As an individual who has had to use his health care benefits often, I can honestly say the system is defunct and has numerous idiosyncrasies that do, all told, end up costing the consumer money and time, but the care I have received is second to none. The original intent of medical insurance was to protect families against catastrophic failure of the bread winner, back in the days when a doctor would come to your home. Now that simple system, much like CARS and home ownership has been turned into another government entitlement program, and what they call the “Public Option” may soon become the only option through various sneaky tactics.
Now, I have already conceded the primary argument of the current health care reform efforts, high costs. Yes, our insurance is more than likely the most expensive in the world, yet they provide the best care in the world. Hands down, America has the best health care system in the world. From where could the lawmakers cut said costs from? The average provider only makes 3.4% in evil evil profits, so it would seem there is very little margin to save individuals in that area. America already has many of its public programs coming home to roost with Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid all facing bankruptcy or hefty unfunded liabilities, it would stand to reason that perhaps the government really has no clue to get anything right.
Of course, for all my chatter about forced universal healthcare, it is being said that such an option has been thrown out the window. What is evident to me and the rest of us who see the evils of this system are that they are merely trying to backdoor it down our throats. They have asked for the moon, in order to compromise for the stars from where they can easily slip their controlling hands all over the American people’s bodies. The most unfortunate part is that the lame-publicans will fall for it. Why is it that the liberals will always stay on message and push their leftist agenda, and go down fighting when republicans always want to go down compromising?
Real reform would address the heinous nature trial lawyers and their roll in the high cost of health care. It would also address simple things, such as interstate commerce as well offer individuals simple catastrophic care. Our current system does not allow an individual to buy the insurance they seek, only what is available to them in their state and of course it is not portable and is attached to their job. On top of these damning laws, a plan must cover an ever growing list of health problems. In Minnesota for instance, health insurance companies must cover acupuncture and substance abuse. A healthy individual may not need coverage for all these various things and so opts out of coverage.
It is safe to say that it is not the insurance industries fault. It is becoming clear, at least to me, that rising health care costs correlate directly to rising legislation. The 2500 page, $2.2 Trillion (over ten years with interest) bill, that I can guarantee you no one has read, addresses none of the basic areas that could actually bring relief to system and lower costs. It only muddies the waters further, in order to poise to government for a full on take over. The balls it takes to pass a bill at 1 am when DC just got hit with a snow storm, it goes to show that they no longer work for the people.
Stop clapping, shut up and sit down.
“America is the only wealthy democracy without an option for health care for all”
The President said this yesterday in his address to Congress and America. We also heard the use of very conservative terminology— a way for the president and other radicals in his office to try to calm those who oppose him. However, his rhetoric has not fooled anyone as to his somewhat Marxist agenda. In his speech, he talked about those who do not have health insurance, stating that those who choose to go without coverage are the primary cause of cost increases for the rest of us. Although what he is saying may very well be true, it is the fault of an overbearing government that continually tries to take more control.
We already have is universal health care.If you were to walk into the ER with a gunshot wound, no one would ask payment; you would be stabilized for free. What we are debating here is more health insurance. It seems that car and life insurers are doing a fine job without massive government intervention. Why is healthcare any different? This cycle has got us here:
1. The government makes laws to ‘help’ people -> 2. Through the law of unintended consequences, they end up hurting the lives of others whom they had no desire to affect -> 3. They make more laws to help those they hurt -> 4. Ruin more lives -> 5. Blame the free market system -> 6. Create more regulations -> 7. Take freedoms in order to ‘protect the weak’ -> 8. Control our lives, WELCOME TO CUBA.
We are currently at number five in the cycle. There is a law on the books which states that the government can regulate anything they spend money on. When we allowed those we elected into power to enter the health care industry, we allowed them to regulate it. And thus we find them ruining the system and blaming it on private industry.
Are liberal politicians this delusional? The American people have more sense—they have spoken, time and time again. CNN and MSNBC have worked to position and brand the opposition to the deathcare plan as crazy rednecks with guns, people whom no person with common sense should listen to. The reality is quite the opposite. It is the hard working American people standing up, looking to be heard by the government they employ to serve them. If the senators are not reading the bills and are not writing the bills, what the heck do we pay them for? Not to mention the cushy lifetime health benefits they get…
Yesterday, we heard the president espouse the coverage of illegal immigrants, no increases to the deficit, and forced entrance into the plan, all things he contends are not in the bill. It seems the relevant question to ask is has he read it? It all seems like the same hope and change campaign rhetoric that got everyone chanting “Yes, We Can”. He has yet to address the SERMO petition that 10,000 physicians have signed and delivered to Congress expanding on the reforms they believe will make access to care better.
What Will Change the System?
I agree that our system is flawed and needs major reform. I doubt there are many who disagree. What we most disagree on is what reform is. We keep hearing the left use terms like ‘choice’ and ‘competition’; however, we never see that in the plans they bring to the floor of Congress.
The system is not so far gone that it cannot be helped. For instance, you may have heard a lot about this tort reform in recent months. Large healthcare premiums come partly from the high cost of malpractice insurance. Some doctors spend half the year working to pay $250,000 of malpractice insurance and then the next three months paying taxes. Although malpractice insurance only accounts for about 1% of the cost of health care—a number you hear liberals use when saying that tort reform is not important—it is the reason for the battery of tests your physician may order to prevent being sued. There are too many small-minded Americans looking to hit the lotto because they have liberals beating them over the head, reminding them that they are just victims of the system. We need to realize that our doctors are good people who are there to heal us, but that they are not God. Certain things are not in their control. Costs will continue to rise if we go litigation-crazy on our well-meaning doctors. It’s time to vilify a lawyer and a congressman or two.
If we allow people to buy only the health insurance that they want, such as catastrophic coverage for healthy individuals and allow them to buy from any company in any state, we would find that more people would opt to buy care. Currently in the People’s Republic of Minnesota, any provider of health insurance must cover acupuncture, substance abuse, pregnancies—for men and women— and so on. The reason for this? Government mandates. It is no wonder that many people opt out of buying coverage. People should also be allowed to deduct health-related expenses on their taxes and be able to roll over their health savings accounts. What we cannot do is penalize, at the tune of $3,800/yr, people who do not want or need healthcare.Shortly after the president’s address, the Associated Press released an article that directly confronted what he said and what they see as the more realistic take on the issue. It compared and contrasted his exact words to CBO numbers, as well as what the bill actually says. Believe me, there was plenty to be said, especially by such a liberal organization.
We have many examples as to how single payer and single payer lite programs do not work and end up harming people. One such example is Sweden. One that is more alarming is the UK’s National Health Service. To paraphrase Rush Limbaugh, who explained that UK’s health service needs to shed (see kill) an extra 17,000 humans a year for the system to run in the decrepit state that it is already in . Of course that is in addition to the 750,000-1,000,000 people who die already. Gosh, that sounds fun doesn’t it? America has never seen progressives like the ones in our current administration. I hope this acts as a catalyst for liberty, prosperity, and freedom to take make a stand. Before we see that glorious day we will have to watch hope & change take root.
Among the many claims being made durng the August recess by Democrats from President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-NV, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, to the lowliest back-bencher is that Obamacare absolutely, positively, cannot possibly ever in a million, zillion years provide coverage to illegal immigrants.
Just this past weekend during his regular Saturday address – devoted to addressing what he called “false claims about reform” - Obama said he wants “an honest debate” on health care reform, “not one dominated by willful misrepresentations and outright distortions.”
In what he called the “first myth” being spread by critics of his proposal for a government-run health care system, Obama said they are wrong in claiming illegal immigrants will be covered: “That is not true. Illegal immigrants would not be covered. That idea has not even been on the table.” Obama said.
Well, Mr. President, that idea must have been tucked under a stack of background briefing papers over there in the corner of the table because the Congressional Research Service (CRS) says this about H.R. 3200, the Obamacare bill approved just before the recess by the House Energy and Commerce Committee chaired by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-CA:
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama used only-in-Washington accounting Wednesday when he promised to overhaul the nation’s health care system without adding “one dime” to the deficit. By conventional arithmetic, Democratic plans would drive up the deficit by billions of dollars.
The president’s speech to Congress contained a variety of oversimplifications and omissions in laying out what he wants to do about health insurance.
A look at some of Obama’s claims and how they square with the facts or the fuller story:
OBAMA: “I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits either now or in the future. Period.”
THE FACTS: Though there’s no final plan yet, the White House and congressional Democrats already have shown they’re ready to skirt the no-new-deficits pledge.
House Democrats offered a bill that the Congressional Budget Office said would add $220 billion to the deficit over 10 years. But Democrats and Obama administration officials claimed the bill actually was deficit-neutral. They said they simply didn’t have to count $245 billion of it — the cost of adjusting Medicare reimbursement rates so physicians don’t face big annual pay cuts.
Their reasoning was that they already had decided to exempt this “doc fix” from congressional rules that require new programs to be paid for. In other words, it doesn’t have to be paid for because they decided it doesn’t have to be paid for.
The administration also said that since Obama already had included the doctor payment in his 10-year budget proposal, it didn’t have to be counted again.
That aside, the long-term prognosis for costs of the health care legislation has not been good.
CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf had this to say in July: “We do not see the sort of fundamental changes that would be necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount.”
___
OBAMA: “Nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have.”
THE FACTS: That’s correct, as far as it goes. But neither can the plan guarantee that people can keep their current coverage. Employers sponsor coverage for most families, and they’d be free to change their health plans in ways that workers may not like, or drop insurance altogether. The Congressional Budget Office analyzed the health care bill written by House Democrats and said that by 2016 some 3 million people who now have employer-based care would lose it because their employers would decide to stop offering it.
In the past Obama repeatedly said, “If you like your health care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health care plan, period.” Now he’s stopping short of that unconditional guarantee by saying nothing in the plan “requires” any change.
___
OBAMA: “The reforms I’m proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.” One congressman, South Carolina Republican Joe Wilson, shouted “You lie!” from his seat in the House chamber when Obama made this assertion. Wilson later apologized.
THE FACTS: The facts back up Obama. The House version of the health care bill explicitly prohibits spending any federal money to help illegal immigrants get health care coverage. Illegal immigrants could buy private health insurance, as many do now, but wouldn’t get tax subsidies to help them. Still, Republicans say there are not sufficient citizenship verification requirements to ensure illegal immigrants are excluded from benefits they are not due.
___
OBAMA: “Don’t pay attention to those scary stories about how your benefits will be cut. … That will never happen on my watch. I will protect Medicare.”
THE FACTS: Obama and congressional Democrats want to pay for their health care plans in part by reducing Medicare payments to providers by more than $500 billion over 10 years. The cuts would largely hit hospitals and Medicare Advantage, the part of the Medicare program operated through private insurance companies.
Although wasteful spending in Medicare is widely acknowledged, many experts believe some seniors almost certainly would see reduced benefits from the cuts. That’s particularly true for the 25 percent of Medicare users covered through Medicare Advantage.
Supporters contend that providers could absorb the cuts by improving how they operate and wouldn’t have to reduce benefits or pass along costs. But there’s certainly no guarantee they wouldn’t.
___
OBAMA: Requiring insurance companies to cover preventive care like mammograms and colonoscopies “makes sense, it saves money, and it saves lives.”
THE FACTS: Studies have shown that much preventive care — particularly tests like the ones Obama mentions — actually costs money instead of saving it. That’s because detecting acute diseases like breast cancer in their early stages involves testing many people who would never end up developing the disease. The costs of a large number of tests, even if they’re relatively cheap, will outweigh the costs of caring for the minority of people who would have ended up getting sick without the testing.
The Congressional Budget Office wrote in August: “The evidence suggests that for most preventive services, expanded utilization leads to higher, not lower, medical spending overall.”
That doesn’t mean preventive care doesn’t make sense or save lives. It just doesn’t save money.
___
OBAMA: “If you lose your job or change your job, you will be able to get coverage. If you strike out on your own and start a small business, you will be able to get coverage.”
THE FACTS: It’s not just a matter of being able to get coverage. Most people would have to get coverage under the law, if his plan is adopted.
In his speech, Obama endorsed mandatory coverage for individuals, an approach he did not embrace as a candidate.
He proposed during the campaign — as he does now — that larger businesses be required to offer insurance to workers or else pay into a fund. But he rejected the idea of requiring individuals to obtain insurance. He said people would get insurance without being forced to do so by the law, if coverage were made affordable. And he repeatedly criticized his Democratic primary rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton, for proposing to mandate coverage.
“To force people to get health insurance, you’ve got to have a very harsh penalty,” he said in a February 2008 debate.
Now, he says, “individuals will be required to carry basic health insurance — just as most states require you to carry auto insurance.”
He proposes a hardship waiver, exempting from the requirement those who cannot afford coverage despite increased federal aid.
___
OBAMA: “There are now more than 30 million American citizens who cannot get coverage.”
THE FACTS: Obama time and again has referred to the number of uninsured as 46 million, a figure based on year-old Census data. The new number is based on an analysis by the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, which concluded that about two-thirds of Americans without insurance are poor or near poor. “These individuals are less likely to be offered employer-sponsored coverage or to be able to afford to purchase their own coverage,” the report said. By using the new figure, Obama avoids criticism that he is including individuals, particularly healthy young people, who choose not to obtain health insurance.
Source: [Associated Press]
Copyright © 2012 | DKT PRESS | All Rights Reserved.
