The unaffordable O’Care tax law. This month marks the one year anniversary since Obamacare began. The Obama Administration love to tout the fact millions of people have signed up for health insurance. But…
Steven Brill, who has spent two years researching for a book on Obamacare, blasted the law on 60 Minutes saying it was a huge loss for taxpayers and that the country wouldn’t be able to afford it.
“Good news, more people are going to get health care. Bad news, we have no way in the world that we’re going to be able to pay for it,” said Steven Brill.
Unsettling news for taxpayers and the country on the unaffordable O’Care tax law.
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Avik Roy and Forbes Magazine picked up the story yesterday to expose the true nature of what is about to fall on the citizenry with the unaffordable O’Care tax law…
On Sunday evening, CBS’ 60 Minutes did a feature story on Steven Brill’s new book, America’s Bitter Pill, in which Brill complains that Obamacare didn’t do enough to tackle the exorbitantly high price of U.S. hospital care. “Obamacare does zero to change any of that,” says Brill. That’s not exactly right. What Brill—and CBS—don’t tell you—is that Obamacare is driving hospitals to charge you more than they already do.
The U.S. hospital industry is crony capitalism at its finest
Steven Brill, founder of The American Lawyer and Court TV took a starring role in the health care debate when he published the Time article “Bitter Pill,” describing how hospitals charge extreme prices for ordinary care to the uninsured. For example, Sean Recchi, an uninsured lymphoma patient, went to MD Anderson Cancer Center, a world-renowned facility in Houston, to seek treatment. MD Anderson proceeded to charge him $283 for a $20 chest X-ray. They charged him more than $15,000 for blood tests costing a few hundred dollars. They charged him $13,702 for a dose of Rituxan, a lymphoma drug, for which the average U.S. hospital price is around $4,000. All told, Recchi’s course of treatment cost $83,900. Whatever he couldn’t pay was called “uncompensated care.”
MD Anderson is not struggling under the weight of bills unpaid by the uninsured. In 2010, MD Anderson recorded revenue of $2.05 billion and operating profits of $531 million. Brill recounted several other patients at other hospitals with similar stories.
This is a topic we’ve covered extensively at The Apothecary and elsewhere: the U.S. hospital industry is the single largest example of crony capitalism in the history of civilization. In 2013, I wrote a piece for National Review called “An Arm and a Leg” explaining the problem.
The unaffordable O’Care tax law…
Sources .. Washington Free Beacon; Forbes Magazine; 60 Minutes; and personal archives