I wish I had a nickel for every lib Facebook friend this week who responded to my opposition to GovCare by snarkily saying, “Read the bill.” Their assumption is obviously that I have not read this 2,700-pages regulatory behemoth—and that they have. Yeah, right—and that if I actually did, I’d be all for it like they are.
These are the same people who have joined a Facebook group demanding Rush Limbaugh “keep his promise that he’d move to Costa Rica if ObamaCare passed.” There’s even been a website set up raising money for Rush’s one-way plane ticket!
Except for one small problem: Rush never said he’d move to Costa Rica, only that he’d go to Costa Rica whenever he needed medical treatment. This was because a caller to his show a few months ago had explained the a private insurance company she worked for was setting up medical operations in Costa Rica, which would be available to Americans.
So why do these liberals—including my own friends, G0d help them!—get the idea that Rush promised to move to Costa Rica? Who knows! Some MSNBC host, a New York Times editorialist, a network news anchor, The Huffington Post, a DNC e-blast… or all five … It really doesn’t make a difference, does it? They were wrong.
So to all my liberal friends who are members of this Facebook group or who’ve donated money to this fundraising website—especially those who also have admonished me to “Read the Bill”—here’s a little advice next time you get news from a liberal source about something Rush said:
Listen to the show.
You stupid mind-numbed robots!
* * * * *
Now, have I “read the bill”? Not all 2,700+ pages of it. Not even close. But neither have President Golden Calf and most of Congress!
But here’s a doctor who has both read and deconstructed the bill. And, assuming she’s right on these counts, it’s is a disaster from beginning to end. And if my liberal friends really have read the bill, then the fact that they still support it really frightens me.
March 24, 2010 | Big Government
Depend On The Government For Your Health Care? Good Luck …
by Dr. Elaina George… Besides taxing us from everything from our unearned income, to payroll taxes to medical devices we can look forward to paying into a pot for the next four years. I only hope the money will be available for health care. As it stands now, it will be used to set up yet another government bureaucracy run by various task forces and yet another Czar to oversee the entire mess. If we’re lucky they will actually use the money for the intended purpose, but I have visions of the social security lock box. It is hard to believe that this will end up any better than Medicare, The Post Office or Social Security—big, bloated and bankrupt.
The bill sets up committees to study ways to deliver care. A committee to study what another committee is supposed to do? Sounds like bureaucracy at its finest. It is hard to believe that that money used to ‘study’ things will be used for patient care. By the time 2014 rolls around what money will be left to implement medical care?
The government sold health care reform with 5 basic talking points:
1. You won’t be able to be kicked off of your insurance when you really need it
- Turns out that the insurance companies CAN kick you off if they pay a fine. It is not hard to imagine that an insurance company will figure out pretty quickly that it would be cheaper to pay the fine than to pay for coverage of a long term chronic illness.
2. You won’t be denied medical care for pre-existing conditions.
- If the insurance company deems that you have lied on the application you will be denied coverage.
- Sick children are no longer considered to have pre-existing conditions, but what about women who are pregnant?
3. You can keep the doctor you have if you are already covered.
- With the cuts in Medicare reimbursements that have already happened (no more consultation fees) and the looming 21% cut at the end of October. Many more physicians than the current 30% are looking to opt out of Medicare. When the commercial insurance reimbursement rates drop (as they invariably will since they pay at a percentage of Medicare) there will be more doctors looking to leave commercial insurance as well.
4. Health care reform will lead to increased access
- There is no way that there will be an increase in access when you take into account; 1) the physician shortage, 2) Those physicians who will leave medicine after the passage of this monstrosity (a recent poll of physicians states that 35% would leave the profession), and 3) those who will stop taking insurance all together because they are simply fed up.
- Expanding Medicaid to those who are currently uninsured is not going to help since most doctors are not taking Medicaid now. Currently access to specialists is pretty poor, it will decline further.
5. Health care reform will cover 30 million more uninsured people
- The bill will cover approximately 7 million more people over the next nine years and leave over 100 million people under insured.
6. The health care reform bill will decrease the deficit
- The CBO numbers do not take into account the “doctor fix” and the government takeover of student loans was added to pad the numbers.
- If you do real world accounting by adding in the “doctor fix” (over 230 million dollars) you actually wipe out the cost savings and you increase the deficit (anywhere from 400-700 million dollars.)
- It is likely that the estimated costs will likely be much higher. How can anyone really know what is going to happen in the next 10 years. To say that these numbers are optimistic is being kind.
- The Health care reform bill has done absolutely NOTHING that would really lower the cost of health care.
The pharmaceutical companies got three major cost raising concessions
- the government cannot go out of the country to shop for cheaper drugs
- the patent for biologics was extended to 12 years from 7 thereby locking out cheaper generic drugs. (For example a patient can continue to pay over $1000 a month for a drug like Embrel instead of getting some relief.
- patients will not be able to buy cheaper over the counter medications with their health savings account only more expensive prescription medication.
The health insurance companies may whine about their profit margin, but they get millions more people to add to their roles. Most of those people will only see a doctor 1-2 times a year for routine things, but will pay 14% higher premiums for the privilege.
The hospitals which account for the biggest piece of the Healthcare pie (31%) got a pass. Surgeons have had to deal with bundling of charges for over a decade. What about applying that to hospitals? That would have certainly lowered the cost. Since bankruptcy caused by medical costs are largely due to the hospital charges.
- There has been no legislation to change their habit of itemized billing where they stand to make a profit on everything from the single pill of Tylenol to the box of Kleenex in your hospital room.
I got a call from a fellow physician today who talked about picking up stakes and doing medical work overseas. I have a feeling I am going to get a lot more of those types of calls from fellow physicians in private practice. There are only so many physicians that the hospitals can employ and only so many more patients a physician can see.
It seems that the ultimate goal of this exercise is to eventually make all physicians government employees under a single payer system. As it stands the system created by health care reform is a give away to the pharmaceutical industry and the health insurance industry (you just need to look at the rise in their stocks today). It certainly can be seen as the first step on a slippery slope towards single payer. The powers that be are banking on physicians going along like lemmings, but I have no doubt that if we don’t they will institute some sort of draconian policy to make us do it like they have in Massachusetts (medical licensure is tied to taking the state insurance plan). If that happens, good luck finding a physician who will want to deal with this.
Incidentally—and this is for those out there who interpret all opposition to ObamaCare as “Racism!!!”—Dr. George is black. Awww, sorry Michael Eric Dyson.
But wait! Now it's been discovered that some children won't be covered after all as, AP reports:
Gap in health care law's protection for children
Obama administration scrambles to fix gap in health care law's protection for children
Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Associated Press Writer, On Wednesday March 24, 2010WASHINGTON (AP) -- Hours after President Barack Obama signed historic health care legislation, a potential problem emerged. Administration officials are now scrambling to fix a gap in highly touted benefits for children.
Obama made better coverage for children a centerpiece of his health care remake, but it turns out the letter of the law provided a less-than-complete guarantee that kids with health problems would not be shut out of coverage.
Under the new law, insurance companies still would be able to refuse new coverage to children because of a pre-existing medical problem, said Karen Lightfoot, spokeswoman for the House Energy and Commerce Committee, one of the main congressional panels that wrote the bill Obama signed into law Tuesday.
However, if a child is accepted for coverage, or is already covered, the insurer cannot exclude payment for treating a particular illness, as sometimes happens now. For example, if a child has asthma, the insurance company cannot write a policy that excludes that condition from coverage. The new safeguard will be in place later this year. ...
Whoops. Guess not enough people read the bill.
March 24, 2010 | National Review Online
It’s Always About the Children, Even If a Law Does Nothing for Them
Jim GeraghtySpot the glaring point in this AP article:
Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum led the effort to file the suit that claims Congress doesn’t have the constitutional right to force people to get health coverage. It also says the federal government is violating the Constitution by forcing a mandate on the states without providing resources to pay for it.
“To that I say, ‘Bring it on,’” said White House domestic policy chief Melody Barnes, who cited similar suits filed over Social Security and the Voting Rights Act when those were passed. “If you want to look in the face of a parent whose child now has health care insurance and say we’re repealing that … go right ahead.”
Er, except that under SCHIP, every child is already entitled to health-care insurance, provided their parents meet the eligibility requirements. According to this map and chart using American Academy of Pediatrics data, the cutoff income level for a family of four is $33,075 in North Dakota; in New York and New Hampshire it is $88,200. It is $55,125 or more in every state except North Dakota, Nebraska, Idaho, Oregon, and Alaska.
How many New York families making more than $88,200 in annual income don’t have health insurance and can plausibly claim that they can’t afford it without the health-care bill? I’m not saying that’s wealthy; I’m just wondering at what level of income are we as a society willing to say, “No, it’s not fair for you to expect taxpayers to cover the cost of your children’s health care.”
Oh, by the way, under the health-care bill, insurance companies can still refuse new coverage to children because of a pre-existing medical problem. This is why the public prefers that lawmakers actually carefully read the bills they vote upon.
Whoops. Guess not enough people read the bill.
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