Do they really want competition?

Just watch the video and it is very clear. Wolf Blitzer understands it, David Axelrod, senior advisor to the President does not. They aren't talking about competition because they really WANT competition. They are talking about it because it sounds good and it masks the move toward single payer. Hats off to Wolf for really pushing the point.

Inappropriate

Am I a fan of the President's policies? Obviously not.

Do I believe that he has lied repeatedly during some of his speeches on healthcare? Yes. At the very least his comments have been very misleading half truthes.

In this case about illegal immigrants, there is nothing in the bill that requires verification of citizenship to receive benefits. In the past and present, this has been an open door to illegal aliens. So, the President is being very deceiving.

That being said, do I think it is appropriate to yell out "You LIE!" or "Liar!" during a presidential address to Congress? No.

Of course, I don't think the President's comments were appropriate either, but I will comment more on that later.

Here's the video

Health Care Reform Goes Hand in Hand with Tort Reform

As politicians head back to Washington and start reviewing and debating the latest version of what will be the Kennedy Healthcare Act or some version thereof, I thought it would be good to look at something this bill is guaranteed to miss, tort reform.

It’s one of those political, Washington sounding phrases that basically means we need to get a hold of the trial lawyers who troll around outside doctor’s offices waiting for them to make a mistake. Don’t get me wrong; just like anything that has been abused, there are legitimate cases against irresponsible doctors. The system should be set up to deal reasonably with those and discourage and weed out the vampires that bleed the system.

These frivolous lawsuits cost you money and drive up the over all cost of healthcare. Malpractice insurance isn’t cheap! It varies by region and the type of practice you have, but it can easily run into the six figure range for an annual premium, especially for more high risk type specialties like OBs and nuerosurgeons. But the costs aren’t all direct. Every time a doctor meets with a patient they not only have to focus on treating a condition, or finding the cause of a problem, they have to think about what tests they need to run just to cover their backside in case of a lawsuit. The costs for people in rural areas are even more significant because many times a doctor can’t make enough money with a rural practice to cover his costs, so many communities don’t have a doctor, forcing them to commute to the doctor’s office. Sound familiar?

Now lets look at the scenario that occurred in Texas.

According to an Op-ed by the Texas Governor, Rick Perry, they were faced with a serious issue six years ago. Doctors were leaving the state in droves. 13 out of 17 liability insurers (providing malpractice insurance) left the state. Costs to doctors were going through the roof, which elevates the costs to the patients. 24 counties had no primary care doctors at all. 2/3 of the counties had no practicing obstetricians and 6/10 had no pediatricians.

Sounds like a mess doesn’t it?

So they reformed it, capping non-economic damages and put and end to law suits dragging on for years that do nothing but rack up lawyer’s fees.

And the market responded.

Ten insurance companies came into the state and malpractice insurance costs plummeted by an average of 27%. Over 14,000 doctors have come back to, or started up their practices in Texas in the first five years since the reforms. More OBs, pediatricians, and general practitioners are moving into areas that have never had these services in their communities.

In all fairness, there is one group that is very unhappy with the changes; the trial lawyers.

So why doesn’t the President’s healthcare reform plan include tort reform?

Take a look at this list of donations of trial lawyers to politicians, then take a look at the fact that lawyers/law firms gave over $178 million dollars to Democrats during the last election cycle ($54 million to Republicans). $eem$ like a pretty $trait forward an$wer to me.

Tell your reps you don’t want ANY healthcare reform without TORT reform. Let’s fix the system.

Pre-existing Conditions

This is a hot button, I understand that, but read and keep an open mind.

I have some family members who are not employed where they get healthcare coverage. They have tried to seek private insurance, willing to pay the premiums themselves, and they have been denied because of certain chronic health factors. At the same time they don’t qualify for state assistance. This means when they go to the doctor they have to negotiate a price and pay out of their own pocket. That’s not too bad, but a trip to the ER ends up costing them huge and there just isn’t much they can do about it.

In this case it seems only right to say that insurance companies cannot deny someone coverage because of a pre-existing condition.

I hope that this exact scenario is the reason for Section 111, of HR3200, which across the board prohibits insurance companies from denying coverage because of a pre-existing condition. I hope. But sometimes things that are put in place for good reasons have ‘unintended’ bad consequences.

Now, let’s think for a minute. Say Jane is in her thirties. She’s self employed and relatively healthy and only goes to the doctor every couple of years, so when it comes to insurance she decides to pass and pocket the money. One morning, Jane finds a lump. She goes to the doctor and finds out that she has an aggressive form of breast cancer. Facing huge medical costs as well as the personal and emotional trauma of the situation she goes and applies for insurance, which they cannot deny. She gets her coverage and begins treating her cancer. She has a mastectomy, but finds a lump in the other breast resulting in another mastectomy. She goes through chemo and radiation and is in remission. Things are improving. The insurance company is also required to cover breast reconstructive surgery after a mastectomy, so she decides to have that as well. She’s finally recovered from this personal struggle and she finally hears the words from the doctor that she has been waiting for, a clean bill of health. Fantastic! But, it’s been two years of struggle and she wants to do some things to have fun, go on vacation, buy a new car, live life again. So, she looks at her expenses and decides to drop her medical insurance since she really doesn’t need it anymore.

The insurance company has just fit the bill for two years of treatments, including multiple surgeries, very expensive treatments and medications, and has collected a tiny fraction of that money back in premiums. They are literally tens of thousands of dollars in the red for just one case. They are a company, with stockholders and investors, they have to show a profit, so they increase premiums across the board. Naturally that causes other people who aren’t in the midst of a personal tragedy to drop their insurance, knowing they can pick it up again should a tragedy occur.

Realistically speaking, how can the insurance company stay in business? Insurance companies don’t really make money off of sick people, they make money off of healthy people.

So then do we start bailing out insurance companies?

Undoubtedly you suddenly have people being dropped as insurance companies go out of business. Amid the national outcry to help the average family that is suddenly without coverage, the government steps in with a plan to help those who have been hit hard by this unfortunate turn of events.

Hmmm…

Public option or no public option, this bill has some good intentions with some very negative possible consequences.

An interesting development indeed…

It is true that you really can’t believe everything that you read. Some sources are saying that a public plan is ‘off the table’. While other Democratic leaders (Speaker Pelosi) are saying that the public option is alive and NEEDS to move forward. This has become the essence of a rock and a hard place.

If the Democrats abandon the public option, then their base will be livid, feeling like they’ve missed a huge opportunity considering they have a liberal president and overwhelming majorities in the House and Senate. If they move forward with the public option they anger a majority of their constituents and resign themselves to a possible landslide defeat at the polls in 2010.

What to do?

This all just adds to the fact that we have no idea what will be in the final healthcare bill, which means when it finally does come out I am anticipating a 1500+ page behemoth of a bill that will be shoved through congress as quickly as possible. If that is the route they attempt then it will be essential to bombard the capital switch board with angry calls to slow down. There have been some encouraging developments, but we don’t know what we are actually going to get until we see the legislation. It is essential that we see it for an appropriate period of time.

This whole exercise has been a testament to the power of the people’s voice. But don’t go quiet now. We don’t have a bill and we have very vague answers on what is going to be in the bill. Stay on top of it.

Sarcasm and straight talk

(warning! sarcasm ahead)

What are our expectations on healthcare reform? The President tells us that his bill will give us the best care in the world, cover everyone, help us get the deficit and spending under control, get rid of waste, bring lower premiums, more coverage, outlaw denial for pre-existing condition, and eliminate huge premiums and out of pocket expenses.

Wow! Where do I sign!

He also promises that it won’t lead to government rationing, long lines, long wait times, denied care, euthanasia, or tax payer funded abortion.

Wow! Perfect! I love it. It sound almost too good to be true!

Wait a minute… didn’t my parents tell me something about things that sound too good to be true… hmmm… oh yeah - they usually are. But come on, this is a smooth talking politician that is telling me this. It’s GOT TO BE TRUE! That’s why the bill is so BIG, it has to encompass all of this GREAT stuff. Of course it needs to be passed quickly, we want that great care and reduced cost to start as soon as possible. This is going to SAVE OUR HEALTHCARE SYSTEM!!

Kind of like the stimulus saved our economy and kept us out of 8% unemployment. Wait, what is unemployment again?

But come on this isn’t like that boondoggle of a stimulus plan. I mean that bill was RUSHED through before anyone read it. It was over a thousand pages. That’s totally different than this one… oh wait.

(sarcasm stops here)

Here is what we know so far about the ‘proposed healthcare reform’.

- The bill isn’t finished. What is available now in the form of HR3200 has already changed and we don’t know what all of those changes are. Even in its current form it is over a thousand pages long and not exactly easy reading.
- We’ve had a bunch of promises and assurances made by the President and members of congress that are obviously not reflected in the current bill as written.
- We’ve heard some very scary stuff that can be seen as a logical progression or interpretation of what is in the current bill.
- Both the bill and the promises made by the administration would grow the government, cost huge amounts of money that we don’t have, and push us further and further into red ink, rather than balance the budget.
- Some changes to healthcare systems are irreversible. Look at the UK, they have a population of approximately 61 million people. Their NHS employs over 1.4 million people and they are constantly complaining that it isn’t enough. They have almost as many ‘administrators’ as they have healthcare providers. How many will the US, a country of 330 million, need? Exactly. Once you go public it’s hard, if not impossible to change course.

If you haven’t attended a town hall event, or called your congressmen, or written them an email or letter, then you need to. Tell them to stop the current reform and if nothing else, DO NO HARM to the current system. Propose changes, but make them clear and reasonable changes that get the government out of healthcare, reduce costs, and expand insurance options. Don’t shove some mammoth, government run overhaul down our throats and don’t lie to us. We’re tired of it.

So what SHOULD we be asking our Reps for?

I have asked repeatedly for anyone reading this blog to call their representatives and tell them that we DON’T want this massive government overhaul of the healthcare system, but I have been very limited in chiming in on what we SHOULD be requesting. Our healthcare system works for a majority of the people right now. But it isn’t perfect and it probably never will be. Any system encompassing one sixth of the US economy and affecting the lives of every single citizen is going to have some flaws here and there and some things to complain about. There are some very easy, straight forward, and extremely effective things that we can do to improve the system and drive down the cost for EVERYBODY.

The first thing is competition. Competition is our friend and a huge, untapped gold mine in driving down healthcare costs. Right now federal and state laws limit competition in the insurance market. They do this in a number of ways, primarily by limiting the players in the game. Break open the gates and allow every market in the country to be open to any insurance company willing to compete in it. When you have more companies competing for business you have lower costs and you get improved service because companies try and set themselves apart from their competitors. With a more competitive market companies are forced to control their costs more and they become more efficient as a matter of necessity. It’s a beautiful thing.

The next step is to kill mandates. Mandates are required coverage on any insurance plan. They sound really good; like requiring insurance companies to cover mammograms for all of their clients. The problem is that half of their clients will never need a mammogram. Why should plans that only cover men have mammogram coverage? Leave certain things as an option that people can add to their plans for certain members.

Another one is cost limits, which are also included in HR3200. This means that insurance for someone that is going to use it extensively can only cost ‘x’ (usually x = 2) times as much as someone who will need very little coverage. For instance you have a college that is near a retirement community. There are laws in some areas that say that the cost for the college student, who may never even use his insurance, has to cost no less than half the price of the insurance for the person in the retirement community who may use their insurance every week. This may drive down the price of insurance in the retirement community (to a very small degree), but it sends the cost of insurance for college students through the roof.

Change the tax laws to disconnect health insurance from the employer. This is a HUGE one, because it allows people to be directly responsible for their healthcare choices and allows them to choose the plan that is best going to suit their family. This is also huge in opening up the market and encouraging companies to offer more reasonable packages for different situations.

Start early. Young people should be able to start early with healthcare savings accounts, which are like ultra low risk investment accounts; small yield, no principle risk, completely portable, and need to be federally insured. The money going in should be tax free and employers should get a tax break for contributing to it. Hand in hand with this is catastrophic coverage, which only covers that scenario. You go to the doctor, you pay directly from your HSA. Most doctors will give a discounted rate for people who pay immediately and directly without having to file insurance claims - lower cost. Plus, because you are managing it yourself you are only going to go to the doctor for things that are significant. You think you have strep, you go to the doctor and pay for it out of your HSA. You fall and brake your arm - it comes out of your HSA. You are diagnosed with lymphoma - your catastrophic coverage kicks in. For younger, healthy people, this is really the best type of care; lowest cost, you get to use whatever doctor you want, you are covered for the unexpected, and you have control over your healthcare.

True mutual plans. Mutual plans are basically insurance companies owned by the members of the plan. These are NOT the government subsidized, government regulated plans that some congress members are talking about. They are truly independent bodies of people that all get together and share healthcare costs like any type of traditional co-op.

Pooling plans. This could be a great option for small businesses who can pool with other small businesses to get the best deal on insurance plans for their employees. The more people covered, the best deal possible. It gives small businesses the same leverage that big businesses have.

For me these are the best options going. Some of these things are available in some markets and some are not. They need to be available EVERYWHERE. When we open up competition, extend the number of options for patients, and get government regulations and bureaucracies OUT of the way, costs go down and coverage improves.

The next thing to tackle after these changes is tort reform. None of the bills proposed so far even touch this issue because too many congressman receive too much backing from ambulance chasing trial lawyers (sorry, I was doing so good at not ranting in this post too..). Quite frankly both parties, but primarily the Democratic party receives HUGE donations from tort lawyers NOT to fix the system. This has to be addressed to deal with costs.

Medicare and Medicaid HAVE to be reformed. I’ve mentioned it before but I’ll say it again, because they limit fees to the doctors, that are BELOW costs in some cases, they drive up the costs for the rest of us. These are CRUSHING plans. The good thing is that if we make the changes I’ve already suggested then the overall cost of insurance coverage will go down and you will have fewer people on either Medicare or Medicaid. Just imagine a couple who have not had to deal with significant health problems in their family, but they and their employers have been contributing to an HSA for thirty or forty years- that’s huge. If they pass away without using up the funds, let them pass that on to their children tax free.

These are the things that we need to be pushing for. They don’t all have to go into one MASSIVE, unreadable bill. They can be individual and they can be over months or even a couple of years. Don’t crush the system and reform it, just make improvements that are REALLY going to make a difference in the positive direction for EVERYBODY.

Capitation

Capitation.

I know it sounds like a horrible term, and it is, but not in the way it sounds. Capitation is mentioned numerous times in HR3200, the current and only published bill on healthcare reform. It is mentioned on page 125, 333, 451, 452, and 778 as one scenario that they will be exploring to drive down costs.

Capitation is where each doctor has a certain number of patients, given out in a number of ways, either by geographic area, patient preference, whatever. The doctor is paid based on how many patients he has. Not how many he sees, but how many he has.

See any problem with that?

Sound familiar to anyone?

This is a very similar program to the way that HMOs use to operate. Doctors are not rewarded by how many patients they actually help, in fact the fewer they help the more attention they can give them and quite frankly the less stressful it is. The rest of the patients are simply told to wait. Doctors are encouraged to handle the patient issues as much as possible on their own; if they refer a patient out to a specialist then the normal payment that they receive is actually reduced; repeating a lot of the issues that made HMOs so infamous.

Some refer to this as the “Walmart” method of healthcare. Not only do the doctors not have any incentive to actually see patients but the more patients that they see the more money it will cost them and hence LESS money that they receive. That means there is actually an INCENTIVE for them to see fewer patients, perform fewer tests, less lab work, and refer patients to specialists less often.

That doesn’t mean that doctors are suddenly going to turn into these money hungry people that deny patients healthcare, but they would basically be punished for doing a better job and rewarded for being lazy. That’s a recipe for horrible healthcare.

IT'S NOT ABOUT RACISM!!!!!!

I am so tired... let me say that again, SO TIRED, of being labeled racist because I don't agree with someone's policies or agenda.

It has nothing to do with race!

It has everything to do with economics, liberty, small government principles, concern for family and future generations, and what's that other thing... oh yeah COMMON SENSE!!

The race card has been played and over-played. No body's buying it any more. Give it up and move on to a real debate about ISSUES, IDEAS, and POLICY.

People Are Mad

Well, despite the push by the White House to tamp down on the “disinformation” that comes from people actually reading the current healthcare legislation, the word is getting out and getting out big. At townhall events around the country (which you can find a list of here) representatives are hearing from their constituents, both for and against these sweeping reforms.

And people are mad.

I don’t advocate violence at any of these meetings. I really don’t think that this is the most effective of way of being heard. Debate passionately, but act gently. I can’t say that the President has helped in this regard considering that he has been advocating for the ‘in your face’ approach since before the election.


Quite frankly, I understand why people are passionate about this and I understand why people are so mad. I’m mad. Not just at the legislation but at the treatment of voters who are opposed to the legislation. I thought under President Bush dissent was patriotic. Why has it suddenly become racist? People are mad at healthcare reform and the President is pushing it – and hard. Why wouldn’t he and his staff EXPECT that people would be mad at him for doing this?

Unless there is going to be new legislation suddenly sprung on us after the July recess that is DRASTICALLY different than the 1000+ page HR3200 that is already out there, then the President is being very deceptive in what he is telling the people. That upsets me.

Where do all of the new, breakthrough drugs in the world come from?

Where do all of the new procedures, technologies, and therapies in the world come from?

So… where will they come from when the incentive is gone and the government is driving the bus?

Find your reps. Find their townhalls. Call their offices. Make your voices heard.


*****Update: Great column by Peggy Noonan today along these same lines.

Welcome to the AARP 'Listening' Session

Nancy Pelosi says that all of these concerned people at town hall meetings are paid stooges from insurance companies. Actually her exact words were that they are "astroturf". Nice, eh?

Big Brother Wants to Know...

The White House recently asked that if you see a “fishy” email about healthcare that you should forward this email to them at a specified email address(flag@whitehouse.gov). Hmmm… you know the more I think about that one, the more it REALLY bothers me, and I’m not the only one. It makes me ask myself several questions.

What are they going to do with the email addresses? Really. I mean, are they going to make up some form letter to try and dissuade the person from forwarding more “fishy” emails? Are they going to answer the issues brought up in the “fishy” email? If they take ANY action on this how can that not be viewed as some type of intimidation tactic? Not that you expect Rahm and Robert to show up at your front door and brake your thumbs or anything, but… getting an email from the White House saying that you don’t seem to understand what they are trying to do… that’s kind of a big deal. It’s very much, hey we’re watching what you are doing and we know that you don’t understand this, so we are going to… set you straight here. Can you imagine if you had gotten an email from George W. Bush’s White House for sending out ‘truther’ emails about the 9-11 attacks? Or dissenting emails about the Iraq war? Can you imagine how fast the ACLU would be suing the White House for that? Of course, crazy, small government conservatives like myself would take such an email and plaster it all over blogs, facebook, forward it to news sources, and basically blow the whistle long and loud, which in the end would be bad PR for the White House. So… I really don’t think they will be sending out emails on this.

Are they going to research the email addresses and see where it originated? Are they looking for information that this all comes from the insurance industry and they are trying to tie it back to a common source? Even if they could do that, which, they just can’t because all of this doesn’t come from one source, it comes from educated people reading bills that Congressman can’t seem to find time to read, what would it prove? If a company comes out, really any company for that matter, and says “hey, the government is trying to put me out of business” I’m going to look into it and if I think they have a valid point I’m going to talk about it, blog about it, email about it, and maybe even talk to my representatives about it because that is over stepping the bounds of the government. That’s a good thing to get upset about. The government doesn’t need to be putting any businesses out of business. We need more jobs, not less. Insurance companies making profits is a good thing. When industries are profitable it attracts other people to the market, which means more competition and lower prices. Not to mention that they grow and employ more people. What’s not good about that?


Quite frankly, I really don’t know what the government hopes to do with this. I can’t think of any scenarios where this really turns out good for them. If anything it will only spur on the conspiracy theorists and has already gotten them a letter from at least one member of congress. Talk radio is going to get even more crazy about this… and I think some weird people might even be blogging about it.

Of course, if any of you think this is “fishy”, or if any of my other dozen or so blog posts on this messed up, government nationalization of healthcare are “fishy” then you should probably do your civic duty and turn me in by sending a link to my blog to flag@whitehouse.gov. No, really… the curiosity about what they are going to do with this information is just killing me! I want to know! I’ve got to know! I may turn MYSELF in!

Of course, maybe that is what they are trying to do… take any attention possible away from healthcare legislation with a distraction… hmmm….

*****Update: Greate video from NC about how the administration has been handling dissent about healthcare.

The White House Attacks Drudge over the President's Statements

The White House is fighting back against the DrudgeReport because Matt Drudge and some bloggers had the NERVE to pull up video of the President describing his plan before he was elected. Watch and listen



Here is the video she was referencing. It is a combination of videos where the President very clearly describes wanting a single payer system and the process that will help him get it. Eliminating private health insurance. Your insurance.



Now the White House video shows the President making the same promise that he has made over and over and over during this healthcare “campaign” that he is on.

If you look at the bill, you can see why some, including myself, claim that the president is not telling the whole truth, and that the goal is in fact that the bill would cause more and more people to go towards the public option and away from their private insurance.

The President says that if you like your insurance and you like your doctor then you will get to keep them. Unfortunately he leaves out the rest of the information contained in HR3200, which says that you can keep them if you want to. Of course after five years (at the MOST) YOUR insurance plan is required to change to be just like the public option, only more expensive of course because your insurance company has taxes that don’t apply to the government, they have to show a profit (unlike the government), and they can’t fix prices paid to doctors like the government can, in fact they end up eating the loss that doctors endure from accepting the public plan. If the president was honest he would say that “you can keep your insurance… for up to five years.”

Like the bill says…

The Commissioner shall establish a grace period whereby, for plan years beginning after the end of the 5-year period beginning with Y1, an employment-based health plan in operation as of the day before the first day of Y1 must meet the same requirements as apply to a qualified health benefits plan under section 101, including the essential benefit package requirement under section 121.

Sorry, that’s not twisting the president’s words. That’s reading the bill. After all, the President’s speeches don’t become law, bills do.

Which reminds me… have you called your representatives about this? I’m just telling mine very simply that this plan is no good. We don’t need more government in healthcare, we need less. If you vote for this reform, or for ANY MAJOR overhaul of the healthcare system, I will not be voting for you. Let’s make small improvements and see if they work.

This is what we have to look forward to?

Imagine this letter came to you? Or your mom? Maybe your spouse?

This is government run medicine.

Is this the "right to healthcare" that everyone is touting.

Now imagine this across the country in a single payer system, where you have no alternatives... welcome to Obamacare.

20/20 Health Care Story

Stossel is right on the money. Must see.

Public Health Insurance Option Will Lead to a Single Payer System

I made the case, again, early this week that the public option being pursued would eventually lead to nationalized healthcare in the form of a single payer system.

Some creative bloggers, who are actually in favor of a single payer system talked to Rep Barney Frank about the public option and a single payer system, asking him why he didn't just want to go with a single payer system now. He explains that they don't have the votes to get that passed, but that they have the public option and he believes that will lead to a single payer system. Past history tells us that you certainly cannot trust Rep Frank a good portion of the time, but in this case I think it's safe to believe him.

Nationalized Healthcare Part 2

I know, yesterday I went on about the trials and mess associated with nationalized healthcare and that isn’t what is being proposed in these bills. Yes, I understand that, but that is where these bills are leading us. Granted they wouldn’t take us there next week. It may even take years, a myriad of lawsuits, and a lot of jobs lost and businesses destroyed, but it would take us there.

What these bills are doing is requiring certain levels of coverage and mandating that employers provide coverage. (Let’s ignore the fact that this would cripple small business and completely drive some of them out of business. I know, I was talking to a small business owner this weekend who is already struggling and views this change as the gallows.) This minimum coverage level is a political tool. Lobbyists are already raking in the dollars pushing the right people to include their industry in the minimum coverage. Of course existing plans would not have to up their coverage for five years, unless of course they make a change in coverage, premium, or pretty much a letter in their plethora of paperwork. If they changed anything, they have to switch to the minimum coverage. Naturally this increased coverage (not increased benefit necessarily) of course costs more. So now private insurance companies have to adjust their rates for this adjusted level of care and they won’t be going down.

At the same time you have the “public option”, which is where the government comes into the game. Number one they aren’t a ‘for profit’ entity, so they aren’t trying to maintain the margins that the private insurance companies do. They also aren’t subject to the same tax laws as the private companies, and as we’ve already discussed, they have a huge percentage of the market and dictate what they will pay. The resulting decrease in government rates from the “public plan” now increases the rates on the private insurance companies, as I mentioned in part 1.

Now companies are in a struggling economy looking at their medical insurance costs shoot through the roof. So, they lay off some employees and take a look at their alternatives. They are spending a significant amount per employee to have insurance coverage and it is increasing all of the time as the Secretary of Health and Human Services decides on new additions to the minimum coverage. The law says that you have to provide coverage or pay a fine, but the fine is less than what the coverage is costing per employee. It doesn’t take a very creative bookkeeper to discontinue coverage and dump every employee into the “public option” to opt for a government fine that is lower and more stable than providing coverage at the minimum level.

So after all of the private insurance companies have been driven out of business, you will have socialized medicine on a single payer system. That’s when the fun we’ve already discussed in part 1 kicks in. It’s not an immediate take over, but it is a take over and a big one considering healthcare makes up approximately 17% of the US economy.

There are other issues that need to be considered as well and I need to actually dig through the nuts and bolts of this bill. There HAS to be some very creative wording in here regarding law suits and I’m very intrigued as to what it says. When it comes to providing health insurance there is always the risk of law suits, some legit, some not. However will the government ALLOW themselves to be sued if they wrongfully refuse coverage or will they be able to claim sovereign immunity? Hmm… I’m very intrigued. Since it is the government writing the bill you would think that they would specifically express that sovereign immunity applies, but since it is being written by liberals who have been on the receiving end of millions in campaign contributions from trial lawyers, they might specifically deny it, just to throw their loyal contributors a bone.

Either way… it’s not good for any of us.

… and on a side note, it will never apply to those who are voting for it. Their fluffy government insurance stays put for life.

Nationalized Healthcare Part 1

This is the first in a two part series on healthcare reform.

You are hearing people screaming (me included) about national healthcare and going down the slippery slope of socialized medicine. A lot of people are quite frankly indifferent about the whole thing. Maybe that’s because you don’t really understand the concept. You also don’t realize that at some point in your life, your healthcare and how it is handled is going to be very important to you.

Right now the government controls, through Medicare and Medicaid, between 40 and 50% of all medical dollars spent. That is very significant, and growing. The Baby Boomers are starting to become eligible for Social Security and will soon be eligible for Medicare. That generation comprises approximately 77 million people. There are only a little over 300 million people in the country as a whole. Think about those numbers for a minute because they are very important. You are talking about a massive number of people already in a government run system. So why can’t the government implement their cost reductions and improvements on their existing system? After all they have a lot of leverage with the number of people and money that they manage.

What they are not telling you is that Medicare and Medicaid are number one, a HUGE, CRUSHING financial nightmare that is right around the corner, and that they are already driving up your healthcare costs. Medicare/aid sets rates that they will pay doctors for services. Those rates are naturally lower than the doctors would like them to be; occasionally they are even lower than the doctors can afford them to be. If a doctor is not getting properly reimbursed for services from half of his patients, what do you think he has to do to the other half to maintain a profit? Raise rates. Ask more from private insurance companies and individuals who on their own make up a small percentage of his clients.

It’s a similar story for hospitals, but they get an extra whammy thrown in. Hospitals are required to treat patients that come into the emergency room, regardless of their ability to pay and regardless of their citizenship. Now don’t get me wrong, if an illegal alien is involved in a car accident and seriously injured, I really hope that a hospital would administer care to the patient. The fact that they are in the country illegally in the first place is what I have a problem with, but the impact on private industries from the federal government NOT enforcing our boarders is a separate issue. In any case, these emergency room cases cost hospitals money.

The point is that anytime someone doesn’t pay, or under-pays, the difference doesn’t just dissolve into thin air. That money has to be made up somewhere and it is from the people that either have insurance, or are actually paying for their service out of their own pockets.

Nothing is free. Someone pays for it.

Well, then why isn’t the government taking it over the best solution?

The best way to answer that question is with a question, or maybe a series of them.

If the incentives for something decrease, then does it become more popular or less popular? Obviously less.

If college and medical school tuition is steadily on the rise, are people going to be willing to go HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of dollars in the hole to get jobs that pay less and less? I wouldn’t.

Are you going to pay the extra money and spend the additional years of time to become a specialist? You know, an oncologist, pediatric neurologist, cardiac surgeon… The answer in the countries that have already tried this is a resounding NO. They have fewer doctors, fewer specialists, and LONGER wait times. That’s why Canadians who need a specialist often come to the US. Sometimes they are even sent here BY THE CANADIAN GOVERNMENT.

So you go this route. People hear that wait times are up and they start to feel a little sick. What’s the first thing they do? Run to the doctor or at least make an appointment. Before they would have waited and tried a couple of things, but now they are worried that they won’t be able to get in if they don’t make an appointment immediately.

So now you have fewer doctors, fewer specialists, and more people going to the doctor when they could have/would have stayed home. Wait times for appointments can be months long. People literally start suffering and even dying on the waiting list. What would have been treatable cancer is now terminal. What would have been managed glaucoma now means blindness.

Understandably people get upset and they start complaining to their elected officials, after all, they are the ones who control the system. So now they create a health review panel to limit the number of things that are covered by the system since costs are skyrocketing and people are complaining. Now they ask people to start self medicating for certain conditions. Sure, they won’t be as comfortable as they would have been with appropriate care and an expensive prescription, but it costs less and frees up physicians.

All the while people who are in school and considering going into medicine look at the mess and the limited benefit to them and they decide to become lawyers instead. Medicine just isn’t worth it.

So the problem continues to build.

These aren’t hypothetical scenarios. People in the UK and Canada go through this every day. Cancer patients who reach certain stages or who have certain types aren’t treated because the chances of survival are too low and the cost too high. The elderly are denied services that could drastically improve their quality of life, like certain medicines or pacemakers, because they are too old and the money wouldn’t serve the ‘greater good’. Those who suffer are those who need care the most but are deemed the least valuable to society.

For a country that values the individual and the beauty of human life, this is the wrong direction.

Some Legitimate Questions About Health Care Reform

Let me play a non-partisan roll for a minute. This isn’t easy because I have some VERY strong feelings on this subject, but I am going to do my best just to lay out some evidence and ask some questions to make a point. I am not going to address the elephant of whether or not the GOVERNMENT should be involved with making healthcare decisions.

On that note…

There are some very concerning things about all of the current revisions of health care reform going through congress right now and being prodded on a daily basis by the administration and specifically by the President himself.

The first question is one of cost. The CBO estimates, and states that this is basically a guess because legislation is not hammered completely out yet, that this would add $1 TRILLION to the deficit over the next ten years. That is a shocking number especially when you consider that we are already BUDGETED to be in the red EVERY YEAR for the next ten years. How on earth can we afford to go another TRILLION down over and above that! Concerning this estimate the President actually called and asked to meet with the head of the CBO. Now the Congressional Budget Office was created in the 70s to be completely non-political. Their whole purpose is to look at bills and give a number cruncher perspective. The CBO reports to Congress, not the President. Whether it is intentional or not, how can the President summon someone to the Oval Office and NOT have some type of influence on them? I am not questioning his motives, I am just pointing out that it is a very strange and unprecedented move, regardless of the intent.

The second question is the speed and enormity of this bill. Obviously if you read this blog at all you have seen that I am completely opposed to HUGE legislation. Bills should never be in the thousand plus page range - completely unnecessary. Then to be pushing a bill of that girth, which will have a HUGE impact on 17% of the American economy, demanding that it be passed in a couple of weeks is completely outrageous. EVERY American should have plenty of time to sit down and read this behemoth and decide whether or not this is really going to be the best thing for the country. They should have time to contact their congressman and voice their concerns. We have had our current system for DECADES. Why the rush? This is not going to have an immediate impact on families struggling with medical bills. This issue is too important and too big to push through on a moments notice. It needs time to simmer. It needs scrutiny.

The last question is actually one of the big ones that is bringing many so called “blue dog” democrats to come out against these plans, and that is whether or not the government should be using tax dollars to fund abortions. Since 1976 the Hyde Amendment has made it illegal for federal tax dollars to fund abortions inside the US. These plans would basically scrap that.

Can we afford this?

Do we need this rammed through RIGHT NOW?

Are we willing to scrap over three decades of precedent and force tax payers to fund a procedure that over 50% of the citizens believe is morally wrong?

That’s the tip of the ice berg, but they are some of the questions that every American should be considering as our elected officials are on the move.


*****UPDATE : Here is the link to the current text of HR3200, which is the leading version of the bill right now. Get comfortable, it stands at 1017 pages.

*****UPDATE: The President got subpar marks for honesty from the NEW YORK TIMES in his press conference.

*****UPDATE (yes, ANOTHER one) : The AP found their own issues with the President's statements.

Health Care Visualized in Legos

Okay, even I can understand this one. From politicalmath.wordpress.com.