Democrats Abandon Donald Berwick's Nomination to Top Medicare and Medicaid Post

According to Politico, President Obama will be forced to abandon his controversial nomination of Donald Berwick as the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Politico reports that “Senate Democrats have given up on confirming Don Berwick as CMS administrator in the wake of a letter from 42 Republican senators opposing the nomination,” as “there's no way for Berwick to get the 60 votes needed to clear the Senate.”

As with his various “czars,” President Obama had previously circumvented the Senate confirmation process (despite having a Democratically controlled Senate) to install Berwick in his post. He had done so by issuing a “recess appointment,” but that appointment expires at the end of this year.

As I wrote last spring, the Berwick nomination is one of the clearest indicators of where we are headed if ObamaCare is not repealed:

As everyone knows by now, Obamacare would raise, not lower, health costs. This is the consensus view of the CBO, Medicare’s chief actuary, and the American people. However, another consensus view — shared by nearly everyone outside of the Obama White House and the Democratic Congress — is that the number one goal of health policy should be to cut costs. So, if you combine a health care overhaul that won’t cut costs, with a pressing need to cut costs, where are we headed?

President Obama’s pick to fill the top post at Medicare and Medicaid provides a strong indication. We’re going down the only cost cutting road that government can travel. More exactly, we’re heading toward a nation-defining fork in the road. In one direction lies repeal; in the other, rationed care. In one direction, liberty; in the other, consolidated power.

President Obama’s pick to head the massive Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Dr. Donald Berwick, is a Harvard doctor with a stated fondness for nationalized medicine. He plainly wasn’t picked for his large-scale executive or managerial experience. He’s currently a professor, a pediatrician, and the CEO of a nonprofit whose website reports it has “a staff of over 100 dedicated and talented people.” No, he was presumably picked because he and President Obama see eye-to-eye: Both share the same academic approach to problem-solving, both think our health-care system should be run through Washington, and both support a strong degree of bureaucratic control over questions of life and death. If confirmed by the Senate, he would become head of an agency with a budget larger than that of the Department of Defense.”

Lest anyone think I was exaggerating, Berwick has written that the British health-care system is “more likely to succeed” than the American one; that he feels “an optimism about the [British] NHS [National Health System] that is hard to find in the UK nowadays”; that he thinks “nationalized health care was a wise choice in 1948 and that it remains so now”; that “the social budget” — the social budget! — “is limited”; and that “[t]he decision is not whether or not we will ration care — the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open.” This is who President Obama wants to have running Medicare, Medicaid, and significant portions of ObamaCare.

It looks like the Constitution’s confirmation process will serve as a bulwark against President Obama’s desires in this instance, although it’s unlikely that his next nominee will hold views that are radically different from Berwick’s or his own. (That new nominee almost certainly will, however, have been more careful about publicly expressing those views). But Obama’s failure to get his Berwick nomination through the Democratic Senate doesn’t change the fact that Obama chose someone like Berwick in the first place, or the fact that he circumvented the usual process to install him in the short-term. Nor does it change what the Berwick nomination tells us about the direction in which Obama thinks ObamaCare would and should take American health care.

Related:

Berwick – Another Radical

AARP Series : Obamacare: Cut the Elderly and Give to AARP - Part I

Among the $500 billion in Medicare cuts that will provide the bulk of the financing for Obama's health care plan is a $160 billion to $180 billion cut in the Medicare Advantage program, which offers a range of benefits not available to beneficiaries under basic Medicare.

Medicare Advantage should be Obama's favorite program. It combines all the elements he likes -- premiums are subsidized for low-income elderly, and the companies negotiate low-priced, managed care that emphasizes prevention, treatment of chronic conditions and coordination among doctors. As a result, its costs on the one hand and its premiums on the other are both much lower than with conventional insurance.

Ten million primarily low-income elderly have voluntarily enrolled in Medicare Advantage and realize savings of about $1,000 annually in enhanced benefits over and above what Medicare itself provides. These extra benefits include reductions in out-of-pocket costs and comprehensive drug coverage, vision, dental and hearing benefits, wellness programs (like gym memberships), and disease management and care coordination programs.

Medicare Advantage, which gained momentum during the Bush-43 years, essentially implements all the economies and efficiencies that Obama preaches nonstop. Doctors speak to one another, duplication is avoided, care is managed, and there is an emphasis on prevention.

The alternative to Medicare Advantage is Medicare supplement plans, popularly called Medigap coverage. But these conventional health insurance policies offer fewer benefits at higher premiums. They offer no care coordination, no chronic care management, no pay-for-performance incentives. They have no way to control costs. They just write out checks.

Because Medicare Advantage negotiates payment levels and saves money through bulk purchasing, inpatient costs run 20 percent to 25 percent lower than under Medigap insurance. More patients are handled through outpatient care. X-rays and other radiation cost 10 percent to 20 percent less, and durable medical equipment like wheelchairs, walkers and oxygen bottles run one-fifth less than with conventional insurance policies.

So why is Obama so keen to cut Medicare Advantage?

Here's a clue: AARP (the American Association of Retired Persons) does not sell Medicare Advantage. But it makes a vast amount of money selling Medigap coverage. AARP has had no higher political priority than to curb the Medicare Advantage program and replace it with Medigap insurance. The profit margins on Medigap are greater, and AARP has every intention of exploiting them with Obama's help. His price? AARP backing for his program.

The American Seniors Association (ASA), an alternative to AARP that represents hundreds of thousands of elderly, says, "It is outrageous that Medicare Advantage, a private program with premium assistance for seniors ... has come under attack." Stuart Barton, ASA president, notes that under Medicare Advantage, private healthcare companies "compete to provide care based on a negotiated price."

Obama's deal with AARP represents special interest politics at its worst. He has already negotiated a deal with the big drug companies to get their support for his bill (and their advertising bucks to promote it) in return for guaranteeing that the cuts in their prices and profits will be small. And, by cutting Medicare Advantage, he signed up the AARP too.

Obama plans to slash the premium subsidies to low income elderly for Medicare Advantage coverage. This would drive up the premiums and drive many poor seniors into Medigap coverage. And then, most cynically, he would take the money he saves on shortchanging poor old people and use it to subsidize the policies of people in their 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s who are, by definition, not poor (and thus not eligible for Medicaid).

And all this from a liberal? A Democrat?

by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann – Authors of Catastrophe. Dick Morris, a former political adviser to Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and President Bill Clinton (Dem), is the author of Condi vs. Hillary: The Next Great Presidential Race.

There are several good Republican options available, HR 3400 is one, but the Dems won’t even look at them and as much as Obama likes to look inclusive, he has not met with the Republicans since April and either refuses or ignores any of their attempts to set up a meeting.

(1) SERIOUS tort reform is needed. Medical malpractice needs to be redefined from ordinary negligence (that is, any time anything goes wrong, you can sue) to gross negligence (that is, you can sue only if some ridiculously awful thing has happened, such as the surgeon botched the surgery because he was drunk at the time). Furthermore, since medical drugs, machines, and procedures have to be OK'ed by the FDA, they should carry NO liability whatsoever, as long as they are made up to specs -- if the gov't insists on the power to say what treatments you can have, and the gov't says this or that treatment is OK, then the gov't should accept liability for such treatments. Period.

(2) Medical savings accounts (combined with high-deductible, catastrophic-coverage-only insurance) would bring the market into medical prices, since people would shop for the lowest price to save money for themselves. Remember, the price of two types of medical procedures has been falling while everything else has gone 'way up: cosmetic surgery and laser eye surgery. Why? Because these procedures are not covered by insurance, so people shop for the best price.

(3) Add to this a free market to allow the inter-state purchase and sale of health insurance, which is not allowed now, and portability and the bulk of our problems would be over without destroying our medical system, maintaining freedom of choice, and without allowing a gov’t takeover of healthcare.

Related Resources:

What Will the Year 2109 America Be Like for Babies Living to 100?

Are the elderly cost effective?

Stop Paying the Crooks

The Healing of America

What Will the Year 2109 America Be Like for Babies Living to 100?

We Need A Strategy For An Aging Society

The Lancet asserts this morning that a baby born today into an affluent home can expect to live to 100.

That's obviously good news, in the sense of helping everyone enjoy the full blessings of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

But at the same time, we had better be thinking harder about our plans for dealing with a geriatric population. Specifically, we can conclude that if people work for 40 years (say, age 25 to 65) and then live on retirement for 35 years (say, age 65 to 100) that'll be expensive. So we had better either a) increase economic growth, or b) delay the onset of work-incapacitation, so that seniors can stay in the workforce longer, past 65. Otherwise, we can be sure that others will have their own plan for dealing with oldsters.

POSTED BY JAMES P. PINKERTON AT 8:53 AM - The Lancet.com

1. An obvious solution is to incentivize older people to work longer by perhaps allowing them to collect partial benefits from Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, as needed, allowing them to work part-time, contribute, and make some needed income without losing some benefits they need, on a case by case basis.

2. Another possibility is to delay the onset of work-incapacitation or retirement from 65 to 70, perhaps at first on a volunteer basis and then changing the official age if not enough seniors choose to stay in the work force voluntarily.

Both these options, however, are only possible in a good economy, otherwise you are taking jobs that could be done by people between the ages of 16 and 65, forcing them onto some type of aid or lowering their standard of living.

3. Another option is to cut “all” senior benefits from ‘the wealthy’, whatever that demarcation line is.

Part of what has brought us to this discussion, is not only the large number of retiring boomers and looking at people living longer in the future. Added to this situation is a combination of a decline in family values, including marriage and having children, and a shift to a “Me” philosophy, thereby reducing repopulating in a responsible way and decreasing the numbers in younger generations to help take care of the elderly. Plus the unrealistic social programs, and creation of a ‘Nanny State’ as well as waste in government that we have created the drain on the system of funds.

Plug in the ideals of American Progressivism, or socialism, being proliferated by the Obama Administration, which had emboldened the far left even more, and we are in big trouble!! Obama ran on a platform promising transparency; cutting spending including going through the government’s budget line by line and cutting waste; and hope and change (for the positive most Americans believed) for “all”, which included seniors. Instead, we have gotten the most secretive and underhanded administration in the history of the United States; an increase in debt and spending that is unprecedented with an additional agenda including a power grab and fundamental remaking of America, redistribution of wealth, and ultimate socialism; and a philosophy peppered with racism and elitism on many levels as well as policies against the elderly, special needs people and anyone who disagrees with Obama and the Obama philosophy and agenda.

Related Resources:

Are the elderly cost effective?

Doctor Shortage Will Worsen Health Bill Impact

Why Sarah Palin is right on the issue of “death panels”

ObamaCare a Death Panel in Itself

Alert! Swine Flu and Other Vaccine Have Immunocontraceptives secretly placed in them! – video

Go Granny Go!

I Read the Heath-Scare Bill & Obama Is Lying!

Concerned American to Concerned American:

Obama says "I am in the way" of his Health-Scare Bill because I have questions and concerns. Well Mr. Obama I have read your Health-Scare Bill and want to know why you are lying and not telling me what is in the bill. Saying one thing and writing another. Why are you scared, putting my Constitutional Right to Free Speech under attack, suppressing and censoring my concerns?

I AM NOT IN THE WAY!

Who am I? I am an American just like you. Americans in town hall meetings all across the country want to know what Obama the White House and Democrat Politicians in Washington are planning to do to their health.

What am I concerned about? A "government run" public insurance option that will destroy private insurance and the cost every American will pay in increased taxes.

What am I doing? I am on the front line to fight back against the media onslaught that calls Obama a god. We must have free and open communication of all the Health-Scare Bill information without government or government condoned private censorship.

TELL CONGRESS TO REJECT THE SOCIALIZED HEALTH SCARE
SEND YOUR FAXES NOW!

"No government ought to be without censors, and where the press is free, If virtuous, it need not fear the fair operation of attack and defense. Nature has given to man no other means of sifting out the truth whether in religion, law or politics." - Thomas Jefferson 1792

I do not want a White House with conflicts of interest and a senior advisor to the president David Axelrod making millions from big players in the health care debate. Axelrod's old firm AKPD owes him $2 million, which it's due to pay in installments beginning Dec. 31. It is currently receiving huge fees "from Healthy Economy Now, a coalition that includes the Washington-based Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America, known as PhRMA," as well as AARP, the SEIU and others.

Here are a few of the shocking health controls per the Chosen One: Obama:

1. Pg 425 Lines 17-19 Government will instruct & consult regarding living wills, durable powers of atty. Mandatory! He will control your living wills
2. Pg 30 Sec 123 of HC bill - THERE WILL BE A GOVT COMMITTEE that decides what treatments/benefits you get (Unions are EXEMPTED)
3. Pg 42 of HC Bill - The Health Choices Commissioner will choose your HC Benefits for you. You have no choice! Government, not you, will decide what health care you are allowed.
4. PG 50 Section 152 in HC bill - HC will be provided to ALL non US citizens, illegal or otherwise Obama wants illegal aliens covered, with YOU paying
5. Pg 170 Lines 1-3 HC Bill Any NONRESIDENT Alien is exempt from individual taxes. (Only Americans will pay) Illegal aliens get health care FREE.
6. Pg 241 Line 6-8 HC Bill - Doctors, doesn't matter what specialty you have, you'll all be paid the same Government gets to set pay rates-this guarantees fewer specialized doctors, mandating a lower quality of care.
7. PG 272 SEC. 1145. TREATMENT OF CERTAIN CANCER HOSPITALS - Cancer patients - welcome to rationing! City of Hope and other cancer hospitals controlled by government--very young and elderly, due to other parts of Obamacare, will be forced to die since they will not be allowed health care.
8. They will teach you to die. PG 425 Lines 4-12 Government mandates Advance Care Planning Consult. Think Senior Citizens and end of life.
9. They will stop assistance to special needs children. Pg 354 Sec 1177 - Government will RESTRICT enrollment of Special needs people!

What type of society in the past operated like this--killing the young, the elderly, and the special needs? This is not health care; it is Obama's version of "A Heath Scare".

"Government has laid its hand on health, housing, farming, industry, commerce, education, and to an ever-increasing degree interferes with the people's right to know. Government tends to grow, government programs take on weight and momentum as public servants say, always with the best of intentions. But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or economically as the private sector of the economy." - President Ronald Reagan

Lagging in the poles and losing support Obama has called for Obamites in local communities to lobby for Socialized and Rationed Health Care.
Obama believes that home is where the radically liberal administration of Barack Hussein Obama is strongest. But Americans do not agree with him or socialized healthcare and the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that not only are Obama's disapproval ratings soaring but support for his health care plan is now less than 46 percent, a new low.

He claims that our grass roots effort to inform all Americans of the true cost of his plan are full of those who profit from the status quo, or see this debate as a political game, and they will stop at nothing to block reform. Obama is not addressing the bold face lies of his plan documented by FactCheck.org and instead says you are filling the airwaves and the internet with outrageous falsehoods to scare people into opposing change.

Obama is very nervous that our campaign of truth about the health care is working. He claims that some people, not surprisingly, are getting pretty nervous, as well they should. So Obama says he wants his socialist movement to "get out there, fight lies with truth, and set the record straight."

Folks that is what AmeriPAC has been doing all along setting the record strait. We believe you are entitled to know everything in this bill and how much you stand to lose and how much it will cost you.

Be sure you counter Party Obamites, tell everyone the truth about this bad bill, and make certain your members of Congress know that you're counting on them to act and STOP THIS BILL.

But we have a chance TODAY to stop them as well!

TELL CONGRESS TO REJECT THE SOCIALIZED HEALTH SCARE
SEND YOUR FAXES NOW!

More than 88 million Americans could LOSE their private, employer-based coverage, according to a new analysis of "The American Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009" released this week by The Heritage Foundation.

While Obama, Pelosi and Reid insist that "if you like your health insurance coverage, you'll get to keep it," it's now very clear: once again, THEY'RE LYING.

Is THIS "change we can believe in"??? NO -- and that means WE have to take action NOW!

We can't AFFORD Obama's plan to socialize health care in America!
How can anyone in Congress vote for a new entitlement program for health care when Congress has not even begun to face up to this unfunded liabilities problem?
Well, they're trying to -- but WE can stop them, with YOUR help!

We CANNOT let the radical liberals in Congress -- and the White House -- force this plan for socialized health care on the American people! That's why we've set up our website to enable you to send a strong message to every single member of Congress, in both Houses, OPPOSING this outrageous plan.

For about what it would cost you in time and telephone charges, you can send Blast Faxes to Democrats, Republicans, Independents -- EVERYONE in the U.S. House AND the U.S. Senate, DEMANDING that they REJECT this socialized health care plan NOW!
Can it work? Can we stop Congress from forcing this down our throats, even though the GOP is in the minority?

YES -- thanks to "blue dog Democrats," who are more conservative than their "leaders" like Pelosi and Reid. Already, they've been holding up the bill in committee; now, they're saying that Pelosi might not have the votes she needs in the House! And on the Senate side, thanks to the overwhelming opposition of the American people to this bill, Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), chair of the Senate Finance Committee, was overheard jokingly telling House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Maryland, "let me tell you, praying might be helpful here."

TELL CONGRESS TO REJECT THE SOCIALIZED HEALTH SCARE
SEND YOUR FAXES NOW!

Please, take action right away to STOP this bill dead in its tracks!
For more information, click here.
Defend America,

Alan Gottlieb
AmeriPAC
President and Founder

P.S. America needs health care reform. But new government programs, mandates, and price controls would deny patients control over their most important and personal medical decisions -- and it's "reform" that we cannot afford.

THIS ATTEMPT BY LIBERALS IS OUTRAGEOUS -- and it MUST be stopped! Send your faxes right away to make sure these Senators get a STRONG message, to REJECT the socialized plan of "Obamacare" NOW -- Thank you!

TELL CONGRESS TO REJECT THE SOCIALIZED HEALTH SCARE

SEND YOUR FAXES NOW!

Please make checks payable to AmeriPAC:
American Political Action Committee (AmeriPAC)
PO Box 1682
Dept Code 2907
Bellevue, WA 98009-1682

Paid for by AmeriPAC, a federally-authorized and qualified multicandidate political action committee. Contributions to AmeriPAC will be used in connection with federal elections. Maximum contribution per individual per calendar year is $5,000. Contributions from foreign nationals and corporations are prohibited. Contributions are not deductible for federal income tax purposes.

Posted: Daily Thought Pad – Cross-Posted: Knowledge Creates Power

For those of you who have followed our blogs, Daily Thought Pad, Knowledge Creates Power and some others we contribute to have known that these items and more undesirable items are in the health care and associated bills. But those of you who are new readers or who just wanted to believe that it wasn’t so… here it is again from another source, AmeriPac

If you do not want AmeriPac to send your faxes, below is the contact information for you to fax, call and email directly and then mail them out to… so as many legislators as you can!!

No ObamaCare

No Cap and Trade

No Additional Stimulus Bills and Give Us Back Whatever Hasn’t Been Spent

No Rockefeller-Snowe Cybersecurity Bill

No More New Legislation Until we stop the free fall of our Economy

Get Rid of the Czars

No Fairness Doctrine, Localism or any Other Restriction of Radio or TV

Leave Our Freedoms Alone

No Additional Gun Control Legislation

No Cash For Appliances

No Middle Class Tax Increases

Support Our Allies

Fight Our Enemies

Stop Apologizing for the United States

Govern by and Enforce the U.S. Constitution!!

And anything else you want to add…

Call the switchboard for Congress in Washington today... your Senator, your Congressperson and Nancy Pelosi and tell them "NO on ObamaCare, NO on Cap and Trade" & NO on the Carbon Tax!!!

1-202-224-3121- Switchboard - House

1-202-225-3121- Switchboard - Senate

(202) 225-0100 - Speaker of the House Pelosi

Speaker Nancy Pelosi
http://speaker.house.gov/contact or http://www.speaker.gov/contact

Info for Senators, Find Senators from your State.

Call the White House at 202-456-1111 & tell President Obama you have had enough!

And if you can Join up with the Tea Party Express as it passes your area:

Join the Tea Party Express

Tea Party Express Tour Schedule

or better yet… See You in Washington D.C. on 9/12

Related Resources:

• Free Our Health Care Now - Petition
• 'STOP OBAMACARE' PETITION
• HR-3200 - full report

  Other Breakdown Articles of HR-3200 Bill

• DETAILED ANALYSIS OF THE 1000 PAGE HEALTH CARE PLAN BY AND ATTORNEY & DEAN AND PROFESSOR OF LAW
• *Letter to Your Congress Person on Health Care (Obamacare) HR3200
• *A Look at What is Really in the Health Care Bill (HR 3200): Chilling!

HR 3200 (ObamaCare) and Illegals

Just about the time the Center for Immigration Studies was holding a press briefing at the National Press Club about the immigration and health reform connection, proponents from President Obama on down were denying that illegal aliens would receive taxpayer-funded health care under pending legislation.

I’m here to tell you, as I told the Press Club crowd, the legislation on the table does, honest to goodness, effectively extend coverage to illegal aliens.

Take the premium subsidy in the House bill, H.R. 3200. This lies in the part of the legislation (Division A, Title II) that creates a Health Choices Administration, adds the infamous “public option,” sets up and runs the “exchange” clearinghouse for getting insurance, and controls a graduated premium subsidy program through allocation of “individual affordability credits.”

The subsidy, found in Section 242, will give a voucher to people earning between 133 percent of the official poverty level and 400 percent of that income level (or, up to about $88,000 a year for a family of four).

Legal immigrants certainly qualify under H.R. 3200 for this subsidy. Section 242(a)(1) makes eligible "an individual who is lawfully present in a State in the United States (other than as a nonimmigrant described in a subparagraph (excluding subparagraphs (K), (T), (U), and (V)) of section 101(a)(15) of the Immigration and Nationality Act)."

A political fig leaf purports to keep illegal aliens from receiving the subsidy. Section 246 says, "Nothing in this subtitle shall allow Federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States."

However, reading the legislation as a whole, its glaring omission is any requirement to verify someone’s immigration or citizenship status. For instance, H.R. 3200 makes no reference to the verification system in current law that’s used for nearly all government welfare and other public programs. If lawmakers wanted enrolling agents, including bureaucrats at the new Health Choices Administration, to use the Systematic Alienage Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system, the bill should include a reference and authorize SAVE’s application to this government program.

In other words, the silence of H.R. 3200 regarding SAVE and mandatory verification makes Section 246 just empty words. In fact, the Ways and Means Committee outright voted down an amendment by Rep. Dean Heller to require eligibility verification before qualifying someone to receive a taxpayer subsidy. Also, "lawfully present" covers a lot of ground. Does it include someone here under Temporary Protected Status, for instance? Again, the absence of eligibility verification requirements leaves open a lot of room for waste, fraud, and abuse.

A similar situation of setting up blinders occurs in H.R. 3200’s Medicaid provisions. Division B’s Title VII, Section 1701 expands Medicaid eligibility to those with incomes a third above the federal poverty level. This provision dictates that "the State shall accept without further determination the enrollment under this title of an individual determined by the Commissioner to be a non-traditional Medicaid eligible individual." In other words, the bill prohibits asking any further questions about new Medicaid enrollees.

Rather, the bill section promotes "presumptive eligibility" concerning Medicaid expansion. Read it for yourself, right from Section 1702(a):

(ii) PRESUMPTIVE ELIGIBILITY OPTION- Pursuant to such memorandum, insofar as the memorandum has selected the option described in section 205(e)(3)(B) of the America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, the State shall provide for making medical assistance available during the presumptive eligibility period and shall, upon application of the individual for medical assistance under this title, promptly make a determination (and subsequent redeterminations) of eligibility in the same manner as if the individual had applied directly to the State for such assistance except that the State shall use the income-related information used by the Commissioner and provided to the State under the memorandum in making the presumptive eligibility determination to the maximum extent feasible. (emphasis added)

And, once again, the lack of any provision mentioning or requiring verification, mandatory use of the SAVE system under this part of the bill, or any other accountability requirement opens the process up to signing up illegal aliens for Medicaid.

In the Energy and Commerce Committee, a mandatory verification amendment was voted down when Rep. Nathan Deal offered it. A political fig leaf amendment was added by voice vote, but the loopholes and potential for waste, fraud, and abuse remain wide open in the Medicaid provisions.

Whatever you think of health reform, a combination of things makes it certain that illegal aliens will receive government health coverage. The most obvious is the omission — heck, the outright rejection of corrective amendments — of eligibility verification requirements. The other factor is the designed ease of enrolling people in Medicaid, for "affordability credits," and the like.

Bottom line, the health legislation Congress is considering establishes an "enroll now, don’t ask questions later" regime. That’s a recipe for covering more people, but many of whom may not actually qualify. A huge number are almost guaranteed to be illegal aliens or legal immigrants still in their first five years in the country who are supposed to turn to their visa sponsor for financial support. And having more people in a public program translates pretty quickly into higher costs. In this case, we’re talking on the order of tens and hundreds of billions of dollars.

Please read more, where C

Does AARP Support This?

Heck Yes!! They are busy trying to play both sides of the fence! – Tell AARP Goodbye and Checkout ASA: American Seniors Association

-------------

Health Care Bill Requires Free Translation Services

For anyone who still doesn’t believe that ObamaCare intends to cover illegal aliens while rationing elderly Americans and Legal Aliens… check this out: free translation services of non-English Speaking patients?!?

Take Action!

Strike Section 1221 (b) from H.R. 3200

Urgent alert! Please act now!

Health Care Reform legislation now pending in Congress would require doctors and hospitals to provide interpreters and translation services free of charge to non-English speaking patients.

That will add $billions to the cost of health care and give immigrants even less incentive to learn English.

The "America's Affordable Health Choices Act," H.R. 3200, Section 1221 (b) says Medicare health care providers that fail to "substantially provide language services to limited English proficient beneficiaries" face severe fines and penalties.

This is outrageous. Medicare is already bankrupt. Now medical providers also will have to provide free translation services.

Send a free email message to your congressional representatives and demand that they remove entitlements to language translation services from health care reform legislation!

Please "Take Action" now!

And please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to ProEnglish. We receive no government support and depend entirely on voluntary contributions from people like you. Clickhere to make a secure donation online. Thank you!

Posted: Daily Thought Pad – Cross-Posted: Knowledge Creates Power

Related Resources:

• ObamaCare Will Cover Illegals
• Dems Ensure Illegal Aliens Included in ObamaCare and Other Atrocities
• Catastrophe by Dick Morris - Covers the Healthcare debacle
• Obamacare for Illegal Aliens – While Granny Gets Duty to Die Lecture
• Fighting ObamaCare in the Spirit of Ted Kennedy
• ObamaCare and me – Doctor Zane F. Pollard
• Why Won’t abc and nbc run this ad?
• Prescription for Truth – Daniel Hannan From England: HealthCare Worse for Elderly

Read the Bill - HR-3200 - full report

Breakdown Articles of HR-3200 Bill

• DETAILED ANALYSIS OF THE 1000 PAGE HEALTH CARE PLAN BY AND ATTORNEY & DEAN AND PROFESSOR OF LAW
• *Letter to Your Congress Person on Health Care (Obamacare) HR3200
• *A Look at What is Really in the Health Care Bill (HR 3200): Chilling!

CASH FOR CODGERS

Democrats, realizing the success of the President's "Cash For Clunkers" rebate program , at least from their perspective, have revamped a major portion of their National Health Care Plan.

President Obama , Speaker Pelosi , and Senator Reid are expected to make this major announcement at a joint news conference later this week. I have obtained an advanced copy of the proposal which is named.

" CASH FOR CODGERS " and it works like this. Couples wishing to access health care funds in order to pay for the delivery of a child will be required to turn in one old person. The amount the government grants them will be fixed according to a sliding scale. Older and more prescription dependent codgers will garner the highest amounts.

Special "Bonuses" will be paid for those submitting codgers in targeted groups, such as smokers, alcohol drinkers, persons 10 pounds over their government prescribed weight, and any member of the Republican Party.

Smaller bonuses will be given for codgers who consume beef, soda, fried foods, potato chips , lattes, whole milk, dairy products, bacon, Brussel sprouts, or Girl Scout Cookies.

All codgers will be rendered totally useless via toxic injection. This will insure that they are not secretly resold or their body parts harvested to keep other codgers in repair.

Remember you heard it here first.

How much is your old family member worth? Turn them in to the nearest Planned Grandparenthood Center and find out! Receive cash prizes and free healthcare entitlements!

As part of a new incentive tied to Obama's upcoming healthcare reform, the network of Planned Grandparenthood Centers are to begin running ads, themed "Double Cash for Your Old Coot." The push offers a cash incentive or zero-percent financing on top of free government plans for all families whose trade-in old-timers qualify for the government's program known as "Cash for Clunkers," up to a maximum of four grandparents over 70 years of age.

Latest opinion polls show that seniors steal billions of dollars out the federal budget each year just by staying alive. This new bold initiative is calculated to save us all money by gently recycling high-maintenance old coots, thus taking them off the list of potential beneficiaries of the impeccable government health coverage.

"Everyone who signs up for our plan will get a cash incentive even if they don't turn in a qualifying old fogey," says White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. "But families who trade in their useless members will also get a free premium plan and - for a limited time only - a rationing coupon for an extra unaborted baby!"

At the opening of the first Planned Grandparenthood Center in Washington, DC last week, Barack Obama offered a brief, optimistic cheer:

"In the cold-hearted, uncaring capitalist society of the past, where every man was for himself, people often reached advanced age without any government help. It is a shame that in the richest country in the world, old people were abandoned by society and survived on their own, sometimes until they were 117 years old. No one knew or cared about how long they lived because everyone paid their own medical bills. But those dog-eat-dog days are over. In the caring, collectivist America, no one will be allowed to live without government care. And since we are paying for you, we decide how long you can be a drain on the collective wallet.

"From my meetings with community activists and focus groups I have learned one thing: once you're past seventy, you have outlived your usefulness. Progress requires sacrifice. Some don't buy a large flat-screen TV, some don't go on vacation, and some don't go on living. And since humans are nothing more than a random collection of chemical elements that can also be found in a flat-screen TV, human sacrifice is no different than material sacrifice. Do it for the children!"

Special thanks to General Secretary for the idea.

Posted: Knowledge Creates Power

Related Resources:

• Whose Medical Decisions? – Thomas Sowell
• Healthcare Benefits Advisory Committee Determines What Is Covered - Dick Morris: It’s All A Death Panel
• No Turning Back from Obamacare
• Obamacare: Beware the Rhetoric
• Prescription for Truth – Daniel Hannan From England: HealthCare Worse for Elderly
• Go Granny Go!
• Order a copy of Catastrophe

Whose Medical Decisions? – Thomas Sowell

There was a time when rushing a thousand-page bill through Congress so fast that no one has time to read it would have provoked public outrage. But now, this has been attempted twice in the first 6 months of a new administration.

The fact that they got away with it before, with the "stimulus" bill, may have led them to believe that they could get away with it again.

But the first bill simply spent hundreds of billions of dollars. The current "health care" bill threatens to take life-and-death decisions out of the hands of individuals and their doctors, transferring those decisions to Washington bureaucrats.

People are taking that personally-- as they should. Your life and death, and that of your loved ones, is as personal as it gets.

The mainstream media are again circling the wagons to protect Barack Obama, but this time it may not work. One of those front-page editorials disguised as a news article in the New York Times begins: "The stubborn yet false rumor that President Obama's health care proposals would create government-sponsored 'death panels' to decide which patients were worthy of living seemed to arise from nowhere in recent weeks."

Nowhere? Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel is "Special Advisor for Health Policy" for the Obama administration. That's nowhere? He is also co-author of an article on Americans' "over-utilization" of medical care in the June 18, 2008 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Is that nowhere?

Dr. Emanuel's article points out that Americans do not visit doctors or go into hospitals more than people in other industrialized countries. In fact we go to both places less often than people do in those other countries, which include countries with government-controlled medical care.

As the article points out, "It is more costly care, rather than high volume, that accounts for higher expenditures in the United States."

There are more Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) devices per capita in the United States, more coronary bypass operations and Americans use more new pharmaceutical drugs created within the past 5 years.

Americans also have more of what the article calls "amenities" with their medical care. "Hospital rooms in the United States offer more privacy, comfort and auxiliary services than do hospital rooms in most other countries."

In other words, it is not quantity but quality that is different-- and more expensive-- about American medical care. This is what Dr. Emanuel's "over-utilization" consists of.

At one time, it would have been none of Dr. Emanuel's business if your physician prescribed the latest medications for you, rather than the cheaper and obsolete medications they replaced. It would have been none of his business if you preferred to have a nice hospital room with "amenities" rather than being in an unsanitary ward with inadequate nursing care, as under the National Health Service in Britain.

The involvement of government gives Dr. Emanuel the leverage to condemn other Americans' choices-- and a larger involvement of government will give him the power to force both doctors and patients to change their choices.

As for a "death panel," no politician would ever use that phrase when trying to get a piece of legislation passed. "End of life" care under the "guidance" of "some independent group" sounds so much nicer-- and these are the terms President Obama used in an interview with the New York Times back on April 14th.

He said, "the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill out there." He added: "It is very difficult to imagine the country making those decisions just through the normal political channels. That is why you have to have some independent group that can give you guidance."

But when you select people like Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel to give "independent" guidance, you have already chosen a policy through your choice of advisors, who simply provide political cover. The net result can be exactly the same as if those providing that guidance were openly called "death panels."

by Thomas Sowell - a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute and author of The Housing Boom and Bust. Thomas Sowell is considered one of the purest thinkers and authors of our time.

And let us not forget: Co-Op = Public Option = Single Payer

Related Resource:

• Healthcare Benefits Advisory Committee Determines What Is Covered – Which Is Worrisome if You Understand Obama Administration Healthcare Advisors Per……
• No Turning Back from Obamacare
• Obamacare: Beware the Rhetoric
• Prescription for Truth – Daniel Hannan From England: HealthCare Worse for Elderly
• Rep. Tom Price (former physician) Admonishes Government Takeover of Healthcare
• Kennedy: Let’s Ration Healthcare
• Senator Grassley (and others): Democrats Want to Nationalize Healthcare
• HR 3200 Kills the Private Insurance Industry
• Catholics Fear ‘Stealth’ Abortion Push in Healthcare – Could Cause Hospital Closures and Doctor Shortages
• Healthcare Bill Requires Free Translation Services
• Woman in Oregon Told Healthcare Would Not Pay for Cancer Treatment But Would Pay for Assisted Suicide
• The Irony of “Reconciliation”
• Meet Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel: Deny Coverage to Elderly and Disabled for the Greater Good
  • Obama’s Rogues Gallery: Ezekiel Emanuel – Goodnight Grandma
  • Complete Lives System by Ezekiel Emanuel
  • Ezekiel Emanuel, architect of ObamaCare..please read
  • Meet Your Science Czar
  • Ghoulish Science Plus Obamacare Equals Health Hazard
  • Absolutism Redux – Review of the Second Bill of Rights: FDR’s Unfinished Revolution and Why We Need It More Than Ever
  • Useless Eaters
• Dirty Secret #1 in Obamacare
• British HealthCare - Don't Treat The Old!! - And Senator Coburn Warns Same For USA
• Universal Health and Old People
• Healthcare: Does Canada Do It Better?
• Obamacare for Illegal Aliens – While Granny Gets Duty to Die Lecture
• Kristol: Kill It, And Start Over
• ACORN CRACKED: Exposes ACORN"S Push for Socialized Medicine
• Malkin on ObamaCare Thuggary...
• Catastrophe – Book the Dick Morris that deals with Healthcare Reform subject in great detail

*Judge Andrew Napolitano, Jay Seculo: Attorney for the American Center of Law and Justice and Tim Lynch from The Cato Institute stated earlier today that the act of government taking over health care is “unconstitutional” The powers granted to the federal government are enumerated in the Constitution. Speak up America and keep up the pressure.

“It is only when the Congress feels the heat that they see the light!”. Nancy Pelosi said earlier today that Healthcare Reform without a Public Option was unacceptable. It was going to be all or nothing, and you can be sure that she/they will try to ram this bill through without the Republican’s input and against the wishes of the people.

Armey: We’ll March on Washington Against Obamacare - See Video: Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey talks about the movement to defeat Obamacare - Click Here Now

Posted: Knowledge Creates Power

ObamaCare: Beware of the Rhetoric

Both syndicated columnist host Mark Steyn and author and former political advisor to Bill Clinton, Dick Morris, said today in separate interviews… “beware of the rhetoric on healthcare”!

“ObamaCare is not about healthcare reform, it is about a power grab and taking 40% of Medicare funds (from the elderly) and redirecting them to illegals. The key to this program is not the public option or end of life counseling, it is taking funding from the elderly, giving it to younger illegals and then rationing care. So the protestors’ victories in the past few days are not what they may seem” …Dick Morris

“Fraiser Care in British Columbia (their socialized medicine) just announced that they would again be cutting healthcare for seniors as well as 15 to 20% of elective surgeries for everyone. Obama and the Dems will do whatever they can to pass an embryonic healthcare program and then burn the bridge behind them, so that there is no going back, because their ultimate goal is to get to a single-payer government-run healthcare program as part of their re-making of America program. Their entire Healthcare Program (Obamacare) is a death system with them in charge. It is the nationalization of your body.” …Mark Steyn

They both say that the co-op plan that the Dems have now started talking about is the same thing as the public option plan… which will ultimately result in a single-payer plan and government running who is covered and who isn’t, price setting, and what procedures and drugs will be given to whom!! They will also cover abortions with government money, have full access to your medical records and your bank account, if this passes.

“One third of the uninsured are 18 to 25-year-olds categorized as ‘the invincibles’ who think they are just that and don’t have a lot of money, so choose not to purchase health insurance if not covered by their parents or their employer.

Another quarter of the uninsured are adults between the ages of 50 and 65, the pre-Medicare boomers, who have lost jobs or coverage through their employer and either can’t get coverage because of pre-existing conditions of themselves or someone in their family, or can’t afford the premiums, so they are waiting and praying they will be fine until Medicare kicks in.

And then there are another 12 to 19 million illegals depending on who is supplying the figures that are not covered but will be under Obamacare. Covering illegal aliens not specifically addressed because if something or someone is not specifically excluded… they are included, which is the goal of the left!

Medicaid (coverage for the poor) is broke, primarily because of fraud and waste caused largely by duplication and could be cleaned up.” …Ceci Connolly, Washington Post

The balance of people not insured is about 5 to 8 million people who could be covered and covered cheaper by:

• Trashing all 5-bills that are presently being considered in the house and Senate
• Clean up Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Veterans Affairs and Reservation Benefits… by controlling fraud and waste.
• Invoke serious tort reform… stopping frivolous lawsuits and restricting the awards
• Do not cover abortions with public funds
• Do not cover people in the United State illegally
• Allow individuals and small businesses to for groups and co-ops to get better rates
• Allow the purchase of health insurance across state lines
• Allow portable coverage (allowing you to take your insurance with you when you leave a job or move)
• Pay on results not on number of procedures
• No more exclusions because of pre-existing conditions by insurance companies
• Crack-down on insurance fraud
• Allow coverage of natural supplements, natural and holistic procedures like chiropractic care, acupuncture etc by insurance coverage
• Force Big Pharma to honor price reduction they offered Team Obama
• Allow generic medications to be covered by insurance, Medicare and Medicaid, etc.
• Allow sharing of information and encourage the reduction of duplication of records… but not kept and managed by the government or in a central database by a company like GE, who is in bed with Team Obama. In today’s world if large companies and groups like Kaiser, Blue Cross, Medicaid, Cigna etc kept their own central databases, forwarding information electronically or giving a copy to the patient to hand carry to avoid the duplication of procedures or tests is and would be easy. Perhaps some the unspent stimulus money could go toward helping some of these companies updating their record systems, which would also create some permanent and temporary jobs. A central database of everyone’s information is just to tempting for future problems.

If the above measures were enacted, we could pay for the 5 to 8 million who are not insured and not are insurable, lower or at least maintain our costs without changing the quality of our medical care in the United States, keep additional government intrusion out of our lives and prevent rationing.

Add to this the ideas of dozens and dozens of present and ex-Governors, Senators and Congress people plus CEO’s of companies and experts in economics and medical care from the financial end, we could perhaps level the cost increase for a few years and improve our care for everyone.

Everyone agrees that we need some kind of reform. This kind of reform, not the ObamaCare versions (any of them)

HUGE PRO-OBAMA HEALTH CARE AD CAMPAIGN UNDER WAY

As you can see from the link below, the Obama people are launching a huge TV ad blitz to restore momentum behind their health care proposals. Funded by money from drug companies and other vendors who have been bought off to back the plan, it tries to refocus the campaign for his legislation on the supposed benefits of his plan for the average person.

Click here to watch the ad. We need to counter this offensive with all our resources.

The supposed benefits of the Obama package that are enumerated in the ad are all:
1. Easily available by federal or state regulatory legislation and need not be part of an overall change in the health care system; and

2. Have largely already been agreed to by the insurance companies at their White House meetings; and

3. Were, in many cases, solved by the Kennedy Kassenbaum bill, passed in 1996, that prohibited insurers from discriminating against patients whose pre-existing conditions were covered in their old jobs.

Yet, in a bid to drum up support for the bill and its inevitable rationing of care to the elderly, Obama is presenting these measures as integral to his legislation when, in fact, they are quite extraneous to it.

Strategically, he is trying to focus the debate on the needs of the younger population and avoid addressing the catastrophe that his plan would represent for the elderly. None of the people in the ad are old and the issues are those that concern the younger, working population.

The answer is to keep the debate focused on the elderly. If their opposition to these proposals grows and reaches a tipping point (as it is doing as we speak), the Democrats will not dare pass their legislation.

PLEASE...Go here and donate funds so we can run ads attacking Obama's plan and zeroing in on what it means for the elderly. We are now on the air in Montana, North Dakota, Arkansas, and Maine. We are about to go on in South Dakota, Nebraska, and Louisiana.

We need money to advertise in North Carolina, Wyoming, Indiana, and Connecticut.
Please give generously so we can reach these Senators!

Thanks,
Dick Morris

If you have the time and inclination to read the healthcare bill (HR-3200 - full report) yourself it would be great, most of the Congresspeople who are holding town halls have not.

If not, here are some breakdowns:

Breakdown Articles of HR-3200 - full report

• DETAILED ANALYSIS OF THE 1000 PAGE HEALTH CARE PLAN BY AND ATTORNEY & DEAN AND PROFESSOR OF LAW
• *Letter to Your Congress Person on Health Care (Obamacare) HR3200
• *A Look at What is Really in the Health Care Bill (HR 3200): Chilling!

And a must read on this subject is Dick Morris’ Catastrophe

Click Here To Find A Town Hall Near You!

Related Resources:

• Senate Removes 'End of Life' Provision From Senate Bill - Victory in the 'Right' Direction for the American People and Fox News
• Obamacare for Illegal Aliens – While Granny Gets Duty to Die Lecture
• Prescription for Truth – Daniel Hannan From England: HealthCare Worse for Elderly
• No Turning Back From ObamaCare
• GovernmentCare’s Assault on Seniors
• ObamaCare For Seniors: Sorry, You’re Just Not Worth It
• Dick Morris Says Obamacare Will Replace Medicare – What to do to Save Health Care
• Kennedy: Let’s Ration Healthcare
• Kristol: Kill It, And Start Over
• Seniors Left Behind?
• HR 3200 Kills the Private Insurance Industry
• The Ultimate Resting Place of Socialized Medicine
• Co-Ops = Public Option = Single Payer
• Lamar Smith Spells Out Costs of Speaker Pelosi’s Insistence on Covering Illegal Aliens With Federal Health Plan
• Catastrophe

Contact your Senator and Congressperson, any Blue Dogs or moderates in pivotal states and attend a local healthcare Townhall, healthcare Tea Party on 9/12 or the Big One in Washington. Read the Bill or at least some Reviews, Read Catastrophe, educate yourself on this and related issues And then please speak out America!!!

Taxes go up, taxes go down. Laws are made and rescinded. But once a version of Government-Run Healthcare is passed and initiated there is no going back: Prescription for Truth – Daniel Hannan From England: HealthCare Worse for Elderly and No Turning Back From Obamacare

Call the switchboard for Congress in Washington today... your Senator, Congressperson and Nancy Pelosi and tell them “NO” on Government-Run Healthcare Takeover, "NO on Cap and Trade" & NO on the Carbon Tax… and to pay back the unspent stimulus money!!!

1-202-224-3121- Switchboard - House

1-202-225-3121- Switchboard - Senate

(202) 225-0100 - Speaker of the House Pelosi

Speaker Nancy Pelosi
http://speaker.house.gov/contact or http://www.speaker.gov/contact
If the web contact form doesn't work, use this email address:
AmericanVoices@mail.house.gov

Info on Senators from your State.

“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.” --Ronald Reagan

Join the Tea Party Express

Free Our Health Care Now - Petition

Source: True Health Is True Wealth

Posted: Knowledge Creates Power

Sarah Palin: Concerning the "Death Panels"

Yesterday President Obama responded to my statement that Democratic health care proposals would lead to rationed care; that the sick, the elderly, and the disabled would suffer the most under such rationing; and that under such a system these “unproductive” members of society could face the prospect of government bureaucrats determining whether they deserve health care.

The President made light of these concerns. He said:
“Let me just be specific about some things that I’ve been hearing lately that we just need to dispose of here. The rumor that’s been circulating a lot lately is this idea that somehow the House of Representatives voted for death panels that will basically pull the plug on grandma because we’ve decided that we don’t, it’s too expensive to let her live anymore....It turns out that I guess this arose out of a provision in one of the House bills that allowed Medicare to reimburse people for consultations about end-of-life care, setting up living wills, the availability of hospice, etc. So the intention of the members of Congress was to give people more information so that they could handle issues of end-of-life care when they’re ready on their own terms. It wasn’t forcing anybody to do anything.” [1]

The provision that President Obama refers to is Section 1233 of HR 3200, entitled “Advance Care Planning Consultation.” [2] With all due respect, it’s misleading for the President to describe this section as an entirely voluntary provision that simply increases the information offered to Medicare recipients. The issue is the context in which that information is provided and the coercive effect these consultations will have in that context.

Section 1233 authorizes advanced care planning consultations for senior citizens on Medicare every five years, and more often “if there is a significant change in the health condition of the individual ... or upon admission to a skilled nursing facility, a long-term care facility... or a hospice program." [3] During those consultations, practitioners must explain “the continuum of end-of-life services and supports available, including palliative care and hospice,” and the government benefits available to pay for such services. [4]

Now put this in context. These consultations are authorized whenever a Medicare recipient’s health changes significantly or when they enter a nursing home, and they are part of a bill whose stated purpose is “to reduce the growth in health care spending.” [5] Is it any wonder that senior citizens might view such consultations as attempts to convince them to help reduce health care costs by accepting minimal end-of-life care? As Charles Lane notes in the Washington Post, Section 1233 “addresses compassionate goals in disconcerting proximity to fiscal ones.... If it’s all about alleviating suffering, emotional or physical, what’s it doing in a measure to “bend the curve” on health-care costs?” [6]

As Lane also points out:

Though not mandatory, as some on the right have claimed, the consultations envisioned in Section 1233 aren’t quite “purely voluntary,” as Rep. Sander M. Levin (D-Mich.) asserts. To me, “purely voluntary” means “not unless the patient requests one.” Section 1233, however, lets doctors initiate the chat and gives them an incentive -- money -- to do so. Indeed, that’s an incentive to insist.

Patients may refuse without penalty, but many will bow to white-coated authority. Once they’re in the meeting, the bill does permit “formulation” of a plug-pulling order right then and there. So when Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) denies that Section 1233 would “place senior citizens in situations where they feel pressured to sign end-of-life directives that they would not otherwise sign,” I don’t think he’s being realistic. [7]

Even columnist Eugene Robinson, a self-described “true believer” who “will almost certainly support” “whatever reform package finally emerges”, agrees that “If the government says it has to control health-care costs and then offers to pay doctors to give advice about hospice care, citizens are not delusional to conclude that the goal is to reduce end-of-life spending.” [8]

So are these usually friendly pundits wrong? Is this all just a “rumor” to be “disposed of”, as President Obama says? Not according to Democratic New York State Senator Ruben Diaz, Chairman of the New York State Senate Aging Committee, who writes:
Section 1233 of House Resolution 3200 puts our senior citizens on a slippery slope and may diminish respect for the inherent dignity of each of their lives.... It is egregious to consider that any senior citizen ... should be placed in a situation where he or she would feel pressured to save the government money by dying a little sooner than he or she otherwise would, be required to be counseled about the supposed benefits of killing oneself, or be encouraged to sign any end of life directives that they would not otherwise sign. [9]

Of course, it’s not just this one provision that presents a problem. My original comments concerned statements made by Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, a health policy advisor to President Obama and the brother of the President’s chief of staff. Dr. Emanuel has written that some medical services should not be guaranteed to those “who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens....An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia.” [10] Dr. Emanuel has also advocated basing medical decisions on a system which “produces a priority curve on which individuals aged between roughly 15 and 40 years get the most chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get chances that are attenuated.” [11]

President Obama can try to gloss over the effects of government authorized end-of-life consultations, but the views of one of his top health care advisors are clear enough. It’s all just more evidence that the Democratic legislative proposals will lead to health care rationing, and more evidence that the top-down plans of government bureaucrats will never result in real health care reform.

By: Sarah Palin

[1] See: http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/08/president-obama-addresses-sarah-palin-death-panels-wild-representations.html.
[2] See: http://edlabor.house.gov/documents/111/pdf/publications/AAHCA-BillText-071409.pdf
[3] See: HR 3200 sec. 1233 (hhh)(1); Sec. 1233 (hhh)(3)(B)(1), above.
[4] See: HR 3200 sec. 1233 (hhh)(1)(E), above.
[5] See: http://edlabor.house.gov/documents/111/pdf/publications/AAHCA-BillText-071409.pdf
[6] See: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/07/AR2009080703043.html].
[7] Id.
[8] See: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/10/AR2009081002455.html].
[9] See: http://www.nysenate.gov/press-release/letter-congressman-henry-waxman-re-section-1233-hr-3200.
[10] See: http://www.ncpa.org/pdfs/Where_Civic_Republicanism_and_Deliberative_Democracy_Meet.pdf
[11] See: http://www.scribd.com/doc/18280675/Principles-for-Allocation-of-Scarce-Medical-Interventions.

Posted: Knowledge Creates Power

Related Posts:

• Palin Stands by 'Death Panel' Claim

Eugenics Started in America in 1907 and Spread To the World – Segment One of Five

Sometimes there are facts and information that we need to know about and consider for ourselves… This is part of 5… of that kind of information.

Part 2 – Who Surrounds Obama and Who Does He Listen To?

Part 3 – Discussion of QALY Quality Adjusted Life Year

Part 4 – Healthcare Benefits Advisory Committee Determines What’s Covered

Part 5 – Obama Administration’s Healthcare Advisor’s Personnel Tree

Craig List Advertisements Recruiting MOBs for Cash for Hire

Related Resources:

• Woman in Oregon Told Healthcare Would Not Pay for Cancer Treatment But Would Pay for Assisted Suicide
• Meet Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel: Deny Coverage to Elderly and Disabled for the Greater Good
  • Obama’s Rogues Gallery: Ezekiel Emanuel – Goodnight Grandma
  • Complete Lives System by Ezekiel Emanuel
  • Ezekiel Emanuel, architect of ObamaCare..please read
  • Meet Your Science Czar
  • Ghoulish Science Plus Obamacare Equals Health Hazard
  • Absolutism Redux – Review of the Second Bill of Rights: FDR’s Unfinished Revolution and Why We Need It More Than Ever
  • Useless Eaters
• Kennedy: Let’s Ration Healthcare
• Dirty Secret #1 in Obamacare

Woman in Oregon Told Healthcare Would Not Pay for Cancer Treatment But Would Pay for Assisted Suicide… Welcome to Government Controlled Healthcare

On Fox News’s O'Reilly Factor 8/10/09 a story was put forward about a lady that had cervical cancer and was denied the cancer drugs by the state (they have universal healthcare) and she was told they would pay for the drugs that would terminate her life.

Say you got cancer. Say your doctor found a treatment that could prolong your life for years. It wouldn’t cure the cancer, but it would slow it down, giving you precious time. Say the state refused to pay for your treatment, yet told you they would pay for doctor-assisted suicide.

Welcome to the Oregon Health Plan.

Perhaps, in order to find out what we can look forward to under a single-payer plan, we should look to one of our very own states: Oregon. The Oregon Health Plan (OHP) is a government run health care system for low-income residents. To be included in the plan, you currently have to win a lottery — literally. Sounds relatively simple, right? Basic care is included with little to no co-payments.

But things aren’t all butterflies and flowers in the Oregon Health Plan, nor is the health care system in place in Oregon going well. Patients who are treated under the OHP or Medicaid get the joys of rationed health care. And if you are unlucky enough to be stricken with cancer, or need a major operation to save your life, the state’s response is to tell you to just die already. And they mean that literally.

Consider the case of Barbara Wagner. She is a lung cancer patient whose doctor prescribed her a revolutionary new chemotherapy treatment, one that slows the growth of the cancer and could possibly prolong her life by years. To most people, this would be good news. To the OHP, it meant just another drain on the system. They denied Ms. Wagner’s claim, and instead offered to pay for doctor-assisted suicide. Wagner, of course, was understandably outraged.

“Treatment of advanced cancer that is meant to prolong life, or change the course of this disease, is not a covered benefit of the Oregon Health Plan,” read the letter notifying Wagner of the health plan’s decision.

Wagner says she was shocked by the decision. “To say to someone, we’ll pay for you to die, but not pay for you to live, it’s cruel,” she told the Register-Guard. “I get angry. Who do they think they are?” An OHP doctor tried to explain:

Dr. Walter Shaffer, medical director of the state Division of Medical Assistance Programs, which administers the Oregon Health Plan, attempted to defend the health plan’s decision. “We can’t cover everything for everyone,” he said. “We try to come up with polices that provide the most good for the most people.” Shaffer then addressed a priority list that had been developed to ration health care. “There’s some desire on the part of the framers of this list to not cover treatments that are futile,” he said, “or where the potential benefit to the patient is minimal in relation to the expense of providing the care.”

Under Obama’s government run health care plan, could the rest of the country be headed the same way? Be sure to read the whole thing.

Source: American Issues Project

Video: Oregon says no to chemotherapy, offers assisted suicide instead
HotAir.com ^ | 8/3/09 | Ed Morrissey

We knew it would come to this when Oregon insisted on passing its assisted-suicide laws. It doesn’t take much for assisted suicide to go from a humane option to a cost-saving device, especially when the state pays for the medical care. One patient in Oregon got a letter that made this all too clear, when in the same letter rejecting her request for life-extending chemotherapy, Oregon offered her “physician-aid-in-dying”. In other words, Oregon offered their customer a heapin’ helping of death:

Video

The doctor interviewed by the news station seems offended at the suggestion that Oregon would decide to save a few bucks by denying expensive health care and offering a case of hemlock in its place. However, saving money was the raison d’etreof single-payer systems, and the incentives all drive towards that decision. Single-payer systems have to handle medical services as a shortage market, rationing them by using “comparative effectiveness” paradigms to determine who gets medical attention, and who gets “physician-aid-in-dying” instead of it.

The woman who drew the short end of the stick in this case wonders who these people think they are. They think they know better than us who needs to live and die. Has that lesson still not been made clear?

Update: I got this link yesterday and the KATU page is undated, but this story is from 2008, which I didn’t realize until I got an e-mail about it. I wrote about this last June, and I simply didn’t recall it.

Posted on Mon Aug 03 2009 07:35:40 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time) by Crazieman

Related Posts:

• We Won’t Treat You, But We Will Help You Kill Yourself
• State of Oregon Health Plan;Chemo - NO, Assisted suicide - YES!! - Politics and Other Controversies - Page 2 - City-Data Forum
• Health Care Will Pay For Assisted Suicide But Not To Live | Brees List
• AMERICAN PRINCIPLES PROJECT
• A glimpse forward into ObamaCare via Oregon « DPGI – the aftermath
• no drugs for you! unless you want an overdose…? : NO QUARTER
• “NICE”: Orwellian acronym of Brit plan to ration pain treatment « Danishova
• The Anchoress — A First Things Blog
• Horror in Oregon: Elderly Patient given “end of life” instead of chemotherapy « Chockblock’s blog
• Tuesday, August 4, 2009 — ExposeTheMedia.com
• Dr. Death, Obamacare Coming to a Neighborhood Near You « Grassroots Conservative Movement
• Health Care Critics: An “Angry Mob” or “Expressing Their Concerns”? « Minnesota Free Market Institute
• Universal Health Scare #44: State of Oregon Denies Women Cancer Drug, Offers Euthanasia Instead | Political Vindication
• Town halls gone wild - Page 60
• Letter noting assisted suicide raises questions
• Prescription for Truth - Daneil Hannan From England: Healthcare Worse For Elderly
• British HealthCare - Don't Treat The Old!! - And Senator Coburn Warns Same For USA
• Universal Health and Old People
• Healthcare: Does Canada Do It Better?

Posted: Knowledge Creates Power