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Me#1You#10
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Joined: 06 May 2004
Posts: 6503
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 Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2009 2:42 pm Post subject: "Ruin Your Health With the Obama Stimulus Plan" |
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Our family just celebrated my Mom's 96th birthday...with a familial demonstration of the joy and unmeasurable love that achieving her highly unanticipated and near miraculous milestone could bring. We loved it. More importantly, SHE loved it.
She will not live to see her 97th.
Surviving to her 96th is attributable to both her faith, personal strength, and love of life...and, in no small part, the achievements and applications of the wonders of our modern American healthcare system.
...and now comes this.
The plug-pullers are about to land on our American shore...while America sleeps.
They would have denied my Mom a decade of her life had they had the opportunity to do so...and they are about to make our elderly into targets of opportunity in this new America of "change" and "hope"...
| Quote: | “The issue is too important to be stalled by Senate protocol.” Tom Daschle
Ruin Your Health With the Obama Stimulus Plan: Betsy McCaughey
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.
<snip>
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.
<snip>
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.
<snip>
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.”
Bloomberg - cont'd |
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GoophyDog
PO1
Joined: 10 Jun 2004
Posts: 480
Location: Washington - The Evergreen State
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| Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2009 4:25 pm Post subject: |
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I sincerely hope this doesn't come as a surprise to anyone. The first step to a universal health care system, which is socialist medicine in my book, is to limit/structure the system to not treat those who are (they'll never say it) non-productive.
In just the last month, news articles from the UK and Canada lend credence to this. In Canada, a person was subject to deportation because the medical treatments are far out weighing what the person might possibly contribute. In the UK, a man pulled out his own teeth because he couldn't find a dentist to care for him. It was only after it made the system look bad that he now receives some care (not to mention not having as many teeth to care for). There are probably many more stories that remain hidden of patients being turned away or given placebo treatments.
In this country, more and more people are using the nanny state to care for them. The problem is, the state only reimburses at about 30 cents on the dollar. To make up for this gap, regular users are billed at 150% of cost. As this progresses, everyone is decrying the costs of health care while remaining mute (or ignorant) on the actual why. Hence, the aforementioned bill ME#1 posted.
Is there a fix? I'm not sure. At this point however, it certainly won't be painless.
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GenrXr
Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy
Joined: 05 Aug 2004
Posts: 1720
Location: Houston
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| Posted: Sun Feb 15, 2009 7:41 am Post subject: |
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#1, this was a recent discussion between my girlfriend and I because her mother of 85 years was recently in the hospital and they wanted to release her early.
Determining when people have lived long enough is coming and it will be ugly.
You mention your mother's faith and that is so huge in living long.
I am happy to hear your mother has lived such a long life and am sure she has comfort with you and others love at her twilight.
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"An activist is the person who cleans up the water, not the one claiming its dirty."
"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to stand by and do nothing." Edmund Burke (1729-1797), Founder of Conservative Philosophy |
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Me#1You#10
Site Admin
Joined: 06 May 2004
Posts: 6503
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| Posted: Sun Feb 15, 2009 1:53 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks for your thoughtful expression GenrXr.
I'd like to be a fly on the wall when the first "progressive" confronts a bureaucracy that can (and will) deny their loved one desired medical intervention. It won't be pretty.
Welcome to Amerika. |
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kate
Admin
Joined: 14 May 2004
Posts: 1891
Location: Upstate, New York
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| Posted: Sun Feb 22, 2009 5:51 pm Post subject: |
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This is a really frightening issue for all of us...
Having worked in a mgt role in our local hospital for (a lot of years) I had some idea with what they're talking about,, so I took the time to read this whole darn section of that monstrosity of a bill.
Yes, the ultimate goals are as we all dread, but, there could be time to have a voice, do something about it. IF we can get a more conservative congress in place. ...to put some stops to this before it gets too far along
Some 'Time' is there, as, this bill will be allocating funds for a lot of studies ( at this point in time )
$ to universities for the medical side, studies of best practices/cost etc
$ to medical schools to teach DRs re infomatics
$ for studies in the IS community, on how to build an infrastructure ( hardware/software)
$ for IS & Medical groups to work together to develop infomatics protocals
$ to Fed departs to set up committees to coordinate all the studies, and to set up what the Fed administrative model would look like
..and morelike this
I've forgotten the timeline they put on this, it was a few years. And from experience, (in just our hospital) developing these systems and going live are not accomplished easily, or overnight,
The information gained from these medical studies such as best practices,, quality assurance , and then the infomatics component, can be very useful. ...in the right hands
The glich is, who gets the info and what they do with it.....hopefuly not some 15 member committee in DC
Side note...to make your day if you hadn't heard
Rahm's brother, tapped for White House health care policy advisor spot
couple articles about his views
here
and here
as a ps... I can't recall the name of the Congresswoman who we have to thank for insisting on a very critical change that was made to this bill...confidentiality. Final version came out with the HIPPA type regs written in.
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