Read the Beforeitsnews.com story here. Advertise at Before It's News here.

By Disease Management Care Blog (Reporter)
Contributor profile | More stories

Story Views
Now:
Last hour:
Last 24 hours:
Total:

President Obama Writes About Health Care Reform in JAMA

Tuesday, July 12, 2016 12:23

% of readers think this story is Fact. Add your two cents.

All aboard!

In a first for the Journal of the American Medical Association (“JAMA“), President Obama has authored a Special Communication on “United States Health Care Reform.”

As the Population Health Blog would expect of any modern sitting President’s essay on any political achievement, there are no new insights, no new useful lessons learned and no regrets. The reader is instead treated to an Affordable Care Act (ACA) bus tour of selected facts, gratuitous framing and ultimately, legacy building.

Briefly, Mr. Obama points out that, thanks to the ACA, the national uninsured rate dropped by 7% from 16% to 9%, which was accompanied by a 3.5% increase in the number of individuals with a personal physician and 2.4% increase in access to medicine. The inflation rate for health care spending is down, out-of-pocket health care consumer spending is decreased, value based care is coming, and quality of care has improved.

The President goes on to offer some suggestions for “building on progress to date”:

The state level Health Insurance Marketplaces would benefit from “further adjustments and recalibrations.”
Medicaid expansion needs to be extended to all 50 states.
MACRA, CMMI, and ACOs need to continue to grow.
Support should be provided for Precision Medicine, the Brain Initiative and Cancer Moonshot.
Financial assistance for Marketplace health insurance premiums should be increased.
A Medicare-like public plan should be offered in areas of the country “where competition is limited.”
The federal government should “increase” transparency for drug costs, expand rebates to support lower consumer prices, and negotiate drug pricing.
Resist calls for repealing the excise tax on high-cost employer-provided plans.

He closes with “lessons for policymakers”:

While change is difficult, hyperpartisanship makes it doubly so. The tools of partisan sabotage include “inadequate funding, opposition to routine technical corrections, excessive oversight, and relentless litigation.”
Special interests “like the pharmaceutical industry” still “pose a continued obstacle to change.”
The ACA is an example of American middle ground pragmatism between the extremes of vouchers for all and single payer. It should continue.

As years of over-lawyering has taught Americans (indeed, JAMA has put the academic credential “JD” after Barack Obama’s name), real peer-reviewed policymaking benefits not only from the truth, but the whole truth.

What makes this less than the whole truth is failure to mention (other than in passing) how continuation of the Great Recession is what blunted the majority health care inflation, that a shocking amount of treasure as well as political capital was used for a seemingly modest 7% absolute reduction in the uninsured rate, that government sponsored plans will likely put the remaining regional insurers out of business, and that the prospect that any company doing business in the U.S. being legally compelled to share proprietary cost information is highly unlikely. And by the way, short of firing up some more money-printing presses or some real reforms, Uncle Sam has no money to pay for any of the additional proposed goodies.

Last but not least, the ACA was midwifed by a hyperpartisan ramrod that failed to get even one Republican vote in either chamber of Congress. This Special Communication does nothing to diminish that legacy.

Wasted opportunity to set the record straight and address some meaningful reforms? You be the judge.

But don’t take the PHB’s word it. Appearing in the same issue of JAMA is this editorial by the Brooking Institution’s Stuart Butler. He points out that Medicaid was responsible for a significant majority of newly insured Americans, that, even with premium support (or its expansion), commercial insurance enrollees are now saddled with very high out-of-pocket costs, and that there is a consensus that – now that the Recession is waning – health care inflation is poised to accelerate.

Image from Wikipedia

Source: http://diseasemanagementcareblog.blogspot.com/2016/07/president-obama-writes-about-health.html

Before It’s News® is a community of individuals who report on what’s going on around them, from all around the world.

Anyone can join.
Anyone can contribute.
Anyone can become informed about their world.

"United We Stand" Click Here To Create Your Personal Citizen Journalist Account Today, Be Sure To Invite Your Friends.

Humic & Fulvic Liquid Trace Mineral Complex

HerbAnomic’s Humic and Fulvic Liquid Trace Mineral Complex is a revolutionary New Humic and Fulvic Acid Complex designed to support your body at the cellular level. Our product has been thoroughly tested by an ISO/IEC Certified Lab for toxins and Heavy metals as well as for trace mineral content. We KNOW we have NO lead, arsenic, mercury, aluminum etc. in our Formula. This Humic & Fulvic Liquid Trace Mineral complex has high trace levels of naturally occurring Humic and Fulvic Acids as well as high trace levels of Zinc, Iron, Magnesium, Molybdenum, Potassium and more. There is a wide range of up to 70 trace minerals which occur naturally in our Complex at varying levels. We Choose to list the 8 substances which occur in higher trace levels on our supplement panel. We don’t claim a high number of minerals as other Humic and Fulvic Supplements do and leave you to guess which elements you’ll be getting. Order Your Humic Fulvic for Your Family by Clicking on this Link , or the Banner Below.

Our Formula is an exceptional value compared to other Humic Fulvic Minerals because...

It’s OXYGENATED

It Always Tests at 9.5+ pH

Preservative and Chemical Free

Allergen Free

Comes From a Pure, Unpolluted, Organic Source

Is an Excellent Source for Trace Minerals

Is From Whole, Prehisoric Plant Based Origin Material With Ionic Minerals and Constituents

Highly Conductive/Full of Extra Electrons

Is a Full Spectrum Complex

Our Humic and Fulvic Liquid Trace Mineral Complex has Minerals, Amino Acids, Poly Electrolytes, Phytochemicals, Polyphenols, Bioflavonoids and Trace Vitamins included with the Humic and Fulvic Acid. Our Source material is high in these constituents, where other manufacturers use inferior materials.

Try Our Humic and Fulvic Liquid Trace Mineral Complex today. Order Yours Today by Following This Link.

Comments

Online:
Visits:	1,613,107,706
Stories:	8,179,038