Guest Post by Martin Armstrong
I have been warning that 2017 was the Year of Political Hell with four major referendums/elections that would undermine the confidence in government – BREXIT, US Presidential Elections, French Elections, and Germany Elections. These four events hold the potential to overturn the expectations of the future. Whatever the general public felt about government would flip. The key to a shift from Public confidence to Private lies within the scope of these four elections. This is what our computer has been forecasting – political instability on the rise. This is the age of anti-establishment (3rd party) rising globally.
However, I have also warned that Social Security and Medicare go NEGATIVE next year in the United States, which of course mainstream media is not bothering to report for fear that would add fuel to the bonfire of political corruption. But what is also not explained by mainstream media, is that Obamacare is crumbling from within. The entire structural design of Obamacare was the perpetual Ponzi Scheme they used for Social Security.
The theory behind Obamacare was to force the youth to buy health insurance and since they rarely need it as a group, they would be paying-in more than they received. Thus, the idea would be Obamacare would exploit the youth to pay for those who could not afford healthcare because of preconditions. The theory failed because the youth did not buy the insurance.
For tax year 2015, the penalty for not buying healthcare was 2% of your total household adjusted gross income, or $325 per adult and $162.50 per child, to a maximum of $975.
For tax year 2016, the penalty jumped to 2.5% of your total household adjusted gross income, or $695 per adult and $347.50 per child, to a maximum of $2,085.
The penalties are still less than insurance, which is often charged at $300 per month+. Even at $695, this is less than $58 per month, which is impossible to find health insurance that cheap. Because the scheme has utterly failed, insurers are abandoning Obamacare. There was not a significant enrollment among the youth they could charge premiums to with no expense so they really saw more money go out than in. The Kaiser Family Foundation issued a study on Obamacare, which reveal it is collapsing by its own weight. They noted: “the number of counties with a single marketplace insurer is likely to increase, from 225 (7% of counties) in 2016 to 974 (31% of counties) in 2017.”
Indeed, UnitedHealthcare left most of the 34 state markets and Aetna is following. The Guardian reported that Obamacare is nearing collapse. The entire structure was based upon the same scheme as Social Security that has been predicated upon exploiting one generation for the next. But with rising unemployment among the youth, and more than 30% of the youth remain living with their parents into their thirties now combined with the collapse in birth rates, this entire scheme is just a scheme that is unsustainable.
Come 2017, we are likely to see Obamacare also collapse. Of course, if Hillary is in, that means higher taxes to try to keep it afloat since the Democrats will never admit a mistake of this magnitude. The only way to deal with the heathcare crisis is to STOP subsidizing healthcare. If the government simply passed a law that hospitals will receive a flat fee per type of care and prohibit charging anything more to the individual, then we will see some competition for the first time. Hospitals have been trying to put private practices out of business as well. The entire scheme has been to run healthcare as a giant corporate entity eliminating choice and with not restraint on fees.
The healthcare business has been the ONLY industry, aside from politicians in Washington, who are not subject to the business cycle. Government also needs to stop the lawsuits that are driving up costs insanely by also capping award per injury on a flat basis. But to get that type of reform we have to clean-house in Washington since 45% of public officials are lawyers compared to just 6% of the work force are lawyers. Hence, the legal profession is disproportionately represented and prevent tort reform since that is their bread & butter.
So buckle up. The whole house of cards is starting to come down. Hello – Phase Transition! Confidence is always the key.
Other nations have started referencing Brexit in a positive light. The EU is dying. The Euro is trading at 1.12:1, and all the conglomerate has managed to do is increase the amount of debt the continent holds. What a farce. The people are pissed, and a convenient scapegoat in the form of Islam and immigrants (hell, darkies in general) stand by waiting to take the blame.
The billionaire/trillionaire elitist scum will escape their own misdeeds again, their memories are long and focused while the sheep are shortsighted and disorganized.
Maybe the internet will help individualists maintain their focus, but I rather doubt it.
“The theory behind Obamacare was to force the youth to buy health insurance and since they rarely need it as a group, they would be paying-in more than they received.”
Hell, the young people have already been ass raped for inflated college tuition, for degrees of dubious value, and low paying / non-existent jobs.
Here in Minneapolis (completely run by Democrats) they are on a Light Rail frenzy. It’s really a welfare project for Neegrows and Somali’s. The fare’s cover only 30% of the expenses. Where it’s like the ACA in that when they need money for TRANSPORTATION (this is the term they use, thinking we are so stupid not to know it’s for Light Rail) they invent new / raise taxes on autos. I’m not sure what autos have to do with light rail? – yes I do – those horrible autos are destroying the planet – those horrible ‘wealthy’ people who can afford a car – social justice – and besides the niggers and Somali’s don’t pay anyway, and they are scared shitless to arrest them. And to get back at the autos even more – they put the light rail on grade with the streets. Completely fucks up some main thoroughfares.
TSHTF can’t come soon enough for me.
God help us all if Hillary Clinton wins. The supreme court will be lost for decades. The courts attack on the The second amendment will surely divide the nation more then ever.Then the internet will come under supreme court attack. The Marxist scum shit hate freedom of speech more then guns. Expect a lot more racial/ ethnic strife leading to more hatred for police who find their jobs becoming more dangerous by the day.This shit can make one nauseous just thinking about it.
Lawsuits aren’t the problem, unbridled greed is the problem. The only solution is to excise the greed from the system and go single-payer. If you want your gold-plated Cadillac private plan and have the money to pay for it, then good for you. As most of the developed world has agreed, health care should be a right, not a privilege.
As far as I am concerned, the only right one has is the right to be left alone. This includes the right to be left alone to provide affordable health care, the right to have no health insurance, the right to keep 100% of your labours productivity, the right to have an unlicensed dog,…
We have socialized medicine in Canada, a right, as it were. In reality, the only right, is bestowed upon the hospital to give you morphine until you die. We get constant cuts to our deathcare system while seniors wait for a hip replacement for 16 months and Mini-True gives free dental care to Syrian migrants, one of whom tried to attack me and my dogs yesterday.
Luckily for him, I found him in the back of a cruiser when I went back to have a chat with him.
Westie, you don’t know the difference between rights and welfare/entitlements.
If I have to do nothing but keep my fucking hands in my pockets, that’s a right: right to assemble peacefully, right to bear arms, right to practice religion, and so on. Requires nothing of me for you to exercise your rights.
However, if you stick your mitts in my wallet? That’s welfare. Right to housing, education, healthcare? No, those require me to subsidize your activities.
Get it, numbskull?
Oh, everyone has a right to housing, healthcare, education, etc. if they wish to pursue it. There is no law preventing them or anyone from acquiring those things.
But that isn’t the situation.
What Westie and the left claim is not those rights but the right to force someone else to pay for it.
Wish I could make someone else pay for my guns and ammunition, it’s a right ya’ now, but unfortunately if I want to exercise that right I have to pay for it myself.
You ain’t from around here, are ya Westcoaster?
Miles,
Funny thing is, Westie is a well-established TBP regular. He says he’s a libertarian, but then will espouse all manner of big government statist solutions.
I think he had too many Peruvian speed bumps during his time as an FM radio DJ, or whatever the fuck he used to do. That shit rotted out part of his brain.
Plus he is/was a big Bernie supporter. “Vote your self interest”, he used to tell us. Like having Bernie confiscate all of your goddamn paycheck is in your self interest.
He’s hopeless.
Yeah, stuff like the VA proves how well government run healthcare works and how well it contains costs (dead patients don’t cost much).
FWIW, from the U.K. which the left claims has a far superior system to ours: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/obese-people-and-smokers-banned-from-routine-surgery-as-nhs-attempts-to-cut-spending-costs-a7223731.html
You can expect the same and worse here (actually, this isn’t the worst that they practice there, openly having a policy of outright denial of many services to their older patients or putting them on a waiting list so long they die before their turn comes up).
@Leftcoaster
Don’t I have a right not to pay for your shit? If so, that means you don’t have a right to anything that that requires other people to pay for it.
You use the word rights, but I know it doesn’t mean what you think it means.
bb……..I’m with you on that. If that bitch steals the Presidency, we are truly fucked in that it will be the final end of the world as we knew it.
Unless Julian Assange makes it absolutely impossible, no doubt they’re going to steal it. They’re already laying the groundwork with the threats of hacking so DHS can ensure the corrupt empire doesn’t get toppled. Assange has to drop enough bombs on the soulless cunt that there’s no way even the dumbest fucks would believe she legitimately won. Other than that, we’re probably fucked (and maybe even so since they really don’t seem to care how blatant their corruption is anymore).
I have far more hope pinned on Assange than I do Trump. In fact, I’ve never had so much hope pinned on any single person in my life. But I also wonder if the media can ignore anything at this point, no matter how egregious. I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out they can. But for now I’m going to hope for the best. If the cunt wins, I’ll never have hope again so I’m going to at least try to have some for these last 62 days.
I’m not understanding how having a flat fee for each type of hospital service will instill competition.
Every hospital will charge the max fee no matter what, with any “competition” being how to do the service at the lowest cost to make the maximum profit, not to provide the service at lower costs to attract more business.
It’s like setting minimum building standards, it guarantees everything will be done to minimum standards only with the claim that it meets FHA (or whatever) standards as a claim of quality.
Or maybe I’m wrong about it, but I don’t see lots of competition for flat fees by medicare providers with some providers trying to offer lower prices to attract more business.
Someone explain it to me if I’m off base, maybe I’m not understanding something here.
I think you’re right on target. A flat fee is price fixing/central planning by any other name.
That shit doesn’t work, never worked, never will work. Ever.
Look at your veterinarian: they charge what the market will bear. Enough to make a bit of profit; not so much that you will find another provider. Why this model is so hard to grok is maddening.
“just 6% of the work force are lawyers”
That many? Heaven help us.
Most of them would not know “work” if it walked up and introduced itself.
I like Martin Armstrong sometimes, and I do think he gives a lot of good information with his writing, but I pretty much stop paying attention when he starting giving dates for when things are happening. I seem to remember reading, for several years, that the world was going to end on 2015.75, and there were at least half a dozen die hard fans on ZH who would constantly make that claim as well. It came to pass, and now it looks like he is moving his goal posts. That he will one day be right, I think we all agree is inevitable, but once you miss those dates a few times you kinda lose the ability to gloat IMO.
Bubbles in the pot were developing in 2015.75…the pot will boil over in 2017.
“Hospitals have been trying to put private practices out of business as well. The entire scheme has been to run healthcare as a giant corporate entity eliminating choice and with not restraint on fees.”
For the most part, that has already happened. Most docs have totally lost any status or power.
They jump when the hospital snaps their fingers. Why? Insurance costs. I have lost track of
what it costs to spend a day in the hospital. The reports on costs ended when it topped 5K/day.
Over 70? O care = no care. Nothing thought to be elective. Emergency? They own your house.
http://sploid.gizmodo.com/fascinating-graphic-shows-who-owns-all-the-major-brands-1599537576
The graphs are a bit dated, I heard today we are down to 6 corps for food, 6 for media, and 6
for energy. Right, 666, or 555. Wait until there are even fewer. I say 6 will own everything
b4 too long. I would love to see a breakdown that is current. Anybody have a source?
Obamacare will fail because it was *designed* to fail. When (not if) it fails, then the government will trot out the “solution”, single-payer i.e. socialized medicine, just like most other “world-class” countries have. That will have the desired results, everybody (including non-citizens, documented or not) will have “free” healthcare. But like most other countries that have tried this, costs will have to be contained. The easiest way to do this is to limit (usually by long wait-lists, conveniently bypassed if you are one of the “inside class”) access to expensive procedures, especially those mostly needed by old people. Oh, you need a heart bypass? We have a sixteen-month wait list for that. If you die before that, we just saved tens of thousands of dollars. Same song and dance for knee/hip replacements. Need a flu shot or antibiotics for an ear infection, no problem. So the things you can afford to pay for now, you can get for free. Things you can’t afford to pay for now, you still won’t be able to get.
Ask any Canadian how long the wait list is for knee/hip replacement or even an MRI.