Citizens must fight monstrosity of Obama’s health plan
The American Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 establishes the Health Insurance Exchange, Health Insurance Trust Fund, Comparative Effective Research Fund, Fraud and Abuse Control Fund, Public Health Investment Fund, and the Prevention and Wellness Trust Fund, just to name a few things. Not including those 65 or older, we will go from a nation with 81 percent insured to 94 percent insured. These are just the pools of money we’re talking here, not even the staggering heap of new agencies and Cabinet positions, placed under the Health and Human Services Department, which out of $2.73 trillion in federal outlays for 2007 consumed $672 billion. The Congressional Budget Office says the proposed health care plan would have a gross cost of $1 trillion and would raise the deficit by $239 billion over 10 years. In a Senate Budget Committee hearing, Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) asked David Elmendorg, the director of the Congressional Budget Office, "do you see a successful effort being mounted to bend the long-term cost curve?" Elmendorf replied, "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. And on the contrary, the legislation significantly expands the federal responsibility for health care costs." There is a better solution to the problem: Get out of the way. Allow people in one state to buy insurance in another. Allow people to pick and chose which coverage they need, instead of the state deciding what we each must have and must pay for. Create a voucher program for those who need their care subsidized, so that they can decide how best to spend those health dollars. In the 1950s, medical costs in the entire economy were only 5 percent of Gross Domestic Product. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ 2006 report show that health care spending made up 16 percent of GDP, and about one-third of that cost was Medicaid and Medicare services. This number doesn't include the deductibles and tax breaks of group-benefits for having coverage. Outside of it being unrealistic after looking at the cost-benefit differences, the more important factor is the infringement of rights: Fourth Amendment: "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects." National database of electronic device monitoring including anything implantable, e.g. pacemakers; Eighth Amendment: "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed." Any fine for not being covered by insurance is excessive; Tenth Amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people." This will be a terrible burden to put on the American people. Do not give up any more of your freedom to choose, in the name of a well being that can never be secured. If we can stand up to this monstrosity together, we have a chance of reclaiming our republic.
Questions that should be answered before health reform vote
We should ask the president, our senators and representatives a few modest questions about the proposed health care bill before it is passed. 1. Are you willing to sign an affidavit indicating that you have read the bill before you sign/vote on it? (Perhaps it's a good idea to do this for all bills passed by Congress.) 2. Are you willing to give up the gold-plated medical plans of Congress, the president and federal workers, and live by the same rules you are proposing in this bill? 3. Can you explain why America needs this bill when most Americans are satisfied with the health care they are receiving? 4. Wouldn't it make sense to include a limit on pain and suffering and punitive damages in medical malpractice legislation to reduce the cost of malpractice insurance, profits and trial lawyers, and, thus, health care? 5. Apparently, between 10 million and 15 million — or as much as onethird — of those without health care, to be covered by this proposal, are legal or illegal aliens. In these times of economic stress and ballooning deficits, doesn't it make sense to exclude these individuals from any plan, and let their own countries cover them? 6. Can you explain how this legislation would forestall the problems of other socialized medical systems in countries like Canada and England —i.e, long waits and rationing of treatment, etc.? 7. Can you promise that this legislation will not require insurance plans to pay for abortions? 8. Can you guarantee that my taxes and/or insurance costs will not go up because of this bill? I am sure there are many more questions that could be asked in the 1,000-plus pages that are purported to be included in the bill, but since the bill is not being posted on the Internet or otherwise being made available to the public, these are just a few for starters.
Charles Krauthammer Obama backpedals on health care, thanks to CBO Charles Krauthammer is a nationally syndicated columnist.
Yesterday, Barack Obama was God. Today, he’s fallen from grace, the magic gone, his health care reform dead. If you believed the first idiocy — and half the mainstream media did — you’ll believe the second. Don’t believe either. Conventional wisdom always makes straight-line projections. They are always wrong. Yes, Obama’s aura has diminished, in part because of overweening overexposure. But by year’s end he will emerge with something he can call health care reform. The Democrats in Congress will pass it because they must. Otherwise, they’ll have slain their own savior in his first year in office. But that bill will look nothing like the massive reform Obama originally intended. The beginning of the retreat was signaled by Obama’s curious reference — made five times — to “healthinsurance reform” in his July 22 news conference. Reforming the health care system is dead. Cause of death? Blunt trauma administered not by Republicans, not even by Blue Dog Democrats, but by the green eyeshades at the Congressional Budget Offi ce. Three blows: 1. On June 16, the CBO determined that the Senate Finance Committee bill would cost $1.6 trillion over 10 years, delivering a sticker shock that was near fatal. 2. Five weeks later, the CBO gave its verdict on the Independent Medicare Advisory Council, Dr. Obama’s latest miracle cure, conjured up at the last minute to save Obamacare from fiscal ruin, and consisting of a committee of medical experts highly empowered to make Medicare cuts. The CBO said that IMAC would do nothing, trimming costs by perhaps 0.2 percent. A 0.2 percent cut is not a solution; it’s a punch line. 3. The final blow came last Sunday when the CBO euthanized the Obama “out years” myth. The administration’s argument had been: Sure, Obamacare will initially increase costs and deficits. But it pays for itself in the long run because it bends the curve downward in coming decades. The CBO put in writing the obvious: In its second decade, Obamacare significantly bends the curve upward — increasing deficits even more than in the first decade. This is obvious because Obama’s own first-decade numbers were built on arithmetic trickery. New taxes to support the health care plan begin in 2011, but the benefits part of the program doesn’t fully kick in until 2015. That excess revenue is, of course, one time only. It makes the first decade numbers look artificially low, but once you pass 2015, the yearly deficits become larger and eternal. Three CBO strikes and you’re out cold. Though it must be admitted that the White House itself added to the farcical nature of its frantic and futile cost-cutting when budget director Peter Orszag held a three-hour brainstorming session with Senate Finance Committee aides trying to find ways to save. “At one point,” reports The Wall Street Journal, “they flipped through the tax code, looking for ideas.” Looking for ideas? Months into the president’s health care drive and just days before his deadline for Congress to pass real legislation? You gonna give this gang the power to remake onesixth of the U.S. economy? Not likely. Whatever structural reforms dribble out of Congress before the August recess will likely not survive the year. In the end, Obama will have to settle for something very modest. And indeed it will be health-insurance reform. To win back the vast constituency that has insurance, is happy with it, and is mightily resisting the fatal lures of Obamacare, the president will in the end simply impose heavy regulations on the insurance companies that will make what you already have secure, portable and imperishable: no policy cancellations, no pre-existing condition requirements, perhaps even a cap on out-of-pocket expenses. Nirvana. But wouldn’t this bankrupt the insurance companies? Of course it would. There will be only one way to make this work: Impose an individual mandate. Force the 18 million Americans between 18 and 34 who (often quite rationally) forgo health insurance to buy it. This will create a huge new pool of customers who rarely get sick but will be paying premiums every month. And those premiums will subsidize nirvana health insurance for older folks. Net result? Another huge transfer of wealth from the young to the old, the now-routine specialty of the baby boomers; an end to the dream of imposing European-style health care on the United States; and a president who before Christmas will wave his pen, proclaim victory and watch as the newest conventional wisdom reaffirms his divinity.
Patients forced to live in agony after NHS refuses to pay for painkilling injections Tens of thousands with chronic back pain will be forced to live in agony after a decision to slash the number of painkilling injections issued on the NHS, doctors have warned.
By Laura Donnelly, Health Correspondent Published: 7:45AM BST 02 Aug 2009
Cuts to treatments would save the NHS £33 million. Photo: ANDREW CROWLEY The Government's drug rationing watchdog says "therapeutic" injections of steroids, such as cortisone, which are used to reduce inflammation, should no longer be offered to patients suffering from persistent lower back pain when the cause is not known.
Instead the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) is ordering doctors to offer patients remedies like acupuncture and osteopathy.
Cancer doctors do not tell patients about drugs which could prolong lives Tens of thousands of cancer victims denied drugs which could extend their lives Patients 'demand refunds for expensive cancer drugs' on the NHSSpecialists fear tens of thousands of people, mainly the elderly and frail, will be left to suffer excruciating levels of pain or pay as much as £500 each for private treatment.
The NHS currently issues more than 60,000 treatments of steroid injections every year. NICE said in its guidance it wants to cut this to just 3,000 treatments a year, a move which would save the NHS £33 million.
But the British Pain Society, which represents specialists in the field, has written to NICE calling for the guidelines to be withdrawn after its members warned that they would lead to many patients having to undergo unnecessary and high-risk spinal surgery.
Dr Christopher Wells, a leading specialist in pain relief medicine and the founder of the NHS' first specialist pain clinic, said it was "entirely unacceptable" that conventional treatments used by thousands of patients would be stopped.
"I don't mind whether some people want to try acupuncture, or osteopathy. What concerns me is that to pay for these treatments, specialist clinics which offer vital services are going to be forced to close, leaving patients in significant pain, with nowhere to go,"
The NICE guidelines admit that evidence was limited for many back pain treatments, including those it recommended. Where scientific proof was lacking, advice was instead taken from its expert group. But specialists are furious that while the group included practitioners of alternative therapies, there was no one with expertise in conventional pain relief medicine to argue against a decision to significantly restrict its use.
Dr Jonathan Richardson, a consultant pain specialist from Bradford Hospitals Trust, is among more than 50 medics who have written to NICE urging the body to reconsider its decision, which was taken in May.
He said: "The consequences of the NICE decision will be devastating for thousands of patients. It will mean more people on opiates, which are addictive, and kill 2,000 a year. It will mean more people having spinal surgery, which is incredibly risky, and has a 50 per cent failure rate."
One in three people are estimated to suffer from lower back pain every year, while one in 15 consult their GP about it. Specialists say therapeutic injections using steroids to reduce inflammation and other injections which can deaden nerve endings, can provide months or even years of respite from pain.
Experts said that if funding was stopped for the injections, many clinics would also struggle to offer other vital services, such as pain management programmes and psychotherapy which is used to manage chronic pain.
Anger among medics has reached such levels that Dr Paul Watson, a physiotherapist who helped draft the guidelines, was last week forced to resign as President of the British Pain Society.
Doctors said he had failed to represent their views when the guidelines were drawn up and refused to support the letter by more than 50 of the group's members which called for the guidelines to be withdrawn.
In response, NICE chairman Professor Sir Michael Rawlins expressed outrage over the vote that forced Dr Watson from his position, describing the actions of the society as "shameful". He accused pain specialists of refusing to accept that there was insufficient scientific evidence to support their practices.
A spokesman for NICE said its guidance did not recommend that injections were stopped for all patients, but only for those who had been in pain for less than a year, where the cause was not known.
Iris Watkins, 80 from Appleton, in Cheshire said her life had been "transformed" by the use of therapeutic injections every two years. The pensioner began to suffer back pain in her 70s. Four years ago, despite physiotherapy treatment and the use of medication, she had reached a stage where she could barely walk.
"It was horrendous, I was spending hours lying on the sofa, or in bed, I couldn't spend a whole evening out. I was referred to a specialist, who decided to give me a set of injections. The difference was tremendous",
Within days, she was able to return to her old life, gardening, caring for her husband Herbert, and enjoying social occasions.
"I just felt fabulous – almost immediately, there was not a twinge. I only had an injection every two years, but it really has transformed my life; if I couldn't have them I would be in despair".
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Does that person truly think that the homeless dude with TB would have been picked up???? People live like that all the time,,,, even WITH health insurance.....it's not a case of poor healthcare(HE CHOSE THAT).....insurance CANNOT MAKE YOU TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF......
folks-----IT'S A WET PAPERBAG............
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
Kevin McCullough - FOXNews.com - July 30, 2009 Why Health Care Is Killing Obama
What has happened since May to bring down the president's approval ratings? It all comes down to three little words: health care reform.
President Barack Obama is disconnected from the American people on the ideas behind improving health care in America. Recent Gallup poll numbers -- placing him below former President Jimmy Carter in overall approval ratings -- point to it.
And now so do numbers of additional new polls.
The Washington Post/ABC News poll, which openly admits to polling a heavier segment of registered Democrats than independents and Republicans, puts his approval rating at below 50%.
The "passion index" tracked by the Rasmussen poll has watched the president's "strongly approve" numbers go from "+10" on May 31, to break even "+0" on June 28, to "-8" on July14th. Those numbers mean that 8% more of the population now "strongly disapprove" of his performance/policies, than "strongly approve." Among male voters the Rasmussen index is a "-10" point spread.
And a recent Public Strategies poll reports that only 44% of the American people feel the administration is on the right course. That's interesting because in March that number was 54%. Even big business has a better trend than the president: Four perecent of the population trust "corporate America" to do the "right thing" more than they did two months ago.
Earlier this week his head to head re-election numbers against the third place GOP contender in 2008, Mitt Romney, were dead even at 45% each.
So what happened since May to tank Obama?
In three words: health care reform.
The American people have seen what's in the plan. (Something the president admitted to not seeing last ) And they don't like it.
In many of the polls the voters themselves are not buying the rhetoric they are being sold. Statements like "if you like your current health care plan, you can keep it" or "you will pay less" or that "quality will improve" are now being exposed as less than truthful. The New York Post reported last Monday that even White House spokespersons have said that those statements aren't meant to be taken literally.
Press Secretary Robert Gibbs has even indicated that the president is already willing to break his biggest campaign promise of all in order to pay for it. (You remember that one, where "no one making under $250,000 per year would see their taxes go up by a single dime.") Such a moment, a genuine "read my lips, no new taxes" kind of moment, is difficult for millions of tax-payers to accept. This is particularly true because such a tax increase will target small business owners first. And it also doesn't help much that small businesses are the ones who create 2 out of every 3 new jobs today.............>>>>...........................>>>>.............................http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/07/30/kevin-mccullough-obama-health-care-numbers/
During one of his recent “town hall” meetings at which President Obama was pushing his health care proposal, he stated that he planned to evaluate doctors’ performance and reward them for good performance — presumably by some sort of salary [increase]. Just what is this man thinking about? I suppose he plans a government bureaucracy to prepare job descriptions for doctors and than have another government bureaucracy to give individual doctors performance appraisals based on those job descriptions. If the evaluation turns out to be favorable, I assume the doctor would get a salary increase and, of course, visa versa. This is only one step away from nationalizing the whole health care industry with doctors becoming civil servants — perish the thought. As far as I am concerned, I am the one who evaluates my doctor’s performance, and I think it is very good. I have no complaints. We work well together. This whole health care thing is rapidly becoming a nightmare. I only hope our legislators have the sense to reject it.
Yesterday, President Obama conceded that there probably won't be a vote on healthcare reform until "the end of September or the middle of October." That means you have August to attend town hall meetings with your representative and senators, stop by their congressional offices, write letters to the editor and educate your friends and family members about the dangers of socialized medicine. To help you in that effort, we’ve produced a short list of key concerns and questions, which are copied below. Please share this report with like-minded folks and those who may be undecided and willing to listen.
1. ABORTION Pro-choice groups, like NARAL and Planned Parenthood, are demanding that abortion be covered in any healthcare reform bill. In a recent interview with Politico, Laurie Rubiner, vice president for public policy and advocacy at Planned Parenthood, defends this demand by saying, "the alternative would be slashing benefits for millions of women who currently have [private] coverage for abortions..." In addition, key administration officials refuse to rule out abortion coverage. When asked on Fox News Sunday whether taxpayer money would go to pay for abortions, White House Budget Director Peter Orszag replied, "I am not prepared to say explicitly that right now. It's obviously a controversial issue, and it's one of the questions that is playing out in this debate." Pro-life senators on the Senate's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee forced a roll call vote on the issue when Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) attempted to add an amendment to the healthcare bill that would, in her words, "include women's health clinics that provide comprehensive services...deemed medically necessary or appropriate." She admitted that such "health clinics" would include Planned Parenthood. The pro-life amendment to prohibit funding of abortion lost 11-to-12. Question for your Congressmen: Will you oppose any healthcare reform bill that uses my tax dollars to pay for abortions? 2. EUTHANASIA In a recent New York Post column, Betsy McCaughey, a former lieutenant governor of New York and health care expert, wrote: "One troubling provision of the House bill compels seniors to submit to a counseling session every five years (and more often if they become sick or go into a nursing home) about alternatives for end-of-life care (House bill, p. 425-430). The sessions cover highly sensitive matters such as whether to receive antibiotics and 'the use of artificially administered nutrition and hydration.' This mandate invites abuse, and seniors could easily be pushed to refuse care." Question for your Congressmen: Will you oppose any healthcare reform bill that in any way promotes euthanasia? 3. COST The United States faces a debt crisis. According to many analysts, including Senator Judd Gregg (who is so respected by President Obama that he offered Gregg the post of Secretary of Commerce), the Obama budget will give us $11 trillion of debt at the end of five years and $17 trillion of debt at the end of ten years. (Source: PolitiFact.com) Question for your Congressmen: Why is Congress and the president pushing through a healthcare bill that would cost another trillion dollars over the next ten years? Shouldn't we concentrate on getting the debt under control first? 4. RATIONING CARE According to a July 15th report by The Hill, "The House bill would be paid for by roughly $500 billion in Medicare and Medicaid cuts..." These "cuts" would come as millions of Americans are retiring. Logic suggests that if we are "cutting" hundreds of billions of dollars healthcare would have to be limited or rationed in someway to accommodate more people. And seniors would be most affected by Medicare cuts. In addition, advisors to President Obama, such as Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, have suggested that healthcare should be rationed to certain individuals. Dr. Emanuel once wrote that "services provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens...should not be guaranteed. An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia." (Source: http://www.ncpa.org/pdfs/Where_Civic_Republicanism_and_Deliberative_Democracy_Meet.pdf) Question for your Congressmen: How can government promise to do more with less? Will you oppose any healthcare reform bill that in any way limits my access to healthcare or medicines recommended by my doctor? 5. MORE BURDENS ON SMALL BUSINESSES Despite a 9.5% (and rising) unemployment rate, the healthcare bill in the House imposes a new 8% payroll tax on small businesses with payrolls of $400,000 or more that don't provide health insurance for their employees. This is in addition to the current 15% payroll tax. What this means is that any employer with a payroll of $400,000 dollars or higher will have to pay at least 25% above the salary just to hire someone. Common sense tells you that any struggling small business will likely lay off workers to avoid this additional tax. On the other hand, if the tax is cheaper than the cost of health insurance, larger businesses may opt to cancel their health insurance, forcing employees into the government’s "public option," and simply pay the 8% fine. (Source: Wall Street Journal, July 15, 2009) Question for your Congressmen: Why are you imposing additional mandates and taxes on small businesses, which create the overwhelming majority of new jobs, in the middle of a severe recession? 6. QUALITY CARE American healthcare is better than that in European countries with socialized medicine. The German breast cancer mortality rate is 52% higher than in the United States. Prostate cancer mortality is 604% higher in the United Kingdom and 457% higher in Norway than in the United States. Canadian healthcare lags behind the United States too. Canadian patients wait twice as long to see a specialist for hip surgery or cancer than we do in the United States. Most Americans say they are satisfied with the U.S. health care system, but more than 70% of Germans, Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders and Britons say that their systems need "fundamental change" or "complete rebuilding." (Source: National Center for Policy Analysis.) In an editorial on July 26th, the Washington Post criticized President Obama for not "leveling about the consequences of change" when it comes to healthcare costs versus quality. Here's what the Post wrote: "The Congressional Budget Office estimates that new technology accounts for about half the increase in health-care costs over the past several decades. This, for the most part, is a good thing. Adjusted for inflation, health-care spending per person is six times what it was 40 years ago. But no one today would settle for 1960s-style medicine." Question for your Congressmen: Why are you trying to force us in the direction of more government involvement in healthcare when everywhere government-run healthcare has been tried, quality declines and care is rationed? 7. THE PEOPLE ARE BEING IGNORED According to a recent poll, just 23% of voters believe healthcare reform legislation will lower costs, while 53% believe it will lead to more expensive care. By a margin of 50% to 23%, voters believe that "reform" legislation will make the quality of care decline. And while voters believe they will get worse care at higher costs, 78% also believe that healthcare reform will result in middle class tax hikes. In addition, a recent Fox News poll found that 91% of those surveyed have health insurance, 84% said that the quality of their health insurance was either excellent or good and 83% said the quality of health care they receive from their private insurance is either good or excellent. And only 12% of those surveyed said reforming health care was the most important issue Congress should be working on right now. (Source: Rasmussen Reports, July 28, 2009 and Fox News poll July 23, 2009.) Question for your Congressmen: Why are you and the White House rushing this bill through Congress and ignoring the concerns of the American people? 8. LOSS OF FREEDOM The healthcare reform legislation under consideration in the House will eventually force all Americans into a government-approved plan. After a five-year grace period, every new insurance policy will have to comply with government mandates, and any policy changes – "altering co-pays, deductibles, or even switching coverage for this or that drug" – invalidates your previous coverage and forces you to choose a government "qualified" plan. In addition, the House plan mandates coverage for every individual. If you are self-employed or choose not buy insurance for whatever reason, the bill imposes a "healthcare tax" of 2.5% of your income. (Source: CNNMoney.com, July 24, 2009 and Bloomberg.com, July 15, 2009) Question for your Congressmen: Why do you believe bureaucrats can make better decisions than me about what kind of health insurance I should have? And will you guarantee that any healthcare reform bill passed by Congress will always allow me to choose my own doctor? 9. RACIAL PREFERENCES Do you care about the race of a doctor who is getting ready to operate on you? Of course not. Most Americans want their doctor to be the best professional available regardless of race or ethnic background. But congressional liberals have a different idea. On page 909 of the House bill, grants to medical schools will be awarded "to entities that have a demonstrated record of the following...training individuals who are from underrepresented minority groups or disadvantaged backgrounds." (Source: Investors Business Daily, July 27, 2009) Question for your Congressmen: Why are you throwing affirmative action/racial set asides into a healthcare reform bill? 10. PRE-EXISTING CONDITIONS President Obama has repeatedly said that "no insurance company will be allowed to deny you coverage because of a pre-existing medical condition." That sounds wonderful until you apply common sense, which is in short supply in Washington. What if we made a law that allowed you to buy car insurance after you got into an accident and that required the insurance company to pay for the damage? Wouldn’t many people just wait for an accident before buying insurance? Why wouldn’t many Americans wait until they were sick to buy health insurance? Question for your Congressmen: Isn't it clear that this provision would drive up the cost of health insurance for everyone?
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