Blog:
http://politicsandfinance.blogspot.com/
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http://politicsandfinance.blogspot.com/2009/08/cash-for-clunkers-and-they-want-to-run.html
FRIDAY, AUGUST 21, 2009
“Cash For Clunkers: And They Want To Run Health Care?”
“Car Dealers Dropping The Cash For Clunkers Program”
SNIPPET: “The government is losing dealer participation in its’ much hyped cash for clunkers program due to several factors. One is the long and tedious application that needs to be filled out. One is the fact that if a clunker is not approved by the government and the dealer sold a new car against it, they have to eat the money with no explanation given for the rejection. And the most important reason is that the government is taking to damn long to reimburse the dealers for money that is owed to them.
This program, at approximately $3 billion, is extremely small by government standards, and relatively straight forward. Bring in a gas guzzler and buy a fuel efficient vehicle. Boom. Yet the government can’t seem to get it right. These dealers, already under great financial stress, are being asked by the Obama Administration to front money that is needed for the day to day operation of their business. Unlike the federal government, they can’t print new money, and without this cash flow some will not survive.”
http://www.facebook.com/sarahpalin?v=app_2347471856
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Note: The following text is a quote:
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=120607013434
Sarah Palin: No Health Care Reform Without Legal Reform
Sarah Palin’s Notes
No Health Care Reform Without Legal Reform
Today at 7:03am
President Obama’s health care “reform” plan has met with significant criticism across the country. Many Americans want change and reform in our current health care system. We recognize that while we have the greatest medical care in the world, there are major problems that we must face, especially in terms of reining in costs and allowing care to be affordable for all. However, as we have seen, current plans being pushed by the Democratic leadership represent change that may not be what we had in mind — change which poses serious ethical concerns over the government having control over our families’ health care decisions. In addition, the current plans greatly increase costs of health care, while doing lip service toward controlling costs.
We need to address a REAL bipartisan reform proposition that will have REAL impacts on costs and quality of patient care.
As Governor of Alaska, I learned a little bit about being a target for frivolous suits and complaints (Please, do I really need to footnote that?). I went my whole life without needing a lawyer on speed-dial, but all that changes when you become a target for opportunists and people with no scruples. Our nation’s health care providers have been the targets of similar opportunists for years, and they too have found themselves subjected to false, frivolous, and baseless claims. To quote a former president, “I feel your pain.”
So what can we do? First, we cannot have health care reform without tort reform. The two are intertwined. For example, one supposed justification for socialized medicine is the high cost of health care. As Dr. Scott Gottlieb recently noted, “If Mr. Obama is serious about lowering costs, he’ll need to reform the economic structures in medicine—especially programs like Medicare.” [1] Two examples of these “economic structures” are high malpractice insurance premiums foisted on physicians (and ultimately passed on to consumers as “high health care costs”) and the billions wasted on defensive medicine.
Dr. Stuart Weinstein, with the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, recently explained the problem:
”The medical liability crisis has had many unintended consequences, most notably a decrease in access to care in a growing number of states and an increase in healthcare costs.
Access is affected as physicians move their practices to states with lower liability rates and change their practice patterns to reduce or eliminate high-risk services. When one considers that half of all neurosurgeons—as well as one third of all orthopedic surgeons, one third of all emergency physicians, and one third of all trauma surgeons—are sued each year, is it any wonder that 70 percent of emergency departments are at risk because they lack available on-call specialist coverage?” [2]
Dr. Weinstein makes good points, points completely ignored by President Obama. Dr. Weinstein details the costs that our out-of-control tort system are causing the health care industry and notes research that “found that liability reforms could reduce defensive medicine practices, leading to a 5 percent to 9 percent reduction in medical expenditures without any effect on mortality or medical complications.” Dr. Weinstein writes:
“If the Kessler and McClellan estimates were applied to total U.S. healthcare spending in 2005, the defensive medicine costs would total between $100 billion and $178 billion per year. Add to this the cost of defending malpractice cases, paying compensation, and covering additional administrative costs (a total of $29.4 billion). Thus, the average American family pays an additional $1,700 to $2,000 per year in healthcare costs simply to cover the costs of defensive medicine.
Excessive litigation and waste in the nation’s current tort system imposes an estimated yearly tort tax of $9,827 for a family of four and increases healthcare spending in the United States by $124 billion. How does this translate to individuals? The average obstetrician-gynecologist (OB-GYN) delivers 100 babies per year. If that OB-GYN must pay a medical liability premium of $200,000 each year (which is the rate in Florida), $2,000 of the delivery cost for each baby goes to pay the cost of the medical liability premium.” [3]
You would think that any effort to reform our health care system would include tort reform, especially if the stated purpose for Obama’s plan to nationalize our health care industry is the current high costs.
So I have new questions for the president: Why no legal reform? Why continue to encourage defensive medicine that wastes billions of dollars and does nothing for the patients? Do you want health care reform to benefit trial attorneys or patients?
Many states, including my own state of Alaska, have enacted caps on lawsuit awards against health care providers. Texas enacted caps and found that one county’s medical malpractice claims dropped 41 percent, and another study found a “55 percent decline” after reform measures were passed. [4] That’s one step in health care reform. Limiting lawyer contingency fees, as is done under the Federal Tort Claims Act, is another step. The State of Alaska pioneered the “loser pays” rule in the United States, which deters frivolous civil law suits by making the loser partially pay the winner’s legal bills. Preventing quack doctors from giving “expert” testimony in court against real doctors is another reform.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry noted that, after his state enacted tort reform measures, the number of doctors applying to practice medicine in Texas “skyrocketed by 57 percent” and that the tort reforms “brought critical specialties to underserved areas.” These are real reforms that actually improve access to health care. [5]
Dr. Weinstein’s research shows that around $200 billion per year could be saved with legal reform. That’s real savings. That’s money that could be used to build roads, schools, or hospitals.
If you want to save health care, let’s listen to our doctors. There should be no health care reform without legal reform. There can be no true health care reform without legal reform.
- Sarah Palin
[1] See http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204409904574350370729883030.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
[2] See http://www.aaos.org/news/aaosnow/nov08/managing7.asp
[3] Id.
[4] See http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/new_laws_and_med_mal_damage_caps_devastate_plaintiff_and_defense_firms_alik/print/
[5] See http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/OpEd-Contributor/Tort-reform-must-be-part-of-health-care-reform-8096175.html
Thanks to Seadog Bytes for starting this thread; Bitt for the ping to this thread:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2322853/posts
“Every Woman in America”
Email ^ | 08/23/2009 | Rep. Mike Rogers
Posted on August 23, 2009 4:35:56 PM PDT by Seadog Bytes
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G44NCvNDLfc
“Congressman Mike Rogers’ opening statement on Health Care reform in Washington D.C.
(Added July 16, 2009)
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwcZ98atoFA
“Congressman Mike Rogers on Fox News discussing the President’s Health Care plan”
(Added July 22, 2009
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2325492/posts
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http://cnsnews.com/news/article/53138
“Leaders of New Nonprofit Cite Personal Stories to Criticize ‘Immoral’ Health-Care Reform”
Thursday, August 27, 2009
By Christopher Neefus
SNIPPET: “(CNSNews.com) – A consortium of two dozen conservative Christian groups launched a Web site Wednesday criticizing President Obama’s health-care reform plan.
The site, FreedomFederation.org, carries the tagline “Real Hope. Real Change. Real Freedom,” a swipe at President Obama’s campaign slogan, and features a Declaration of Ideals that citizens can sign. The 10 ideals include free exercise of religion, fair taxes and an affirmation of the sanctity of life — including the unborn and disabled.
Leaders of the consortium used their own health-care stories to highlight the importance of free-market, pro-life reform at a news conference at the National Press Club. Mathew Staver, chairman of Liberty Counsel, Bishop Harry Jackson, senior pastor of Hope Christian Church in Beltsville, Md., and Rick Tyler, the founding director of Renewing American Freedom, each took a turn at the podium.”
Note: The following post is a quote:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2325506/posts
British women giving birth in lifts, toilets: Report
The Times of India ^ | 27 August 2009 | The Times of India
Posted on August 27, 2009 1:25:21 AM PDT by OldSpice
LONDON: A shortage of midwives and hospital beds is forcing thousands of British women to give birth outside maternity wards, putting the lives of babies and mothers at risk, a newspaper reported Wednesday.
The Daily Mail said births outside maternity wards - in locations ranging from lifts to hospital toilets - went up 15 percent last year to almost 4,000. It said hundreds of women in labour are being turned away from hospitals because they are full.
The paper quoted official information obtained by an opposition MP as showing women gave birth in ambulances, A&E departments, unspecified areas including corridors, postnatal and antenatal wards and hospital reception areas.
Babies were born in offices, lifts, toilets and a caravan, according to the Freedom of Information data for 2007 and 2008 from 117 out of 147 trusts which provide maternity services.
Opposition Tory health spokesman Andrew Lansley, who obtained the figures, said the Labour government had cut maternity beds by 2,340, or 22 percent, since coming to power in 1997.
At the same time birth rates have been rising sharply, up 20% in some areas.
Jon Skewes, a director at the Royal College of Midwives, told the paper: “The rise in the number of births in other than a designated labour bed is a concern. We would want to see the detail behind these figures to look at why this is happening.”
BTTT
Note: The following post is a quote:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2326163/posts
Tragic Tales From The NHS
IBD Editorials ^ | August 27, 2009 | INVESTORS BUSINESS DAILY Staff
Posted on August 27, 2009 5:08:40 PM PDT by Kaslin
Health Care Reform: A study by the British Patients Association tells the true story about socialized medicine in Britain. It’s one of willful and woeful neglect of millions, missed diagnoses, and elderly patients left in pain.
BD Exclusive Series: Government-Run Healthcare: A Prescription For Failure
While reading this disturbing analysis of the pitiful state of medical care in Britain in the Daily Telegraph, the Vincent Price horror classic “The Abominable Dr. Phibes” came to mind. Price portrayed a man who used bizarre methods to dispatch his victims.
The abominable British National Health Service, based on this report, is only slightly better.
The Patients Association’s primary focus was the Mid-Staffordshire NHS Health Trust, where it was found that up to 1,200 people died through failings in urgent care the past six years. Their analysis was prompted by an avalanche of complaints of shameful care at the hands of the NHS.
Claire Rayner, president of the group and a former nurse, said: “For far too long now, the Patients Association has been receiving calls on our help line from people wanting to talk about the dreadful, neglectful, demeaning, painful and sometimes downright cruel treatment their elderly relatives had experienced at the hands of NHS nurses.”
There was the case of 82-year-old piano teacher Pamela Goddard. She was suffering from cancer and was left to suffer in her excrement as her condition deteriorated due to bed sores.
Before Florence Weston died at age 85, she remained without food or water as her scheduled hip replacement operation was repeatedly canceled.
(Excerpt) Read more at ibdeditorials.com ...
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http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2327279/posts
White House sued for free speech violations
sfgate.com ^ | August 28, 2009 | Jaikumar Vijayan
Posted on August 29, 2009 12:32:56 AM PDT by Berlin_Freeper
Two conservative organizations, a physicians’ group and a social policy think tank, are suing the Obama administration for privacy and free speech violations over a recent attempt to get people to e-mail the White House about any “fishy” misinformation they hear regarding health-care reform.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in the District of Columbia, claims that the call for such information was designed to shut up opponents of President Obama’s health-care reform proposal and to chill free speech.
In the lawsuit, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) and the Coalition for Urban Renewal and Education (CARE) claim the White House had “illegally” used its power to collect information on political speech. It claimed that the White House knew its data collection would chill free speech and in fact intended to do just that. The suit demands that the White House remove any information it might have already collected and that it be prohibited from collecting personal data in the future.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Looking at a Democrat’s propaganda...
Note: Video included.
Blog:
“Race-baiter Democrat Rep. Diane Watson praises Cuban health system, Castro & Guevara who “kicked out the wealthy””
By Michelle Malkin
August 28, 2009 04:03 PM
Note: The following post is a quote:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2328277/posts
Doctors: Reimbursement cuts may affect cancer treatment (Target:Radiation Treatments)
BayNews9 ^ | 08/30/2009
Posted on August 30, 2009 7:17:59 PM PDT by devane617
The U.S. Department of Health is proposing a major reduction in reimbursement for cancer treatments.
Recently the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced they’re planning on cutting reimbursement rates for radiation cancer treatment — in some cases by 44 percent.
“The radiation oncology community was shocked,” said Dr. Robert Miller with Wellspring Oncology Cancer Center. “At the time our cost have gone up higher and higher, they were going to cut the reimbursement by almost in half.”
Last year Wellspring spent more than $2 million to by a TomoTherapy machine. It targets only cancer cells while leaving healthy cells unharmed.
Doctors fear with a cut in reimbursement rates many people will not be able to afford the best treatment possible.
“We are hoping that, there probably will be some cutback, but we are hoping more realistic — 5 percent, 7 percent — but not a dramatic 44 percent,” Miller said.
Miller says the consequences of such a large cut could be a healthcare nightmare. Doctors may no longer use the most advanced technology to treat cancer patients, or perhaps even more alarming, they may refuse to treat patients with Medicare altogether.
Patients have until Monday to comment on the proposed cuts.
Miller has been encouraging his patients to call and write their lawmakers. Bay News 9 tried to contact St. Petersburg Rep. Bill Young for comment, but he could not be reached.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2328378/posts
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/south_yorkshire/8228544.stm
Page last updated at 15:49 GMT, Saturday, 29 August 2009 16:49 UK
“NHS sorry for dead patient letter”
SNIPPET: “The NHS has apologised after writing to a man to address concerns over his treatment - three-and-half years after he died.
Tom Milner’s daughter emailed the National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) after her 76-year-old father died at Sheffield’s Northern General Hospital.
Janet Brooks said when she received a response, it was entitled “Dear Tom”.
The agency said it had reviewed its systems to ensure the error did not happen again.
Mr Milner, who had terminal leukaemia, was not given his prescribed pain-relieving morphine in the last two days of his life, his family say.
It’s an example of the careless and shambolic attitude by the NHS towards my father and our family
Janet Brooks
They claim he was left in agony and lay in his own urine and blood at the NHS palliative care ward at the hospital.
The health trust responsible for his care said staff had “acted appropriately”.
Mrs Brooks, 54, of Emsworth, Hampshire, said she had outlined her concerns about her father’s treatment in an email to the NPSA.
“They responded with ‘Dear Tom’.
“It’s an example of the careless and shambolic attitude by the NHS towards my father and our family.””
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6127514/Sentenced-to-death-on-the-NHS.html
“Sentenced to death on the NHS”
SNIPPET: “Patients with terminal illnesses are being made to die prematurely under an NHS scheme to help end their lives, leading doctors warn today.”
By Kate Devlin, Medical Correspondent
Published: 10:00PM BST 02 Sep 2009
SNIPPET: “In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, a group of experts who care for the terminally ill claim that some patients are being wrongly judged as close to death.
Under NHS guidance introduced across England to help doctors and medical staff deal with dying patients, they can then have fluid and drugs withdrawn and many are put on continuous sedation until they pass away.
But this approach can also mask the signs that their condition is improving, the experts warn.
As a result the scheme is causing a “national crisis” in patient care, the letter states. It has been signed palliative care experts including Professor Peter Millard, Emeritus Professor of Geriatrics, University of London, Dr Peter Hargreaves, a consultant in Palliative Medicine at St Luke’s cancer centre in Guildford, and four others.
“Forecasting death is an inexact science,”they say. Patients are being diagnosed as being close to death “without regard to the fact that the diagnosis could be wrong.
“As a result a national wave of discontent is building up, as family and friends witness the denial of fluids and food to patients.”
The warning comes just a week after a report by the Patients Association estimated that up to one million patients had received poor or cruel care on the NHS.”
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/53521
“Health Bill Will Hike Medicare Drug Coverage Premiums 20 Percent, Says CBO”
Thursday, September 03, 2009
By Fred Lucas, Staff Writer
SNIPPET: “(CNSNews.com) - If the health-care reform bill under consideration in the House of Representatives becomes law, seniors will pay Medicare prescription drug program premiums that are 20-percent higher than they would be under current law, says the Congressional Budget Office.
The increase in premiums will start with an average 5-percent hike in 2011 and reach 20 percent by 2019.
The CBO estimated the increase in premiums in response to an inquiry from Rep. Dave Camp (R.-Mich.), the ranking Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, who wanted to know how changes to the Medicare system that are incorporated into the House version of the health-care reform bill would impact the premiums paid by seniors for their prescription drug benefit—known as Medicare Part D.
“Overall, CBO estimates that enacting the proposed changes would lead to an average increase in premiums for Part D beneficiaries, above those under current law, of about 5 percent by 2011,” CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf said to Camp in a letter. “That effect would rise over time and reach about 20 percent in 2019.””
blog:
“What happens when you ask politicians how they’ll pay for Obamacare”
By Michelle Malkin • September 6, 2009 09:46 AM
Note: The following text is a quote:
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=130383728434
Sarah Palin: Written Testimony Submitted to the New York State Senate Aging Committee
Sarah Palin’s Notes
Written Testimony Submitted to the New York State Senate Aging Committee
Today at 1:49pm
Senator Reverend Ruben Diaz
Chair, New York Senate Aging Committee
Legislative Office Building
Room 307
Albany, NY 12247
September 8, 2009
RE: H.R. 3200: America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 and Its Impact on Senior Citizens
Dear Senator Diaz,
Thank you for asking me to participate in the New York State Senate Aging Committee’s hearing regarding H.R. 3200, “America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009.” You and I share a commitment to ensuring that our health care system is not “reformed” at the expense of America’s senior citizens.
I have been vocal in my opposition to Section 1233 of H.R.3200, entitled “Advance Care Planning Consultation.”[1] Proponents of the bill have described this section as an entirely voluntary provision that simply increases the information offered to Medicare recipients. That is misleading. The issue is the context in which that information is provided and the coercive effect these consultations will have in that context.
Section 1233 authorizes advanced care planning consultations for senior citizens on Medicare every five years, and more often “if there is a significant change in the health condition of the individual … or upon admission to a skilled nursing facility, a long-term care facility… or a hospice program.”[2] During those consultations, practitioners are to explain “the continuum of end-of-life services and supports available, including palliative care and hospice,” and the government benefits available to pay for such services.[3]
To understand this provision fully, it must be read in context. These consultations are authorized whenever a Medicare recipient’s health changes significantly or when they enter a nursing home, and they are part of a bill whose stated purpose is “to reduce the growth in health care spending.”[4] Is it any wonder that senior citizens might view such consultations as attempts to convince them to help reduce health care costs by accepting minimal end-of-life care? As one commentator has noted, Section 1233 “addresses compassionate goals in disconcerting proximity to fiscal ones…. If it’s all about obviating suffering, emotional or physical, what’s it doing in a measure to ‘bend the curve’ on health-care costs?”[5]
As you stated in your letter to Congressman Henry Waxman of California:
Section 1233 of House Resolution 3200 puts our senior citizens on a slippery slope and may diminish respect for the inherent dignity of each of their lives…. It is egregious to consider that any senior citizen … should be placed in a situation where he or she would feel pressured to save the government money by dying a little sooner than he or she otherwise would, be required to be counseled about the supposed benefits of killing oneself, or be encouraged to sign any end of life directives that they would not otherwise sign.[6]
It is unclear whether section 1233 or a provision like it will remain part of any final health care bill. Regardless of its fate, the larger issue of rationed health care remains.
A great deal of attention was given to my use of the phrase “death panel” in discussing such rationing.[7] Despite repeated attempts by many in the media to dismiss this phrase as a “myth”, its accuracy has been vindicated. In the face of a nationwide public outcry, the Senate Finance Committee agreed to “drop end-of-life provisions from consideration entirely because of the way they could be misinterpreted and implemented incorrectly.”[8] Jim Towey, the former head of the White House Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, then called attention to what’s already occurring at the Department of Veteran’s Affairs, where “government bureaucrats are greasing the slippery slope that can start with cost containment but quickly become a systematic denial of care.”[9] Even Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson, a strong supporter of President Obama, agreed that “if the government says it has to control health care costs and then offers to pay doctors to give advice about hospice care, citizens are not delusional to conclude that the goal is to reduce end-of-life spending.”[10] And of course President Obama has not backed away from his support for the creation of an unelected, largely unaccountable Independent Medicare Advisory Council to help control Medicare costs; he had previously suggested that such a group should guide decisions regarding “that huge driver of cost . . . the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives….”[11]
The fact is that any group of government bureaucrats that makes decisions affecting life or death is essentially a “death panel.” The work of Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, President Obama’s health policy advisor and the brother of his chief of staff, is particularly disturbing on this score. Dr. Emanuel has written extensively on the topic of rationed health care, describing a “Complete Lives System” for allotting medical care based on “a priority curve on which individuals aged between roughly 15 and 40 years get the most chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get chances that are attenuated.”[12]
He also has written that some medical services should not be guaranteed to those “who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens…. An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia.”[13]
Such ideas are shocking, but they could ultimately be used by government bureacrats to help determine the treatment of our loved ones. We must ensure that human dignity remains at the center of any proposed health care reform. Real health care reform would also follow free market principles, including the encouragement of health savings accounts; would remove the barriers to purchasing health insurance across state lines; and would include tort reform so as to potentially save billions each year in wasteful spending connected to the filing of frivolous lawsuits. H.R. 3200 is not the reform we are looking for.
Thank you for calling attention to this important matter. I look forward to working with you again to ensure that we keep the dignity of our senior citizens foremost in any health care discussion.
Sincerely,
Governor Sarah Palin
1 See http://edlabor.house.gov/documents/111/pdf/publications/AAHCA-BillText-071409.pdf
2 See HR 3200 sec. 1233 (hhh)(1); sec. 1233 (hhh)(3)(B)(1), above.
3 See HR 3200 sec. 1233 (hhh)(1)(E), above.
4 See http://edlabor.house.gov/documents/111/pdf/publications/AAHCA-BillText-071409.pdf
5 See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/07/AR2009080703043.html
6 See http://www.nysenate.gov/press-release/letter-congressman-henry-waxman-re-section-1233-hr-3200
7 See http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=113851103434
8 See http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/54617-finance-committee-to-drop-end-of-life-provision
9 See http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204683204574358590107981718.html
10 See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/10/AR2009081002455.html
11 See http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/magazine/03Obama-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1
12 See http://www.scribd.com/doc/18280675/Principles-for-Allocation-of-Scarce-Medical-Interventions
13 See http://www.ncpa.org/pdfs/Where_Civic_Republicanism_and_Deliberative_Democracy_Meet.pdf
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http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=130481448434
Sarah Palin: Obama and the Bureaucratization of Health Care by Sarah Palin
Sarah Palin’s Notes
Obama and the Bureaucratization of Health Care by Sarah Palin
Today at 5:34pm
The president’s proposals would give unelected officials life-and-death rationing powers.
By SARAH PALIN
Writing in the New York Times last month, President Barack Obama asked that Americans “talk with one another, and not over one another” as our health-care debate moves forward.
I couldn’t agree more. Let’s engage the other side’s arguments, and let’s allow Americans to decide for themselves whether the Democrats’ health-care proposals should become governing law.
Some 45 years ago Ronald Reagan said that “no one in this country should be denied medical care because of a lack of funds.” Each of us knows that we have an obligation to care for the old, the young and the sick. We stand strongest when we stand with the weakest among us.
We also know that our current health-care system too often burdens individuals and businesses—particularly small businesses—with crippling expenses. And we know that allowing government health-care spending to continue at current rates will only add to our ever-expanding deficit.
How can we ensure that those who need medical care receive it while also reducing health-care costs? The answers offered by Democrats in Washington all rest on one principle: that increased government involvement can solve the problem. I fundamentally disagree.
Common sense tells us that the government’s attempts to solve large problems more often create new ones. Common sense also tells us that a top-down, one-size-fits-all plan will not improve the workings of a nationwide health-care system that accounts for one-sixth of our economy. And common sense tells us to be skeptical when President Obama promises that the Democrats’ proposals “will provide more stability and security to every American.”
With all due respect, Americans are used to this kind of sweeping promise from Washington. And we know from long experience that it’s a promise Washington can’t keep.
Let’s talk about specifics. In his Times op-ed, the president argues that the Democrats’ proposals “will finally bring skyrocketing health-care costs under control” by “cutting . . . waste and inefficiency in federal health programs like Medicare and Medicaid and in unwarranted subsidies to insurance companies . . . .”
First, ask yourself whether the government that brought us such “waste and inefficiency” and “unwarranted subsidies” in the first place can be believed when it says that this time it will get things right. The nonpartistan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) doesn’t think so: Its director, Douglas Elmendorf, told the Senate Budget Committee in July that “in the legislation that has been reported we do not see the sort of fundamental changes that would be necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount.”
Now look at one way Mr. Obama wants to eliminate inefficiency and waste: He’s asked Congress to create an Independent Medicare Advisory Council—an unelected, largely unaccountable group of experts charged with containing Medicare costs. In an interview with the New York Times in April, the president suggested that such a group, working outside of “normal political channels,” should guide decisions regarding that “huge driver of cost . . . the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives . . . .”
Given such statements, is it any wonder that many of the sick and elderly are concerned that the Democrats’ proposals will ultimately lead to rationing of their health care by—dare I say it—death panels? Establishment voices dismissed that phrase, but it rang true for many Americans. Working through “normal political channels,” they made themselves heard, and as a result Congress will likely reject a wrong-headed proposal to authorize end-of-life counseling in this cost-cutting context. But the fact remains that the Democrats’ proposals would still empower unelected bureaucrats to make decisions affecting life or death health-care matters. Such government overreaching is what we’ve come to expect from this administration.
Speaking of government overreaching, how will the Democrats’ proposals affect the deficit? The CBO estimates that the current House proposal not only won’t reduce the deficit but will actually increase it by $239 billion over 10 years. Only in Washington could a plan that adds hundreds of billions to the deficit be hailed as a cost-cutting measure.
The economic effects won’t be limited to abstract deficit numbers; they’ll reach the wallets of everyday Americans. Should the Democrats’ proposals expand health-care coverage while failing to curb health-care inflation rates, smaller paychecks will result. A new study for Watson Wyatt Worldwide by Steven Nyce and Syl Schieber concludes that if the government expands health-care coverage while health-care inflation continues to rise “the higher costs would drive disposable wages downward across most of the earnings spectrum, although the declines would be steepest for lower-earning workers.” Lower wages are the last thing Americans need in these difficult economic times.
Finally, President Obama argues in his op-ed that Democrats’ proposals “will provide every American with some basic consumer protections that will finally hold insurance companies accountable.” Of course consumer protection sounds like a good idea. And it’s true that insurance companies can be unaccountable and unresponsive institutions—much like the federal government. That similarity makes this shift in focus seem like nothing more than an attempt to deflect attention away from the details of the Democrats’ proposals—proposals that will increase our deficit, decrease our paychecks, and increase the power of unaccountable government technocrats.
Instead of poll-driven “solutions,” let’s talk about real health-care reform: market-oriented, patient-centered, and result-driven. As the Cato Institute’s Michael Cannon and others have argued, such policies include giving all individuals the same tax benefits received by those who get coverage through their employers; providing Medicare recipients with vouchers that allow them to purchase their own coverage; reforming tort laws to potentially save billions each year in wasteful spending; and changing costly state regulations to allow people to buy insurance across state lines. Rather than another top-down government plan, let’s give Americans control over their own health care.
Democrats have never seriously considered such ideas, instead rushing through their own controversial proposals. After all, they don’t need Republicans to sign on: Democrats control the House, the Senate and the presidency. But if passed, the Democrats’ proposals will significantly alter a large sector of our economy. They will not improve our health care. They will not save us money. And, despite what the president says, they will not “provide more stability and security to every American.”
We often hear such overblown promises from Washington. With first principles in mind and with the facts in hand, tell them that this time we’re not buying it.
Ms. Palin, Sen. John McCain’s running mate in the 2008 presidential election, was governor of Alaska from December 2006 to July 2009.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203440104574400581157986024.html
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/series26.aspx
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http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=337386320532288
“Land Of The Fee”
By INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Wednesday, September 09, 2009 4:20 PM PT
SNIPPET: “To keep ObamaCare alive, Montana Democrat Max Baucus has proposed a Rube Goldberg scheme of fees and fines on insurers and the uninsured designed to forcibly bring everyone into the loving and protective arms of the nanny state.
To help finance his Plan B, Baucus would impose annual fees of $6 billion on health insurers, $4 billion on medical-device makers, $2.3 billion on drug manufacturers and $750 million on clinical laboratories, among other taxes.
How this will cut health care costs we’re not sure. These fees and taxes punish medical innovation and those who bring us lifesaving medicines that reduce hospital stays, obviate surgeries and extend lives. And these costs will inevitably be passed on to consumers.”
SNIPPET: “It’s hard to see how Baucus’ plan, like its ObamaCare twin, will make us any healthier or health care any cheaper. Like Obama’s example of service, the post office, we’ll get less service at higher cost while waiting in a line that gets longer.”
Quote:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2336896/posts
Doctors DC Rally 9-10-09 Report
Attendee report | Sept 10 2009 | self
Posted on September 10, 2009 7:21:55 PM PDT by JustSurrounded
My sister just reported back to me from the doctors’ rally in DC this evening. She went with her husband and 3 teenaged daughters. Here is what she reported:
It was a great, well-behaved crowd of about 1000 — mostly doctors and some nurses. They came from across the country and all sorts of practices. She said the speakers were just folks ... that they did not appear to be professional speakers. They were just doctors, speaking from the heart. They told of personal experiences of government interference in individual care and practices and the consequences.
There were a couple of cameras filming, apparently one marked CNN. There were two identified congressmen there, but she didn’t have names.
The major points seemed to be to:
1. Get government out of medicine 2. Clean up the malpractice mess 3. Hold the news media accountable for their reports/actions.
There were chants of “Liar. Liar. Liar.” And, in response to “who has the best healthcare in the world?” “USA USA USA”.
There were many hand-made signs. Some of her favorites were:
Yes, you ARE a liar!!!
Socialism is the equal distribution of misery.
They thanked the teapartyers for helping make the protest possible, and there were a dozen or so of them around (identified by yellow shirts).
Some websites for some of the organizations mentioned include: www.physiciansforreform.org, www.takebackmedicine.com, www.teapartypatriots.org, and www.docs4patientcare.org. Looks like the last two websites may have video of the rally posted shortly.
Letter I sent my elected representatives:
Dear ####
Please vote NO on the health care bill package President Obama is trying to push on America. We can’t afford it and neither can the future generations.
My husband and I would like to see:
1. tort reform.
2. the ability to purchase insurance in any state.
3. the deductible (high or low) of our choice.
4. medical savings account.
Growing up in a low-income home, I do know that there are many options for people who cannot afford health care. There were then; there are now.
Thank you for reading this.