Paging Dr. Obama: Looking Ahead to Government-Run Health Care
The prognosis isn't good.
President Barack Obama intends to remake society mainly by shifting American wealth from one group of people to another and from one priority to another. The most devastating shift will happen stealthily and steadily so that the priorities can’t shift back because too much government dependence will forbid it. That dependence will happen in the form of government-run health care.
What will be traded in this bargain will be national defense. Defense spending will diminish. Missile shields in Europe will be traded for a waiting list for appendix removal in America. Some view this as a good thing because they don’t see the value of defense spending anyway. However, America is building a European defense shield precisely because they have traded national security for social programs. Who will defend America once America does the same? Meanwhile, China ups defense spending by 15%.
The question for people today is whether government-run health care will be the panacea many hope for. Like anything run by the government, it’s doubtful. Thankfully, voters seem to recognize the potential problems. From the Wall Street Journal:
On health care, the poll flashed warning signs for the administration.
Forty-nine percent said they were willing to pay higher taxes so that everyone can have health insurance, compared with 66% who said the same in March 1993, when President Bill Clinton was embarking on his ultimately unsuccessful health-reform effort. That underscores why the administration is focused on cutting costs, not covering the uninsured.
People have reasons to be worried. A national database will invade health care consumer’s privacy:
The package says individuals are not required to get services from people who do electronic health records. But doesn’t that run counter to what the stated goal of everyone in by 2014? Why, you would think it does. But don’t worry yourself. You don’t have to send your information in. Nope. They won’t make you do it. They are going to make your doctor do it. The bill requires the doctors to. Doctors who don’t will receive less and less money for the patients they see.
It’s right there on page 680: “with respect to covered professional services furnished by an eligible professional during 2015 or any subsequent payment year, if the eligible professional is not a meaningful EHR user (as determined under subsection (o)(2)) for a reporting period for the year, the fee schedule amount for such services furnished by such professional during the year (including the fee schedule amount for purposes of determining a payment based on such amount) shall be equal to the applicable percent of the fee schedule amount that would otherwise apply to such services under this subsection.”
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Dr. Melissa Clouthier is a chiropractor who blogs at MelissaClouthier.com and Right Wing News.
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36 Comments
1. Craig:“But government run health care won’t be as good as they have now.”
Ya. See:
Mar 16, 2009 - 4:16 am 2. fear Obama:Government run Social Security
Government run FEMA
Government run DMVs
Government run Public Schools
Government run Medicaid
Government run Prison System
Government run….FILL IN THE BLANK.
New $165 million bailout bonuses for AIG executives, JOB WELL DONE!
I mailed my AIG insurance payment the other day and the stamp cost more than their stock!
$160 billion and still giving.
Too big to fail!
AIG is not paying the 165 million in bonuses.
Your kids and new gas taxes will!
Oh Boy! More good news!
New health care taxes for employers and doctors.
All you smokers that voted for Obama and the democrats-
How you like your new cigarette taxes?
Be Patriotic and give until it hurts,
your money will support health care.
4 dollars a pack and going to 9 dollars in a few months. And that is in NC.
** heh **
Elect Obama and Quit Smoking!
Can he afford his cigarettes?
YES HE CAN!
YEAH- HE DID!
Mar 16, 2009 - 4:40 am 3. mishu:The goal, Daschle’s book explained, is to slow the development and use of new medications and technologies because they are driving up costs. He praises Europeans for being more willing to accept “hopeless diagnoses” and “forgo experimental treatments,” and he chastises Americans for expecting too much from the health-care system.
Yeah, that’s real “progressive”.
Mar 16, 2009 - 4:55 am 4. Rovin:1. Craig just about says it all. If you want a program or service to run efficiently and effectively, don’t let your government operate it.
Mar 16, 2009 - 4:58 am 5. seven:Obama needs some good inpatient care. Geitner mouthing a need to reform healthcare? what is with that? sluld we have nurses come over and tell him how to clean up banking? All Obama is doing is adding a large overhead to healthcare at the top and leadin g into healthcare rationing.
Mar 16, 2009 - 6:21 am 6. Pope Linus:But what the Democrats will try to do is package their health care package in a way that makes us feel good, that makes us feel that the government is helping us, and that our higher taxes are helping others. So many people are simply emotive-minded now, governed by the emotional response to an issue. “Don’t worry, your higher taxes will be helping so many people!” “Don’t worry, government-subsidized health care will keep you safe!” Obama flashes that bright smile of his, and people melt. “He really cares about me!” they say. It’s all about feeling good.
That is, until you actually get sick.
Mar 16, 2009 - 6:26 am 7. The Shadow:If you start from the premise that health care is a right then I don’t see how you can defend the current system.
Mar 16, 2009 - 6:47 am 8. Carolb:There could be so many problems with the electronic medical records. We all remember what happened with Joe the Plumber and the search on his personal records. Will it be just as easy for someone to snoop around someone’s medical records? Plus, how much will doctors be able to see? If you’re going in for a routine teeth cleaning, will the dentist be able to see that you’ve got a mental problem….or if you’ve had an abortion, std, etc.? Will I, as a parent, be able to access my child’s medical record electronically, or at least be able to request a copy of it?
On the one hand, I can see the use of having them. My mother is in the hospital, and every doctor that’s come in from each different “specialty” is asking her the same questions about her medical history. So, I wouldn’t mind that general “history” being electronic. But, there are other things that people would really want to keep private, I think.
Mar 16, 2009 - 7:04 am 9. Delia:Prognosis negative.
Sorry…I couldn’t resist a Seinfeld-er.
-
Zero and the ‘1337′ Dems will have their own ’special’ health-care. Now worries…nothing to see here…move er shuffle…er limp along now.
Mar 16, 2009 - 7:27 am 10. Delia:Now worries? NO worries.
Good grief! I need another cup of kawfee. ;p
Mar 16, 2009 - 7:28 am 11. TOhio:What to get an idea of what government health care is going to be like? Go to the post office. Stand in line. Imagine yourself being sick and waiting in line. Watch the people behind the counter take their time. Welcome to government run health care!
Mar 16, 2009 - 8:41 am 12. Chemman:Some of you are old enough to remember when fans of the New Orleans Saints football team wore brown paper bags over their heads at the games because the Saints were so bad. Do you think if we wore bags to the government controlled clinics it will make it any better? Not
Mar 16, 2009 - 9:15 am 13. bear:The Shadow said: “If you start from the premise that health care is a right then I don’t see how you can defend the current system.” My response to this total lack of thinking is. If you start from the premise that government enforced slavery is authorized you can defend a system of National Health Care.
Not that I’m necessarily in favor of his program now, but if you think the current system is working you are nuts.
In my area Primary Care Physicians are becoming an endangered species, and many specialists are leaving the area due to contracts negotiated by the HMO’s (THEY CAN’T MAKE MONEY). If you don’t have health insurance you’re looking at a 10-1 price difference between the insured and uninsured (that is list price vs negotiated price) for medications and although the ratios aren’t likely quite so high for other services, the net out of pocket expenses delta is still large.
I haven’t had a primary care Dr. for 3 years…they all quit retired or left the area.
Mar 16, 2009 - 9:26 am 14. bear:Centalized Electronics records has legitimate actual value other than to have more information about us. It might help in some corner case Emergency room visits, but the cost benefit ratio is small IMHO. Benefits coordination has a much better payback to the gov’t.
Mar 16, 2009 - 9:29 am 15. bear:correction for typo:no legitimate value
Mar 16, 2009 - 9:34 am 16. Saltherring:Wait until a government bureaucrat determines that a 35-year-old illegal alien with a family to feed should be granted a place in the knee surgery line in front of a retired 65-year old American citizen. It’s going to happen.
Mar 16, 2009 - 9:54 am 17. Ms. Attitude:I grew up military and am well aware of government health care. My sister had strep throat 12 times and the doctor said it was because she talked too much. She finally had her tonsils removed and never had strep again. I had food poisoning and was left in the waiting room and told to drink warm Sprite. My sister was 12 at the time of her surgery and I was 10 when I went home threw up my warm Sprite. I broke my ankle when I was 8 and they set it wrong and put a cast on it, after six weeks they had to rebreak it and start over.
Think about it, the doctor’s will be paid the same whether they help you or not and if you want to sue a government doctor…well, good luck with that!
This isn’t going to be good.
Mar 16, 2009 - 10:01 am 18. jerryofva:Regardless of political beliefs doctors agree that early detection and treatment of Cancer are the keys to survival. As such cancer survival rates are a good proxy for access to medical care. For all the talk about the superiority of Europe’s medical delivery systems you would think that US lags way behind in cancer survival rates. If you think that then you would be wrong the US has the best cancer survival rates around. The US system provided better access and superior treatment then any competing system.
http://www.oncolink.org/resources/article.cfm?c=3&s=8&ss=23&Year=2000&Month=8&id=207
Mar 16, 2009 - 10:32 am 19. Bender:Yeah, just wait until health benefits are taxed, such that the $10,000 your employer pays for your premium is treated as income to you, resulting in a tax increase of $2,000 to $3,000 to you. Of course, that $10,000 benefit is not given to you in cash, so you have to cough it up out of your other income.
End result? Folks saying, screw that! If I’m going to get taxed on some non-cash benefit, thereby reducing my take-home pay, I don’t want it. Instead of increasing health coverage, taxing benefits will drastically reduce coverage.
The more you tax something, the less of it you will have. Fundamental principles that are totally lost on the Obamarxists.
Mar 16, 2009 - 11:10 am 20. jerryofva:Bendar:
What will happen is Employees will start asking for the benefit in cash and then use what’s left after taxes to buy their own health insurance. This is worse then the McCain plan that Obama criticized where you would get a $5000 tax credit and your employer would get taxed on the benefits. This is a plan designed to destroy the private health insurance system and allow the Federal Government to come in to “save” it with inferior nationalized healthcare.
Mar 16, 2009 - 11:51 am 21. ked5:Daschle’s book explained, is to slow the development and use of new medications and technologies because they are driving up costs. He praises Europeans for being more willing to accept “hopeless diagnoses” and “forgo experimental treatments,” and he chastises Americans for expecting too much from the health-care system.
~~~
Yeah. And while doing medical research, I ended up on a UK health site. On several different subjects, I’ve been amazed at what subpar treatment people will tolerate. Things that are not “experimental”, but *standard care* here, are afterthought.
There will be an upswing in mortality rates – but that will be “good” becasue then there would be fewer mouths to feed.
Mar 16, 2009 - 11:59 am 22. ked5:8.
Will I, as a parent, be able to access my child’s medical record electronically, or at least be able to request a copy of it?
~~~~~~
Mar 16, 2009 - 12:03 pm 23. Claire Solt:Heaven’s no! what would ever make you think, you, a *parent*, would have the right to see your minor child’s medical record. that’s an invasion of privacy! that’s for the state to see and decide what medical care they receive. [tongue-firmly-in-cheek]
I think that it is crucial to expose that government is the cause of many problems people complain about. Also, expose how bad government programs are. When I got Medicare, the first thing I learned was that I had to change doctors. It does not pay its providers and Obama wants to cut that another 20%. Docs and hospitals shift those losses to others. State legislatures have loaded up mandates to drive up cost of insurance. Florida governor Crist worked to bring an attractive policy to market for $150/mo. Two companies ar advertising it. That should help the uninsured and beats setting aside $600B.
Mar 16, 2009 - 12:44 pm 24. Alana:Most of all, this electronic records data base in DC and the ghoulish comments of Daschle send chills up my spine. How is possible that civil libertairians care more about library records than this? Maybe improve the medic alert bracelet system which has provided a service without slowing down innovation.
Trading good medicine for less security and bad medicine.
What a plan.
Mar 16, 2009 - 12:54 pm 25. Leatherneck:I do not think this is about health care. It is more about control. Health care is about 10% of the economy. Throw in the health care American tax payers pay for illegal aliens, and you might as well call it the North American Union health care system.
Makes me sick!
Mar 16, 2009 - 1:04 pm 26. ILLigal alien:jajjajjajajajjaj, I came to your country 15 yrs ago, I get free medical and everything to housing and food. I usually buy a low cost food with food stamps and I get cash money back, then I go next door to the liquir store and buy my tequilla and cervaza. I love america and more of my people will sneak into your paradise and get free medical care. We will take over the states you stoled from us. jajjajajjajjaj I got to get my welfare check. Suckers.
Mar 16, 2009 - 2:01 pm 27. Doc99:Craig … you left out one obvious form of Government-run Healthcare, The VA. I seem to remember something about Walter Reade a few years ago. Imagine Walter Reade for 200 million Americans.
Mar 16, 2009 - 3:02 pm 28. ChipD:From Craig- Post #1
Government run Social Security
Government run FEMA
Government run DMVs
Government run Public Schools
Government run Medicaid
Government run Prison System
Government run….FILL IN THE BLANK
OK, you got it-
Government run….Military
Government run….Police
Government run….Fire Department
Government run….Coast Guard
Ahh, useless lazy Gummint employees, all!
Mar 16, 2009 - 6:33 pm 29. Maurice:ChipD, the military is only good because we’ve gone to motivated and patriotic Americans, but the Military is still rife with cost and spending abuse, terrible procurement procedures (do you remember that our troops bitched they weren’t getting adequate armored vehicles to go ’round Iraq, and men were buying their OWN bullet-proof vests?)
But most people except anarchists would agree that certain things are necessarily government-run, as it is difficult to have them privatized, and that would be…the Armed Forces, police and the like.
Yes, most fire department people I”ve met (I work in an emergency room) are like our military, very motivated and wonderful people, in spite of crap pay.
The better example is the Post Office, as someone mentioned. Regardless of the season, the number of people waiting in line…they move at one pace, and if there are 6 windows open to take customers…to hell with those customers, one or two bays are open, everyone else is on break. And it’s because (though I have dealt with wonderful P.O. workers too, and not all, to say the least, are deserving of our opprobrium and do not fit the stereotype) the P.O. legally banned competition.
It’s true that Fed Ex et al, and then the Internet, managed to make huge inroads on the P.O.’s turf, thank goodness, but we’re still stuck with the P.O. for various things. Inefficient, often rude, often bad, no one cares.
Why should they?
Nope, sorry Mr. Government lover ChipD, your counterexamples don’t hold water.
Mar 16, 2009 - 8:04 pm 30. venividivici:ChipD:
From Craig- Post #1
Government run Social Security
Government run FEMA
Government run DMVs
Government run Public Schools
Government run Medicaid
Government run Prison System
Government run….FILL IN THE BLANK
OK, you got it-
Government run….Military
Government run….Police
Government run….Fire Department
Government run….Coast Guard
Ahh, useless lazy Gummint employees, all!
Who’s complaining about the military, police, FD and Coast Guard? If government employment were limited to those spheres, I’d be ecstatic.
Mar 17, 2009 - 5:12 am 31. JackT:We need national health care for all citizens, free of charge to those without coverage. Raise taxes on those of us who can afford to pay more so we can provide for those who can’t. Makes perfect sense to me. Unless of course you’re a greedy, selfish, uncaring, unsympathetic, Republican. Then you’d probably rather see them all die.
Mar 18, 2009 - 10:53 am 32. jane:We are already importing many doctors. I doubt we’ll import at a higher rate than we already do once Obama’s system is in place. But I think he’s hoping for a shortage of physicians. It will allow for controlling costs. No doctors, no doctor bills.
Mar 18, 2009 - 1:56 pm 33. Leatherneck:I went to the store today. I had to pay for everything I wanted. Then, I got the oil changed in my Jeep. Again, I had to pay every cent before I got my keys back. The same thing happeneds every month when my home loan payment comes up. Not to mention, the utility bill, phone bill, car loan payment, insurance, fuel costs, gym, life lock, and next month the IRS.
Why I can not get someone, anyone to pay for the things I want is beyond me. Perhaps, they just want me to die, and go away.
Sarc/off
Mar 18, 2009 - 7:40 pm 34. DaProf:OK,
SO, the same government that can’t run the V.A. effectively without considering having our wounded Vets have to use private insurance to cover their care …… Wants to take over health care for the rest of us?
Let’s see our Veteran’s cared for properly if they want a snowball’s chance of convincing anyone that they can manage nationwide health care!
Mar 19, 2009 - 1:39 pm 35. MegaBob:As a doctor, all I can say is that we had a system that worked very well- until the government got involved in it. Medicare and Medicaid are over half the patients we see now and that system sucks.Electronic records are horrible- but they allow the government and insurance companies to micrmanage us (and you). Yet all the Illegal aliens have Medicaid now ! We are truely doomed.
Mar 20, 2009 - 8:13 am 36. MegaBob:And #31– Be careful what you wish for- you might get it!
Mar 21, 2009 - 5:46 amAnd remember- you get what you pay for. If it’s free, it’s worthless.