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POPSFor Veterans Day — Real Troop Support "According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, nearly 42 million American men and women have served during wartime. Nearly 1.2 million died while serving. Nearly 1.5 million were wounded. Since 9/11, more than 5,200 have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nearly 36,000 have been wounded — many have debilitating injuries that have changed their lives forever. We may debate the rightness or wrongness of various engagements, but we know that freedom comes at a steep price — and we honor those who have secured it for us."
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POPSHere Are Some Important Passages in the 2,000 Page Legislation.
Eviscerating Medicare: In addition to reducing future Medicare funding by an estimated $500 billion, the bill fundamentally changes how Medicare pays doctors and hospitals, permitting the government to dictate treatment decisions. Sec. 1302 (pp. 672-692) moves Medicare from a fee-for-service payment system, in which patients choose which doctors to see and doctors are paid for each service they provide, toward what's called a "medical home." (The bill specifies that patients may have to settle for a nurse practitioner rather than a physician as the primary-care provider.) Sec. 1114 (pp. 391-393) replaces physicians with physician assistants in overseeing care for hospice patients. • Secs. 1158-1160 (pp. 499-520) initiates programs to reduce payments for patient care to what it costs in the lowest cost regions of the country. Sec. 1161 (pp. 520-545) cuts payments to Medicare Advantage plans (used by 20% of seniors). Advantage plans have warned this will result in . . . .
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POPSKucinich: Why I voted NO I'm so torn. I think we should have fought harder for a single-payer bill, even though I know that would have been a much harder battle. But I don't think that voting no on this was the solution, either. As much as I would like BIG CHANGE, I know that can't happen in one fell swoop. Baby steps, unfortunately, will get us to that final goal. Hopefully, the public will realize, soon, that we need single payer!
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POPSOink Report - 3 November 2009 I am so glad that children who won't be born for decades yet will be paying the interest on the money spent to keep the Merry-Go-Round Museum open. That must save or create a gajillion jobs.
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POPSThe ‘Costs’ of Medical Care by Thomas Sowell NRO
countries where the medical training may not be the best. In short, reducing doctors’ income is not reducing the cost of medical care, it is refusing to pay those costs. Like other ways of refusing to pay costs, it has consequences. Any one of us can reduce medical costs by refusing to pay them. In our own lives, we recognize the consequences. But when someone with a gift for rhetoric tells us that the government can reduce the costs without consequences, we are ready to believe in such political miracles. There are some ways in which the real costs of medical care can be reduced, but the people who are leading the charge for a government takeover of medical care are not the least bit interested in actually reducing those costs, as distinguished from shifting the costs around or just refusing to pay them. The high costs of “defensive medicine” " expensive tests, medications, and procedures required to protect doctors and hospitals from ruinous lawsuits, rather than
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POPSSeeing Through The Lies: The Worst Bill Ever It "pays for" about six years of program with a decade of revenue, with the heaviest costs concentrated in the second five years. The House also pretends Medicare payments to doctors will be cut by 21.5% next year and deeper after that, "saving" about $250 billion. ObamaCare will be lucky to cost under $2 trillion over 10 years; it will grow more after that. • Expanding Medicaid, gutting private Medicare. All this is particularly reckless given the unfunded liabilities of Medicare"now north of $37 trillion over 75 years. Mrs. Pelosi wants to steal $426 billion from future Medicare spending to "pay for" universal coverage. While Medicare's price controls on doctors and hospitals are certain to be tightened, the only cut that is a sure thing in practice is gutting Medicare Advantage to the tune of $170 billion. Democrats loathe this program because it gives one of out five seniors private insurance options.
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POPSThe First 500 Pages of Obamacare
• Page 91: Government mandates linguistic infrastructure for services; translation: illegal aliens • Page 95: The Government will pay ACORN and Americorps to sign up individuals for Government-run Health Care plan. • Page 102: Those eligible for Medicaid will be automatically enrolled: you have no choice in the matter. • Page 124: No company can sue the government for price-fixing. No "judicial review" is permitted against the government monopoly. Put simply, private insurers will be crushed. • Page 127: The AMA sold doctors out: the government will set wages. • Page 145: An employer MUST auto-enroll employees into the government-run public plan. No alternatives. • Page 126: Employers MUST pay healthcare bills for part-time employees AND their families. • Page 149: Any employer with a payroll of $400K or more, who does not offer the public option, pays an 8% tax on payroll • Page 150: Any employer with a payroll of $250K-400K or more, who does not offer the public option,
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POPSSEIU Needs Socialized Medicine To Stoke Its Underfunded Pensions 
and union employees at the expense of the rank-and-file. To regain some semblance of fiscal stability, the SEIU has wagered heavily on forcing other employees to help fund its drying pension reserves. That was the motivation behind the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) ("Card Check"), a major Democrat initiative for 2009, and one on which the SEIU spent tens of millions of its members' money. Since Card Check is in serious trouble with lawmakers, state-run health care would be a suitable alternative. • The public option could force hospital and other health care workers into underfunded pensions, putting their retirements at risk • The average union pension has resources to cover only 62% of what is owed to participants • Less than one in every 160 union-represented workers is covered by a union pension with required assets • The PBGC already supports upwards of 30,000 pension plans • Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation (PBGC), the governmental pension insurer,
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POPSIt's Alive! End-of-life counseling in health bill I don't get it. Haven't patients had the "option of speaking with their doctor about how they want to be treated......"? What a crock! and isn't this bill already messin' with Medicare and it's payments to doctors and hospitals? This bill is one big screw up!
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POPSBaguio General Hospital and Medical Center After 100 years, The Baguio General Hospital & Medical Center hopes to continue its mission, "To provide comprehensive quality health care, training and research." Today, its 695 dedicated and committed personnel envision the hospital to be a model people-oriented Medical Center. There is no chance for failure. For 100 years, the hospital has exerted its very best to deliver the best quality patient care and services.
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POPSPresident Obama Declares National Emergency, But Why? So where's the emergency? The only emergency I can see is the emergency fabricated by Big Pharma to sell more vaccines. By declaring a national emergency over the H1N1 pandemic, Obama is playing right into their hands. I find the timing of all this curious. Two days ago, New York gave up on its efforts to require mandatory vaccinations of health care workers. This was designed to defuse a large number of planned protests from health freedom-conscious people who don't want government-mandated chemicals pumped into their veins. Free registration is required to read the rest of this article... http://www.naturalnews.com/027323_swine_flu_national_emergency_pandemic.html
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POPSAnd the Knives Come Out.....
READ THE 26-PAGE REPORTpdf. READ KAREN IGNAGNI’S 2-PAGE MEMO TO MEMBER PRESIDENTS AND CEOs. http://bit.ly/2QirZ. KEY GRAF: “Between 2010 and 2019 the cumulative increases in the cost of a typical family policy under this reform proposal will be approximately $20,700 more than it would be under the current system.” TNR’s Jonathan Cohn -- in “Is the Insurance Industry Declaring War?” -- sees “some pretty questionable assumptions.” Excerpts below. Cohn here. THE NARRATIVE -- L.A. Times A1 tease: “An about-face by insurers: After working with the White House to overhaul healthcare, the insurance industry now plans to fight the reform effort.” TALKRADIO ALERT -- USA Today A1 tease: “Benefits in health bill not immediate: Tax credits for insurance won’t start until 2013; tax hikes to pay for changes kick in right away.” THE WHITE HOUSE FEELS “MISLED” BY THE AHIP SALVO, reports POLITICO’s Carrie Budoff Brown: “The report will drop ahead of a crucial vote on the bill . . .
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POPSAHIP Declares War On the U.S. Read the article and then DO SOMETHING! Following are a couple more paragraphs to whet your curiosity. "For many years America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) have been fighting an undeclared war on US citizens. According to the Harvard Study cited recently by Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), lack of health insurance and denials of legitimate claims kill more Americans each month than died in the attacks on the World Trade Center. When Al-Qaeda or Nazi Germany declared war on the United States, their intent was to kill US citizens and to cause economic collapse in the United States. That’s how a modern war works. The study released by PWC and commissioned by AHIP reveals the arsenal the Health Insurance companies plan to use in the coming war. They are going to kill Americans by putting the price of health care out of reach. They are planning to kill their paying customers by finding new ways to deny care."