Kiss Your Freedoms Goodbye If Health Care Passes

I want to make a few things clear with this post, since I think my own personal feelings can be misconstrued.

- Tort reform
IMO its needed, but as I outlined in the above post its not the be all end all answer to the problem. Even if you could remove the cost of medical liability entirely (which you can't of course) it would account for at most 10% of health care costs. But your system already is spending some 2-3 times more then other systems, its simply not enough of a savings to be the answer.

- Single payer "socialist" systems.

Canada has a system very similar to Medicare. Its not perfect, no system is including the American one, buts its about 2.3 times cheaper then yours is, and on average achieve better results. Yes the uber rich have better health care then any Canadian, but thats the select few, and most of us posting here are not the select few.

I'm not saying thats the only way to do things... see below... but its one.

-Regulated private insurance.

Germany has a system like this, and it works well for them. France has much better health care then either Canada, or the US, that has very basic government insurance, and lots of private insurance. 90% of them have private, for profit insurance.

- The current bill

No matter what you think the solution to health care is, this bill doesn't do anything to address it. Bad bill.

- Obama
Grrr. He's making a point not to get his feet wet in this whole debate. If this fails he gets to say he left it all the congress and it their fault, if it passes he'll take the credit. Chicken S--- way to do things, all in the name of poll numbers.

- Rationing.

Like it or not, insurance companies do this. Payout cap, nearly every plan in the US has one. Its rationing pure and simple.

- Fun fact.

Private for profit insurance companies cover about 2/3's of Americans right now. But they only pay about 1/3 of the total cost of health care. The other 2/3's is payed for by the government who has to insure the people most likely to need it, the poor, the old, and the military. Even given this, they can do it with about 10% of the over head costs, that private companies can do it for.
 
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there have been 11 amendments to the bill to require congress critters to use what it will stick us with. the dems killed all 11.

it isn't good enough for them & that's really all you need to know about it.
 
Originally Posted By: javafour
Not to speak for the doc, but you are not getting what he is talking about: defensive medicine. That is the huge cost of tests and proceedures done not out of medical necessity but to CYA in the event of a lawsuit. That's a huge number IN ADDITION to the malpractice premiums and other direct legal costs.

No, perhaps I didn't word it clearly enough but I get defensive medicine, I use the term tort reform as a be all term since its easier to type then defensive medicine.

The very highest estimates put medical malpractice, including unnecessary defensive medicine at 200 billion of total costs. That the high end, some say 100 billion, some as low as 10's of billions.

Lets say its the high end estimate of 200 billion. Thats 10% of the total cost of health care.

Now you can't get rid of it entirely, since doctors and nurses etc... are human and make mistakes.

Of the different plans put forth for malpractice reform, the savings go from a low CBO estimate of 4 billion to as high as 41 billion. Which is not a whole lot of savings even at 41 billion since total health care costs are 2.2 trillion.

Even if you could magically get rid of the cost of malpractice totally, its not going to solve the costs of health care in America. You'll cut 10% of your total costs, yet still manage to spend 2-3 times more then the rest of the world, for out comes that for the most part are lower then average.

Heck ignore the lesser out comes, and say hypothetically that Americans have the best health care statistics. Your still spending 2 or 3 times more per person then 50 industrialized countries out there. Cutting 10%, even if you could doesn't solve the problem.

EDIT
I put the number of countries at 50 out there just to illustrate a point. I don't know how many industrial countries there are. I do know that no one on the WHO health care top 50 spends more then half, per person, on health care then you do.
 
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They will have a fun time coming up with a test for CRS on O's dime. I have all the symptoms and they will pay looking for the cure! LMAO
 
Originally Posted By: ozzyThey will have a fun time coming up with a test for CRS on O's dime. I have all the symptoms and they will pay looking for the cure! LMAO CRS, I know that term but I can't remember what it stands for.
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THIS IS A SIMPLE FACT, THAT IF YOU THINK YOUR VOTE DOES NOT COUNT AND HAS NO AFFECT ON WHAT HAPPENS, COMPLETE IGNORANCE!!!!! FOR THOSE WHO THINK IT'S BAD NOW, THINK ABOUT WHAT YOUR KIDS ARE GONNA HAVE TO DEAL WITH!!!!! VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Originally Posted By: Stu Farisha letter from pelosi's office explaining how you go to jail:

http://republicans.waysandmeans.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=153583


Any questions RR. Since my wife has been layed off due to the car parts plant closing she now makes 1200.00 a month with a health coverage option of 800.00 a month. I carry the health care now but if I die she goes to jail or lives in the street or the gov. plan that will bankrupt the country, hands down. I know the country is already bankrupt but why make it more insolvent.
 
Originally Posted By: Rim_RunnerOriginally Posted By: ozzyThey will have a fun time coming up with a test for CRS on O's dime. I have all the symptoms and they will pay looking for the cure! LMAO CRS, I know that term but I can't remember what it stands for.
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Can't remember $hit. What every other country has endured that has gov. health care and this countries gov. isn't willing to recognize.
 
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Originally Posted By: jumprightinitOriginally Posted By: redeyeddawgSay what you want Craig. The bill before the Senate is a gargantuan power grab by government that will do NOTHING to control healthcare costs. Ya'll chose the hammer and sickle route a long time ago. Patriots here will fight to the death to avoid it.




Expert: Healthcare Reform Hidden Costs To Trigger 'Massive' New Taxes

Friday, November 13, 2009 11:38 AM

By: David Patten Article Font Size




Congress is using "every budget gimmick in the book" to conceal hundreds of billions in healthcare-reform costs that will lead to "massive tax increases" and higher insurance premiums, one of the country's leading healthcare experts warns.

Dr. Robert E. Moffit, a senior official in the Department of Health and Human Services during the Reagan administration, who now directs the Heritage Foundation's Center for Health Policy Studies, tells Newsmax that taxpayers are about to be blindsided by a spiraling healthcare expenses.

Moffit says the sharp jump in costs will occur despite what he calls President Obama's "absurd promise" that that his healthcare reform proposals would bring sharp reductions in Americans' healthcare bills.


To see the video of Newsmax's conversation with Moffit — Click Here.



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As a candidate, Obama pledged his plan would save the typical American family $2,500 a year in healthcare costs.

"We find his statements to be overly optimistic, misleading and, to some extent, contradicted by one of his own advisers," the Annenberg FactCheck.org Web site reported at the time. "And it masks the true cost of his plan to cover millions of Americans who now have no health insurance."

Masking the true cost of healthcare is exactly what Democrats have done, Moffit says.

"You're going to see higher premiums, you're going to have higher taxes, you're going to have higher premiums for Medicare," Moffit tells Newsmax in an exclusive interview. "And you're not getting a bend in the spending curve, but rather a $1.3 trillion dollar explosion in additional spending over the next 10 years.

"So I don't know what the White House thinks we're drinking, but the truth of the matter is, none of this is believable," he says.

Moffit says taxpayers' first installment on healthcare's hidden costs may come as early as next week, when the House is scheduled to take up the $210 billion "doctor's fix" bill.

The "doctor's fix," Beltway insiders say, is a familiar congressional ruse. Members pass supposed Medicare "cuts" that make them appear fiscally prudent, but then later "fix" the funding to restore what was supposed to be trimmed. So the $210 billion payment enables Congress to avoid making good on an earlier pledge to trim the deficit by limiting Medicare reimbursements to doctors.

Majority leader Harry Reid recently suffered an embarrassing loss when he tried to pass a similar "doctor's fix" in the Senate. That bill was defeated in committee by moderate Democrats and Republicans, who didn't want their names attached to another spending bill.

Originally, the House's $210 billion "doctor's fix" was included in the healthcare reform proposal presented by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in July.

The Congressional Budget Office determined Pelosi's original bill would add $239 billion to the deficit over 10 years, however. That sent House Democrats back to the drawing board, and Pelosi simply removed the "fix," introducing it as separate legislation.

During an interview conducted by Kathleen Walter of Newsmax.TV, Moffit said: "We've been through this as long as I can remember going all the way back to the Reagan administration. Banking serious healthcare savings on projected cuts in Medicare is folly. There is no ground for believing any of these cuts will ever ultimately materialize."

Moffit likens the congressional shell game to keeping the balance low on one credit-card by shifting expenses to another. Sooner or later, taxpayers get stuck with the bill.

According to some Democrats, removing the $210 billion item from healthcare reform was legitimate because narrowing the gap between doctors' true costs and their Medicare reimbursements had nothing to do with healthcare reform.

"That's strictly true," writes Peter Suderman, associate editor for Reason Magazine, "but I also think it was in the original House bill for a reason: It's the offering Democrats are using to buy the support of doctors, who don't want to see their Medicare reimbursements cut. By putting it in the original bill, I think Democrats signaled pretty clearly that they think the two are related -- but now that CBO-certified deficit neutrality has become their major concern, they're trying to back away."

Both the American Medical Association and the AARP have endorsed the healthcare reform bill passed by the House, which includes the controversial public-option run by the government. The reform bill also purports to cut Medicare costs.

Democrats in Congress, Moffit adds, are disregarding recent polls showing most Americans oppose the current reform proposals. Polls also show voters expect reform will increase rather than reduce their healthcare expenses.

"What I find remarkable about this entire thing," Moffit tells Newsmax, "and frankly I've never seen anything like this before … is knowing this is true, Congress is basically saying to the American people: '…We frankly do not care what you think, we're going to give this to you, we're going to impose this on you, whether you like it or not.' … They really don't care what ordinary Americans think about what they're trying to do to their healthcare system."

Moffit reluctantly concludes that "when it comes to fiscal responsibility, members of Congress are simply not trustworthy."

Several research studies conducted by insurance companies predict consumers' health insurance premiums could more than double, if current reform proposals are enacted.

Paying doctors the additional $210 billion, according to CBO estimates, will also trigger a $49 billion hike in seniors' Medicare Part B premiums between 2011 and 2019.

Despite growing taxpayer resistance, congressional Democrats are beginning to discuss imposing a major new value added tax.

"We're looking at massive tax increases," Moffit warns, "and probably much higher deficits. Because when you put it all together, you're talking about a massive increase in spending."





Long story short in a couple years all of the left would be surprised and bawling their eyes out.
 
If it has Healthcare typed on the cover sheet, it will be signed. Besides, that was the centrist Barack that was trying to steal moderate democrats from Hillary.
 


The U.S. House of Presumptuous Meddlers
John Stossel
Wednesday, November 11, 2009

As an American, I am embarrassed that the U.S. House of Representatives has 220 members who actually believe the government can successfully centrally plan the medical and insurance industries.

I'm embarrassed that my representatives think that government can subsidize the consumption of medical care without increasing the budget deficit or interfering with free choice.

It's a triumph of mindless wishful thinking over logic and experience.

The 1,990-page bill is breathtaking in its bone-headed audacity. The notion that a small group of politicians can know enough to design something so complex and so personal is astounding. That they were advised by "experts" means nothing since no one is expert enough to do that. There are too many tradeoffs faced by unique individuals with infinitely varying needs.

Government cannot do simple things efficiently. The bureaucrats struggle to count votes correctly. They give subsidized loans to "homeowners" who turn out to be 4-year-olds. Yet congressmen want government to manage our medicine and insurance.

Competition is a "discovery procedure," Nobel-prize-winning economist F. A. Hayek taught. Through the competitive market process, we producers and consumers constantly learn things that force us to adjust our behavior if we are to succeed. Central planners fail for two reasons:

First, knowledge about supply, demand, individual preferences and resource availability is scattered -- much of it never articulated -- throughout society. It is not concentrated in a database where a group of planners can access it.

Second, this "data" is dynamic: It changes without notice.

No matter how honorable the central planners' intentions, they will fail because they cannot know the needs and wishes of 300 million different people. And if they somehow did know their needs, they wouldn't know them tomorrow.

Proponents of so-called reform -- it's not really reform unless it makes things better -- have shamefully avoided criticism of their proposals. Often they just dismiss their opponents as greedy corporate apologists or paranoid right-wing loonies. That's easier than answering questions like these:

1) How can the government subsidize the purchase of medical services without driving up prices? Econ 101 teaches -- without controversy -- that when demand goes up, if other things remain equal, price goes up. The politicians want to have their cake and eat it, too.

2) How can the government promise lower medical costs without restricting choices? Medicare already does that. Once the planners' mandatory insurance pushes prices to new heights, they must put even tougher limits on what we may buy -- or their budget will be even deeper in the red than it already is. As economist Thomas Sowell points out, government cannot really reduce costs. All it can do is disguise and shift costs (through taxation) and refuse to pay for some services (rationing).

3) How does government "create choice" by imposing uniformity on insurers? Uniformity limits choice. Under House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's bill and the Senate versions, government would dictate to all insurers what their "minimum" coverage policy must include. Truly basic high-deductible, low-cost catastrophic policies tailored to individual needs would be forbidden.

4) How does it "create choice" by making insurance companies compete against a privileged government-sponsored program? The so-called government option, let's call it Fannie Med, would have implicit government backing and therefore little market discipline. The resulting environment of conformity and government power is not what I mean by choice and competition. Rep. Barney Frank is at least honest enough to say that the public option will bring us a government monopoly.

Advocates of government control want you to believe that the serious shortcomings of our medical and insurance system are failures of the free market. But that's impossible because our market is not free. Each state operates a cozy medical and insurance cartel that restricts competition through licensing and keeps prices higher than they would be in a genuine free market. But the planners won't talk about that. After all, if government is the problem in the first place, how can they justify a government takeover?

Many people are priced out of the medical and insurance markets for one reason: the politicians' refusal to give up power. Allowing them to seize another 16 percent of the economy won't solve our problems.

Freedom will.
 
"They are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare.... [G]iving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which may be good for the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as they sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please." --Thomas Jefferson
 
The whole problem with people comparing the US health system with Europe or even Canada is just insane. It’s like comparing apples and oranges. Americans are fatter, less active and just overall less healthy. We utilize the health care system much more for a higher percentage of serious diseases that are mostly self inflicted. We are over medicated and under nourished. I am all for health care reform. It should start back in the schools with 12 years of mandatory physical Ed. When we have major changes in the FDA and what is allowed to be called food. When we put a usury tax on unhealthy foods and beverages and let the people who use these products pay taxes that go to health care, then I would be on board. When we shift our emphasis from disease care to health care I’m all for it. When you are prescribed an exercise program instead of drugs for high blood pressure, cholesterol or obesity. When we take the snack and coke machines out of the schools. When the people in America quit smoking, drinking and eating themselves into bad health, then I would be all for the government stepping in and insuring Americans. But the way things are today, we haven’t seen anything yet. Wait until the next generation of couch potatoes gets a little older. The chronic conditions we are seeing in our 60’s they will have in their 40’s. What is it going to cost to keep them going for 40 years of chronic diseases? Until the government steps up and does something to control costs and utilization the only way they have of controlling costs is by limiting utilization. Think it won’t happen. Last year Medicare was slated for an 11% cut in physician fees. They projected they would lose 30% of the doctors that see Medicare patients. Congress stepped in and put off those cuts for a year. If Congress doesn’t stop the cuts this year we will be cut 21%. If you are on Medicare good luck finding a Dr. if this happens. This is how utilization will be controlled. Keep cutting fees to providers. Providers drop out of the system, longer and longer waits to see the Dr.’s that will provide the service. You think our health care system sucks now, just wait till it’s free.

drscott
 
The good doctor makes a valid set of points in my opinion. A lot of the crap people call health problems are in fact self inflicted. Just look around and you'll see it. I remember when I was in school and the fat kid got picked on. I joke around now saying that the fat kids probably pick on the few skinny kids. The fact is we just don't take care of ourselves. My generation is the worst so far, and from what I see many of us are training our kids to be even worse. How many hours do today teens and pre-teens piss away in front of a TV, PC, or video game of some sort? How much junk do they eat? Unless we get off our collective behinds, average health will continue to decline. Health care costs will go up, availability will go down. More unhealthy people will probably die. Welcome to the USSA.

But hey, at least we still get to drink our beer from glass mugs for now...
 
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