Guest
03-04-2010, 10:03 AM
Peter Ferrara, director of entitlement and budget policy at the Institute for Policy Innovation. general counsel of the American Civil Rights Union and a Harvard College and Harvard Law School graduate yesterday published a breathtaking critique of the Obamacare Plan. It is timely and significant because it is the first detailed analysis of the latest version of health care. I debated on how to post it. Paraphrasing would not do it justice. It is too long to cut and paste and it really demands proper attribution. I opted for an uncharacteristic bullet posting of excerpts with the hope that the well thought out article will be read in its entirety. My apologies for bulleting most of the front end of the article and the annoying red highlights. Here goes:
"Let me reveal my personal stake in this health care debate. My life is at risk. So is yours, as well as the lives of our children, our parents, and everyone else in our families. For the thorough government takeover of health care in America the Democrats are feverishly pursuing, and the outdated socialized medicine policies from other countries they are so religiously committed to adopting, would trash the very ability of the system to provide the health care many of us are likely to need in coming years to extend our lives, and to maintain our basic quality of life."
"The decimation of our health care system under Obamacare begins with government mandates, regulations, bureaucracies, and controls. The House and Senate health care bills that President Obama and the Democrats refuse to take off the table create close to 100 new health care bureaucracies, boards, commissions and programs. This is the government takeover of health care."
"These new authorities arrogate to the government the power to decide "what works" in health care, and what doesn't. The code words they use include "best practices" -- a government bureaucracy in Washington is going to decide what are the "best practices" in providing health care for you and your children, not you and your doctor. Another code phrase is "reward doctors for quality not quantity." Government bureaucracies in Washington do not know how to do this. But they will make a huge mess out of your health care in trying to. "
"These government bureaucracies will also have the power to cut off your health care when they decide it is no longer worth the money. We have already seen a glimpse of this in the declaration by a bureaucracy, to be expanded with more powers under Obamacare, that women over 72 should not have mammograms. What they are saying here is that if you are over 72 and get breast cancer, they don't want to know about it. Just take the painkiller and go home, to paraphrase President Obama. They believe they can buy more votes taking the money for your care and spending it somewhere else. This is called "cost effectiveness."
"The destruction of the health care system is then expanded through the payment system. Among the code words here are "pay for performance" and "accountable care." This is how the bureaucracy will enforce its dictates concerning what works and what doesn't, best practices, cost effectiveness, and termination of health care no longer deemed worthy. Doctors and hospitals will be rewarded through payments if they follow the centralized bureaucracy's dictates; they will be penalized with reduced payments if they don't. You will never know what happened to you. The doctor is not going to tell you, "I could have saved your daughter's life with this new treatment, but that is not yet a best practice according to the government." "
"Health care obliteration then continues by constricting the payments overall to doctors, hospitals, specialists, surgeons, health care innovators, and other health providers. This is where the $500 billion in Medicare cuts come in, which is $800 billion in the first 10 years of full implementation under Obamacare. Seniors will soon find out that constricted payments mean constricted services, because President Obama has already begun cutting payments under Medicare, particularly for cancer and heart specialists, treatments, and diagnostics. But this is just part of the constricted payments to the entire health system under Obamacare, which is how President Obama thinks he will bring the cost curve down. The sad truth is that the only cost control in Obamacare involves health care rationing, which means denying you health care. Those union orchestrated sad sacks marching in the streets chanting for "health care" are suckers"
"But none of the supporters of Obamacare -- the bloggers, the talk show hosts, the literal clowns like Bill Maher, Jon Stewart and Wanda Sykes that now get media coverage to lecture us on public policy -- understand any of this. They have their heads firmly and deeply stuck in the sand, and insist it is all made up. And as for Democrat members of Congress, they don't have a clue."
The balance of the article, a very informative read, addresses:
Why Your Country Is At Risk.
Procedural Falsehoods about the Reconciliation Process
http://spectator.org/archives/2010/03/03/obamacare-still-a-threat-to-yo
I await the liberal rebuttal to frightening concerns raised by the author.
"Let me reveal my personal stake in this health care debate. My life is at risk. So is yours, as well as the lives of our children, our parents, and everyone else in our families. For the thorough government takeover of health care in America the Democrats are feverishly pursuing, and the outdated socialized medicine policies from other countries they are so religiously committed to adopting, would trash the very ability of the system to provide the health care many of us are likely to need in coming years to extend our lives, and to maintain our basic quality of life."
"The decimation of our health care system under Obamacare begins with government mandates, regulations, bureaucracies, and controls. The House and Senate health care bills that President Obama and the Democrats refuse to take off the table create close to 100 new health care bureaucracies, boards, commissions and programs. This is the government takeover of health care."
"These new authorities arrogate to the government the power to decide "what works" in health care, and what doesn't. The code words they use include "best practices" -- a government bureaucracy in Washington is going to decide what are the "best practices" in providing health care for you and your children, not you and your doctor. Another code phrase is "reward doctors for quality not quantity." Government bureaucracies in Washington do not know how to do this. But they will make a huge mess out of your health care in trying to. "
"These government bureaucracies will also have the power to cut off your health care when they decide it is no longer worth the money. We have already seen a glimpse of this in the declaration by a bureaucracy, to be expanded with more powers under Obamacare, that women over 72 should not have mammograms. What they are saying here is that if you are over 72 and get breast cancer, they don't want to know about it. Just take the painkiller and go home, to paraphrase President Obama. They believe they can buy more votes taking the money for your care and spending it somewhere else. This is called "cost effectiveness."
"The destruction of the health care system is then expanded through the payment system. Among the code words here are "pay for performance" and "accountable care." This is how the bureaucracy will enforce its dictates concerning what works and what doesn't, best practices, cost effectiveness, and termination of health care no longer deemed worthy. Doctors and hospitals will be rewarded through payments if they follow the centralized bureaucracy's dictates; they will be penalized with reduced payments if they don't. You will never know what happened to you. The doctor is not going to tell you, "I could have saved your daughter's life with this new treatment, but that is not yet a best practice according to the government." "
"Health care obliteration then continues by constricting the payments overall to doctors, hospitals, specialists, surgeons, health care innovators, and other health providers. This is where the $500 billion in Medicare cuts come in, which is $800 billion in the first 10 years of full implementation under Obamacare. Seniors will soon find out that constricted payments mean constricted services, because President Obama has already begun cutting payments under Medicare, particularly for cancer and heart specialists, treatments, and diagnostics. But this is just part of the constricted payments to the entire health system under Obamacare, which is how President Obama thinks he will bring the cost curve down. The sad truth is that the only cost control in Obamacare involves health care rationing, which means denying you health care. Those union orchestrated sad sacks marching in the streets chanting for "health care" are suckers"
"But none of the supporters of Obamacare -- the bloggers, the talk show hosts, the literal clowns like Bill Maher, Jon Stewart and Wanda Sykes that now get media coverage to lecture us on public policy -- understand any of this. They have their heads firmly and deeply stuck in the sand, and insist it is all made up. And as for Democrat members of Congress, they don't have a clue."
The balance of the article, a very informative read, addresses:
Why Your Country Is At Risk.
Procedural Falsehoods about the Reconciliation Process
http://spectator.org/archives/2010/03/03/obamacare-still-a-threat-to-yo
I await the liberal rebuttal to frightening concerns raised by the author.