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POPSThe Government Loves Spending Your Money Health care is turning into a big game of hot potato between the states and the federal government. At least between those who acknowledge somebody actually has to pay for it. Carl Oberg contributed to this article Write to tdoheny@afphq.org
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POPSH1N1: Sorry, we don't have a line item for That. Creating ways for healthful lifestyle habits to be the natural first choice for Americans is the goal of a $650 million initiative of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will be used to increase physical activity, improve nutrition, decrease obesity, and decrease smoking in U.S. communities. And then, on the same day Dr. Frieden was doing his best Oliver Twist before Congress: $120 Million for States Made Available as Part of Recovery Act Community Prevention and Wellness Initiative Now, the H1N1 is one of the more anticipated, slow-moving ‘pandemics’ in history. It hasn’t even really hit and it seems like old news. Surely, some of that $650 million in grants for ’healthy choices’ could have been used to, you know, actually keep people healthy.
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POPSRead the Union Health-Care Label There's more. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus has suggested that the federal government could pay for health-care reform by taxing American workers' existing health-care benefits—but he would exempt union-negotiated health-care plans. Under Mr. Baucus's scheme, the government could impose costs of up to $20,000 per employee on nonunion businesses already struggling to afford health care plans. Mr. Baucus's proposal would give union officials another tool to pressure employers into turning over their employees to Big Labor. Rather than provide the lavish benefits required by Obamacare, employers could allow a union to come in and negotiate less costly benefits than would otherwise be required. Such plans could be continuously exempted. ObamaCare is a Trojan Horse for more forced unionization.
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POPSTea Party-bashers gone wild
Now, that cabal is accusing the broad coalition of taxpayer activists, libertarians, independents, talk radio loyalists, bloggers, and first-time protesters against socialized medicine of being, yes, wealthy and astroturfed. In a comical missive issued Tuesday afternoon, Democratic National Committee spokesman Brad Woodhouse complained: “The Republicans and their allied groups — desperate after losing two consecutive elections and every major policy fight on Capitol Hill — are inciting angry mobs of a small number of rabid right wing extremists funded by K Street Lobbyists to disrupt thoughtful discussions about the future of health care in America taking place in Congressional Districts across the country.” The DNC definition of “thoughtful:” Sitting silent about the lack of transparency, deliberation, truth in numbers, and reciprocity on the Obamacare plan. The DNC definition of incitement: Asking out loud, “How can you manage health care when you can’t manage Cash For Clunkers
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POPSWho Does the House Health Care Bill Hurt? But, hey, these are all sacrifices we make to ensure that everyone gets coverage, right? Well, not everyone. There's a segment of the public (in the middle class), which will have to pay a fee for not buying insurance, but will not be eligible for federal subsidies: House bill would mandate that individuals and families have or buy health insurance. Any individual (or family) that does not have health insurance would have to pay a new tax, roughly equal to the smaller of 2.5% of your income or the cost of a health insurance plan... if you’re a single person with income of $44,000 or higher, then you’re above 400% of the poverty line. You would not be subsidized, but would face the punitive tax if you didn’t get health insurance. This bill leaves an important gap between the subsidies and the cost of health insurance. CBO says that for about eight million people, that gap is too big to close, and they would get stuck paying higher taxes and still without health insurance.
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POPSMaking sure Doctors obey what care gov't deems appropriate No one has leveled with the public about these dangerous views. Nor have most people heard about the arm-twisting, Chicago-style tactics being used to force support. In a Nov. 16, 2008, Health Care Watch column, Emanuel explained how business should be done: "Every favor to a constituency should be linked to support for the health-care reform agenda. If the automakers want a bailout, then they and their suppliers have to agree to support and lobby for the administration's health-reform effort." Do we want a "reform" that empowers people like this to decide for us? Betsy McCaughey is founder of the Committee to Reduce Infec tion Deaths and a former New York lieutenant governor.
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POPSCentral Control of Your Doctor and Your Health! The House bill calls for this appointed board, dubbed the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research, to be at least 50 percent "physicians or other experts with clinical expertise." However, there is no way the Council's 15 members - all of whom also must be employed in federal government agencies - can determine which drug or treatment is going to work . You are a unique human being, with genetic and environmental factors influencing your health. Your sister has severe depression, and she responds only to one antidepressant. What if it isn't the one that works for most people? Or it's the most expensive one? Peter Pitts, head of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest and a former FDA associate commissioner, explained why "one-size-fits-all" medicine doesn't work: Most comparative effectiveness studies "don't capture the genetic variations that explain differences in response to medicines by different patients."
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POPSOne Step Closer to Losing Your Right to Health Care What defines something as a right is whether the government can or cannot prohibit you from doing it. (President Obama notoriously called these "negative liberties".) If the government can't stop you from doing it, then it's a right. We have a right to religious expression because the government is prohibited from suppressing that expression. We have the right to assemble because the government must allow us to do so. We can speak freely because the government cannot censor us. Nor can the government take away law-abiding citizens' firearms. The House of Representatives' health care bill would give the federal government control over what kind of health care you will have access to. Private alternatives to the government plan will become economically unviable, leaving the government plan as a de facto monopoly. Because the Democrats are promising universal health care, demand for health care will skyrocket.
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POPS5 Questions for President's Health Care Press Conference 1. If the major provisions of the health care bills will not kick in until 2013, four years from now, why the rush to pass a thousand-page bill before the August recess, a bill you admit that you haven’t fully read yourself? 2. You have said your health care bill will cut costs and not increase the deficit. But, independent analysis by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office contradicts both claims, saying it will raise costs and increase the deficit by $240 billion in the first ten years. What independent analysis will you provide that supports your claims and refutes CBO’s? 3. You have repeatedly said that your health care bill allows any American who likes their current employer-based plan to keep it. But the most comprehensive independent analysis available, by the Lewin Group, contradicts your claim and found your bill will force over 80 million Americans to lose their current coverage. Will you provide independent analysis to refute this study?
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POPSHealth plan will not reduce Medical Costs says non partisan CBO A group of 22 Democrats, including Polis and Titus, elected in 2006 and 2008 wrote a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, protesting the tax as harmful to small businesses. "Especially in a recession, we need to make sure not to kill the goose that will lay the golden eggs of our recovery," the letter read. "We believe that any revenues for the health care program should be collected from a larger base than the critical small business sector."
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POPSHealth care bill has lots of PORK · Subsidize community projects like building jungle gyms in parks. "Some of these programs may have value, but this is the wrong bill at the wrong time," Enzi said. "With our nation's health and economy at stake, this bill must not turn into a Christmas list for every partisan interest group in Washington." On a side note, I can't wait until Connecticut voters exile Sen. Chris Dodd to his Irish cottage next year.
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POPSDem Leaders Warn Doctors Not to Meet With Republicans Republican leaders have been meeting with health care stakeholders for months, with those sessions occurring “more frequently than once a month,” according to a senior Senate GOP aide. Now what country are we living in again? When did America become Venezuela?
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POPSHuman Cost of Gov't run Healthcare Lots of information comparing proposed plans on the host site at www.cprights.org We need to be very cautious about changing healthcare. I have several choices between insurance companies where I work and I could put pressure on them through my employer if need be, or even switch employers if I had to. With Gov't care there would be no choice between insurers and good luck pressuring the gov't unless you're one of the "elites". For most of us it would be like the DMV I'm afraid... take a number.
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POPSA HealthCare System Truly Owned And Controlled By Patients
Proponents of such a plan assert that the inadequacies of our current health care system are the product of a failed free market. Market mechanisms have been trampled by governmental involvement in care, primarily through Medicare — the government’s public option for seniors. Obama's Grand Gamble http://www.politico.com/specialsection/healthcare/ Since it would be backed by the federal treasury, not built upon market principles and efficiencies, any public option would effectively destroy the private insurance market. With the government subsidizing costs through higher taxes, the plan would offer “lower” fees for the services it offers. As Washington bureaucracies view health care in terms of dollars and cents, instead of patients and doctors, this government-run plan would, like Medicare, end up limiting access to treatments, prescriptions and procedures that it deems “ineffective.” You may know this process by another word: rationing.
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POPSTop Ten Reasons For ObamaCare Are Based On False Information George Bernard Shaw warned “Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.” The major overhaul of American health care pursued by President Obama and his supporters is based on many false premises and is excessive and likely to do more harm than good. Tuning up and improvements already always dynamically occurs. Instead, ObamaCare is aimed at dramatically changing one-sixth of the US economy in ways that are untested or tested and found wanting, primarily involving huge increases in government direction of health care. The details of ObamaCare are largely being left to Congress, the same body that stuffs the federal budget with earmarks, waste, and other programs that are not requested. ObamaCare is premised on claims for drastic changes in health care and major increases in government programs being necessary. Those claims are largely specious.
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