Tonight, I announce Free Market Fridays on Twitter, report on doctor-owned hospitals, and finish up with two small items.
A month ago, I told you about Single Payer Mondays on Twitter at 10 a.m. Eastern time. I am pleased to announce that we have now started Free Market Fridays. The Truth Squad has long argued that getting sucked into the vortex of Big Government, Big Insurance, and Big Healthcare is the wrong way to go. Our mission statement, written shortly after Obamacare became law, reads in part: “the construction of a humane healthcare system lies in the direction of less government intervention, not more.” We take a dim view of the GOP’s new healthcare plan which replaces Obamacare’s tax credits with … more tax credits. Sure, getting rid of Obamacare’s mandates would be an improvement, but subsidizing healthcare through the tax code is still a distortion and ratchets up government involvement in healthcare with bad consequences. This is a self-defeating exercise in futility because costs will continue to spiral upwards, subsidized as they are by tax credits, sucking in more and more GDP to pay for less and less actual healthcare. It’s a vicious cycle. There is another way. Bring market forces to bear and the myriad distortions in healthcare will begin to go away. Transparent pricing alone would have many beneficial effects. So, most Fridays at 10 a.m. Eastern time, the Truth Squad will be tweeting the week’s news that holds out real hope for reducing costs and restoring sanity to our healthcare system. The first batch touches on transparent pricing, HSAs and health sharing ministries among other things. Let me add a thought about health sharing ministries. Not one of them has gone bankrupt, unlike the Obamacare co-ops, more than half of which have gone bankrupt. Imagine that – The ministries don’t get subsidies and they don’t go bankrupt. They’re a perfect illustration why the government doesn’t have all the answers when it comes to healthcare. Time to go in the other direction, folks.
I’ve spoken before on this webinar about physician-owned hospitals. Obamacare prevents them from expanding unless they go hat in hand to Washington where their requests are likely to fall on deaf ears. Physicians and their financiers lost millions of dollars when 30 expansion projects already underway were scuttled by the Affordable Care Act. These hospitals are widely recognized as some of the best in the country, with better patient outcomes and higher quality scores, at lower cost. Yet, they are prohibited from expanding on pain of losing their Medicare license. The restrictions against doctor-owned hospitals in Obamacare were born of cronyism. We have them because other hospitals with better political connections wanted to wipe out their competitors. It’s time to rip out the restrictions, root and branch. Strike a blow for economic freedom and for – what seems to have been forgotten in the whole Obamacare train wreck – better patient care.
Someone asked me two weeks ago about MACRA, the new payment rules for doctors under Medicare that look like trouble. I said I didn’t know too much about MACRA but, tonight, I’m putting a link in the wrap-up to a good article that lays it all out.
Finally, I want to thank the person who drew my attention in Chatzy to a very disturbing photograph from a Venezuelan hospital. I tweeted it out and it quickly became our most popular tweet ever in a matter of hours – three times as popular as any of our other tweets. The picture is a grim reminder of why we do not want single payer healthcare in this country and I’ll send it in for the wrap-up.
Links
Free Market Fridays on Twitter
https://twitter.com/ObamacreTrthSqd
Free Market Tweets
Live free or submit. What will you decide?
For-profit medical schools address rural doctor shortage
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_MED_SCHOOL_BOOM?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-06-22-00-30-30
Opponents of HSAs said “HSAs won’t work.” 20 million Americans say they do.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanellis/2016/06/21/health-savings-account-expansions-to-pass-u-s-house-overwhelmingly/#267519c05c16
Health sharing ministries more than double enrollment since 2010 – lower costs, more caring, preexisting covered
http://www.healthline.com/health-news/christian-health-cost-sharing-programs-growing-in-wake-of-obamacare
#Obamacare stumbles backwards into bringing market forces to bear thru hi deductibles
http://reason.com/archives/2016/05/11/free-market-medicine
Ambulatory surgery centers save employers $38B/yr. Hospitross association gives grumpy response.
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20160620/NEWS/160629992/study-employers-save-billions-at-ascs-over-hospital-outpatient
retweet
Jones Raleigh @jonesraleigh 34m34 minutes ago
Jones Raleigh Retweeted IP4PI
You Doctors sold out to insurance Co’s 2 decades ago. Take your lives back, fire them. Demand posted pricing.
retweet
AssocAmerPhys&Surg @AAPSonline 12h12 hours ago
Not How… But Why. @DrBob_Southlake makes the argument for third-party-free practice:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dfr9Uu8e9A&feature=youtu.be
Other
Free Doctor-Owned Hospitals from the Shackles of Obamacare. Original Commentary at ObamacareTruthSquad.com.
http://0363930.netsolhost.com/WordPress/2016/06/23/free-doctor-owned-hospitals-from-the-shackles-of-obamacare/
Good article on MACRA
http://fairfaxfreecitizen.com/2016/06/12/39482/
#SinglePayer in one picture (Venezuela)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3595946/No-electricity-no-antibiotics-no-beds-no-soap-devastating-look-inside-Venezuela-s-crisis-struck-hospitals-7-babies-die-day-bleeding-patients-lie-strewn-floor-doctors-try-operate-without-tools.html
