SOCIALIZED MEDICINE: THE FIX IS IN

Worldnetdaily ^ | June 17, 2003 | By Neal Boortz

[Uncle Bill]

SOCIALIZED MEDICINE: THE FIX IS IN

Worldnetdaily
By Neal Boortz
June 17, 2003

The American people want it, and the Congress is going to give it to them. Stand by for prescription-drug coverage under Medicare. The initial cost, we're told, will be about $40 billion a year. Look for $100 billion a year before you buy your next car.

Step by step ... here is how it's going to work. Print this and save it for future reference. You will be able to show it to your children or grandchildren to help explain why the government is taking 60 percent of everything they earn.

• Democrats propose a grand new spending program. Senior citizens are going to be able to use someone else's money to buy their prescription drugs. Senior citizens pledge their electoral support to Democrats as thanks.

• Republicans start chanting "me too!" and get on board with the free-drugs-for-old-folks plan, hoping that at least some of the wrinkled class will vote for them.

• Senior citizens spend an average of $650 a year on prescription drugs right now. As soon as the drug benefit is added to Medicare, the pharmaceutical companies will start marketing many more drugs to old folks. Every night, you'll see some wrinkled citizens romping on television while the announcer says; "Ask your doctor about Kurital."

• Seniors will rush off to their Medicare doctors and say "Tell me about Kurital." They'll insist on a prescription for Kurital, and any other drug they happen to see advertised, and many doctors will be all too willing to go along.

• The average yearly spending by seniors on prescription drugs will skyrocket from $650 a year to thousands of dollars a year.

• In short order, the projections for spending on the new prescription-drug benefit will have been left in the dust. What was sold to us as a $40 billion a year program will be costing well over $100 billion a year ... and going nowhere but up. Politicians and bureaucrats will start expressing their "concerns" and a fix will be demanded.

• The "fix" to rising spending on drugs for wrinkled class will be to put limits on what Medicare will pay for certain prescription drugs, just as Medicare has already put limits on what will be paid for certain medical services.

• Pharmaceutical companies will find that they aren't making any money on selling these drugs to seniors because of the Medicare price controls. In fact, they may find that they are actually losing money. To compensate for these lost profits the pharmaceutical companies will simply increase prices for these and other drugs to their non-Medicare patients.

• As the prices of prescription drugs for non-Medicare Americans go up, so will the price of health-insurance coverage. Insurance companies aren't going to suffer these increased costs without passing them off to the insured. Basically this is the same thing that has happened in many other areas of health care. Medicare institutes price controls, health-care providers make up the difference by charging other patients more, health-insurance companies raise premiums ... and so on.

• As prescription prices and health-insurance premiums increase for non-Medicare Americans, so will the demand for politicians to step in and do something. Politicians, always hungry for both votes and power, will be all-too-happy to oblige.

• Politicians will start demagoguing drug companies. They will be called "greedy" and will be accused of "profiteering" and "exploiting" the frail health of our precious senior citizens.

• After a short period of scare-mongering, the politicians will vote to institute price controls on the pharmaceutical companies. Politicians will tell us that they are doing this to reign in these greedy corporate monsters who are becoming obscenely rich on the backs of sick Americans.

• With price controls the earnings figures for pharmaceutical companies will go into the toilet.

• As earnings go down, pharmaceutical companies will have less and less to spend on research and development for new drugs. Research into ways to treat disease will show down and, eventually, will become the province of government.

• Government will be the eventual beneficiary of this mess as the masses clamor for more and more government solutions to these problems that are perceived to be the fault of the private sector.

So, did that scenario upset you? Now I will tell you to forget you read it. Set it aside, for there's nothing you can do. The political vote-buying machinery is in motion. The fix is in. This massively expensive benefit program is a done deal. It's a precursor to the political inevitability of socialized medicine. Stay healthy.

[quietolong]

Hold on to your Big Mac! You ain’t seen nothing yet!

[sarcasm]

Good morning.

[Uncle Bill]

Good morning. 8-)

[sarcasm]

Hope this doesn't give you indigestion:

[texastoo]

So much for a conservative president.

Not only do I agree with Boortz, but I see more problems with this that he hasn't mentioned.

The government will probably only pay for the cheapest brand which is usually generic. Not all generic drugs dissolve in the stomach properly. Therefore, some people will end up in the hospital thus costing more.

[Uncle Bill]

Congressional analyst now sees this year's deficit exceeding $400 billion

Bush Calls For $400 Billion In Medicare Spending

Lawmakers Pass $400.5 Billion Defense Bill

With the 2003 federal budget almost done, there’s now a price tag for this 2000-2003 spending spree: $782 billion in new spending. Not $782 billion in total spending, mind you, but $782 billion above what Washington spent in the previous four years. Eventually, taxes will need to be raised by more than $5,000 per household to pay for it. With the exception of World War II, on a per-household basis, 2000-2003 will become the largest four-year federal spending spree in American history.

Vote Bush, limited government only Karl Marx could understand

[Uncle Bill]

"The government will probably only pay for the cheapest brand which is usually generic. Not all generic drugs dissolve in the stomach properly. Therefore, some people will end up in the hospital thus costing more."

Bush issues rules to speed up introduction of generic drugs - June 13, 2003

[sarcasm]

Bush's Generic Move Seen Aiding India Drugmakers

[Smokin' Joe]

The author left out HIPAA, passed during Clinton's watch (effective this year), which significantly increases the amount of paperwork associated with providing medical care.

Any increase in inefficiency will cause the huddled masses to cry out for Government to 'do something', resulting in 'emergency' legislation, which permits the passage of even more outrageous procedural encumbrances..... all of which can be repealed once the Gubmint takes over, thus demonstrating that they should have been in control all along.....Yikes!

[dfwgator]

The ones who will be crying out for socialized medicine will be the business owners who are tired of paying for their employees' healthcare.

[Uncle Bill]

Figures, doesn't it?

Bush signed the department of justice Authorisation Bill which will make extension for H-1B visas easier. It will also make it possible for more Indian doctors to live and work in the US once their academic programme is over. The extension of H-1B visas will particularly benefit the IT sector. This is good news for Indian H-1B visa holders, as nearly 50% of them are working in the high-tech sector.

[sarcasm]

US gives India assurance on outsourcing

[Uncle Bill]

Let's outsource Bush. Say, to France.

Bush, the best friend Democrats could ever have:

Bush Presidency is Advancing the Progressive Agenda - June 16, 2003

[autoresponder]

Kalifornia = 35 billion debt

(& rising)

Illegal aliens "pay sales taxes" the libs say:

Ignore medical, presciption drugs, free hospitalizaton, across the border (and back to Mexico) childbirth/citizenship, permanent illegal birth costs (6 per family!), welfare, public schools, free housing, no car insurance, SSI, under the table work payments while collecting welfare &/or SSI, drop box mail to collect multi-ID welfare and SSI in CA while actually living in Mexico!, phony (DNC) voter registration (Motor Votor & mail-votor registration/self certified as US citizens and mail in voting), and many many more . . .

All paid for by "CA state sales taxes"?

- $35,000,000 in CA debt -

- From a pre-Grey CA surplus!

"Everything always starts in CA!"

- autoresponder -

[Smokin' Joe]

Perhaps, but my bet is on the multitude whose employers do not provide insurance. These are the ones who are likely to vote thinking only of their wallets and the short term. It is certain that the system will be as fouled up and inefficient as the Government can make it (and the public will stand) before the axe drops.

It is absolutely normal for the Government to create a crisis and then step in with the 'solution'.

BTW, there is already some socialized health care in the US, under the auspices of the BIA. Indian ('Native American') health care systems suffer from all the 'benefits' of a government administered program, and depending on administrators on the local level, can be a horrorshow.

[Buckwheats]

"If you think health care is expensive now, just wait 'til it's free"....P.J. O'Rourke

[tm22721]

Every trend eventually suffers a reversal, it's called a cycle.

We are finally approaching DeTocqueville's prediction of the ruined American experiment.

BUMP

[nonliberal]

Once again, Boortz has it nailed. I printed this out!

[nonliberal]

Not to mention the morality of adding $400 billion to a system that is collapsing.