“Our doctors have told us to be prepared for the worst because right now we can hardly find a doctor.”
Liberals on the Supreme Court and in Congress refused to heed this
warning as they brazenly imposed President Barack Obama’s Affordable
Care Act on the American people. Under a cloud of controversy, Obamacare
has now entered its third year.
In its 2012 decision on Obamacare, the U.S. Supreme Court based its ruling on a convoluted interpretation of law. In a 5-4 decision, Chief Justice John Roberts voted alongside liberal justices to clear the way for the implementation of Obamacare. Roberts’ overriding concern was if the individual mandate to force Americans to buy medical insurance should be labeled a tax or a fine. Human loss and suffering were inconsequential. The human toll could not be factored in based on legal constricts placed on the court.
Decisions are to be based on law and not emotion. Regardless and
predictably, the leftist jurists’ ideology of applying social justice, a
primary tenet of socialism, infused their decisions. Conservatives on
the bench voted against the individual mandate, which would force
Americans to purchase medical insurance under coercion whether by a tax
or fine, as unconstitutional.
Soon after its passage, Obamacare began claiming casualties.
Front-line victims became early warnings of the pain and suffering — the
desperation — to come. Few in seats of power took heed. Obama and
Congress had, after all, exempted themselves from the medical nightmare
they created along with a swath of their political cronies and
supporters. Supreme Court justices remain exempt as well. Question: Why
exempt themselves? What is it that they are afraid of?
Mid-2010, Americans were beginning to experience the creeping effects
of socialized medicine. During a radio interview, a caller who
identified himself as a life-long Democrat told me of the particular
form of hell that he and his young paraplegic wife were going through
due to Obamacare. The caller wanted to warn fellow Americans. His wife
was already being abandoned by her doctors who feared cuts in
reimbursements. Doctors pointed to mandated cuts in Medicare monies
being shifted to fund Obamacare. What follows is a limited transcript of
my on-air interview with the caller about his wife’s ordeal.
Husband/Caller: “Our doctors have told us
to be prepared for the worst because right now we can hardly find a
doctor. We’re not in a small town, and when we go to find a new doctor
for a new problem, a podiatrist or specialty doctor of any kind, we go
through many, many, many, many names before one finally decides to take
us. They tell us upfront that you are going to probably end-up being
billed the 20% because we [the doctors] know that we don’t get
reimbursed for that and they’ve changed their paperwork. You used to be
able to pick up the phone and call any doctor and they say come on in,
we take Medicare, we take QMB – now I spend two and three days trying to
find one doctor with other doctors helping me to find a doctor that
would accept the program. Through the Bush time, we thought GW was the
worst thing that had ever happened to America. But, we were able to keep
everything we had. Nothing was affected, our health plan was not
affected, the doctors were not affected, nothing happened to us badly.
Well, now since Obama has taken over we can no longer . . .” (Voice
cracks.)
The caller explained further, that in desperation, he took his wife
to a clinic. Clinic doctors informed him that they were not qualified to
treat his wife, nor could they admit patients to a hospital. Frantic,
he recruited the help of others in his continued search to find a
qualified doctor who would accept their Medicare/Qualified Medicare
Beneficiary program. Eventually, he said, a 74-year-old doctor, in
semi-retirement, finally agreed to treat his wife.
As a result of that call, I have investigated first-hand accounts and
concerns of those who provide medical care to our mentally and
physically disabled and to our seniors. Medical care providers expect
the human toll, from warehousing patients to loss of life, to be
extensive. Obamacare results in fewer doctors available to middle and
lower income patients. Corruption is embedded in Obama’s Affordable Care
Act as it fosters breeding grounds for less skilled and less ethical
doctors and clinics to run Obamacare mills based on quantity of patients
and not quality of care.
A recent interview I did with an emergency room doctor disclosed
traumatizing choices that doctors are already being forced to make. An
experienced emergency room doctor found himself trapped
between admitting two critically ill patients or adhering to newly
applied government regulations. His hospital’s funding was under new
government-imposed financial guidelines. Costs were to be lowered by
turning away short-term, repeat Medicare patients. The doctor explains
that he is now caught in a regulatory vice:
“As more and more are added to the
Obamacare rolls, there will be less and less access. People will get
sicker and yes, people will die because of it. I had a sick and sinking
feeling in the pit of my stomach today after both of these incidents.”
Facing the prospects of turning away dying patients or facing a
hospital reprimand for admitting them, this doctor chose patient care
over job security. The doctor expects to retire in a few years.
Former top aide to Obama, Jeffrey Crowley, helped design how
Obamacare is being implemented. Crowley openly admits that there are
serious flaws, saying, “We know it’s going to be messy.” “Messy?” Is
that what President Obama, liberal Democrats and socialists on the
Supreme Court call the heartache, suffering and sorrow that is already
being faced by Americans and their families? Chief Justice Roberts and
his liberal jurists on the high court have torpedoed the American
economy along with the American health care system making the pain not
just medical, but financial. Workers nationwide complain that their
paychecks have been hit with the first-round of Obamacare taxes
resulting in less take-home pay. It is just the beginning.
The latest Rasmussen Reports survey reveals that a 54 percent
majority of Americans expect the U.S. healthcare system to get worse
over the next four years. Benjamin Domenech of Health Care News reports
that the latest Kaiser/Harvard survey found, “Obamacare’s Unpopularity
Grows in New Poll.” The survey reports that the disapproval of Obamacare
“was mostly driven by an increase in opposition from the politically
significant independent voters — the survey found 57% of independents
opposed the law, up from 41 percent last month.” The
House of Representatives currently has the authority to defund the
administrative arm of the Affordable Care Act and effectively nullify
Obamacare. Having been given that authority by the American people, the
latest polls indicate that they should use it — and then expand sales of
personal medical insurance into the free-market to be sold at
competitive rates across state lines.
Sharon Sebastian’s work can be found at AmericanDailyHerald.Com