Showing posts with label Healthcare. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Healthcare. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 09, 2009

The Obamacare Poster Contest


These are my favorites from Michelle Malkin's website.





And here's my entry:

Check 'em all out.

Update: Best quote among Michelle's comments: "Freddie Mac, bankrupt. Fannie Mae, bankrupt. Social inSecurity, bankrupt. Medicare, bankrupt. Medicaide, bankrupt. Postal Service, bankrupt.

And some idiots STILL think the government can run healthcare!"

Indeed - although they prefer the term "Democrats".

The '47 Million' Lie [Mister R.]


Mister R.'s latest dispatch on health care:

One of the most disingenuous uses of statistics has come with the use of the figure "47 million" when referring to the number of people without health insurance.

By continuing to pound the number "47 million", advocates of a single-payer system are implementing Alinsky's rules in order to affect change. But their number is specious.

Let's break down the 47 million:

During her campaign for President, Hillary Clinton admitted in questioning that, of the 47 million, at least 25 percent could afford health insurance but choose not to purchase it (those with a household income of more than $75,000 a year). I believe the number to be slightly higher, closer to 30 percent, but let's use Clinton's number. That's 12 million.

Let's count illegal aliens. Believe it or not, illlegals are counted in this number, however, statistical models vary and have ranged from 5 to 12 million. Let's take the middle. 8 million.

Then there are those who are already eligible for government programs but not participating. That number is estimated at 12 to 16 million. Let's take 12 million.

Another group of people are those who self-fund. These are people with the financial resources to handle high medical claims. That number is estimated at 1 to 2 million. We'll take one for arguments sake.

Then there are those who are between jobs. When people are fired or leave a job, they can opt for COBRA (an extension of their health benefits under the Consolidated Omnibus Reconciliation Act, I believe 1996). When electing COBRA coverage, the premium is covered by the member. When someone is between jobs, or have obtained a job and have to wait 90 days for coverage, the government counts you as not having health insurance. That number is estimated at 5 million.

These are not exact figures, and may vary, but they are pretty widely accepted.

Add the numbers up and you get 38 million. That leaves 9 million without coverage (although they really do have coverage since the federal government, along with the states, administer medicaid and charity care).

So the real number of uninsured is 8-10 million. There are 300 million Americans.

So we want to break the system because 1 out of 30 people cannot afford coverage. That's absurd.

One last point: When politicians control your health care, they will politicize it, and use it to get elected. More on that later.

However, Obama has shown all Americans that he has already politicized the process. When he called all the health care providers and carriers together to promise savings in the system, he exempted lawyers. They were never called to the table. Tort reform is directly tied to the reduction of costs in the system (consider, for example, how Texas instituted Tort Reform).

Obama railed against "special interests" in his campaign, but has shown he will protect entire special interest classes. Like the UAW and ACORN. In this case, trial lawyers also happen to be among the largest donors to Democrats.

More to come.


Related: Mister R. on Heath Care Insurance.

Sunday, June 07, 2009

Industry Insider on Obamacare: the Questions We Must Ask! [Mister R.]


On April 2nd of this year, The New York Times published a scathing indictment of Medicare. The article -- "Doctors Are Opting Out of Medicare" -- described some astonishing statistics related to the program, which -- despite its poor reimbursement rate -- is $30 trillion in the red.

...Many people, just as they become eligible for Medicare, discover that the insurance rug has been pulled out from under them. Some doctors — often internists but also gastroenterologists, gynecologists, psychiatrists and other specialists — are no longer accepting Medicare, either because they have opted out of the insurance system or they are not accepting new patients with Medicare coverage. The doctors’ reasons: reimbursement rates are too low and paperwork too much of a hassle.

...The solution to this problem is to find doctors who accept Medicare insurance — and to do it well before reaching age 65. But that is not always easy, especially if you are looking for an internist, a primary care doctor who deals with adults. Of the 93 internists affiliated with New York-Presbyterian Hospital, for example, only 37 accept Medicare...

Mister R., a medical industry insider with a background in health insurance programs, offers the following observations and questions.

I believe that Republicans in Congress must ask these questions of the Democrats who would foist a disastrous socialized medical system on an unsuspecting public. Heaven knows, the mainstream media won't do it.

The government runs two programs now: Medicare and Medicaid. As you can see, doctors are opting out of Medicare because the reimbursement is too low and the paperwork tedious.

Reimbursements will be a huge issue under the government program, and this is why insurance companies are complaining about Obama's plan for a government alternative.

Here is how it works: Insurance companies either have their own network or lease networks of health care providers. Within those networks, reimbursement fees are negotiated. In an HMO, patient discounts are greatest, but the network is limited, so the provider is counting on volume. In a POS, the network is still the gatekeeper, but can refer outside the network and the insurance company will cover the cost. The discounts are not as great as the HMO. In a PPO, the discounts are not great because the patient can choose any doctor, which is why if you opt for a PPO, it costs more.

Let's say a certain doctor performs procedure "A'. Although the Doctor may charge $175 for the procedure, he agrees to accept $100 as payment under the contractual agreement.

In Medicare and Medicaid, there is no negotiated fee. The government determines the rate of reimbursement. In this case, the government gives the Doctor $40 for procedure "A". The Doctor complains that doesn't cover his cost, but not only must the Doctor accept the $40, he must also treat the patient. There is no choice. So the Doctor then opts out instead of losing money treating government patients.

Now, the big question: Under Obama's plan, who determines reimbursement?

If it's the government, then no matter what private insurers to, they will go out of business. They will never be able to compete when they negotiate the reimbursement and pay more than twice the government is paying. Everyone will migrate to the government plan.

Let's take it a step further. Let's say everyone does migrate to the government plan. If Doctors unionize, they can hold the entire health care sector hostage. And the first thing they'll do is complain about the level of reimbursement. Reagan was able to fire the air traffic controllers because there were other air traffic controllers available. I don't think that's the case with Doctors.

In short:

• Will reimbursement be negotiated or will the government set a flat rate.

• If it's negotiated, who manages the network?

• Who adjudicates the claims?

• what is the process to determine fraud in the system?

Another huge issue:

• Does the government exempt itself from HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act)?

If the government runs the program, then it is self-insured, which means it is a claims adjudicator and not entitled to any medical information. Confused? The government health program would be run from revenue received from the people participating in the program. That is a classic self-funded program. Third party administrators are not entitled to any medical records under a self-insured program.

Please forward these questions to your representatives in Washington.

It's high time we put a stop to the Statist agenda.


Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Unhealthy Imagination


In 2003, shortly after the invasion of Iraq, the federal government awarded Halliburton Corporation contracts worth $100 billion over ten years.

The awards -- for rebuilding Iraq and Afghanistan -- were "no-bid" contracts, meaning Halliburton had no competition for the work.

The resulting media outcry culminated in a firestorm of criticism. Over a period of 24 months, special prosecutors, lawsuits, investigations and impeachments terminated the relationship between the federal government and Halliburton.

My mistake. It wasn't Halliburton and it wasn't 2003. It's right now.

GE Capital -- a unit of General Electric -- received approximately $140 billion in taxpayer funds last year as part of the initial financial bailout.

Yet six billion in GE funds (or are they taxpayer funds?) are headed to a new firm called Healthymagination.


Healthymagination's advisers include Tom Daschle, Barack Obama's initial nominee for secretary of Health and Human Services.


Daschle's plans for nationalizing health care are spelled out in his book Critical.


The book outlines Daschle's plans to establish a "Federal Health Board" that would control every aspect of medical care in America. Its stated goal: destroy the private health care system and replace it with a top-down, authoritarian Politburo with life and death decision-making power.

At a recent conference, GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt claimed that America's economic crisis was not simply an economic crisis. It was instead a "reset", where companies that intersect with government will "prosper... and people who don't understand that will get left behind."

Immelt, a member of Mr. Obama's economic recovery advisory board, went on to say that, "The intersection of government and business will be changed, maybe for a generation." Put simply, Marxism is on the way and GE is positioning itself to profit.

The business case behind Healthymagination hinges on nationalization of the health care industry. Computerization of health care records is not only a vaunted component of the Obama stimulus package, it is also a $75 to $100 billion business over the next ten years.

Fortunately, Healthymagination just happens to be building a health care record management system.


And with Obama's buddy Tom Daschle in tow, Healthymagination is certain to get some nice fat contracts out of the deal.

Oh, and did I mention NBC? It's involved, too. Health Imaging reports that the GE-owned media conglomerate -- something out of the movie Rollerball -- will do its part.

• NBC Universal and NBC News will air more than 5,000 televised reports annually on health and wellness.

• MSNBC will launch a new, daily program dedicated solely to health information... in addition to medical issues it will also examine health policy.

Put simply, the media will broadcast the propaganda; government will enact policy "by popular demand"; and the chosen corporation will profit at taxpayer expense.

As Andrew Wilkow observes, "Healthymagination states its target dates for the completion of its various initiatives as 2015, well into a second Obama term. This means GE will have a deep financial interest in Mr. Obama's re-election; a fact that will no doubt be reflected in its media divisions. It will certainly be interesting to see if the left-wing watchdogs howl, or if they will conclude this is an acceptable level of collusion between the White House and a multinational conglomerate."

Not to mention the mainstream media. Prepare to be absorbed.



Linked by: Instapundit. Thanks!

Thursday, April 30, 2009

Obama: Euthanasia of the elderly may be necessary


Gee, socialized medicine sounds great -- don't you think so, grandma and grandpa?

THE PRESIDENT: ...I actually think that the tougher issue around medical care — it’s a related one — is what you do around things like end-of-life care —

Yes, where it’s $20,000 for an extra week of life.

THE PRESIDENT: Exactly. And I just recently went through this. I mean, I’ve told this story, maybe not publicly, but when my grandmother got very ill during the campaign, she got cancer; it was determined to be terminal. And about two or three weeks after her diagnosis she fell, broke her hip. It was determined that she might have had a mild stroke, which is what had precipitated the fall.

So now she’s in the hospital, and the doctor says, Look, you’ve got about — maybe you have three months, maybe you have six months, maybe you have nine months to live. Because of the weakness of your heart, if you have an operation on your hip there are certain risks that — you know, your heart can’t take it. On the other hand, if you just sit there with your hip like this, you’re just going to waste away and your quality of life will be terrible.

And she elected to get the hip replacement and was fine for about two weeks after the hip replacement, and then suddenly just — you know, things fell apart.

I don’t know how much that hip replacement cost. I would have paid out of pocket for that hip replacement just because she’s my grandmother. Whether, sort of in the aggregate, society making those decisions to give my grandmother, or everybody else’s aging grandparents or parents, a hip replacement when they’re terminally ill is a sustainable model, is a very difficult question. If somebody told me that my grandmother couldn’t have a hip replacement and she had to lie there in misery in the waning days of her life — that would be pretty upsetting.

And it’s going to be hard for people who don’t have the option of paying for it.

THE PRESIDENT: So that’s where I think you just get into some very difficult moral issues. But that’s also a huge driver of cost, right?

I mean, the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill out here.

So how do you — how do we deal with it?

THE PRESIDENT: ...you have to have some independent group that can give you guidance. It’s not determinative, but I think has to be able to give you some guidance. And that’s part of what I suspect you’ll see emerging out of the various health care conversations that are taking place on the Hill right now.

In other words, faceless bureaucrats in Washington -- not your family -- will decide whether your grandparents live or die.

While our health care system is certainly imperfect -- because all humans are imperfect, including doctors, nurses, hospitals and insurance companies -- they are more perfect, more competent, more informed, more capable than all of the bureaucrats to whom they'll be forced to report: a bureaucracy that will make all decisions about your health care.

Obama and the Statist Democrats promise health care for everyone, but they will not -- and they can't possibly -- deliver it.

And we know this, because this is what occurs in Canada and Britain and other centralized bureaucracies, where you simply can not have access to advanced health care, period.

And where will Barack Obama be in ten years, when the rest of us are struggling with a massive, out-of-control, federalized medical system that doesn't give a damn about individuals and is busy rationing care, denying care to the elderly?

He will be retired as a very young man; a very wealthy young man, who will have imposed his Marxist ideology upon this society and then walked away from it.

Because the politicians don't last. But their policies live forever.

So much power for a faceless set of bureaucrats who can't possibly have the best interests of your family in mind. And yet they're going to take those decisions away from you and your doctor. And they've been lying every day to justify what they're doing.

They've been lying about the number of people without health care. They've been lying about whether the public is satisfied with health care. They've been lying about every aspect of health care.

They unleashed the slip-and-fall lawyers on the medical system, causing untold higher costs for medical practitioners. They've attacked the health care system relentlessly, driving up costs just like they've attacked the energy industry and the automakers.

And even when they have complete monopolistic control of a system, like the educational system in America, they want more control. It's never enough. They want more money, more regulations. More. They need to "invest". They need to raise taxes. They need to repress. They need to compel.

Because the Statist cannot make the imperfect perfect, even though he says he can. The Statist is more imperfect than anyone else.

I ask you to consider something: what kind of people can Obama and the Democrat leadership be, to think they can do these things when history tells them they can not?

The answer is simple. They are power-hungry Statists.


Hat tips: The New Bankrupt Times and SavannahWinslow.

Monday, April 27, 2009

New government entitlement program addresses universal health care and immigration


Cub Reporter Biff Spackle secured a draft of the speech President Obama will deliver on Wednesday...

I'm Barack Obama and thank you for watching my forty-second prime time broadcast over the course of my young administration. Tonight I'll be discussing two issues important to all Americans: Universal Health Care and immigration.

I'll be frank: when we say that 47 million Americans don't have health care, we're including a sizable chunk of undocumented immigrants -- you may know them by the term "illegal aliens".

Ever since the era of Lyndon Baines Johnson, we Democrats have promoted open borders, amnesty for illegals, chain migration and a path to citizenship for anyone who enters the country.

And the Reds beat the Braves, 9-3 behind a complete game from -- dammit, Rahm, my teleprompter is picking up ESPN again!

Uh, ehm, with Mexico's government crumbling under the twin weights of a global economic meltdown and brutal drug cartels, the President of Mexico -- Vicente Fox -- and I have come up with a simple, but effective, plan.

It combines universal health care, an open border with Mexico and a "superhighway to citizenship" for anyone entering the country.

Because of this policy, there will be no need for politically incorrect designations like "illegal aliens", because anyone entering the country can automatically become a citizen of the United States and Mexico.

So instead of the loaded term "illegal aliens", we'll simply call them "Democrats".

Chew on that, Karl Rove!

Best of all, everyone in the United States and Mexico will get the same free, high quality health care. Partying in Cancun and catch the Swine Flu? No problemo, mi amigo!

Visiting your relatives in San Antonio and sprain your ankle? Simply walk into any convenient Social Security Office or Bureau of Motor Vehicles location, take a number, and enjoy the free Muzak and complimentary General Motors Magazines while you wait.

We call this tremendous new program: Mexicare.

Mexicare combines all of the benefits of open borders with a multi-country health care system second to none.

Now to pay for this, I am sorry to report that the massive tax cut for 95% of Americans that we recently implemented will have to be dismantled. Along with that, we will be making a few, minor changes to the tax code. So minor, in fact, you will hardly notice them.

* Under the new tax code, your refund check goes directly to ACORN.

* For a vacation to Mexico to count as a business trip, you must return with 100 or more pounds of government-grade marijuana.

* Attorney General Eric Holder gets to write off the entire United States Constitution.

* I can claim my teleprompter as a dependent.

* Finally, all registered Democrats will get a deduction for mortgaging our entire future.

I'm sure you have a lot of questions about this tremendous new program. So we've set up a website to explain your benefits at mexicare.gov and, in español, mexicare.mx. Happily, both sites accept donations for my 2012 campaign.

We'll soon be enjoying the same wonderful care that our veterans receive at the VA thanks to the leadership of Congress. I'd like to personally thank Nancy Pelos, Harry Reid, Christopher Dodd, Barney Frank, Charlie Rangel and Diane Feinstein who rammed this through using an arcane procedural loophole without debate, transparency or discussion!

Best of all, Mexicare will have the same firm economic foundation enjoyed by Medicare and Medicaid!

So bless you my friends, and may the Lord keep you safe from harm. You'll need it.