Wax: Decision is dark chapter in American history

Author(s):

Medical Economics editorial board member Craig M. Wax, DO, shares his opinion about the Supreme Court Affordable Care Act ruling.

Editor's Note: We asked our editorial board members to share their opinions of the Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Care Act. Here's what Craig M. Wax, DO, said.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA)/Obamacare was sold to the American taxpayers as a benefit they deserve, while in actuality, it is a huge expansion of government power over them and breaks the Constitution by forcing them to pay the most expansive tax in the history of the United States. It is a dark chapter in American history when the government buries itself further in insurmountable debt to give the citizens a perceived privilege but actually takes away their right to freedom, self-determination, privacy, and security to do so.

ACA/Obamacare, if not repealed or defunded, will hasten Medicare's demise or create medical rationing via the independent payment advisory board by appropriating (stealing) $500 million from an almost insolvent Medicare to fund the act’s various new boards and administration. It will further bankrupt the U.S. government, funded exclusively by taxpayers, forcing our dependence on foreign loans.

The ACA, in addition to penalizing citizens with a "tax" if they do not purchase government-approved insurance plans from for profit private companies, forces other patients into the failing state Medicaid system. Medicaid’s red-tape administrative hassles and dismal payment makes it impossible for most private practices to provide care and accept their rules.

Most private offices will not be able to accommodate the millions of potential new Medicaid patients. Although they have insurance, they will not have a large choice of options for their care because insurance does not give or guarantee care. These patient will have to seek care from the already overburdened major-city medical center emergency departments and federally and state funded clinics. This will further burden these systems to their breaking point.

U.S. citizens with Medicaid will not be happy with long waits for appointments, short visits, and poor care coordination that will directly result from the ACA law. People will then go outside the failing system to get they care they want and need by paying cash through private physicians, as is already happening now.

ACA/Obamacare is an expensive albatross that will ultimately worsen people's access the medical care the government promised as a privilege. I'll take civil rights over privileges any day of the week.