"There is an alternative. A much freer market in health care and health insurance can work, can deliver high quality, technically innovative care at much lower cost, and solve the pathologies of the pre-existing system.
The U.S. health-care market is dysfunctional. Obscure prices and $500 Band-Aids are legendary. The reason is simple: Health care and health insurance are strongly protected from competition. There are explicit barriers to entry, for example the laws in many states that require a "certificate of need" before one can build a new hospital. Regulatory compliance costs, approvals, nonprofit status, restrictions on foreign doctors and nurses, limits on medical residencies, and many more barriers keep prices up and competitors out. Hospitals whose main clients are uncompetitive insurers and the government cannot innovate and provide efficient cash service."
CON = Certificate of Need
Since new hospitals cannot be constructed without proving a "need," the certificate-of-need system grants monopoly privileges to already existing hospitals. Consequently, Alaska House of Representatives member Bob Lynn has argued that the true motivation behind certificate-of-need legislation is that "large hospitals are... trying to make money by eliminating competition" under the pretext of using monopoly profits to provide better patient care.
As you can see from the reference above, CON laws have been repealed in many states already.
This fix, as the Wall Street Journal writer proposes is prophetic more than he knows. The reason why I was already familiar with the term CON was because of an article I wrote here at ALR titled "Making a Strong Case out of Circumstantial Evidence" (Link here).
As usual, Obama has ties to the massive corruption associated with CON. Here is a quote from that article --
"It is ironic that Obama will probably go unscathed in the “Board games” prosecution because Obama contributed a great deal that allowed it to happen. I speak of Obama’s Illinois Senate role when he pushed through the legislation that reduced the number of Illinois Health Facilities Planning board (This is the governmental entity that determines and then issues the CON's) from 15 down to 9 that allowed Blagojevich to pack the board with a majority of 5 to control it. The majority of those 5 members gave heavily to Obama’s campaign after they were appointed by Blagojevich.
In addition to facilitating this change of Board membership through legislative means that utilized Obama’s position on the Committee responsible for the review of the legislation, he was also tasked with vetting the 5 candidates (including Levine) during the “confirmation hearings” of Blagojevich’s picks which sailed through the Illinois Senate. Obama was one of the first recipients of “tainted kickback money” from Operation Board games when he received $20,000 from a bank account held by the pizza business Rezko owned.
Obama wants the public to believe that his associations were merely circumstantial and random in nature but, like the “Fibonacci Sequence”, it is a pattern that is detectable if you look at all the evidence that is being amassed that appears random in the singular but collectively paints a true sequence of events that is interrelated.
Obama, Blagojevich, Emanuel, Rezko, Giannoulias, Allison Davis, Valerie Jarrett, Robert Harris, William Cellini, Sr., Broadway Bank, Campaign Contributions followed by political appointments, political endorsements followed by campaign contributions, land deals and kickbacks."
All the familiar names are involved. Three of them ended up in the White House. This is why it is prophetic that with the Obamacare implosion, CON is the first suggested repeal efforts for reform. When you think about the monopolistic aspect of CON's and the monopoly that existing Hospitals have enjoyed as a result of these "Certificate of Needs" it has stifled true free market competition. Competition is what drives down cost. You hear the same false arguments from politicians that the reason of high health care is because of evil insurance companies or frivolous medical malpractice lawsuits. The rampant corruption of the Boards to swerve construction contracts to their crony's or political contributions to their politicians like Blagojavich has more graft expense that insurance or lawsuits.
I advise that my readers read the link to the 2009 article above and think about what you are reading and remember Obama's involvement in it back then as well as the other things that he was connected to involving health care. For instance, Blagojavich wanted Obama to appoint him to the HHS position now occupied by Sebelius in return for placing Jarrett in the Seat. Blagojavich also wanted to run SEIU if the HHS job wasn't on the table for Obama's vacated seat. All the usual suspects.
the usual suspects indeed!..Happy holidays!
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