http://www.heritage.org/ImpactOfObamacare
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Video Description - quote:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7MSRtsafG0
Obamacare’s Impact on Seniors
HeritageFoundation
Uploaded by HeritageFoundation on Jan 23, 2012
Like most seniors, Ann Lorenz relies on Medicare as she copes with serious health care challenges, including Parkinson’s Disease. Ann sees a number of doctors and depends on a variety of prescription drugs and therapies to stay independent. She worries that Obamacare threatens her access to doctors, treatment options and insurance plans — and her neurologist shares her concerns.
Learn more about the effects of Obamacare at www.heritage.org/ImpactOfObamacare.
Category:
News & Politics
Tags:
Impact of Obamacare Seniors FINAL
License:
Standard YouTube License
NOTE The following post is a quote:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2837978/posts
Brick Walls (Death Panels are already here)
wolfhirschhorn.org ^ | January 12, 2012 | CRivera75
Posted on January 25, 2012 9:09:53 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
I am going to try and tell you what happened to us on January 10, 2012, in the conference room in the Nephrology department at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
We arrived for our regular Nephrology visit with Amelia’s doctor who has seen her for the last three years. She examines Amelia and sends us for labs. I ask about the transplant and she says we have about six months to a year until she needs one. She tells us she reserved the conference room and when we get back from labs, we can meet with the transplant team and he can tell us about the transplant process.
After the labs, Amelia falls asleep in her stroller and we are called back to a large room with a screen and about sixteen chairs. Joe and I get comfortable and leave a space between us to fit the stroller. After about five minutes, a doctor and a social worker enter the room. They sit across from us but also leave a space between the two of them.
The doctor begins to talk and I listen intently on what he is saying. He has a Peruvian accent and is small, with brown hair, a mustache and is about sixty five years old. He gets about four sentences out ( I think it is an introduction) and places two sheets of paper on the table. I can’t take my eyes off the paper. I am afraid to look over at Joe because I suddenly know where the conversation is headed. In the middle of both papers, he highlighted in pink two phrases. Paper number one has the words, “Mentally Retarded” in cotton candy pink right under Hepatitis C. Paper number two has the phrase, “Brain Damage” in the same pink right under HIV. I remind myself to focus and look back at the doctor. I am still smiling.
He says about three more sentences when something sparks in my brain. First it is hazy, foggy, like I am swimming under water. I actually shake my head a little to clear it. And then my brain focuses on what he just said.
I put my hand up. “Stop talking for a minute. Did you just say that Amelia shouldn’t have the transplant done because she is mentally retarded. I am confused. Did you really just say that?”
The tears. Oh, the damn tears. Where did they come from? Niagara Falls. All at once. There was no warning. I couldn’t stop them. There were no tissues in conference room so I use my sleeve and my hands and I keep wiping telling myself to stop it.
I point to the paper and he lets me rant a minute. I can’t stop pointing to the paper. “This phrase. This word. This is why she can’t have the transplant done.”
“Yes.”
I begin to shake. My whole body trembles and he begins to tell me how she will never be able to get on the waiting list because she is mentally retarded.
A bit of hope. I sit up and get excited.
“Oh, that’s ok! We plan on donating. If we aren’t a match, we come from a large family and someone will donate. We don’t want to be on the list. We will find our own donor.”
“Noooo. She—is—not—eligible –because—of—her—quality– of –life—Because—of—her—mental—delays” He says each word very slowly as if I am hard of hearing.
“STOP IT NOW!” The anger is taking over. Thank God. Why did it take so long to get here?
The social worker is writing some things down. Not sure what. She casually gets up to take a call. My eyes follow her to the phone and I see Joe’s face. His mouth is open, his face is pale and he is staring straight ahead of him at the white board.
Rage fills the room. I point in his little, brown pudgy face. “Do not talk about her quality of life. You have no idea what she is like. We have crossed many, many road blocks with Amelia and this is just one more. So, you don’t agree she should have it done? Fine. But tell me who I talk to next because SHE WILL HAVE IT DONE AND IT WILL BE AT CHOP.”
I see the social worker quickly writing down what I just said. Joe hasn’t moved. Amelia is still asleep.
The social worker decides to join the conversation. “Well, you know a transplant is not forever. She will need another one in twelve years. And then what? And do you have any idea of the medications she will need to take to keep her healthy?”
I speak through gritted together. “YES, I HAVE DONE ALL MY RESEARCH.”
She smirks a little. “Well, what happens when she is thirty and neither of you are around to take care of her. What happens to her then? Who will make sure she takes her medications then?”
In a voice that mimics hers, I snort, “Well, what happens if you die tomorrow? Who will take care of your children? Your responsibilities at work?” She breathes in and her eyes widens. “Right!” I throw at her. “Neither of us can predict the future and we shouldn’t try. But if Amelia does not have this transplant she has no future!”
The doctor interrupts. He puts his hands up and tries to take a stern voice with me. “These medications she has to take after the transplant, they are very dangerous. They can cause seizures. We have to get the dose exact. They may cause brain damage.”
“DO OTHER CHIILDREN WHO HAVE A TRANSPLANT TAKE THIS MEDICATION?”
“Yes, but it is different for her. She is already brain damaged and mentally retarded.”
He pauses as if he is choosing his words carefully. “I have been warned about you. About how involved you and your famliy are with Amelia.”
The devil himself could not have produced a more evil laugh. “Ha! Warned! That is funny! You have no idea…”
I am beginning to realize I want this over with so I can move onto the next person who will help me with the transplant. So I say the words and ask the questions I have been avoiding.
“So you mean to tell me that as a doctor, you are not recommending the transplant, and when her kidneys fail in six months to a year, you want me to let her die because she is mentally retarded? There is no other medical reason for her not to have this transplant other than she is MENTALLY RETARDED!”
“Yes. This is hard for me, you know.”
My eyes burn through his soul as if I could set him on fire right there. “Ok, so now what? This is not acceptable to me. Who do I talk to next?”
“I will take this back to the team. We meet once a month. I will tell them I do not recommend Amelia for a transplant because she is mentally retarded and we will vote.”
“And then who do I see?”
“Well, you can then take it the ethics committee but as a team we have the final say. Feel free to go somewhere else. But it won’t be done here.”
They both get up and leave the room.
I look at Joe who is sobbing trying to get the stroller and Amelia’s backpack. I break down with him before we head to the parking garage.
I hope you are disturbed, troubled, distressed, and pissed off when you read this. I hope you share it with many, many people. Although I did not know this yesterday, this is very common and happens across the map. I have researched and researched and researched transplants and the MR, as they are called in the medical journals, and it is appalling. We are in the year 2012 and my child still does not have the right to live, the right to a transplant, because she is developmentally delayed.
NOTE The following post is a quote:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2859310/posts
New Guidelines Advise Less Frequent Pap Smears (Obama’s war on women and rationed healthcare)
ny times ^ | 3/14/2012 | By TARA PARKER-POPE
Posted on March 15, 2012 3:24:14 AM PDT by tobyhill
The annual Pap smear, a cornerstone of women’s health for at least 60 years, is now officially a thing of the past, as new national guidelines recommend cervical cancer screening no more often than every three years.
In recent years, some doctors and medical groups, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in 2009, began urging less frequent screening for cervical cancer. Even so, annual Pap smear testing is still common because many women are reluctant to give up frequent screening for cervical cancer.
The new guidelines, issued on Wednesday by the United States Preventive Services Task Force, replace recommendations last issued in 2003 and use more decisive language to advise women to undergo screening less often. Other groups, including the American Cancer Society, released similar recommendations on Wednesday. The new guidelines were published in Annals of Internal Medicine.
(Excerpt) Read more at well.blogs.nytimes.com ...
http://freebeacon.com/the-tricare-follies/
“THE TRICARE TWIST
PENTAGON TO PAY NEW CONTRACTOR $200 MILLION MORE WHILE UPPING FEES FOR MILITARY RETIREES”
BY: Bill Gertz - March 19, 2012 5:00 am
SNIPPET: “House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon has been an outspoken critic of a Pentagon plan to sharply increase fees for Tricare, calling the plan another “hit” on the military by the Obama administration, which is cutting $487 billion in defense spending over 10 years and may cut an additional $600 billion under congressional budget-cutting legislation.”
SNIPPET: “The Pentagon’s plan to cut Tricare benefits, which must be approved by Congress, is based on what defense officials have said is skyrocketing costs for military healthcare.”
SNIPPET: “Republican congressional aides noted that Pentagon officials said during briefings last month on the health care cuts that one objective of the increases was to move military retirees from Tricare to Obamacare, the new nationalized healthcare system.”
Note: Video included at link.
“Congresswoman: We’re Not ‘Promoting Sterilization’ of College Girls, We’re Just Making It Free”
By Elizabeth Harrington
March 19, 2012
SNIPPET: “(CNSNews.com) – Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D.-Ill.), a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee which has oversight over the Affordable Care Act (AKA “Obamacare”), said Monday that a new Obamacare regulation announced on Friday afternoon that requires all student health insurance plans to offer college women free sterilizations does not mean the government is “promoting sterilization.””
“Obamacare rationing panels an ‘immediate danger to seniors’: former AMA president”
BY KATHLEEN GILBERT
Thu Mar 22, 2012 14:05 EST
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http://www.lifesite.net/tag/obamacare
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http://heritageaction.com/2012/03/letter-to-speaker-boehner-and-leader-cantor-dont-muddy-the-water/
“Letter to Speaker Boehner and Leader Cantor ‘Don’t Muddy the Water’”
March 16, 2012 by heritageaction
SNIPPET: “Dear Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader Cantor:
We understand the House of Representatives is scheduled next week to consider legislation–the Medicare Decisions Accountability Act (H.R.452)–to repeal Obamacare’s Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), and we write to express our concerns with this strategy.
IPAB is an unelected and unaccountable board of 15 bureaucrats empowered to set Medicare reimbursement rates in order to control costs, and it will mean rationed health care for our nation’s senior citizens. To be clear, we adamantly support its repeal. However, we are gravely concerned that IPAB alone is being proposed for repeal and not part of a full repeal of Obamacare.
This legislation is part of a troubling trend to break off the worst portions of Obamacare for individual votes, which muddies the water in this election year between those who are adamantly opposed to Obamacare and those who want to see its implementation.
This approach is misguided at this point in our nation’s national dialogue. The entirety of Obamacare is both terrible policy and politically unpopular.
Poll after poll reveal the American people’s fundamental recognition that Obamacare is unconstitutional and will increase their premiums, lead to rationed care, and insert the federal government into their most personal medical decisions.
We cannot allow the idea to take root that the worst parts of Obamacare can somehow be “removed” when in fact the entire law must be rescinded.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304724404577289363234579868.html
Opinion
“ObamaCare’s Costs Are Soaring”
By RON JOHNSON
Updated March 21, 2012
SNIPPET: “One year after the passage of ObamaCare, this paper published an op-ed I wrote (”ObamaCare and Carey’s Heart”) about how America’s health-care system saved my daughter’s life, and describing how implementing this law will limit innovation, lead to rationing, and lower the quality of care. Now, two years out, I would like to focus on the budgetary disaster.
As a candidate, Barack Obama repeatedly claimed that his health-care plan would lower annual family health-insurance premiums by $2,500 before the end of his first term as president. But the Kaiser Family Foundation recently reported that the average family premium has increased $2,200 since the start of this administration.
Then there is the higher cost to taxpayers.”
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/study-obamas-health-care-law-would-raise-deficit-0
“Study: Obama’s Health Care Law Would Raise Deficit”
By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR, Associated Press
April 10, 2012
SNIPPET: “WASHINGTON (AP) — Reigniting a debate about the bottom line for President Barack Obama’s health care law, a leading conservative economist estimates in a study to be released Tuesday that the overhaul will add at least $340 billion to the deficit, not reduce it.
Charles Blahous, who serves as public trustee overseeing Medicare and Social Security finances, also suggested that federal accounting practices have obscured the true fiscal impact of the legislation, the fate of which is now in the hands of the Supreme Court.”
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/medicare-faces-unfunded-liability-386t-or-328404-each-us-household
“Medicare Faces Unfunded Liability of $38.6T, or $328,404 for Each U.S. Household”
By Christopher Goins
April 23, 2012
SNIPPET: “(CNSNews.com) – Medicare faces an unfunded liability of $38.6 trillion, according to the Medicare Trustees report released Monday.
The unfunded liability is the amount that has been promised in benefits to people now alive that will not be funded by the tax revenue the system is expected to take in to pay for those benefits. (The Medicare Trustees calculate the unfunded liability for a period of 75 years into the future.)
The $38.6 trillion in unfunded benefits Medicare is expected to pay over the next 75 years equals $328,404.43 for each of the 117,538,000 households the Census Bureau said there were in the United States in 2010.”
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/71-percent-top-companies-could-drop-insurance-under-obamacare
“71 Percent of Top Companies Could Drop Insurance Under Obamacare”
By Matt Cover
May 3, 2012
SNIPPET: “(CNSNews.com) – A report from the House Ways and Means Committee finds that 71 of the nation’s top 100 companies would find it far more economical to drop their health care plans and simply pay the penalty for not complying with the Obamacare employer insurance mandate.
The report, published May 1, surveyed 71 of the 100 companies in the Fortune 100 list of large corporations and finds that all of them would save considerable amounts of money by dropping their health care coverage instead of complying with the Obamacare insurance mandate.”
http://www.nationalreview.com/human-exceptionalism/341402/death-panel-advocacy-ithis-weeki
“Human Exceptionalism
Life and dignity with Wesley J. Smith.”
“Death Panel Advocacy on This Week”
By Wesley J. Smith
February 24, 2013 12:05 P.M.
SNIPPET: “Liberals screamed when Sarah Palin warned about “death panels” during the run up to the passage of Obamacare. But many really want health care rationing based on invidious methods of medical discrimination–as I have repeatedly reported here. I was just watching This Week and Steve Rattner–former adviser to Obama Treasury Dept. who has written in favor of death panels–alluded to them again. In a discussion on medical spending and cost control, he said (my transcription:)
Rattner: Here is a small question for the country…Right now most Americans do not see price in deciding whether to use healthcare…When people go on Medicare, they really don’t see price, they tend to consume more than they otherwise would. Twenty-six percent of all Medicare spending is last year of life. We don’t know how much of that is really efficacious spending. These are really tough moral questions for the country but we are going to have to deal with them.
Kimberly Strassel of the Wall Street Journal caught the reference:
Strassel: What you are getting to though is the fundamental question: Are you going to let consumers make those choices about end of life decisions, or are you going to have Medicare make a decision about what procedures you can have and how much they will pay, and government make those choices. That’s the moral question.”
The Brief - Copy - Link:
http://www.lc.org/media/9980/attachments/brief_opening_supplemental_sc_obamacare_022713.pdf
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http://www.lc.org/index.cfm?PID=14102&AlertID=1559
February 27, 2013
“Liberty Counsel Files Appellate Brief in the Most Comprehensive Challenge Pending to ObamaCare”
www.LC.org
SNIPPET: “Following the Supreme Court’s directive to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Virginia regarding ObamaCare, Liberty Counsel today filed its brief in the case of Liberty University v. Geithner. Liberty Counsel represents Liberty University and two private individuals in this case.
While there are other legal challenges to the employer contraceptive/abortifacient mandate, Liberty Counsel’s challenge is the most comprehensive challenge pending in the country.”
www.cms.gov/Medicare/Health-Plans/MedicareAdvtgSpecRateStats/Downloads/Advance2014.pdf
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http://cnsnews.com/news/article/obama-administration-plans-cut-medicare-advantage-reimbursements
“Obama Administration Plans to Cut Medicare Advantage Reimbursements”
March 14, 2013
By Matt Cover
SNIPPET: “(CNSNews.com) – The Obama administration is planning new cuts to Medicare, a federal regulatory filing reveals, cuts that could mean higher premiums or seniors losing their coverage altogether.
The new cuts come in the form of a planned reduction in the reimbursement rates the government pays to insurance companies that operate Medicare Advantage plans, which are services administered by private for-profit or non-profit providers that offer additional services than can be found in traditional Medicare.
In a Feb. 15 regulatory filing, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced the surprised rate cuts of 2.3 percent – meaning it would pay health care providers 2.3 percent less for providing services to patients.”