I recently attended a Capitol Connection breakfast sponsored by Greater Louisville, Inc. Representative John Yarmuth (Democrat-KY) was the featured speaker. He was asked to talk about Obamacare & Business. Business men and women like me were in attendance. Some of the attendees were small business owners and some were with larger businesses.
Dysfunctional Media Caused Americans Not to Want New Health Law & Too Repeal
The first words out of Yarmuth’s mouth in defense of Obamacare was that many people are not in favor of Obamacare because of “the dysfunctional media – Fox and MS NBC.”
He suggested that many Americans are not in favor of Obamacare because just “they don’t know the facts”. He suggested the dysfunctional media has been unwilling to present the facts as he sees it or as the Congressional Democrats see it. (But now the bill has been passed and little bits of pieces of the actual costs have surfaced. Americans are beginning to see the reality of what Obamacare is and what it is not. They realized the 2700 page bill has many pitfalls).
Yarmuth is unable recognize the fact that taxpayers may not be in favor of Obamacare because of the sheer cost and the fact that the federal government doesn’t run anything effectively. Many Americans feel there might be total lack of access to care. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out when 30 million+ more people get health insurance there may be a problem with access to care since we have too few health professionals to deal with the patients. (But the geniuses in Congress have been able to figure that out yet).
Health Insurers will Not Be Allowed to Raise Premiums After 2014
Yarmuth said in 2014 no one can be denied coverage and no increase in premiums will be allowed. He said that the small business owner will get a new tax credit to over employees health insurance. However, he said that “98% of all small businesses are not covered by the new health law.”
Yarmuth is under the mistaken impression that Obamacare will allow people to go to a doctor and therefore they will not go to the Emergency Room for care. (Dr. Larry Cook, a physician who is the Executive Vice-President for Health Affairs at the University of Louisville, sit next to me at the breakfast. I asked him if he thought Obamacare would affect the amount of people who seek care in the ER. He said no and in fact he thought more people would seek care at the ER because there will not be enough health care professionals to take care of the 30 million+ new patients).
New Health Law Will Not Lower Cost of Health Care According to Yarmuth
The audience provided Yarmuth with lots of questions regarding Obamacare and business practices. Yarmuth said Congressional Democrats “can’t promise the new health law will lower the cost of health care.” (But, I thought that was the whole point!). Yarmuth suggested the president and Congressional leaders framed the new health law wrong. They should have said the “new health bill, I mean health law, would help to slow down the increases in health care, not lower costs.”
One questions was regarding whether health insurers would increase premiums now before all the government regulations begin in 2014. Yarmuth said they are trying to come up with a plan that health insurers can’t increase their premiums. He also talked about the flimsy grandfather clause which will begin in 2019.
When asked about President Obama’s promise that you will be able to keep your same insurance when the health bill is passed. Yarmuth said you can keep your same insurance but most people won’t want to they will want to get a better deal through the state health exchanges. He said people will get many more choices through the health insurance exchanges but in Kentucky only Anthem and Humana are allowed to do business. Obamacare did not deal with the selling of insurance across state lines for better pricing so we can hope Kentucky will allow more health insurance companies to do business. When Kentucky adopted Clintoncare, a pet project of Hilary Clinton, 15 health insurance companies left the state because of all the strict regulations leaving only 2 companies to insure the whole state.
Standardized Health Insurance Form will Save $40 Billion
One surprise fact that I did not know about is a standardized insurance form would save $40 billion according to Yarmuth. I didn’t write down if he meant over the 10 years of the CBO’s scoring span for Obamacare or $40 billion per year. HUH! Why hasn’t someone come up with a standardized insurance form before now?
Yarmuth acknowledged that part time employees are excluded from businesses in term of covering employees. He said they will receive a subsidy from the Federal Government but if they chose not to buy health insurance they will have to pay a mandate of 12% of their income.
Yarmuth went on and on about the importance of the Preventive Care in Obamacare. He said in 2014 there will be no co-pays for any preventive tests according to Yarmuth. Yarmuth also said Medicare recipients will receive one visit a year for FREE to discuss prevention with their physicians.
40,000 Deaths Per Year Prevented by Having Health Insurance (Only Speculative on Yarmuth’s Part)
Yarmuth boasted that 40,000 deaths per year will be prevented when Obamacare officially begins in 2014. He stated that 40,000 people die each year because they don’t have access to care. Yarmuth indicated that everyone will have access to care as a result of Obamacare assuming that if you have a health insurance policy you will have access to care whenever you want or need care.
You Pay For End of Life Extensions Not Federal Government if You Want
Yarmuth stated there are two things that are driving health care costs: poor lifestyle choices and the high cost of end-of-life care. Yarmuth said 40% of the Medicare budget is spent on the last 6 months of life. Yarmuth said under Obamacare, Medicare will pay for physicians to discuss end-of-life care with recipients and their families. Yarmuth said “if you are not willing to spend the extra dollars yourself to keep granny alive, why should the government?”
Single Payer Health Insurance Only Way to Cut Costs!
When asked what he thought would be the best approach to deal with all the America’s health care problems – Yarmuth said adopting a single payer health system. He suggested that businesses should drop employee health insurance and let the employees decide what is the best health insurance plan for them and their families.
Yarmuth didn’t get to all the questions. There were a stack of questions unanswered.
I wanted personally wanted to know why Congressional Democrats left out $280 billion called the Doc Fix when the CBO scored Obamacare. Why are they now trying to add $6.8 billion to cover physician reimbursements for Medicare (DOC FIX) in 6 month increments? Plus they deliberately left out administrative costs of the Federal Government to manage Obamacare from the CBO scoring as well.
Barbara Day, M.S., R.D., C.N., is a registered dietitian with a Master’s Degree in clinical nutrition. The former publisher of Kentuckiana HealthFitness Magazine, Kentuckiana Healthy Woman magazine and radio show host of Health News You Can Use, Barbara has over 30 years of experience in promoting healthy lifestyles to consumers. Barbara has private practice, DayByDay Nutrition, www.DayByDayNutrition.com, where she counsels clients on weight loss, cholesterol management, performance nutrition and an array of other medical issues. Barbara writes nutrition and health columns for www.LiveStrong.com. She also designs and presents employee wellness programs to small and large businesses. Barbara is a runner, cyclist, hiker and a mother and grandmother to 9 grandchildren.
