In homeopathy any of a variety of animal, plant, or mineral substances are diluted in alcohol or distilled water and vigorously shaken. The process is repeated to extreme dilutions, sometimes until not even a single molecule of the original substance may remain in the final preparation. Those who believe that such extreme dilutions remain potent posit a mechanism known as “water memory” by which the water “remembers” the original substance. No scientific study to date has unambiguously shown any individual homeopathic preparation to be more effective than placebo.
A story is now making the rounds as reported here by The Hill that the Obama Administration has quietly delayed the provision of the PPACA that would limit out-of-pocket insurance costs for consumers until 2015:
The Obama administration has delayed a key provision in President Obama’s healthcare reform law that would limit out-of-pocket insurance costs for consumers until 2015.
The cap, which includes deductibles and co-payments, was supposed to limit consumer costs to $6,350 for an individual and $12,700 for a family. But administration officials have quietly delayed the requirement for some insurers, allowing them to set their own limits starting in 2014.
The delay has been outlined on the Labor Department’s website since February, but went largely unnoticed.
Writing at Forbes Avik Roy notes:
First, there was the delay of Obamacare’s Medicare cuts until after the election. Then there was the delay of the law’s employer mandate. Then there was the announcement, buried in the Federal Register, that the administration would delay enforcement of a number of key eligibility requirements for the law’s health insurance subsidies, relying on the “honor system†instead. Now comes word that another costly provision of the health law—its caps on out-of-pocket insurance costs—will be delayed for one more year.
To that I would add that more than 1,200 companies have received waivers from various aspects of ObamaCare’s provisions, some on quite questionable grounds.
The Administration’s various moves have been criticized on a wide variety of grounds including whether the president actually has the authority to adjust the law as he has without the agreement of Congress, whether the reasons for the various moves are more political than pragmatic, and so on.
My question is somewhat different. Isn’t there some level of dilution of healthcare reform beyond which it is no longer effective? Or at which cost control vanishes? Is there some kind of homeopathic theory under which the law will retain its potency regardless of how it’s delayed, waived, or modified via some sort of legislative memory?
From the germination of Obamacare, so much of it’s projected implementation has been framed around elections — the negative aspects of it scheduled for after elections.
Pure and simple, the PPACA is a flawed, partisan-passed bill, unwieldy in it’s bulky regulations, and having outcroppings of camouflaged consequences popping up. Then there is the irony of WH waivers issued to dems who supported the bill, but now don’t want to be covered under it, as it continues to produce even more distasteful by-products derived by it’s own innate structural weaknesses. More recently, implementation dates have been juggled further into the future for some but not all people, with even more provisions reset to roll out in 2015 — after the upcoming midterms.
It appears that the administration refuses to pull the covers on the realities of how this HC fiasco will really effect people, until it’s affirmed the PPACA tentacles have become too deeply embedded for any reform detour other than a single payer system. Devious Harry Reid is already mouthing this possibility, as if to prepare people for what the social progressives have as ‘plan B,’ ahead of them.
My question is somewhat different. Isn’t there some level of dilution of healthcare reform beyond which it is no longer effective? Or at which cost control vanishes? Is there some kind of homeopathic theory under which the law will retain its potency regardless of how it’s delayed, waived, or modified via some sort of legislative memory?
The application of homeopathic remedies revolves around the ‘Materia Medica,’ which is the medical guidepost for choosing what remedy best fits a series of symptoms. Under it’s theory there could be multiple remedies for a primary physical symptom. But, the best remedy is chosen when multiple criteria are taken into consideration as well.
When addressing our national health care concerns, the ACA was devised and pushed as curing the symptoms of rising health care costs, including insuring those not having HC insurance. However, the legislative panacea was not chosen to interact well in a free market environment with which many in this country support. Plainly, the ACA is not the right choice of a remedy for what ails a capitalistic, free market type of governance. That’s why it has proven to be indigestible to so many, and is not realizing the kind of results which were originally promised. No amount of dilution will help a wrong remedy. Only finding another one, customized for providing a broader criteria of needs, will there be a better and healthier outcome for people, as a whole, desiring HC reform.
Universal healthcare will be achieved through the single payer system. This will work the same as education. In the US, there is universal education, and there is a public education system. There will be local clinics, specialty area clinics, and area hospitals, but private medical services will be available for those who can afford it. Much like the public schools, the quality of service will differ by income levels.
It would have been more productive to go straight to this model, but most people will not be convinced until the Rube Goldberg schemes are exhausted. The vocal single payer advocates were the only ones whose goals were aligned with reality.
Everybody else has either been playing a game (left), or they are delusional (right). Many of the game players want a monstrosity that will lead to single payer, and many of the delusional believe that a monstrosity can lead to market based solutions. The problem cannot be solved with insurance, but until this is accepted, monstrosities will continue to be created and modified.
Opposition to single payer is opposition to universal healthcare. Universal education, universal retirement savings, universal retirement medical coverage, universal protection, universal anything requires the government. One may like it or not, but that is reality.
The sad truth is that a solution provides no political advantage. Much like cancer, the cure is a money loser. It is far more profitable to provide ongoing treatment rather than a solution.
In the United States we have universal or nearly so primary education. About 70% graduate from high school. If that’s the benchmark we’re using, we already have universal healthcare.
About 40% graduate from college, roughly 10% have post-graduate degrees.
I strongly suspect that “universal healthcare” in the U. S. will follow a similar model. Nearly everybody will get basic healthcare, maybe 70% will get more, and only a fraction will really get first rate care.
Speaking as someone who’s supported a single payer system for going on forty years, I thought that the PPACA was an error since it delayed solving the problem long enough that a more effective solution would be forced to start at a significantly higher cost basis, making it more disruptive and more difficult to pass, administer, or support.
We have resisted a tiered healthcare system at least on a rhetorical basis for decades, maybe forever. Now we’re moving towards a tiered society. Not my preference but it appears to be what many want. At this point I doubt that even a single payer system will stop that and it may well further it.
Heh. Nice lead in.
Like taxes, preferred constituencies are being created which will create advocacy by the exempted and crush those who pay. Delays are purely to institutionalize before voters know what hit them. And then the govt becomes the sheep dog. Bahhh…..
Just as wicked as it seems.
@Dave Schuler
For education, the availability is 100%, and for healthcare, it would need to be the same.
The PPACA was trying to provide universal coverage and lower costs through private insurance and public subsidies using fines and regulations as an enforcement mechanism. It is truly ManBearPig – half man, half bear, half pig.
Availability is not the same as accessability. Lack of the latter can render abundance of the former meaningless and that’s a problem our society has spent decades ignoring and refusing to deal with.
We have no excess capacity under the present delivery model and if anything the PPACA will make further demands on that scarce capacity. Changing the delivery model will take longer than changing the coverage/payment model will.
Avik likes the Swiss system, which is actually quite similar to the ACA. As he notes at link, the GOP could quite easily turn the ACA into a GOP friendly plan, if they actually had any any interest in health care. There is no history anywhere of the free market providing low cost, universal health care. The GOP could have had some market practices placed into the ACA, but they werent interested in participating. They still aren’t. (Feel free to point out the replace in “repeal and replace”.)
http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/06/30/ezra-klein-and-avik-roy-go-mano-a-mano-on-obamacare-rate-shock-and-the-gop-agenda-video-transcript/
Steve
No argument here although I think it’s not so much of a “tried and found wanting” as a “difficult and not tried”.
IMO the downside risk in a truly market system is pretty extreme. Nowhere does neoclassical economics predict an outcome in which every individual (or even most individuals) can get the healthcare he or she needs.