As another chapter ends in the long saga of Obamacare, we find ourselves faced with more decisions in our lives on how to handle our healthcare protection. With the rapidly rising insurance premiums and exchange fees, there are few places to cut the cost of health insurance and still protect your family. Even those that can still afford the high insurance premiums have to deal with absurd deductibles of 5 or $6,000. For most families this will mean less coverage and higher out of pocket expenses, and may will forgo insurance coverage altogether and just hope for the best.
Regardless of the Supreme Court ruling it is time for real healthcare reform that allows the free market to take over, puts consumers in charge instead of politicians, and respects the limits of our Constitution. Healthcare consumes almost 20% of GDP and is growing by leaps and bounds each and every year. The cost of healthcare continues to rise along with the layers and layers of paperwork involved and the high cost of hospital care. As we see more consolidation by independent doctors joining hospital staffs we have less choice on where to get our care. Hospitals like Saint Luke’s have been gobbling up practices like an ogre at his last meal. Idaho will be in serious trouble in coming years because of the large number of physicians who will be retiring in the next 5 to 10 years. This will put a larger work load on those left to handle Idaho’s growing population and with that comes less time spent per patient. Who will replace them?
The family doctor has become a thing of the past as the hospitals drive more Medicaid patients to the independent doctors who eventually must look for an umbrella or go out of business. It’s time to hold those so called non-profit hospitals accountable for the higher cost of care and the loss of independent physicians. Our legislature needs address these issues and get our non-profits to be more transparent in their cost structures, especially the exorbitant salaries of their executives receive.
There may still be some hope on the horizon with a lawsuit that was filed and pending for several years by the Pacific Legal Foundation. This is a fundamental constitutional challenge that could reach the Supreme Court next term; it is Sissel v. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services which could potentially bring down Obamacare. According to the PLF “It focuses on the fact that the law was passed in violation of the Constitution’s “Origination Clause,” which requires that any tax law start in the House of Representatives. The Supreme Court has ruled that the individual Mandate “penalty” payment is a tax – yet it started not in the House, but in the Senate. PLF’s leading challenge to Obamacare on the Origination Clause grounds is pending before the full U.S. Court of Appeals of the D.C. Circuit on a motion for rehearing en banc, and has received impressive amicus support.”
The Pacific Legal Foundation is not without portfolio when it comes to winning cases before the Supreme Court. They have had an unprecedented seven wins in its last seven direct appearances before the high court including two in the last two years. For more information on these Knights for justice please go to the following link. www.pacificlegal.org
