Thread by me.
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The Baucus health care "reform" bill that is quickly becoming the potential alternative to the Kennedy bill and HR 3200 includes abortion subsidies and mandates. Additional analysis also shows the legislation includes health care rationing that would cause problems for senior citizens.
Burke J. Balch, an attorney and the director of the medical ethics center at the National Right to Life Committee, has examined the entire bill.
He points to language on pages 80-81 regarding Medicare physician payments as a concern.
"Beginning in 2015, payment would be reduced by five percent if an aggregation of the physician's resource use is at or above the 90th percentile of national utilization," the Baucus bill says. "After five years, the Secretary would have the authority to convert the 90th percentile threshold for payment reductions to a standard measure of utilization, such as deviations from the national mean."
Balch says the language clearly makes it so doctors are pushed financially into provided less care for seniors by being urged to purchase cheaper medical tests and phase out costly treatments.
"The provision penalizing doctors establishes that for at least five years, Medicare physicians who authorize treatments for their patients that wind up in the top 10% of per capita cost for a year will lose 5% of their total Medicare reimbursements for that year," he explains to CBN News' David Brody.
"This means that all doctors treating older people will constantly be driven to try to order the least expensive tests and treatments for fear that they will be caught in that top 10%," Balch adds.
"Note that this feature operates independently of any considerations of quality, efficiency, or waste if you authorize enough treatment for your patients, however necessary and appropriate it may be, you are in danger of being one of the 1 in 10 doctors who will be penalized each year," Balch adds. "Moreover, it creates a moving target by definition, there will ALWAYS be a top 10%, no matter how far down the total amount of money spent on Medicare is driven." . . .
It is Friday evening. A bunch of freepers from the USA are together after attending Robert Schindler Sr.’s local memorial service in Gulfport, Fl. There was a lone cameraman there, the Priest who was at Terri’s Memorial before he was transferred, a bunch of their family, freepers and other Terri fighters. Pls ck terrisfight.org for a press release in case there is one. Fregards, FV
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Thread by cpforlife.org.
What's next, is Steele going to welcome gun control candidates into the party? Candidates advocating for higher taxes and spending?
In a September 3rd interview, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele told a surprised Columbus Dispatch reporter that he would lead the charge of pro-abortion GOP candidates if abortion is a value in their community. Columbus Dispatch Senior Editor Joe Hallett asked Steele "if there is room in the party for a pro-abortion rights candidate…"
Hallett quoted Steele's reply:
"There absolutely is, there absolutely is… The key thing right now-and I think this is true for Republicans across the country-is to have leadership that reflects the communities I live in, where we're from. As we get ready for the battles that lie ahead from this district to all the districts surrounding the state, that you're going to find those candidates emerge and rise up who reflect those values in those communities, and that's a very important step for the party to take, I think, and I'm looking forward to help lead that charge in the future."
There are two glaring problems with his statement. First, the official Republican Party Platform states: "We oppose using public revenues to promote or perform abortion and will not fund organizations which advocate it." Steele has thus flagrantly violated his own Party Platform by agreeing to fund the campaigns of GOP candidates who advocate abortion. . .