Op-ed:
It Started With ObamaCare
By: Diane Sori /
The Patriot Factor / Right Side Patriots / Right Side Patriots Radio
The
Op-ed posted here is this authors opinion alone, and does not
necessarily represent the views of blogspot.com
or Google.
This past December 4th, courtesy of his hotel lobby's video
camera, we witnessed the targeted assassination of
“United
Healthcare” CEO Brian Thompson. Cowardly shot in the back by
26-year old Luigi Mangione...who was not a participant in the
“United
Health Care” system...we saw this act of murder being twisted
by the liberal media to where the shooter became the victim while the
actual victim and his company were deemed the perpetrators in
absentia. And if that wasn't bad enough, we also saw a vast number of
folks starting to make both excuses and apologies for said murderer
because they claim private health insurers are the real enemy and
that Mangione just did what many felt they wanted to do but didn't
do.
A cold-blooded assassin...and his
“groupies” if you
will...now see Mangione as a hero of sorts standing up against what
some consider to be the big bad healthcare/health insurance industry.
And while no one can deny that America's health insurance industry,
as it stands now, does have some rightfully deemed issues that need
to be resolved, the fact remains that more Americans are happy or
somewhat happy with their health insurance coverage than are not. In
fact, the
“2023 Kaiser Family Foundation Survey of ConsumerExperiences with Health Insurance” (its
latest survey) found that 81 per cent of Americans rated their
own health insurance as
“excellent.” “good,” or
“acceptable” with other comparable polls finding similar
results. But know that at the same time Kaiser also found that six in
ten adults admitted to having problems with their health insurance
provider within the past year with most complaints revolving around
but not limited to insurance payouts; denied or delayed services
including for in-network doctor's appointments and/or surgery
scheduling; and prescription co-pays being way too high for doctor
prescribed medications to name but a few.
But what exactly seemed to be Mangione's excuse for what he did,
and why did he specifically target the CEO of a company he was not a
customer of? The second part of the question is easy to answer, as in
Mangione wanted to take the
“big guy” down...publicity wise
so to speak...what with United Healthcare being the largest private
health insurer in the U.S., hence its CEO's murder would garner the
most publicity for Mangione's misplaced cause. And as for a specific cause and effect reason...as in an excuse in Mangione's mind
to justify what he did...at least for now is a bit more convoluted
and somewhat veiled. However, the general consensus amongst the lead
investigators continues to be that Luigi Mangione had
“animosity
toward corporate America” in general, but especially towards
the health care industry after his having sustained what he called a
“debilitating back injury” back in July 2023...an injury
where he needed surgery to permanently place screws on his spine...an
injury he apparently still suffers from.
In other words, the media...and those who champion his misguiding
cause...want you to believe that the pain from surgery gone horribly wrong
turned Luigi Mangione into a killer. And while I'm not buying
into that...with the reason being that
“United Heath Care”
was not Mangione's insurance company...I am sure it will be used as
part of his ultimate defense. But, if by some chance insurance failure
in general is at the crux of what drove Mangione to do what he did,
one needs to understand exactly why our health insurance industry
finds itself in the mess it's in today. And that can be summed up
with the same few words regarding almost all the woes our country
still faces...faces until January 20th when Donald J. Trump
officially takes office that is. And those words are both Barack
Obama and his health care disaster known as
“ObamaCare”...aka the
(anything but)
“Affordable Car Act”...an
act that saw decidedly drawn party lines determining the outcome of
what has become said act's unintended consequences hurting those at
the so-called “margins”
the most...or was that Obama's plan all along...as in to institute a
health insurance plan so bad that it would actually help to cull
America's ever growing elderly and sickly herd.
Simply,
“ObamaCare” made things worse because it
required healthcare insurers to cover everyone no matter their income
or medical risk factor while at the same time it tried to force
healthy young people into buying into the same so-called
“risk
pools” as the old and the sick. So instead of now focusing on
those folks with pre-existing conditions,
“ObamaCare” spread the cost of their care across all
policyholders, basically forcing its
participants to pay for coverage they did not need or want...as in
don't buy what we say equals no heath coverage for you.
Basically, “ObamaCare” forced the well and the young to
pay for those with per-existing medical conditions while offering
those paying into the plan little actual usable coverage in return.
And this forced “ObamaCare” insurers to actually start
“rationing health care”...as in bureaucrats deciding who
will be allowed certain medical care and who will not...as the means
by which to control both their costs and patient payouts. Remember,
medical costs do tend to increase for the insurer when health care
becomes“subsidized”...or
let's call it it by its real name, “socialized medical
care” ...replete with high
premiums for those who buy those policies.
And really, what was and is
“ObamaCare” today? Now
primarily referred to as
“HealthCare.gov”...a
health insurance exchange operated by the federal government under
provisions of the “Affordable Care Act”
(ACA)...it's just “ObamaCare” with
a different name. Think of it as socialized medicine on
steroids where corporate profits... where government
profits...actually trumps medical care. How so...because it forces
both
“HealthCare.gov” and
other healthcare
providers to limit medical options after their having denied claims
submitted by customers now forced to go outside what their policies
cover. And to make matters worse
“HealthCare.gov”
can, at any time, limit what they will cover or even raise their policy
premiums at will.
Not good folks, not good at all. But as bad as “HealthCare.gov” is...don't forget it's basically “ObamaCare”...that's
not the only reason why the health insurance industry is in such
a quandary, for one only has to look at all the damage caused by the
“Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization
Act” (MMA) of
2003...which actually
didn't go into full effect until 2010.
Signed
into law by George W. Bush, MMA impacts three key areas, as in
finances/the bidding process, marketing, and prescription drugs. And
while MMA remains one of the biggest overhauls of Medicare itself,
more important is the fact that it negatively impacted small
businesses, and put many people out of work. How so...via what was
called “competitive bidding”...which meant that those companies who remained in business and still wanted to provide services to
Medicare recipients were now forced to become contract suppliers, meaning
they had to submit and then win the bid to provide “Durable
Medical Equipment, Prosthetics, Orthotics, and Supplies”
(DEMPOS)...including medically needed and doctor prescribed life saving
oxygen...at the lowest cut rate costs.
And
why did this come about...it is simply because the government deemed that
thousands of durable medical companies which were participating
Medicare providers continued to receive reimbursements which had gone
unchecked for many years by Medicare. Claiming that MMA would set
“fair prices”
nationwide with patients only having to pay 20% of whatever Medicare
approved for the patient's equipment...that is is if said patient did not have any supplemental insurance...what MMA actually did was allow a small
group of big companies to put small companies out of the durable
medical equipment business and hence thousands of people out of work.
Remember,
large DMEPOS companies with hundreds if not thousands of patients
could afford to take smaller reimbursements as their sheer volume in
patient numbers alone makes up for what they would lose per patient.
This allowed the large companies to win the bidding process no matter
the equipment price cuts, something the small companies could not do
and were forced to shut down or be lucky enough to be bought out by
one of the large companies who secured the bid.
Simply,
what we had was big government rewarding big companies at the expense
of both the little guy and the insured patient/customer. And the
bottom line is that with Medicare now paying out approximately 67%
less in reimbursements than they were previously paying for all
durable medical equipment...including wheelchairs, commodes, beds,
and oxygen concentrators to name but a few...we saw not only DME
companies going out of business but critically ill people being
unable to afford the co-pay on would could be life saving equipment.
Why so...because the monies saved courtesy of “competitive
bidding”
was not
being used to help the insured, but was being channeled into helping
to fund not only “ObamaCare”
and “HeathCare.gov”
but
to help provide free medical care for those who entered our country
illegally.
And
when all I've stated is added together it becomes more than a bit
obvious as to why our medical insurance industry is as messed up as
it is today. Simply, big government is at fault and it started with
“ObamaCare”
and worked its way out from there. The insured were and still are
being pushed aside courtesy of big government, while said government
and big insurance companies coffers grew with “We
the People” paying
the price for their all-consuming greed.
Now
as for Luigi Mangione, if he was a victim of my above stated
government and corporate insurance greed coupled with poor medical
care and insurance issues, I can understand his anger as do many of
us. But that did not give him the right to kill...to
assassinate...the one he deemed to be the guilty party. Mangione is
no hero...he must never be looked at as such...and to now see him
being charged with second degree murder is a true miscarriage of justice
as far as I'm concerned.
Sometimes “an eye for
an eye” must be the
punishment dealt out...civilized society demands it in cases like
this for soon “copycat killings”
will start surfacing. And if you think the health insurance problems
will end any time soon they won't...our insurance issues need a full
and complete overhaul... and that's no matter the final outcome of the
Mangione/Thompson case. And to that I say, case closed.
Copyright © 2025 / Diane Sori / The Patriot Factor / All rights reserved.
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Tomorrow, Tuesday, January 7th from 7pm to 8:30pm EST, RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS
Craig Andresen and Diane Sori discuss 'It Started With ObamaCare'; 'The Catastrophic Consequences of DEI'; and
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