The executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) warns that the midterm elections could determine if Americans keep their right to control their medical care.
“If the angry healthcare voters who are agitating in the streets win, most ordinary Americans lose,” Dr. Jane Orient writes in an article published at Newsmax. “Not seven percent, but 100 percent of Americans could lose their right to control their medical care—and the dollars they earn.”
“Medical decisions will be politically determined,” she warns, adding:
People are marching with “Health Care Voter” signs, and this is generally believed to be one of the most important issues in the 2018 midterm elections. Republicans who got elected on the promise to repeal Obamacare, and reneged, may now get unelected.
Orient observes that those using Twitter hashtag #HealthCareVoter have bought into the Democrats’ false premise that the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh will “rip health care away from people with pre-existing conditions.”
Orient asserts the premise is built on “several profound misunderstandings.”
“By ‘healthcare,’ most seem to mean health ‘insurance’ — usually a prepaid health plan, which is not at all the same as medical care,” she writes. “The U.S. Supreme Court already decided that it is unconstitutional under the Commerce Clause to force people to buy a commercial product. Remember stare decisis?”
“The Affordable Care Act (ACA or Obamacare) ripped away Americans’ freedom to refuse to buy an unaffordable or objectionable insurance product, punishing such refusal by a ‘tax,’” Orient summarized. “Contrary to Barack Obama’s promises, it also ripped away insurance plans Americans had relied on for years.”
She observes how “pre-existing conditions” were handled prior to the passage of Obamacare:
Most people were unaffected because they had employer-sponsored coverage.
Only the seven percent of Americans in the individual market faced underwriting for pre-existings. If they were insured before they became ill, the insurance contract generally prohibited dropping them from coverage or stopping treatment.
Prudent people bought insurance at low cost when they were healthy and maintained continuous coverage. Those who didn’t often had access to a state high-risk pool — before Obamacare did away with them. Almost all got medical care — either they paid for it, or the doctor didn’t get paid.
ObamaCare removed the incentive to buy insurance before one “needed” it, since one could not be declined or charged more. The individual mandate did not prevent this system-gaming, the equivalent of buying fire insurance when your house is on fire.
Orient notes that with the Obamacare “tax” now reduced to zero, the Trump administration has relaxed restrictions on short-term, limited-duration policies – which allow Americans to choose “affordable policies that cover trauma and serious illness, while they buy routine, expected care the old-fashioned way, without the supervision of a health plan intent on saving its money.”
She predicts that if Democrats win in the midterms, “those who want free services that enable their lifestyle (contraception, abortion, treatment for sexually transmitted diseases) will be chanting in the streets.”
“Politically favored diseases or patients will get preferential treatment,” she warns. “Skilled physicians will be scarce.”
An additional feature of big government-run medical care is an influx of “minimally trained clinicians, relying on computerized “guidelines,” she states.
“There will be winners and losers, picked by an ever-growing bureaucracy,” Orient observes. “Voters who aren’t chanting slogans amplified by media will have little influence.”
“Americans need to vote for freedom, competitive enterprises, and less not more government intrusion in their decisions,” she urges.
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