Are we aware of the health care provisions in Obama's stimulus bill?
The ideas in it had been promoted by Tom Dashsle. Check out H.R. 1 EH, ppgs 445, 454-479.
It allows your medical treatments to be tracked electronically by a federal system.
RE: Betsy McCaughley on yesterday's Bloomberg.com
A new bureaucracy to be created, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.” According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and “learn to operate less like solo practitioners.”
Daschle says health-care reform “will not be pain free.” Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them. That means the elderly will bear the brunt.
"The stimulus bill would apply a cost- effectiveness standard set by the Federal Council, which would approve or reject treatment based on a formula that divides the cost of the treatment by the number of years the patient is likely to benefit."
So, as in England, if you're seventy-seven, say, in good health, but have a heart valve that needs replacing -- forget it. Not cost effective. You're going to die soon anyway. This is how they do it in England and the health care provisions in the stimulus plan are based on the British model.
Okay. This is national health care giving birth. Go tell your moms, pops, elderly uncles and aunts and then, yourselves, when you reach a certain age.
Is this okay with you? Not me. And I have a great health care plan as a retiree from the Writers Guild of America, so my butt isn't singed. Can't say the same for my friends or relatives, who aren't as lucky.
So in Clint Eastwood's words, "You feeling lucky, punk?"
Because you're all being punked.
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Comments
Most of our more fervant liberal posters strike me as being in the pre-wisdom stages of life, so maybe they won't be so badly bitten by socialized medicine. They have plenty of time to spend in hospital waiting rooms.
You are a numbskull.
Yeah, it's not mandatory. It's not mandatory for Congress or the elite who can afford their own plans. Like ME.
What about the people everyone's whining about? John and Jane Doe? They don't have the plan that Senators or Congressmen have, do they? Or the plan that I have. Yet I'm demagogic for calling attention to the fact that the very people who fell to their knees for Obama are going to get screwed.
Rated
But to say that you got insurance (as do I!), and fk all the rest, well, you're not paying attention. Our Health Care Crisis has and will reverberate continually throughout the system, like an awry tuning fork, for decades to come. It Must be addressed.
I'm not saying FK everyone else. I'm saying, WATCH OUT! Everyone who buys into National Health Care as it's being presented.
It's not spin. It's what's in the plan. Read the pages.
You know, evidence-based medicine would require standardization in practice, based on everything that is known about disease processes and statistical outcomes.
I don't want my doctor treating me based on her hunches, her intuition, the way she's always done it, or a thousand other non-scientific factors.
And I understand that I am not entitled to any kind of treatment or intervention, paid for by my fellow citizens, if I cannot personally afford them.
I'm cool with that.
Old people die. Young people are born. The cycle continues. The life of one individual really doesn't mean much in the grand scheme.
I love my grandmother. She's 90. If the choice was between a $65K heart valve replacement for her or a heart valve replacement for somebody who's 50, I wouldn't blink at the decision.
The 50-year-old has a lot more life yet to live.
Okay. So you're cool with the rationing. At least you're being straight up.
Okay, you're cool with the rationing. At least you're up front about it.
So, what if the 50 year old has renal problems. Or cirossis. Or M.S. Or was a pedophile. How does that figure into your being okay with him getting a valve instead of the seventy-seven year old guy.
What if the seventy-seven year old guy is a Nobel laureate in something? Still with something to offer?
Make the decision, okay?
Life is good. I don't want the government telling you or me what person is worth saving and which isn't.
Where do you draw the line?
Explain yourself, if you don't mind.
What exactly is the distraction you're talking about?
And what exactly is the rhetorical device?
Just so we can discuss knowing what we're discussing.
Back when health care was good and available, the planet had about half the people it has now. More birth control over the past half century would have saved us from the extremity of our problems not only with health care but also with fossil fuel, global warming, and - as I used to write in Cosmo's "issue box" - much, much more!
Points well taken. But we have what we have. No two ways around it. I don't like what's happening. I think it's time to say yea or nay to this.
Or, fuggedaboutit.
The die is cast, IMO.
Your premise depends on the idea of a mandated Federal healthcare program that excludes any private system.
As if we're all going to be sucked into this "socialist" nightmare with no recourse.
I see a few others dive into the shallow end and complain of how much this horror makes their heads hurt.
Would an affordable government health plan have to have limitations? Of course.
You and the other intrepid "Marxist Spotters" " imply this means it is intended as the ONLY healthcare plan for all.
Here, you're not really making a rational argument, you're venting against a monster of your own creation. A very popular activity for right wing radio, but not the argument anyone would want to take home to meet momma.
Send this one to Mikey Savage.
If I implied this is the ONLY healthcare, I'm sorry. But this is the start of a healthcare controlled by the Feds. It will grow like Topsy, as government plans grow, and regulate, and dictate and dispense funds to people without health care and then maybe to everyone.
I'm being cautiously annoyed and scared here. Marxist -- not yet. Socialist? I can hear conductor Obama yelling, "All on boaaarrrrd. Train leaves in two days."
This stimulus bill is a porcupine of stickers.
If you have good insurance now, you'd have Medi-gap insurance under a US national health care system. You'd be covered for whatever was deemed not cost-effective. And the British systems covers a lot for old people.
If you don't have decent health care now, you'd have it under a national healthy system. What's the downside?
NONE!
"So, what if the 50 year old has renal problems. Or cirossis. Or M.S. Or was a pedophile. How does that figure into your being okay with him getting a valve instead of the seventy-seven year old guy. What if the seventy-seven year old guy is a Nobel laureate in something? Still with something to offer? Make the decision, okay?"
Ridiculous fear-mongering.
Calling that fear mongering is right, in a way, because we should all be fearful that this will happen. Ignoring it, or quipping it away, it ridiculous head-in-the-sanding.
Look at the bill and read the noted sections for yourself and then get back to me.
I could not agree more and you could not be more correct Bill.
I like my chances.
Doctors who don't force their patients to comply with the new misguided standards of practice will be perceived as incompetent. And you might have trouble finding a new doctor if you are skeptical about checking your brains at the door.
I agree about your grandma. It is insane to spend so much money on the last year of life.
But you wrote:" I don't want my doctor treating me based on her hunches, her intuition, the way she's always done it, or a thousand other non-scientific factors."
Medicine is not science. It is used to be based on the practical wisdom and experience of thousands of doctors who did not have to account to some national czar.
Would you prefer fake science as practiced by the collaborators of Big Pharm. Medicine is not science. You don't want the doctor to use her wisdom, intuition, and experience because it isn't the science created by countless drug company reps, free lunches, free trips, etc?
I don't particularly care for your "I've got mine, the rest of you can suffer" attitude. It makes me wish I could make you live for six months without health benefits of any kind. I suspect nothing else but experience would convince you that American health care needs a serious overhaul.
Right there, that's a big reason I voted for Obama, as McCain did not appear to have much clue about how bad the problem was let alone what to do to fix it. I wasn't going to wait around until Sarah Palin figured out how to fix it, either. I didn't vote for Obama for timid incremental change. I voted for him to turn things around.
Why is it when you call 911, that the emergency response by the police department and fire department is covered by your tax dollars, but the emergency response by a hospital results in a bill? Can you imagine if the fire department wouldn't turn on their hoses until you produced a credit card to pay for services? Yet we think nothing of the practice of hospitals collecting billing information and insurance cards before delivering treatment. What the F is wrong with us?
I'm so sick of the socialized medicine boogey-man. Look, we already have socialized medicine, but only for those over 65. And what a coincidence, those over 65 also tend to be the most reliable voters. How nice of seniors to insure their own access to health care and not extend it to their descendants. Right now we don't have a well-educated and highly trained doctor (who happens to work for the government) making decisions about who needs treatment more urgently, we simply make that decision on the basis of who has more money. And since a 95 year old is subsidized by the government, she's more likely to get treatment than, say, a 25-year old trying to support kids. Call me crazy, but I'd rather have a bureaucrat making that obvious decision than our current sad excuse for a system. Go on all you want about how terrifying it is for the government to make choices about who does and doesn't get what treatment, but that's the system we have already. The government has decided if you're 65 and over, you get anything the medical world deems useful in any way. If you're under 65, you get what your for-profit insurance company is willing to take out of the hands of their shareholders. And if you're uninsured, you get whatever you can "negotiate" with a hospital or doctor. And good luck with that, by the way. Our system is already rationed, but it's rationed in a way as to be almost inversely proportional to need or what cost-benefit analysis would call for. If you're young and seriously sick, you probably can't maintain steady employment and therefore least likely to have the means to get treatment. If you're old and sick, you can have almost whatever you want no matter how little benefit is likely to come from it. If you're middle-aged and healthy, you've probably been in your career for decades, reached the peak of your earnings potential, and have excellent coverage that you have no need for yet. Seriously, is it possible to imagine a system that makes less sense than the one we currently have? If I ever get really ill, I'd rather hop on a boat to Cuba than endure this monstrosity we have in the US.
You're right and thanks for pointing it out. I had a sentence in there referring people to the Bloomberg post but in editing my piece it must have fallen out. A terrible oversight, but stealing .... ?
ta da.