"Docs4PatientCare.org is a politically neutral grassroots coalition of physicians. Use of any politically partisan terms does not reflect the position of Docs4PatientCare.org. We do encourage our speakers to express how they feel and we post articles based on their informative content only. Any politically partisan language used does not reflect the group as a whole. Specific party or political allegiances and opposition are not our intent. The goal of D4PC is only to advocate for effective and responsible health care reform."
The editors asked the Democratic and Republican presidential nominees, President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, to describe their health care platforms and their visions for the future of American health care. Their statements follow.
Read More
........the final version of the Massachusetts law diverged significantly from Romney’s vision for reform. He vetoed eight provisions, all of which were overridden by the overwhelmingly Democratic legislature. And Romney’s successor, Governor Deval Patrick, has taken a much more liberal approach to implementing the law.
Romney could calm conservatives worried about Romneycare “if he were to more fully explain the difference between his vision for reform and the law that ultimately was enacted in Massachusetts.”
The Manhattan Institute’s Avik Roy (a Romney health-care adviser) takes an evendeeper dive into the differences between the two laws. Highly recommended.
Welcome to D4PC "Morning Rounds", your daily review of healthcare news and information from Washington, DC and around the nation. These briefings will keep you up to date on recent developments and our effort to replace the PPACA with patient-centered reforms that protect the doctor-patient relationship and preserve individual freedom of choice.
Read More
The ACA fails to fix the basic problems that were promised if passed- high costs and access to care. It actually exacerbates these problems. There is little disagreement that America’s health care “system” was in need of reform, however, many of the “solutions” embedded in the ACA are concepts that are untested or have failed historically and in recent CMS demonstration projects.
Governor Romney can distance himself from President Obama on healthcare by developing a health system reform platform that relies on trust of the American consumers and their physicians, instead of erecting artificial barriers and obstacles that further erode the physician-patient relationship. A leader like Governor Romney with a lifetime of business experience is poised to collaborate with the working physicians of America to set a more hopeful and constructive healthcare course for the future.
Read More
Last week, The Wall Street Journal, outlined several of the fiscal challenges facing Medicare and how past efforts at curbing costs (i.e., price controls and arbitrary cuts to physician reimbursements) have failed to restrain the growth of the program, failed to restrain budget deficits, distorted the health care marketplace and led to negative consequences for patients.
Read More
Double Deference and the House GOP’s Fair-weather Federalism
The Republican call for national tort reform, although commendible, is somewhat of a concern. If the Federal goverment can regulate malpractice, why can't it mandate ways to cover healthcare costs, like it is doing under the new healthcare law via the individual mandate? The Commerce Clause is a sword that carves out more control for the federal government and is a dangerous weapon to wield.
Constitutional scholar Randy Barnett confirmed our fears in the two above pieces on this subject.
Read More
Grace-Marie Turner, president of the Galen Institute, wrote an editorial recently which appeared in Investor's Business Daily with her take on Mitt Romney's plan to sign an executive order effectively extending an Obamacare waiver to every state.
"Mitt Romney may have waived goodbye to the GOP nomination with his assertion that he could start unraveling ObamaCare by issuing an executive order as soon as he moved into the White House.
"Simply put, executive orders cannot contradict statutory law. Waivers are not a solution and might well detract from the ultimate goal of repealing ObamaCare and replacing it with a truly free market alternative that puts patients — not bureaucrats — in charge of their health care."
Read her full editorial here.
Read More
1