5 ways Obamacare Is Dismantling Affordable Quality Healthcare

Despite the feel good rhetoric about the success of the Affordable Care Act that is being peddled during this election season, reality has hit home for many Americans. Patients have come to know that:

1. The subsidies don’t cover the high out of pocket costs from deductibles and co-insurance.

The high costs have failed to change the behavior of patients who continue to seek care in
emergency rooms because of the emergency medical treatment and active labor act (EMTALA)
they can receive emergency care free of charge.

2. The government centered approach has led to a decrease in choice

Patients have been forced to use the most expensive options because hospital systems have
monopolized the market with their unchecked administrative fees and lack of price transparency
that have risen at the expense of independent doctors in private practice who offer cost effective,
patient centered,consumer based healthcare for a fraction of the cost.

3. Insurance companies have decreased benefits and access to physicians while increasing out of pocket costs

Dozens of insurance companies have been limited to five major companies through consolidation. If the government doesn’t stop this process, there will only be three major insurance companies left standing. Adding insult to injury Cigna, United Healthcare and Humana have announced that they are pulling out of the state exchanges giving those with Obamacare less choice.

4. Doctors have been put in the untenable position of having to choose between practicing patient centered medicine based in the Hippocratic Oath vs sacrificing patient privacy and individualized medicine under the cloak ‘value based’ medicine.

The recent legislation (i.e., Doc fix) has forced doctors into a system designed to access patient information for purposes of population based medicine, social engineering in the guise of meaningful use – and ultimately the loss of control regarding choice about end of life decisions.

5. Obamacare was created to destroy free market medicine in order to control one sixth of the economy.

Currently, our healthcare system is moving towards a single payer system. Unless we stop it, we
will find ourselves in a two-tiered system that will conscript both doctors and patients into one
based on a dearth of resources which will become both increasingly expensive with limited
choices of treatments and physicians.

Although we are being led to believe that this system is ‘fair’ and is a ‘right’, only those who make the rules and can pay to play will benefit. Maybe it is time to stop believing that someone else knows what is best for us before it is too late. Elections have consequences.