Dr. Jane Orient on Obamacare: ‘Clean Repeal Is the Place to Start’

A physician whose organization embraces individualized, free-market health care tells Breitbart News she is on board with President Donald Trump and Rep. Mark Meadows, who want to bring a clean repeal of Obamacare to the president’s desk.

“Clean repeal is the place to start,” says Dr. Jane Orient, executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS). “It’s the only way to really find out what is in it. If there is anything good for the country as opposed to swampdwellers, let it be enacted by a majority of Congress rather than retained in a back-room deal.”

In an article posted to the AAPS website, Orient, who practices internal medicine in Arizona, asserts the battle taking place in Congress about Obamacare has not been about health care, but control:

Let’s get the terminology straight: The government cannot “take away” or “give” you health care. Caring for your health is something you do—or don’t do—yourself. It costs practically nothing; in fact, it saves you money. Nonsmokers save thousands of dollars a year. Walking around the block every day is free—and maybe you’ll meet your neighbor. Healthy foods like fresh fruits and vegetables cost something, but less than Starbucks coffee-flavored milkshakes or fast-food lunches. Being faithful to your spouse pays huge dividends.

You can go to a “healthcare provider,” get counseled on smoking cessation, and have all your bad habits, risk factors, and soon probably your DNA and political views recorded in an electronic data base, accessible to the government and thousands of other entities. They will constantly score you—on your value to society, eligibility to own a self-defense tool, suitability for a loan or a job, and eventually perhaps your qualifications to have a child.

Orient observes that Obamacare – which essentially has been an expansion of the federal Medicaid program – has grown into a system that counts “enrollees” without considering how many actually obtain health “care.”

“Last year, Nevada Medicaid paid managed-care companies as much as $213 million for more than 30,000 people who received no care at all,” Orient asserts. “Maybe that money was taken from housing or law enforcement.”

Orient says Americans really don’t know where all the Medicaid money goes:

A preliminary look at publicly available documents of Arizona’s Medicaid system, allegedly the most efficient in the U.S., revealed that managed-care contractors made more than $225 million in pre-tax profits in just one year. And in 5 years, nearly $400 million of Medicaid funding was transferred to other state agencies.

From the perspective of simple economics, Orient asserts it is “just absurd” to use third-party payment schemes for routine costs, which do not amount to “insurance” at all but allow people to believe they are getting something “for free.”

“It doubles or triples the costs, while making services look free or worth $5 at the time of service,” she explains. “It perpetuates the illusion that somebody else is paying, while managed-care stockholders, administrators, arbitrageurs, and purveyors of ridiculously overpriced drugs or procedures rake in profits.”

Orient says she would prefer to purchase real “insurance” that would cover her risk in the event of an emergency, such as an auto accident, a diagnosis of cancer, or a sudden heart attack.

“I’d like to buy catastrophic insurance to cover my risk for those things, without buying everybody else’s contraceptives, fertility treatments, smoking cessation counseling, drug abuse treatments, and blood pressure pills,” she says. “Such insurance became very difficult to obtain years ago, and ObamaCare outlawed it.”

Using Trump’s terminology, Orient says the United States is experiencing the “end-game” of the single-payer health insurance system, the purpose of which is to divert funds to the “Swamp.”

“These funds are no longer available for people to choose to spend,” she explains. “And worse, the System will carefully control the funds that actually provide care, say by punishing doctors for deviating from government-dictated ‘best practices.’”

Orient cites the case of Charlie Gard in the U.K., where government-run socialized medicine is already established, and experimental treatments for an infant with a rare genetic disorder have been considered “futile” by the London hospital treating him and the courts.

“Nothing experimental outside the control of the FDA (that might compete with lucrative drugs),” she continues. “Nothing that is not ‘value based’ (such as life-sustaining treatment including food and water to patients not valuable enough to treat for pneumonia, heart failure, or a bleeding ulcer).”

“The system wants Americans to trade their freedom for the illusion of ‘health care,’” Orient warns. “But Americans will soon learn that freedom is of the greatest importance when life is at stake.”