Posted on 02/17/2010 10:06:23 AM PST by BobMcCartyWrites
Remember back in June 2009 when Jane Sturm asked President Barack Obama if his health care reform plans would allow spirit-based exceptions to be made for people like her 100-year-old mother? In dodging a direct answer, the president replied, "“I don’t think that we can make judgments based on peoples’ spirit," and added, "Maybe you're better off not having the surgery but taking a pain pill." Here's the video of that moment.
Today, Reason.TV published a new video, "Will The Feds Ban Pain Meds?" about a man who suffers from chronic pain that prevents him from sleeping more than a few hours at a time -- the result of injuries caused by a homeless man who pushed him off his bicycle. Starring Scott Gardner, it explains why pain meds are so popular and necessary.
Interesting video. I didn’t know that there was a possibility of having pain killers banned! This would be doubly cruel on top of Obamacare! But, I guess that’s how Oligarchy’s operate.
Rename, repackage, rewrite it a tad smaller, and sell another pig in a poke.
Tennessee has joined several other states in trying to pass a Health Care Freedom Act. NO COLAs for granny, retired Military or retired fed employees. BIG NEW fees for Tricare for Life retired over 65 Military's secondary health ins. (DOD bill already passed, delayed but goes into effect 2011)
New Dem mantra: Woof, woof eat dog food granny....ala let them eat cake.
TRI CARE FOR LIFE This from a google search:
http://economicspolitics.blogspot.com/2009/05/tricare-for-life-is-obama-trying-to.html
This option would help reduce the costs of TFL, as well as costs for Medicare, by introducing minimum out-of pocket requirements for beneficiaries. Under this option, TFL would not cover any of the first $525 of an enrollee’s cost-sharing liabilities for calendar year 2011 and would limit coverage to 50 percent of the next $4,725 in Medicare cost sharing that the beneficiary incurred. (Because all further cost sharing would be covered by TFL, enrollees could not pay more than $2,888 in cost sharing in that year.)
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/99xx/doc9925/12-18-HealthOptions.pdf
http://www.vawatchdog.org/09/hcva09/hcva110609-1.htm
Bill Would Restrict Veterans’ Health Care Options 11/06/09
Buyer and McKeon Offer Amendments to Protect Veterans and TRICARE Beneficiaries
Congress plans to block Tricare fee increases
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/10/military_tricarefees_blocked_100709w
By Rick Maze - Staff writer, Oct 7, 2009
Tricare fee increases imposed last week by the Defense Department will be repealed by a provision of the compromise 2010 defense authorization bill unveiled Wednesday by House and Senate negotiators.
Snip
The fee increases were announced on Sept. 30 and took effect on Oct. 1, but the defense bill, HR 2647, includes a provision barring any fee increases until the start of fiscal 2011.
Snip
Retired Army Maj. Gen. Bill Matz, president of the National Association for Uniformed Services, said the announcement of fee increases was shocking considering that the Obama administration promised earlier this year to hold off on any new fee Tricare fee increases until fiscal 2011.
“President Obama and DoD assured NAUS and the entire military family earlier this year that there would rightly be no increases in any Tricare fees” in fiscal 2010, Matz said. “We took them at their word, and I can’t believe that a co-pay increase like this was allowed to go forward,” he added.
Bambi doesn't keep his promises...so buyer beware.
Opioid pain meds are available without acetaminophen and it doesn't appear that they are trying to ban them. Don't see an issue here.
What I want to know is how is it possible for so many pain pills to end up on the black market? Sure there’s some theft, but I can’t see how that can come even close to accounting all of them.
This is not a statement for or against laws prohibiting heroin or marijuana. But a bi-product of that prohibition has been a kind of zealotry affecting both average doctors and their patients. Every medical practice is regularly audited to prove they are not dispensing "too many" prescriptions, and it is a testimony to the fortress apolitical attitude of doctors that they allow themselves to practice their trade in an atmosphere of fear.
It has long been known that patients able to control their intake of pain medication tend to dial down that dose to a level they would not otherwise operate under, thus it is the fear of being without pain medication that leads to the "drug seeking behavior" the DEA is so zealous to monitor.
People in pain are being under-treated because of an unwise bureaucratic set of practices, and doctors generally allow themselves to be treated like crap by the government for a variety of reasons.
The creation of artificial opiates combined with OTC analgesics (e.g. vicodin, etc.) was a direct result of totally unsuccessful attempts to eradicate poppy cultivation. It is ironic that the nation we are now engaged in building in Afghanistan is, and apparently will continue to be, largely dependent on such production, an economic cash crop going on in full sight of our forces at work there today.
In rare cases, the use of hydrocodone compounds (water-soluble artificial codeine with acetaminophen) activates an autoimmune disorder that leads to irreversible deafness. Interestingly, for a time the majority of reports of this condition were coming from women living in San Diego. (Go figure!)
The stigma of being an addict, "wrongfully using" certain kinds of drugs is very real and unrelenting. It is misdirected anger on the part of the medical community aimed at the sufferers rather than the ass-hat policies and politics.
This is not about the addicts, but about those millions of people in unnecessary pain in the most productive society on Earth.
Beyond the fear on the part of patients about having their supply disrupted, there is the unnecessary fear of withdrawal. Compounds such as Suboxone-B are now being dispensed that terminate withdrawal symptoms while blocking the uptake of opiates. The days of the methadone clinics are numbered.
A policy that bans the production of the weakest artificial opiates would be dangerous, stupid and unnecessary. If the war on (some) drugs is to continue unabated then it ought at least to be modernized.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.