Articles about the impending failure of TUCA (The Unaffordable Care Act) have become commonplace.  Even those recognized as its authors  are openly distancing themselves from this legislation.  Many on the “right” are heralding the IRS’s scandalous targeting of political opponents of this administration as the death knell of TUCA, as imagining such power-hungry and unethical tyrants in charge of health care is simply unconscionable.  

Here are a few words of caution:  don’t be fooled.  Not too long ago, while sitting in a studio and about to receive the countdown for my appearance on the Neil Cavuto show, the world came to a sudden stop due to the revelation of some twisting and spinning of the Benghazi story/scandal.  My interview was delayed due to this “breaking news.”  As the administration began receiving intense scrutiny over this mess, they pulled what I believe is a play out of the Clinton playbook, i.e., leak so much scandalous material (basically like submarine countermeasures) that the truth-seeking torpedos won’t even know where to start.  Following Benghazi, we had the IRS and the FBI scandals.  There’s probably more to come.

Just like scandal overload, another strategy of the power elite is to feign weakness at times.  To portray TUCA as a dying beast, no longer formidable, takes some of the wind out of the sails of those individuals and organizations who have made it their mission to take this disastrous legislation apart.  Even announcing a delay in the implementation of the exchanges has caused many to relax and even celebrate.  

It is also important to understand that TUCA, even if repealed has already achieved much it was meant and designed to achieve.  Almost half of the physicians in the U.S. have been petrified or shanghaied into becoming hospital employees, now working for someone other than their patient.  Mandating electronic medical records has resulted in billions of dollars to go into an industry that should have been valued in the 10’s of millions.  It would be interesting to see how many lawmakers in Washington bought “Health Information Technology” stocks prior to mandating their purchase.  Industry consolidation (the smoking gun of government corruption and bribery) in the hospital and insurance industries has created near-monopolies in some regions of the country, with the powerful crony TUCA supporters now firmly in charge of things.    Two hospital towns are becoming one hospital towns.  The price of care in these consolidated markets is soaring, just as you would expect.  I know this because this phenomenon is responsible for many of the out of state referrals we are seeing at our facility as patients and self-funded businesses attempt to escape these bankrupting monopolists. 

I think that any individual or organization committed to consignment of TUCA to the trash bin, should respond to this appearance of weakness (real or not) in the same way the state responds to weakness:  more determined effort to grind the foe into submission.  This will either finish off a bad law, or reveal, as I am afraid, the false and misleading nature of this “weakness.”  I’ll believe TUCA is dead….well….when it’s dead.

G. Keith Smith, M.D.