ObamaCare: Tightening the Noose Around Private Health Care
The U.S. Senate is making increasingly Byzantine backroom deals in an attempt to pass some form of universal health care by the end of the year. But even though the final bill isn’t settled yet, one fact is becoming increasingly clear. Any plan they pass will result in the government seizing an unprecedented degree of control over previously private health spending decisions.
Two of these proposed new controls are worth highlighting, because they are not often discussed in most mainstream media reports.
First, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) will be setting the rules for what sorts of preventive health care insurance companies must offer.
According to Dr. Delia Chiaramonte, the proposed law states:
A group health plan and a health insurance issuer offering group or individual health insurance coverage shall provide coverage for and shall not impose any cost sharing requirements for evidence-based items or services that have in effect a rating of “A” or “B” in the current recommendations of the United States Preventive Services Task Force.
In other words, health insurers must pay for preventive services that the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommends. Such mandated benefits will inevitably raise the costs of health insurance nationwide as they have already done in states like Massachusetts.
The USPSTF is also the government task force that aroused such controversy when it recently recommended restricting screening mammograms to women over age 50, even though professional medical societies such as the American Cancer Society and American College of Radiology have long recommended women undergo routine mammography starting at age 40, based on years of peer-reviewed medical research.
The USPSTF has been sharply criticized for basing its decision on old and unreliable scientific data. But there’s also a more fundamental moral question of whether the federal government should be setting guidelines that essentially put a price on a human life.
The USPSTF argued that eliminating mammograms on women between age 40 and 49 would only result in one additional cancer death per 1,900 women screened — a level they apparently considered acceptable. In contrast, they still supported mammograms for women over age 50 because that would prevent one cancer death per 1,300 women screened.
Hence, the government is saying that it’s “cost-effective” to spend money for a mammogram that will save the life of a 50-year-old woman — but not the life of her 48-year-old younger sister.
Second, government rules may make it more difficult for patients to receive medical care outside of government payment guidelines.
Whatever happened to Constitutional principle? Is there no room for that argument at all? Have our prior surrenders to federal usurpation in the name of “compassion” and spurious “rights” deprived us of it forever?
It’s the same old song.
But with a different meaning since the words “public option” been gone.”
“It’s the Same Old Song” is a 1965 hit single recorded by The Four Tops for the Motown label. Written and produced by Motown’s main production team Holland-Dozier-Hollan.
Obama’s writers of today’s version, sans lyrics and beat, have the same objective. Not to make health care better.
Today’s version is to line their minds with power and their pockets with money because this version is the antonym; the bridge doesn’t connect, it separates.
Billion of dollars with be there for their ethics-free taking as congress
builds bridges between patient and doctor that neither can cross.
The right to treatments are different too. Because they’re based on the final say of bureaucrats, not doctors and patients.
This is Obama’s plan to reform healthcare. “Reform”, now that’s the word the alphabet tv stations and the ny, la and washington times like to use.
But it’s not reform.
What Obama says and means are different as day and night. When he says “no more earmarks”, he means many more earmarks. When he says “transparency”. He means secrecy.
When he says healthcare “reform”, he means healthcare impairment, healthcare worsening. It’s Obama 180 talk. Antonym talks. He means the opposite of what he says.
Folks, Healthcare isn’t broken. It needs some fixing. Not a face lift so nobody recognizes it.
But Obama says it needs reform, meaning, it needs to be worsened. Changed so the government, not the doctors and patients, have the final say in what happens to you.
Your doctor says you need another angioplasty. But Obama’s burocratics say that would be a waste of money. What you need is a pill that thins the blood, coumidin. Fine, except if you fall, injure a kidney and start bleeding, a small, thin woman could bleed to death. It’s 2009, pre, ObamaCare. You get an angioplasty to open an artery, not a pill like coumidin that comes with risks that last a lifetime, no matter how short that lifetimes turns out to be.
One example of ObamaCare. I mean RiskyCare.
Care decided by the OB (Obama bureaucrat). Not the doctor and patient. Which is now known as “private care”.
It’s like going from the Ipod back to 8 track tape. It’s like selling your Preus, 80mpg and getting a ’72 Oldsmobile 8mpg.
The doctor/patient relationship. The touchstone of Private Care.
Only a Marxist/alinskist like Obama can see the wisdom of overhauling that. Actually, it’s not wisdom they see. It’s green as in money. And power, as in votes.
If I were a member of the SS and it was 1942 and a group of Germans admitted to voting for Obama in the last election, your life
expectency would resemble that of an American POW on Guadalcanal.
Is the noose tightening around private care. Does the sun shine? Do babies cry?
Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs and was called a hero. If Harry Reid gets his 60 votes, private enterprise and the doctor patient relationship will be hanging from a live oak tree, swinging in the breeze with the best health care in the world not being able to save them.
Obama is gutting everything that’s good and right about America. If we stand by and do nothing, it tells me that Americans who lived their lives
in the late first decade of the 21st century, mad some bad voting mistakes, and didn’t fix the problem because, frankly, they had no guts.
But we’re not standing by watch our countries demise pass by in some sick Obama parade of idiocy. We’re gonna confront him. And play some High Noon music in the background with Tex Ritter providing the vocals. And let him know it’s freedom’s way. Or the highway.
Obama, make your play.
Good piece, very good, Rachel. Re: coumadin — on the money. Can Obama really have bad intentions, or just be a delusional poor credit risk? Would a bank loan to him I wonder? Scary. Do I want him, as good of a writer as he seemed to be (editors notwithstanding), to draft my house budget, or will my wife do the best job? Night and day! Mrs. has no comparison, and that Ivy League grad can’t touch my numbers-wise lady of the house.
Can Mrs. run the country? Er, suppose we all stop deluding ourselves that no morals, bad shows about no morals, and Hollywood-living does not a family make. THEN yes, all the Mrs’ and all the Mr’s who can manage to keep their families together through thick and thin (not overly selfish sex and greed) will be running the country. Their voting will improve. They’ll set examples again. Boys will respect their moms and women again, and dads will exude something useful other than “gaming” refuse.
Keep the families going, nix disrespectful television altogether (freedom of the press – yep, it gets the right rating, too: “Selfish, mean, eleven extra-marital sex scenes, a Bobbitt threat” – let people know the “heart-warming” movie has been identified [Ghosts of Girlfriends Past]) and defend your innate rights – with all you’ve got.
…increasingly Byzantine backroom deals
I really have a hard time believing that the future of “healthcare” strategies and options for an entire nation have become a function of (rather uninformed) backroom deal makers who, it just so happens, will not themselves be subject to the convoluted, bureaucratic mess they are trying to impose onto the people at large.
Astonishing, too, that some democrats appear to be so focused on delivering a “win” for their President that the fact they are putting forward an unwieldly, monstrous machinery doesn’t matter to them.
An appalling moment in American history.
The more I watch the process, the more I believe that Obamacare will pass in some form. I share Byron York’s opinion that the Dems believe this is their best chance and they are fully commited to doing it now. They know they will lose many seats in Congress, but they are going to do it anyway. Obama is pushing it because he isn’t up for election until 2012 and figures he can blunt the critics with the media’s assistance.
What the Dems don’t understand is that they are about to get hit by a tsunami of voter anger. Taxes will have to go up to pay for the new entitlement and they are scheduled to go up well before the health care “benefits” begin to flow. Voter rage will boil as soon as the new taxes are withheld. Dan Rostenkowski got chased by angry seniors when he engineered medicare adjustments 20 years ago and the legislation had to be repealed. Voter anger will be ten times as passionate once Obamacare passes, and for good reason. The Wall Street Journal identified the legislation as the single worst bill in US history.
We taxpayers have been hit hard enough by the stupidity of the Congress over the last 70 years. We have endured about our limit. The time is drawing near when inevitably we are going to strike back at the ballot box. Next year will be a very bad year to be a Democrat. I don’t think most of them understand that the ones leading them over the cliff are all from safe liberal districts.
Obamacare will pass. Get ready for the inevitable tumult of taxpayer resentment….and action.
Dr. Hsieh outlines two of the most onerous consequences of nationalizing healthcare–the deadly results when healthcare is dictated by the whim of bureaucrats and the idea that no one is permitted to go “outside” the system and pay for services not covered by the government.
Why shouldn’t anyone be allowed to pay for their services if they so choose?
The answer lies in the fundamental motivation behind altruism, which is the philosophical cause behind all nationalized healthcare schemes. The motivation behind altruism is not benevolence toward your fellow man, but rather hatred for the successful, for the productive, for all those who make man’s life possible on earth.
The health reform changes so fast I cant keep up with it.
Dec. 15th 2009
So now we have gone from an ‘Obama National Health Care bill’
to an ‘Insurance Reform bill’
to a ‘Pelosi Health Bill’ to a
‘Harry Reid Medicaid- Medicare bill?
I think I forgot an Abortion bill in there somewhere.
Now they are not considering adding 15 million more Americans to the Medicaid- Medicare bill?
And they want all of us to jump into the ring with our 2 trillion tax dollars and HopeyDopey us into winning this thing, whatever it is?
Typical bullshit from typical bullshitters!
Any wonder why Americans only have a 27% approval for Congress?
44% for Bambie.
We Elect them but don’t ever buy a used car from the bastards.
Let us assume that Obamacare and that pack of jackals in congress will pass any of the 7 bills and amendments-of-the-day with great quantities of pork/bribes and big government insurance/tax included despite the unwillingness of the American public, increased costs, and rationing. The question is, “Can it be undone before the health care industry is broken?”
For whatever humanitarian reasons the big “O” claims that he will achieve, the entire process dehumanizes medicine and makes a federal commodity out of the doctor/patient relationship. “Free healthcare” as a political bribe for votes is irratational, criminal, and a great stain on the American constitution.
The sub-headline says “how long will we let them tighten the noose”…..LET THEM???? Who’s “letting” them? We’ve been screaming bloody murder, e-mailing, protesting, phoning, Tea-partying, talking….we no longer have representative government.
Nobody’s “letting them” do anything.
Probably not before 2012 at the earliest. Obama would veto any repeal measure, so, failing his removal from office, we’d be stuck with whatever abortion Congress might pass.
My fear is that given three or four years “in place,” any goodies enacted by the current Congress would become “privileged.” That is, those who benefit by them would fight so hard to keep them that they would overwhelm any attempt at repeal.
We must defeat this initiative now.
How about a little Christmas cheer? Here is a compendium of polls. You can click on each dot to find out which poll and when the poll was taken. Obama reaching the crossroads. What a great site:
http://www.pollster.com/polls/us/jobapproval-obama.php?xml=http://www.pollster.com/flashcharts/content/xml/Obama44JobApproval.xml&choices=Approve,Disapprove&phone=&ivr=&internet=&mail=&smoothing=&from_date=&to_date=&min_pct=&max_pct=&grid=&points=1&lines=1&colors=Disapprove-BF0014,Approve-000000,Undecided-68228B
A huge political shockwave is going to shatter the Democrat Party because of President Obama, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, & Senator Harry Reid; this unholy trinity believes they are above us & want to RULE–not govern. ObamaCare will set this in motion. However, the arrogant, out-of-touch elitists in Washington DC are going to be hit by shockwave after shockwave if this ObamaCare thing passes. There will be a huge revolt by the masses. And I fear there will be violence as a result of ObamaCare inhumanity & death panels.
KILL THE BILL!!!!
Stop this before Democrats decide there’s a “constitutional” right to socialized medicine right next to the one on abortion (somehow our founding didn’t need to put them in writing while they were just joking about eh 2nd Amendm,ent, according to liberals).
Being that social security has trillions in unfunded liabilities, i guess it makes sense for the government to pass health care with death panels to decide who will live and who will die.( social security problem solved )
I heard a comment today on the radio that CAT scans cause cancer. It seems to me that this is another ploy by the liberals to get ‘voluntary’ reductions in CAT scans, since we would rather not know what’s wrong than actually knowing.
What are we supposed to stop ?
This is a revolution, it has been carefully planned and it is being carefully carried on.
The subversives think, in obedience to the strategies of the “autonomous marxism”, that they can change what they call the MATERIAL “constitution” of a country:
they are controlling and regulating banks and financial markets,
they are dictating the rules in the market of cars,
they are limiting energy production,
they are nationalizing the health-care,
they are going to further reduce American economy through cap and trade
they are doing all they can (through deficit management) to destroy the dollar
All this aims at destroying the power and richness of America.
When America will be poor and weak, the new stalins will have complete control of it.
The only problem we have is that we don’t have political leadership in the movement of resistance against this communist revolution.
The elitists (the Rove and Gingrich types) who have allowed this situation to exist are not calling the American People to (legally and peacefully) fight in the defense of Freedom.
We don’t have a Thomas Jefferson, and political action without leadership is impossible.
Moreover, this is an international conspiracy, remember that george Soros is the only Jew in the world who can go to Saudi Arabia for a convention…
The subversives have planned this move for forty years and nobody listens to those like …me.
Enjoy the ride.
There is another exit from under the boot of totalitarianism, and that is the long term revolution to subvert the subversion.
Can someone please name for me one Government program that has reduced costs and been more efficient than the private sector equivalent? Besides making war and the interstate highway system, I can’t think of one. Social Security? a transparent Ponzi scheme, the likes of which would land you or I in prison should we emulate it. Medicare? beset by fraud so badly that even its adherents admit that it is cheaper to pay the fraudulent than to prosecute them. Fannie Mae? Freddie Mac? Need I even expound on what a colossal failure those are?
We thought Leiberman would stand tough today..hahahahahaha excusesexcusesexcuses. What is going on is wrong. It should not be tolerated!!
***********************************
“A day after Sen. Joe Lieberman said he won’t vote for the Democratic health reform bill as currently written, a progressive public policy blog is trying to oust his wife Hadassah as global ambassador for the Susan G. Komen for the Cure breast cancer group.
“And Firedoglake is hoping to enlist Hollywood stars that work with the group.
***********************************
It seems we can no longer have an opinion..or do whaqt we think is the right thing.
#17 Gracie
It seems we can no longer have an opinion..or do what we think is the right thing.
Of course not, it is called totalitarianism.
And anyway you shouldn’t even mention “the right thing”.
Only “left things” from now on.
But you can watch the state-controlled TV news, read a state-controlled newspaper, buy a state-produced car, go to the state-controlled hospital. YES YOU CAN !
And soon
you will be able to post on the state-controlled Net.
WAIT a minute. I have just been informed that the Net is already controlled. See
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/
Great.
President Obama is trying to blackmail Senator Nelson for his vote on yes to ObamaCare with a Nebraska base-closing:
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/12/15/white-house-using-base-closure-process-to-extort-nelsons-vote-on-obamacare/
Lieberman is still holding out. The Maine Sisters are saying to no Obama.
Desperation is sinking in…
Howard Dean is calling for the Leftists to reject ObamaCare on different reasons.
Obama is being hit by the Left & moderates.
When the chips are down a statist votes for expansion of the state and that’s what the Dems are, all of them, statists. That includes Lieberman, who is Moynihan all over again, talking the reasonable responsible restrained talk but walking the leftist walk.
His black half is beautiful, as ever. His white half is a sneaky, lying, lazy shiftless LIAR. You can’t add 30 million without cutting somewhere. He’d have to trim existing Medicare benefits, killing millions of seniors. The death panels are here!
And, we don’t need a law to get rid of theft and inefficiency in Medicare; just do it!! He is so deceitful that I am being to wonder if he was really born in Hawaii.
#8 Meryl: And I have done the same. Next step, become precinct committeemen (I just recently have). In some counties, Maricopa in AZ, for example, only 50% of the PC slots are filled. This means that WE have no one going door-to-door working for our cause in those precincts.
Let’s face it, the bread and circus that is sports, TV, and recreational pursuits have tempted us away from civic responsbility. Meanwhile, the Left has infiltrated all culture-shaping institutions and successfully crowded out and marginalized dissenters — those of us who hold to traditional/conservative principles.
This does not speak well of us since polls demonstrate that LIBERALS are a minority; we have abrogated our responsibility, perhaps naively thinking that Constitutional protections guaranteed our continued freedom — and not bothering to pay attention as the Constitution was being subverted along the way.
We say we don’t have leaders. But potential leaders need to know we’ve “got their backs.” If the people are happy to be led down the garden path to destruction, why would a conservative leader step up only to be mown down by the vicious government/media complex?
Freedom is not the natural condition of man; each generation must fight for it against great odds, even to the spilling of blood.
It amazes me that the insurance elite (that earn 400 grand or more per year) are frothing at the mouth, and spending millions per week to stop health care reform. Shame on them. It also makes me upset that the senate democrats are going to compromise in order to get a few republicans to support the bill. The bill will end up being a watered down beef stew, without meat, at this rate. I admit, its tough to win against such a powerful lobby. The house republican leader spent 650 grand just on golf this year. Being so concerned about spending must really be taxing on him eh? (get it?) Man…it makes me wonder….
Socialism is good budiness, invest your freedom! (Not!)
If you really meant “when is time to kill private health INSURANCE?” the time is now.
Everyone, liberals and conservatives together, want health care to be provided by the private sector.
But you knew that already. It’s just another piece to mislead the ignorant. You must be so proud of your work.
Many Democrat members of Congress are voting for ObamaCare knowing that it will lead to the loss of their seat. They are willing to vote for it because they are being promised something in return, a position on a corporate board, or a law firm partnership, or a position in a lobbying firm.
We need to make it clear that such positions will be poison pills for those firms. The next Congress will likely have a Republican House. Any firm hiring these Dem losers as part of a quid pro quo should know they will be damaged by the association.
And what price should the Left pay for bankrupting the nation in time of war?
And what price should the Left pay for bankrupting the nation in time of war?–geoffo
I say we should bring back the guillotine–OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!!!!
THE GOAL:
ONE government sanctioned physician (or ten, or one hundred,or whatever) supervising one thousand (or ten thousand, or one hundred thousand) ‘physicians assistants or ‘nurse practicioners’, adhering to federally mandated ‘guidelines’ directing your medical care according to ‘evidenced based medicine’. Good luck, guys. Me, I’m a Doc, and I’ll be OK. You’re screwed.
#28. Sebastian Shaw: Heaven help me, I envisioned the same thing today myself — but don’t like admitting it since the Reign of Terror was such a Godless thing, led by miscreants and thugs.
So this is what 3 years of Democratic control of the Senate and Congress bring us. Nothing but total control, increased spending like it’s water coming out of the tap, non-stop propaganda, etc.
It’s way too much for one humble taxpayer to bear.
“Everyone, liberals and conservatives together, want health care to be provided by the private sector.” jharp
Typical disingenuous statement of a Progressive. So-called liberals, i.e. Progressives, want health insurance (and every other business) to be nominally private (because outright socialism is too tough a sell in America). Yet, they want it so regulated that it is effectively nationalized.
That has been the pattern for 100 years, and increasingly so in the past 40. In less politically correct times, they had the decency to be openly in favor of 1920s Italian-style fascism. Now, they simply lie.
Without a public option, this is going to be a bill the insurance companies love. Democrats should reject this bill.
As far Senator Joe Lieberman, I do not know what is motivating him except, in this instance, whatever it is it is not the welfare of the American people.
The criticism that the Republicans can govern and the Democrats cannot is simply not valid. Ronald Reagan and George Bush gave lobbyist, big business, and big finance whatever they wanted and bought members of Congress with unprecedented amounts of pork. This created the underbrush for the present financial firestorm. We definitely do not want President Obama or the Democrats doing what they did.
~ richard allbritton, Miami, http://rallbritton.blogspot.com
Having lived most of my life under government mandated health care in Canada and the UK most of my 50 plus years (and with a “condition”), I much prefer the system of private pay insurance I live with in the southern
US. There are simple tools to reform the system without implementing supply side management and government control: tort reform; extensive income tax breaks for MD’s who care for patients without insurance; inter-state transferability of policies to spur competition; wider plans for insurance pools and purchasing groups, to name a few.
PLEASE LEAVE THE SYSTEM ALONE. CANADIAN / BRITISH style medicine is big mistake.
Yet again, Dr. Hsieh nails it. Great article.
Our current health care system is going bad: the costs keep skyrocketing with neither rhyme nor reason, and quality of that care is mediocre at best.
The Republican/Conservative method for dealing with something like this is to not deal with something like this, either through direct inactivity or via some brain dead “free market” or public-private partnership thingy that doesn’t have the slightest chance of accomplishing anything other than helping other Republicans and Conservatives get/stay wealthy doing nothing.
That is the economic program of fascism. Mussolini did it; Hitler did it; FDR made a good start at it. Which is why the Left, masters of projection that they are, constantly call conservatives “fascists:” they seek to avert the use of the term to describe them!
Kudos to Pajamas Media for publishing this!
This issue is far from dead, and deserves our continued attention! It has been a long fight, but much has been accomplished, and it is largely due to efforts of those like Dr. Hsieh and media such as Pajamas Media. It is too soon to give up!
As a breast cancer survivor, diagnosed in my forties from a mammogram, Dr. Hsieh’s points resonate. But this issue is relevant to us all. Under any government plan, (whether overtly run, regulated or whatever) we will become like cattle, whose care, feeding and lifestyles are ultimately managed by bureaucrats. Get on the wrong side of their statistics, right or wrong, and government-imposed reality will take over. Nothing is more fundamental than that, and no matter how the bill is tweaked, that will be the outcome.
Thanks in part to the inspiration of people like Dr. Hsieh, I will continue my advocacy of freedom and individual rights in medicine as long as I can.
We can discuss at length the pros and cons of government-run healthcare, but miss the underlying reasons why or why not. Not one person in the United States or in any other country has a claim to another’s life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, or property–none! I do not exist for the purpose of providing others with their means of survival, and it is evil to enslave a man to live for another. Each individual is responsible for their own existence and must use their rational mind for survival. Morality is based on individual rights-the right for one to live their own life for their own sake.
39. Substitute “adult” for “person” and I’ll agree with you. Minor children certainly do have a claim on their parents for basic necessities, and this responsibility is the foundation of society.
two groups has cared about Obama health care plan
1)very rich people who are educated and spend money for their long life and healthy to collect more wealth and enjoy life to prevent them to spend too much time in hospital and lover their body more than other people
2) very poor people because they have too much time to go to hospitals
and love their family care and their children more than money
H1 N1 tampa capusl is can be deadly
if some one get h1 n1 and doctore in hospitacl asked them to take flu capusl those capusl can lead diaria and vomating and may cause some people to die and increase high fever
if you facing vomating stop taking tablet and use gatrate to bring loose water back to your body
take advil to reduce fever longer time and watch your age and weight to take more tablet if you need to reduce fever down
in hosptital nurses are not taking care of patien
there is close link between regular flue and anfulanza and h1 n1
try to take niddle for if you are right handed put flu shot in right hand and put h1 n1 in left hand and
make sure take pain releif since by having h1 n1 flue shot you will have pain for 3 days in your left hand especially for children and may light fever keep warm for two weeks after flue shot
info, what are you, a first grader? You can’t construct a coherent sentence.