Hennessy's Highlights
- As predicted, many insurers are set to raise premiums for health insurance policies as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) comes fully online next year. The high prices will be out of reach for many of the people the ACA was touted as helping, forcing consumers to choose between paying for budget-busting health insurance or forgoing coverage and paying a penalty.
- The central promise of the ACA is that it will increase access to care for millions of Americans. However, because the ACA will also worsen an already chronic shortage of physicians, it is likely to make it harder, not easier, for Americans to obtain quality medical care.
- The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is a flawed attempt at health care reform that will make it harder for physicians to maintain independent private practices and incentivize doctors to become hospital and health system employees, leading to a decline in physician productivity and reduced access to care for millions of Americans.
- The sad fact is that this the fiscal cliff deal doesn’t really solve anything at all. It merely defers some of America's toughest spending problems for another two months. It’s time for our leaders to stop acting like fiscally irresponsible children and start acting like sensible adults.
- One of the major issues being negotiated right now the amount of protection for the intellectual property of pharmaceutical and biotech companies. And failure to protect the intellectual property rights will actually hurt patients more than the companies.
- While the direct "tax" of mandatory insurance purchases levied on the public by the ACA is onerous enough, it is the raft of hidden and "stealth" taxes enacted by this legislation that make it such a bad deal for all Americans.
- Continuing to fund wasteful health care programs that place less and less responsibility on those receiving benefits, compromise quality and reduce choice threatens our economic future and the well-being of our seniors.
- We cannot afford another four years of the dangerous and misguided public and economic policies that have ballooned the deficit, crushed the economy and put millions of Americans out of work. Left unchecked, this fiscal irresponsibility will kill America’s future.
- The president addressed the nation about the ongoing debt ceiling negotiations but didn't provide any real solutions, and there needs to be a dramatic change in how we address expenditures and revenue generation to have any hope of returning to economic stability.
- For years, physicians have complained that their reimbursement was determined in large part by unaccountable Medicare bureaucrats who were more interested in controlling spending than in providing quality patient care. Now, with the passage last year of the Affordable Care Act, that lament is truer than ever. One key provision of the law will most assuredly seek to "fix" Medicare on the backs of the physicians who deliver the care.
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Hennessy's Highlights dissects the healthcare policy issues that impact physicians, particularly those who are running their own practices.
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