009 Discussing Healthcare: Politics and Healthcare – An Objection to the Affordable Care Act (part 2 of 2)

Summary: Episode 009 contains the second half of the interview with Dr. Ammon.  He continues to present his argument against the Affordable Care Act.  He does not see the Affordable Care Act as a benefit to patients and thinks it obstructs the ability of a physician to best care for a patient.  We discuss some of the issues with a government run single-payer healthcare system.  He uses England as the example to show some of the flaws of a single-payer system. You can find Dr. Ammon on Twitter:  @DrJ4PatientCare Dr. Ammon has been actively involved in an organization called Docs 4 Patient Care which can be found at Docs4PatientCare.org A few updates about the Affordable Care Act: CNN/ORC International released poll results today that show the public is not happy with the Affordable Care Act.  Only 35% of those who were polled support the Affordable Care Act while 62% oppose the law.  Here is a link to the article on CNN that also contains the actual data from the poll. The deadline to sign up for health insurance has been moved from December 15th to December 23rd and now to December 24th.  Most people will have to pay their first premium by January 10th, but the deadline to pay may be earlier depending on your state.  See Healthcare.gov for additional information. Now, 1 million Americans have signed up for health insurance through the federal or state exchanges.  This number is much higher than the 365,000 that signed up by the end of November, but nowhere near the 3.3 million people that were expected to sign up. Some Democrats are now concerned that the Affordable Care Act is not decreasing the cost of care and could be increasing costs for the individual while offering limited plans compared to previous. 2013 was an interesting year for healthcare.  Although, we have discussed healthcare as a nation in the past it has never been the focal point of discussion.  It is now the center of debate at the highest levels of government.  The Supreme Court has debated the law and decided that the tax penalty is constitutional.  The federal government roll out of the Affordable Care Act has been anything but good. Next year elections will be decided partly because of a politicians voting record on  the Affordable Care Act and there is no doubt that there will be more heated debate to come in 2014.  I hope you will join me to discuss and debate these issues and many more in the new year. Thanks for listening.  Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year.