Politics, Government & Public Policy: April 2014 Archives
Three million Californians are newly insured thanks to Obamacare, but they can't find any doctors willing to take them. One of the big philosophical problems with Obamacare is that it makes the assumption that getting someone health insurance will inevitably lead to that person getting health care. That isn't true.
Thinn Ong was thrilled to qualify for a subsidy on the health care exchange. She is paying $200 a month in premiums. But the single mother of two is asking, what for?"Yeah, I sign it. I got it. But where's my doctor? Who's my doctor? I don't know," said a frustrated Ong.
Nguyen said the newly insured patients checked the physicians' lists they were provided and were told they weren't accepting new patients or they did not participate in the plan.
Dr. Kevin Grumbach of UCSF called the phenomenon "medical homelessness," where patients are caught adrift in a system woefully short of primary care doctors.
"Insurance coverage is a necessary but not a sufficient condition to assure that people get access to care when they need it," Grumbach said.
Those who can't find a doctor are supposed to lodge a complaint with state regulators, who have been denying the existence of a doctor shortage for months.
Divorce is never pretty and my point here isn't to focus on the relationship between Tony Podesta and Heather Miller Podesta. Their relationship is their business. What is of public interest, however, is that the Podesta divorce proceedings reveal a lot about the Washington power culture. It is revolting that our government is structured in such a way that parasitical lobbyists can enrich themselves by building labyrinthine laws and regulations to dole out favors to politically-connected rent-seekers. Argh! Sorry for all the buzzwords.
Our country and our civilization are being strangled by over-regulation. I'm not against all regulation, but even the Library of Congress has no idea how many laws, regulations, and court decisions there are.
As government expands, extending its reach to every aspect of business, every sector of the economy, private citizens and corporations require sherpas to lead them through the mountains of regulations and tax provisions, to discover exemptions and special favors and other forms of relief or favoritism to improve the bottom line. And who better to act as sherpas than the relatives of the Democrats who impose the regulations and tax provisions in the first place, who better than the lively proprietors of a family business operating in the luxurious and morally uncomplicated world of the caste of limousine liberals who dominate politics, culture, news, and finance.Corporations give to Democratic politicians, avoiding the scrutiny of liberal attack dogs in the media and nonprofit sectors, and enjoying the ego boost that comes with being on the "right side of history." Then those corporations hire the Podestas to get them out of the Rube Goldberg traps the Democrats have enacted into law. John's innovation was to establish a corporate-funded think tank where the burdensome policies would be concocted, and whose staff would go on to man the regulatory agencies that put their wool-headed ideas into practice. And to whom do the corporations turn when they find themselves on the receiving end of all this uplift, all this do-goodery, all this progress, hope, and change? Why, to the man in the red Prada loafers, and to his flamboyantly patterned wife.
