No doubt this will be a headline story at Fox News.
Update: A reader has drawn my attention to certain mendacious comments by industrial shills on Dr. Emanuel's article. So let me make a couple of things clear:
In some of the state exchanges, premiums increased after the first year of the ACA. This is because insurance companies competed for customers in the first year, and to some extent underestimated what their costs would be in part because previously uninsured people tend to be expensive when they finally do get insurance. This is not to be confused with total spending on health care in the U.S. (Thanks to the subsidies in the ACA, consumers do not actually pay for these increases out of pocket, BTW.)
Second, health care spending in the U.S. has historically increased at greater than the rate of inflation, i.e. health care spending takes a growing share of GDP year after year. The ACA did not reverse this trend, but substantially reduced it. Here is a more detailed discussion:
In 2010, the government predicted that Medicare costs would rise 20 percent in just five years. That’s from $12,376 per beneficiary in 2014 to $14,913 by 2019. Instead, analysts were shocked to find out spending had dropped by $1,000 per person, to $11,328 by 2014. It happened due to four specific reasons:
- The ACA reduced payments to Medicare Advantage providers. The providers' costs for administering Parts A and B were rising much faster than the government’s costs. The providers' couldn't justify the higher prices. Instead, it appeared as though they were overcharging the government.
- Medicare began rolling out accountable care organizations, bundled payments , and value-based payments. [Editors note: All components of the ACA.] Spending on hospital care has stayed the same since 2011. Part of the reason for this is that hospital readmissions dropped by 150,000 a year in 2012 and 2013. That’s one of the areas hospitals get penalized if they exceed standards. It resulted in increased efficiency and quality of patient care. [Also a provision of the ACA.]
- High-income earners paid more in Medicare payroll taxes and Part B and D premiums. For more, see Obamacare taxes.
- In 2013, sequestration lowered Medicare payments by 2 percent to providers and plans.
Based on these new trends, Medicare spending was projected to grow just 5.3 percent a year between 2014 and 2024.
BTW, Ezekiel Emanuel "is the current Vice Provost for Global Initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania and chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy. Previously, Emanuel served as the Diane and Robert Levy University Professor at Penn. He holds a joint appointment at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and the Wharton School and was formerly an associate professor at the Harvard Medical School until 1998 when he joined the National Institutes of Health" So obviously he doesn't know what he's talking about.
5 comments:
This post is more testament to the sad fact that in the 2019 USA, reality-based organizations are losing the fierce "propaganda war" that has been launched against the American populace since Gingrich and like-minded Republicans--that is to say, mostly men (and some women) of no personal character or ethics, cynical and fear-based in their thinking about ... everything.
Yes, it is annoying, but also very dangerous, that our culture no longer seems to have any respect for expertise. Anybody with an Internet connection assumes he knows better than people who have spent a lifetime pursuing a field of study. Climate change denial depends entirely on this pathology, as come to think of it does the entire conservative movement and the Republican party. Reality has a well-known liberal bias, so let's just invent our own reality.
I was also thinking that Trump's idol, Hitler (he's kept the man's speeches by his bedside, but denies actually reading them) wrote about "the big lie." Repeat outrageous, slanderous, invidious lies enough times and people will believe them.
Propaganda.
This is in line with my "Jesus/Hitler" theory that, no matter how honest or pathologically disturbed someone is, if sh/e "trumpets" her/his beliefs loudly enough, millions will follow--whether it's Jesus or Hitler--because most people are so lost and insecure about their own beliefs and lack of beliefs that they're just looking to be told what to believe and what to do. Hence, idiots like "pro-birthers" (they use the false label "pro-lifers").
The internet only amplifies the power of this dynamic.
In an analysis of Hitler's psychology, the OSS said this:
"His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it."
Remind you of anyone?
Sure as hell does. But of course Mr. Shitler never reads it ... oh, wait, more bullshit.
Yes, he does. The worst possible effing American and we find a way to make him president.
I think our system has broken.
I'm glad Pelosi wants him in jail. So do I. But first I want to see him publicly slapped in the face repeatedly for each of his hundreds of transgressions. However, one slap will suffice, because the coward will break down in tears, and everyone who doesn't know already will know he's a fraud.
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