The Annals of Internal Medicine published an article ( see here for full text) authored by three current or former members of the Obama administration .It is difficult to consider it anything other than advocacy for the health care law ( The bill is now generally known as ACA or Affordable Care Act.) The article, first appearing on line, lead to a flurry of negative comments from readers See here.
The authors are: Dr.Ezekial Emanuel,brother of Rahm Emanuel who is President Obama's chief of staff,Nancy-Ann Deparle ,Counselor to the President, and Dr. Robert Kocher. Kocher who recently resigned from the President's Council of Economic Advisers to return to the McKenzie group, was the lead author.
The article begin with this incredible statement, " It guarantees access to health care to all Americans."
However, it is well recognized "all" will not be covered. There is a group of people too prosperous for Medicaid but who are not required to buy insurance because their income is too low to trigger the mandatory insurance purchase mandate.This has been well covered even in the mainstream press so it is difficult to imagine that Dr. Kocher and his co-authors were not aware of that fact.The Congressional Budget Office estimates 17 million Americans would remain uninsured.
Dr. Kocher joined (and is now departed from) the President's National Economic Council after having lead a team from the business consultant company, the Mckensey Group, to study health care systems in various countries.See here for the publication co- authored by Kocher.
The attribution section of the Annals article ( the part that explained which author did what in the preparation of the article) makes it clear that the principle author was Dr. Kocher., who since the Mckensey article, is considered an "expert" in health care cost and cost controls.
A recent town hall meeting between voters and Senator Max Baucus lead to an exchange in which the senator told the audience that he had not read the health care bill and that was left to the experts.
Said Baucus: "I don't think you want me to waste my time to read every page of the health care bill. You know why? It's statutory language. We hire experts."
From the glaring factual error in the Annals article it seems that at least one expert hasn't read the bill either.
1 comment:
Thank you for the url for Kochner's report. One comment, his article seems to contribute the drivers to health care costs opposite of what we were told. Indeed the article mentions that the US does pay higher costs for pharmacueticals because we get them earlier,because we pay for research for the rest of the world, etc. The article also portends much more government or at least third party involvement in making choices on medical care rather then medical professionals and patients making choices.
I fear we have been seriously misled on the health care bill and the future is not far off.
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