My Appeal

The bracketed section below is taken from the internet under one of several articles on google listed  “Jonathan Gruber”.

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{Unless you regularly follow conservative media, you may not have heard what one of the architects of the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare) thinks about you.

Jonathan Gruber is a Massachusetts Institute of Technology health economist who helped craft ObamaCare. In a rare moment of unvarnished candor, Gruber told an audience last year at the University of Pennsylvania the law passed because of the “stupidity of the American voter.”

In what can only be described as a smoking gun — meaning there is no way to spin his remarks as “out of context” — Gruber told his audience:

“The bill was written in a tortured way to make sure the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) did not score the mandate as taxes. If CBO scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies. OK, so it’s written to do that.” Gruber added, “... if you had a law which said that healthy people are going to pay in — you made explicit that healthy people pay in and sick people get money — it would not have passed.”

Gruber continued digging his hole even deeper: “Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical for the thing to pass.”}

 

 

This is not the first time I’ve been told that the “liberal philosophy” is that the average American voter is stupid.  And that the government needs to make our decisions about life because we really can’t do it properly for ourselves.  I generally pass this off as conservative bashing of liberals.  I think I can make proper decisions about who my Doctor should be, and whether or not I need to have a certain operation.  I also think I can see that a tax (by Obama Care) on insurance companies will be passed on to me (the consumer) in higher premiums by those insurance companies.  I think it is easy to understand that insurance is built around lots of folks (young and old) paying in small premium amounts so that the smaller number of sick folks (more old than young) get their larger health claims costs paid.

We professional Health Insurance Brokers have been advocating for “health care” reform for years.  I personally got active in this fight in the mid 80’s.  We were instrumental in helping defeat “Hillary Care” in the early 90’s because it was a bad solution to health care reform.  (We also proposed alternatives—which were ignored).  We again opposed “Obama Care” (which should be called “Pelosi Care”---she takes credit for writing the bill), by proposing alternatives.  And the reason we objected was that the bill would not achieve what Mr. Obama said were the primary objectives……….lower costs and better access.  Currently we have more uninsured than we had before the PPACA law, and we have experiences increases in costs as much as 100% in some parts of the country since the law was passed.

I resent being called stupid for objecting to a law that is NOT GOOD ENOUGH to accomplish the reform needed.  I’m old enough to remember a President from Kansas who vetoed a farm bill in an election year because IT WAS NOT GOOD ENOUGH.  He not only forced Congress to re-write it but went on to get re-elected.  I wonder how we stupid citizens over the years have been able to use our individual time, talents, and treasure to build the greatest economy the world has ever known, while the folks who live under their government directed lives have skidded along behind us.  But maybe Professor Gruber (a key advisor to our current leadership) or some of his many liberal Colleagues teaching at our Great American Universities, with all their intellect, will tell me how this is possible given the stupidity with which we are burdened.

We have the opportunity (only exercised in a few countries in the world) to elect members of two/thirds and part of the other one/third of our government branches in Nov 2016.  Most successful organizations are successful because they are run by folks with successful track records.  They then attract the same kind of folks to be their advisors.  So, with all the problems in the world (including our own country), I appeal to each of you to start studying and researching the folks who will be offered to you as candidates to be elected to our government’s Executive, Senate, and House branches in 2016.

Remember……..“Stupid is as stupid does” — Forrest Gump

-Dean

Oct. 2 2014

 

Open Payments Database Launch Meets Widespread Skepticism.

Several outlets continue their coverage of the release of data aimed at shedding light on the financial links between industry and medical practitioners. Coverage is predominantly negative, highlighting problems and concerns with the newly-launched Federal program.

 

        US News & World Report  (10/1, Leonard) reports that that much-anticipated launch of a Federal database detailing payments between the pharmaceutical industry and physicians was greeted with concern, noting “yet another rocky web rollout by the federal government’s health care agency Tuesday resulted in incomplete, unclear data...” The identities of 40% of recipients were concealed due to fears of inaccuracies, representing 65% of all transactions. Before the database’s launch, only 26,000 physicians of the 550,000 named logged into a Federal system to review information about themselves. In a statement, Dr. Robert Wah, President of the American Medical Association, wrote that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) “provided a short period of time to review and correct any inaccurate data that was submitted by industry.”

        In a similarly negative assessment of the release titled “As Payments Database Debuts, Doctors Urge Caution,” Kaiser Health News  (10/1, Luthra) reports that Dr. Wah and other advocates previously called for CMS to delay the database launch to March 31 of next year. Currently, data are available to researchers using statistical software. CMS plans to launch a consumer-oriented site later this month. The Affordable Care Act called for the creation of the database.

        The Wall Street Journal  (10/2, B1, Whalen, Walker, Rockoff, Subscription Publication) reports on the diverse nature of the payments detailed in the database, noting that many payments are unrelated to getting physicians to prescribe more medications. The Journal cites the example of Dr. James Vanderlugt of Kalamazoo, Michigan, whom the database lists as receiving $570,000 from Boehringer Ingelheim subsidiary Roxane Laboratories. However, Vanderlugt’s supervisor said the funds were given to his company for research, not to any one physician.

        The Wall Street Journal  (10/2, Silverman) “Pharmalot” blog focuses on another example of the Open Payment Database’s flaws, describing GlaxoSmithKline’s listed payments of $2.9 million to Stuart Winter, the Vice Chair for Pediatric Research at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Centers. The funding was listed in error but it still ended up being published, making Winter one of the top ten recipients of research funding.

 

Open Payments Database Launch

Oct. 2 2014

 

Open Payments Database Launch Meets Widespread Skepticism.

Several outlets continue their coverage of the release of data aimed at shedding light on the financial links between industry and medical practitioners. Coverage is predominantly negative, highlighting problems and concerns with the newly-launched Federal program.

 

        US News & World Report  (10/1, Leonard) reports that that much-anticipated launch of a Federal database detailing payments between the pharmaceutical industry and physicians was greeted with concern, noting “yet another rocky web rollout by the federal government’s health care agency Tuesday resulted in incomplete, unclear data...” The identities of 40% of recipients were concealed due to fears of inaccuracies, representing 65% of all transactions. Before the database’s launch, only 26,000 physicians of the 550,000 named logged into a Federal system to review information about themselves. In a statement, Dr. Robert Wah, President of the American Medical Association, wrote that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) “provided a short period of time to review and correct any inaccurate data that was submitted by industry.”

        In a similarly negative assessment of the release titled “As Payments Database Debuts, Doctors Urge Caution,” Kaiser Health News  (10/1, Luthra) reports that Dr. Wah and other advocates previously called for CMS to delay the database launch to March 31 of next year. Currently, data are available to researchers using statistical software. CMS plans to launch a consumer-oriented site later this month. The Affordable Care Act called for the creation of the database.

        The Wall Street Journal  (10/2, B1, Whalen, Walker, Rockoff, Subscription Publication) reports on the diverse nature of the payments detailed in the database, noting that many payments are unrelated to getting physicians to prescribe more medications. The Journal cites the example of Dr. James Vanderlugt of Kalamazoo, Michigan, whom the database lists as receiving $570,000 from Boehringer Ingelheim subsidiary Roxane Laboratories. However, Vanderlugt’s supervisor said the funds were given to his company for research, not to any one physician.

        The Wall Street Journal  (10/2, Silverman) “Pharmalot” blog focuses on another example of the Open Payment Database’s flaws, describing GlaxoSmithKline’s listed payments of $2.9 million to Stuart Winter, the Vice Chair for Pediatric Research at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Centers. The funding was listed in error but it still ended up being published, making Winter one of the top ten recipients of research funding.

This blog was started back when the "Affordable Care Act" (ACA) was first being developed in Congress.  The original stated objective of this legislation was to:  1-lower the cost of health care, and 2-give access for more people to health insurance.


From the beginning on into today it has accomplished neither.  It has made significant changes toward health insurance, how we can now buy this product, and the benefit schedules available to us.  We anticipate that there will continue to be substantial "tweaking" of this law as we go forward like there has been since the law has become effective.


This blog will now concentrate on how you can best direct your own and/or your company's health insurance benefits as the law is manipulated.  Let us know if you have questions or you think we can help.