What a bunch of wimps our Republican senators are. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced last week that he doesn’t have the votes necessary to pass the latest version of healthcare reform. Couple this with a report that was just released by The Commonwealth Fund, a U.S. think tank, that ranks America as the 11th-best healthcare system out of the wealthiest countries in the world, behind the likes of the U.K., Germany, Australia and France.
Not only does America have a subpar healthcare system, it also costs the middle-class too d--- much. My personal belief is the reason why Trump was the elected was because there’s a lot of people in the U.S. that don’t think they’re being treated fairly. The middle class is struggling to make ends meet while watching the rich and the poor get more silver and gold in their pockets.
The Democrats have mounted a superior campaign to defeat ObamaCare reform. They are using a tactic that picks apart specific reforms that the Republicans present. For instance, Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate minority leader, recently said the cuts to Medicaid would “carry staggering human cost.” Senator Schumer, that is a misrepresentation of the facts.
The amount of money to be spent on Medicaid over the next 10 years is not going to be reduced in the latest Republican proposal, but in fact, will be increased by $4.7 trillion dollars.
The Democrats want to increase spending by $5.3 trillion dollars. If my calculator is right, that means spending on Medicaid will be reduced by 9 percent. Any person or business owner with a little smarts can cut their expenses by 9 percent with ease.
The Harvard Business Review May 2010 article “When You’ve Got to Cut Costs — Now” details multiple ways to reduce expenses by 10 percent, 20 percent or even 30 percent. For example, if you want to reduce your costs by 10 percent, you do the following six things:
1. Consolidate incidentals.
2. Take overdue personnel actions.
3. Reduce spending on departmental management.
4. Gain control of miscellaneous spending.
5. Hold down pay increases.
6. Re-propose rejected cost-saving ideas.
Each recommendation comes with specific ways to accomplish your goal.
Here are my thoughts on how our elected officials could not only give us a better healthcare system, they could also reduce its costs substantially:
• Eliminate the middleman — insurance companies — from the equation.
• Let the healthcare providers assume that risk.
• Let the healthcare providers buy pharmaceuticals in bulk so they can use their economic clout to drive prices down.
• Finally, insure that healthcare providers can compete across state lines by eliminating state insurance commissions.
Republicans and Democrats must work together to advance healthcare and the best way to do that is to tackle specific parts of our healthcare item by item. The advantage of this is that the populace can be educated in depth about the specific reform. As mentioned, Medicaid is spiraling out of control and it’s imperative that we slow down its growth.
First and foremost, let’s make sure that only the people get the benefit of Medicaid are those who really need it. Next, let a group of small-business owners write the legislation. Not only do they employ the most workers in the U.S., they are far and away the best cost reduction individuals in the nation.
“We did not send our elected officials to Washington to fight against each other at every turn. We sent them there to find common ground where possible and reach a compromise when necessary,” according to The Hill in its blog titled “Democrats, Republicans Must Work Together to Advanced Healthcare,” published on March 31.
Robert Pembroke is the chairman of Pembroke’s Inc. and characterizes himself as being “on permanent sabbatical.”