Eight Ways to Opt Out of ObamaCare -> Ron Paul Says It Will Totally Self-Destruct

With the deadline to sign up for Obamacare having come and gone, many Americans have decided to “opt out” of President Obama’s signature health care reform law, choosing instead to pay the $95 penalty for sidestepping the individual mandate.

“For many Americans opting out of Obamacare is the best decision they can make, but it's important that they do it the right way—just refusing to buy health insurance and not having another way to pay for catastrophic medical expenses is a mistake,” Sean Parnell, author of the newly-released The Self-Pay Patient, told Breitbart News. “People who want to opt out should be looking at alternatives to conventional health insurance, such as joining a health care sharing ministry or purchasing a fixed benefits policy."

Parnell also strongly advises Americans against opting out and simply paying the “list” price for medical visits and prescription drugs without shopping around, or by relying solely on the local hospital emergency room for routine medical care.

“This approach leaves people who opt out vulnerable to sky-high medical expenses at inflated ‘list’ or ‘chargemaster’ rates, and can result in an inability to obtain needed care because of cost,” Parnell writes on his blog, selfpaypatient.com.

Instead, Parnell recommends the following eight options for those who have opted out of ObamaCare:

1. Join a health care sharing ministry, which are voluntary, charitable membership organizations that share medical expenses among the membership.

Parnell states that Samaritan Ministries, Christian Healthcare Ministries, and Christian Care Ministry are open to practicing Christians, while Liberty HealthShare is open to those who are committed to religious liberty.

Healthcare sharing ministries “operate entirely outside of ObamaCare’s regulations, and typically offer benefits for about half the cost of similar health insurance,” says Parnell. “Members are also exempt from having to pay the tax for being uninsured.”

2. Purchase a short-term health insurance policy.

“These policies usually last between one and 11 months and are not regulated under ObamaCare, and, therefore, don’t offer the same high level of benefits that can drive up costs,” writes Parnell.

3. Buy alternative insurance plans such as fixed-benefit, critical illness, or accident insurance.

“These policies pay cash in the event you are diagnosed with cancer, spend a night in the hospital, or need some other medical treatment,” Parnell says. “They cost a fraction of what health insurance costs under ObamaCare, and by giving you cash directly you aren’t locked in to any particular provider network.”

Parnell also recommends maxing out medical and uninsured/underinsured driver coverage amounts under an auto insurance policy, which can help pay for medical bills in the event of injury in an auto accident.

Once major medical insurance is arranged, Parnell suggests shopping around for health care providers and services.

4. Visit cash-only doctors and retail health clinics for primary care. If you usually visit a doctor more than a couple times per year, consider joining a direct primary care practice which will give you access to nearly unlimited primary care for a modest monthly fee.

5. Sign up for a telemedicine service—lower-cost options in which doctors treat relatively simple medical issues via phone calls, email, or a video connection. Telemedicine especially works well, Parnell says, for common injuries, conditions, and illnesses.

6. Use generic prescription drugs whenever possible, and compare prices between pharmacies. Less expensive options are sometimes available at large chain pharmacies such as Walmart and CVS, and online sites such as GoodRx.com and WeRx.org allow patients to view the best deals on medications.

7. For surgery, Parnell recommends going to a facility that offers up-front “package” prices for self-pay patients, such as the Surgery Center of Oklahoma and Regency Healthcare, where prices are typically much less than what is charged at most hospitals. In addition, sites such as MediBid, where doctors bid on providing your surgery or treatment, will often yield substantially less expensive costs coupled with high quality medical care. Yet another option is to become a medical tourist.

8. When a hospital visit becomes necessary, Parnell suggests working with a medical bill negotiation service to get the best price available rather than accept the wildly inflated “chargemaster” prices, usually three to five times more than what insurers pay for the same service or treatment. Patients who wish to negotiate on their own will likely need to put in a significant amount of time and effort, but can use the Healthcare Blue Book or Pricing Healthcare as a starting point to help them find out what insurers are paying for medical services.

“Many Americans say they would prefer free market healthcare, and they don't have to wait for Congress to repeal, replace, or reform Obamacare to have that,” Parnell told Breitbart News.

“Simply by opting out and doing things like visiting cash-only doctors, becoming a medical tourist, shopping around for the best prices on prescription drugs, and obtaining an alternative type of coverage they can enjoy all the benefits of free market healthcare today including access to affordable, quality care and getting government and insurance company bureaucrats out of the doctor-patient relationship.”

 

Ron Paul: 'Conceivable' In Next Years ObamaCare Will 'Totally Self-Destruct'

Daily Caller:

Former Republican lawmaker and presidential candidate Ron Paul said it’s “conceivable” Obamacare will “totally self-destruct,” declaring it will “eventually end because it’s such a disaster.”

The libertarian icon spoke with Fox News’ Stuart Varney Thursday about whether the net loss of nearly 4 million private health plans under Obamacare “spells the end of activist government.”

“I wish,” Paul quipped. “No, there’s a lot of diehards out there. There’ll be excuses made and politicians will spend it a certain way. But it’ll eventually end because it’s such a disaster. This a sign that the delivery of healthcare will even be worse than signing up for the healthcare.”

Paul predicted that the total cost of medical care in the U.S. under Obamacare “is going to be huge. It’s going to be a tax, and the quality of care and what people are going to get — everybody’s tells me, ‘They’re canceling me, they’re charging me more, I’m getting less,’ and they’re furious. It’s going to be the biggest political issue in this year’s campaign.”

Despite the problems, Paul noted that a political solution is nearly impossible. “You’re not gonna get rid of it, you’re right about that,” he told Varney. “They’re gonna limp along. If Republicans win in the fall, they may tamper it a bit and tinker with it and change it.”

But that doesn’t necessarily mean we’re stuck with Obamacare forever. “The only way it’s going to disappear quickly is if it totally self-destructs, which is conceivable,” he claimed. “Everybody just quits because they’re getting nowhere with it… One day it’s going to be so bad, people are just going to opt out on their own.”

“All we need to do is have the right to opt out and have a little bit of competition,” Paul concluded.

(Obamacare debuts with more canceled plans than enrollments)

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*If you can wait and avoid signing up for ObamaCare it is certainly something to consider.  The fewer people that sign-up, especially the fewer healthy and young people who will not use the system but will help pay for it, the better chance there is that the entire system implodes or that the we can repeal and replace it… that is if we elect the right people in 2014 and 2016.  Vote out anyone up for re-election in either of those two elections that voted for ObamaCare at any point in the process.  Also… No Hillary Clinton and no Chris Christie. Nobody that mentions the word Progressive or follows that ideology!  Time to elect people who care about the common man… the common average American.  We are all ‘TAXED ENOUGH ALREADY’ and nobody can afford ObamaCare… MORE EXPENSIVE FOR MOST… FOR LESS SERVICES, LESS FREEDOM, and MORE BIG BROTHER!

Memo: Administration bungled Obamacare long before GOP had power to obstruct

Washington Examiner: An emerging theme from Democrats struggling to explain the Obamacare fiasco is that stubborn Republican opposition has hobbled the administration's efforts to implement President Obama's complex national health care scheme. If you want the particulars, just glance at "The Obamacare sabotage campaign" by Politico's Todd Purdum.

But a memo revealed in a new Washington Post examination of the rollout shows the administration was already on a disastrous path in May 2010, just two months after Obamacare was signed into law -- and six months before Republicans won control of the House and more Senate seats in the November 2010 elections. At the time the memo was written, Democrats still had the huge majorities in the House and Senate with which they had passed Obamacare on party-line votes.

In the memo, dated May 11, 2010 and sent to top administration economic official Larry Summers, Harvard professor and health care expert David Cutler, a supporter of the administration's efforts, wrote that "the early implementation efforts are far short of what it will take to implement reform successfully." Cutler continued: "For health reform to be successful, the relevant people need a vision about health system transformation and the managerial ability to carry out that vision. The President has sketched out such a vision. However, I do not believe the relevant members of the Administration understand the President's vision or have the capability to carry it out."

Cutler laid out a set of problems: 1) poor leadership at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a key organization in creating Obamacare; 2) clueless management at the Department of Health and Human Services on the subject of setting up exchanges; 3) an ineffective effort to work with insurers in implementing reform; and 4) general incompetence. "The overall head of implementation inside HHS, Jeanne Lambrew, is known for her knowledge of Congress, her commitment to the poor, and her mistrust of insurance companies," Cutler wrote. "She is not known for operational ability, knowledge of delivery systems, or facilitating widespread change."

All that was at a time when the administration had control of Congress. Although the election of Scott Brown had ended the Democrats' filibuster-proof control of the Senate, the fact is, Republicans had no control of anything. Later, after their landslide victory in the 2010 midterms, House Republicans could block funding increases the administration needed to pay for Obamacare's inevitable cost overruns. And Republican governors could make use of a feature Democrats wrote into the law that allowed states to decline to create their own exchanges, leaving the job to the federal government. But Cutler's memo shows the administration was well on the road to a disastrous debut of Obamacare long before Republicans could do anything to make the job harder.

See: Original MEMO Document (PDF) » 

What this memo does is again bring us back to the question:  Are they (Obama and cronies) really that inept?  Or was the plan really always that ObamaCare in its present state was meant to fail, leaving it to the government to swoop in and create a new single-payer (socialized medicine) plan.  Obama and Harry Reid have both said it was the second. 

So beware and watch the other hand.  The only real answer, either way, is to clean house in Washington D.C. in both Congress and the White House in the next two elections (2014 and 2016) and in the process repeal and replace this disaster  known as ObamaCare with a free market solution that really will help the average American and those without affordable healthcare insurance. ObamaCare does neither!!

**And if you understand that, it means no Hillary Clinton and no Chris Christie, who might as well be a Democat half the time, but rather real change… AM~ 

Yes, the Democrats' Plan Was to Create a Transition to Single Payer 

First Battle of 2014 and 2016 Elections: Next Tuesday and the Fate of ObamaCare

Obamacare Hype - ' The Land Of Oz ' Lies! - Judge Jeanine Pirro Opening Statement 

Wake-Up… 1,492,000 HC Plan Cancellations and Counting… All Part of the Plan to Force All But the Elite Into a Single Payer Socialized Medicine…  It has always been: 

The Dirty Secret Behind ObamaCare No One’s Talking About

What MSM Won’t Tell You: Doctors Are Challenging Government Health Care-and the AMA

Attempting to enact his big-government health care scheme, President Obama and his supporters frequently claimed that a “majority” of doctors supported his health-care plans. When the American Medical Association – which had opposed HillaryCare – signed onto Obama’s plan last year, the organization seemed to make the President’s case. Most people assumed that the AMA represented most of the doctors in the country. But in fact, the AMA represents less than 20 percent of all physicians in the United States. And yet as the organization’s leadership moved more to the left, it held a near monopoly on media attention on issues pertaining to public health. No longer.

As the AMA has become increasingly politicized in recent years – issuing a statement in support of climate change, for example, in 2008 – a new group of doctors has risen to challenge them. Like other anti-statist groups that have risen in opposition to the Obama-Reid-Pelosi agenda, Docs4PatientCare are challenging the AMA’s stranglehold on health care matters, just as other groups once challenged the right of the left-leaning American Bar Association to determine what judges are and are not qualified for the United States Supreme Court. How Docs4PatientCare managed to barge its way into the closed-door meetings of Washington offers a lesson to other groups seeking to have a voice in their federal government.

Founded by Dr. Hal Scherz, a prominent Atlanta physician, the group of doctors expressed concern that like so many other professional groups, the AMA’s leadership have been thoroughly “Washintonized” – caring more about the pleadings of other lobbyists on K Street, White House invitations and Capitol Hill committee appearances than the professions they are supposed to represent. As doctors have taken a battering over several decades from insurance companies, HMOS, and government agencies, Scherz says the AMA was a bystander.

“As the insurance companies become more and more impossible and government intrusion keeps growing, we’ve seen our delivery of care to our patients compromised and our incomes decrease,” he said.

But it was the AMA’s support for ObamaCare that really troubled Scherz and others in his field.

Many doctors run small businesses and by nature are entrepreneurial. Why then, he wondered, would the AMA favor ObamaCare’s regulatory and taxation burden? Why would they want a multitude of government panels interfering with the decisions doctors usually make with their patients about care and treatment? Recognizing that the AMA was compromised, Scherz decided to organize his own group in opposition to the Obama plan.

He recalled how effective talk radio had been the year before in stopping the seemingly unstoppable immigration amnesty bill, and wondered if there was a way for him to get his voice heard on the air. In fact, Scherz was driving home one night when he heard talk show host Hugh Hewitt ask on the air, “Where are the doctors?” opposing ObamaCare in the health care fight. Scherz wanted to give him an answer. So when Salem radio brought a “road show” on Obama’s first 100 days to Atlanta last May, he decided to attend. Listening to Hewitt and other Salem talk show stars like Bill Bennett and Dennis Praeger again ask, “Where are the doctors?” Scherz waited patiently in a long line of people to give them his answer. But just as he reached the head of the line, the master of ceremonies shut down the mikes for the evening.

Undeterred Scherz called a fellow physician, Congressman Tom Price, and asked the Congressman if he would come address a group of doctors if Scherz could assemble them. Price agreed and when Scherz got 40 doctors in the waiting room of his office to discuss ObamaCare, the meeting ended with the doctors deciding to form an organization to it. They christened themselves Docs 4 Patient Care that night and put together enough money to hire an attorney, set up a business structure, and establish a website.

Growing past this initial cadre of supporters proved difficult, however. Scherz spent as much time as he could emailing and phone calling more doctors to join the effort, but the response rate was slow. So coming home one night from the operating room, he called the Hewitt show and got in on the call-in queue. Waiting on hold for two hours, he finally got on the air in the show’s third hour. Delighted to have his missing-doctor question finally answered, Hewitt spoke with Scherz for a lengthy period.

“Then Hewitt blogged about us and put us the website and that made all the difference,” said Scherz.

Having heard the doctor on Hewitt’s program, Salem Radio’s vice president of content, Lee Habeeb, a legendary talk show producer, booked him on other Salem shows including a co-hosting gig with Mike Gallagher in Dallas, Atlanta, and New York. “Mike and his show were coming on strong. So it was just the right moment. He made our group a focal point of listener interest and it really helped,” says Scherz. This led to television interviews, involving Scherz and other members of the group to get their message out, such as Fred Shessel, one of Scherz’s partners and vice president, Scott Barbour, a prominent orthopedic and sports medicine surgeon, and Todd Rubin, a local anesthesiologist who started making something of the website (www.docs4patientcare.org). One talk show listener and activist, Felicia Horton, asked to be brought on as volunteer executive director.

With their newfound growth and publicity, Docs 4 Patient Care made getting heard in Washington their next objective. Wearing their scrubs and white jackets, the doctors drew attention as they walked the halls of congress and spoke at rallies on Capitol Hill. Often just showing up in the offices of members of the House and Senate, they would manage to get appointments with the members themselves or key staff members.

One particular meeting that stuck out in memories was with the staff of Senator Olympia Snowe, the Maine Republican senator who was being heavily courted by Democrats in the hope of getting some bipartisan window dressing for the Democratic bill. The meeting was a long one by Capitol Hill standards and the Snowe staff kept bringing up the arguments made by Democrats on behalf of ObamaCare. But in the face of the doctor’s facts and experience the arguments didn’t stand up long. Schertz believes Docs 4 Patient Care may have helped make a difference in Snowe’s ultimate, and fateful, decision not to sign on to ObamaCare.

Another memorable incident cited by members of the group occurred when one of their members, Joyce Lovett MD, an African American female pediatrician, got the doctors into a meeting of the Congressional Black Caucus. A debate opened up over the health care plan and soon the doctors were text-messaging their colleagues visiting other offices around the capitol for reinforcements. As the room began filling up, the doctors, doing well in the back and forth of debate, seemed to be changing some minds. At that point, a worried Black Caucus leader and diehard partisan, John Conyers, broke up the meeting, saying the doctors were more interested in embarrassing the first black president than in achieving real reform. Unused to this sort of political attack, the astonished doctors told other caucus members how they felt after taking time from their practices and patients to come all the way to Washington only to hear a member of Congress insinuate they were racists. One caucus member privately dismissed Conyers’ “old ways of thinking,” suggesting that the CBC might be ready for fresh, and more innovative, leadership.

In addition to return trips to Washington over the next 4 months, Docs4PatientCare also helped organize physician led-rallies around the country with hundreds of doctors participating in Atlanta, Los Angeles, Chicago, Indianapolis and Portland. The rallies proved crucial as the largely Atlanta-based group made new connections in taking on a national character. Jaime Ronderos MD, a prominent Texas anesthesiologist, who had already organized many of the doctors in his own state, folded his group in with D4PC. Also coming on board was Marc Neerhof, a perinatologist who is also on the faculty of the University of Chicago and a skillful op-ed writer. In addition, Reed Wilson, a well-known Los Angeles cardiologist with a business and political background became a board member. And finally, as the group showed its interest in working with all health care professionals, Joel Strom, a Los Angeles dentist and experienced coalition organizer agreed to head up an outreach program.

Only last month, the group had its inaugural board meeting in Atlanta where, in addition to making plans to increase their public and media presence, they inaugurated a fund raising program that would let them run a full-blown field operation in the elections this Fall. “We want to be out there in the states and let voters know which members of Congress put patient care second and voted for this power grab by Washington politicians,” said Scherz.

But, beyond this, Scherz and the other board members want Docs 4 patient Care to grow into what the AMA should have been. This means more than defeating ObamaCare. The group is non-partisan and anxious to work with all those who want to hear from Docs 4 Patient Care on the dangers of state-run medicine. With chapters recently up and running in several states, he sees growth ahead. That is likely discouraging news for the status quo world of Washington, D.C., but an inspiration for other Americans who see what their government is doing and want to offer an alternative.

Source: What MSM Won’t Tell You: Doctors Are Challenging Government Health Care-and the AMA by Matt Latimer