Gingrich on Obama’s healthcare law: ‘About 300 pages are pretty good’ [300 out of 2,409]

The Hill ^ | 9/30/2011 | James Klatell

[Hoodat]

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) called for an immediate repeal of President Obama's healthcare law but would reinstate "a little over 10 percent" of it.

He made the remarks on Thursday in Iowa, when he introduced a new version of his "Contract with America."

Gingrich, a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, listed "Repeal ObamaCare" as the first of his 10 part contract.

"The reason you have to repeal it is it's a 2,700-page document," Gingrich said. "You can't repeal part of it, because candidly you can't trust the staffs to tell you which part you ought to repeal."

But the former Speaker stressed that he had a "common-sense replacement" for the nation's healthcare system, and that some of that comes from the law he wants repealed.

"Now there are about 300 pages that are pretty good, a little over 10 percent, but they should be part of the replace document," Gingrich said.

[driftdiver]

It does seem fair. /s

[B Knotts]

No, they aren’t, Newt.

Because it’s all unconstitutional. The federal government has no authority to get involved in health insurance.

[devolve]

.

You beat me:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2818500/posts?page=119#119

Who can be the fair-y-ist?

[LibsRJerks]

As a healthcare professional whose seen and cared for many an American as well as many illegals in the hospital setting, I can tell you this — Americans WANT no expense spared. Once they get into the hospital, it’s usually for a few tests, but it always turns into at least 2 to three more tests, and then follow up tests to see how the treatment is working. The SLIGHTEST little downturn in a patiet’s condition and family members are PANICKING and SCREAMING more more MRI’s, more CT scans, you name it. And this is half the time being done for 89 year olds who are immobile, living in nursing homes, unable to live independently, etc. or for a 50 year old with terminal cancer. You get the picture.

I am all for everyone being spared no expense ...but we’ve got to get the EXPENSES down. Costs, costs, costs. An MRI I believe runs about $8,000 in the hospital. I could be wrong, but they’re astronomically expensive. A single days’ stay in the hospital runs $3,000!!! Why it is so expensive, I don’t know. Safe nursing care, I guess, drives these costs. And remember, patients WANT the best care, the best service — room service, special diets, physical therapy, you name it. If they don’t provide it, they face competition that DOES provide it, and then they face being shut down.

Remember also, they’re being FORCED to provide free care to any individual on the planet who manages to ramble on in to the ER and be seen for whatever ailment they present with.

I don’t know the answers ..I think it comes down to lowering costs and driving UP the pool of folks who pay into this system if we want to keep THIS system. . . . but this system is unsustainable with no one paying in and EVERYONE taking out of it. We have not enough younger folks working to pay into the system that is supposed to cover all these older folks who paid in and now require all this care, but now whose dollars don’t go as far.

I also don’t feel it’s fair to ask doctors to accept what people can pay. Doctors attend school until they’re 30, then they work like DOGS everyday of their lives, being on call 24 hrs a day for every need imaginable. They work as hard as our military does, making life livable for everyone. Same goes for nurses who are paid half of what they’re worth, also in terms of how hard they work. You try being on your feet 12-14 hours straight, barely a bathroom or food break, running to meet the needs of frail and dependent older folks and their demanding family members. Most staffs are seriously short and healthcare workers risk being sued also by our litigious society for every single mistake. Everything we do is just CYA.

I see both sides of it. We don’t want universal care, but we want no expense spared. We also want to strangle our healthcare professionals with lawsuits, and that also drives up costs. So, what to do?

Sorry for the ramble — there is ideologically purity, and then there is reality.

I know one thing — if they’re going to dismantle Obama care, they need to do it fast. Lots of stuff in research and in writing assumes it’s already IN PLACE and they’re already making their plans based upon this law. I see it all the time. Some of it is good, in terms of prevention, and a lot of it is a bunch of hooey and outlines a lot of politically correct “grants” and giveaways in the name of “fairness” and “equality” and “diversity” as well. I think for the most part, it’s a monster.

I WILL state here, I get really annoyed at seeing contracted, fully immobile 99 year olds on dialysis, full codes, family members clinging on, sparing no expense ...REALLY bearing down on the doctors for every little last issue ... (they know they have these docs by the NECKS) threatening lawsuits, all on the taxpayer, all on Medicare with no other insurance coverage. I hate it — I really do. I don’t think it’s fair to anyone. We have all this technology, and we can keep people alive 40 years past where they should have just died ... really — how far do we go with this? Do you see the dilemma???

In my mind, we just have to lower costs. And we have to get more people WORKING and paying the costs of this system. And we have to decide where safe care begins and where the lawuits end. I don’t think any of these things are complicated, but they’re all incredibly politically motivated.

Sorry, sorry for the long rant. I’m just a tired, grumpy nurse.

[Hoodat]

So at what point do we force employees to accept what their employers can afford to pay (at the point of a gun)?

Note: the phrase 'at the point of a gun' should always be included at the end of any sentence where government force is being described.

[devolve]

.

- What has happened to FR?

- I recall that Moby had asked radicals to invade FR

- My hunting hound Tex had a higher IQ than Obama has - add me to Tex and our combined IQ is higher than all of the creepy crooked morons (combined) in the White House now - including insider trading guru Warren Buffett

- I’ll give $10,000 in DNC Monopoly Money to anyone that can produce a MENSA certified test score for Obama that is within 50 points of mine - I will contact MENSA and ask them to release my numbers - with my name redacted

- I’m sure that Hussein Junior will release his orginal certified SATs and submit to MENSA testing quite soon.....

- MENSA turned down Bill and Hillary Clinton arrogant demands for applications for membership in 1992 as they do not accept the later SATs “adjusted & normed” scores and told the Clintons they would need to be tested by a MENSA certified shrink

MENSA moved from Brooklyn NY to Texas some years back - Way ahead of the curve.....

[Williams]

First, there are things in Obamacare which people support and republicans support.

Second, I think Newt’s “mandate” is you have to pay something when you get healthcare, not just walk in and say hey too bad you have to treat me for free.

There is a huge difference between health CARE and health insurance, and we allowed teh democrats and media to obliterate the difference.

You should have to pay for everything you get in life, and many times it would be cheaper that way.

[TitansAFC]

-—”The stench of bureaucracy oozing out of your post was downright oppressive.”-—

And you are just another posted so dumbed down by your predispositions that you can’t process anything larger than a soundbyte.

I pointed out a list of some of the things Conservatives have been fighting for that are in the bill - those very things to which Newt refers and suggests should be brought back to the table after the TOTAL REPEAL of Obamacare.

Medicare fraud is massive, incorrect medical billing has cost many citizens excessively, up to and including legal bills, and red tape has prevented many biologic drugs and treatments from ever hitting the market. Private investment SHOULD be encouraged in finding new treatments and cures, just as Conservatives have fought for for a long time. These are all things that got put into the bill as supposed “compromises” for Conservatives, businesses, and Moderate Democrats. These things are good and worthy, and absolutely SHOULD be brought back into consideration after Obamcare is dead and buried.

Just because you can’t see past the end of your own nose when it comes to issues doesn’t mean Newt is wrong or betraying everybody. Try and get past the soundbytes and “gotcha” bullcrap sometime. Despite the obvious intent of the headline and soundbyte it addresses, there is nothing here that a genuine, honest assessment of what is intended and meant would cause a Conservative to get up-in-arms about. Quite the opposite; repealing all of Obamacare and then resubmitting just the Conservative elements within is a good thing, and we should support it.

[devolve]

.

At the point of my big Colt SA .44-40?

I saw that comment by FReeper “ez” on this thread

I have long noted that FR has become infected with radical sleepers - and also afflicted by ???

I’ll pass by the spelling and grammatical errors on FR - and settle for logical sane informed substance

[MizSterious]

See, this is what I mean when I say I can't vote for the Grinch because of his history. I wasn't talking about his marital history as much as I was about what he's said and done both in and out of office. The man is a menace.

[driftdiver]

This last week I sat thru a keynote speech given by the Director of Small Business for a govt agency. He was quite obviously not there because of his intelligence or ability. Clearly a major Obama support who could not put a coherent thought together.

Apparently his main claim to fame was he wrote a memo. He seemed quite impressed with that memo. The rest of us were thoroughly depressed at the prospect this guy had anything to do with helping small business do business with the federal govt.

[CSI007]

“Now there are about 300 pages that are pretty good, a little over 10 percent, but they should be part of the replace document,”

Of course. Newt wants to solve all our problems with Government programs. He is a big government, establishment, progressive republican.

Wool being pulled over the eyes of many on FR.

Once again we will be saddled with a non-conservative as the candidate.

[Blood of Tyrants]

He also said that we have to repeal it all because the good parts cannot be extricated from the bad.

[Carry_Okie]

Health Care, the Ultimate in Government Control

In a free society, health care choices are necessarily individual, but given the uneven chance that an individual will incur catastrophic healthcare expenses, individuals must pool resources to fund health coverage, usually by means of insurance.

When healthcare was funded by a single family, funds were necessarily limited; a family would not starve its children to treat the sick or aged. The amount of effort to save a single life that could be spent has changed for two reasons:

1. Technology has vastly increased the amount that could be spent on any one case.
2. Pooling healthcare resources has vastly increased the money available to be spent on any one case.

In effect, the “family” now paying for the service is the entire insurance pool. That pool, or its agent, the insurer, then has a say in what they will fund, just as the family once did. So now, instead of a family refusing to starve, we have an insurer refusing to go broke. It's a tradeoff. We have more funds available for any one individual, but less control over how they are spent. As long as technology is increasing the upper bounds of what might be spent, we, as a pool, face hard choices about what we can afford. When a moral imperative to make an infinite commitment to save any one life meets a technical ability to bankrupt the pool, somebody MUST lose in the pursuit of saving that one life.

As the pool enlarges to a global perspective, the moral problem takes on a new dimension, and "the least of mine," takes on a whole new meaning. The money spent on Terri Shiavo could feed, clothe, medicate, and educate ten thousand children who will otherwise die.

We have to find ways to make hard moral choices in order to contain costs. It's inescapable.

Seventy percent of your medical dollar (or nearly eight percent of the national economy) is spent upon people who die within six months. Meanwhile, pregnant mothers still don't get decent prenatal care that would prevent life-long medical expenses and aliens enter the country carrying hepatitis, parasites, and antibiotic-resistant strains of infectious diseases that go untreated. Hospitals are on the verge of bankruptcy caring for the indigent. Private insurance rates bear much of that cost as a hidden tax in hospital charges.

Distorted treatment priorities are only part of the picture. The system provides few financial incentives to promote health. Proper diet, regular exercise, and annual check-ups do not reduce the price of coverage. Similarly, there are few penalties for high-risk behavior. The system is insane. Government is the problem and socializing medicine will make it worse.

In a free market, there are usually two underlying factors determining the scope of coverage:

1. How the costs were incurred: whether the medical problem was no fault of the insured person's own choices or whether it was the result of an irresponsible and avoidable choice.
2. The cost-effectiveness and extent of the adjustment: whether it's risky or experimental or if less expensive substitutes exist.

The cost of coverage is determined by the scope of covered risks, the probability of a claim, and the average expense of the treatment. The price of coverage is offset by investment returns on the cash in the coverage pool. For example, insurers may charge more to cover high-risk activities such as smoking or skydiving. A policy may also limit the extent of elective procedures such as certain forms of cosmetic surgery. Unfortunately, pricing many other distinguishing risks is not allowed because the State enlarges the pool paying into the system to the point of the absurd. It closely regulates the terms of the contracts based upon the political power of the groups at risk: those seeking to get others to subsidize the cost of their choices.

It doesn't matter if the risk is riding a motorcycle without a helmet, not taking prescribed medication, or bare-backing in a bath-house, high-risk individual choices cost the insurance pool that pays for the treatment and poses additional risks to the public at large. A State-financed or regulated system, heavily influenced by political interests, is unlikely to assess those risks objectively.

Once those risks are assumed, there is the additional unnecessary legal overhead associated with malpractice settlements. Since humans will probably never know everything about their bodies, there always will be uncertainty and risk associated with the delivery of medical products and services. The assumption that anything less than a perfect cure constitutes medical malpractice is one expensive fantasy. At some point, the choice exercised by those who make healthcare choices must bring its own responsibilities.

The insurer may have reason to lose that lawsuit. First, the settlement is often less than the cost of a court battle. That means that more such cases will be brought because a new precedent, whether due to the cause of the loss, the size of the settlement, or the type of restorative measures demanded, means that all such cases must be covered the same way by all insurers. They must then raise rates and the total industry cash flow then increases. Insurers make money on that cash flow, as well as on investments in companies that treat covered losses. If that sounds like a conflict of interest, it can be.

Free Health Care

Healthcare services don't come free; somebody has to pay for them. While central planning in healthcare works no better than it did in the Soviet Union, the United States, torn between socialized medicine and corporate welfare, has some of the finest care available, but by far the most expensive. While the US bears much of the research and product development costs for the rest of the world, in no way can it be considered a cost-effective system by world standards. There is a lot that can be done to improve its efficiency without resorting to the mediocre treatment characteristic of socialized medicine.

When the level of free service is equivalent to what can be purchased by private parties, there is then no reason to invest in private care. Socialized medicine makes all healthcare policy decisions political thus masking the cost of individual decisions by placing the burden for their consequences upon everybody. That's why AIDS research is starving the search to cure cancer even though the latter clearly costs society far more, which destroys the wealth that funds AIDS research. Government intervention into free-market risk management distorts the cost assessments that help industry identify costly health risks to invest in eliminating them. Treating medical problems is a human need capable of virtually infinite costs, simply because life is fatal. As medical technologies proliferate no insurance pool will be able to afford all the treatments its users could desire.

The best way to reduce the cost of treatment is to prevent the need, a focus upon which our physician-dominated system is lacking. These activities include personal habits that preclude problems (exercise, diet, posture, marriage, oral hygiene), mitigating measures designed to keep a problem from getting worse (special diets, spinal correction, dental care), and diagnostic tools to detect potential problems.

Many nutritional supplements don’t get onto the market as substitutes for prescription drugs because food is not patentable. Decades later, expensive drugs are qualified by the FDA that have side effects the natural products don't have! The fix starts with private property rights. Many of these nutrients are only in unique local habitats. In that respect, the combination of resources and processes that support production of a particular nutrient should be patentable just like a mining claim. It certainly provides reason to understand and care for that habitat instead of ruthlessly exploiting it. You saw it here first.

It is within the preventative realm that the market has operated with relative freedom, but it has suffered from the distortions of treatment costs downstream. New preventative technology usually lacks physician or insurer acceptance, has high initial costs, or suffers from the perverse result of providing insurers reason to cancel coverage as is the case with diagnostic equipment. This is because minimizing total cost to the patient does not drive the profit motives to coverage providers, indeed, quite the opposite.

Only patients can have their own best interests at heart. That's why individual payment systems are the least expensive in delivered cost across total populations as long as each patient understands and is motivated to adopt the least cost option.

Unfortunately, the patient has no idea what a competitive price for most medical services might be, in part because of the distortions due to the buying power of large pools. HMOs, MediCare, and hospital bills (padded to cover the cost of services to the indigent) have absolutely destroyed the patient's ability to weigh competing prices of medical services. Have you ever looked at an Explanation of Benefits form? Did the prices bear any resemblance to reality? Have you ever asked your physician what he or she might take for the service in cash? If so, were you surprised at the difference? So how can anyone objectively judge what is in their own best interest?

You now know why the system is insane.

The Deep End of the Pool

Treatment of the medically indigent is totally dependent upon the insurance pool of last resort: the taxpayer. Although minimal free healthcare services cost taxpayers, confining infectious diseases and preventing lifelong problems in children saves taxpayers money in the long run. There is an obvious peril, however, in making free health care services available to anyone.

Controlling healthcare costs thus faces an inherent conflict, regardless of whether healthcare services are private or socialized: A high price at the initial point-of-service inhibits people from seeking help early, when most medical problems are less expensive to confine or treat. Conversely, pricing medical care free of charge would make containing costs impossible. The key to resolving that paradox is in managing the triage function in a manner that serves more purposes than the system does now.

Triage is the process of evaluating patients and determining what kind of diagnostic work or treatment they need. It is done by firemen or EMTs in an emergency. It should be performed a qualified technician or nurse before any person makes it into an emergency room. Any person who doesn't qualify for emergency treatment could then be directed to an urgent care facility or asked to make an appointment.

Triage should be free. The provider must have no relationship to any downstream medical provider. They would provide pricing information on the various alternatives in the process, whether a visit with a doctor, chiropractor, nutritionist, or purchasing lab tests. Triage would thus be little different than walking into a store and deciding what to buy, if anything.

The one problem with putting triage in front of a physician visit is that when most people get sick they want to see a doctor right away. The way to meet that demand is by automating the triage function. Many people have the education to make confined medical choices. An insurer could provide qualified subscribers access to online diagnostic information that would help them research their medical problem, select the appropriate specialist, make an appointment, or communicate about problem to a triage specialist. The software might also test the users' comprehension by which to qualify for the option to make more decisions for themselves. They could schedule diagnostic tests so that a physician could make a decision without a visit. Putting test and treatment protocols online thus would improve both patient education and physician accountability.

Such testing also assesses the effectiveness of the educational tools by which to market better services, reason to research, develop, and improve the quality of online education tools. If copyright for such information bundling and testing were confined for, let's say, five to seven years, the provider has reason to invest in improving proprietary tools, while the benefits are not retained from the public at large for an unreasonable period.

Increasing use of nurse practitioners to screen incoming patients would save both time and money as well as handle the indigent patient fairly. Here we come to the manner in which the scope of patient care for the indigent must be confined to a rational minimum. We have a right to be free, but we don't have a right to free care. The only way to manage the cost of medical treatment for the indigent is to define what kind of services they may have very carefully.

It is a political decision.

Where the healthcare industry is truly responsible to the public is in informing our representatives of the relative cost of various healthcare options by which they can then define the scope of coverage in budgetary legislation. Providers should effectively give us a budget for what they can accomplish for a given amount of money, what would be effectively indigent healthcare for bid. Most healthcare purchases today are not made by the user, but by an interest without accountability for acting as the user's agent: their employer. To combine the benefits of pooling with visible pricing means more than making the purchase price of healthcare options visible, it is to return to the user control of the buying decision. We need to expand the concept of the Medical Savings Account to include pretax purchase of healthcare on the part of the employee and end employer purchase of healthcare.

One way to resolve that customer alienation from reality, and provide private providers a way to contain costs, would be to market coverage from a menu of narrowly defined policies. Consumers would combine these policies into a package to suit their individual preferences. By defining coverage pools according to the choices people make, those behaviors that unnecessarily cost the total system would be borne by those who choose to incur those costs.

For example, people who don't want extreme measures taken to save their lives or don't need coverage to treat STDs, obesity, infertility treatments, or caring for children, wouldn't have to pay for them. Those who don’t want elective cosmetic surgery wouldn't buy that policy. If getting regular exercise assured a lower cost of coverage it would motivate the sedentary to start working to qualify for that pool. Forcing people to confront the cost of their choices is an important way to prevent expensive problems. That process reduces the total cost of the entire system. Pricing each distinct need focuses research dollars to fix the problems that have the most potential, whether glamorous university-research or a simple educational tool. It may be true that America's research is carrying much of the rest of the world stuck with socialized medical care, but it is product development that pays for it. No political system is as efficient at optimizing competing demands on capital as is the marketplace.

There will still need to be restrictions on customized customer pools for the sale of health insurance to preclude exclusion of people who had no choice in their ailments, such as those who suffer congenital diseases. That such groups exist does not discount the value of pricing services by behavior because it motivates healthy decisions that increase the total wealth that ultimately must pay for those who can't.

[katiedidit1]

TitansAFC, I am with NEWT on his healthcare solutions. This is nothing but gummed up garbage and another attempt to bring Newt down. I hope during the debate tonight Newt is given a chance to address this issue before the world and make liars out of the fools deliberately taking words out of context in order to slam him.
With you on this Titans!!!

[madmaximus]

FUNG!

[devolve]

.

Resident Obama: “Don’t judge me in my first 100 days!.....”

— Barack Hussein Obama Junior - 2009

.

Resident Obama: “I expect to be judged in a year from now.....”

— Barack Hussein Obama Junior - 2009

.

“A man may be known by those (crooks and idiots and Commies) around him....”

(paraphrased as I cannot recall or find his exact words!)

— Barack Hussein Obama Junior - year?

.

“If I don’t improve things within three years don’t vote to reelect me!”

(paraphrased as I cannot recall or find his exact words!)

— Barack Hussein Obama Junior - 2009
.

“I’m going to need another four years to fix all the things I inherited!”

(paraphrased as I cannot recall or find his exact words!)

— Barack Hussein Obama Junior - 2011

.

.

“I’m going to take your money and shove it up your heart!”

— Barack Hussein Obama Junior - everyday thoughts

.

[LibsRJerks]

What is your source for this? Some good ideas contained here — a lot of common sense.

I think we really have to admit as Americans that we take really poor care of our health as well. People smoke like chimneys, won’t watch their weight, refuse to be compliant with medications, drink like fish, are out of control non-compliant diabetics ... or a combination of all — is that MY fault? Should MY coverage go up for that? It’s not fair.

And how about all the elective surgeries ..the knee replacements — Just saw a scenario like this the other day on an 85 year old lady. We fixed her pacemaker and the NEXT DAY sent her into elective knee surgery. She ended up needing 4 units of blood, going septic, etc. But, heck, she’s 85 and WANTS that new knee ... if we deny the new knee, then she becomes more immobile and costs STILL go up for her care over time.

[malos]

A choice not an echo! Either Santorum or Bachmann.

[montag813]

Pay close attention. Newt Gingrich wants to replace Obamacare with Gingrichcare.

He's your nominee! FoxNews reported that "the Tea Party is behind Newt!"