Tag: the new reality
As a physician, I can attest to the recent article I’ve read in the Courier Journal about more people using the emergency rooms due to Obamacare. Unfortunately, under this new law, the newly insured Americans were supposed to be utilizing their primary care physicians instead of the emergency room. However, that has turned out certainly not to be the case.
With the number of visits to the ER soaring by the day, most ask why this rise is happening if more Americans are supposedly receiving coverage through Obama’s Affordable Care Act. The answer is actually simple. The health insurance that well over 50% people now covered by Obamacare received is Medicaid. Because there are too few primary care doctors actually accepting this insurance, these newly insured patients have no other place to go to see a physician other than the ER.
As stated in the Courier Journal article: “It’s a perfect storm here,” said Dr. Ryan Stanton of Lexington, president of the Kentucky chapter of the ER physician group. “We’ve given people an ATM card in a town with no ATMs.” In short, Obamacare provided millions with Medicaid, but there are no doctors accepting Medicaid.
The article went on to use Kentucky as an example. A workforce capacity study conducted for the state by Deloitte Consulting last year found that Kentucky needed 3,790 more doctors, including 183 more primary-care physicians, to meet pre-ACA demand. Under the law, it said the state may need to add an additional 284 primary-care physicians by 2017. Complicating matters, a quarter of Kentucky’s primary-care doctors could be ready to retire within five years, the report said. The report also said roughly 56 percent of the state’s primary-care physicians, and 22 percent of all physicians, accepted a Medicaid payment in 2011, which Deloitte said was its best estimate for figuring out how many physicians accept Medicaid.
While primary care may be difficult to find, emergency rooms cannot turn anyone away. Stanton said every patient who comes in must have a medical screening, and most doctors do more; “the vast majority … do treatment to decrease medical and legal risk.”
The problem gets even larger when you realize that Medicaid reimbursements are a fraction to that of Medicare. The physician reimburse is so low that a private practice doctor would go bankrupt if they only saw Medicaid patients. Between their overhead and malpractice, Medicaid reimbursements would not cover even the basic costs of doing business. In the end, there is no incentive for any private practice physician to accept Medicaid patients. Then, when you realize that reimbursements by the federal government for Medicaid are being cut, you will quickly realize that the number of physicians who accept it will also be dwindling.
So where does that leave those patients now? Worse off than they were before.
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Obamacare is a Financial Disaster
As Obamacare continues to decimate the American healthcare system, few media outlets highlight the facts about this ever growing problem. Though Obama claims his new law (which he enforces on an imperial, piecemeal basis) is a success, the truth is much different. When you break down the over 8 million enrollees signed up by the plan, you will quickly realize that over 5 million of them are on the federally funded Medicaid program. Then, with regard to the remaining 3 million, it is uncertain how many actually paid their premiums and how many needed this insurance because they were kicked out of their previous health plans due to the Affordable Care Act. A recent article in The Business Insider sums up the economics of Obamacare: Of the 5.45 million people who signed up through the federal exchange, 5.18 million (or 95%) applied for financial assistance in their insurance plans. As a businessman and physician, I can sum up these numbers in a very easy way:
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Only a very small percentage of patients enrolled through Obamacare are actually paying for it
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Our government has created a new and massive bureaucracy to manage Obamacare
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We can’t afford the Medicaid program which has been expanded another 5 million people
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Few doctors actually accept Medicaid, leaving the “newly insured” without true access to the healthcare system
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We can’t afford the Medicare program
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Where do we get all this money needed to pay for 2 programs we can’t afford and a new program, Obamacare, that is financially unsustainable?
The financial truth about Obamacare is that it is an economic disaster. Many think the Tea Party and Conservatives are against it just because they are displeased with Obama. The truth is, most of them understand that the health insurance programs created by our national government are financially unsustainable and will eventually bankrupt our country. We are in 18 trillion dollars of debt already. Where will this madness end?
The surge of illegal immigrants across the border has caused a humanitarian crisis and possibly a medical one also. Worse yet, Breitbart Texas states that just in 2013, 36,000 convicted criminals were among those illegal immigrants released into US territory. And the number is growing. In 2013, the Border Patrol in the Rio Grande Valley sector arrested 154,453 immigrants in 2013, which is a marked increase from 97,762 in 2012- and these tallies are just a small fraction of those crossing the border.
The biggest question is where are the illegal immigrants going, and what diseases can they potentially be spreading to American citizens? Border Patrol agent, Chris Cabrera states that many of these illegals are carrying contagious illnesses with them when they enter the states. He states, “There’s been an outbreak of scabies that’s been going on for the past month. We are (also) starting to see chicken pox, MRSA staph infections, we are starting to see different viruses.”
Plus, Cabrera also admitted that these diseases are “contagious. We are transporting people to different parts of the state and different parts of the country. Just the fact we are exposed to it, and so is everyone here in south Texas, it’s a great concern to us.” Governor Brewer of Arizona recently chastised the federal government for bussing and flying these illegals to her state without her consent. My question is, where else are the feds transporting them without our knowledge?
The Department of Homeland Security states that they are screening all the illegal immigrants in custody. However, as border patrol agents admit, those with infectious and contagious illness are still being placed into the general population. Plus, the bigger concern are all those illegals that were not caught or evaluated by the Department of Homeland Security. What could they be spreading into our country that has gone undocumented?
Senator Cruz openly admonishes Obama and his administration for this crisis. He said, “We need a president who is willing to uphold the law,” Cruz said. “On issue after issue the Obama Administration has openly ignored, defied, and unilaterally tried to change the law. Just a few months before the last election the president illegally and unconstitutionally granted amnesty to some 800,000 people illegally. If the president wants to change federal immigration laws, the Constitution lays out a way to do so–you go and make your case to Congress and you convince Congress to change the laws…unfortunately for President Obama, following the Constitutional structure is apparently too cumbersome. One of the consequences were seeing on the border is a humanitarian crisis that is a direct consequence of Obama’s lawlessness.”
Will this massive increase in illegal immigrants instigated by the failure of the Obama administration to uphold the law cause unintended medical consequences in our country. As our health system becomes decimated through government interference, could we handle the possibility of a new, emerging medical crisis? Only time will tell.
An article by Jessica Berardino recently piqued my interest. Though many have dismissed Obama’s daily assault on our Constitution, powers grabs and ratcheting down of American’s civil liberties, Law Professor and Author Francis Buckley appropriately pointed out what most in the media have failed to expose. He wrote that Obama was the first elected official, “who assumed king-like powers as President.”
Berardino’s article went on to state: Buckley explains that while this government didn’t start with President Obama, he has certainly taken it to a higher level. The professor says that the way President Obama makes and unmakes laws without consent on Congress; the spending of government dollars; committing America to war; and rewarding his friends while punishing his enemies makes him “rex quondam, rex futurus – the once and future king.”
“Who cares which party controls the Senate, if all the action is at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue,” said Buckley in his column. He believes that the main idea that the founder’s had in mind when creating the Constitution was if political power became centralized in a single person, this would be a threat to liberty. He fears that if the media doesn’t start showing more interest in the quick rise of presidential power then the future will begin to resemble the past.
The past he writes about is a return to a monarchal rule not unlike that of King George III of England during the revolutionary days. One must remember that for our government to properly function each of its branches must stay within their legal boundaries as mandated by the Constitution. The Executive branch was created to enforce the laws passed by Congress. However, Obama selectively chooses the laws he wishes to enforce or picks parts of the law that he puts into effect. Also, through executive orders, he has unilaterally created legislation and bypassed Congress in the process to pursue his socialistic agenda. With his pen and phone, he has usurped the Legislative branch of government’s power and made his position one of total authority.
Unfortunately, this exact scenario is that which the founding fathers fought so adamantly to avoid. They knew what tyranny meant and saw its deleterious consequences.
Must we as Americans head down this path and relearn what our founding fathers warned us about so many years ago? Must we live through tyranny once again before we denounce it evils? Obama has fundamentally changed our country. Unfortunately, he has changed it for the dire WORST.
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Book Expo America
I am simply writing this post to thank all those who were involved in the Book Expo America (BEA). Special thanks goes out to my publisher, Light Messages, and everyone who waited in line to get a signed copy of my bestselling novel, The New Reality. The experience was priceless, and made all the long hours of writing my novel, editing it, and bringing it to publication well worth it.
As a Republican, I must seriously ask who is really representing us in Congress, and what do we stand for. These simple questions mark the basis of my concern for the party. When you think about it, we couldn’t even beat a socialist community organizer with no skill, talent, ability lead or any credible ties that were not linked to unscrupulous sources.
Call me naïve, but I thought Republicans opposed Obamacare? Remember, Obamacare fundamentally represents all that the Republican Party is supposed to be against. When you break down this law, it essentially becomes a government mandate to take over a substantial part of our economy, grow the national government to outrageous proportions, destroy our economy and place our country deeper into unfathomable debt.
However, I read an article today about our so-called Republican representatives that makes me want to throw all of them out of office. This is the last straw:
To summarize a recent article by Juliet Eilperin and Robert Costa: Republican candidates have begun to retreat in recent weeks from their all-out assault on the Affordable Care Act in favor of a more piecemeal approach, suggesting they would preserve some aspects of the law while jettisoning others.
On the campaign trail, some Republicans and their outside allies have started talking about the health-care law in more nuanced terms than they have in the past. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is running ads suggesting that many of its favored candidates will tweak Obamacare rather than scrap it. One spot says Rep. Joseph J. Heck (R-Nev.) will fix the law, while another says Republican Massachusetts House contender Richard Tisei will “work in a bipartisan manner to fix healthcare the right way.” The business group’s ads in Kentucky use almost identical language, declaring in separate spots that Sen. Mitch McConnell (R) and Rep. Andy Barr (R) would work to “fix” the “Obamacare mess.”
While others like in Minnesota, Republican House candidate Stewart Mills pledges in a campaign ad to “replace” the law, rather than simply repealing it.
“The sentiment toward the Affordable Care Act is still strongly negative, but people are saying, ‘Don’t throw the baby out” with the bathwater, said Glen Bolger, a partner with the GOP polling firm Public Opinion Strategies.
“The wave of the election is already within sight, and I believe we are going to do well,” said House Chief Deputy Whip Peter Roskam (R-Ill.). “I don’t think we need a replacement bill to win the election, but it is something that would be helpful in guiding our governing agenda for next year.”
As a true big “R” and little “r” Republican, I don’t want to tweak, change or switch the law. I want it off the books. It is bad for our economy, bad for our civil liberties and bad for generations of Americans to come. Any Republican who does not stand up and state publically that this law ought to be appealed, should join a different party or be voted out of office.
It’s time we took back the party and made it once again a party of the people. Remember, it is the people who make this country great- not the party or the government.
A newly discovered virus has made headlines recently in the news. Called the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), it is a cousin of the better known coronavirus, SARS. Two recent studies have proven that camels are infected by this MERS virus and that humans who contracted the disease also had the exact same version of the virus in their bloodstream.
To paraphrase a recent article in the BBC by Matt McGrath: However, the lead author of that report, Dr. Thomas Briese from Columbia University in New York, believes that there are many unanswered questions about the disease. He points to the fact that if camels were the sole route of infection, then the illness should be more prevalent among those who work with or are in close contact with the animals. Plus, there have been a small number of cases of people dying from MERS who have no known relationship with camels. “We do have these sporadic cases where there is no known exposure to known cases and we question where do they catch the virus. In some cases there was animal contact or camel contact but in others not, so there is no clear definitive picture yet.”
Dr Briese says that other species, including goats and sheep, have been tested but haven’t shown antibodies indicating exposure. In addition, the disease in camels is far more widespread than previously thought, with significant reservoirs in Nigeria, Ethiopia and Tunisia. Ironically, there have been no reports of people dying from the respiratory infection in these areas.
This unexplained fact, noted Dr. Briese, is making research question if a MERS viral reservoir could be found in domestic pets such as cats and dogs. “We are looking into or are trying to look into are cats, dogs – where there is more intimate contact – and any other wild species we can get serum from that we are not currently getting.”
The real question is if an animal viral reservoir is now even needed for the spread of the disease. There is one hypothesis that the virus subtly mutated and became transmissible from camels to humans. Once this occurred, the main contagious source of the disease became human to human contact—as evidenced by the recent case of a hospital worker in the United States. Again, another important question emerges. Will the virus hypothetically mutate again and make human to human transmission easier? Fortunately, researchers are looking into this problem right now, and hopefully MERS will prove nothing more than a fleeting news story.
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Is Obama is the Modern Day Caligula
Is President Obama a modern day Caligula? Well, certain striking similarities abound that make the comparison eye-opening. Caligula was the Roman Emperor from 37 to 41 AD when he was murdered the Praetorain Guard, ending his infamous reign. This dictator has gone down in history as one of the worst Roman emperors that ever held the position. Through his financial excess, out-of-touch domestic policies and seemingly erratic behavior, he is the embodiment of a poor leader.
Ironically, despite his record, the people of Rome loved him during his day. Instead of cheering his assassination, they sought out his killers and brought them to justice. It seems almost counterintuitive but history does not lie- on the contrary, it tends to repeat itself.
You may ask why such a notorious dictator was so loved during his day. Well, when you look at what’s going on today you will understand. Caligula was one of the first politicians in recorded history to use class warfare. Like Obama, he denounced the rich and successful of his country and frequently made an example out of them to increase his popularity. He excessively taxed them, imposed charges similar to our modern day capital gains, and took their inheritance. Not only did he believe extorting from the rich would help the economy but he also believed that it would bolster his popularity among the Roman people. Well, he was certainly wrong on the first point but was correct on the second.
Is what Caligula did any different than what Obama has done during his presidency? Ironically, the two reigns seem eerily similar. During Obama’s two terms, he has consistently used class warfare, raised taxes and increased the number of people receiving federal aid; thus, growing his popularity among many individuals.
Caligula was also remembered for his excessive spending. Caligula’s payments for support, generosity and extravagance had exhausted the state’s treasury and began bankrupting the country. Unfortunately, this is exactly what we see today. With the vast expansion of government, increase in spending and an 18 trillion dollar debt, Obama has done the same thing to the United States as Caligula did to Rome. However, instead of just exhausting our treasury, Obama has put our country into a financial whole. Plus, like Caligula, we see Obama’s excesses. From the beginning of his presidency with his own over-the-top inauguration to his wife’s costly trips around the world and his own parties at the White House, he is the modern day Caligula.
Lastly, Caligula was considered mad for promoting his own horse to the position of consul. This was the highest elected political office in Rome, second only to the emperor. Well, when we look at some of those Obama has appointed to high ranking governmental positions the similarities become obvious. Van Jones, Al Armendariz and Eric Holder are just a few of his winners. To be honest, I’d rather see him appoint a horse instead of many of the people he has surrounded himself with.
Unfortunately, the similarity between Obama and Caligula is clear. However, Caligula only had 4 years in office, and we are stuck with this self-proclaimed Emperor for another term. Lord Help us!
Many are calling for VA Secretary Eric Shinseki’s resignation due to recent, unflattering revelations about the care they are providing our veterans and their cover-ups. Though Pelosi blamed Bush for the incompetence, the problem is much more widespread– especially, when you carefully look at the numbers.
While only 7 percent of the veterans in the system are from current wars, the cost of these veterans is only 4 percent of the total VA budget. What Pelosi does not truthfully tell us is that the VA budget has increased under Obama from 97.7 billion to 153.8 billion dollars.
Where is this money going? It’s like throwing good money onto bad. Unfortunately, that’s how the government works. There is not the same accountability for financial decisions in governmental agencies as there is in the private business world. If there were, our government would be out of business in a day with everyone in Washington DC sent to jail for criminal charges. Plus, the solution Pelosi and the other progressives are calling for in greater funding to the VA.
However, where has greater funding got us thus far? Numbers, unlike Pelosi, don’t lie. Many call Eric Shinseki incompetent. Nevertheless, he has announced the most intelligent statement I’ve heard out of a government agency in years. To sum it up, he will let more veterans obtain healthcare at private hospitals. He said, “(we are) increasing the care we acquire in the community through non-VA care.”
In other words, he is taking the only intelligent option and letting more veterans receive healthcare from a proven, functioning, system—a system Obama is actively tearing down and turning into the new VA.
Don’t let our healthcare system turn into the VA. We have all now seen what government care gets us: long lines, inefficient care, rationing and death. Is that what America is all about?