Healthcare and Soylent Green

[crazybabyborg]

I'm hoping we can keep this thread for all healthcare issues being proposed. I think it's easier to follow on one thread, so please, feel free to post in here!

This is a MUST listen audio interview with Fred Thompson and Betsy McCaughey, New York's former leutinent governor. She's become very interested in the proposed healhcare bill and has actually read it all:

Just click and listen................ please!

http://tinyurl.com/mxnevb

I'm copying the link and sending it to everyone on my e-mail list.

[crazybabyborg]

   

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http://www.latimes.com/features/health/medicine/la-oe-allen5-2009jul05,0,213990.story

From the Los Angeles Times
Opinion
The painful side effects of Obama's healthcare reform
There are warnings signs that the president and his allies are looking at government-run rationing of care for the oldest and sickest.
By Charlotte Allen

July 5, 2009

Here's a way for America to cut its spiraling healthcare costs: ice floes.

This idea isn't mine. It's President Obama's. Or rather, it's where we're likely to end up if the president prevails on Congress to pass the adventurous healthcare reform proposal currently being discussed, which the Congressional Budget Office estimates will cost about $1 trillion over the next 10 years. That's on top of Medicare's annual $327-billion budget, whose massive deficits, if they continue at the same rate, are predicted to bankrupt the Medicare system by the end of the next decade.

In looking for a way to fund healthcare, Obama has set his eye on the oldest and sickest. You see, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, about 30% of Medicare spending -- nearly $100 billion annually -- goes to care for patients during their last year of life. What if there were no "last year of life," the president seems to be asking. The Eskimos used to set their elderly and sickly adrift on the ice or otherwise abandon them during times of scarcity, and that, metaphorically speaking, is what Obama would like us all to start doing.

The scarcity of resources to pay for expensive medical procedures will only increase under a plan to extend medical benefits at federal expense to the 47 million Americans who lack health insurance. So why not save billions of dollars by killing off our own unproductive oldsters and terminal patients, or -- since we aren't likely to do that outright in this, the 21st century -- why not simply ensure that they die faster by denying them costly medical care? The savings could then subsidize care for the younger and healthier.

Sound too draconian? Enter the ghost of Obama's late maternal grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, who died of cancer at age 86 two days before her grandson's election to the presidency. Dunham's health issues first surfaced in a New York Times interview with the president on May 3. There, Obama questioned the appropriateness of a hip replacement that his grandmother had undergone after falling and breaking her hip shortly after being diagnosed with terminal cancer last year. The alternative to such surgery is typically excruciating pain and opiate dependency. Obama made it clear that he loved his granny and would have paid for the surgery out of his own pocket if he had to, but he said there ought to be a "conversation" over whether "sort of in the aggregate, society making those decisions to give my grandmother, or everybody else's aging grandparents or parents, a hip replacement when they're terminally ill is a sustainable model." Obama suggested that such decisions be made not by patients or their relatives but by a "group" of "doctors, scientists, ethicists" who are not part of "normal political channels."

Obama brought up his grandmother's hip replacement a second time in his June 24 town hall event on healthcare on ABC. The "question was," Obama said, "does she get hip-replacement surgery, even though she was fragile enough they were not sure how long she would last?" At that point I was thinking: If he says, "No hip replacement for you, Grams" one more time, it's going to be a drinking game.

An audience member, Jane Sturm, told the story of her 99-year-old mother, who had initially been turned down for a pacemaker on account of her age. Sturm's mother persuaded a second physician impressed with her joie de vivre to perform the life-extending operation -- and she's still hale today at age 105. "Outside the medical criteria," Sturm asked, "is there a consideration that can be given for a certain spirit ... and quality of life?"

Nope. "I don't think that we can make judgments based on people's spirit," Obama said. "That would be a pretty subjective decision to be making. I think we have to have rules that we are going to provide good, quality care for all people."

If that sounds cold, or like an interference with the traditional physician-patient relationship, in which doctors make decisions -- call them "subjective" decisions, if you like -- about the most appropriate care for their patients on an individual basis, that is the very point. Obama and those who support his healthcare reform proposals have embraced a concept called "comparative effectiveness research." The idea behind comparative effectiveness research is basically a good one: Use large-scale scientific studies to determine which medical procedures produce the best patient outcomes in the aggregate, and whether some expensive tests, drugs and surgeries might not be as effective in the aggregate as cheaper alternatives.

Such information -- sometimes called "evidence-based medicine" -- can be helpful to doctors in deciding what treatments would be best for their patients and maybe save them some money. But Obama and his healthcare supporters do not want to stop there. Their implicit proposal seems to want to turn comparative effectiveness research into the "rules" that Obama was talking about on ABC: one-size-fits-all procedures that physicians would have to follow at the risk of not being paid by the government. And the government would increasingly be the payer if Obama's proposed "public option" health insurance crowds out, as it inevitably will, private health insurers forced to compete with a tax-subsidized government entity. A pacemaker for your otherwise tough-as-nails 99-year-old mother? Forget it, Mom, you die.

That's what Obama means when he talks about "difficult decisions at end of life," as he did on ABC, or "reining in costs," as he did in his New York Times interview. Congress has already slipped $1.1 billion into the economic stimulus law it passed in February to set up a Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research. Under Obama's healthcare plan, physicians participating in Medicare and Medicaid would be paid extra to turn over their patients' medical records to a central federal databank, effectively turning their patients into unwitting research subjects for comparative effectiveness.

Bioethicists are clambering aboard the aged-based rationing bandwagon, including Daniel Callahan, co-founder of the Hastings Center, who published two essays in the New York Times last November proposing "age cutoffs" or other "unpleasant solutions" to trim Medicare costs. Some of those solutions are already the order of the day in that single-payer paradise, Britain, whose National Health Service doesn't even provide for annual screening mammograms -- something U.S. physicians strongly recommend to detect and treat breast cancer before it becomes virulent. The National Health Service allows mammograms only every three years, and then only for women between 50 and 70. The service's guidelines recognize that risk rises with age, but women over 70 must nevertheless explicitly ask to continue having the triennial scans -- a not-so-subtle way of discouraging the screening.

Britain also set up a National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence in 1999, whose bureaucrats assign "quality-adjusted life years" in deciding whether it is "cost effective" to pay for cancer drugs and other treatments. They're the people who decided that if you're going blind in both eyes due to age-related macular degeneration, the government will pay for sight-restoring photodynamic therapy for only one of your eyes.

Now, I'm well aware that having 47 million people who can't afford medical care is a genuine social problem -- although many of those millions are illegal immigrants, people between jobs and young folks who choose to go insurance-bare. I'm also aware that I can't necessarily have everything I want, whether it's a dozen pairs of Prada boots or a pacemaker at age 99. I know that Medicare is on the greased rails to a train wreck, and not just because of spiraling costs but because doctors are fleeing the system because they're sick of below-cost reimbursements and crushing paperwork. There are ways to solve some of these problems: healthcare tax breaks, malpractice reform that would lower the cost of practicing medicine, efforts to make it easier to get cheap, high-deductible catastrophic coverage, steps to encourage fee-for-service arrangements of the kind that most people have with their dentists.

In short, as someone who's not getting any younger, I'd like to be the one who makes the "difficult decision" as to whether I can afford -- and thus really want -- that hip replacement in my extreme old age. Sorry, President Obama, but I don't want "society"-- that is, government mucky-mucks -- determining that I've got to go sit on an ice floe just because I'm old and kind of ugly, no matter how many fancy degrees in medicine or bioethics they might have.

Charlotte Allen is the author of "The Human Christ: The Search for the Historical Jesus" and a contributing editor to the Minding the Campus website of the Manhattan Institute.





 
 

[nonesuche]

CBB I think having this thread is a great idea! Thank you!

My almost 81 year old mother has been visiting over the last week and as Obama's proposal is peeled back like an onion, at times I would look over at her and wonder how would I or could I allow government mandated healthcare to allow her to die? It is just that simple, the government will assume Darwin's position and all only the fittest to survive - by defining the fit as those who are not elderly but also those who at birth or in the womb, are not the "fittest"?

We need to think long and hard about whether our government should assume the role of God.

Tylergal who I still miss very much and wish was still posting with us here, sent me this article this morning. It's horrifying to read..........please take the time to read it.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/07242009/postopinion/opedcolumnists/deadly_doctors_180941.htm?&page=1

DEADLY DOCTORS

ADVISERS WANT TO RATION CARE (Obama's advisors)

By BETSY MCCAUGHEY

 THE health bills coming out of Congress would put the de cisions about your care in the hands of presidential appointees. They'd decide what plans cover, how much leeway your doctor will have and what seniors get under Medicare.

Yet at least two of President Obama's top health advisers should never be trusted with that power.

Start with Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. He has already been appointed to two key positions: health-policy adviser at the Office of Management and Budget and a member of Federal Council on Comparative Effectiveness Research.

Emanuel bluntly admits that the cuts will not be pain-free. "Vague promises of savings from cutting waste, enhancing prevention and wellness, installing electronic medical records and improving quality are merely 'lipstick' cost control, more for show and public relations than for true change," he wrote last year (Health Affairs Feb. 27, 2008).

Savings, he writes, will require changing how doctors think about their patients: Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath too seriously, "as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of the cost or effects on others" (Journal of the American Medical Association, June 18, 2008).

Yes, that's what patients want their doctors to do. But Emanuel wants doctors to look beyond the needs of their patients and consider social justice, such as whether the money could be better spent on somebody else.

Many doctors are horrified by this notion; they'll tell you that a doctor's job is to achieve social justice one patient at a time.

Emanuel, however, believes that "communitarianism" should guide decisions on who gets care. He says medical care should be reserved for the non-disabled, not given to those "who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens . . . An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia" (Hastings Center Report, Nov.-Dec. '96).

Translation: Don't give much care to a grandmother with Parkinson's or a child with cerebral palsy.

He explicitly defends discrimination against older patients: "Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination; every person lives through different life stages rather than being a single age. Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years" (Lancet, Jan. 31).

Please read the second page on the link.......

[WhiskeyGirl]

IIRC, the University of Chicago is Michelle Obama (and others) old stomping grounds.

Where does the UOC get it's cash?

University of Chicago Medical Center moving forward with plans for hospital pavilion

The University of Chicago Medical Center is forging ahead with a major financing plan to pay for a large part of its new hospital pavilion in the face of a turbulent economy that has triggered layoffs and spending reductions at the facility this year.

The South Side teaching hospital early next month plans to issue bonds to raise $225 million through the Illinois Finance Authority to support the university's capital projects, "highlighted by the construction of a new patient tower pavilion on the main campus," according to a report released last week by Moody's Investors Service.

It's the first of two rounds of debt financing expected to raise at least $500 million over the next two years. The total cost of the pavilion will be about $700 million, with additional funds to finance the facility coming from fundraising and the medical center's cash.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-thu-notebook-uofc-0723-jul23,0,7136721.story

Greedy hospital? 

I wonder how much the hospital is in line for under HR 3200.  There seems to be so much money thrown at students, training programs, hospitals, 'community centers' and the like.   How much has UOC already applied for?  Already been given the 'rubber stamp'? 

If the focus in on prevention, why are they building a new hospital?

I seem to recall the CAP & TRADE bill was to encourage a return of jobs/manufacturing to the urban areas of our nation.  Republic Window and Door in Chicago comes to mind.  An ugly affair to be sure.  Who now owns this company?  For some reason, the tanking of the economy killed this business and forced the owners to close.  They tried to stay in business, by moving production to Iowa.  They were hit by union/government lawsuits.

For some reason, they get punished for moving the business to Iowa.  Would they have faced the same lawsuit if they had moved to Mexico? 

Gotta wait until the rest of the Republic Windows on Main Street are out of business, or in bankruptcy, their assets snapped up for pennies by those in the bailout and spending pipeline.

Now we have the UOC building a monument, for some reason they have access to lots of money.  Where are they going to get the organs for this center?  Isn't there a shortage?

It seems like the stars are aligning for billions in healthcare spending.  This is NOT a savings. 

How many UOC's are out there?  Politically connected?

jmho

[crazybabyborg]

Nice find, WhiskeyGirl! I'd place a bet on political connections, just like you suggested!

[crazybabyborg]

The American Spectator
July 24, 2009
By Ben Stein


We've Figured Him Out

Why is President Barack Obama in such a hurry to get his socialized medicine bill passed?

Because he and his cunning circle realize some basic truths:

The American people in their unimaginable kindness and trust voted for a pig in a poke in 2008. They wanted so much to believe Barack Obama was somehow better and different from other ultra-leftists that they simply took him on faith.

They ignored his anti-white writings in his books. They ignored his quiet acceptance of hysterical anti-American diatribes by his minister, Jeremiah Wright.

They ignored his refusal to explain years at a time of his life as a student. They ignored his ultra-left record as a "community organizer," Illinois state legislator, and Senator.

The American people ignored his total zero of an academic record as a student and teacher, his complete lack of scholarship when he was being touted as a scholar.

Now, the American people are starting to wake up to the truth. Barack Obama is a super likeable super leftist, not a fan of this country, way, way too cozy with the terrorist leaders in the Middle East, way beyond naïveté, all the way into active destruction of our interests and our allies and our future.

The American people have already awakened to the truth that the stimulus bill -- a great idea in theory -- was really an immense bribe to Democrat interest groups, and in no way an effort to help all Americans.

Now, Americans are waking up to the truth that ObamaCare basically means that every time you are sick or injured, you will have a clerk from the Department of Motor Vehicles telling your doctor what he can and cannot do.

The American people already know that Mr. Obama's plan to lower health costs while expanding coverage and bureaucracy is a myth, a promise of something that never was and never will be -- a bureaucracy lowering costs in a free society. Either the costs go up or the free society goes away.

These are perilous times. Mrs. Hillary Clinton, our Secretary of State, has given Iran the go-ahead to have nuclear weapons, an unqualified betrayal of the nation. Now, we face a devastating loss of freedom at home in health care. It will be joined by controls on our lives to "protect us" from global warming, itself largely a fraud if believed to be caused by man.

Mr. Obama knows Americans are getting wise and will stop him if he delays at all in taking away our freedoms.

There is his urgency and our opportunity. Once freedom is lost, America is lost. Wake up, beloved America.

Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Beverly Hills and Malibu. He writes "Ben Stein's Diary" for every issue of The American Spectator.

[WhiskeyGirl]

E-Verify, and "no match" programs for employees are under attack by some in the Obama administration as unreliable. 

When will our govenment get serious about identity theft, fraud, and abuse?  When will they protect the rights of those here legally and citizens?

If government can't get E-Verify, The Read ID Act of 2005, and other programs to work, can we trust them with our healthcare records?

Can we trust them to spend our money? 

Can we trust them with the future of our nation? 

[WhiskeyGirl]

The public plan, the CBO, and other estimates...

CBO's Gift to Dems: A Closer Look

The nonpartisan fiscal scorekeeper sent a letter to Dave Camp, the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, in which it rebutted the claim that the so-called "public option" would drive private insurers out of business.

In the insurance world, there is a process called the 'death spiral'.  It's been doing business for generations.  When you have  a limited group of folks, and their general health is declining, at some point, the group will no longer be able to afford the premiums to support the insurance plan.  As the premium rises, so does the number of healthy folks leaving and finding cheaper insurance. 

What happens to the private coverage when all the politically motivated/appointed advisory groups start changing the rules?  I have to believe there will be some big changes in the pipeline.  I'm inclined to believe insurers and companies will be moving folks to the public plan so fast, it will require vast new taxpayer infusions of money.

Would it make sense to create new administrative gorups and appoint people to all these new groups if they won't be making any changes?

An earlier analysis by the Lewin Group, a private consulting firm owned by the health insurer UnitedHealth Group, estimated that more than 100 million people would eventually move to the public plan. The CBO puts the total much lower, at about 9 million. It also says about 12 million would be added to private plans because of the proposed new mandate that employers provide coverage.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=483553

It's odd that the reinsurance section of the bill seems to be written for groups like the Chrysler and GM VEBA (retiree benefits, healthcare, etc.).   Why are taxpayers subsidizing groups like this?  Are these groups contributing premiums?  Taxes?  Exempt?  Didn't the VEBA get some hefty ownership positions coming out of bankruptcy?  Taxpayers paying like 100% of claims over $15,000 and less than about $100,000?   Money to plan only to be used for copays, coinsurance due by participants?  Send a dollar, only use $.01 to cover participant costs?  What happens to the $.99?  Anyone else see something different in that section? 

What will the premiums look like when the big costs start kicking in around 2012?  How much will premiums skyrocket?  The private plans will be gone, no other option.

The public plan, and the proposed changes to the private plans seem like a miracle.  Original Medicare gets stuck with co-insurance and deductibles, and expensive drug costs.

What does the rich public plan get?  From my reading, coverage above and beyond Original Medicare, no copay or coinsurance for wellness care (many HMOs limit wellness care visits to prevent abuse, control costs), and many other procedures.  Rates for all the new coverage are not available, but look to be enhanced.  Anyone else see that in there?

How are they going to control abuse of the public plan?   I didn't see anything that looked like cost control measures for the new coverage.

Moral hazard and sickness insurance: Empirical evidence from a sickness insurance reform in Sweden

We use a reform of Sweden’s sickness insurance system as a source of exogenous variation to analyse the presence of moral hazard. As a result of the reform, the replacement level was reduced from 90 percent of forgone earnings to 65 percent for the first three days; to 80 percent between day 4 and 90; and remained at 90 percent after 90 days. We find that the incidence of work absence decreased due to the decrease in compensation level and that effect on duration is in accordance with moral hazard in the sickness insurance.

http://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/ifauwp/2004_010.html

This site has lots of interesting studies and articles to download.

Why not bend the curve in a way that makes sense?  Has a proven track record of reducing expenses?

Where are the efforts to collect from those that currently do not pay for healthcare?  The illegal immigrants in the ER?  I noted that there was some language that seemed to suggest to me that there would be reductions in reimbursement rates due to the decline in uncompensated care, including the ER.  If illegal immigrants aren't covered in the public plan, how are these costs going to be reduced?

Where is the language that suggests that everyone will be treated the same regardless of race, sex, ethnic origin...?

How are they going to ensure that only citizens and those here legally participate in the public plan? 

What will the public plan taxes look like in ten years?  Who's going to pay back all that borrowed money? 

Will all the debt service currently due, how will healthcare compete for the limited dollars remaining?

How about those with affordability credits do verifiable volunteer work to pay back the taxpayers? 

[Edward]

The only part of the Soylent Green movie I remember is that they were making peoples bodies into tasty crackers called Soylent Green >> yummm 

Maybe that is why we have allowed all of these immigrants into America.. who wants to eat the same kind of cracker all the time ? 

As far as health and the socialist agenda goes... It is all about control.

IF They allowed doctors to work freely and closed down the AMA as well as the FDA and found other ways for the public to protect themselves from evil doctors, then found a way to have doctors work without to much fear of lawsuit, unless they turn into Dr. jekyll..
Then we would see the price of a doctors visits and drugs drop dramatically through open and reasonably controlled competition.
Hospitals would also become more competitive as there would be NO insurance companies to rip off.. THEN everyone could just go back to paying for services out of pocket as it should be. Then there could still be MAJOR medical insurance to cover life altering conditions and long term care which even in this day and age is far LESS then it should be. If you do not believe that just step into any convalescent hospital and smell the air and look at the under qualified staff.. It is a terrible way to live out your last days on Earth..

 If it is that bad today do you really think government controlled health care will be better ? Or will the government just turn there bodies into crackers for the population to eat ? 

[WhiskeyGirl]

Edward,

I read a long time ago, the rise of private insurance = the rise in medical costs.  When someone has deep pockets, and pays and pays, and there are government mandates, there is no possibility of cost controls.

Someone, has to work at the Soylent factory, just like someone had to work at the camps.

Its ugly, and doesn't get better. 

The rise in social spending for healthcare, public aid programs seems to = the rise in drug addictions, drug related violence, and drug trafficing (among other kinds of trafficing).

jmho

[WhiskeyGirl]

H1N1 political 'hype' in the U.S.?

I keep reading and hearing in the U.S. media that the H1N1 flu will affect more young folks and children, than older Americans.  This is contrary to other flu's that I've read about. 

Sorry, not enough vaccine to go around.  Those determined to be LESS affected by the Obama administration go to back of line.  Those less affected?  Older Americans.  Does this mean anyone over say 45?

What is the foreign press reporting?

Pregnant women, people who have existing health problems, such as diabetes, respiratory, heart and renal disease need to take extra care and consult their doctor if they experience flu-like symptoms,'' Dr Chant said.

"Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 influenza and seasonal flu can also occasionally affect people who have previously been fit and well, so it is important that everyone continues to be vigilant.

"Anyone who has moderate to severe symptoms of influenza or if their condition deteriorates should seek immediate medical assistance.''

Testing is no longer routinely recommended except for patients in hospital and in circumstances where it may change clinical management.

read more here - http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25853134-12377,00.html

[WhiskeyGirl]

Don't panic, H1N1 flu akin to seasonal flu: NIV

PUNE: Scientists at the National Institute of Virology (NIV) on Wednesday sought to allay fears about the H1N1 flu in India, saying the virus strain  in the country was "fairly mild" at this stage and that the clinical severity of the flu was akin to that of a seasonal flu.

Chadha said the H1N1 flu was "self-resolving" and "self-limiting" and that there was no need to panic. "The virus is nowhere near as dangerous as the H5N1 avian flu strain that has caused scientists so much concern in the past decade," she added.

read more here - http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Dont-panic-H1N1-flu-akin-to-seasonal-flu-NIV/articleshow/4836000.cms

[WhiskeyGirl]

Is there a vaccine shortage?  A failure to plan ahead?

As exclusively revealed in Irish Medical Times last month, the HSE has also identified the location, logistics and staffing required to set up 121 ‘flu clinics’ across the country to provide diagnostic services and antiviral dispensing during the peak weeks of a H1N1 pandemic.

The Executive is currently finalising the protocol for their use and working through the logistics of staffing them on a 12-hour day, seven days per week basis. The Executive had already indicated that it would purchase 8.5 million pandemic vaccines at an indicative cost of E80 million. It has now agreed to purchase 7.7 million doses. Due to the declaration of a pandemic scenario, the process was completed by direct solicitation of proposals from all potential suppliers.

I wonder how much they paid for 7.7 million doses, compared to what the U.S. government will pay?

http://www.imt.ie/news/2009/07/hse_signs_88m_deal_for_flu_vac.html

[crazybabyborg]

Just as I expected, the Blue dogs barked, but allowed themselves to be split and have compromised. There will be a healthcare bill passed this year. What version and how watered down it will be, remains to be seen.

The part in Soylent Green that came to mind, for me, was the part where Edgar G. Robinson went into a "movie theater" where he laid on a gurney and was able to watch a film of beautiful nature as he was given a lethal IV. After death, he was rolled out to be processed.

He was a Senior, and so was expected to just move on.  He wasn't worthy of care.

At the core of both this scene in the movie, and our current proposed healthcare, is one question:

WHAT VALUE DO WE PLACE ON INDIVIDUAL LIFE?

I believe that acceptance of partial birth abortions, and entertainment of restricting care by age formulas, are one in the same. I'm aghast that we will administer both as a national policy; we will administer both, as Americans. We are looking at the innocents among us, and assessing their ability to have voice. Our response to their vulnerability is to select them to be dispensable. It's not just passive apathy, but dispensation at our hand. We'll never wash the blood off of them.

There have been thousands upon thousands of our best and brave young men and women that have died to protect our lofty principles and freedoms. They have stood and fallen to protect the value of God given individual life from those who did not, and the belief was so ingrained in Americans that it applied across this planet. No one had to explain to us that Hitler's world view and his purpose of targeting a sect of people as dispensable, was unimaginable. Hitler first had to silence them, because he knew if their voice was heard, there would be an outcry and an answer.

We are choosing to work with nature's progression of life's stages. We are smarter, just as insidious, and more cunning, IMO. Who hears the faint cry of newborns and the weakened cry of the elderly? Stripping their value is easy. We do not honor their potential or their sacrifices for us.

How can we see the World Trade Center horror and not see the ugliness of this path? How can we see children being trained to wear bomb filled vests, and not know at the core of all that is good, all that is hopeful, all that is love, is the preciousness of the gift of life?  How can we look at life itself and not know that it's the one thing we cannot create. Life is a gift that we cannot create, but we can protect, and honor, and value it. It's our choice, and I pray we don't take that choice lightly. I believe that choice has eternal significance, and defines who we are.

JMO.

[SteveDinMD]

The public plan, the CBO, and other estimates...

Where are the efforts to collect from those that currently do not pay for healthcare?  The illegal immigrants in the ER?  I noted that there was some language that seemed to suggest to me that there would be reductions in reimbursement rates due to the decline in uncompensated care, including the ER.  If illegal immigrants aren't covered in the public plan, how are these costs going to be reduced?

The truth is that illegal alien health care is among the largest -- and fastest growing -- cost components imposed on U.S. health care.   These costs are currently being absorbed as overhead by health care providers -- especially hospitals -- with those costs being apportioned among all those paying for service, especially private pay patients, thus significantly increasing costs to U.S. citizens.  The Obama Administration is now seeking to implicitly have taxpayers absorb these costs, using the alleged need for doing so as a major justification for socialized medicine.  This reasoning is flawed, and I believe intentionally so.  I say this because it would be extraordinarily easy to completely eliminate these costs without any legislation significantly modifying how health care services are delivered in this country.  Moreover, this can be done without denying lifesaving treatment to anyone, and without any need to embark upon a massive program to  identify and deport illegals. 

The solution to the problem is to use import duties to finance the cost of treating all aliens, legal and illegal alike.  How would this be done?  It could be accomplished by requiring all health care providers to obtain proof of identity (and implicitly of citizenship) for each patient prior to treating him/her, or otherwise forgo any government reimbursement for services rendered.  With the nationality of each patient thus established, health care providers would simply submit their billing for each patient not otherwise financially provided for to a new bureau of the Dept. of Health and Human Services established for this purpose.  Who would pay?  The "Alien Health Services Bureau" would reimburse providers from funds collected through imposition of a special Health surtax applied to the tariff schedule for imports from each country.  Ideally, the surtax would differ from country to country, reflecting differences in the extent to which their citizens impose costs on the U.S. health care system and differences in the level of trade between each country and the U.S..  How would each tariff rate be determined?  There are many ways this could be done.  The simplest mechanism would be to by law set the health care tariff rate for each country to that designed to yield, say, 110% of actual health care costs for treating its nationals for the previous fiscal year. 

Under this plan, the cost to U.S. persons of treating aliens would drop to near ZERO almost immediately, lifting a tremendous financial burden from the shoulders of U.S. medical consumers and taxpayers.  The reason this is NOT being considered, I believe, is because the Obama Administration does NOT wish to address the few, individual market inefficiencies extant in U.S. health care.  Rather, they would prefer to avoid fixing problems, thus exacerbating them, with the intention of eventually compelling a government take-over of the entire health care sector of the U.S. economy.  Since it is an established fact that it is a complete impossibility for government to improve quality of care, to reduce cost of service, or to increase efficiency and/or dispatch of service delivery, the only cogent reason for embarking upon such course would be in pursuit of private political and/or economic gain at the expense of the public good, which all good citizens should resist to the utmost. 

[crazybabyborg]

The public plan, the CBO, and other estimates...

Where are the efforts to collect from those that currently do not pay for healthcare?  The illegal immigrants in the ER?  I noted that there was some language that seemed to suggest to me that there would be reductions in reimbursement rates due to the decline in uncompensated care, including the ER.  If illegal immigrants aren't covered in the public plan, how are these costs going to be reduced?

The truth is that illegal alien health care is among the largest -- and fastest growing -- cost components imposed on U.S. health care.   These costs are currently being absorbed as overhead by health care providers -- especially hospitals -- with those costs being apportioned among all those paying for service, especially private pay patients, thus significantly increasing costs to U.S. citizens.  The Obama Administration is now seeking to implicitly have taxpayers absorb these costs, using the alleged need for doing so as a major justification for socialized medicine.  This reasoning is flawed, and I believe intentionally so.  I say this because it would be extraordinarily easy to completely eliminate these costs without any legislation significantly modifying how health care services are delivered in this country.  Moreover, this can be done without denying lifesaving treatment to anyone, and without any need to embark upon a massive program to  identify and deport illegals. 

The solution to the problem is to use import duties to finance the cost of treating all aliens, legal and illegal alike.  How would this be done?  It could be accomplished by requiring all health care providers to obtain proof of identity (and implicitly of citizenship) for each patient prior to treating him/her, or otherwise forgo any government reimbursement for services rendered.  With the nationality of each patient thus established, health care providers would simply submit their billing for each patient not otherwise financially provided for to a new bureau of the Dept. of Health and Human Services established for this purpose.  Who would pay?  The "Alien Health Services Bureau" would reimburse providers from funds collected through imposition of a special Health surtax applied to the tariff schedule for imports from each country.  Ideally, the surtax would differ from country to country, reflecting differences in the extent to which their citizens impose costs on the U.S. health care system and differences in the level of trade between each country and the U.S..  How would each tariff rate be determined?  There are many ways this could be done.  The simplest mechanism would be to by law set the health care tariff rate for each country to that designed to yield, say, 110% of actual health care costs for treating its nationals for the previous fiscal year. 

Under this plan, the cost to U.S. persons of treating aliens would drop to near ZERO almost immediately, lifting a tremendous financial burden from the shoulders of U.S. medical consumers and taxpayers.  The reason this is NOT being considered, I believe, is because the Obama Administration does NOT wish to address the few, individual market inefficiencies extant in U.S. health care.  Rather, they would prefer to avoid fixing problems, thus exacerbating them, with the intention of eventually compelling a government take-over of the entire health care sector of the U.S. economy.  Since it is an established fact that it is a complete impossibility for government to improve quality of care, to reduce cost of service, or to increase efficiency and/or dispatch of service delivery, the only cogent reason for embarking upon such course would be in pursuit of private political and/or economic gain at the expense of the public good, which all good citizens should resist to the utmost. 

SteveDinMD? That's an excellent post and a much better thought out approach to our healthcare needs than what is currently on the table. Would you mind if I passed it along to others? I won't without your permission, but I am writing to particular members of congress, and actually was able to arrange a meeting, along with other providers in my area, with one while he's home on vacation. I'd love to pass your ideas on to him.

Thanks!

[SteveDinMD]

The public plan, the CBO, and other estimates...

Where are the efforts to collect from those that currently do not pay for healthcare?  The illegal immigrants in the ER?  I noted that there was some language that seemed to suggest to me that there would be reductions in reimbursement rates due to the decline in uncompensated care, including the ER.  If illegal immigrants aren't covered in the public plan, how are these costs going to be reduced?

The truth is that illegal alien health care is among the largest -- and fastest growing -- cost components imposed on U.S. health care.   These costs are currently being absorbed as overhead by health care providers -- especially hospitals -- with those costs being apportioned among all those paying for service, especially private pay patients, thus significantly increasing costs to U.S. citizens.  The Obama Administration is now seeking to implicitly have taxpayers absorb these costs, using the alleged need for doing so as a major justification for socialized medicine.  This reasoning is flawed, and I believe intentionally so.  I say this because it would be extraordinarily easy to completely eliminate these costs without any legislation significantly modifying how health care services are delivered in this country.  Moreover, this can be done without denying lifesaving treatment to anyone, and without any need to embark upon a massive program to  identify and deport illegals. 

The solution to the problem is to use import duties to finance the cost of treating all aliens, legal and illegal alike.  How would this be done?  It could be accomplished by requiring all health care providers to obtain proof of identity (and implicitly of citizenship) for each patient prior to treating him/her, or otherwise forgo any government reimbursement for services rendered.  With the nationality of each patient thus established, health care providers would simply submit their billing for each patient not otherwise financially provided for to a new bureau of the Dept. of Health and Human Services established for this purpose.  Who would pay?  The "Alien Health Services Bureau" would reimburse providers from funds collected through imposition of a special Health surtax applied to the tariff schedule for imports from each country.  Ideally, the surtax would differ from country to country, reflecting differences in the extent to which their citizens impose costs on the U.S. health care system and differences in the level of trade between each country and the U.S..  How would each tariff rate be determined?  There are many ways this could be done.  The simplest mechanism would be to by law set the health care tariff rate for each country to that designed to yield, say, 110% of actual health care costs for treating its nationals for the previous fiscal year. 

Under this plan, the cost to U.S. persons of treating aliens would drop to near ZERO almost immediately, lifting a tremendous financial burden from the shoulders of U.S. medical consumers and taxpayers.  The reason this is NOT being considered, I believe, is because the Obama Administration does NOT wish to address the few, individual market inefficiencies extant in U.S. health care.  Rather, they would prefer to avoid fixing problems, thus exacerbating them, with the intention of eventually compelling a government take-over of the entire health care sector of the U.S. economy.  Since it is an established fact that it is a complete impossibility for government to improve quality of care, to reduce cost of service, or to increase efficiency and/or dispatch of service delivery, the only cogent reason for embarking upon such course would be in pursuit of private political and/or economic gain at the expense of the public good, which all good citizens should resist to the utmost. 

SteveDinMD? That's an excellent post and a much better thought out approach to our healthcare needs than what is currently on the table. Would you mind if I passed it along to others? I won't without your permission, but I am writing to particular members of congress, and actually was able to arrange a meeting, along with other providers in my area, with one while he's home on vacation. I'd love to pass your ideas on to him.

Thanks!

CBB:  You may pass on any information or suggestions of mine that you think might be of help. 

[WhiskeyGirl]

Soros Funded Blog Attempts to Malign Opposition to Obamacare

Kurt Nimmo
Prison Planet.com
Tuesday, August 4, 2009

In a desperate response to a growing grassroots movement in staunch opposition to Obamacare, ThinkProgress has interviewed Sen. Dick Durbin, the Illinois Democrat who sits on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies.

ThinkProgress is a “progressive” blog run by the former Clintonite John Podesta and the Center for American Progress. CAP is not only stocked with the usual assortment of globalist Democrats, including Tom Daschle — who is Obama’s “health care czar” — and the wife of John Edwards, but it received “seed money” from the globalist financier George Soros.

“ThinkProgress reported today on the growing number of angry right-wing activists viciously harassing Democratic, as well as moderate Republican, members of Congress on health care reform,” writes Lee Fang. According to ThinkSoros collaborator Jonathan Corn, this “angry right-wing” tactic is spawned by the insurance industry and will exploit Congress’ August recess to unleash “staff members to over 30 states to ‘confront’ lawmakers about health care reform.”

“These health insurance companies and people like them are trying to load these town halls for visual impact on television,” Durbin told ThinkSoros. “They want to show thousands of people screaming ‘socialism’ and try to overcome the public sentiment which now favors health care reform. That’s almost like flooding the switchboards on Capitol Hill. It doesn’t prove much other than the switchboards have limited capacity. So, we need to have a much more balanced approach that really allows members of Congress to hear both sides of the story, rather than being sucker-punched or side-tracked by these types of tactics.”

read more here - http://www.prisonplanet.com/soros-funded-blog-attempts-to-malign-opposition-to-obamacare.html

I think 'open society' is globalism gone mad.  Why should Americans (and future generatiosn) pay for the healthcare tab of the globe?  Of every person that comes here illegally and goes to an ER?  Is that sustainable?

Large insurance companies can get out of the healthcare market.  Many have over the past twenty or thirty years. 

Who will profit from the contracts the Obama administration awards to manage the highly subsidized government option?  A subsidy not available to private insurance companies?

I seem to recall Goldman Sachs has a new interest in a Texas insurance company that plans to sell the government options.  Goldman won't take on any risk, only 'fees'.

Insurance reform is stacking the deck against the good insurance and risk sharing many Americans enjoy.

The public plan promises 'free' wellness care to some, while others, like those on Medicare, get less, and will continue to pay high deductibles and co-insurance.

Is that reform?  Is that progress?

Why shouldn't all Americans pay the high deductibles and co-insurance that Medicare folks already pay?  Share the risk and rewards?

[crazybabyborg]

I'm getting very tired of people who feel they don't have a voice being labeled as "angry right winged activist's mob".

I wonder what a "fishy" e-mail is? I wonder why the White House wants to be alerted to them and what they plan to do with that information.

I wonder what the White House called the civil rights movement, and the marches.

I wonder if they get, in hindsight, that those people felt they didn't have a voice to right a wrong?

[WhiskeyGirl]

I'm getting very tired of people who feel they don't have a voice being labeled as "angry right winged activist's mob".

I wonder what a "fishy" e-mail is? I wonder why the White House wants to be alerted to them and what they plan to do with that information.

I wonder what the White House called the civil rights movement, and the marches.

I wonder if they get, in hindsight, that those people felt they didn't have a voice to right a wrong?

I recall during the campaign season, many stories about think tanks that researched how rumor and misinformation spread on the internet.  Some folks interviewed spent years studying this stuff.  It's not just the back porch gossip that kills, it's the email chain. 

These folks were linked to the Obama campaign...smart people paid to think and study.

Perhaps the Obama administration doesn't understand the anger and response and thinks there is some sinister emails going around that they are not included in.

Don't they understand grassroots organization?

Or, perhaps they think these folks are planted because that would be out of their playbook?   I received a variety of Obama emails during the campaign and they weren't all pretty.  Much like the verbal smears against Sarah Palin - "You know she has a +++++ don't you?"  And, that matters because?

I think intimidation is also part of the plan.  Scare people.  Intimidate people. 

What's next?  Cards for signature ( like the card check bill) and thugs stopping by every home in America encouraging you to signup today?  Subtle intimidation?