Here is an article from Campaign for Liberty that is pertinent to the Heath Care bills now being considered. One thing is evident in both bills. They will NOT improve health care and neither one will lower costs. I think the title has a point.
The Medical Road to Serfdom
By David McKalip, M.D.
View all 8 articles by David McKalip, M.D.
Published 11/30/09
http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php
Printer-friendly version
In 1944 Nobel Prize winning economist Friedrich Hayek's book Road to Serfdom described the progression of a society toward state control over individuals. The Book described the end of the truth, creation of bureaucratic expert panels given power by parliamentary bodies, how the worst rise to the top, and how cost considerations for the state supersede the rights of individuals. In other words he accurately predicted the nature of the government take over of medicine proposed in Washington D.C.. Washington is creating a Medical Road to Serfdom that will bring earlier deaths, longer suffering, and economic demise to our country and future generations.
We have seen the end of truth written large lately as so called "experts" try to end routine mammograms, breast self exams and pap smears to prevent "anxiety" that comes from having an abnormality detected early. There is a reason why U.S. cancer survival rates far exceed those in Europe -- we detect cancer early and treat it more effectively and they don't. The "experts" contradict politician promises that "preventative care" will drive down medical costs. Such care actually increases costs for insurers by allowing further tests to see if patients who screened "suspicious" are in fact positive. It was just such a routine screening that saved the life of Florida Democratic Congresswoman Debra Wasserman Schultz who declared the new standards will mean "more women will die" from breast cancer.
Hayek pointed out that if science or politics can't justify a cost-cutting move, "experts" are called in for their opinion to give political cover to elected officials who don't want to own up to their duties to make the tough decisions. That approach is at the core of the bills now in Congress as Medicare's un-keepable promises have a $35 trillion unfunded cost. Bureaucrats will create standards designed for cost control and force doctors to follow them. They will give insurance companies and government excuses to deny payment for tests, treatments and doctor's visits. They will do this in the name of "equity" for covering the uninsured -- the type referred to by Churchill who pointed out state control means we all will be "equally miserable". They will punish doctors financially and professionally if they choose to prescribe more expensive care their patient needs and reward those that stick to the unrealistically low government approved budget assigned to the patient. In other words, doctors will be the rationing agent of the state to save money for the state off of the backs of patients. A patient can not trust their doctor in this environment.
Another illusory truth is the concept that a government takeover of medicine will lower costs for health insurance. Every estimate of health insurance premiums so far by the Congressional Budget Office shows that they premiums will go up substantially. The current $12, 400 average price of a family insurance policy will rise to about $20,000. How can the politicians state that costs will go down? Because the "worst always rise to the top" and this explains Congressional approval ratings routinely in the low teens. In addition, costs will also go up $500 Billion for American taxpayers as they are asked to "subsidize" the cost of overpriced health insurance for others (wealth transfer). Entitlement recipients that the democrats hope to turn into their permanent voting block. The very medical devices and drugs patients need will be taxed billions making them less available and stifling new treatments. True costs are hidden as taxes start immediately and government spending ("benefits") starts in 2014! The $235 billion doctor pay fix for Medicare is not counted! So much for President Obama's promise not to not raise the deficit one dime - debt that our children will owe to China. Finally, each citizen is taxed if they don't buy health insurance - breaking the promise not to tax anyone if they make less than $250,000. They will also face five years of jail time for failure to buy "government approved" insurance and pay the tax according to the 11/5 letter by the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation.
The end of lifetime limits on medical benefits from health insurance that is promised on page 16 of the Senate bill 3590 is broken two sentences later when it is revealed that certain covered benefits can have a limit. The concept that there will be no denial of pre-existing conditions is broken when it is realized that this is only true for plans that cover "essential benefits" defined by the unelected Secretary of Health and Human Services (page 103). If you want a plan that covers something not approved by this one person -- then you can be denied. Complaints occur that "rationing" exists in the current system (when people don't have insurance) and speculation that somehow the government can ration more fairly. Yet the rationing to come under the supervision of the "expert panels" has never been seen on such a scale in our country before. It does exist in Europe where a cold calculation of a "quality adjusted life year" is used to deny life saving breast cancer drugs because they exceed the government approved cost of $45,000.
This blatant redefinition of common vocabulary, ending of the truth and bureaucratic takeover of medicine to benefit the state at the expense of patients can stopped. But only if Floridians open their phone book and call their Senators and tell them: "Vote No" on government run medicine. Because the only perennial truth is that politician's highest goal is to be re-elected and they will vote "no" if they know you are going to hold them accountable for their actions. Then we can have an honest debate about how to lower costs and cover those in need of medical care in rational ways that don't violate our individual liberties.
recommend
Facebook
Twitter
bookmark 
email
print
Comments: 19
Only the free market could bring healthcare costs down. We don't have it now, unfortunately.
Anyway, those states with the least taxes the better states will be hit the hardest, due to the NEW, amounts they consider eligible for MEDICAID.
Published in the New York Post on November 30, 2009.
Printer-Friendly Version
The "health-care reform" bills in Congress would hit 39 states hard with new expenses, by raising Medicaid eligibility above the cur rent income cutoffs.
The only states that won't have to raise eligibility because of the Senate bill are Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont and Wisconsin (plus the District of Columbia). And the House bill would force even Massachusetts and Vermont to pay more.
Hardest hit would be Texas ($2,750 million a year in extra state spending under the Senate bill), Pennsylvania ($1,450 million), California ($1,428 million) and Florida ($909 million). Who knows if Florida could avoid imposing an income tax if it has to meet so high an unfunded mandate?
The required increases in state spending are likely to be quite high in some states whose senators are swing votes on ObamaCare:
* In Arkansas, home to swing Sens. Mark Pryor and Blanche Lincoln, the annual increased state spending would come to $402 million (not counting the federal share) -- about a 10 percent increase in the state budget, which is now $4 billion a year.
* In Louisiana, whose Sen. Marie Landrieu sold her vote on a key procedural motion in return for more Medicaid funding, the increase would come to $432 million (a 5 percent hike in state spending) -- more than wiping out the extra funds she got in return for her vote.
* In Sen. Evan Bayh's Indiana, spending would go up by $586 million a year, a rise of 4 percent.
* In Sen. Ben Nelson's Nebraska, the added state spending would be $81 million a year, a 2 percent increase.
The Sebate ObamaCare bill would cost North Dakota, home of Sens. Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan, $14 million. South Dakota, represented by Sen. Tim Johnson, would have to boost Medicaid spending by $33 million.
The Medicaid-expansion provisions of the Senate bill are complex. In the first year of the program (2013), states must enroll anyone who earns less than 133 percent of the poverty level in their programs. For a family of four, the national average poverty level in 2009 is $22,000 a year. So any family that size that makes less than $29,000 would be eligible for Medicaid.
Many states, particularly in the South, actually have Medicaid cutoffs below the poverty level. Arkansas, for example, cuts off its Medicaid eligibility at only 17 percent of poverty level, and in Louisiana it goes up to only 26 percent. For these states, the spending increase required by the new bill is huge.
For the first three years of the program (2013-15) the federal government would pay for all of the costs of the Medicaid expansion. But, starting in the fourth year of operation -- 2016 -- the average state would be obliged to pay 10 percent of the extra cost.
For Democratic governors, this provision means sudden death. Particularly in states with limited Medicaid coverage, it would require huge tax increases.
Go to DickMorris.com to read all of Dick's columns! __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
They need to be replaced. Most every one of them.
The only perennial truth is that politician's highest goal is to be re-elected and they will vote "no" if they know you are going to hold them accountable for their actions. Then we can have an honest debate about how to lower costs and cover those in need of medical care in rational ways that don't violate our individual liberties.
I don't know. They're surely not acting like they understand that our votes can kick them out.