At several campaign events, Democrat candidates have disapprovingly noted that the U.S. lags behind European and other nations in not having full government health care.
A closer examination reveals that may be a good thing. It has become a fairly common pattern for foreign leaders seeking the most advanced care to travel—sometimes secretly—to America for treatment. Forbes reports that “An estimated 40% of all medical travelers are looking for the world’s most advanced technologies…Commonly seeking cutting-edge cardiovascular, neurological or oncology treatments, the bulk of medical travelers head to U.S. medical facilities … there’s the United States’ reputation when it comes to health care…”
A study from the Batelle Technology Partnership Practice notes that the U.S. is the world’s leader in medical innovation, although increasing taxes and regulations may affect that going forward. There are viable and very relevant questions as to whether the adoption of European style medical care would change that.
One group of Americans has a particular vulnerability to the flaws in government-administered health care: senior citizens. The United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS), often set up as an example for those advocating government-administered health care in the U.S., has been frequently criticized for its failure to meet the needs of older patients.
The BBC has disclosed that English and Welsh health experts are concerned that older people in need of urgent help are being failed by the NHS, and the NHS’s own studies concur. “Too many over-65s end up in accident and emergency unnecessarily” according to the NHS Confederation’s Commission on Improving Urgent Care for Older People. The group said this was because of a “lack of help when they fell ill…The commission’s report said older people were “poorly served.”
America’s most significant step towards greater federal involvement in health care has presented significant challenges to quality health care for seniors.
In 2014, John Goodman, writing for Forbes, stressed that “One of the best kept secrets of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is that it imposes a global budget on Medicare spending – for the first time in the program’s history. Heretofore, Medicare was a pure entitlement program. The government had to pay for whatever care the elderly and the disabled obtained. But going forward, the health reform law imposes a cap on spending.
“For most of its history, per capita Medicare spending in real terms grew at about twice the rate of growth of real per capita GDP – just like the rest of the health care system. But going forward, the law requires Medicare to grow at a rate that is not much more than the growth of GDP – regardless of what happens to other health care spending. If the historical trend continues, that means spending on health care for the elderly and the disabled will grow about half as fast as spending on everyone else’s care.”
A New York Post review of Obamacare’s effect on healthcare for seniors: “It’s skimping on it, socking seniors with unexpected bills for “observation care” and likely shortening their lives…”
Senior Living.com notes: “The cuts to Medicare—about $700 billion between 2013 and 2022—are actually decreases in the spending rate for this program. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the cuts will be felt in hospital services, Medicare Advantage plans, skilled nursing services, home health services and others. “
Dan Weber, writing for the Washington Times, describes another attack on senior care under Obamacare:
“Medicare’s home health care services, formerly serving 3.5 million elderly beneficiaries across the country, were cut under Obamacare. The cut deleted exactly 14 percent, or an estimated $22 billion, from these lowest-income Americans over four years. …This cut does irreparable damage to recipients of Medicare’s home health care services, those who are aged, homebound and sicker than the average Medicare population. Indeed, nearly two-thirds of Medicare home health care users live at or below the federal poverty level, meaning they are the most economically compromised of America’s precious senior citizens.”
The Galen Organization summarizes the impact on Medicare:
“ObamaCare doesn’t modernize the program or improve it for seniors. ObamaCare’s solutions are detrimental to today’s seniors:
- The law takes $716 billion out of Medicare over 10 years to help fund a huge expansion of taxpayer subsidies for health coverage.
- It creates an unelected, unaccountable board — the Independent Payment Advisory Board — with powers to limit payment and access to health care for seniors and which will become Medicare’s rationing board. ObamaCare drives your doctors and hospitals out of Medicare
- The law makes deep cuts in payments to physicians treating Medicare patients.
- Cuts to Medicare providers mean it will be harder for seniors to find doctors and hospitals to treat them.
- Doctors are already threatening to drop out of the program in large numbers if the payment cuts go into effect.
- Medicare actuaries predict that more than 40% of Medicare providers eventually will either go out of business or stop seeing Medicare patients altogether if the law’s cuts take effect.”
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