Obamacare is not an on/off switch that corporate interests lobbied for or against. Obamacare = thousands of pages of a 'reform' in which every member of the health care cartel spent billions in helping to create. (They say total lobby costs amount to = 1.2 billion but this is only the amount that can be reported. The real amount is probably well above 10 times this figure.)
If you Google "Pharmaceuticals - Lobby - Obamacare", I think you will see more than enough evidence to show that the pharmaceutical industry not only lobbied for what we know as "Obamacare" today but probably wrote some of it themselves. When it comes to big government + lobbies + corporations, I am just as skeptical as you. I have been involved in work that required lobbies. (although not medical) I can tell you often times, plenty of lobbying dollars are spent on PR, just to impress the public. So unless we are directly involved in the lobby efforts of pharmaceuticals for Obamacare, neither of us will know which aspects of the reform they lobbied for or against. But with some history on our side, we will ALWAYS know who lobbied for what. . . as nobody lobbies for policies that will hurt their profitability.
Your argument is that pharmaceuticals stand to lose per unit margin due to a $750 per person cap and standardized pricing for prescriptions. My argument is that pharmaceuticals do not pay billions of dollars directly into the bank accounts of politicians in order to lose profitability. They will achieve higher overall profit due to higher rate of turn over of patients for which any pharmaceutical sales rep will tell you equals higher prescription volume.
The state I live in, Massachusetts, is the charter test market for Obamacare. If you ride any of the inner-city buses, you will see ads and signs (obviously directed at undereducated and underprivileged) to seek FREE health care for everything from mammograms to STD's to cardiovascular health. For some, there are hardly any out of pocket expenses but somebody pays. . . who? Tax payers pay. Why or how do you think they came up with that 750 dollar cap? Pull out of the sky? No. . . it's the bean counters at the pharmaceuticals who calculate (based on charter programs) the optimum level of margin that helps them form an optimum level of patient volume that will maximize their profits. Do you know how they gauge the efficacy of Obamacare? The metrics have nothing to do with actual improvement in health and everything to do with ROI, how many prescriptions written, how many mammograms administered, how many vaccines, administered, etc . . (This information was given to me directly by a physician who practices poverty health care in Massachusetts and I have seen the documents and form letters)
Obamacare is a high volume business, not a high margin business.
And yes, I was surprised at how many healthy-looking people aren't healthy at all. Based on the questions I asked the physicians in the Korean Health Screening Center, including the CHIEF of the operation himself (By the way, coming to a town near you soon) nearly everybody (who comes for annual "required" screening and not due to personal reasons) goes home with a bill to submit to their insurance and that's it. Those who do get filtered through the flowchart are people with high blood pressure. (Pharma lobbied to lower what is considered high blood pressure to peddle more meds back in the 90's) And those with cysts and growths. (This is another industry in its own right and probably deserves thread of its own. It's a great money maker. . .)
In the early 1900�s a bunch of bankers secretly got together and created the monstrosity that we know now as the FRB system. But publicly they said that they did not like this new system that they had just secretly created thus the average person back then thought if the bankers don�t like it then it must have some value. Ah the power of reverse psychology..
I see the same thing going on here with the insurance and drug companies.
The only benefit I see so far in obamacare is the insurance companies and pharmecuticals making money hand over fist while bleeding small and mid-sized business and not hurting the middle class even more than before. oops, did i say benefit?
The only benefit I see so far in obamacare is the insurance companies and pharmecuticals making money hand over fist while bleeding small and mid-sized business and not hurting the middle class even more than before. oops, did i say benefit?
med costs are out the roof and big pharma is realing in record profits. they love obama
I've heard a lot of alternative news outlets mention that ObamaCare really benefits Big Pharma in some way. Does anyone know of any sources that outline exactly how this is done?
Obamacare was pushed through by lobbyist from big pharmacy and the insurance companies. Look at all the changes that were made to the original plan once those groups got involved.
Obamacare was pushed through by lobbyist from big pharmacy and the insurance companies. Look at all the changes that were made to the original plan once those groups got involved.
No kidding! My insurance payments are far more than my actual costs for services rendered, but if I tell the robber my employer has selected to eff off, I then get screwed by Obama.
It's a racket that was born by wage fixing for the imperial war known as WWII.
__________________ "We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me." George Orwell
Another "Obamacare" surprise. We live in a Country that already prescribes more than 80% of the World's psychoactive medicines. Starting this year, all kids in Massachusetts (charter state for Obama Care) are REQUIRED to take a self survey for mental health. I believe they labeled it "emotional well being". The letter to the parents shows that there is a threshold score that will prompt further evaluations.
The questions in it are straight out of the cuckoo's nest. For "I go to the doctor often only to figure out that there is nothing wrong with me." - My son actually circled "OFTEN". I asked him what made him circle "often" and he replied that he goes to these check ups every year and there is never anything wrong with him.
For the rest, a tired and hungry kid who is otherwise perfectly healthy could probably go over the threshold. Once Obama Care goes into full throttle, expect USA to prescribe over 90% of the World's psychiatric medicines.
"ObamaCare" doesn't go into effect until next year. Since you are in Massachussets, you have RomneyCare -- the program that inspired ObamaCare. RomneyCare has been in effect in Mass only for several years.
Hopefully it will die as more people find out just how unaffordable it is.
Also was just reading that the basic software code that it uses was stolen from a British company. What would happen to you if you started using someone�s copyrighted software with out first getting their permission? Typically the DOJ would jump in rather quickly and shut down your site.
Any guesses on how quickly that will happen here?
The $600m contract was let to SERCO in July, which means they had to get all the hardware & software equipment up running, commisioned and tested, as well as staff training on it, all in 2 months. No wonder the website is a chaotic mess.
There should have been one or two State trials to iron out the bugs before attempting to go nationwide. Its always the same when politicians are in charge,they are frightened of losing face if a big project is delayed.
Now they are having to get in specialist healthcare software designers to iron out the 'bugs'. Seems they have totally underestimated the complexity of what something like this site would require.
This sounds a bit like the ill fated British NHS computer records system which never got off the ground and cost �12billion($20billion). 33 times as much and still counting!
Hybrid Mode
