Yeah, this blog post title is based on an old joke.
But the fact that I remember it, because I'm old, is related to my increasing anxiety over whether President Obama is going to pull off the health care reform that this country in general -- plus my 60'ish wife and I in particular -- sorely need.
I want Obama to save us from the clutches of Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Oregon. Recently a Twitter Tweet popped into my head:
Which is what insurance companies are, based on the double-digit annual premium increases Regence has been inflicting on us for quite a few years.
I have zero warm feelings toward Regence.
That's unusual, because every other company we have an ongoing relationship with is at least passingly pleasing to me. Regence BlueCross BlueShield, not at all.
It could disappear tomorrow and we wouldn't miss it a bit. All they do for us is pay medical bills, reluctantly, and tell us what sorts of medical treatments they'll cover, unpersuasively.
My latest gripe with Regence, described here, started with us applying to switch to a different insurance plan. I thought that would be simple, since we've been enrolled with Regence for so long and are pretty healthy.
Nope.
I was denied the switch because I'm taking two medications for an enlarged prostate, Avodart and Flomax. A Regence underwriter said this meant I was at a higher risk for needing surgery eventually.
Wrong. A few minutes of Google research turned up this bit of information:
So either medicine reduces the probablility of needing prostate surgery, and taking both together reduces the risk even more. Yet the Regence underwriting department had it backward, as I'll be telling them soon in a letter.
The plain truth is that health insurance companies don't want people to get health care.
They do their best to deny claims if you're insured, and to keep you from getting an individual policy if you have any preexisting conditions if you aren't yet insured.
By contrast, I've never felt that Apple or AT&T don't want me to use my iPhone. However, I have an absurdly large number of phone call minutes that I fail to use each month. That's fine with me.
I pay a monthly bill to AT&T for iPhone service. Then I use my iPhone however I want to. It's a lot like a single payer national health plan, except I'm not a nation, and the service I'm getting isn't health care.
Nonetheless, I want a health plan that is a lot more like my iPhone contract than our Regence BlueCross policy.
Simple. Straightforward. Easy to understand. Non-bureaucratic. Our current private health insurance setup is none of these.
I haven't watched Obama's prime time press conference yet. I'm hoping that he comes out swinging passionately and articulately for health care reform, and can cogently explain what sorts of changes he expects in a bill.
I agree with a New York Times analysis:
The bailouts were fairly easy to encapsulate: government investing in private businesses to save their asses.
So is the cap and trade climate change legislation: keep the planet green and clean to avoid some really mean consequences.
But so far I haven't grasped what Obama's health care reform is all about. Neither has the American public, which is why the right-wing ideologues have been able to spread their lies about socialized medicine and such.
Hopefully tonight Obama will lead the country in a fresh health care direction. I'm ready to follow.
The rhetoric and spin in Obama's speech was incessant and deplorable. Still some people will be impressed by the vocal command and confident demeanor that got him elected, not seeing it covers up a can of worms.
Obama’s insistence that we completely remake our health-care system — and do it two weeks after the first bill was marked up in the first committee — is too arrogant to believe. Whatever happened to "by the people, for the people"?
Americans are increasingly turning against Obama’s program. A Washington Post poll has the plan’s public approval below 50 percent; Rasmussen has it trailing 46-49.
For Obama to ride roughshod over Americans’ rising concerns about a matter so intimate will be too much.
What’s the rush? they’ll ask. The bill isn’t even slated to take effect until next year. You passed the stimulus package, they’ll note, in a similar rush during the administration’s first week — only to see it fall flat. Now Obama aides are claiming the stimulus package was never intended to have much effect this year! Don't you see? He's just another deceptive politician trying to ram a crappy agenda down our throats.
How, voters will ask, can we cover 50 million more people without any new doctors or nurses? The answer is to ration health care, with the government deciding who’ll get hip and knee replacements, heart-bypass surgery and other medical treatments. And what does rationing mean? It means that the elderly will be denied care that they can now get whenever they want.
The Obama plan effectively repeals Medicare, putting a Federal Health Board between the elderly and their doctors. This board will instruct public and private insurance carriers on what procedures are to be approved, at what cost and for what patients.
The bulk of this rationing will fall on the elderly. We’ll have to revisit the idea that the elderly have, in the words of former Colorado Gov. Dick Lamm, “a duty to die.”
The more word gets out about what the bill contemplates, the firmer opposition will grow. That’s why Obama wants to push it through now, while he retains some popularity.
And if the bill passes? The howls of protest from the elderly the first time they’re denied care will be something to behold. It will become evident that the health-care resources being denied to the elderly are going instead to immigrants — legal and not. The anger will be enormous and instant.
At a time when more doctors are needed, fewer will be motivated to incur the debt necessary to obtain a medical degree knowing that once they get into practice their earnings will be regulated by government standards. Fewer doctors relative to numbers of patients = poor service and longer waits.
Most Americans aren’t sick and don’t use medical facilities often. But those who are sick need to constantly stay in touch with their doctors and medical providers. The curtailment of that access will become immediately apparent.
We need health care reform, but not this hastily conceived plan.
Posted by: Condor | July 22, 2009 at 11:47 PM
Condor, you must have heard a different speech than the one I watched last night. I worked in health planning and health policy research for about fifteen years. Obama's grasp of the problems facing our health insurance system was very impressive.
He's right on. The only question is whether Congress has the same smarts to pass legislation that really fixes those problems.
Your comment shows that you don't understand that we already have much regulation, bureaucracy, and rigid standards in the health care system -- in private insurance companies. Being a Regence policy holder, I'm well aware of this.
Are you aware that Regence's underwriting policies are secret? When they deny someone coverage, they don't have to explain why they did this, even if they have an effective monopoly on the market.
Like Obama said, private insurers need competition from a public option. In Oregon this is the case with Worker's Compensation insurance. SAIF is a public entity which competes with private insurers. The system works fine. Good accounting can make sure that the public option is financed in a fashion that doesn't involve government subsidies, to keep things fair.
I thought Obama's speech was terrific. I feel a lot better now about the chances of our country moving up in the health care comparison ranks. It's disturbing that we spend so much on health care, and get so little in return. That's bad business.
Posted by: Brian | July 23, 2009 at 08:20 AM
Brian, I am aware that there are beaurocracies and regulations already in place and that the present system needs an overhaul and that insurance companies are at best unfair and in many cases criminal.
But, and you said it, "The only question is whether Congress has the same smarts to pass legislation that really fixes those problems.", we don't need to replace a bad system with one that is even worse.
President Obama’s rhetoric last night summoned the memory of “1984,” George Orwell’s novel of a nightmarish future — where the slogan of the rulers is “War is peace; freedom is slavery; ignorance is strength.”
The president assures us that he will cut health-care spending... by adding $1 trillion to health-care spending.
He says that “health-care decisions will not be made by government” ... while he sets up a new Federal Health Board to tell doctors what treatments they can offer and to whom and under what circumstances.
Obama told the media, “I will free doctors to make good health-care decisions” ... by telling the physicians what to do.
When the president says he guarantees the “same coverage” to people who like their current health-insurance policies, he means that their current HMOs, insurers and doctors will be the ones to implement the protocols and instructions the government hands down to them — not that we’ll have our current freedom of decision-making.
When he blandly assures us that we will “stop paying for things that don’t make us healthier,” he really means that his Federal Health Board will overrule your doctor and stop him from using his own best judgment in your treatment.
The president will “get the politics out of health care” by putting it under government control, an entity proven to be unable to mange itself not to mention another goliath beaurocracy.
Obama says that he will not “add to the deficit” to fund health care. But the bill reported out by Rep. Charlie Rangel’s Ways and Means Committee leaves $550 billion unfunded.
The president says that he’ll identify savings that will reduce the need for more taxes — even though the Congressional Budget Office refuses to say that his “savings” will actually work and warns that the bill will really be added to the deficit.
He repeatedly tells us that he’ll cut health-care spending. What he means is that he will cut doctors’ incomes and will turn down patients — particularly the elderly — when they seek medical care that his bureaucrats disapprove of.
And he ignores that cutting incomes in the medical field will reduce the number of doctors and force further rationing of care.
The president opines that he will replace the most “expensive care” with the “best care” by empowering government officials who have never met you to substitute their judgment for that of your doctor, who has examined you thoroughly.
When Obama laments that “14,000 people lose their insurance every day,” he is referring to the job losses that his own failed efforts to end the recession have permitted.
He warns that health-care costs are gobbling up money that employers should use to raise wages and worker pay — yet the plans he backs would require employers to pay 8 percent of their payroll as a tax or provide insurance to their workers.
The Obama plan highlights greater preventive care — but, at the same time, cuts medical incomes and so will cut the number of doctors who might provide it.
The stimulus package, in the Gospel According to Barack, was “designed” to work over the next two years. But at the time, he demanded immediate passage to “jump-start the economy” — something that clearly did not happen.
Medicare and Medicaid are “driving the deficit” even as he increased the amount of red ink by at least $800 billion in six months with little, if any, increase in the cost of either program.
He says he “expects” banks to repay their TARP money. In fact, they’re lining up around the block to do so — but the Treasury will only permit a handful of them to do so.
In summary, Obama’s health program will promote “lower cost and more choice” by increasing spending by $1 trillion, telling patients what care they’re permitted to have, and limiting their access to quality care.
Orwell’s heirs should sue for violation of copyright, and Obama should receive an award for the most glib but hollow and deceptive rhetoric I have ever heard.
Posted by: Condor | July 23, 2009 at 11:18 AM
Condor, I respect your opinions. But disagree with them. Our health insurance premiums go up by double digits every year -- almost 30% in the past two years. This country can't afford that.
A trillion dollars over 10 years is 100 billion a year. That's a very minor part of total health care spending in this country. If Obama's reforms can tilt the cost increase curve downward, we'll save way more than 100 billion dollars a year.
Also, as I said before, private insurers already are telling doctors what they can do. My wife wants a treatment for gastric reflux that has been approved by the FDA. Her doctor is recommending it. But Blue Cross still considers it "experimental" Which, when you read the Blue Cross contract, is anything the insurance company considers to be experimental and doesn't want to pay for.
I'd much rather have an open, honest, accountable, public system of what procedures and treatments are covered, and which aren't, rather than the crazy quilt of policies we have now, with countless private insurance companies telling doctors and patients what they can and can't do.
Posted by: Brian | July 23, 2009 at 01:39 PM
Obama promises that "if you like your health plan, you can keep it," even after he reforms our health-care system. That's untrue. The bills now before Congress would force you to switch to a managed-care plan with limits on your access to specialists and tests.
The bills before congress propose a new government bureaucracy which will select health plans that it considers in your best interest, and you will have to enroll in one of these "qualified plans." If you now get your plan through work, your employer has a five-year "grace period" to switch you into a qualified plan. If you buy your own insurance, you'll have less time.
And as soon as anything changes in your contract -- such as a change in copays or deductibles, which many insurers change every year -- you'll have to move into a qualified plan instead (House bill, p. 16-17).
When you file your taxes, if you can't prove to the IRS that you are in a qualified plan, you'll be fined thousands of dollars -- as much as the average cost of a health plan for your family size -- and then automatically enrolled in a randomly selected plan (House bill, p. 167-168).
It's one thing to require that people getting government assistance tolerate managed care, but the legislation limits you to a managed-care plan even if you and your employer are footing the bill (Senate bill, p. 57-58). The goal is to reduce everyone's consumption of health care and to ensure that people have the same health-care experience, regardless of ability to pay.
Nowhere does the legislation say how much health plans will cost, but a family of four is eligible for some government assistance until their household income reaches $88,000 (House bill, p. 137). If you earn more than that, you'll have to pay the cost no matter how high it goes.
The price tag for this legislation is a whopping $1.04 trillion to $1.6 trillion (Congressional Budget Office estimates). Half of the tab comes from tax increases on individuals earning $280,000 or more, and these new taxes will double in 2012 unless savings exceed predicted costs (House bill, p. 199). The rest of the cost is paid for by cutting seniors' health benefits under Medicare.
There's plenty of waste in Medicare, but the Congressional Budget Office estimates only 1 percent of the savings under the legislation will be from curbing waste, fraud and abuse. That means the rest will likely come from reducing what patients get.
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. Do we really want government involved in such deeply personal issues?
Shockingly, only a portion of the money accumulated from slashing senior benefits and raising taxes goes to pay for covering the uninsured. The Senate bill allocates huge sums to "community transformation grants," home visits for expectant families, services for migrant workers -- and the creation of dozens of new government councils, programs and advisory boards slipped into the last 500 pages.
An ABC News/Washington Post poll finds that 83 percent of Americans are very satisfied or somewhat satisfied with the quality of their health care, and 81 percent are similarly satisfied with their health insurance.
They have reason to be satisfied with their health care. If you're diagnosed with cancer, you have a better chance of surviving it in the United States than anywhere else, according to the Concord Five Continent Study. And the World Health Organization ranked the United States No. 1 out of 191 countries for being responsive to patients' needs, including providing timely treatments and a choice of doctors.
Congress should pursue less radical ways to cover the uninsured. We have too much to lose with this legislation.
Posted by: Condor | July 23, 2009 at 03:22 PM
I've learned a lot about our opposition (I can no longer use the term our British counterparts use, "loyal" opposition) and their response to health care will be used by whatever remains for our future generations as a source for many a PhD. Their ability to politicize the most basic of human needs illustrates how pandering to their non-elected base has corrupted them to the point that we need to create a new circle in hell for them.
A wide base consisting of a broad spectrum of voters wanted major reforms to America's health-care system. It seemed simple. First, we wanted to be healthy, like others in other nations. Second, we recognized that the costs of health care were nothing we could predict or save for, since the state of one's health does not follow predictable models, like the stock market. Third, while we understood that there would be costs, we assumed that they would be spread across the entire population, thus reducing the overall costs for everyone. Finally, we acknowledged that those providing the care and the insurance to offset the costs of that care should be entitled to a fair return on their investment, if there were to be a for-profit option.
We are or were simple people who believed that our health was something we could all agree was important. We felt our votes were important. Now it seems that some votes are more important than other votes. The paper on which those votes are expressed are important or not based upon the portraits on the paper; unfortunately for me, there was no picture of Benjamin Franklin or U. S. Grant on the paper I thought important.
I thought it was our health that would be addressed. How wrong I was - it is the money to be made from my health that is important for our opposition. The opposition says that a government plan would limit what providers could pay for procedures used to keep me alive or healthy, and thus I would not get the treatment and coverage I need to stay either alive or healthy.
SO, WOULD SOMEONE PLEASE EXPLAIN TO ME HOW THE FOLLOWING STATEMENT ON AN EXPLANATION OF BENEFITS FROM REGENCE IS "BETTER" THAN I WOULD GET UNDER A MORE UNIVERSAL PLAN:
Quote - "The billed charge exceeds the amount allowed for this procedure. Participating providers may not bill the patient for these charges."
Someone, please, explain how this is NOT the provider dictating the cost and nature of coverage. Someone, explain to me how this is better than would be afforded under a public option.
Someone, finally, please explain to me why the state of my health should be determined by someone else's need to have a firm and profitable bottom line. I merely ask these questions because it seems that the health of the bottom line is more important than the health of my mortal body.
Posted by: Red Cloud | July 25, 2009 at 07:38 AM
"Someone, finally, please explain to me why the state of my health should be determined by someone else's need to have a firm and profitable bottom line."
--Please explain why it shouldn't.
Free health care is a nice societal ideal, but this ideal is not held by all. Everything has its price, somehow. Maintenance of your health is not a U.S. Constitution entitlement. The State is only obligated to provide protection under the law. Ideals aside, until laws are in place that limit, control or subsidise charges by health providers then you will have to pay what they ask. Right now, no such entitlement is in place unless you have no money at all in which case you will be treated for free!!
Posted by: tucsoN | July 25, 2009 at 12:04 PM
Obamacare unfortunately will save nobody and be a complete disaster in its current form. Some real debate and thought needs to go into reforming the system as a whole, and the FDA enabling the drug companies to profiteer the way they do needs to be included in the current debate.
Posted by: Gregg's Health Insurance News | July 26, 2009 at 02:44 AM
if you think obama's duty to die bills are so good for we seniors you do ahead and wait for all senators and their families, all congressmen and their families, all members of all unions and their families, all movie stars and their families and they get on national television and burn up their Private Sector (oh,those bad people that they want for insurance not H.R. 3200) you really have nothing of substance to say.
Posted by: mindy rodriguez | July 28, 2009 at 10:02 AM
Remember the phrase "jumping from the pan into the fire"??
It applies in this situation.
First, I am sorry to read of your troubles with the insurance company. Believe me, I understand! The trouble is, this healthcare bill WILL NOT solve the problems in our current system.
obama has made it clear that he is going to CUT HEALTHCARE FOR THE ELDERLY.
"Obama recently told the New York Times that prolonging the lives of terminally ill and very old people presently accounts for 80 percent of the total health care bill. He suggested that such outlays might not be cost-effective."
And yet another quote.
"Over the weekend, President Barack Obama called for cuts in funding for Medicare and Medicaid, the federal health insurance programs for the elderly and the poor, including the elimination of subsidies for hospitals that treat uninsured patients. This proposal, combined with plans to limit medical tests and treatments, underscores the reactionary, anti-working class character of Obama’s proposed “reform” of the health care system."
Posted by: Sandy Dean | July 30, 2009 at 05:37 PM
If you are anywhere near 65 years old, this healthcare bill will be hazardous to your health!
“THE health bills coming out of Congress would put the decisions about your care in the hands of presidential appointees. They'd decide what plans cover, how much leeway your doctor will have and what seniors get under Medicare.
Yet at least two of President Obama's top health advisers should never be trusted with that power.
Start with Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. He has already been appointed to two key positions: health-policy adviser at the Office of Management and Budget and a member of Federal Council on Comparative Effectiveness Research.
Emanuel bluntly admits that the cuts will not be pain-free. "Vague promises of savings from cutting waste, enhancing prevention and wellness, installing electronic medical records and improving quality are merely 'lipstick' cost control, more for show and public relations than for true change," he wrote last year (Health Affairs Feb. 27, 2008).
Savings, he writes, will require changing how doctors think about their patients: Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath too seriously, "as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of the cost or effects on others" (Journal of the American Medical Association, June 18, 2008).
Yes, that's what patients want their doctors to do. But Emanuel wants doctors to look beyond the needs of their patients and consider social justice, such as whether the money could be better spent on somebody else.
Many doctors are horrified by this notion; they'll tell you that a doctor's job is to achieve social justice one patient at a time.
Emanuel, however, believes that "communitarianism" should guide decisions on who gets care. He says medical care should be reserved for the non-disabled, not given to those "who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens . . . An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia" (Hastings Center Report, Nov.-Dec. '96).
Translation: Don't give much care to a grandmother with Parkinson's or a child with cerebral palsy.
He explicitly defends discrimination against older patients: "Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination; every person lives through different life stages rather than being a single age. Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years"
Posted by: Sandy Dean | July 30, 2009 at 06:02 PM
Sandy Dean is on the mark, in my opinion.
The new system will select who gets certain treatments using formulas based on life expectancy and statistics. If you are at a certain age you may be denied a prodedure simply because you are not likely to benefit for a long time, i.e. hip replacement. A 40 year old who is working and with a family will be preferred in such a case over a retired 75 year old. I don't want government hacks making these decisons for me based on tables and quotas. Maybe I want to walk around pain free even if I have only 4-5 years left. They're my years.
Posted by: Neville | July 30, 2009 at 08:21 PM
Why believe Obama's plan will work?
This was provided by Roger:
545 PEOPLE - By Charlie Reese
Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them. Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits? Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?
You and I don't propose a federal budget. The president does. You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does. You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does. You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does. You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.
One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.
I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.
I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.
Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party. What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.
The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? Nancy Pelosi. She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.
It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million can not replace 545 people who stand convicted - by present facts - of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people.
When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist. If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair. If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red. If the Army & Marines are in Iraq, it's because they want them in Iraq.
If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.
There are no insoluble government problems. Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation," or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.
Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible. They, and they alone, have the power. They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses. Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees. We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!
Charlie Reese has been a journalist for 49 years and is a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper.
Posted by: tucsoN | July 31, 2009 at 11:15 AM
So, what do the 545 people mentioned above decide to put in the proposed healthcare bill? Read and decide...
Pg 22 of the HC Bill MANDATES the Govt will audit books of ALL EMPLOYERS that self insure!!
Pg 30 Sec 123 of HC bill - THERE WILL BE A GOVT COMMITTEE that decides what treatments/benefits you get
Pg 29 lines 4-16 in the HC bill - YOUR HEALTHCARE IS RATIONED!!!
Pg 42 of HC Bill - The Health Choices Commissioner will choose your HC Benefits for you. You have no choice!
PG 50 Section 152 in HC bill - HC will be provided to ALL non US citizens, illegal or otherwise
Pg 58HC Bill - Govt will have real-time access 2 individs finances & a National ID Healthcard will be issued!
Pg 59 HC Bill lines 21-24 Govt will have direct access to you banks accountsts for electronic funds transfer
PG 65 Sec 164 is a payoff subsidized plan for retirees and their families in unions & community orgs (ACORN).
Pg 72 Lines 8-14 Govt is creating an HC Exchange to bring private HC plans under Govt control.
PG 84 Sec 203 HC bill - Govt mandates ALL benefit packages for private health care plans in the Exchange
PG 85 Line 7 HC Bill - Specs for of Benefit Levels for Plans = The Govt will ration your Healthcare!
PG 91 Lines 4-7 HC Bill - Govt mandates linguistic appropropriate services. Example - Translationfor illegal aliens
Pg 95 HC Bill Lines 8-18 The Govt will use groups i.e., ACORN & Americorps to sign up individuals for Govt HC plan
PG 85 Line 7 HC Bill - Specs of Benefit Levels for Plans. #AARP members - your Health care WILL be rationed
PG 102 Lines 12-18 HC Bill - Medicaid Eligible Individuals will be automatically enrolled in Medicaid.. No choice
pg 124 lines 24-25 HC No company can sue GOVT on price fixing. No "judicial review" against Govt Monopoly
pg 127 Lines 1-16 HC Bill - Doctors/ #AMA - The Govt will tell YOU what you can make.
Pg 145 Line 15-17 An Employer MUST automatiocally enroll employees into pubic option plan. NO CHOICE
Pg 126 Lines 22-25 Employers MUST pay for health care for part time employees AND their families.
Pg 149 Lines 16-24 ANY Employer with payroll of 400k & above who does not provide public option. pays 8% tax on all payroll
pg 150 Lines 9-13 Business payroll between 251k & 400k who doesn't provide public option pays 2-6% tax on all payroll
Pg 167 Lines 18-23 ANY individual who doesn't have acceptable health care according to Govt will be taxed 2.5% of inc
ome
Pg 170 Lines 1-3 HC Bill Any NON-RESIDENT Alien is exempt from individual taxes. (Americans will pay for their health care)
Pg 195 HC Bill -officers & employees of health care Administration (GOVT) will have access to ALL Americans financial/personal records
PG 203 Line 14-15 HC - "The tax imposed under this section shall not be treated as tax" Yes, it says that
Pg 239 Line 14-24 HC Bill Govt will reduce physician services for Medicaid. Seniors, low income, poor affected
Pg 241 Line 6-8 HC Bill - Doctors, doesn't matter what specialty you have, you'll all be paid the same
PG 253 Line 10-18 Govt sets value of Dr's time, professional judgment, etc. Literally value of humans.
PG 265 Sec 1131 Govt mandates & controls productivity for private health care industries
PG 268 Sec 1141 Fed Govt regulates rental & purchase of power driven wheelchairs
PG 272 SEC. 1145. TREATMENT OF CERTAIN CANCER HOSPITALS - Cancer patients - welcome to rationing!
Page 280 Sec 1151 The Govt will penalize hospitals for what Govt deems preventable readmissions.
Pg 298 Lines 9-11 Drs, treat a patient during initial admission that results in a re-admission- Govt will penalize you.
Pg 317 L 13-20 PROHIBITION on ownership/investmen t. Govt tells Drs. what/how much they can own.
Pg 317-318 lines 21-25,1-3 PROHIBITION on expansion- Govt is mandating hospitals cannot expand
pg 321 2-13 Hospitals have opportunity to apply for exception BUT community input required. Can u say ACORN?!!
Pg335 L 16-25 Pg 336-339 - Govt mandates establishment of outcome based measures. Health care the way they want. Rationing
Pg 341 Lines 3-9 Govt has authority to disqualify Medicare Adv. Plans, HMOs, etc. Forcing people into Govt plan
Pg 354 Sec 1177 - Govt will RESTRICT enrollment of special needs people!
Pg 379 Sec 1191 Govt creates more bureaucracy - Telehealth Advisory Committee. Can you say health care by phone?
PG 425 Lines 4-12 Govt mandates Advance Care Planning Consult. Think Senior Citizens end of life
Pg 425 Lines 17-19 Govt will instruct & consult regarding living wills, durable powers of attorney. Mandatory!
PG 425 Lines 22-25, 426 Lines 1-3 Govt provides approved list of end of life resources, guiding you in death
PG 427 Lines 15-24 Govt mandates program for orders for end of life. The Govt has a say in how your life ends
Pg 429 Lines 1-9 An "adv. care planning consult" will be used frequently as patients health deteriorates
PG 429 Lines 10-12 "adv. care consultation" may include an ORDER for end of life plans. AN ORDER from GOV
Pg 429 Lines 13-25 - The govt will specify which Doctors can write an end of life order.
PG 430 Lines 11-15 The Govt will decide what level of treatment u will have at end of life
Pg 469 - Community Based Home Medical Services=Non profit orgs. Hello, ACORN Medical Svcs here!!?
Page 472 Lines 14-17 PAYMENT TO COMMUNITY-BASED ORG. 1 monthly payment to a community-based org. Like ACORN?
PG 489 Sec 1308 The Govt will cover Marriage & Family therapy. Which means they will insert Govt into your marriage
Pg 494-498 Govt will cover Mental Health Services including defining, creating, rationing those services
Don't you love these guys?
Posted by: tucsoN | August 01, 2009 at 06:55 PM