National heath care has arrived (Political)

AxeMental · Post by **AxeMental** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 6:54 am

I really have to tip my hat to Obama and the Democrats. Poor Hillary got destroyed in the press when they tried to force socialized medicine down our throats. So in 3 weeks of taking office Obama goes further by writing an open ended piece and having it snuck in to a stimulas package that MUST be passed immediatly or the sky will fall. AND Republicans in the Senate are backing it??? WTF.

No public outcry. Am I dreaming?

Here's another article laying it out

Basically from what I've read,
1. your doctor goes to some national database,
2. the treatment he wants to use gets reviewed by some govt. agency,
3. that agency determines what your treatment is based on your survivability and cost(if the doctor doesn't play ball there is some sort of retribution). THis is open ended from what I've seen. Could it be jail time for doc or just heavy fines (who the hell knows).
4. New drugs and medications that are expensive won't likely be ordered to save costs (espl. for the elderly or cronically ill). So if you were planning on living a long life with medications to get you threw, think again.

This little nugget is a disaster for every American that has some sort of cronic health issue or planning to get old. IS THIS WHAT PEOPLE HAD IN MIND WHEN THEY VOTED FOR OBAMA'S BRAND OF CHANGE? I doubt it.

Cut from above article:

"The bill’s health rules will affect “every individual in the United States” (445, 454, 479). Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system. Having electronic medical records at your fingertips, easily transferred to a hospital, is beneficial. It will help avoid duplicate tests and errors.

But the bill goes further. One new bureaucracy, 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.”

Keeping doctors informed of the newest medical findings is important, but enforcing uniformity goes too far.

JDJarvis · Post by **JDJarvis** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 7:15 am

that summary is flatly incorrect. The opinion piece you linked on bloomberg is beyond alarmist.

Read the bill, the sections cited do not support all of the opinion pieces conclusions.

It is a step closer to national health-care but nothing like points 2,3 or 4 of the summary you list are in there.

AxeMental · Post by **AxeMental** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 7:40 am

Right, that was gleaned from other pieces here and there on the net, and those opinions were extrapulated from the plan presented in the Daschle book as I understand it. Is it alarmest, yes, but shouldn't I be alarmed and suspicious, shouldn't you (can you really not sense whats coming)?

Look, if your 70 and get cancer, is the federal government going to agree to put you on the latest experimental drugs that cost say 100K? Will you be given every test immediatly or be told to wait your turn (afterall how much longer can a 70 year old live anyway, shouldn't that money be spent on say someone 30 with cancer?). With huge demand and low supply (due to cost) you should expect rationing. If you don't your dreaming. And as written, the guidelines are going to at least stear your doctor to other less expensive alternatives, not always in the patients best interest (uniform treatment...what do you think that means JD).

I'm a big believer in people being able to take care of themselves. If they choose to live a life where they pay for expensive insurance, why shouldn't they get the service they purchased when they need it. Likewise, if a person chooses to not buy insurance (or good insurance) why should they expect the same level of service the guy who spent his life paying for extremely expensive insurance. I'm all for giving the best medical treatment to those that can't afford it (and I think most doctors and hospitals are too). The way that should be handled is the way it has always been handled: take care of them, bill them and hope you get payed. If you don't pay it doesn't effect your credit.

PS if you really want to cut medical costs, one quick fix stop taking care of anyone with a serious criminal record that comes into the hospital stabbed, gunshot, high or what have you (probably a huge percent of the daily costs at your average city hospital). We are spending a fortune taking care of the criminals that prey on us. How much do you think it costs the average tax payer to take care of a gun shot victim (your typical drug deal gone bad) considering the surgery, the hospital stay, the medication, the cop who has to stay with him, WTF is up with that? Liberals tend to be generous with other peoples money, espl. when it comes to carring for those that are the most destructive (feeling vs. thinking).

JDJarvis · Post by **JDJarvis** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 8:01 am

AxeMental wrote:.. Is it alarmest, yes, but shouldn't I be alarmed and suspicious, shouldn't you (can you really not sense whats coming)?

Be suspicious, become informed by many sources. I can sense what is coming a massive nanny-state that will choke innovation, intelligence and spirit out of the population.

Look, if your 70 and get cancer, is the federal government going to agree to put you on the latest experimental drugs that cost say 100K?

I think they will do everything they can to buy voters.

I'm a big believer in people being able to take care of themselves. If they choose to live a life where they pay for expensive insurance, why shouldn't they get the service they purchased when they need it. Likewise, if a person chooses to not buy insurance (or good insurance)...

I do think folks should take care of themselves and live by the choices they make. Not all people have equal access to the same choices however.

PS if you really want to cut medical costs, one quick fix stop taking care of anyone with a serious criminal record that comes into the hospital stabbed, gunshot, high or what have you ...

That would be unethical and immoral. How would the hospital know they were dealing with a serious criminal? I thought we wanted big government staying out of our lives and not collecting information on us and using it to control the population?

JCBoney · Post by **JCBoney** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 8:11 am

In a sense, I think it's a good thing in that it will... at least appear... to cut down on duplication and unwanted visits to specialists. Example: my father, who's elderly, just got out from under a doctor who ran a series of expensive tests on him to find out what his problem is. He also wanted to send my father to a battery of specialists. Now my Dad's not big on that sort of thing, but he was rather stuck since his shaking was making life unbearable.

We switched doctors on a family member's recommendation. The new doctor ran a few tests and diagnosed it as essential tremors. Gave him a prescription that costs... get this... $6.01 a month... and the medicine took effect the next day. Big improvement in his function.

The difference between the two? The first doctor was a peon drumming up business and buddies with the specialists in Pine Bluff. The second is a busy man, an older man, who's chief surgeon at the local hospital and doesn't have time to screw around. Now what if he had wanted to run all the same tests again. Sure, Medicare pays for it, but... it would be so unnecessary.

So, in a way, a good database is a good thing. My contention is this concept of "cost effectiveness." Who gets to determine this? What happens if this concept applies to... say... nursing home care... with those deemed cost non-effective get the hot shot to save money?

In the end, I think it's not smart to trust an entity on the verge of financial collapse... coupled with the firepower to take the money it needs... to be determining what's "cost effective." Maybe I'm being a little nebulous here, but something bad's on the wind.

Post by **Philotomy Jurament** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 8:34 am

Semaj Khan wrote:In the end, I think it's not smart to trust an entity on the verge of financial collapse... coupled with the firepower to take the money it needs... to be determining what's "cost effective." Maybe I'm being a little nebulous here, but something bad's on the wind.

While it's certainly true that the government has a sort of monopoly or "last say" on violence, they don't even need to use it, in this case. They don't have to violently *take* our money -- not even through direct taxation. They can simply create more money (debasing the currency), which both causes higher prices and acts as a "hidden tax" against future earnings and taxpayer revenue.

The worst part is that the effects of creating new money (i.e. inflating the money supply) aren't immediately apparent. The spending power of the dollar doesn't drop instantly, it takes some time for prices in the economy to adjust to the new amount of currency (i.e. for prices to rise). That means that whoever spends the new dollars first reaps great benefits from it, but as the new money trickles down through the economy, it has less and less value. And, of course, it's the government, government contractors, and similarly connected business that typically receive and benefit from the new money before its value falls away. The average worker and the poorer segments of our economy just get hit with higher prices, since the value of their savings and earnings is being sucked away.

These bailout bills are nothing more than a huge, hidden tax that leaches value from every dollar you currently own, and also future dollars yet to be earned. And not only that, but the new money that is being allocated is being used to subsidize economic failure.

Geoffrey · Post by **Geoffrey** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 8:44 am

That's right. Inflation is even worse than taxation. At least you can try to hide your money from the tax-man. But that cash under your mattress gets hit by inflation no matter what you do.

northrundicandus · Post by **northrundicandus** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 9:20 am

That's why Gary gave XPs for gold!

Stonegiant · Post by **Stonegiant** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 9:23 am

Axe- Do you really think that the insurance companies aren't doing already the things you accuse a govt. run healthcare of doing? They ration, approve drugs that they get kickbacks from the drug companies for, etc. The failure you are envisionig is already here. It is the health insurance companies of America, they will deny coverage, deny medicine, etc. all based on the views of accountants, CEOs, salespeople, etc. The nightmare is here already except it came in with the private sector. Look at the number of doctors who are prescribing medicines based on which drug company rep has been visiting.

jgbrowning · Post by **jgbrowning** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 10:26 am

Stonegiant wrote:The nightmare is here

Yep. The accountants at the nursing homes my mother worked at always considered how long can they could keep someone in a dirty diaper before they run the risk of a lawsuit. They figured that if they could pull off another hour per diaper change, multiplied by the 100 or so residents, multiplied daily, they could save roughly 2% or so in their diaper costs per year. All it would take would be to ignore the resident's health and care with "reasonable" delay issues.

joe b.

AxeMental · Post by **AxeMental** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 10:53 am

Joe B isn't it just as unethical to socialize medicine (which we all know means rationing) limiting treatment to people who payed into the system their entire lives, all because this violent population drove up medical costs for everyone (not to mention the fact were just giving them the future chance to kill, rape, sell drugs and rob from us in the future, aren't the victims of these future crimes also due ethical considiration). How do you think it feels when a women who is brutally raped discovers the govt. spent 100K saving his life a few years earlier after he got shot by a cop raping some other woman. I've read reports about this sort of thing.

Statistics tell us 1/3 of women will be raped or sexually assaulted in their lives, God knows how many of us are mugged etc. yet you'd have us spend huge somes of money to save these same criminals from a gunshot wounds? Honestly, I don't understand your ethics, they run contrary to mine. Keeping garbage, dangerous people alive is't ethical, its causing grief to thier future victims statistics tells us they will have. Does anyone even know the total cost on our society keeping known violent criminals around (never mind the emotional trauma).

Give that class of violent criminal a special "ethical" level of treatment (not to cost say more then 5K) and use their bodies for science. Joe, please read this
The bottom line is this: it would be nice to give every criminal the best of care and wonderful prisons to live in, but as a society we just can't afford it. There's like 5 million criminals in the system at a time, how many does that equate to walking around that have already been in the slammer. Probably alot more then 5 million.

Q: "So, in a way, a good database is a good thing. My contention is this concept of "cost effectiveness."

This is my impression too. The data base is something that would save lives as well (say your out of town and get in a car accident. Your unconscious so you can't tell the emergency personal your alergic to x medications, you can imagine the rest).

That said, its obviously being used as a way to keep tabs on doctors and a way to cut costs "by unifiying treatment". Wow that will advance the medical sciences! The thing you want is doctors trying different things to discover new treatments that actually work for their patients.

Sean, lets pass laws to help the medical industry lower costs and fix the insurance system (and it is fixable), not use it as an excuse to socialize the entire medical industry. Thats what the democrats seem to like to do, create problems and then use those problems as a way to grow government and advance socialism.

Stonegiant · Post by **Stonegiant** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 11:31 am

Should the rich get better police coverage? should they have better fire depts.? Better ambulance service? People than wonder why more and more there is movement towards a class war. I honestly don't think the insurance system can be fixed, there is to much money involved to keep it the way it is, this is the problem of the whole medical system in the USA, to much money wanting it to stay the way it is.

JDJarvis · Post by **JDJarvis** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 11:40 am

AxeMental wrote: Statistics tell us 1/3 of women will be raped or sexually assaulted in their lives, yet you'd have us spend huge somes of money to save rapists from a gunshot wound? And I don't even know how many of us good citizens get robbed or their houses broken into, usually to feed the hungry druggy's appitite. Keeping garbage, dangerous people alive is ethical?

In most cases of sexual assault the assaulter is known to the victim it isn't a career rapist waiting in the bushes to pounce on passing unaccompanied women.

Once the government gets to decide to not provide medical care to "garbage people" what keeps them from defining various kinds of people as "garbage people"?

We either have big brother watching over us or we don't.

AxeMental · Post by **AxeMental** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 11:50 am

JD I wouldn't think it wise (or ethical) to give exceptional medical care to any repeat rapist (even if they ended up being some respected professional). I've read many commit 100s of rapes before they are caught. Not only should our society not give them expensive medical treatment, we really should be executing them. I've known over a dozen girls over the years that have told me they'd been raped or sexually assualted. Several of them actually attempted suicide over it they got so messed up. All of them are still recovering from the ordeal, never able to live normal lives again. What the hell is wrong with you liberals.
If we could cetch every rapist and lock them up forever without the chance of them escaping and afford it that would be wonderful. But we can't (our society can't afford it), and the statistics say they will commit the next rape within a year of getting out of the slammer.

Sean, the rich already get that better treatment. Most rich people don't live in high crime areas right? Anyhow I don't advocate unequal treatment of government services for people who are honest (rich or poor) only repeat violent criminals or drug dealers.

As far as the insurance industry being fixed (along with lowering the costs of medical treatments and drug development) how do we know if its possible. As far as I know congress has never seriously brought it up (and they are the ones that would need to).

JDJarvis · Post by **JDJarvis** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 12:01 pm

AxeMental wrote:... and its not a game.

No it's not a game. I know damn well what you are talking about, not only have friends and loved ones been raped but I've been sexually assaulted. I just have the sense not to leave it up to a petty bureaucrat to determine who can live or die. Isn't that why you are talking about public health care rationing?