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Obama health care plan projected to cost 5.2 million jobs
Examiner ^
| August 27th
| Christine Wodke
Posted on 09/05/2009 6:34:21 PM PDT by Halfmanhalfamazing
In an interview on Fox News on August 27th Mark Wilson of Applied Economic Strategies made the economic case against the current plan for health care reform. He said the current idea for mandating employers to insure employees or pay a fine in the form of a tax would cost employers $49 billion dollars and cause the loss of 5.2 million jobs. In addition wages would be stunted for another 10.2 million wage earners.
This seems like a high cost to make sure that everyone is covered. Doesnt it make more sense to lower costs of health care and health care insurance and keep the quality? Americans that are insured are happy with their coverage and their health care.
We do need to lower the costs, because the cost to purchase insurance is escalating and Medicare costs are crippling the budget. Reform is needed but not government control or the proposed public option. Here are some things to consider.
(Excerpt) Read more at examiner.com ...
TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: barackobama; bho44; bhohealthcare; communism; deathbyobama; deathbyromney; economy; healthcare; killgrandma4obama; killgrandma4romney; markwilson; obama; obamacare; obamadeathpanel; romney; romneycare; romneydeathpanel; socializedmedicine; unemployment
Now you can link unemployment numbers to obamacare.
To: Halfmanhalfamazing
....So his stimulus bill isn’t doing enough damage?
2
posted on
09/05/2009 6:37:07 PM PDT
by
massmike
(...So this is what happens when OJ's jury elects the president....)
To: Halfmanhalfamazing
Bottom Line: Even ignoring the 5.2 million jobs lost,
Obamacare = Romneycare does not work.
"Bay State Insurance Premiums Highest in Country - Boston Globe August 22, 2009
Massachusetts has the most expensive family health insurance premiums in the country,
according to a new analysis that highlights the states challenge in trying to rein in medical costs
after passage of a landmark 2006 law that mandated coverage for nearly everyone...
The report by the Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit health care foundation,
showed that the average family premium for plans offered by employers in Massachusetts was $13,788 in 2008,
40 percent higher than in 2003. Over the same period, premiums nationwide rose an average of 33 percent..."
"Bed shortage forces 4,000 mothers to give birth in lifts, offices and hospital toilets
Thousands of women are having to give birth outside maternity wards because of a lack of midwives and hospital beds."
"Oregon Offers Terminal Patients Doctor-Assisted Suicide Instead of Medical Care
PORTLAND, Ore. Some terminally ill patients in Oregon who turned to their state for health care
were denied treatment and offered doctor-assisted suicide instead, a proposal some experts have called a "chilling" corruption of medical ethics.
"It dropped my chin to the floor," Stroup told FOX News. "[How could they] not pay for medication that would help my life, and yet offer to pay to end my life?"
"Sentenced to death on the NHS
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.
"Massachusetts: the laboratory for ObamaCare
Cato Institute looks a little farther down the coast to Massachusetts, where the state began its own health-care reform complete
with individual mandates and a government plan.
Cato calls it an almost perfect mirror of ObamaCare, complete with promises of reducing cost and extending care that failed in both respects:
Massachusetts shows that such a mandate would oust millions from their low-cost health plans and force them to pay higher premiums.
"Obama Health-Care Would Drive Up Inflation and Health-Care Costs
ObamaCare would shrink the economy, drive up health-care costs and inflation,
and increase the deficit,
Overall, total federal expenditures will be 5.6 percent higher than otherwise by 2019, adding $285.6 billion to the federal deficit in 2019.
An increase in national health care expenditures by an additional 8.9 percent by 2019.
An increase in medical price inflation by 5.2 percent above what it would have been otherwise by 2019.
A doctor shortage [4] is looming, but the AMA has successfully lobbied Congress to artificially restrict [3] the number of doctors in America,
ObamaCare is full of special-interest giveaways and constitutionally-dubious provisions [9]
like racial preferences and set-asides, which has led to ObamaCare being criticized [9] by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
"Pushing Veterans Toward the Grave
The Obama administration now seems to have our nation's veterans in the crosshairs.
Perhaps you've heard about the booklet Your Life Your Choices-also known as the Death Book for Veterans.
This book is particularly alarming, so I want to share some detail you may not have heard.
I have the book on my desk.
The "instructions" that follow sent a chill up my spine. If the veteran more than once checked the column called "worth living, but just barely,"
he or she is asked what combination of those would it take to make his or her life "not worth living"?
The Veterans Administration might as well abandon all subtleties, dig a grave and push our nation's heroes into it.
"NHS blunders allowed cannibal Peter Bryan to kill two
A catalogue of systemic failings and blunders allowed a schizophrenic killer,
Peter Bryan, to murder two more people, including eating parts of the brain of one, two inquiries have found.
It found a "systematic failure" because he was looked after by an inexperienced social worker and a psychiatrist who had never worked with a convicted killer.
"Massachusetts' Obama-like reforms increase health costs, wait times [RomneyCare]
"If you are curious about how President Barack Obama's health plan would affect your health care, look no farther than Massachusetts.
In 2006, the Bay State enacted a slate of reforms that almost perfectly mirror the plan of Obama and congressional Democrats.
.... Premiums are growing 21 to 46 percent faster than the national average
in part because Massachusetts' individual mandate has effectively outlawed affordable health plans."
"Massachusetts' Obama-like reforms increase health costs, wait times [RomneyCare] "If you are curious about how President Barack Obama's health plan would affect your health care, look no farther than Massachusetts.
In 2006, the Bay State enacted a slate of reforms that almost perfectly mirror the plan of Obama and congressional Democrats.
.... Premiums are growing 21 to 46 percent faster than the national average
in part because Massachusetts' individual mandate has effectively outlawed affordable health plans."
"Mass. Pushes Rationing to Control Universal Healthcare Costs (RomneyCare)
A 10-member Massachusetts state healthcare advisory board unanimously recommended
that the state begin rationing healthcare to keep the states marquee universal health care program afloat financially.
The July 16 recommendations, the Boston Globe explained, would result in a situation where patients could find it harder to get procedures they want but are of questionable benefit if doctors are operating within a budget.
And they might find it more difficult to get care wherever they want, if primary doctors push to keep patients within their accountable care organization.
The Globe stressed that the recommendations would dramatically change how doctors and hospitals are paid, essentially putting providers on a budget as a way to control exploding healthcare costs and improve the quality of care.
"Budget" is a more politically acceptable word for rationing.
The Globe also noted that consumer advocates said patients are going to have to be educated about the new system. Yes, apparently they will have to get used to having their healthcare rationed.
"1,000 cancer patients 'refused treatment'
Charities warned that patients with less common forms of cancer were being discriminated against, while others condemned the system as a scandal.
Patients and their doctors can appeal for the NHS to pay for drugs not currently licensed for that type of the disease.
But one in three applications were turned down in the last three years, leaving patients having to pay up £20,000 for the medication themselves."
"Mass. Pushes Rationing to Control Universal Healthcare Costs (RomneyCare)
A 10-member Massachusetts state healthcare advisory board unanimously recommended
that the state begin rationing healthcare to keep the states marquee universal health care program afloat financially.
The July 16 recommendations, the Boston Globe explained, would result in a situation where patients could find it harder to get procedures they want but are of questionable benefit if doctors are operating within a budget.
And they might find it more difficult to get care wherever they want, if primary doctors push to keep patients within their accountable care organization.
The Globe stressed that the recommendations would dramatically change how doctors and hospitals are paid, essentially putting providers on a budget as a way to control exploding healthcare costs and improve the quality of care.
"Budget" is a more politically acceptable word for rationing.
The Globe also noted that consumer advocates said patients are going to have to be educated about the new system. Yes, apparently they will have to get used to having their healthcare rationed.
"Massachusetts Universal Healthcare System Breaking Down Already
When Governor Mitt Romney instituted a universal healthcare plan for Massachusetts in 2006 he proclaimed it a conservative idea.
But has it worked? Has it been successful?
For a time, many thought it might but cracks in the system are already being seen.
These cracks are instructive as a lesson on how Obamacare will crash and burn just like Romneycare is now in the process of doing.
One of the early claims that helped push Romneycare through to law was the insistence by its supporters that Emergency Room visits would fall as more and more citizens became covered under healthcare insurance.
Since ER care is far more expensive than a doctor's care, it was thought that more people with insurance would ease the overcrowding of ERs as well as lower the overall costs of healthcare.
However, a flaw in this logic has been seen throughout the state. As more people became insured, more people demanded the care of doctors. These doctors became overloaded with patients and waiting lists for doctors got longer and longer.
As a result, ERs in Massachusetts have not seen a downturn in visits. On the contrary, it seems that ER visits are actually on the upswing in the Bay State. In fact, in 2007 they were higher than the national average by 20 percent...
"Hospital patients 'left in agony'"
"Patients were allegedly left screaming in pain and drinking from flower vases on a nightmare hospital ward.
Between 400 and 1,200 more people died than would have been expected at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust over three years, a damning Healthcare Commission report said.
The watchdog's investigation found inadequately trained staff who were too few in number, junior doctors left alone in charge at night and patients left without food, drink or medication as their operations were repeatedly cancelled.
Patients were left in pain or forced to sit in soiled bedding for hours at a time and were not given their regular medication, the Commission heard.
Receptionists with no medical training were expected to assess patients coming in to A&E, some of whom needed urgent care.
Sir Bruce Keogh, medical director of the NHS, said there had been a "gross and terrible breach" of patients' trust and a "complete failure of leadership".
The Healthcare Commission's chairman Sir Ian Kennedy said the investigation followed concerns about a higher than normal death rate at the Trust, which senior managers could not explain.
He said: "The resulting report is a shocking story. Our report tells a story of appalling standards of care and chaotic systems for looking after patients. These are words I have not previously used in any report.
"There were inadequacies in almost every stage of caring for patients. There was no doubt that patients will have suffered and some of them will have died as a result."
Julie Bailey, 47, was so concerned about the care being given to her 86-year-old mother Bella at Stafford Hospital that she and her relatives slept in a chair at her bedside for eight weeks.
She said: "We saw patients drinking out of..."
"Paramedics told: 'Let accident victims die if they want to' in new row over patient rights (UK)"
Health Service paramedics have been told not to resuscitate terminally-ill patients who register on a controversial new database to say they want to die.
It has been set up by the ambulance service in London for hundreds of people who have only a few months to live so that they may register their 'death wishes' in advance.
It is believed to be the first in the country, but other trusts around the country are expected to follow suit to comply with Government guidelines which state that patients' wishes should be taken into account, even at the point of death.
Patients' groups and doctors have welcomed the scheme, but it has met opposition from pro-life groups who say it violates the sanctity of life.
The system would come into play if a cancer patient, for example, was in serious pain and rang 999 for help to alleviate the suffering.
But if the paramedics arrived and the patient was close to death, he or she would not be resuscitated if such a request was registered on the database.
This would also be the case if a patient on the database was being transferred between hospitals, and had a heart attack.
Dominica Roberts from the Pro-Life Alliance said: 'This is very sad and very dangerous. It's another step along the slippery slope, at the bottom of which is euthanasia as we see in Holland. 'Paramedics should be there to save lives. They should not be there to let patients die. The medical profession should not agree with someone's belief that their life is worthless.'"
"National Health Preview - The Massachusetts debacle, coming soon to your neighborhood."
"Three years ago, the former Massachusetts Governor had the inadvertent good sense to create the "universal" health-care program that the White House and Congress now want to inflict on the entire country.
It is proving to be instructive, as Mr. Romney's foresight previews what President Obama, Max Baucus, Ted Kennedy and Pete Stark are cooking up for everyone else.
In Massachusetts's latest crisis, Governor Deval Patrick and his Democratic colleagues are starting to move down the path that government health plans always follow when spending collides with reality -- i.e., price controls.
As costs continue to rise, the inevitable results are coverage restrictions and waiting periods. It was only a matter of time.
They're trying to manage the huge costs of the subsidized middle-class insurance program that is gradually swallowing the state budget.
The program provides low- or no-cost coverage to about 165,000 residents, or three-fifths of the newly insured, and is budgeted at $880 million for 2010, a 7.3% single-year increase that is likely to be optimistic.
The state's overall costs on health programs have increased by 42% (!) since 2006.
What really whipped along RomneyCare were claims that health care would be less expensive if everyone were covered.
But reducing costs while increasing access are irreconcilable issues.
Mr. Romney should have known better before signing on to this not-so-grand experiment, especially since the state's "free market" reforms that he boasts about have proven to be irrelevant when not fictional.
Only 21,000 people have used the "connector" that was supposed to link individuals to private insurers."
A Very Sick Health Plan; Bay States Grand Experiment Fails [RomneyCare]
"The Daily News Record, Harrisonburg, Va. - 2009-03-31 "
"For folks increasingly leery of President Obamas plan to radically overhaul Americas health-care system,
or 17 percent of the nations economy, all this could hardly have come at a better time
that is, fiscal troubles aplenty within Repubican Mitt Romneys brainchild, Massachusetts grand experiment in universal health care."
"Initiated on Mr. Romneys gubernatorial watch in 2006, this experiment has fallen on hard times, and predictably so.
Even though the Bay State commenced its program with a far smaller percentage of uninsured residents than exists nationwide,
RomneyCare is threatening to bankrupt the state. Budgeted for Fiscal Year 2010 at $880 million,
or 7.3 percent more than a year ago, this plan, aimed at providing low- or no-cost health coverage to roughly 165,000 residents,
has caused Massachusetts overall expenditures on all health-related programs to jump an astounding 42 percent since 2006.
So what does Mr. Romneys successor, Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick, propose as a remedy for these skyrocketing costs?
Well, whaddya think? The standard litany of prescriptions (no pun intended) price controls and spending caps, for a start, and then, again predictably, waiting periods and limitations on coverage.
As in Europe and Canada, so too in Massachusetts. And, we feel certain, everyone from Mr. Romney to Mr. Patrick said, It would never happen here.
But then, such things are inevitable when best-laid plans, with all their monstrous costs, run smack-dab into fiscal reality.
"Dem Congresswoman Admits Obama Health Care Plan Will Destroy Private Health Insurance Industry"
"Romneys mistreatments a sick man, as Gov. Mitt Romney meets a medical marijuana patient"
Thousands of patients with terminal cancer were dealt a blow last night after a decision was made to deny them life prolonging drugs.
The Government's rationing body said two drugs for advanced breast cancer and a rare form of stomach cancer were too expensive for the NHS.
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence is expected to confirm guidance in the next few weeks that will effectively ban their use.
The move comes despite a pledge by Nice to be more flexible in giving life-extending drugs
to terminally-ill cancer patients after a public outcry last year over 'death sentence' decisions."
"Patients Forced To Wait Hours In Ambulances Parked Outside A&E Departments
"An investigation by The Sunday Telegraph has found that thousands of 999 patients are being left to wait in ambulances in car parks and holding bays, or in hospital corridors in some cases for more than five hours before they can even join the queue for urgent treatment.
Experts warn that hospitals are deliberately delaying when they accept patients or are diverting them to different sites
in order to meet Government targets to treat people within fours hours of admitting them."
"Cancer survivor confronts the health secretary on 62-day wait (UK Socialized Medicine)
WAITING times for cancer treatment need to be cut, the Scottish Government was told yesterday.
..Cancer experts later said that patients elsewhere in Europe would be "outraged" by having to wait two months to start treatment, with most being seen within two weeks.
The current target of 62 days from urgent referral by a doctor to starting treatment has still not been met in Scotland, despite that originally being the target figure for 2005."
"Hospital patient so shocked at dirty ward she climbed out of bed to clean it herself
After 12 years cleaning care homes and private houses, no one is better qualified than Tereza Tosbell to say whether a room is spotless.
So hospital bosses should take heed of her opinion after she spent four days on a 'filthy' ward.
The mother-of-one said during her stay there was a single, brief visit from a cleaner who left dusty curtains, dirty bedframes and a messy floor.
Disgusted at the conditions, she grabbed the antibacterial fluid dispenser at the end of her bed and some hand towels from the bathroom.
She then set about cleaning her four-bed ward, at one point dropping to her hands and knees to sanitise the floor as she dragged her drip trolley behind her.
'It was shameful to see how sloppy the cleaners were while I was there. I was not prepared to put up with such conditions,'
said Miss Tosbell, a 48-year-old divorcee who was admitted to Colchester General Hospital in Essex with an abscess in her neck.."
"Kidney cancer patients denied life-saving drugs by NHS rationing body NICE (UK Socialized Medicine)
Thousands of kidney cancer patients are likely to lose out on life-prolonging drugs.
The NHS rationing body, NICE, has confirmed a ban on three out of four new treatments.
.. 'Families will be denied time together and doctors will be unable to give patients the best treatment.'."
"Girl, 3, has heart operation cancelled three times because of bed shortage (UK Socialized Medicine)
A three-year-old girl awaiting heart surgery has had her operation cancelled three times this month because of a shortage of beds.
... A hospital spokesman said that procedures would be reviewed, but the case highlights a growing problem of cancelled operations in the NHS.
More than 57,000 surgeries were postponed for non-clinical reasons, including a lack of beds, last year 10 per cent more than the previous year."
3
posted on
09/05/2009 6:37:32 PM PDT
by
Diogenesis
("Those who go below the surface do so at their peril" - Oscar Wilde)
To: Halfmanhalfamazing
That’s actually encouraging. I thought for sure it would cost us at least 10 million jobs, so we’re really GAINING 4.8 million jobs, right?
*SNORT*
4
posted on
09/05/2009 6:42:12 PM PDT
by
Diana in Wisconsin
(Save The Earth. It's The Only Planet With Chocolate.)
To: socialismisinsidious
Socialized Medicine aka Universal Health Care daily digest PING LIST
FReepmail me if you want to be added to or removed from this daily digest ping list.
5
posted on
09/05/2009 6:43:35 PM PDT
by
socialismisinsidious
( The socialist income tax system turns US citizens into beggars or quitters!)
To: Halfmanhalfamazing
Never fear, Biden and the Barry goons calling themselves economists will proclaim that ObamaCare actually created or saved 5 mil.
6
posted on
09/05/2009 6:44:31 PM PDT
by
cranked
To: Halfmanhalfamazing
or pay a fine in the form of a tax would cost employers $49 billion dollars
Yeah but all that money will go to the government to pay for health care for all the people who become unemployed! See, isn't socialism grand?! /s
HOPE + CHANGE = Economic Idiot
7
posted on
09/05/2009 6:47:10 PM PDT
by
socialismisinsidious
( The socialist income tax system turns US citizens into beggars or quitters!)
To: Halfmanhalfamazing
Every private practice MD, who are completely unnecessary under the public option, takes 10 medically supportive jobs with him/her...add a couple of million more lost jobs.
8
posted on
09/05/2009 6:51:31 PM PDT
by
givemELL
(Does Taiwan Meet the Criteria to Qualify as an "Overseas Territory of the United States"? by Richar)
To: Halfmanhalfamazing
The very last sentence in the article addresses those who think a future republican congress and/or a republican president could possibly undo this mess, if it's allowed to be created to begin with. Can anybody name a government "gimme" program that has ever been reversed? These things don't get reversed no matter who is in charge, they only get bigger.
Consider the so called Earned Income Credit (The reverse income tax) that gives "refunds" to those who don't pay in or they get back many times more than they paid in.
Proposed by Nixon, signed into law by Ford and increased under every administration since, without exception. When republicans have even hinted at slowing down the growth of this monstrosity, liberals scream at the top of their lungs that those evil republicans hate the poor and are trying to rob them of their "rights" and the republicans promptly shut up about it.
No my friends, if this is ever passed in any form, it will never ever be reversed. Stop it now! Or as Deputy Barney Fife would say, "Nip it, nip it in the bud!"
Here's the last sentence of the article and truer words have never seen print:
so lets not rush into any decision that will be virtually impossible to undo later.
9
posted on
09/05/2009 7:02:23 PM PDT
by
Graybeard58
( Selah.)
To: socialismisinsidious
I’m just glad that americans everywhere are figuring out that obamacare is a threat to their families.
10
posted on
09/05/2009 7:12:26 PM PDT
by
Halfmanhalfamazing
( obamacare is a threat to my family . Yours too)
To: socialismisinsidious
Oh, and BTW............
What happened to your ping list there? Only one person on the list or is it just not showing up properly on my screen?
:-)
11
posted on
09/05/2009 7:13:35 PM PDT
by
Halfmanhalfamazing
( obamacare is a threat to my family . Yours too)
To: Halfmanhalfamazing
Hmmm... Going to cost 5.2 million jobs? At an average income of $44,000 per person (GDP) that is a loss of $231 billion annually, more than the cost of ObamaCare to begin with!
Seems we’re going to spend a billion to lose 2 billion! More of that crazy ObamaMath...
12
posted on
09/05/2009 7:32:56 PM PDT
by
PugetSoundSoldier
(Indignation over the Sting of Truth is the Defense of the Indefensible)
To: Halfmanhalfamazing
Your screen is fine. I ping the articles to myself only to let people know there is a list, then once per day I ping to the entire pinglist a posting with all the articles I would have pinged, excerpts and links....people were getting overwhelmed with all the pings so now they get all pertinent articles in one ping.
13
posted on
09/05/2009 7:59:12 PM PDT
by
socialismisinsidious
( The socialist income tax system turns US citizens into beggars or quitters!)
To: socialismisinsidious
Ahhh, that makes sense.
Information overload.
14
posted on
09/06/2009 1:56:01 AM PDT
by
Halfmanhalfamazing
( obamacare is a threat to my family . Yours too)
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