Federal Involvement in Health Care Drives Treatment Choices
This isn’t a story about Ivermectin; it’s about what COVID-19 exposed in America’s health care system. The federal government, pharmaceutical, and insurance companies hold the reins on what care hospital administrators can offer. They never looked at your chart, but have a say in your treatment, and doctors who stray from administrative protocol can kiss their careers goodbye.
Here is a look at the many forces driving health care decisions outside the doctor-patient relationship.
Sick People Are Profitable
Indiana-based Dr. Dan Stock is a family medicine physician connected to America’s Frontline Doctors, a medical freedom organization promoting treatments such as Ivermectin for COVID-19. He says finances guide much of today’s health care landscape.
“Almost no one pays for direct care anymore,” Stock told The Epoch Times. “You pay for your care as you give your money to the federal government through taxes, or to an insurance company through premiums.”
The insurance company or the government buys the service for you as a third party. That’s a problem, Stock says, because “The federal government never has paid its bills. Every doctor and every hospital lose money on every
Medicare and
Medicaid patient who comes in the door.” And to make up the loss, he says, the cost of health care is inflated for those with private insurance.
A 2017 fact sheet produced by the American Hospital Association said the annual shortfall borne by hospitals is $57.8 billion, and privately insured patients and others make up the difference.
Nonprofit hospitals are federally required to accept Medicare, Medicaid, retired military insurance, Indian Health Services, and all federal insurance programs.
This cost-shifting caused inflation of medical prices and that sparked increases in private
health insurance premiums.
“Employers started screaming about it, people started dropping their private insurance because it just wasn’t worth the money anymore, so that’s why the Affordable Care Act got passed,” Stock said. “The idea was, look, market forces won’t make you join in and buy through the third-party payment scheme to keep Medicare and Medicaid afloat. Hospitals are screaming ‘we’re going to go bankrupt.’ So the Affordable Care Act comes out, which says that everybody in the country has to buy insurance, and if you’re an employer, you have to buy it for your employee. You’re not allowed to say no. If you do, we give you a great big tax.”
That kept Medicare and Medicaid funded, Stock says.