RobertMac said:Better hope you stay healthy, OT.
In this porkulus bill...if you get sick and your worth to society isn't deemed by a federal government official to be worth the cost of treatment, they will not let your doctor treat you!!!!!
As Haymaker would say, Good Luck!!!
Oldtimer said:RobertMac said:Better hope you stay healthy, OT.
In this porkulus bill...if you get sick and your worth to society isn't deemed by a federal government official to be worth the cost of treatment, they will not let your doctor treat you!!!!!
As Haymaker would say, Good Luck!!!
BULLPUCKEY!!! More rightwingnut fearmongering at its worst.....
Ruin Your Health With the Obama Stimulus Plan: Betsy McCaughey
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Commentary by Betsy McCaughey
Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Republican Senators are questioning whether President Barack Obama’s stimulus bill contains the right mix of tax breaks and cash infusions to jump-start the economy.
Tragically, no one from either party is objecting to the health provisions slipped in without discussion. These provisions reflect the handiwork of Tom Daschle, until recently the nominee to head the Health and Human Services Department.
Senators should read these provisions and vote against them because they are dangerous to your health. (Page numbers refer to H.R. 1 EH, pdf version).
The bill’s health rules will affect “every individual in the United States” (445, 454, 479). Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system. Having electronic medical records at your fingertips, easily transferred to a hospital, is beneficial. It will help avoid duplicate tests and errors.
But the bill goes further. One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.” According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and “learn to operate less like solo practitioners.”
Keeping doctors informed of the newest medical findings is important, but enforcing uniformity goes too far.
New Penalties
Hospitals and doctors that are not “meaningful users” of the new system will face penalties. “Meaningful user” isn’t defined in the bill. That will be left to the HHS secretary, who will be empowered to impose “more stringent measures of meaningful use over time” (511, 518, 540-541)
What penalties will deter your doctor from going beyond the electronically delivered protocols when your condition is atypical or you need an experimental treatment? The vagueness is intentional. In his book, Daschle proposed an appointed body with vast powers to make the “tough” decisions elected politicians won’t make.
The stimulus bill does that, and calls it the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research (190-192). The goal, Daschle’s book explained, is to slow the development and use of new medications and technologies because they are driving up costs. He praises Europeans for being more willing to accept “hopeless diagnoses” and “forgo experimental treatments,” and he chastises Americans for expecting too much from the health-care system.
Elderly Hardest Hit
Daschle says health-care reform “will not be pain free.” Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them. That means the elderly will bear the brunt.
Medicare now pays for treatments deemed safe and effective. The stimulus bill would change that and apply a cost- effectiveness standard set by the Federal Council (464).
The Federal Council is modeled after a U.K. board discussed in Daschle’s book. This board approves or rejects treatments using a formula that divides the cost of the treatment by the number of years the patient is likely to benefit. Treatments for younger patients are more often approved than treatments for diseases that affect the elderly, such as osteoporosis.
In 2006, a U.K. health board decreed that elderly patients with macular degeneration had to wait until they went blind in one eye before they could get a costly new drug to save the other eye. It took almost three years of public protests before the board reversed its decision.
Hidden Provisions
If the Obama administration’s economic stimulus bill passes the Senate in its current form, seniors in the U.S. will face similar rationing. Defenders of the system say that individuals benefit in younger years and sacrifice later.
The stimulus bill will affect every part of health care, from medical and nursing education, to how patients are treated and how much hospitals get paid. The bill allocates more funding for this bureaucracy than for the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force combined (90-92, 174-177, 181).
Hiding health legislation in a stimulus bill is intentional. Daschle supported the Clinton administration’s health-care overhaul in 1994, and attributed its failure to debate and delay. A year ago, Daschle wrote that the next president should act quickly before critics mount an opposition. “If that means attaching a health-care plan to the federal budget, so be it,” he said. “The issue is too important to be stalled by Senate protocol.”
More Scrutiny Needed
On Friday, President Obama called it “inexcusable and irresponsible” for senators to delay passing the stimulus bill. In truth, this bill needs more scrutiny.
The health-care industry is the largest employer in the U.S. It produces almost 17 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. Yet the bill treats health care the way European governments do: as a cost problem instead of a growth industry. Imagine limiting growth and innovation in the electronics or auto industry during this downturn. This stimulus is dangerous to your health and the economy.
(Betsy McCaughey is former lieutenant governor of New York and is an adjunct senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. The opinions expressed are her own.)
To contact the writer of this column: Betsy McCaughey at [email protected]
Last Updated: February 9, 2009 00:01 EST
I guess you got your head in BULLPUCKY instead of sand!Oldtimer said:RobertMac said:Better hope you stay healthy, OT.
In this porkulus bill...if you get sick and your worth to society isn't deemed by a federal government official to be worth the cost of treatment, they will not let your doctor treat you!!!!!
As Haymaker would say, Good Luck!!!
BULLPUCKEY!!! More rightwingnut fearmongering at its worst.....
RobertMac said:I guess you got your head in BULLPUCKY instead of sand!Oldtimer said:RobertMac said:Better hope you stay healthy, OT.
In this porkulus bill...if you get sick and your worth to society isn't deemed by a federal government official to be worth the cost of treatment, they will not let your doctor treat you!!!!!
As Haymaker would say, Good Luck!!!
BULLPUCKEY!!! More rightwingnut fearmongering at its worst.....
You'll have to pull it out to eat your crow!
Maybe you should check out the news instead of making a fool of yourself here! :lol: :lol:
It took Pres. Bush 8 years, 9/11, and fighting two wars to accumulate his national debt....Pres. Obama will double that amount in less than a month!!!!!!Mike said:RobertMac said:I guess you got your head in BULLPUCKY instead of sand!Oldtimer said:BULLPUCKEY!!! More rightwingnut fearmongering at its worst.....
You'll have to pull it out to eat your crow!
Maybe you should check out the news instead of making a fool of yourself here! :lol: :lol:
OT doesn't have a clue of what's really going on. He's so blinded in the thinking that Bush caused all of our misfortunes that his defensiveness is downright comical. :lol:
Rearing his head and hollering BULLPUCKEY here tells us just exactly how misinformed he really is. :roll:
The same as all liberals do...he's going to ignore it!!!!Lonecowboy said:I got on this morning just to see how OT was going to try to avoid this one!!!![]()
RobertMac said:The same as all liberals do...he's going to ignore it!!!!Lonecowboy said:I got on this morning just to see how OT was going to try to avoid this one!!!![]()
Lonecowboy said:I got on this morning just to see how OT was going to try to avoid this one!!!![]()
Oldtimer said:Lonecowboy said:I got on this morning just to see how OT was going to try to avoid this one!!!![]()
Not avoiding- just didn't have time yesterday to read them all yesterday...Spent the day pulling and replacing a pump and couldn't come play with you wingnuts...
As I said on the other thread- and have posted many times- because of so many cases my wife and I have both saw- and where medical bills have taken over most of the civil court cases in the local courts- I have long been a proponent of health care/health care insurance reform..
I believe the last few years actions of greed and loss of ethics have shown that the insurance folks can't operate without some type of oversight and regulation put on them....
As far as some of the things in the stimulus bill- our local clinic/hospital is already building the database/computer system so that if you are injured somewhere else- this hospital can immediately give access to your medical records- rather than spending precious hours faxing them to the other hospital....They are especially doing this with the hospitals they do lots of specialist consultation with (Billings/Great Falls) so that when a patient is referred to see a heart or cancer specialist they don't have to worry about packing what many times is 10-20 lbs worth of chart "copies"...
Obama Will Ration Your Health Care
Wall Street Journal ^ | 02/11/2009 | EagleUSA
People are policy. And now that President-elect Barack Obama has fielded his team of Tom Daschle as secretary of Health and Human Services and Melody Barnes as director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, we can predict both the strategy and substance of the new administration's health-care reform.
The prognosis is not good for patients, physicians or taxpayers. If Mr. Daschle meant what he wrote in his book "Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis," Americans can expect a quick, hard push to build more federal bureaucracy, impose price controls, restrict medicines and technology, boost taxes, mandate the purchase of health insurance, and expand government health care.
In his book, Mr. Daschle proposes a National Health Board to regulate the way health care is provided. This board would have vast powers in regulating the massive federal health-care system -- a system that includes Medicare, Medicaid, and other programs. Under Mr. Obama, it is likely that that system will be expanded and that new government insurance for the nonelderly, nonpoor will be created.
Given the opportunity, Mr. Daschle would likely charge the board with determining which treatments and drugs are cost effective and therefore permissible to use for patients covered by the government. And because the government is such a big player in the health-care market (46% of health-care spending comes from the government), the board would effectively set parameters for private insurers.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Mike said:Obama Will Ration Your Health Care
Wall Street Journal ^ | 02/11/2009 | EagleUSA
People are policy. And now that President-elect Barack Obama has fielded his team of Tom Daschle as secretary of Health and Human Services and Melody Barnes as director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, we can predict both the strategy and substance of the new administration's health-care reform.
The prognosis is not good for patients, physicians or taxpayers. If Mr. Daschle meant what he wrote in his book "Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis," Americans can expect a quick, hard push to build more federal bureaucracy, impose price controls, restrict medicines and technology, boost taxes, mandate the purchase of health insurance, and expand government health care.
In his book, Mr. Daschle proposes a National Health Board to regulate the way health care is provided. This board would have vast powers in regulating the massive federal health-care system -- a system that includes Medicare, Medicaid, and other programs. Under Mr. Obama, it is likely that that system will be expanded and that new government insurance for the nonelderly, nonpoor will be created.
Given the opportunity, Mr. Daschle would likely charge the board with determining which treatments and drugs are cost effective and therefore permissible to use for patients covered by the government. And because the government is such a big player in the health-care market (46% of health-care spending comes from the government), the board would effectively set parameters for private insurers.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
BULLPUCKEY?
Oldtimer said:Lonecowboy said:I got on this morning just to see how OT was going to try to avoid this one!!!![]()
Not avoiding- just didn't have time yesterday to read them all yesterday...Spent the day pulling and replacing a pump and couldn't come play with you wingnuts...
TSR: including no purchases from foreign countries.
In the new Obama socialist Medicare system, you'll have to call Washington to see if you can buy the drugs you need!!!!!TSR said:Maybe the current administration can at least overturn the no-negotiation part regarding the purchase of drugs in the current Medicare bill passed by Congress nad signed by Bush giving the pharmaceutical co's everything they wanted including no purchases from foreign countries. Yeah, you take our price or you don't get the medications.
Mike said:TSR: including no purchases from foreign countries.
You can have those Chinese made drugs. I'll pass this time. :lol:
Melamine anyone? :lol: