Hill yesterday by Julian Pecquet, some people may not be able to get health care insurance under the new law:

The Obama administration has not ruled out turning sick people away from an insurance program created by the new healthcare law to provide coverage for the uninsured.

Buy why?  Because of the costs, apparently.

There’s a certain amount of money authorized in the statute, and we will do our best to make sure that that amount of money insures as many people as possible and does as much good as possible,” said Jay Angoff, director of the Office of Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). “I think it’s premature to say [what happens] when it’s gone.”

Yeah, $5 billion is authorized for the high-risk pool.  If the money runs out, no one else can get insurance until private insurance is forced to take those people (which will probably bankrupt private insurance carriers and/or drive your insurance premiums through the roof).

So unless Congress authorizes more billions of dollars (from our already hyper-deficit budgets) some people could be turned away for health insurance.

I guess we did have to pass the bill to find out what's in it.  And what other costs there will be in the future.

Welcome to the World of Obamacare and Its Taxes

Today a new federal tax on tanning services kicked in to help pay for Obamacare.  And, like everything to do with Obamacare, it's a complicated nightmare.  As the Wall Street Journal reports (sub required):

It's a universal truth in Washington: There's no such thing as a simple tax. Free tans at video-rental stores might be taxable, but tanning services offered by health clubs mostly aren't, thanks to a late exemption. Ultraviolet tans are taxed. Spray tans aren't. Tanning salons are fretting over how to calculate unlimited memberships that combine taxed and non-taxed tans. Customers, meanwhile, have been racing to cram in tanning sessions to avoid the levy.

The 10% tax was ran through the IRS sausage grinder and came out with lots of interesting rules:

In June, the Internal Revenue Service released regulations spelling out how the tan tax will work, sending a shudder through parts of the industry.

Among the new details: "qualified physical fitness facilities" that include access to tanning beds as part of their membership fee won't be subject to the tax.

That means customers at Sun Tan City in Owensboro, Ky., will pay 10% more for a dose of ultraviolet rays. But if they go to Anytime Fitness 100 yards away, and tan inside one of its two beds, they'll escape.

"My jaw dropped," said Rick Kueber, founder and chief executive of Sun Tan City, a 124-outlet chain based in Elizabethtown, Ky. Then he got to thinking. "If I had six treadmills in each of my stores, can I call myself a health club?"

Apparently not, there are IRS rules against that.

So, what can we learn from this?  Easy: Obamacare is going to be a complicated, expensive, and cause a lot of pain for a lot of people.  I mean, how hard is to to tax tanning services?  Think about how the IRS is going to muck up getting your PSA tested.

Welcome to the wonderful world of Obamacare.

Great Moments in the Annals of Government Medicine.

It's been just over a year since it was revealed that government-run VA hospitals has exposed tens of thousands of patients to HIV.

And now it's happened again (Hat Tip: Instapundit).  CNN reports:

John Cochran VA Medical Center in St. Louis has recently mailed letters to 1,812 veterans telling them they could contract hepatitis B, hepatitis C and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) after visiting the medical center for dental work, said Rep. Russ Carnahan . . .

The issue stems from a failure to clean dental instruments properly, the hospital told CNN affiliate KSDK.

Wonderful.  This could never happen in the Obamacare Paradise, right?

And I thought government-run health care was supposed to save money.  How much will it cost to care for these veterans who may have contracted HIV?

Meanwhile, in Massachusetts, government run health care is going so well and is so inexpensive.  Actually, no, it's a shambles and costing the state an arm and a couple of legs.  Sally Pipes writing in Investors' Business Daily reports:

In Massachusetts, health care prices are out of control, emergency rooms are overcrowded, the government is at war with itself and private insurers are running in the red, refusing to enter critical markets on the government's unrealistic terms.

And costs in Taxachusetts are going up faster than the national rate and faster than before the government took over health care.

So looks like government-run health care, like Obamacare, reduces quality and increases costs.  Sound just like a typical government program.

Senator Dianne Feinstein Wants Health Care to be Rationed

An immutable law of economic is that if you put price controls on something to lower the price, you will lower the availability of that commodity and often cause shortages.  This can lead to rationing.  We saw this during the gas shortages of the 70s and we see it in socialized medicine in other countries.

Now, California Senator Dianne Feinstein wants to bring this to our medical care.  The San Francisco Chronicle's Below the Beltway blog reports:

Sen. Dianne Feinstein tried to insert a provision to set up a national rate authority to control premium increases, but it didn't comport with the rules used to pass the law in the Senate. Some states do regulate rates now, but California is not one of them. Now she wants to pass the rate authority as a separate bill.

Why?  Because insurer profits are up (oh, those evil corporations!).  But apparently Senator Feinstein hasn't studied Economics 101 or she'd know this will only lead to shortages of insurance and that can only lead to rationing, either by long waits or out right "you get care; you don't" decisions.  Maybe even death panels to decide who gets to live (get care) and who doesn't.

Unfortunately, Ms. Feinstein is not running this year.  But maybe we can put her in the minority, where she belongs. 

New York Times: Health Care Costs are Going Up

While readers of this blog (both of them) already know that under Obamacare health care costs are going up, now the New Yuck Times agrees (Hat tip Instapundit).  Under some provisions of Obamacare that kick in right away, insurance costs are going to go up right away:

Although most of the new law’s big changes do not take effect until 2014, there are some provisions employers must comply with by next year. That includes extending health insurance coverage to uninsured dependents up to age 26, eliminating any lifetime or annual caps on coverage and paying 100 percent of some preventive care.

And those extra coverages are going to cost money:

This year [Tracy Watts, a partner at Mercer Health and Benefits] estimates that changes made in response to the health law will add an extra 2 to 3 percent in cost increases, pressuring employers to engage in even more cost-sharing with employees — whether through higher premiums, co-payments or other out-of-pocket costs.

But if you like your old health plan, you'll be able to keep it, the President said.  Yeah, right.  It'll just cost your more in what you pay for your medical care, or higher co-pays or deductibles.

So, Obamacare is going to cost more in taxes, deficit, and now your health care costs.  How's that hope and change working out for you?

Tuesday Night

Sometimes it's feast, sometimes it famine.  Yesterday I had three things I wanted to blog about, today, I have none.

So, an "Instapundit" type list of interesting things (all out of my home state):

1) A study from Washington State University (a/k/a CowTech) shows that under Obamacare, some people may lose their insurance coverage.  Funny that (not).

2) The unemployment rate in Washington State dropped to 9.2% in April.  Unfortunately, it was mostly because of temporary Census jobs.  Guess they were "shovel ready."

3) The University of Washington (Go Dawgs!) reports that it will soon be possible to hack into cars' computers causing all sorts of havoc.  In fact, they already did it on a Ford.  Are you sure you want to have to buy virus protection for your car?

That's it.  Have a nice day.