IT'S TIME FOR UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE

You argued it when you made this statement -


But then I guess I must be imagining that "largely" has a meaning that suggests it would be a significant reason.

I think that Cyclops and Paradox have made some good points. Why don't we go to check out our Northern neighbor to see if we can learn something from them about Health Care.

The Frazer Institute's annual survey on wait times shows that, in 2009, 694,161 Canadians are on a waiting list for medical procedures. Assuming one person per procedure, that means that 2.08 percent of the population are queued up for "free" care.

An incredible 16 percent of the population--five million people--is waiting to get a primary care doctor.

On average, Canadians waited 16.1 weeks from the time their general practitioner referred them to a specialist until the actually received treatment in 2009.

The average wait to see an orthopedic specialist is 16.1 days in the US according to medical consulting firm Merritt Hawkins and Associates. Canadians wait 17.1 WEEKS.

It takes 4.6 weeks to get a CT scan and 8.9 weeks for an MRI

Yes, we have a very poor health system compared to other countries says Cyclops.

Some people do not agree and says that the studies are flawed:

Note:



• World Health Reportby James Peron
Ranking the U.S. Health-Care System
The World Health Organization’s 2000 World Health Report Uses Flawed Inputs to Produce Distorted Results
It is curious that the United States ranked below Europe in the World Health Organization’s 2000 World Health Report, which rated 191 countries’ medical systems. In his documentary Sicko, socialist Michael Moore makes hay out of the fact that the United States placed 37th, behind even Morocco, Cyprus, and Costa Rica. This ranking is used to “prove” that state-controlled health care is superior to the “free market.”

This ranking is curious because the actual life expectancy of the average American differs very little from that of the average European. At birth, average life expectancy in the European Union is 78.7. For the average American it is 78. And this doesn’t adjust for factors that can affect the averages which are unrelated to health care, such as lifestyle choices, accident rates, crime rates, and immigration. Health isn’t entirely about longevity but it certainly is a major component.

What is not mentioned by Moore, or others citing the WHO report, are the measures being used to rate the various countries and who is doing the measuring. There are many ways to nudge ratings in one direction or another that are not directly related to the actual item being measured.

For instance, one might produce a study on transportation. The purpose of transportation is to get people from where they are to where they wish to be. You might rate how quickly people can move, how cheaply they can move relative to their income, how conveniently they can move, and how free they are to move.

You would think the United States would rate high in such a study. Americans tend to be wealthier than the rest of the world. There is widespread ownership of cars. Gasoline prices are lower than in most other countries. On average, the typical American can travel quicker, cheaper, and more conveniently than people in most parts of the world. But what if this index included other factors as well? For instance, if a major component was the percentage of commuters who use public transportation, that would push the United States far down in the ranking. A larger percentage of the people in other countries have no other option but public transportation.

In 2000, when the report was issued, WHO was run by Gro Harlem Brundtland, a former prime minister of Norway and a socialist. She doesn’t think the results of a health system alone are important. Rather, she wants to know if the system is “fair.” In introducing the WHO report she wrote that while the goal of a health system “is to improve and protect health,” it also has “other intrinsic goals [that] are concerned with fairness in the way people pay for health care.” She is clear about the ideological factors she thinks are important: “Where health and responsiveness are concerned, achieving a high average level is not good enough: the goals of a health system must also include reducing inequalities, in ways that improve the situation of the worst-off. In this report attainment in relation to these goals provides the basis for measuring the performance of health systems.”

True to her ideological roots, Brundtland prefers socialized medicine over private care. Drawing her first conclusion about what makes a good medical system, she declares: “Ultimate responsibility for the performance of a country’s health system lies with government. The careful and responsible management of the well-being of the population"stewardship"is the very essence of good government. The health of people is always a national priority: government responsibility for it is continuous and permanent.”

One WHO discussion paper states, regarding “fairness” in financing, “we consider only the distribution, not the level, as there is no consensus on what the level of health spending should be.” Equal results, not necessarily good results, are the focus.

When Moore or others refer to the WHO index as proof that private health care doesn’t work, they aren’t being totally honest because they fail to disclose that the index lowers the scores of systems that don’t satisfy socialist presumptions.

A Second Rigged Study
The New York Times in August editorialized that American health care “lags well behind other advanced nations.” The newspaper relied in part on the WHO rankings as proof. For the rest, it relied on a more recent study by the Commonwealth Fund. But that study, which compared the United States to five other wealthy countries, has weaknesses similar to the WHO study.

The Commonwealth Fund marked down the United States partly because “All other major industrialized nations provide universal health coverage, and most of them have comprehensive benefits packages with no cost-sharing by the patients.” Again the American system loses points because it doesn’t provide socialized medicine. And the Times neglected to note that “no cost-sharing” means the people have paid through taxes whether they receive the care or not.

Non-Emergency Visits
The United States also was penalized because seeing a physician for non-emergency reasons is harder to do on nights and weekends than in the other five nations. The Fund said “many report having to wait six days or more for an appointment with their own doctors.”

The survey didn’t look at the treatment of serious conditions. Waiting weeks or months for chemotherapy is not held against a health-care system, but waiting a few days to have a check up is. Waiting time for “elective” surgery is counted (the United States was a close second to Germany), but waiting time for non-elective, serious surgery did not count, though that is precisely where socialist systems do the worst.

This issue is not unknown to the Commonwealth Fund. In 1999 it published The Elderly’s Experiences with Health Care in Five Nations, which found significant delays for “serious surgery.” Only 4 percent of the American seniors reported long waits for serious surgery. The rate was 11 percent in Canada and 13 percent in Britain. For non-serious surgery the differences were more obvious: 7 percent in the United States, 40 percent in Canada, and 51 percent in Britain.

In the latest survey, the United States came in dead last for health “safety,” but many of the scores were only a few points apart. For instance, 15 percent of American patients said they “believed a medical mistake” had been made in their treatment within the last two years. Notice this is merely patient perception and nothing objective. But the best score was in Britain, where 12 percent said this.

The United States is also marked down because 23 percent of patients report delayed or incorrect results on medical tests they took. That is far worse than the best country, Germany, at 9 percent. But what constitutes a delay? If a result is expected in a week but takes two, that is a delay. But if it is expected in three weeks and arrives then, that isn’t a delay. Thus what constitutes a delay depends on expectations, leading to counter-intuitive results.

The United States also lost credit because fewer Americans report having a regular doctor for five years or more. But Americans are more mobile than many other people. CNN reports that Americans move every five years on average. In comparison, Britain has a moving rate of 10 percent a year, or an average of once a decade. And 60 percent of those move about three miles.

Freer to Change Doctors
Americans are also freer to change doctors if they wish. Britain requires patients to sign up with physicians, and once they do so, they are pretty much stuck unless they want to end up on the waiting list of another physician. Patients often have to wait to get on the books of a physician and only then can they be treated; that is, they wait to get on a wait list. This is true even for heart transplants. The inevitable waiting is a disincentive to change doctors.

Another measure used by the Commonwealth Fund is centralization of medical records. If a country has a system that allows doctors anywhere to tap into the patients’ records, it is rated higher. The United States has no centralized database and so is rated lower. Many Americans may prefer to have their records private and dispersed. When the Clinton plan was proposed in 1993, one of the rallying points that helped defeat it was the centralization of health records.

Out-of-pocket expenses were counted against a system as well. In socialized health care these expenses are zero or very low but are replaced with taxes. Taxes, however, don’t lower a country’s score because the care “is free.”

Countries were also judged on the number of patient complaints. But different cultures have different attitudes toward complaining. Jeremy Laurance wrote in the Belfast Telegraph recently that the National Health Service needs “a healthy dose of American belligerence.”

Finally, the United States is ranked last among the six nations surveyed in infant mortality. What is not discussed is that nations define infant mortality differently. Any infant, regardless of size or weight or premature status, who shows sign of life is counted as a live birth in the United States. Germany, which ranks number one in the Commonwealth Fund survey, doesn’t count as a live birth any infant with a birth weight under 500 grams (one pound). How valuable is a comparison under those circumstances?

One could easily design a survey that would rank American health care high and other nations low. But this does not mean the American system is what it should be. Its successes and innovation can be attributed to the vestiges of freedom, but government has saddled the system with so much intervention that it is far from market oriented. Instead of worrying about irrelevant international rankings, we should be working toward freeing the medical market.

The Canadian Health Care System is superior to ours?

Some do not think so-even high ranking Canadian Officials
Canadian official has heart surgery -- in the U.S.

Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams (AP)What to make of reports that Canadian official Danny Williams opted to have his heart surgery in the U.S. instead of in his homeland?

Williams, premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, apparently needed surgery on a leaky heart valve, a problem discovered when doctors detected a heart murmur. According to news accounts, he chose to have the surgery done in Florida, where he could take advantage of a minimally invasive through-the-armpit procedure that promised to leave no scar on his chest and would allow for a speedier recovery than the traditional sternum-cracking open-heart approach.

Many have viewed his choice as an indictment of Canada's government-run health-care system and a sign that America's health-care system remains superior.

Others say they're puzzled by Williams's choice, noting that the procedure he underwent is available in Canada.

Allowing his words to speak as loudly as his actions, Williams, who is said to be recovering in Miami from his surgery (which according to this story took longer than expected), had explained his decision simply: "This was my heart, my choice and my health."

"I did not sign away my right to get the best possible health care for myself when I entered politics," Williams said.

That's not much of an endorsement for Canada's vaunted public health system. I hope that President Obama and Congress, on the eve of their health-care summit, are paying attention. And I hope that we in the U.S. won't end up trashing our excellent, though imperfect, health-care system in our rush to "reform" it.

.

It is generally considered by philosophers that you are correct there.

Obama wants your help to design a t-shirt.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/fbtshirtpoll

We the people would be better served if health insurance and health care were turned over to a successful private business like WalMart.
WalMart is more efficient than the US government and they actually make a profit... maybe WalMart should also take over the USPS.
90% of all Americans live within 15 miles of a WalMart store.

Get ready for a spate of new hoax posts and e-mails on:


HEALTH CARE
The New Myths

Since the health care debate began over a year ago, Republicans and their conservative allies have relied on distortions, fabrications, and outright lies in their attempt to kill reform. There were the alleged death panels that would "pull the plug on grandma"; the false claim that doctors would leave their profession if reform passed; and, of course, the myth that reform is a socialist "government takeover" of the health care system. As President Obama correctly noted yesterday, the recently passed Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act bears resemblance to health reform bills proposed by Republicans in the past, so distortions were necessary to perpetuate the narrative that reform would ruin the health care system and harm the country. Now that health care reform is a reality, the right has moved on to a coordinated repeal campaign, and 14 state attorneys general have filed suit against the Act, falsely claiming it is unconstitutional. New myths have also emerged, distorting what the country will look like after the implementation of the health bill and the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act (SAFRA) that passed with it. Each of the old myths has been debunked, and these new ones are simply more distortions in attempt to mislead the American people.

IRS AGENTS 'BREATHING DOWN' OUR NECKS: Fox News and Republican lawmakers have been pushing a talking point claiming that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) will need to hire more than 16,500 new agents to enforce the universal insurance mandates in the Affordable Care Act, and that the agency will impose harsh punishments on those who don't purchase insurance it deems worthy. At least a dozen Republican lawmakers pushed the meme, with Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI) calling it a "dangerous expansion of the IRS's power and reach into the lives of virtually every American." Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) warned Fox News host Sean Hannity that "the IRS will be tasked with breathing down the neck of 300 million Americans every month to determine whether we have purchased governmentally acceptable levels of health insurance." Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) and others attributed the 16,500 figure to "the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office," but as PolitiFact noted, the figure does not come from the CBO. It comes from a report prepared by the Republican staff of the House Ways and Means Committee, which used rough estimates from the CBO in order to fabricate the 16,500 figure. During a recent congressional hearing, IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman made it clear that these claims are nothing but "misconceptions." When asked whether the IRS would "verify if [Americans] have obtained acceptable health insurance," Shulman flatly said "no," adding that there "are not going to be any discussions about health coverage with an IRS employee." As for claims of draconian enforcement, including jail time, for those who do not buy insurance, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) noted on her web site, "The bill specifically prohibits the IRS from confiscating taxpayer assets, from using liens or levies, or imposing criminal penalties of any kind -- including jail time -- because of a lack of health care coverage."

CORPORATE WRITEDOWNS: For months, Republicans and their allies like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have been claiming that health care reform would create huge new taxes that would hurt businesses. Since the passage of the Affordable Care Act, AT&T, Caterpillar, John Deere and others have come out with a series of -- seemingly coordinated -- press releases announcing that the new bill will cost them billions of dollars. An association representing 300 large corporations is also urging Congress to change the part of the Act that is responsible for the charge. Republicans and the right-wing media latched onto the news of the writedowns as proof that the bill will lead to the "wholesale destruction of wealth and capital," as a Wall Street Journal editorial put it. This is "the exact opposite of what the president promised if we passed health care," Fox News host Sean Hannity said of the writedowns. But in reality, these writedowns are due to a big cut in corporate welfare. The Medicare Part D legislation -- passed under President Bush -- gives subsidies of about $1,300 per retiree per year to businesses that provide prescription drugs to their retirees. On top of that, it allows companies to deduct the value of the credit from their taxes. The new health care law, however, pays for itself, in part, by eliminating waste in the system and puts an end to this "double dipping." Companies will still receive the tax-free subsidy, but they'll no longer be able to take the tax deduction as well. As the Wall Street Journal notes, these charges are "noncash," and the cost of losing this exemption is relatively small. And the relevant change doesn't kick in until 2013. Moreover, is disingenuous for companies to suddenly complain about the charges, considering the change was a part of the draft bill that passed the Senate Finance Committee last year and several business groups complained about it in September. Finance Committee aides "were in close talks with employer groups" and it ultimately won approval from many, with the chairman of Business Roundtable saying "it's very closely aligned to [our] principles."

A NEW TAX ON STUDENT LOANS: While its inclusion with the health care bill has often been overlooked, legislation to streamline the student loan system has not escaped its share of right-wing fear mongering. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) told Radio Iowa that the plan "end[s] up taxing college students" because they'll be forced to pay more borrowing from the government directly than if they could shop around for a loan from private lenders. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) agreed, claiming that students will spend "$1,700 to $1,800 more during the life of their loan because of this surcharge." But both Grassley and Graham are ignoring the fact that it SAFRA does not change interest rates, meaning that students will pay the same amount as they did before. As PolitiFact notes, the interest rates are set by law and were not changed by SAFRA -- "there is no 'surcharge' in the bill." Grassley and industry lobbyists have also claimed that people employed by private loan companies will lose their jobs "at a time when our country can least afford to lose them." But as Campus Progress notes, "There will be no shortage of work for loan companies under the new reforms," as federal loans will still be serviced by private companies. "In fact, student loan giant Sallie Mae has announced it is in the process of bringing back 3,400 jobs from overseas. These jobs are returning to the U.S., at least in part, so that the company can be eligible for Department of Education contracts to service Direct Loans," Campus Progress adds.

-- americanprogressaction.org

From Salon:

If logic reigned in the world of politics, then yes, Mitt Romney would be a dead candidate walking right now.

By now, you know all about the one-time Massachusetts governor's healthcare problem: The plan he signed into law in the Bay State four years ago is pretty much the same (on a smaller scale, of course) as the plan President Obama and the Democrats just rammed down Americans' throats, to use the right's preferred parlance.

This has, understandably, prompted a flood of Romney political obituaries. After all, there won't be much daylight between the major GOP White House contenders on most issues, so Romney's healthcare apostasy should stand out that much more. Parallels are being drawn to Hillary Clinton's 2002 vote for the Iraq war, and how it came back to bite her in 2008.

In a Tuesday post titled "Romney Death Watch," the New Republic's Jonathan Chait wrote: "This is going to be the basis for a devastating attack, and I don't see how Romney answers it."

But there's a major flaw in this thinking: It assumes that voters -- Republican primary voters, to be exact -- are logical and rational creatures. But they aren't. Voters, we have seen over and over, are willing to excuse and rationalize apostasies, inconsistencies and outright hypocrisy when -- at a very basic level -- they like and identify with a politician.

The right's idolatry of Ronald Reagan is a perfect example. On paper, conservatives should regard the 40th president's tenure with very mixed sentiments. He grew the size of government, exploded the national debt, offered "amnesty" to millions of illegal immigrants, sold arms to Iran, appointed a pro-Roe justice to the Supreme Court, and championed a tax reform plan that raised corporate and some individual rates.

But to this day, conservatives accord Reagan godlike status -- and happily rationalize away his breaches of orthodoxy. Their adoration has something to do with ideology -- he did slash taxes in 1981, after all, and he did load the federal courts with right-wing judges. But it has a lot more to do with the feelings that Reagan, with his grandfatherly warmth, patriotic homilies, actor's stage presence, and lip service to right-wing causes, managed to evoke in them. They instinctively liked him and worked backward from there, inventing one reason after another to look the other way when he strayed.

Barack Obama benefits from this same tendency on the left. Just consider (as Salon's Glenn Greenwald has pointed out) how many liberals have made excuses for the president as he's pursued terrorism policies that they once decried as an affront to the Constitution, back when George W. Bush was implementing them.

Romney is no Reagan and he's no Obama, that's for sure. But he is, in his own way, a charismatic figure. Something about his confidence, his vigor, his ridiculously white teeth, his picture-perfect, wholesome-seeming family and his business background prompts conservatives to find ideological rationales for liking him.

We saw this happen in his 2008 campaign. As Romney prepared for that race, there was little reason -- on paper -- to suspect he'd be much of a player, given the moderate-to-liberal image he'd crafted in Massachusetts. He had, after all, once promised to do more for gay rights than Ted Kennedy. And he hadn't just called himself pro-choice; he'd gone on statewide television to tell a tear-jerker story about a relative who'd died after a back-alley abortion, proclaiming that the incident had made him resolve never to let the government infringe on a woman's individual choice. And on and on.

And yet, Romney nearly won the GOP nomination in 2008. Outside of Massachusetts and Utah (and maybe Michigan -- sort of), Romney was largely unknown before the '08 campaign, and his initial poll numbers were minuscule. It's a testament to the power of his personal appeal that, by the early fall of 2007, he had actually taken the lead in Iowa polls. It was the Reagan/Obama phenomenon at work: Conservatives wanted to like him, and worked backward from there.

Yes, it's true that many on the right were not persuaded. All of Romney's liberal laundry was (exhaustively) aired, and it was enough to cost him Iowa and, thus, the nomination, But what was more remarkable was how many conservatives were happy to ignore it all -- to rationalize all of his past statements and actions and to embrace him as one of their own. He ended up garnering more than 4.5 million votes in the primary season, more than anyone except John McCain.

So it's actually not hard to see Romney skating on healthcare, at least when it comes to the race for the GOP nomination in '12. Sure, it will provide more fodder for the conservatives who already see through him, and it will turn off some independents (who can participate in some primaries and caucuses). But will it really cut into Romney's base? The same folks who saw the clips of him talking about back-alley abortions and gay rights back in 2007 and '08 -- and who signed on anyway? Chances are, they'll buy into his rationalizations on healthcare, too, no matter how irrational.

Moreover, McCain in '08 provided a road map for winning the GOP nomination even while alienating the party base on a key issue, immigration, in his case. Essentially, McCain cobbled together a coalition of some conservatives and just about all of the party's moderates and pragmatists, while his opponents chased votes on the right. He won key early contests with less than 40 percent of the vote, then cleaned up on Super Tuesday in the big states that have more pragmatic GOP electorates -- New York, New Jersey, Illinois and California, for example. At the same time, both Romney and Mike Huckabee held each other in check in the South. Neither was able to monopolize the region.

This strategy won't work if the right -- particularly in the South -- is united behind one other candidate. But, for now anyway, the right figures to be as fractured in '12 as it was in '08. A repeat of 1988, when George H.W. Bush built an impenetrable Southern firewall, or 2000, when his son essentially did the same, doesn't seem likely. So if Romney can make it past the early tests and hold his own in the South (as McCain did in '08), then he, too, can clean up in the big, delegate-rich and (sort of) moderate states. In other words, there's room for him to take a hit on healthcare and survive, just as there was for McCain two years ago.

Before the healthcare flare-up of the last two weeks, Romney enjoyed strong support from a big chunk of the party's base. He also faced intense skepticism from other conservatives, because of his past flip-flops or his religion (or both). And he was fairly well-positioned to claim the backing of the party's establishment in '12, as the "next in line" candidate. Here's guessing that healthcare won't alter this basic dynamic, no matter how much we hear about it between now and '12.

I do hope you will let me compliment you, plainoldme, on your use of evidence and documentation. Your selection of the article from Salon showing the incredible flaws and costs of Romneycare was perfect. As you can see, Romneycare is a disaster. Please allow me to post another article on Romneycare and Obamacare.

Note:

RomneyCare vs. ObamaCare - yes it's the same. Posted by Arkady On 9/29/2009 11:25:00 PM

As a resident of Taxachusetts my fellow residents can attest to what ObamaCare has in store for the rest of America. A lesson in RomneyCare is also a lesson in the danger of relying on so-called fiscal conservatives Republicans who will sell their allegiances in a heartbeat to further their political agendas. Beware of Romney and beware of Obama(Romney)Care.

Primarily RomneyCare set out to cover our uninsured and while the jury is still out on how many remain uninsured, most will agree that a large number of people are now covered. Despite mandates and penalties, anywhere between 100,000 to 200,000 remain uninsured which in a population of 6 million is close to universal coverage. Sadly, this is precisely where the merits of RomneyCare end assuming that universal coverage is something we need to strive for (more insurance is not the answer).

What did Romney promise us in this grand experiment?

- Reduced costs for insurance premiums.
- Health coverage will become affordable for all.
- Manageable costs to our budget

Do those sound familiar? They should, because these are precisely the promises being sold to us via ObamaCare. So a mere two years after the passage of RomneyCare how are those promises stacking up?

First of all, our insurance premiums are up double digits and this is according to one of the most liberal papers in the nation - Boston Globe. Meanwhile greedy out of control insurers in the rest of the country have gone up at half the speed. But responsible taxpayers are not the only ones hurting, the insurance plans under Massachusetts Commonwealth Care designed to subsidize low-income families are on the rise as well, also by double digits. According to CATO, our state already suffered from high insurance premiums due to oppressive regulations and domination by several large insurers, now the problems have exploded. Certainly seems like government intervention tends to raise insurance premiums, no? Imagine this on a national scale now.

Second of all, Romney promised the cost of this life saving experiment would not exceed 1.5 Billion and Common Wealth Care(CWC) would cost just north of 700 million. This may be hard to believe, but these projections missed their mark, just a little bit. For starters CWC clocked in at 870 million, more than 20% increase just this year alone. According to our governor, within the next three years CWC will DOUBLE in cost! We are already unfairly relying on federal subsidies to pay for these costs and will suffer when they stop, but what will the federal government do when it's subsidies spiral out of control? Want a hint? It involves a printer. Meanwhile our legislature is scrambling and trying to comprehend the out of control rise in health care expenditures, just brilliant. The only medical insurance we should be subsidizing is the one covering brain examinations of legislators.

How will the state's one party domination attempt to cover the project pitfalls in funding? Our sales tax has already been raised and everything from soda/candy taxes to alcohol/cigarette taxes are on the table. Deval Patrick is openly mulling over increasing fines to small businesses as part of the employer mandate and the ultimate liberal response to battle costs - price controls! Why liberals continue to believe in one of the most egregious economic fallacies is truly baffling, but we the citizens must endure this continued stupidity. FDR's price controls caused food shortages (not the dust bowl folks, FDR), Carter's price controls caused oil shortages and California's legislatures caused massive rolling blackouts. Ultimately Romney's vision of affordable insurance will be realized, assuming we want to afford rationed care and deterioration in quality. Still skeptical? After all, why would this happen? No reason why a collection of brilliant Harvard educated men can screw something up so badly, right?

In a piece from NY Times:


The share who accept new patients has dropped, to barely half in the case of
internists, and the average wait by a new patient for an appointment with an
internist rose to 52 days in 2007 from 33 days in 2006. In westernmost Berkshire
County, newly insured patients are being referred 25 miles away, said Charles E.
Joffe-Halpern, director of an agency that enrolls the uninsured.

The proof as they say, is in the pudding. Wait times almost doubling in the first year of practice is frightening especially when it is happening to yours truly. Why would anyone wish this upon the rest of America?

In conclusion, the following is obvious. Romney is NO fiscal conservative and should be defeated in the primaries as quickly as possible. He is nothing more than an opportunist and while he speaks eloquently on the merits of fiscal responsibility, does whatever is necessary to survive. Use Romney's debacle here in our state as an example of what NOT to do, perhaps that can be the lasting benefit of RomneyCare to the rest of the nation.

What is equally obvious, government intervention and regulation cripples an industry that so desperately needs the opposite. Let us also not understate the moral infractions committed by a government forcing us to pay and buy something we do not want or need. How dare anyone punish us for not purchasing coverage and how is that any different than Stalin mandating what peasants can or cannot grow? Citizens are now forced to pay hundreds of millions extra in mandates and penalties, money we can be using to fund our HSAs or make other investments. Let us also recognize that limiting insurance companies, limiting how many physicians can practice, limiting how much coverage is acceptable and finally relying on someone else to pay the bill is not only backwards, but morally reprehensible.

*********************************************************************

Obamacare is very similar to Romneycare which your citation, plainoldme, makes clear is a disaster. The only difference is that Romneycare only ruins Health care in one state while Obamacare ruins Health care for the ENTIRE NATION>

Again, plainoldme, good documentation!!!

Advocate wrote:

HEALTH CARE
The New Myths

Since the health care debate began over a year ago, Republicans and their conservative allies have relied on distortions, fabrications, and outright lies in their attempt to kill reform. There were the alleged death panels that would "pull the plug on grandma"; the false claim that doctors would leave their profession if reform passed; and, of course, the myth that reform is a socialist "government takeover" of the health care system. As President Obama correctly noted yesterday, the recently passed Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act bears resemblance to health reform bills proposed by Republicans in the past, so distortions were necessary to perpetuate the narrative that reform would ruin the health care system and harm the country. Now that health care reform is a reality, the right has moved on to a coordinated repeal campaign, and 14 state attorneys general have filed suit against the Act, falsely claiming it is unconstitutional. New myths have also emerged, distorting what the country will look like after the implementation of the health bill and the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act (SAFRA) that passed with it. Each of the old myths has been debunked, and these new ones are simply more distortions in attempt to mislead the American people.

Death Panels? Read the following-Advocate either has not read such evidence or has overlooked it.




"Older, sicker societies pay more on health care than younger, healthier ones," Obama told the AMA.

He is right. According to a 2006 study by the Department of Health and Human Services, five percent of the U.S. population accounts for nearly 50 percent of health care spending in America. Who are those five percent? Most are people over 65 years of age with serious, chronic illnesses.

By contrast, the study notes, half of the U.S. population "spends little or nothing on health care… with annual medical spending below $664 per person." These, of course, are mostly healthy young people " people without serious, chronic illnesses.

Obviously, Obama will not meet his cost-cutting targets by reducing care to healthy young people. They are already spending next to nothing. It is the old, the dying and the chronically ill whose health care he will cut. The numbers make this clear.

At present, the main vehicle of Obamacare is the so-called America's Affordable Health Choices Act, introduced on June 9.

This law will force Americans to enroll in "qualified" health plans " that is, plans approved and controlled by the government. Americans will be invited to "choose" between "public" and "private" insurance plans, but will find little difference between them. "Public" or "private," they will all follow the same rules, dictated by the Department of Health and Human Services " the same agency, incidentally, which issued the report, titled "The High Concentration of U.S. Health Care Expenditures, 2006."

How will Obama cut costs? His June 13 radio speech gave some hints. Obama said his plan would provide "incentives" to doctors to "avoid unnecessary hospital stays, treatments and tests that drive up costs."

And what sort of treatment does Obama consider "unnecessary?" In an ABC News special June 24, he implied medical treatment might be wasted on elderly people with grave illnesses, citing his own grandmother as an example.

Dying of cancer, with less than a year to live, Obama's grandmother broke her hip. "[T]he question was, does she get hip replacement surgery, even though she was fragile enough they were not sure how long she would last?" asked the president.

It turns out that Obama's grandmother did get the hip replacement " though he did not say so on ABC that night. Obama left the story about his grandmother unfinished, but went on to suggest that other people faced with such choices might do well to forget about surgery and settle instead for palliative or comfort care " treatment that helps you feel better while you are dying, but does not prolong your life.

"Maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller," Obama concluded.

It's already happening in Europe

In Europe, governments already ration health care, just as Obama plans to do here. The older and sicker people are, the less care they get.

In England, for example, bureaucrats determine a patient's eligibility for health care using the QALY system (quality-adjusted life years). They divide the cost of treatment by the number of "quality" years the patient is expected to live. Older, sicker patients are expected to live fewer "quality" years, so why bother treating them at all? On this basis, British elders are routinely denied treatment for cancer, heart disease and other deadly illnesses.

Many die in filthy, overcrowded hospitals or nursing homes, rife with pestilence, including the deadly, antibiotic-resistant "superbugs" Clostridium difficile and MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus). Each year in the U.K., nearly three times more people die from hospital infections than from traffic accidents.

In the nation where Florence Nightingale invented modern nursing 150 years ago, cleanliness has become a lost art. British newspapers reported in 2007 that patients in government hospitals were told to "go in their beds" when they had diarrhea.

In March 2009, British health inspectors reported that poor treatment at one hospital may have killed up to 1,200 people in three years. That's 1,200 people at just one hospital.

Denied food, water and medicine, patients at Stafford Hospital in Staffordshire were left screaming in agony, drinking from flowerpots and lying helpless in their own waste. Many waited for operations which were repeatedly postponed.

British officials were quick to label the Stafford horror an "isolated incident." But many health care professionals in England say it is typical. Unfortunately, dissenters have little voice in Britain's National Health Service. The system is notoriously hostile to whistleblowers.

Take Margaret Haywood, for instance, a nurse of 20 years, who went undercover for the BBC, filming abuse and neglect of elderly patients at Royal Sussex Hospital. In April 2009, British health authorities punished Haywood for going to the press, banning her from practicing nursing. If she had complaints, they told her, she should have made them through proper channels.

In England, whitewashing medical scandals is a bipartisan activity. Conservative and liberal politicians alike defend the National Health Service from all critics.

After a harrowing stay at the Royal United Hospital in Bath, Lord Benjamin Mancroft, a Conservative member of the House of Lords, spoke out in Parliament, declaring, "It is a miracle that I am still alive." He described "filthy" wards that were "never cleaned" and nurses who were "grubby… slipshod, lazy… drunken and promiscuous."

Fellow Tories denounced Lord Mancroft for defaming British medicine. But his observations may help explain why Royal United Hospital leads Britain in superbug fatalities, having racked up 306 superbug deaths in four years.

Government health care supposedly works better in France. But in August 2003, when temperatures in France soared to 104 degrees Fahrenheit, nearly 15,000 elderly people dropped dead " that is, 15,000 more than the average or expected death rate for that time of year.

Most died in institutions, such as government-run nursing homes, which lacked air conditioning and other basic amenities.

Time magazine reported that deaths from the heat wave in France were "geometrically higher than anywhere else in sunbaked Europe," thanks to "a chronically underfunded and understaffed elder care system."

Less money, less care

For 20 years, health care reformers from Edward Kennedy to Hillary Clinton have praised the government-run health systems of Europe and Canada. Obama and his team have taken up the same cry.

A June 1 report from Obama's Council of Economic Advisers praised European health care and urged Americans to emulate it.

If health care is so abominable in Europe, why did Obama's economic advisers commend it? Simple. It's cheaper.

Titled "The Economic Case for Health Care Reform," the report noted that six countries " Canada, Germany, Japan, Sweden, Britain and France " spend only 9.6 percent of their Gross Domestic Product on health care, while America spends 15.3 percent. It recommended bringing our health spending down to European levels through "efficiency improvements in the U.S. health-care system."

This is the dirty secret behind the movement for universal health care. Its true purpose is to cut medical care, not increase it.

Every plan put forth by health care "reformers" in the last 20 years features drastic cuts " not increases " in health spending. During her 2008 presidential run, for example, Hillary Clinton vowed to slash medical spending in America by $120 billion per year. Obama says he will cut even more.

With "the right kind of cost-effectiveness," Obama's chief economic adviser Lawrence H. Summers told MSNBC's "Meet the Press" on April 19, "we could take as much as $700 billion a year out of our health care system."

Current annual health spending in America is about $2.5 trillion, so Obama and his team are talking about a 30-percent cut.

It happens that the Health Care Financing Administration, or HCFA, reports that 27-30 percent of annual Medicare spending goes to end-of-life care for the elderly " specifically, health care during the last year of life.

These figures suggest Obama could meet his target of a 30-percent cut simply by denying treatment to the sickest and feeblest of America's elderly " those with a life expectancy of one year or less.

Obama's special adviser for health policy, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, appears to have something like that in mind.

In a Jan. 31 article in the British medical journal Lancet, Emanuel advised steering health dollars toward the young and fit; specifically those between the ages of 15 and 40, while reducing health spending for the elderly.

Weirdly, Emanuel " along with his co-authors Govind Persad and Alan Wertheimer " made a special point of arguing that age-weighted medical rationing does not violate the rules of political correctness. They wrote:

"Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination … Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years. Treating 65-year-olds differently because of stereotypes or falsehoods would be ageist; treating them differently because they have already had more life-years is not."

In other words, to put it crudely, deciding to let the elderly die because we think of them in "stereotypical" terms " say, as useless old dodderers "would be "ageism." However, letting them die for a "good" reason " for example, because they have already had their chance at life, and now it's time to give someone else a chance " is perfectly OK.

In Emanuel's view, letting old people die is not the problem. The problem is finding the right words to justify it.

Words are very important to Emanuel " for example, the words of the Hippocratic Oath. He blames the Hippocratic Oath for much of what he considers wrong in American medicine.

Until the 1970s, all doctors swore this oath upon graduating medical school. It is believed to have been written by the Greek physician Hippocrates of Cos, the father of modern medicine, some 2,400 years ago.

The oath forbids doctors to kill, and expressly forbids administering any "deadly drug" or performing an abortion. For that reason, it has fallen out of favor with modern medical schools, which often use edited versions of the oath, or different oaths entirely, written in modern times.

Still, the tradition of Hippocrates dies hard. Doctors still honor him, and many feel guilty when they violate his precepts.

Emanuel would like to steer modern medicine away from the Hippocratic tradition. In a June 18, 2008, article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, he wrote that strict adherence to the Hippocratic Oath caused "overuse" of medical care.

"Medical school education and postgraduate training emphasize thoroughness," he complained. "When evaluating a patient, students, interns, and residents are trained to identify and praised for and graded on enumerating all possible diagnoses and tests that would confirm or exclude them. The thought is that the more thorough the evaluation, the more intelligent the student or house officer."

Particularly galling to Emanuel is "the Hippocratic Oath's admonition to 'use my power to help the sick to the best of my ability and judgment'" which he says "doctors interpret as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of cost or effect on others."

Emanuel would like to see less thoroughness and more cost-cutting. Instead of being "thorough" and "meticulous," doctors should be "prudent" in assessing how much time, effort and money each patient is worth, for the greater good of society, he argues.

Evidently, President Obama likes what Dr. Emanuel is preaching. In December 2008, Obama made him special adviser for health policy to the White House Office of Management and Budget.

Given Emanuel's views, it can be expected that age-weighted rationing will figure prominently in Obama's health care "reforms." Should Obamacare become the law of this land, many of those 80 million Americans born between 1946 and 1965 can look forward confidently to a nasty, European-style death.

It is already happening in Oregon

You don't have to go to Europe to see age-weighted rationing at work. Just take a look at Oregon. Its state-run Oregon Health Plan works very much as our president says Obamacare will work.

Barbara Wagner of Springfield, Ore., was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2005. Chemotherapy and radiation put her cancer into remission. But the cancer returned in May 2008.

Wagner's doctor prescribed Tarceva, a pill which slows cancer growth. There was a good chance it might extend her life by a few weeks or even months.

At age 64, Wagner had two sons, three daughters, 15 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. Every moment she could spend with her loved ones was precious.

But Oregon's health commissars nixed the plan. Her Tarceva treatment would cost $4,000 per month. Wagner was going to die anyway, so why waste the money?

Wagner received a letter stating that the Oregon Health Plan would not approve any treatment for her "that is meant to prolong life, or change the course of the disease …" However, if Wagner opted for physician-assisted suicide, Oregon would be happy to pick up the tab, said the letter.

Physician-assisted suicide is legal in Oregon and costs only about $50.

"It was horrible," Wagner told reporters. "To say to someone, we'll pay for you to die, but not pay for you to live, it's cruel. Who do they think they are?"

Wagner finally got her Tarceva when the manufacturer Genentech offered to supply it free of charge. She died in October 2008.

A humble, retired schoolbus driver, Wagner touched more people in death than she had in life. Local and national press picked up her story, alerting many Americans to the danger of medical rationing.

One person who remains untouched by her story is Dr. Walter Shaffer, who heads Oregon's Division of Medical Assistance Programs, which runs the Oregon Health Plan. Regarding the Wagner case, Shaffer told the Eugene Register-Guard, "We can't cover everything for everyone. Taxpayer dollars are limited for publicly funded programs. We try to come up with policies that provide the most good for the most people."

Equally unsympathetic is Barack Obama, who views Oregon's medical rationing system as a model for the nation.

On March 23, 2008, asked to comment on Oregon's assisted suicide law, candidate Obama told the Mail Tribune of southern Oregon: "I think that the people of Oregon did a service for the country in recognizing that as the population gets older we've got to think about issues of end-of-life care."

Advocate wrote:

New myths have also emerged, distorting what the country will look like after the implementation of the health bill and the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act (SAFRA) that passed with it. Each of the old myths has been debunked, and these new ones are simply more distortions in attempt to mislead the American people.
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I did not read that each of the old myths has been debunked. Maybe Advocate can give us the evidence to show that each of the old myths have been debunked.

ADVOCATE WROTE:


CORPORATE WRITEDOWNS: For months, Republicans and their allies like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have been claiming that health care reform would create huge new taxes that would hurt businesses. Since the passage of the Affordable Care Act, AT&T, Caterpillar, John Deere and others have come out with a series of -- seemingly coordinated -- press releases announcing that the new bill will cost them billions of dollars. An association representing 300 large corporations is also urging Congress to change the part of the Act that is responsible for the charge. Republicans and the right-wing media latched onto the news of the writedowns as proof that the bill will lead to the "wholesale destruction of wealth and capital," as a Wall Street Journal editorial put it. This is "the exact opposite of what the president promised if we passed health care," Fox News host Sean Hannity said of the writedowns. But in reality, these writedowns are due to a big cut in corporate welfare. The Medicare Part D legislation -- passed under President Bush -- gives subsidies of about $1,300 per retiree per year to businesses that provide prescription drugs to their retirees. On top of that, it allows companies to deduct the value of the credit from their taxes. The new health care law, however, pays for itself, in part, by eliminating waste in the system and puts an end to this "double dipping." Companies will still receive the tax-free subsidy, but they'll no longer be able to take the tax deduction as well. As the Wall Street Journal notes, these charges are "noncash," and the cost of losing this exemption is relatively small. And the relevant change doesn't kick in until 2013. Moreover, is disingenuous for companies to suddenly complain about the charges, considering the change was a part of the draft bill that passed the Senate Finance Committee last year and several business groups complained about it in September. Finance Committee aides "were in close talks with employer groups" and it ultimately won approval from many, with the chairman of Business Roundtable saying "it's very closely aligned to [our] principles."
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If Advocate does not know that these companies will not only lay off thousands of people because of these writeoffs, raise their prices and cut or eliminate prescription drug benefits to retirees, he knows nothing about modern economics and corporate management.

Of course, there is a way to avoid these price hikes, job losses and retirees losing their prescription drug benefits--Have the government take over these companies. The Soviets did it. The government already owns GM. Why not?

The ghost of Joseph McCarthy continues to walk among us. Under McCarthy, innocent people, people who joined the nascent Communist party in America . . . or, as curious young people, simply attended a meeting or rally, were persecuted and the entire nation was disrupted by the ego needs of a petty tyrant.

More than a half-century later, Republican operatives continue to whip up the fervor of the same people they most likely snicker at with the words, "Health care is socialism."

Of course, the right prefers ignorance. The right has made the bottom line the measure by which schools are judged effective and the Texas State Board of Education runs rough shod over the text book publishing industry.

I'm curious if you're pissed about Obama upholding the same Patriot Act activities that Bush implemented (warrentless wiretapping, rendition, no due process, etc).

Obama = Bush & Democrats = Republicans in this area. I couldn't be more pissed at Obama for this stance. I felt the Patriot act was one of the worst aspects of the Bush presidency (in fact, it drove me to buy my first gun); and now we have Obama supporting pretty much all of it.

Many democrats are ignorant to this fact. Are you? And if you aren't, how do you feel about it? Bad enough to vote against him?

I am pissed. I called the WH citizens' response line yesterday in re: off-shore drilling and said that I voted for Obama in order to put an end to the policies of the bush administration. Obama is continuing them and I am sorely disappointed. I can not understand why the Repugs aren't cheering having this fellow traveler in the WH.

At some point, Harvard Law Professor Charles Ogletree . . . who taught both Michele and Barack before they met each other . . . was interviewed as to what they were like as students. Ogletree commented that although he seldom discusses politics with his students, he had assumed both were Republicans. Telling remark.

Question, do you burn gasoline in your car, pom? Just curious, because if you do, it might be a good idea for there to be a decent supply of it around, but then again that might be continuing the Bush policies and that would be the unthinkable in your mind?

Plainoldme wrote:

I am pissed. I called the WH citizens' response line yesterday in re: off-shore drilling and said that I voted for Obama in order to put an end to the policies of the bush administration. Obama is continuing them and I am sorely disappointed. I can not understand why the Repugs aren't cheering having this fellow traveler in the White House.

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There are two possiblities, plainoldme. Please read and try to understand.

a. Obama may have come to the realization that he cannot run roughshod over the Congress. He may be using Clinton's "triangulation" strategy. He may feel that if he compromises, he can gain some of his ends. If this is his strategy, he is surely in error. He must know that his proposals would never end up in drilling any large amount of oil and, even then, they would not be implemented for years. He thinks he can get some people to come over to his "cap and Trade" garbage but he does not know that the Chamber of Commerce in the US is aware that there will be massive job losses with "cap and trade".

b. Obama may be a leader without principles.

Maporsche--Not only the Patriot Act but the fact that Gitmo is not closed yet, the fact that Obama's buddy, Holder, has announced that there will be no civilian trials in NY and that most of the terrorists will be tried in military courts.

And, Obama appears to be ready to flood Afghanistan with additional thousands of American troops.

What will Obama do if the current elections in Iraq show that internecine struggles lead to more violence? Will he keep troops in Iraq and break his promise of withdrawing them?

As time goes on, Maporsche, you will find that Obama will contradict most of the planks in his pre-election platform. Most people are unaware of them so that will not make a great difference in November. However, according to Obama's own Treasury Secretary's comment the other day--Unemployment Rates will NOT go down to any great degree this year or, indeed, next year.

The Unemployment Number is the Number which will sink Obama.

Only 213 days left till the election!!!