The Obamacare chickens are coming home to
roost. North Carolina lawmakers held a
forum outlining the consequences of this disastrous program that was destined
to fail. Carolina Journal reported the
following:
RALEIGH — State lawmakers were presented Tuesday with a litany of potential horror stories related to the federal Affordable Care Act. At its worst, Obamacare would sock North Carolina with thousands of job losses, double-digit insurance premium increases, deep Medicare cuts to help pay for the health reform, and insolvent hospitals and medical facilities
Chris Conover, a
professor at Duke University’s Center for Health Policy and Inequalities
Research, offered this grim assessment to the General Assembly’s Joint Study
Committee on the Affordable Care Act and Implementation Issues.
And
Conover was not alone. Mona Moon, executive administrator of the State Health
Plan for Teachers and State Employees, said the retirement system would incur
$116 million in Obamacare compliance costs by 2017. The ever-evolving law could
tag taxpayers with additional costs on state agencies, school systems,
community colleges, and universities, Moon said.
Mark
Fleming, vice president of government affairs for Blue Cross Blue Shield of
North Carolina, said the insurance giant already sees “troubling trends,”
including a mix of patients that has been sicker than expected and a program
infrastructure that remains a work in progress long after its launch.
Fleming
warned of the potential for higher insurance premiums for all North Carolinians
as a result.
Yet, even with the facts looking them straight in
the eye, Democrats still are in denial:
The cascade of
negative testimony caused some Democratic committee members to roll their eyes.
Some walked out early on Conover’s harsh evaluation, and Sen. Floyd McKissick,
D-Durham, issued an almost plaintive request.
“Is it
intended that we will have someone speak and provide us information who
actually believes the Affordable Care Act is a good idea?” he said. “Or are we
only going to hear from those who are in opposition to the Affordable Care Act?”
State
Rep. Verla Insko, D-Orange, expressed surprise at Conover’s contention that the
state’s economy would shrink by 90,000 full-time equivalent jobs, and 300,000
full-time equivalent positions would shift to part-time, as employers try to
avoid the employer mandate to pay for insurance for full-time workers and other
Obamacare-related costs.
“I
don’t know that there’s any reason why the Affordable Care Act would cause a
reduction in the number of employees unless we had robots doing some of the
work,” Insko said.
She
also insisted that higher taxes could be an economic stimulus because of
multiplier effects of government spending, and that some of the nation’s most
robust economies are in high-tax states
Amazing! Absolutely amazing, that after all that has
happened and all that is yet to come, these people are completely blinded by
their ideology. And as usual this
so-called representative believes government spending is the answer to our
economic woes. Without a doubt, Rep.
Verla Insko believes the New Deal pulled us out of the Great Depression.
If you think the
above employment assessment is bleak, wait until you read the following
prospects for our utopian health care system:
“Relatively minor
improvements” in benefits under Obamacare “are more than offset by the sizable
cuts in Medicare … to bankroll 40 percent of the ACA’s costs,” Conover said.
Continued Medicare cuts in doctor payments “will be devastating” to seniors’
access to health care, according to Medicare’s actuaries, he said.
“Very
deep cuts” in Medicaid Disproportionate Share payments to hospitals are planned
atop a 75 percent cut in Medicare DSH payments, Conover said. Those payments
cover the cost for the uncompensated care of uninsured people.
Medicaid
is prohibited by statute from paying more than Medicare for hospital services,
so Medicare cuts will drive payment rates for both Medicaid and Medicare to
well below the levels that are paid by private insurers, Conover said.
The
Medicare actuary predicts that 15 percent of health facilities will be operating
in the red by 2020 as a result.
“As
these facilities are shuttered or start shedding money-losing services such as
emergency rooms, this obviously is going to have adverse effects on access to
care for the community at large, not just for seniors,” Conover said.
A
quarter of North Carolina doctors do not accept Medicaid patients now due to
low reimbursement rates.
“The
ACA has put Medicare on a path to soon be paying less than Medicaid does for
doctor services,” Conover said. “We can only imagine what’s going to happen to
access to care to seniors when Medicare’s payment rates are less than half of
the Medicaid levels.”
We are in the throes of the Democratic Party’s dystopia. If we continue on this path, can anyone say: Look out Venezuela, here we come!
