06-29-2009, 05:46 PM
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#41
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Diamond Member
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Texas
Posts: 6,014
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dude1394
Quoted for posterity. That is exactly what it will turn out to be, no matter what is being spun.
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it is easy to see who is doing the spin, and it's not those who are working on the legislation. they are dealing in facts, unlike those who want to scare people with the "socialized healthcare" boogeyman.
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08-08-2009, 02:53 AM
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#42
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Guru
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 40,410
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Not too shabby...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...080602933.html
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In 1986, Ronald Reagan and Bill Bradley created a legislative miracle. They fashioned a tax reform that stripped loopholes, political favors, payoffs, patronage and other corruptions out of the tax system. With the resulting savings, they lowered tax rates across the board. Those reductions, combined with the elimination of the enormous inefficiencies and perverse incentives that go into tax sheltering, helped propel a 20-year economic boom.
In overhauling any segment of our economy, the 1986 tax reform should be the model. Yet today's ruling Democrats propose to fix our extremely high-quality (but inefficient and therefore expensive) health-care system with 1,000 pages of additional curlicued complexity -- employer mandates, individual mandates, insurance company mandates, allocation formulas, political payoffs and myriad other conjured regulations and interventions -- with the promise that this massive concoction will lower costs.
This is all quite mad. It creates a Rube Goldberg system that simply multiplies the current inefficiencies and arbitrariness, thus producing staggering deficits with less choice and lower-quality care. That's why the administration can't sell Obamacare.
The administration's defense is to accuse critics of being for the status quo. Nonsense. Candidate John McCain and a host of other Republicans since have offered alternatives. Let me offer mine: Strip away current inefficiencies before remaking one-sixth of the U.S. economy. The plan is so simple it doesn't even have the requisite three parts. Just two: radical tort reform and radically severing the link between health insurance and employment.
(1) Tort reform: As I wrote recently, our crazy system of casino malpractice suits results in massive and random settlements that raise everyone's insurance premiums and creates an epidemic of defensive medicine that does no medical good, yet costs a fortune.
An authoritative Massachusetts Medical Society study found that five out of six doctors admitted they order tests, procedures and referrals -- amounting to about 25 percent of the total -- solely as protection from lawsuits. Defensive medicine, estimates the libertarian/conservative Pacific Research Institute, wastes more than $200 billion a year. Just half that sum could provide a $5,000 health insurance grant -- $20,000 for a family of four -- to the uninsured poor (U.S. citizens ineligible for other government health assistance).
What to do? Abolish the entire medical-malpractice system. Create a new social pool from which people injured in medical errors or accidents can draw. The adjudication would be done by medical experts, not lay juries giving away lottery prizes at the behest of the liquid-tongued John Edwardses who pocket a third of the proceeds.
The pool would be funded by a relatively small tax on all health-insurance premiums. Socialize the risk; cut out the trial lawyers. Would that immunize doctors from carelessness or negligence? No. The penalty would be losing your medical license. There is no more serious deterrent than forfeiting a decade of intensive medical training and the livelihood that comes with it.
(2) Real health-insurance reform: Tax employer-provided health-care benefits and return the money to the employee with a government check to buy his own medical insurance, just as he buys his own car or home insurance.
There is no logical reason to get health insurance through your employer. This entire system is an accident of World War II wage and price controls. It's economically senseless. It makes people stay in jobs they hate, decreasing labor mobility and therefore overall productivity. And it needlessly increases the anxiety of losing your job by raising the additional specter of going bankrupt through illness.
The health-care benefit exemption is the largest tax break in the entire U.S. budget, costing the government a quarter-trillion dollars annually. It hinders health-insurance security and portability as well as personal independence. If we additionally eliminated the prohibition on buying personal health insurance across state lines, that would inject new and powerful competition that would lower costs for everyone.
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08-09-2009, 05:05 PM
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#43
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Diamond Member
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Texas
Posts: 6,014
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noonan is always an interesting and intelligent read. not that I always agree, but I always enjoy.
I disagree with her on one major point, the people who are attending these town hall meetings and becoming very agitated are in 2 camps: the first being the right wing who wish for the free market to dispense health care (and could care less if someone didn't get any), and the second is composed of people who have been victim of the campaign to convince the public that the health care plan is something that it isn't (see the claims of "socialized medicine" and mandating a single payer format, both of which are false).
yet I agree with her conclusion. obama would do well to come out and say let's stop for now, let's work to get a better consensus on how to go forward, clearly the public isn't comfortable for whatever reason and we'll wait until they are.
he could then use the time to bring the public into the tent and they will not be so easily fooled by the campaign of disinformation being waged.
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‘You Are Terrifying Us’
Voters send a message to Washington, and get an ugly response.
By PEGGY NOONAN
We have entered uncharted territory in the fight over national health care. There’s a new tone in the debate, and it’s ugly. At the moment the Democrats are looking like something they haven’t looked like in years, and that is: desperate.
They must know at this point they should not have pushed a national health-care plan. A Democratic operative the other day called it “Hillary’s revenge.” When Mrs. Clinton started losing to Barack Obama in the primaries 18 months ago, she began to give new and sharper emphasis to her health-care plan. Mr. Obama responded by talking about his health-care vision. He won. Now he would push what he had been forced to highlight: Health care would be a priority initiative. The net result is falling support for his leadership on the issue, falling personal polls, and the angry town-hall meetings that have electrified YouTube.
In his first five months in office, Mr. Obama had racked up big wins—the stimulus, children’s health insurance, House approval of cap-and-trade. But he stayed too long at the hot table. All the Democrats in Washington did. They overinterpreted the meaning of the 2008 election, and didn’t fully take into account how the great recession changed the national mood and atmosphere.
And so the shock on the faces of Congressmen who’ve faced the grillings back home. And really, their shock is the first thing you see in the videos. They had no idea how people were feeling. Their 2008 win left them thinking an election that had been shaped by anti-Bush, anti-Republican, and pro-change feeling was really a mandate without context; they thought that in the middle of a historic recession featuring horrific deficits, they could assume support for the invention of a huge new entitlement carrying huge new costs.
The passions of the protesters, on the other hand, are not a surprise. They hired a man to represent them in Washington. They give him a big office, a huge staff and the power to tell people what to do. They give him a car and a driver, sometimes a security detail, and a special pin showing he’s a congressman. And all they ask in return is that he see to their interests and not terrify them too much. Really, that’s all people ask. Expectations are very low. What the protesters are saying is, “You are terrifying us.”
What has been most unsettling is not the congressmen’s surprise but a hard new tone that emerged this week. The leftosphere and the liberal commentariat charged that the town hall meetings weren’t authentic, the crowds were ginned up by insurance companies, lobbyists and the Republican National Committee. But you can’t get people to leave their homes and go to a meeting with a congressman (of all people) unless they are engaged to the point of passion. And what tends to agitate people most is the idea of loss—loss of money hard earned, loss of autonomy, loss of the few things that work in a great sweeping away of those that don’t.
People are not automatons. They show up only if they care.
What the town-hall meetings represent is a feeling of rebellion, an uprising against change they do not believe in. And the Democratic response has been stunningly crude and aggressive. It has been to attack. Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the United States House of Representatives, accused the people at the meetings of “carrying swastikas and symbols like that.” (Apparently one protester held a hand-lettered sign with a “no” slash over a swastika.) But they are not Nazis, they’re Americans. Some of them looked like they’d actually spent some time fighting Nazis.
Then came the Democratic Party charge that the people at the meetings were suspiciously well-dressed, in jackets and ties from Brooks Brothers. They must be Republican rent-a-mobs. Sen. Barbara Boxer said on MSNBC’s “Hardball” that people are “storming these town hall meetings,” that they were “well dressed,” that “this is all organized,” “all planned,” to “hurt our president.” Here she was projecting. For normal people, it’s not all about Barack Obama.
The Democratic National Committee chimed in with an incendiary Web video whose script reads, “The right wing extremist Republican base is back.” DNC communications director Brad Woodhouse issued a statement that said the Republicans “are inciting angry mobs of . . . right wing extremists” who are “not reflective of where the American people are.”
But most damagingly to political civility, and even our political tradition, was the new White House email address to which citizens are asked to report instances of “disinformation” in the health-care debate: If you receive an email or see something on the Web about health-care reform that seems “fishy,” you can send it to flag@whitehouse.gov. The White House said it was merely trying to fight “intentionally misleading” information.
Sen. John Cornyn of Texas on Wednesday wrote to the president saying he feared that citizens’ engagement could be “chilled” by the effort. He’s right, it could. He also accused the White House of compiling an “enemies list.” If so, they’re being awfully public about it, but as Byron York at the Washington Examiner pointed, the emails collected could become a “dissident database.”
All of this is unnecessarily and unhelpfully divisive and provocative. They are mocking and menacing concerned citizens. This only makes a hot situation hotter. Is this what the president wants? It couldn’t be. But then in an odd way he sometimes seems not to have fully absorbed the awesome stature of his office. You really, if you’re president, can’t call an individual American stupid, if for no other reason than that you’re too big. You cannot allow your allies to call people protesting a health-care plan “extremists” and “right wing,” or bought, or Nazi-like, either. They’re citizens. They’re concerned. They deserve respect.
The Democrats should not be attacking, they should be attempting to persuade, to argue for their case. After all, they have the big mic. Which is what the presidency is, the big mic.
And frankly they ought to think about backing off. The president should call in his troops and his Congress and announce a rethinking. There are too many different bills, they’re all a thousand pages long, no one has time to read them, no one knows what’s going to be in the final one, the public is agitated, the nation’s in crisis, the timing is wrong, we’ll turn to it again—but not now. We’ll take a little longer, ponder every aspect, and make clear every complication.
You know what would happen if he did this? His numbers would go up. Even Congress’s would. Because they’d look responsive, deliberative and even wise. Discretion is the better part of valor.
Absent that, and let’s assume that won’t happen, the health-care protesters have to make sure they don’t get too hot, or get out of hand. They haven’t so far, they’ve been burly and full of debate, with plenty of booing. This is democracy’s great barbaric yawp. But every day the meetings seem just a little angrier, and people who are afraid—who have been made afraid, and left to be afraid—can get swept up. As this column is written, there comes word that John Sweeney of the AFL-CIO has announced he’ll be sending in union members to the meetings to counter health care’s critics.
Somehow that doesn’t sound like a peace initiative.
It’s going to be a long August, isn’t it? Let’s hope the uncharted territory we’re in doesn’t turn dark.
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08-11-2009, 03:02 PM
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#44
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Diamond Member
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Deutschland
Posts: 7,885
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Why are the US going wild, just because BO wants to start "universal healthcare" ( which i don´t think he can manage )
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08-11-2009, 03:40 PM
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#45
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Guru
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Denton, TX
Posts: 10,376
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GermanDunk
Why are the US going wild, just because BO wants to start "universal healthcare" ( which i don´t think he can manage )
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Uh... because we don't want it...
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08-11-2009, 05:32 PM
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#46
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Diamond Member
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Deutschland
Posts: 7,885
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Why. To be honest, i don´t know how to provide health care step by step for all 300. mn. guys. If you are able to write down the bills, it´OK, but if you aren´t...I mean. A guy who helps a farmer to get the corn in, can´t afford a private health insurance. And United states have enough money.
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08-11-2009, 06:33 PM
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#47
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Member
Join Date: Feb 2007
Posts: 317
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GermanDunk
Why are the US going wild, just because BO wants to start "universal healthcare" ( which i don´t think he can manage )
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Many of the conditions that make universal health care work in other countries just don't exist here. From the way we produce doctors, the infrastructures like government owned facilities, the billing and fee structure, the sheer size and population etc....
If you look at all our government programs they are full of waste and fraud. Many of us think if the effort was put into lowering costs the price could be made reasonable again. It isn't that the average person doesn't have access to care, it's that they can't afford it.
Once the process starts, it will make changes that will be damn near impossible to reverse. And the very real possibility that private insurers will just leave the market because they can't compete is very real, despite it not being in the initial legislation. Will private companies still offer it as a benefit if they don't have to? Over here the employers that offer it as a benefit pay part of the premium. It used to be a cheap benefit for both. As costs have increased it's become a severe burden for both.
Many companies are actually self insured and only use private insurers for administration. You are going to suck people out of the private sector. It's inevitable. Insurance works on the principle of spreading risk over many.
Subtract from the pool of customers.......
We already have Doctors who refuse to accept Medicare, the state run coverage for senior citizens, because it pays too little and takes 90 days or longer to be paid.
Simply covering everyone without a serious attempt to lower costs is stupid. It will discourage people to become Doctors at a time our population is going to have huge number of elderly.
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08-11-2009, 06:41 PM
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#48
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Platinum Member
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Midwest
Posts: 2,043
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Quote:
Originally Posted by aquaadverse
Many of the conditions that make universal health care work in other countries just don't exist here. From the way we produce doctors, the infrastructures like government owned facilities, the billing and fee structure, the sheer size and population etc....
If you look at all our government programs they are full of waste and fraud. Many of us think if the effort was put into lowering costs the price could be made reasonable again. It isn't that the average person doesn't have access to care, it's that they can't afford it.
Once the process starts, it will make changes that will be damn near impossible to reverse. And the very real possibility that private insurers will just leave the market because they can't compete is very real, despite it not being in the initial legislation. Will private companies still offer it as a benefit if they don't have to? Over here the employers that offer it as a benefit pay part of the premium. It used to be a cheap benefit for both. As costs have increased it's become a severe burden for both.
Many companies are actually self insured and only use private insurers for administration. You are going to suck people out of the private sector. It's inevitable. Insurance works on the principle of spreading risk over many.
Subtract from the pool of customers.......
We already have Doctors who refuse to accept Medicare, the state run coverage for senior citizens, because it pays too little and takes 90 days or longer to be paid.
Simply covering everyone without a serious attempt to lower costs is stupid. It will discourage people to become Doctors at a time our population is going to have huge number of elderly.
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And, doctors will retire...
I am not going to spend much time on this thread. I have spoken at great detail in the past about the problems and cures.
I am disappointed that Obama walked away from his campaign healthcare plan which was to expand the plan that the Congress and other Federal Employees have (the Federal Employee's Plan). Now, Congress has a document that exempts themselves from taking the 'public option'. The High and Mighty "Senators" and "Representatives" can keep their current plan while putting others on the crap plan...
Obama had a good idea. He has not even mentioned it since winning election.
Of course, he has abandoned most of his campaign platform so why am I surprised? Actually, truth is that I am not surprised in the least.
__________________
"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes...Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man." -Thomas Jefferson
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08-11-2009, 06:46 PM
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#49
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Platinum Member
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Midwest
Posts: 2,043
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Mavdog:
Quote:
noonan is always an interesting and intelligent read. not that I always agree, but I always enjoy.
I disagree with her on one major point, the people who are attending these town hall meetings and becoming very agitated are in 2 camps: the first being the right wing who wish for the free market to dispense health care (and could care less if someone didn't get any), and the second is composed of people who have been victim of the campaign to convince the public that the health care plan is something that it isn't (see the claims of "socialized medicine" and mandating a single payer format, both of which are false).
yet I agree with her conclusion. obama would do well to come out and say let's stop for now, let's work to get a better consensus on how to go forward, clearly the public isn't comfortable for whatever reason and we'll wait until they are.
he could then use the time to bring the public into the tent and they will not be so easily fooled by the campaign of disinformation being waged.
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I am pleased to jump into this thread in agreement with Mavdog. I am afraid such an act has been rare.
We should stop for now and discuss it in great detail.
I, however, think that doing so will guarantee that what the Democrat Party has currently produced will get shot down. I don't think that information and honest discussion will help Master Obama get what he wants.
I ask you to forgive my titling of the President. I feel that he has exceeded the constitution and the power of any past President. Thus, President is not an accurate title for him. As "Czar" has a bad connotation as does "Dear Mao Obama", I have resorted to Master Obama
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"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes...Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man." -Thomas Jefferson
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08-11-2009, 08:14 PM
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#50
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Member
Join Date: Feb 2007
Posts: 317
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Quote:
Originally Posted by wmbwinn
Mavdog:
I am pleased to jump into this thread in agreement with Mavdog. I am afraid such an act has been rare.
We should stop for now and discuss it in great detail.
I, however, think that doing so will guarantee that what the Democrat Party has currently produced will get shot down. I don't think that information and honest discussion will help Master Obama get what he wants.
I ask you to forgive my titling of the President. I feel that he has exceeded the constitution and the power of any past President. Thus, President is not an accurate title for him. As "Czar" has a bad connotation as does "Dear Mao Obama", I have resorted to Master Obama
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We had a system that worked. We have no program of funneling in large sums of tax money to multiple claimants in the name of a citizen that isn't inefficient and wasteful.
Social Security works as well as it does because it is pretty simple. You contributed x amount, you get x as a monthly benefit and you decide the dispensation. Medicare and Medicaid are horribly mismanaged. It isn't because of anything more than you have claims and payment done.
I really don't see why we don't do tort reform and remove the restriction for national, sales so 1,300 companies can compete. I can buy Geico no matter what state I live in. Why shouldn't the same hold true for health insurance?
I just don't see how setting up another program where civil servants are processing claims and the main motivation is tenure until we eliminate things that are easily done and monitored with minimum of expansion for government overhead.
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08-12-2009, 02:56 AM
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#51
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Guru
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 40,410
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Heh...Barry..you keep saying efficiency.. I'm not sure that word means what you think it does.
Quote:
At his orchestrated townhall event today, President Obama defended the notion that his government-run public health care plan wouldn’t crowd out private insurers by referencing the symbiotic relationship between UPS, Fedex and the Post Office. Bad timing Mr. President.
On Friday, the New York Times Business Section actually called for the privatization of the post office amid staggering losses, and even said it was in “General Motors territory.” So while the President sells you on his “post office” of health care plans, here are some questions to consider:
1.) The U.S. Post Office is the only entity allowed by federal law to deliver first class mail to your mailbox. In fact, Fedex and UPS are strictly prohibited from delivering “non-urgent” letters. If the government can fairly compete and is setting fair rules, wouldn’t the post office be open to competition at your mailbox?
2.) If Americans were offered “free” postage paid for by massive government spending and tax hikes, would Fedex and UPS still exist?
3.) The Post Office is on track to lose a staggering $7 billion this year alone. How will a government-run health care plan manage taxpayer resources more efficiently?
4.) Postmaster General John Potter says he lacks the “tools” necessary to run the Post Office effectively like a business. Would a government-run health care system have the tools it needs to run as effectively as the private sector entities it is replacing?
5.) On the one hand, the President remarks how great his public health care plan will be. On the other hand, he notes it won’t be good enough to crowd out your private insurance, i.e. the Post Office comparison. So which is it Mr. President? Will it be so great that private insurance disappears or so awful that it isn’t worth creating in the first place?
6.) But the most important question is this: if you have an urgent piece of mail you need delivered, life or death, who are you going to call? Everyone saying the government…please raise your hands. (crickets)
The most frightening line from Joe Nocera’s New York Times piece is this: “As for Mr. Potter himself, while he may want more freedom to run the Postal Service like a real business, he, too, seemed surprisingly wedded to outmoded ideas about mail service in America. ‘This country needs to have and to protect universal service,’ he said.”
Protecting universal service at the expense of cost, innovation, and quality of care. Sound familiar?
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08-12-2009, 11:06 AM
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#52
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Guru
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 40,410
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I believe this guy has pegged it. Heh....
http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/...80756985.shtml
Quote:
CLARKESVILLE - U.S. Rep. Paul Broun, R-Athens, walked into a North Georgia Technical College auditorium Tuesday evening to a standing ovation, holding three thick white binders.
"Folks, this is Obamacare," he said, holding the binders over his head.
"Let me start this by telling you what I think of this bill and (President) Obama," he said, and slammed the binders on the ground.
With that, Broun set the tone for a town hall meeting on health care reform. The Democrats' proposal is too expensive and will threaten millions of Georgians' jobs and lives, he said.
"This is a stinking, rotten fish, and they don't want you to smell it, and they want to shove it down your throat and make you eat it before you smell how rotten and stinky it is," he said.
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08-12-2009, 11:14 AM
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#53
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Platinum Member
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: TX
Posts: 2,505
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http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=33100
Dr. Ezekial Emanuel is a key health care advisor to President Obama and the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. Earlier this year, Dr. Emanuel wrote an article that advocated what he called “the complete lives system” as a method for rationing health care.
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08-12-2009, 12:00 PM
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#54
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Diamond Member
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Texas
Posts: 6,014
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 92bDad
Dr. Ezekial Emanuel is a key health care advisor to President Obama and the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. Earlier this year, Dr. Emanuel wrote an article that advocated what he called “the complete lives system” as a method for rationing health care.
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Dr. Ezeliel Emanuel works as an ethicist at the NIH. he is against physician assisted suicide, and the right has turned its aim on him in a very disappointing manner.
emanuel is a highly educated and honored physician.
the "complete lives system" is not a formula for "rationing health care", as it explains it is an ethical discourse on how to allocate finite resources in a consistent, moral and ethical manner. we allocate these resouces every day, and this will not stop with or without any changes to our health care system. to quote from the summation: [T]he complete lives system combines four morally relevant principles: youngest-first, prognosis, lottery, and saving the most lives. In pandemic situations, it also allocates scarce interventions to people instrumental in realising these four principles. Importantly, it is not an algorithm, but a framework that expresses widely affirmed values: priority to the worst-off, maximising benefits, and treating people equally. To achieve a just allocation of scarce medical interventions, society must embrace the challenge of implementing a coherent multiprinciple framework rather than relying on simple principles or retreating to the status quo. read it for yourself: http://www.ncpa.org/pdfs/PIISO140673609601379.pdf
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08-12-2009, 12:15 PM
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#55
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Diamond Member
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Texas
Posts: 6,014
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dude1394
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he's an extremist who makes outlandish comments.
At another point, Broun, who last year made national news by comparing Obama to Hitler, called Cuba's former dictator Fidel Castro and leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Obama's "good buddy."
He also spoke of a "socialistic elite" - Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid - who might use a pandemic disease or natural disaster as an excuse to declare martial law.
"They're trying to develop an environment where they can take over," he said. "We've seen that historically."
Many speakers in the senior-heavy audience honed in on a clause in the health care proposal that would require insurers to cover end-of-life counseling sessions to help healthy patients decide beforehand what types of treatments they want to keep them alive if they are about to die.
"(Obama) is going to let the old folks die, and I don't like that at all," Oconee County resident Gene Aycock said.
Young people who get sick would get preference over the elderly under the Democrats' plan, said Broun, a medical doctor who made house calls in the Athens area before taking office in 2007.
"Eventually, mama will be lying in bed until she gets pneumonia and dies," he said.
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08-12-2009, 12:32 PM
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#56
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Diamond Member
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Deutschland
Posts: 7,885
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Quote:
Originally Posted by aquaadverse
Simply covering everyone without a serious attempt to lower costs is stupid. It will discourage people to become Doctors at a time our population is going to have huge number of elderly.
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It´s not possible without cutting down the costs, but it´s worth thinking about it, due to health is the highest good we have and coverage for everyone lastly is christian.
But i think it can work out when it´s established step by step.
Germany sucks too on that issue. It´s still very good but it could be much cheaper. Switzerland does better with private coverage, but they are much smaller and enormously wealthy.
US is the largest country with healthcare and the bigger a state is the harder it is to spin a big wheel. That´s the prob.
I´d start with providing healthcare for children with tax money. Unfortulately germany can´t manage that.
But bringing a new player on Deck can reduce costs, but the corporations and bureaucrats need to feel the whip. That´s for sure.
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08-12-2009, 12:42 PM
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#57
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Guru
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 40,410
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mavdog
he's an extremist who makes outlandish comments. At another point, Broun, who last year made national news by comparing Obama to Hitler, called Cuba's former dictator Fidel Castro and leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Obama's "good buddy."
He also spoke of a "socialistic elite" - Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid - who might use a pandemic disease or natural disaster as an excuse to declare martial law.
"They're trying to develop an environment where they can take over," he said. "We've seen that historically."
Many speakers in the senior-heavy audience honed in on a clause in the health care proposal that would require insurers to cover end-of-life counseling sessions to help healthy patients decide beforehand what types of treatments they want to keep them alive if they are about to die.
"(Obama) is going to let the old folks die, and I don't like that at all," Oconee County resident Gene Aycock said.
Young people who get sick would get preference over the elderly under the Democrats' plan, said Broun, a medical doctor who made house calls in the Athens area before taking office in 2007.
"Eventually, mama will be lying in bed until she gets pneumonia and dies," he said.
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Ah shoot the messenger.
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08-12-2009, 01:01 PM
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#58
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Diamond Member
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Basketball fan nirvana
Posts: 5,625
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thinking about protests and obamunism and health care 'reform' and such....
First, the whole thing is kinda whack. Remember the comment from a rove-esque bush staffer, something to the effect of "you guys live in the reality based community where you try understand reality as it is and react accordingly. we live in the faith based community where we imagine the world we'd like to construct and operate accordingly."??? That was the gist of it anyway....
Well...I think Obamanation has abandoned both the reality based and faith based communities for the fairy tale community, one where hoping for something combined with magic beans and fairy dust makes all of one's childish dreams come true. The fed gov is fighting two hot wars, running a world-wide empire, attempting to control the climate, doling trillions over to wall street, running budget deficits in the gazillions and printing money like it's made of....well....paper.
...and Obamanation is talking a nationalization of 15% of the economy? Biting off more than you can chew doesn't adequately capture the ambition here......it's like they're trying to fit 50 pounds of shite in a 5 pound bag. The whole shebang is just whack....
So, 2nd....I think a lot of the noisy protest is as much as about a government that has become or is fast becoming unhinged as it is any particular socialist scheme. The Obamunists are like a couple on the verge of bankruptcy, charging everything they can on their credit cards because they know they'll never repay the bills no matter how big the bills get. Folks are sensing this and getting real uneasy.
3rdly....shouting, screaming, taunting, scheming, metaphorically tarring and feathering the unhinged stewards of the federal government is an entirely sensible response. Debate is something you do with folks who are reasonable and at least somewhat connected to reality.
4th..i forgot what the 4th thing was....edit, now I remember. Statists in both parties seem almost constitutionally incapable of imagining that citizens are capable of independent action nor can they imagine any kind of organizational structure other than top-down, pyramid type hierarchy. This isn't a strictly right-left, dem versus rep thing happening here, the statists in control right now just can't imagine that anyone other than the socialist party of the right can mount such a coordinate opposition.
5th....yeah, there was a 5th thing but it kind of elludes me right now.....oh yeah, the obamucare shouters are, I think, as misguided as the tea-partiers. as one fellow put it, "keep government out of my medicare". I dont' think they recognize the depth of the problem, but they're starting to sense that something is arry.
__________________
"It does not take a brain seargant to know the reason this team struggles." -- dmack24
Last edited by alexamenos; 08-12-2009 at 01:25 PM.
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08-12-2009, 02:40 PM
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#59
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Golden Member
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Greater Nowheres
Posts: 1,189
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Quote:
Originally Posted by alexamenos
thinking about protests and obamunism and health care 'reform' and such....
First, the whole thing is kinda whack. Remember the comment from a rove-esque bush staffer, something to the effect of "you guys live in the reality based community where you try understand reality as it is and react accordingly. we live in the faith based community where we imagine the world we'd like to construct and operate accordingly."??? That was the gist of it anyway....
Well...I think Obamanation has abandoned both the reality based and faith based communities for the fairy tale community, one where hoping for something combined with magic beans and fairy dust makes all of one's childish dreams come true. The fed gov is fighting two hot wars, running a world-wide empire, attempting to control the climate, doling trillions over to wall street, running budget deficits in the gazillions and printing money like it's made of....well....paper.
...and Obamanation is talking a nationalization of 15% of the economy? Biting off more than you can chew doesn't adequately capture the ambition here......it's like they're trying to fit 50 pounds of shite in a 5 pound bag. The whole shebang is just whack....
So, 2nd....I think a lot of the noisy protest is as much as about a government that has become or is fast becoming unhinged as it is any particular socialist scheme. The Obamunists are like a couple on the verge of bankruptcy, charging everything they can on their credit cards because they know they'll never repay the bills no matter how big the bills get. Folks are sensing this and getting real uneasy.
3rdly....shouting, screaming, taunting, scheming, metaphorically tarring and feathering the unhinged stewards of the federal government is an entirely sensible response. Debate is something you do with folks who are reasonable and at least somewhat connected to reality.
4th..i forgot what the 4th thing was....edit, now I remember. Statists in both parties seem almost constitutionally incapable of imagining that citizens are capable of independent action nor can they imagine any kind of organizational structure other than top-down, pyramid type hierarchy. This isn't a strictly right-left, dem versus rep thing happening here, the statists in control right now just can't imagine that anyone other than the socialist party of the right can mount such a coordinate opposition.
5th....yeah, there was a 5th thing but it kind of elludes me right now.....oh yeah, the obamucare shouters are, I think, as misguided as the tea-partiers. as one fellow put it, "keep government out of my medicare". I dont' think they recognize the depth of the problem, but they're starting to sense that something is arry.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/17BUSH.html
Quote:
'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''
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That statement was one of the most honest in regards to politics I have ever read.
This, from Manly Palmer Hall in his Secret Teachings of All Ages, is one of my favorites:
Quote:
The most dangerous form of black magic is the scientific perversion of occult power for the gratification of personal desire. Its less complex and more universal form is human selfishness, for selfishness is the fundamental cause of all worldly evil. A man will barter his eternal soul for temporal power, and down through the ages a mysterious process has been evolved which actually enables him to make this exchange. In its various branches the black art includes nearly all forms of ceremonial magic, necromancy, witchcraft, sorcery, and vampirism. Under the same general heading are also included mesmerism and hypnotism, except when used solely for medical purposes, and even then there is an element of risk for all concerned.
Though the demonism of the Middle Ages seems to have disappeared, there is abundant evidence that in many forms of modern thought--especially the so-called “prosperity” psychology, “willpower-building” metaphysics, and systems of “high-pressure” salesmanship--black magic has merely passed through a metamorphosis, and although its name be changed its nature remains the same.
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08-12-2009, 10:26 PM
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#60
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Platinum Member
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: TX
Posts: 2,505
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Obama Health Care Plan Details
HR 3200 currently under consideration in the House of Representatives
*HC = "Health Care"
Pg 22 of the HC Bill MANDATES the Government will audit the books of ALL EMPLOYERS that self insure!!
Pg 29 lines 4-16 in the HC Bill - YOUR HEALTH CARE IS RATIONED!!!
Pg 30 Sec 123 of HC Bill - THERE WILL BE A GOVERNMENT COMMITTEE that decides what treatments/benefits you get
Pg 42 of HC Bill - The Health Choices Commissioner will choose your benefits for you. You have no choice!
Pg 50 Section 152 in HC Bill - HC will be provided to ALL non-U.S. citizens, illegal or otherwise
Pg 58 HC Bill – Government will have real-time access to individual’s finances and a National ID Health Care Card will be issued!
Pg 59 HC Bill lines 21-24 Government will have direct access to your banks accounts for electronic funds transfer.
Pg 65 Sec 164 is a payoff subsidized plan for retirees and their families in unions and community organizations (ACORN).
Pg 72 Lines 8-14 Government is creating a Health Care Exchange to bring private health care plans under government control.
Pg 84 Sec 203 HC Bill - Government mandates ALL benefit packages for private health care plans in the Exchange
Pg 85 Line 7 HC Bill - Specs for of Benefit Levels for Plans = The government will ration your health care!
Pg 91 Lines 4-7 HC Bill - Government mandates linguistic appropriate services.
Pg 95 HC Bill Lines 8-18 The government will use groups i.e., ACORN & AmeriCorps to sign up individuals for government Health Care Plan
Pg 85 Line 7 HC Bill - Specs of Ben Levels 4 Plans. #AARP members - Your health care WILL be rationed
Pg 102 Lines 12-18 HC Bill - Medicaid Eligible Individual will be automatically enrolled in Medicaid. No choice.
Pg 124 lines 24-25 HC No company can sue the government on price fixing. No "judicial review" against this government monopoly.
Pg 127 Lines 1-16 HC Bill - Doctors/ #AMA - The government will tell YOU what you can make.
Pg 145 Line 15-17 An employer MUST auto enroll employees into public option plan. NO CHOICE
Pg 126 Lines 22-25 Employers MUST pay for health care for part-time employees AND their families.
Pg 149 Lines 16-24 ANY Employer w/ payroll 400k and above who does not prov. pub opt. pays 8% tax on all payroll
Pg 150 Lines 9-13 Businesses with payroll between 251k and 400k who do not provide public opt pays 2-6% tax on all payroll
Pg 167 Lines 18-23 ANY individual who doesn’t have acceptable health care according to government will be taxed 2.5% of income.
Pg 170 Lines 1-3 Any NONRESIDENT Alien is exempt from individual taxes (Americans will pay).
Pg 195 Officers & employees of HC Administration (GOVT) will have access to ALL Americans' financial and personal records.
Pg 203 Line 14-15 HC - "The tax imposed under this section shall not be treated as tax." Yes, it says that.
Pg 239 Line 14-24 HC Bill Government will reduce physician services for Medicaid. Seniors, low income, poor affected.
Pg 241 Line 6-8 HC Bill - Doctors, it does not matter what specialty you have, you’ll all be paid the same.
Pg 253 Line 10-18 Government sets value of doctors' time, prof judg, etc. Literally value of humans.
Pg 265 Sec 1131Government mandates and controls productivity for private health care industries.
Pg 268 Sec 1141 Federal Government regulates rental and purchase of power-driven wheelchairs.
Pg 272 SEC. 1145. Treatment of certain cancer hospitals – Cancer patients - welcome to rationing!
Page 280 Sec 1151 The government will penalize hospitals for what government deems preventable readmissions. (Incentives for hospital to not treat and release.)
Pg 298 Lines 9-11 Doctors that treat a patient during initial admission that results in a readmission-Government will penalize you.
Pg 317 L 13-20 PROHIBITION on ownership/investment. Government tells Doctors what/how much they can own.
Pg 317-318 lines 21-25, 1-3 PROHIBITION on expansion- Government is mandating hospitals cannot expand.
pg 321 2-13 Hospitals have opportunity to apply for exception, BUT community input required. Can you say ACORN?!!
Pg335 L 16-25 Pg 336-339 - Government mandates establishment of outcome based measures. Health Care the way they want. Rationing.
Pg 341 Lines 3-9 Government has authority to disqualify Medicare Advantage Plans (Part B), HMOs, etc. Forcing people into Government plan.
Pg 354 Sec 1177 - Government will RESTRICT enrollment of special needs people!
Pg 379 Sec 1191 Government creates more bureaucracy – Tele-health Advisory Committee. Health care by phone/Internet?
Pg 425 Lines 4-12 Government mandates Advance [Death] Care Planning Consultion. Think Senior Citizens end of life.
Pg 425 Lines 17-19 Government will instruct and consult regarding living wills, durable powers of attorney. Mandatory!
Pg 425 Lines 22-25, 426 Lines 1-3 Government provides approved list of end of life resources, guiding you in death.
Pg 427 Lines 15-24 Government mandates program for orders for end of life. The government has a say in how your life ends.
Pg 429 Lines 1-9 An "advanced care planning consult" will be used frequently as patient's health deteriorates.
Pg 429 Lines 10-12 " advanced care consultation" may include an ORDER for end of life plans. AN ORDER from Government.
Pg 429 Lines 13-25 - The government will specify which doctors can write an end of life order.
PG 430 Lines 11-15 The government will decide what level of treatment you will have at end of life.
Pg 469 - Community Based Home Medical Services=Non-profit orgs. Hello, ACORN Medical Services here!!?
Pg 472 Lines 14-17 PAYMENT TO COMMUNITY-BASED ORG. 1 monthly payment to a community-based org. Like ACORN?
Pg 489 Sec 1308 The government will cover Marriage and Family therapy. They will insert government into your marriage.
Pg 494-498 Government will cover Mental Health Services including defining, creating, rationing those services.
PG 502 Sec 1181 Center for Comparative Effectiveness Research Established. – Hello Big Brother – Literally.
Pg 503 Lines 13-19 Government will build registries and data networks from YOUR electronic medical records.
Pg 503 lines 21-25 Government may secure data directly from any department or agency of the U.S. who have any of your data.
Pg 504 Lines 6-10 The "Center" will collect data both published and unpublished (that means public and your private info).
PG 506 Lines 19-21 The Center will recommend policies that would allow for public access of data.
PG 518 Lines 21-25 The Commission will have input from Health Care consumer reps – Can you say unions and ACORN?
PG 524 18-22 Comparative Effectiveness Research Trust Fund set up. More taxes for ALL.
PG 621 Lines 20-25 Government will define what quality means in health care. Since when does government know about quality?
Pg 622 Lines 2-9 To pay for the Quality Standards, government will transfer money from other government Trust Funds. More Taxes.
PG 624 "Quality" measures shall be designed to assess outcomes and functional status of patients.
PG 624 "Quality" measures shall be designed to profile you including race, age, gender, place of residence, etc.
Pg 628 Sec 1443 Government will give "Multi-Stake Holders" Pre-Rule Making input into Selection of "Quality" Measures.
Pg 630 9-24/631 1-9 Those multi-stake holder groups include unions and groups like ACORN deciding health care quality.
Pg 632 Lines 14-25 The Government may implement any "Quality measure" of health care services as they see fit.
PG 633 14-25/ 634 1-9 The Secretary may issue non-endorsed "Quality Measures" for Physician Services and Dialysis Services.
Pg 635 to 653 Physicians Payments Sunshine Provision – Government wants to shine sunlight on doctor but not government.
Pg 654-659 Public Reporting on Health Care-Associated Infections – Looks okay.
PG 660-671 Doctors in Residency – Government will tell you where your residency will be, thus where you’ll live.
Pg 676-686 Government will regulate hospitals in EVERY aspect of residency programs, including teaching hospitals.
Pg 686-700 Increased Funding to Fight Waste, Fraud, and Abuse. Do they mean like the government with an $18 million website?
PGs 701-704 Sec 1619 If your part of health care plan isn’t in Government Health Care Exchange but you qualify for Federal aid, no payment.
PG 705-709 SEC. 1128 If Secretary gets complaints (ACORN) on health care provider or supplier, government can do background check.
PG 711 Lines 8-14 The Secretary has broad powers to deny health care providers/ suppliers admittance into Health Care Exchange. Your doctor could be thrown out of business.
Pg 719-720 Sec 1637 ANY Doctor who orders durable medical equipment or home medical services MUST be enrolled in Medicare.
PG 722 Sec 1639 Government MANDATES doctors must have face-to-face with patient to certify patient for Home Health Services.
PG 724 23-25 PG 725 1-5 The same government certifications will apply to Medicaid and CHIP (your kids).
PG 724 Lines 16-22 Government reserves right to apply face-to-face certification for patient to ANY other health care service.
Pg 735 lines 16-25 For law enforcement, proposes the Secretary-HHS will give Attorney General access to ALL data.
PG 740-757 Government sets guidelines for subsidizing the uninsured (That's your tax dollars people).
Pg 757-762 Federal Government will shift burden of payments to Disproportionate Share Hospitals (DSH) to States. (Taxes)
Pg 763 1-8 No DS/EA hospitals will be paid unless they provide services without regard to national origin.
Pg 765 Sec 1711 Government will require Preventative Services including vaccines. (Choice?)
Pg 768 Sec 1713 Government – Nurse Home Visitation Services (Hello union paybacks).
Pg 769 11-14 Nurse Home Visit Services include economic self-sufficiency, employ adv, school-readiness.
Pg 769 3-5 Nurse Home Visit Services - "increasing birth intervals between pregnancies." Government ABORTIONS anyone?
Pg 770 SEC 1714 Federal Government mandates eligibility for State Family Planning Services. Abortion and State Sovereignty.
Pg 789-797 Government will set, mandate drug prices, controlling which drugs brought to market. Bye innovation.
Pgs 797-800 SEC. 1744 PAYMENTS for graduate medical education. The government will now control doctors’ educations.
PG 801 Sec 1751 The government will decide which health care conditions will be paid. Can you say RATION!
Pg 810 SEC. 1759. Billing Agents, clearinghouses, etc. req. to register. Government takes over private payment system.
Pg 820-824 Sec 1801 Government will identify individuals ineligible for subsidies. Will access all personal financial information.
Pg 824-829 SEC. 1802. Government sets up Comparative Effectiveness Research Trust Fund. Another tax black hole.
PG 829-833 Government will impose a fee on ALL private health insurance plans including self-insured to pay for Trust Fund!
PG 835 11-13 fees imposed by government for Trust Fund shall be treated as if they were taxes.
Pg 838-840 Government will design and implement Home Visitation Program for families with young kids and families expecting kids.
PG 844-845 This Home Visitation Program includes government coming into your house and telling you how to parent!!!
Pg 859 Government will establish a Public Health Fund at a cost of $88,800,000,000. Yes that’s billion.
Pg 865 The government will MANDATE the establishment of a National Health Service Corps.
PG 865 to 876 The NHS Corps is a program where doctors perform mandatory health care for two years for part loan repayment.
PG 876-892 The government takes over the education of our medical students and doctors.
PG 898 The government will establish a Public Health Workforce Corps to ensure supply of public health prof.
PG 898 The Public Health Workforce Corps shall consist of civilian employees of the U.S. as Secretary deems.
PG 898 The Public Health Workforce Corps shall consist of officers of Regular and Reserve Corps of Service.
PG 900 The Public Health Workforce Corps includes veterinarians.
PG 901 The Public Health Workforce Corps WILL include commissioned Regular and Reserve Officers. HC Draft?
PG 910 The government will develop, build, and run Public Health Training Centers.
PG 913-914 Government starts a health care affirmative action program thru guise of diversity scholarships.
PG 915 SEC. 2251. Government MANDDATES Cultural and linguistic competency training for health care professionals.
Pg 932 The Government will establish Preventative and Wellness Trust fund- initial cost of $30,800,000,000 billion.
PG 935 21-22 Government will identify specific goals & objectives for prevention & wellness activities. That means controlling YOU!!
PG 936 Government will develop "Healthy People and National Public Health Performance Standards" Tell me what to eat?
PG 942 Lines 22-25 More government? Offices of Surgeon General -Public Health Svc, Minority Health, Women’s Health
PG 950- 980 BIG GOVERNMENT core pub health infrastructure including workforce capacity, lab systems, health info sys, etc.
PG 993 Government will establish school based health clinics. Your kids won’t have a chance.
PG 994 School Based Health Clinic will be integrated into the school environment. Say government brainwash!
PG 1001 The government will establish a National Medical Device Registry. Will you be tracked?
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08-12-2009, 10:34 PM
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#61
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Guru
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Cowboys Country
Posts: 23,336
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Quote:
Pg 932 The Government will establish Preventative and Wellness Trust fund- initial cost of $30,800,000,000 billion.
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Really? That's a lot of money.
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08-13-2009, 07:05 AM
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#62
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Guru
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 40,410
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Those rabble-rousing anti-obama town-hall terrorists just keep it up.
Quote:
An amusing press release from the governing body for American surgeons:
The American College of Surgeons is deeply disturbed over the uninformed public comments President Obama continues to make about the high-quality care provided by surgeons in the United States. When the President makes statements that are incorrect or not based in fact, we think he does a disservice to the American people at a time when they want clear, understandable facts about health care reform. We want to set the record straight.
-- Yesterday during a town hall meeting, President Obama got his facts
completely wrong. He stated that a surgeon gets paid $50,000 for a leg
amputation when, in fact, Medicare pays a surgeon between $740 and
$1,140 for a leg amputation. This payment also includes the
evaluation of the patient on the day of the operation plus patient
follow-up care that is provided for 90 days after the operation.
Private insurers pay some variation of the Medicare reimbursement for
this service.
-- Three weeks ago, the President suggested that a surgeon's decision to
remove a child's tonsils is based on the desire to make a lot of
money. That remark was ill-informed and dangerous, and we were
dismayed by this characterization of the work surgeons do. Surgeons
make decisions about recommending operations based on what's right for
the patient.
We agree with the President that the best thing for patients with diabetes is to manage the disease proactively to avoid the bad consequences that can occur, including blindness, stroke, and amputation. But as is the case for a person who has been treated for cancer and still needs to have a tumor removed, or a person who is in a terrible car crash and needs access to a trauma surgeon, there are times when even a perfectly managed diabetic patient needs a surgeon. The President's remarks are truly alarming and run the risk of damaging the all-important trust between surgeons and their patients.
We assume that the President made these mistakes unintentionally, but we would urge him to have his facts correct before making another inflammatory and incorrect statement about surgeons and surgical care.
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Oopps....wrong terrorists. These are the evil surgeon terrorists.
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08-13-2009, 08:17 AM
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#63
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Platinum Member
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: TX
Posts: 2,505
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I'm curious, is there any way that a class-action suit can be filed against President Obama and other elected officials who continue to make speeches which contain statements which are false?
This goes for both parties, who are both guilty of fudging the truth...however with both sides accusing the other of "Lies"...isn't there some recourse?
As for citizens, it's clear that those who lean Democrat do NOT trust anything from a Republican, while those that lean Republican do NOT trust anything from a Democrat.
However those in the so-called middle or undecided are getting jacked around with rhetoric that is challenging to decipher between truth and lies.
Also when someone makes a claim that another is telling lies, and they are proven to be truthful, should the one crying wolf not be held accountable? This may apply more towards the news networks.
Now with that out of the way, I wonder if plain language can be added to help define the Health Care bill?
for example..."Abortions will NOT be funded by Government money"
"The Government will not have a panel determine who is elegible for medical care"
"The Government will not utilize any new tax dollars to fund this program, this bill is to provide guidance for the private sector to refer too...but much like the pirates code, it's a GUIDE and it doesn't have to be followed"
"Community Organizations will NOT receive ANY government funds...this include ACORN or any such groups that are spun of or regroup under a different name. Those groups must raise their own money through private donations"
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08-13-2009, 04:40 PM
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#64
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Member
Join Date: Feb 2007
Posts: 317
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Quote:
I'm curious, is there any way that a class-action suit can be filed against President Obama and other elected officials who continue to make speeches which contain statements which are false?
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I hope not. The waste of resources would be huge. At a time we need tort reform, I can't think of anything worse to inflict on the court system.
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08-13-2009, 04:45 PM
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#65
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Diamond Member
Join Date: Sep 2007
Posts: 5,249
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Quote:
Originally Posted by aquaadverse
I hope not. The waste of resources would be huge. At a time we need tort reform, I can't think of anything worse to inflict on the court system.
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Agreed. I believe Murtha successfully invoked some Congressional immunity defense that allowed him to falsely accuse marines of murder without repercussions. So if he can do that, I'm pretty sure there's nothing they can't say.
92bdad, politics has always been a sausage-making festival a la Sinclair's "the Jungle". I think the only recourse we have is to vomit and then vote the bums out.
__________________
Is this ghost ball??
Last edited by DirkFTW; 08-13-2009 at 04:48 PM.
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08-16-2009, 08:20 AM
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#66
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Guru
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 40,410
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I kept hearing the left (and Barry) about how we spend a bunch o' dollars on health care and it doesn't make us any healthier because of longevity numbers. I wondered if someone had looked at that. Turns out they have and as expected our o'so'transparent der leader ignores it.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/art...orm_97901.html
Quote:
A hammer is a marvelous tool, but only for the right job. If you took an expensive watch to a repairman and he pulled out a hammer, you would be extremely nervous, if not aghast. Maybe he could find a way to do some good with that implement, but you would be more focused on the damage he could cause.
A similar scenario is playing out in the public anxiety over health care reform. Plenty of people think the existing system is in need of repair. But when they hear about expensive plans that require a more powerful and intrusive federal government, they fear that what is best in our approach to medicine may get smashed in the process.
![](http://ads.forbes.com/RealMedia/ads/adstream_nx.cgi/realclearpolitics.com/story//1857079284@BigBanner,LeftBottom,x110,RightMiddle,x1,Block,SponsorLogo%21Block)
What is best in our approach is the exceptional quality it provides. Americans grasp that: A 2006 poll found that 89 percent were happy with the medical care they get. But President Obama and his allies in Congress don't seem to realize how good we have it.
He says though the United States spends more per person on medical care than any other nation, "the quality of our care is often lower, and we aren't any healthier. In fact, citizens in some countries that spend substantially less than we do are actually living longer than we do."
That's one of the favorite rationales for a government-led overhaul. But it gives about as realistic a picture of American medicine as an episode of "Scrubs."
It's true that the United States spends more on health care than anyone else, and it's true that we rank below a lot of other advanced countries in life expectancy. The juxtaposition of the two facts, however, doesn't prove we are wasting our money or doing the wrong things.
It only proves that lots of things affect mortality besides medical treatment. Heath Ledger didn't die at age 28 because the American health care system failed him.
One big reason our life expectancy lags is that Americans have an unusual tendency to perish in homicides or accidents. We are 12 times more likely than the Japanese to be murdered and nearly twice as likely to be killed in auto wrecks.
In their 2006 book, "The Business of Health," economists Robert L. Ohsfeldt and John E. Schneider set out to determine where the U.S. would rank in life span among developed nations if homicides and accidents are factored out. Their answer? First place.
That discovery indicates our health care system is doing a poor job of preventing shootouts and drunk driving but a good job of healing the sick. All those universal-care systems in Canada and Europe may sound like Health Heaven, but they fall short of our model when it comes to combating life-threatening diseases.
Some of those foreign systems are great, as long as you don't get sick. Samuel Preston and Jessica Ho of the Population Studies Center at the University of Pennsylvania examined survival rates for lung, breast, prostate, colon and rectum cancers in 18 countries and found that Americans fared best.
The U.S. also excelled on other measures, such as surviving heart attacks for more than a year. Why? Because our doctors and patients don't take no for an answer. The researchers attribute the results to "wider screening and more aggressive treatment." Another factor is that we get quicker access to new cancer drugs than anyone else.
Critics say all those great medicines and therapies are cold comfort to Americans who lack insurance -- which by any standard is our greatest shortcoming. People without coverage are more likely to do without needed treatment or preventive care and more likely to die from disease or accidents.
But they have it better than you might think. Some 62 percent of uninsured Americans are satisfied with their medical care. That is probably because they get a lot of uncompensated treatment from the most advanced, ambitious and capable medical system in the world.
In Britain, by contrast, having guaranteed access to care doesn't mean you'll actually get it. Twenty percent of British cancer patients who might be cured become incurable while awaiting the treatment they need.
The challenge in this country is to extend coverage to the uninsured without degrading quality for everyone. With a little caution and humility, the president and Congress can find ways to achieve that goal. But first, they need to put down the hammer.
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08-17-2009, 10:12 AM
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#67
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Guru
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 40,410
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About right...Of course if it were not for the "brawls" no one would be asking any questions and this cluster would be sailing through unread and uncommented on. If the dems would fix medicare and show us how it's done I think we might be onboard.
http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stori...ing/?uniontrib
Quote:
Union-Tribune Editorial
Lost in the shouting
Obama's claims for health overhaul must be substantiated
2:00 a.m. August 17, 2009
It didn't take long for the debate over President Barack Obama's push to overhaul the U.S. health care system to degenerate into a depressing brawl.
Critics of the proposal focus on non-existent “death panels,” as if Obama's main goal is to systematically kill off unhealthy, unworthy Americans. Supporters says opposition is driven by racial animus, as if there isn't a history in U.S. politics of public resistance to big changes in medical care. Both sides, ridiculously enough, accuse each other of actions with Nazi overtones.
We wish the debate would get back to the basics – specifically, two key claims routinely made by the president, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
The first claim is that a health overhaul actually would save vast amounts of money in the long run. In June, the Congressional Budget Office shredded this assertion with a study showing that the two main proposals before the Senate would add $1 trillion and $1.6 trillion in debt over the next 10 years.
This led Obama and other Democratic leaders to float a series of trial ballons on what taxes might be raised to cover this gap. When each met a hostile reception from rank-and-file lawmakers, what did the president, Pelosi and Reid do? They went back to their old claims that a health overhaul would save money.
The president said so in comments last week at a New Hampshire town hall. Pelosi and Reid made the assertion in a USA Today column.
The trio need to be pressed on what they know that the CBO doesn't. They also need to explain why just a month ago they implicitly acknowledged there were no cost savings by seeking tax hikes to finance the overhaul.
The second claim is that a health overhaul would not affect individuals who are satisfied with their existing insurance plans.
Really? The day the overhaul took effect, businesses that now provide health insurance at an average cost of 12 percent to 14 percent of payroll would have the option of dropping their coverage and paying a fee equal to 8 percent of their payroll to the federal government, which would provide the benefit.
Obama, Pelosi and Reid have to know that this would give businesses a huge incentive to drop coverage, thus affecting millions of Americans who are happy with their existing plans.
The private coverage that did survive this federal assault wouldn't be home-free yet, however. After a grace period of a few years, all health insurance would have to meet federal standards. By every indication, these standards would greatly expand what health plans have to cover, leading to a big increase in the cost of premiums.
This issue and the cost question are what the debate should focus on – not the sideshows. Democrats need to back their claims.
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08-17-2009, 10:32 AM
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#68
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Guru
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 40,410
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WE NEED HEALTH-CARE!! JUST LIKE CANA...... Oops...nevermind.
Quote:
APPARENTLY, A CANADIAN-STYLE HEALTH CARE SYSTEM DOESN’T SOLVE THE HEALTH CRISIS. At least, not in Canada.
The incoming president of the Canadian Medical Association says this country’s health-care system is sick and doctors need to develop a plan to cure it.
Dr. Anne Doig says patients are getting less than optimal care and she adds that physicians from across the country – who will gather in Saskatoon on Sunday for their annual meeting – recognize that changes must be made.
“We all agree that the system is imploding, we all agree that things are more precarious than perhaps Canadians realize,” Doing said in an interview with The Canadian Press.
“We know that there must be change,” she said. “We’re all running flat out, we’re all just trying to stay ahead of the immediate day-to-day demands.”
Hey, here’s a thought: Try this newfangled free-market thing. It’s an idea so crazy it just might work!
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08-17-2009, 10:38 AM
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#69
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Diamond Member
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Texas
Posts: 6,014
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there is no similarity to what is being proposed and the structure of the canadian (or british, which the canadian is modeled on) system.
apples and oranges....
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08-17-2009, 10:45 AM
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#70
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Diamond Member
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Texas
Posts: 6,014
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dude1394
I kept hearing the left (and Barry) about how we spend a bunch o' dollars on health care and it doesn't make us any healthier because of longevity numbers. I wondered if someone had looked at that. Turns out they have and as expected our o'so'transparent der leader ignores it.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/art...orm_97901.html
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hmm, what about infant mortality? not too pretty a stat.
the issue is both allocation of costs (which are going thru the roof), access to care by the uninsured, and people with pre-existing maladies that for the most part bankrupt the patient with their inability to get coverage.
a simple question the opponents fail to address: do you believe that our system is adequate/equitable to all, and is it correctly structered for the next century?
healthcare has changed tremendously over the last couple of decades,and will continue to change in the near future. our delivery system should change to meet these new realities.
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08-17-2009, 10:51 AM
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#71
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Guru
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 40,410
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Is infant mortality more attributable to premature babies (i.e. teens) than any medicine?
If they aren't honeslty addressing costs, then they are playing a shell game. And the cbo says they are playing a big-time-shell-game. Which I expect they are in their religiouis zeal to get universal care.
I don't really have much of a problem with universal care really, but the debate we are having now is chock full of bull**** on the dems side. You can say bs from the conservative side also, but they are doing the bill and it's full of it.
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08-17-2009, 11:35 AM
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#72
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Diamond Member
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Texas
Posts: 6,014
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dude1394
Is infant mortality more attributable to premature babies (i.e. teens) than any medicine?
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imo it reflects the care provided to the mother prior to the birth, and to the care provided to the infant upon birth.
a lower rate of survival than our peers indicates a failure in adequate delivery (no pun intended...) of services. that's what the reform discussion is truly about, how to best deliver the healthcare.
there is no reason to tear down our healthcare system, it has the best to offer for those who can access it, and at the same time it has some of the highest costs to those who access it. our medical community has some of the best providors out there doing great work.
but at the same time we can do better, there's no reason to just rest on our laurels and not adapt to a changing world.
Quote:
If they aren't honeslty addressing costs, then they are playing a shell game. And the cbo says they are playing a big-time-shell-game. Which I expect they are in their religiouis zeal to get universal care.
I don't really have much of a problem with universal care really, but the debate we are having now is chock full of bull**** on the dems side. You can say bs from the conservative side also, but they are doing the bill and it's full of it.
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the problem is that costs are increasing greater than the basket of costs as a whole (cpi), and those costs could rise even greater as the technology that is improving healthcare costs more and more to purchase.
it is wrong to look at the costs of reform without also looking at the projected costs of keeping things the same. there is without a doubt additional costs no matter which way we as a country proceed to deal with the issue.
Last edited by Mavdog; 08-17-2009 at 11:35 AM.
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08-17-2009, 12:54 PM
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#73
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Guru
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 40,410
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I believe there is room for debate here. When you consider a baby under 500kg is considered already dead versus alive until deceased, it appears to change the equation. It appears the statistics need a little more examination than our media (and politicians I expect) are capable of.
http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blo...es-the-us.html
Quote:
And, in fact, this turns out to be the case with infant mortality, a fact I first reported here (related post on medical definitions driving national statistics here). This week, Mark Perry links to an article further illuminating the issue:The main factors affecting early infant survival are birth weight and
prematurity. The way that these factors are reported — and how such
babies are treated statistically — tells a different story than what
the numbers reveal. Low birth weight infants are not counted against the “live birth”
statistics for many countries reporting low infant mortality rates.
According to the way statistics are calculated in Canada, Germany, and Austria, a premature baby weighing less than 500 kg is not considered a living child.
But in the U.S., such very low birth weight babies are considered live
births. The mortality rate of such babies — considered “unsalvageable”
outside of the U.S. and therefore never alive — is extraordinarily
high; up to 869 per 1,000 in the first month of life alone. This skews
U.S. infant mortality statistics.
Norway boasts one of the lowest infant mortality rates in the world. But when
the main determinant of mortality — weight at birth — is factored in,
Norway has no better survival rates than the United States….
In the United States, all infants who show signs of life at birth
(take a breath, move voluntarily, have a heartbeat) are considered
alive.
If a child in Hong Kong or Japan is born alive but dies within the
first 24 hours of birth, he or she is reported as a “miscarriage” and
does not affect the country’s reported infant mortality rates….
Efforts to salvage these tiny babies reflect this classification. Since
2000, 42 of the world’s 52 surviving babies weighing less than 400g
(0.9 lbs.) were born in the United States.
Hmm, so in the US we actually try to save low-birthweight babies rather than label them unsalvageable. Wow, we sure have a cold and heartless system here. [disclosure: My nephew was a very pre-mature, very low-birthweight baby who could have fit in the palm of your hand at birth and survived by the full application of American medical technology. He is doing great today]
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I'm also skeptical that availability of health care is the issue here as much as maturity to utilize it. For example it appears that free pre-natal care is pretty readily available.
http://www.womenshealth.gov/faq/prenatal-care.cfm#i
Quote:
Where can I go to get free or reduced-cost prenatal care?
Women in every state can get help to pay for medical care during their pregnancies. This prenatal care can help you have a healthy baby. Every state in the United States has a program to help. Programs give medical care, information, advice, and other services important for a healthy pregnancy.
To find out about the program in your state:
- Call 1-800-311-BABY (1-800-311-2229). This toll-free telephone number will connect you to the Health Department in your area code.
- For information in Spanish, call 1-800-504-7081.
- Contact your local Health Department.
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08-17-2009, 01:14 PM
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#74
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Diamond Member
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Texas
Posts: 6,014
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dude1394
I believe there is room for debate here. When you consider a baby under 500kg is considered already dead versus alive until deceased, it appears to change the equation. It appears the statistics need a little more examination than our media (and politicians I expect) are capable of.
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so your argument is the numbers are not reliable?
really?
hmm, seems that the cia factbook should be reliable, and it says we're not doing so well in this regard.
or are you going to "kill the messenger"?
Quote:
I'm also skeptical that availability of health care is the issue here as much as maturity to utilize it. For example it appears that free pre-natal care is pretty readily available.
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it's available if 1) the mother is aware, 2) the mother is educated on why they need it, and 3) the mother can access the help (ie can get there to receive it).
it's about the delivery of healthcare. the providors exist, there's no debate about that.
Last edited by Mavdog; 08-17-2009 at 01:14 PM.
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08-17-2009, 01:26 PM
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#75
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Guru
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 40,410
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So you are saying the CIA is infalliable? What criteria is the CIA using to determine if a child is alive or not. I showed you mine, show me yours?
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08-17-2009, 01:27 PM
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#76
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Guru
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 40,410
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mavdog
it's available if 1) the mother is aware, 2) the mother is educated on why they need it, and 3) the mother can access the help (ie can get there to receive it).
it's about the delivery of healthcare. the providors exist, there's no debate about that.
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So how about instead of 1 trillion dollars they spend some to make them aware? If the bill itself would take some time to honestly address those issues, you might see a different debate occurring....but it's become quite a bit like climate change, religious in nature.
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08-17-2009, 02:26 PM
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#77
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Member
Join Date: Feb 2007
Posts: 317
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And yet malpractice reform isn't even in the conversation. From Health and Human Services 2002:
http://aspe.hhs.gov/daltcp/reports/litrefm.htm
Quote:
Americans spend proportionately far more per person on the costs of litigation than any other country in the world. The excesses of the litigation system are an important contributor to "defensive medicine"--the costly use of medical treatments by a doctor for the purpose of avoiding litigation. As multimillion-dollar jury awards have become more commonplace in recent years, these problems have reached crisis proportions. Insurance premiums for malpractice are increasing at a rapid rate, particularly in states that have not taken steps to make their legal systems function more predictably and effectively. Doctors are facing much higher costs of insurance, and some cannot obtain insurance despite having never lost a single malpractice judgment or even faced a claim.
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How can it not even be mentioned by the folks advocating this mess? We are supposed to embrace a government option because of the savings. We can differ on the actual impact malpractice has on costs, the range is Satan from the insurance folks to negligible and worth it to protect the public according to the ambulance chasers. People need a process to address malpractice and protect the public, but it's being treated like medical Lotto.
We could be allowing people to purchase insurance across state lines, private insurance pools for high-risk groups, individual medical accounts to go with medical liability-tort reform.
None of this is new, much of it has been the subject of government study. It's freaking irritating to listen to accusations that if you don't want this radical muckup, you don't want changes or reform. That you are spitting out corporate lackey, talk radio, faux news propaganda. That you just want Obama to fail because of his complexion.
We had a very good system 30 years ago. While it's not practical or possible to roll things back to the late '70's, you can certainly attempt to mitigate the biggest negatives without blowing up the system and handing control to people who have a horrible record managing such things.
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08-17-2009, 02:51 PM
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#78
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Golden Member
Join Date: May 2002
Location: McLean, VA
Posts: 1,970
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dude1394
... I showed you mine, show me yours?
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lets not go there...
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08-20-2009, 09:59 PM
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#79
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Guru
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 40,410
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Just lost the leftwingers I guess..
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archive.../08/024330.php
Quote:
Charles Hurt reports in today's New York Post: Repeatedly invoking the Bible, President Obama yesterday told religious leaders that health-care critics are "bearing false witness" against his plan.
The fire-and-brimstone president declared holy war in a telephone call with thousands of religious leaders around the country as he sought to breathe life into his plan for a system overhaul.
Lord, save us: He said the reforms aim to carry out one of God's commandments.
"I am my brother's keeper. I am my sister's keeper," Obama said.
He called health reform a "core ethical and moral obligation."
President Obama, with all due respect, sir, you are a false messiah.
JOHN adds: A moral duty to run our health care system like the post office? Yes, I'm sure that will sell! Actually, if moral duty enters into it at all, we have, to paraphrase John Erskine, a moral obligation to pursue good public policy.
UPDATE: Victor Davis Hanson comments here.
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A commenter: What's he going to do next? Issue a fatwa against those who are questioning Obamacare?
Last edited by dude1394; 08-21-2009 at 08:34 AM.
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08-21-2009, 10:32 AM
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#80
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Guru
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 40,410
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How Democrats spell success.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=33232
Quote:
"Democrats call Medicare the model of government-run universal health care. But Medicare is a system whereby 140 million working Americans pay 2.9 percent of all wages and salaries into a fund to pay for health care for 42 million mostly older Americans. And Medicare is already going bust."
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