Category Archives: Medical Costs

Barack Obama, Health Care, Medical Costs, Obamacare, White House

MONEY WOES: Obamacare premiums will cost $536 per taxpayer household

money-woeThe average 25% Obamacare premium hikes next year are only the tip of an iceberg. Each taxpaying household will bear an average cost of $536 even if they’re not enrolled in Obamacare.

The White House pooh-poohs higher premiums by saying that the insured won’t pay the full amount; subsidies will cover part of it. But subsidies come from tax dollars and from borrowing to increase the national debt.

FOX News reports the additional subsidy cost to taxpayers will rise $8.5-billion next year, on top of the 2016 subsidy costs of $43-billion, raising the annual subsidies to $51.5-billion. The country has about 96-million households that pay federal income taxes, so this averages to $536 per household. Each year. On top of the higher premiums for the insured.

Of course, corporate taxes will cover some of the bill–but those taxes are passed along to consumers via higher prices on goods and services.

Obamacare (mis-named as the Affordable Care Act) is a vast collection of federal red tape, regulations and mandates managed by federal bureaucrats and government-paid agents.

The new premium hikes are a double-whammy: They hit those who have Obamacare coverage AND they hit every taxpayer.

Health Care, Medical Costs, Waste, Fraud & Abuse

Doctors spend 2 weeks each year on ‘obscene waste’ paperwork

health-costsA bombshell study reveals that doctors waste almost two full work weeks each year explaining to regulators how they practice medicine.

The time spent on this paperwork robs doctors from seeing nine patients each week. One health care CEO labels it an “obscene waste,” especially because multiple reports ask for the same things. Medical staff spend even more time on the paperwork than the doctors themselves.

The Health Affairs journal study attributes the red tape to federal Medicaid and Medicare regulations, plus private insurers. But most blame was heaped on federal requirements.

Only quality control reports were studied on pancreatic cancer, not the other massive health care red tape. By themselves, the quality control reports consumed 785 hours per physician, representing $40,000 per doctor in non-productive time each year, totaling $15.4 billion nationwide.

The Physician Foundation financed the study of 394 medical clinics, focusing on cardiology, orthopedics, primary care, and multispecialty practices. The authors agree quality measurement is important, but conclude “the current system is unnecessarily costly.”

Halee Fischer-Wright, president and CEO of the Medical Group Management Association, commented, “On top of the obscene waste of billions of dollars each year on quality measures, the most alarming thing about this study is that nearly three-fourths of the groups reported that the quality measures are not even clinically relevant.”

“This study proves that the current top-down approach has failed,” Fischer-Wright said. “It serves no purpose to have over three thousand competing measures of quality across government and private initiatives. . . . the federal government needs to get out of the business of dictating patient care through wasteful mandates and create simplified systems.”

Appliances, Automobiles, Climate Change, Consumers, Cost-of-Living, Electric Bills, Energy, Environment, EPA - Environmental Protection Agency, Family Budget, Food, Gasoline, Light Bulbs, Medical Costs, Transportation

Wham! Regulations sock it to consumers


Socking it to the consumerConsumer prices will increase by more than $11,000  just from 36 of the Obama Administration’s regulations, reports the American Action Forum (AAF).

It’s a wallop to the jaw for everyday people. AAF’s research finds this includes higher-priced vehicles, pricier household goods, and more expensive food. “Energy-efficiency” standards are the biggest reason for higher prices.

Of course,  politicians and bureaucrats claim they’re saving us money. So ask yourself, Have YOU saved $11,000 thanks to federal regulations?

THE GIMMICKS:

Typically, agencies speculate that IF buyers keep using the mandated energy-saving products for long enough, they eventually will have a net gain. That’s IF things don’t wear out (or a light bulb doesn’t burn out).

As The New York Times researched and reported in 2012 about automobiles, projections of fuel savings often presume that consumers will keep their cars twice as long as is normal. Plus their study presumed gasoline would cost almost $4.00 a gallon. Projected “savings” also are not offset against interest paid on loans to buy more-expensive products, nor the extra repair charges to make old things last longer.  Continue reading Wham! Regulations sock it to consumers →

Medical Costs, Waste, Fraud & Abuse

Federal watchdogs admit $100-billion wasted each year

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Burning MoneyOur national government admits to wasting at least $100 billion a year, yet nobody gets fired for it. Bureaucrats and Congress don’t fix the loopholes; that could make some people mad and their votes might be lost.

Everyday people would be in prison if they handled their taxes the way our government handles our tax dollars. Government inefficiency is legendary.

The mis-named EITC (Earned Income Tax Credit) is actually a public assistance program with 24% levels of fraud and waste, costing us almost $18-billion a year. Medicare wastes almost $46-billion annually, with a 12.7% error rate.

READ MORE DETAILS HERE:

For the government’s official list of “high-error programs, click HERE.

Agencies, Appliances, Automobiles, CEI - Competitive Enterprise Institute, CFPB - Consumer Financial Protection Board, Christmas Lights, Consumer Products & Services, Electric Bills, EPA - Environmental Protection Agency, Family Budget, Food, Gasoline, Health Care, Insurance, Light Bulbs, Medical Costs, Perfume, Privacy, Window Blinds

Family budgets wrecked by runaway regulations and red tape

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Grocery shopperRunaway regulations are hurting everyday people and wrecking family budgets. It’s not big companies that suffer from the $1.88 trillion annual burden of red tape that the government imposes. They pass them along, adding the costs onto their price tags.

Unaffordable health care coverage, unaffordable electric bills, unaffordable rises in food costs, unaffordable college, and unaffordable appliances are parts of the skyrocketing burden of regulations, usually dictated from Washington.

Millions of Americans who no longer pay federal income tax nevertheless have a stake in controlling the size of government, because their family budgets are ruined by higher prices resulting from regulations. All costs of regulations are passed along by businesses owners to employees who get paid with a pay stub template software.

The average is $15,000 per household per year, according to the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s new annual report “Ten Thousand Commandments”, with a collective cost of $1.88 trillion. Last year alone, President Obama’s hand-picked bureaucrats created $567 per person of new red tape by creating 75,000 pages of more regulations. That’s a one-year regulatory increase of over $2,000 for a household of four.

Because that overall $1.88 trillion number is too big to swallow, people need the details one bite at a time. Providing those digestible bites is the mission of Americans for Less Regulation. Many items also are posted on ALR’s Facebook site.

HOW does red tape hurt your family budget? Read more for details including:

  • Skyrocketing electric bills
  • Higher automobile prices
  • Phony claims of consumer savings
  • Appliance prices
  • Light bulbs
  • Window blinds
  • Federal snooping of your personal finances
  • Rising health care costs