Posted by
Andrews on Monday, July 06, 2009 11:03:45 PM
The Washington Post reported that Obama had wrung some concessions form various large hospital groups, basically asking them to accept reduced payment for medicare and medicaid, as well as other cuts in payment from the government.
Now, I am not given to conspiracy theories, so I will say this is likely unintentional, but the outcome of this concession is pretty obvious, and bad. My wife has told me at her hospital, which is pretty well funded, the bad economy has caused the to cut back of services such as linens, as well as reduce employee benefits and salaries, which were not exactly luxurious to begin with. The economy is not looking like ti is on the mend, and Obama's inflationary binge has not had the stimulating effect it was supposed to. We have yet to experience the inflationary half of that one-two punch, but when we do, things will get even worse.
So, on top of all this economic strife, Obama is pushing hospitals to accept reduced rates from the already inadequate reimbursement offered by medicare and medicaid.
The outcome should be obvious. Hospitals will reduce, as much as possible, staffing and services. The result, that should be obvious too. The quality of health care will suffer. Not just health care, but all the little amenities and nice extras to which we are used. So, to the average hospital goer, it will appear prices are rising while service is declining.
And, just as the damage done by Johnson's health care plan was blamed on the free market and used to justify nationalized health care to this day, I can see the bad service being blamed on "the free market" and used to argue that universal insurance is not enough, we
MUST HAVE nationalized care
NOW!
And, sadly, as the causes will be less than obvious, and most Americans do not care to look behind the scenes for the real causes, not to mention economics being a sorely neglected field of study in the US, as pretty much everywhere else in the world, I see it succeeding. The damage done by Obama's forced concessions will end up being used to justify even more intervention, just as I described in "
The Endless Cycle of Intervention".
The one possible salvation is that it will take time. The damage will take a little while to hit the health care system, and it will take still more for discontent to rise. And if Obama pushes too soon, he will lose on the health care debate. So he will have to sit and wait. And that may save us. If the economy worsens, and the inflationary crisis begins to become obvious, then this will be a non-starter. After all, it doesn't matter how bad health care is, the voter is not going to entrust the guy who tanked the economy with reforming health care. Not to mention that the 2010 elections may but some roadblocks in his way.
So there is some hope. Sadly, we have to rely on the randomness of fate, rather than the vigilance of our citizens, to ensure freedom.
POSTSCRIPT
There is one even more remote chance of preventing this. Should the rumblings in Iran grow, and should the growing discontent among non-ruling clerics actually surpass my rather negative expectations (see "
A Thought on Iran" and "
Is Obama a Republican?"), and should Iran actually see some sort of revolution, be it peaceful or violent, then Obama may suffer from that as well. True he has changed his tune of late, but the press covered his first statements too well for him to weather a full fledged revolution without someone recalling his initial impulse was to stay out.
I woudl like to think the same was true of Honduras, but there the press has sided with the OAS and Obama against the constitution of Honduras and painted a lawful action by the courts and legislature as a "military coup", so being on the wrong side there will probably not harm him. (More on this in a n upcoming post.)
Finally, there is the chance, though remote, that he might come across as
TOO negative, as I described in "
Why Obama Won, And Why He Is Losing Support Now", and actually appear to be unfit to reform because of being prone to panic. It is unlikely, but it could happen. America has only so much patience for those who describe everything as a crisis or disaster, and eventually put the brakes on their plans to avert every possible crisis. It may be a remote chance, but still something to keep in mind.
POSTSCRIPT II
And no, still pained, but again, this WaPo article, a link to which I will find later, just needed to be mentioned, as the results seemed all too clear. So now back to resting. I will respond to all my comments tomorrow morning, whatever my condition, and then will begin posting whenever my hands feel better once again.