Obama's Forfeited Credibility Sabotaging Obamacare
by David Limbaugh
President Barack Obama apparently came to believe the myth of his messiahship and has accordingly abused and squandered his good will and political capital and possibly self-sabotaged his socialized medicine scheme.
Of all the newsworthy aspects of this desperate "reform" effort, none is more so than the robust democratic processes it has reinvigorated in this nation. While Democrats insist the nationwide grass-roots movement against his Draconian measure is contrived and illusory, it is just the opposite.
Nothing could be so real as the American people, emboldened by their passion for liberty, standing up against a callous, dishonest government trolling for its freedoms in exchange for false promises.
All the proof we need that Obama and Democrats recognize the authenticity of this grass-roots protest is their hysterical reaction to it. They wouldn't be hyperventilating about it if they believed it to be fake, but would use their super-majorities to ram through this bill.
Indeed, that congressmen have not been able or courageous enough (against the threat of being removed from office in 2010) to pass this bill is the story of the year. Integral to that story is the unraveling of the Obama mystique, occasioned by Obama's ongoing arrogance and duplicity, most recently on the Obamacare issue.
Let's just look at some of the myriad ways Obama has betrayed the enormous trust bestowed upon him -- on the health care issue alone.
Obama has said he just wants a dialogue with the American people on health care. Sorry, but there are just so many times a person can say the exact opposite of what he means and retain a shred of credibility. While saying he wants this dialogue, he's also telling his opponents to shut up -- literally. Even more revealing, he was adamant that this bill be passed before the August recess -- a bill whose provisions he admitted or pretended he was not familiar with. How could there have been a dialogue if he had already made up his mind and if the deadline he had artificially imposed could not possibly have allowed a dialogue?
Obama has said his opponents were trying to "scare and mislead the American people," when in fact his opponents are the American people whom he is trying to scare and mislead.
Obama misleads us concerning the public option, saying people can keep their private plans if they prefer. Yet the House bill, which he was urging be passed before the August recess, effectively would coerce employers, through punitive and positive incentives, to dump their private plans in favor of the public option. Most Americans have employer-provided health insurance, so a wholesale exodus to the public option would be inevitable -- and intended. In fact, the bill would prevent those who lose private coverage from reacquiring it, except plans conforming to a slew of new mandated regulations, which eventually would drive such plans out of existence. Obama's propagandette, Linda Douglass, falsely denied that Obama said he supports the public option, but he's on tape.
Obama misleads us in his inartful attempt to analogize the postal industry with his health plan, saying privately run FedEx and UPS have fared well against the government-run Postal Service. He fails to tell us how different the public/private competitive environment would be under his health care plan with the deck stacked -- by law -- against the survival of private insurers and private care.
Obama misleads us by denying that bureaucrats would "meddle" in our health care decisions or with the doctor-patient relationship. Yet in almost the same breath, he boasts that he would bundle payments to doctors based on the quality, not the quantity, of the services they provide -- such quality to be determined by his bureaucratic boards. The House bill is replete with provisions conferring such decisions on government bureaucrats.
Obama misleads us when he and his minions cavalierly dismiss the public's genuine concern about the government, under his plan, insinuating itself into end-of-life decisions. Instead of responding to provisions of the bill legitimately generating such concerns, he puts words into our mouths, saying we claim that the bill would require "euthanasia." Even some of Obama's state-run media fact checkers suggested that Reps. Thaddeus McCotter and John Boehner made that claim. In fact, they said provisions of the bill "could create ... a more permissive environment for euthanasia ... and physician-assisted suicide." Someone needs to check the fact checkers.
Of course there are legitimate concerns here, and it insults our intelligence to suggest otherwise. The bill would immediately impose a monumental conflict of interest on government bureaucrats by tasking them to cut costs drastically while simultaneously empowering them to "counsel" people about their end-of-life (and other) medical care. Such a conflict of interest -- over life and death itself -- is unconscionable and unthinkable in the United States of America.
The "messiah" has lost his mojo -- by betraying his unearned trust with the people.
Showing posts with label health care. Show all posts
Showing posts with label health care. Show all posts
Friday, August 14, 2009
The preventive care myth
The "Preventive Care" Myth
by Charles Krauthammer
WASHINGTON -- In the 48 hours of June 15-16, President Obama lost the health care debate. First, a letter from the Congressional Budget Office to Sen. Edward Kennedy reported that his health committee's reform bill would add $1 trillion in debt over the next decade. Then the CBO reported that the other Senate bill, being written by the Finance Committee, would add $1.6 trillion. The central contradiction of Obamacare was fatally exposed: From his first address to Congress, Obama insisted on the dire need for restructuring the health care system because out-of-control costs were bankrupting the Treasury and wrecking the U.S. economy -- yet the Democrats' plans would make the problem worse.
Accordingly, Democrats have trotted out various tax proposals to close the gap. Obama's idea of limits on charitable and mortgage-interest deductions went nowhere. As did the House's income tax surcharge on millionaires. And Obama dare not tax employer-provided health insurance because of his campaign pledge of no middle-class tax hikes.
Desperation time. What do you do? Sprinkle fairy dust on every health care plan, and present your deus ex machina: prevention.
Free mammograms and diabetes tests and checkups for all, promise Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer, writing in USA Today. Prevention, they assure us, will not just make us healthier, it also "will save money."
Obama followed suit in his Tuesday New Hampshire town hall, touting prevention as amazingly dual-purpose: "It saves lives. It also saves money."
Reform proponents repeat this like a mantra. Because it seems so intuitive, it has become conventional wisdom. But like most conventional wisdom, it is wrong. Overall, preventive care increases medical costs.
This inconvenient truth comes, once again, from the CBO. In an Aug. 7 letter to Rep. Nathan Deal, CBO Director Doug Elmendorf writes: "Researchers who have examined the effects of preventive care generally find that the added costs of widespread use of preventive services tend to exceed the savings from averted illness."
How can that be? If you prevent somebody from getting a heart attack, aren't you necessarily saving money? The fallacy here is confusing the individual with society. For the individual, catching something early generally reduces later spending for that condition. But, explains Elmendorf, we don't know in advance which patients are going to develop costly illnesses. To avert one case, "it is usually necessary to provide preventive care to many patients, most of whom would not have suffered that illness anyway." And this costs society money that would not have been spent otherwise.
Think of it this way. Assume that a screening test for disease X costs $500 and finding it early averts $10,000 of costly treatment at a later stage. Are you saving money? Well, if one in 10 of those who are screened tests positive, society is saving $5,000. But if only one in 100 would get that disease, society is shelling out $40,000 more than it would without the preventive care.
That's a hypothetical case. What's the real-life actuality in the United States today? A study in the journal Circulation found that for cardiovascular diseases and diabetes, "if all the recommended prevention activities were applied with 100 percent success," the prevention would cost almost 10 times as much as the savings, increasing the country's total medical bill by 162 percent. Elmendorf additionally cites a definitive assessment in the New England Journal of Medicine that reviewed hundreds of studies on preventive care and found that more than 80 percent of preventive measures added to medical costs.
This doesn't mean we shouldn't be preventing illness. Of course we should. But in medicine, as in life, there is no free lunch. The idea that prevention is somehow intrinsically economically different from treatment -- that treatment increases costs and prevention lowers them -- is simply nonsense.
Prevention is a wondrous good, but in the aggregate it costs society money. Nothing wrong with that. That's the whole premise of medicine: Treating a heart attack or setting a broken leg also costs society. But we do it because it alleviates human suffering. Preventing a heart attack with statins or breast cancer with mammograms is costly. But we do it because it reduces human suffering.
However, prevention is not, as so widely advertised, healing on the cheap. It is not the magic bullet for health care costs.
You will hear some variation of that claim a hundred times in the coming health care debate. Whenever you do, remember: It's nonsense -- empirically demonstrable and CBO-certified.
by Charles Krauthammer
WASHINGTON -- In the 48 hours of June 15-16, President Obama lost the health care debate. First, a letter from the Congressional Budget Office to Sen. Edward Kennedy reported that his health committee's reform bill would add $1 trillion in debt over the next decade. Then the CBO reported that the other Senate bill, being written by the Finance Committee, would add $1.6 trillion. The central contradiction of Obamacare was fatally exposed: From his first address to Congress, Obama insisted on the dire need for restructuring the health care system because out-of-control costs were bankrupting the Treasury and wrecking the U.S. economy -- yet the Democrats' plans would make the problem worse.
Accordingly, Democrats have trotted out various tax proposals to close the gap. Obama's idea of limits on charitable and mortgage-interest deductions went nowhere. As did the House's income tax surcharge on millionaires. And Obama dare not tax employer-provided health insurance because of his campaign pledge of no middle-class tax hikes.
Desperation time. What do you do? Sprinkle fairy dust on every health care plan, and present your deus ex machina: prevention.
Free mammograms and diabetes tests and checkups for all, promise Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer, writing in USA Today. Prevention, they assure us, will not just make us healthier, it also "will save money."
Obama followed suit in his Tuesday New Hampshire town hall, touting prevention as amazingly dual-purpose: "It saves lives. It also saves money."
Reform proponents repeat this like a mantra. Because it seems so intuitive, it has become conventional wisdom. But like most conventional wisdom, it is wrong. Overall, preventive care increases medical costs.
This inconvenient truth comes, once again, from the CBO. In an Aug. 7 letter to Rep. Nathan Deal, CBO Director Doug Elmendorf writes: "Researchers who have examined the effects of preventive care generally find that the added costs of widespread use of preventive services tend to exceed the savings from averted illness."
How can that be? If you prevent somebody from getting a heart attack, aren't you necessarily saving money? The fallacy here is confusing the individual with society. For the individual, catching something early generally reduces later spending for that condition. But, explains Elmendorf, we don't know in advance which patients are going to develop costly illnesses. To avert one case, "it is usually necessary to provide preventive care to many patients, most of whom would not have suffered that illness anyway." And this costs society money that would not have been spent otherwise.
Think of it this way. Assume that a screening test for disease X costs $500 and finding it early averts $10,000 of costly treatment at a later stage. Are you saving money? Well, if one in 10 of those who are screened tests positive, society is saving $5,000. But if only one in 100 would get that disease, society is shelling out $40,000 more than it would without the preventive care.
That's a hypothetical case. What's the real-life actuality in the United States today? A study in the journal Circulation found that for cardiovascular diseases and diabetes, "if all the recommended prevention activities were applied with 100 percent success," the prevention would cost almost 10 times as much as the savings, increasing the country's total medical bill by 162 percent. Elmendorf additionally cites a definitive assessment in the New England Journal of Medicine that reviewed hundreds of studies on preventive care and found that more than 80 percent of preventive measures added to medical costs.
This doesn't mean we shouldn't be preventing illness. Of course we should. But in medicine, as in life, there is no free lunch. The idea that prevention is somehow intrinsically economically different from treatment -- that treatment increases costs and prevention lowers them -- is simply nonsense.
Prevention is a wondrous good, but in the aggregate it costs society money. Nothing wrong with that. That's the whole premise of medicine: Treating a heart attack or setting a broken leg also costs society. But we do it because it alleviates human suffering. Preventing a heart attack with statins or breast cancer with mammograms is costly. But we do it because it reduces human suffering.
However, prevention is not, as so widely advertised, healing on the cheap. It is not the magic bullet for health care costs.
You will hear some variation of that claim a hundred times in the coming health care debate. Whenever you do, remember: It's nonsense -- empirically demonstrable and CBO-certified.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Obama's red pill
Take the red pill, Mr. President
By: David FreddosoCommentary Staff Writer07/23/09 6:56 AM EDT
President Barack Obama responds to questions during a news conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, July 22, 2009. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)
"If there's a blue pill and a red pill, and the blue pill is half the price of the red pill and works just as well, why not pay half price for the thing that's going to make you well?" -- President ObamaIn last night's press conference, President Obama seemed to be reliving that famous scene from The Matrix. The main character is offered a choice between a red pill that makes him see reality for what it is, and a blue pill that allows him to continue living in a pleasant world of illusions. Last night, President Obama appeared to have taken the blue pill before his press conference. How else could he convince himself, the Congressional Budget Office's numbers notwithstanding, that his health care reform bill will not increase both health care costs and the federal deficit? How else can he continue to make the argument that a massive expansion of government spending on health care will solve rather than exacerbate the current problems? How can he repeatedly express such absolute certainty that such a measure will easily pay for itself several times over in the long run? Why can he not at least acknowledge the possibility that it will become a costly and useless trillion-dollar boondoggle that follows in the footsteps of his stimulus package? With his example of the red and blue pills, and another about whether a child's hypothetical tonsils should be removed, President Obama unwittingly presents the real problem with his plan for reform. Here is a well-meaning government official who so fails to grasp the problem in health care that he can present such absurd oversimplifications and suggest that this sort of thing is the real problem -- doctors simply lack the common sense to make obvious medical decisions. President Obama wants us to solve this problem by putting himself and other government officials in charge of rescuing medicine from the medical profession. If medical doctors with a decade of schooling cannot distinguish between good cures and ineffective ones that must be discontinued, then by gosh, we're lucky that the good folks from the government can.
President Obama thus frames the issue as a false choice between doing nothing at all and handing over to Washington complicated, case-by-case medical decisions that cannot possibly be legislated or dictated by government.
This transfer of medical authority to the bureaucracy is intended to curb costs. Unfortunately, there is exactly one thing that government can do to control costs in health care: it can insist on paying below cost. This shifts the cost burden to private insurance companies, which in turn pass along higher premiums to their patients. This is what government-run Medicare does today for many treatments, including cancer. Government will do more of this kind of "saving" when it assumes greater responsibility for funding citizens' health care, particularly if a government-option health care plan is established. The Mayo Clinic which President Obama praised in his speech last night is the same Mayo Clinic whose president signed onto a letter to Congress yesterday, expressing fears that a government-option health care plan Obama wants to establish will do more of this cost-shifting. The letter states:
Under the current Medicare system, a majority of doctors and hospitals that care for Medicare patients are paid substantially less than it costs to treat them. Many providers are therefore already approaching a point where they can not afford to see Medicare patients. Expansion of a Medicare-type plan without a method to define, measure, and pay for healthy outcomes for patients will move many doctors and hospitals across this threshold, and ultimately hurt the patients who seek our care. We should not put more Americans into the current unsustainable system.
President Obama brushed off this concern last night near the end of his press conference, citing a hopeful but very vague blog post on Mayo's website that went up a day before the letter was sent. In addition to ignoring budgetary and medical concerns, he repeated his dubious promise that his plan will not force millions of Americans out of health insurance plans they already have and like. He had no comforting words to convince anyone of the wisdom of creating two new taxes on employers -- one of them a tax that punishes small businesses with a higher tax rate if they create more jobs -- in the middle of a recession.The one thing President Obama did not do last night was address directly any of the concerns that Americans have about his pending reform proposals. With this sort of rhetorical detachment from reality, it is not surprising that public support for his vision of health care reform is gradually eroding.
President Obama needs to take the red pill, even if it does cost twice as much.
By: David FreddosoCommentary Staff Writer07/23/09 6:56 AM EDT
President Barack Obama responds to questions during a news conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, July 22, 2009. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)
"If there's a blue pill and a red pill, and the blue pill is half the price of the red pill and works just as well, why not pay half price for the thing that's going to make you well?" -- President ObamaIn last night's press conference, President Obama seemed to be reliving that famous scene from The Matrix. The main character is offered a choice between a red pill that makes him see reality for what it is, and a blue pill that allows him to continue living in a pleasant world of illusions. Last night, President Obama appeared to have taken the blue pill before his press conference. How else could he convince himself, the Congressional Budget Office's numbers notwithstanding, that his health care reform bill will not increase both health care costs and the federal deficit? How else can he continue to make the argument that a massive expansion of government spending on health care will solve rather than exacerbate the current problems? How can he repeatedly express such absolute certainty that such a measure will easily pay for itself several times over in the long run? Why can he not at least acknowledge the possibility that it will become a costly and useless trillion-dollar boondoggle that follows in the footsteps of his stimulus package? With his example of the red and blue pills, and another about whether a child's hypothetical tonsils should be removed, President Obama unwittingly presents the real problem with his plan for reform. Here is a well-meaning government official who so fails to grasp the problem in health care that he can present such absurd oversimplifications and suggest that this sort of thing is the real problem -- doctors simply lack the common sense to make obvious medical decisions. President Obama wants us to solve this problem by putting himself and other government officials in charge of rescuing medicine from the medical profession. If medical doctors with a decade of schooling cannot distinguish between good cures and ineffective ones that must be discontinued, then by gosh, we're lucky that the good folks from the government can.
President Obama thus frames the issue as a false choice between doing nothing at all and handing over to Washington complicated, case-by-case medical decisions that cannot possibly be legislated or dictated by government.
This transfer of medical authority to the bureaucracy is intended to curb costs. Unfortunately, there is exactly one thing that government can do to control costs in health care: it can insist on paying below cost. This shifts the cost burden to private insurance companies, which in turn pass along higher premiums to their patients. This is what government-run Medicare does today for many treatments, including cancer. Government will do more of this kind of "saving" when it assumes greater responsibility for funding citizens' health care, particularly if a government-option health care plan is established. The Mayo Clinic which President Obama praised in his speech last night is the same Mayo Clinic whose president signed onto a letter to Congress yesterday, expressing fears that a government-option health care plan Obama wants to establish will do more of this cost-shifting. The letter states:
Under the current Medicare system, a majority of doctors and hospitals that care for Medicare patients are paid substantially less than it costs to treat them. Many providers are therefore already approaching a point where they can not afford to see Medicare patients. Expansion of a Medicare-type plan without a method to define, measure, and pay for healthy outcomes for patients will move many doctors and hospitals across this threshold, and ultimately hurt the patients who seek our care. We should not put more Americans into the current unsustainable system.
President Obama brushed off this concern last night near the end of his press conference, citing a hopeful but very vague blog post on Mayo's website that went up a day before the letter was sent. In addition to ignoring budgetary and medical concerns, he repeated his dubious promise that his plan will not force millions of Americans out of health insurance plans they already have and like. He had no comforting words to convince anyone of the wisdom of creating two new taxes on employers -- one of them a tax that punishes small businesses with a higher tax rate if they create more jobs -- in the middle of a recession.The one thing President Obama did not do last night was address directly any of the concerns that Americans have about his pending reform proposals. With this sort of rhetorical detachment from reality, it is not surprising that public support for his vision of health care reform is gradually eroding.
President Obama needs to take the red pill, even if it does cost twice as much.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Private insurance to be banned
It's Not An Option
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted Wednesday, July 15, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Congress: It didn't take long to run into an "uh-oh" moment when reading the House's "health care for all Americans" bill. Right there on Page 16 is a provision making individual private medical insurance illegal.
When we first saw the paragraph Tuesday, just after the 1,018-page document was released, we thought we surely must be misreading it. So we sought help from the House Ways and Means Committee.
It turns out we were right: The provision would indeed outlaw individual private coverage. Under the Orwellian header of "Protecting The Choice To Keep Current Coverage," the "Limitation On New Enrollment" section of the bill clearly states:
"Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day" of the year the legislation becomes law.
So we can all keep our coverage, just as promised — with, of course, exceptions: Those who currently have private individual coverage won't be able to change it. Nor will those who leave a company to work for themselves be free to buy individual plans from private carriers.
From the beginning, opponents of the public option plan have warned that if the government gets into the business of offering subsidized health insurance coverage, the private insurance market will wither. Drawn by a public option that will be 30% to 40% cheaper than their current premiums because taxpayers will be funding it, employers will gladly scrap their private plans and go with Washington's coverage.
The nonpartisan Lewin Group estimated in April that 120 million or more Americans could lose their group coverage at work and end up in such a program. That would leave private carriers with 50 million or fewer customers. This could cause the market to, as Lewin Vice President John Sheils put it, "fizzle out altogether."
What wasn't known until now is that the bill itself will kill the market for private individual coverage by not letting any new policies be written after the public option becomes law.
The legislation is also likely to finish off health savings accounts, a goal that Democrats have had for years. They want to crush that alternative because nothing gives individuals more control over their medical care, and the government less, than HSAs.
With HSAs out of the way, a key obstacle to the left's expansion of the welfare state will be removed.
The public option won't be an option for many, but rather a mandate for buying government care. A free people should be outraged at this advance of soft tyranny.
Washington does not have the constitutional or moral authority to outlaw private markets in which parties voluntarily participate. It shouldn't be killing business opportunities, or limiting choices, or legislating major changes in Americans' lives.
It took just 16 pages of reading to find this naked attempt by the political powers to increase their reach. It's scary to think how many more breaches of liberty we'll come across in the final 1,002.
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted Wednesday, July 15, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Congress: It didn't take long to run into an "uh-oh" moment when reading the House's "health care for all Americans" bill. Right there on Page 16 is a provision making individual private medical insurance illegal.
When we first saw the paragraph Tuesday, just after the 1,018-page document was released, we thought we surely must be misreading it. So we sought help from the House Ways and Means Committee.
It turns out we were right: The provision would indeed outlaw individual private coverage. Under the Orwellian header of "Protecting The Choice To Keep Current Coverage," the "Limitation On New Enrollment" section of the bill clearly states:
"Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day" of the year the legislation becomes law.
So we can all keep our coverage, just as promised — with, of course, exceptions: Those who currently have private individual coverage won't be able to change it. Nor will those who leave a company to work for themselves be free to buy individual plans from private carriers.
From the beginning, opponents of the public option plan have warned that if the government gets into the business of offering subsidized health insurance coverage, the private insurance market will wither. Drawn by a public option that will be 30% to 40% cheaper than their current premiums because taxpayers will be funding it, employers will gladly scrap their private plans and go with Washington's coverage.
The nonpartisan Lewin Group estimated in April that 120 million or more Americans could lose their group coverage at work and end up in such a program. That would leave private carriers with 50 million or fewer customers. This could cause the market to, as Lewin Vice President John Sheils put it, "fizzle out altogether."
What wasn't known until now is that the bill itself will kill the market for private individual coverage by not letting any new policies be written after the public option becomes law.
The legislation is also likely to finish off health savings accounts, a goal that Democrats have had for years. They want to crush that alternative because nothing gives individuals more control over their medical care, and the government less, than HSAs.
With HSAs out of the way, a key obstacle to the left's expansion of the welfare state will be removed.
The public option won't be an option for many, but rather a mandate for buying government care. A free people should be outraged at this advance of soft tyranny.
Washington does not have the constitutional or moral authority to outlaw private markets in which parties voluntarily participate. It shouldn't be killing business opportunities, or limiting choices, or legislating major changes in Americans' lives.
It took just 16 pages of reading to find this naked attempt by the political powers to increase their reach. It's scary to think how many more breaches of liberty we'll come across in the final 1,002.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
socialized health care
Canada's Single-Prayer Health Care
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted Tuesday, June 30, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Health Reform: A critically ill premature baby is moved to a U.S hospital to get the treatment she couldn't get in the system we're told we should emulate. Cost-effective care? In Canada, as elsewhere, you get what you pay for.
IBD Exclusive Series: Government-Run Healthcare: A Prescription For Failure
Ava Isabella Stinson was born last Thursday at St. Joseph's hospital in Hamilton, Ontario. Weighing only two pounds, she was born 13 weeks premature and needed some very special care. Unfortunately, there were no open neonatal intensive care beds for her at St. Joseph's — or anywhere else in the entire province of Ontario, it seems.
Canada's perfectly planned and cost-effective system had no room at the inn for Ava, who of necessity had to be sent across the border to a Buffalo, N.Y., hospital to suffer under our chaotic and costly system. She had no time to be put on a Canadian waiting list. She got the care she needed at an American hospital under a system President Obama has labeled "unsustainable."
Jim Hoft over at Gateway Pundit reports Ava's case is not unusual. He reports that Hamilton's neonatal intensive care unit is closed to new admissions half the time. Special-needs infants are sent elsewhere and usually to the U.S.
In 2007, a Canadian woman gave birth to extremely rare identical quadruplets — Autumn, Brooke, Calissa and Dahlia Jepps. They were born in the United States to Canadian parents because there was again no space available at any Canadian neonatal care unit. All they had was a wing and a prayer.
The Jepps, a nurse and a respiratory technician flew from Calgary, a city of a million people, 325 miles to Benefit Hospital in Great Falls, Mont., a city of 56,000. The girls are doing fine, thanks to our system where care still trumps cost and where being without insurance does not mean being without care.
Infant mortality rates are often cited as a reason socialized medicine and a single-payer system is supposed to be better than what we have here. But according to Dr. Linda Halderman, a policy adviser in the California State Senate, these comparisons are bogus.
As she points out, in the U.S., low birth-weight babies are still babies. In Canada, Germany and Austria, a premature baby weighing less than 500 grams is not considered a living child and is not counted in such statistics. They're considered "unsalvageable" and therefore never alive.
Norway boasts one of the lowest infant mortality rates in the world — until you factor in weight at birth, and then its rate is no better than in the U.S.
In other countries babies that survive less than 24 hours are also excluded and are classified as "stillborn." In the U.S. any infant that shows any sign of life for any length of time is considered a live birth.
A child born in Hong Kong or Japan that lives less than a day is reported as a "miscarriage" and not counted. In Switzerland and other parts of Europe, a baby is not counted as a baby if it is less than 30 centimeters in length.
In 2007, there were at least 40 mothers and their babies who were airlifted from British Columbia alone to the U.S. because Canadian hospitals didn't have room. It's worth noting that since 2000, 42 of the world's 52 surviving babies weighing less than 400g (0.9 pounds) were born in the U.S.
It must be embarrassing to Canada that a G-7 economy and a country of 30 million people can't offer the same level of health care as a town of just over 50,000 in rural Montana. Where will Canada send its preemies and other critical patients when we adopt their health care system?
As we have noted, in Canada roughly 900,000 patients of all ages are waiting for beds, according to the Fraser Institute. There are more than four times as many magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) units per capita in the U.S. as in Canada. We have twice as many CT scanners per capita.
Expensive? Wasteful. Just ask the Jepps or the parents of Ava Isabella Stinson.
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted Tuesday, June 30, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Health Reform: A critically ill premature baby is moved to a U.S hospital to get the treatment she couldn't get in the system we're told we should emulate. Cost-effective care? In Canada, as elsewhere, you get what you pay for.
IBD Exclusive Series: Government-Run Healthcare: A Prescription For Failure
Ava Isabella Stinson was born last Thursday at St. Joseph's hospital in Hamilton, Ontario. Weighing only two pounds, she was born 13 weeks premature and needed some very special care. Unfortunately, there were no open neonatal intensive care beds for her at St. Joseph's — or anywhere else in the entire province of Ontario, it seems.
Canada's perfectly planned and cost-effective system had no room at the inn for Ava, who of necessity had to be sent across the border to a Buffalo, N.Y., hospital to suffer under our chaotic and costly system. She had no time to be put on a Canadian waiting list. She got the care she needed at an American hospital under a system President Obama has labeled "unsustainable."
Jim Hoft over at Gateway Pundit reports Ava's case is not unusual. He reports that Hamilton's neonatal intensive care unit is closed to new admissions half the time. Special-needs infants are sent elsewhere and usually to the U.S.
In 2007, a Canadian woman gave birth to extremely rare identical quadruplets — Autumn, Brooke, Calissa and Dahlia Jepps. They were born in the United States to Canadian parents because there was again no space available at any Canadian neonatal care unit. All they had was a wing and a prayer.
The Jepps, a nurse and a respiratory technician flew from Calgary, a city of a million people, 325 miles to Benefit Hospital in Great Falls, Mont., a city of 56,000. The girls are doing fine, thanks to our system where care still trumps cost and where being without insurance does not mean being without care.
Infant mortality rates are often cited as a reason socialized medicine and a single-payer system is supposed to be better than what we have here. But according to Dr. Linda Halderman, a policy adviser in the California State Senate, these comparisons are bogus.
As she points out, in the U.S., low birth-weight babies are still babies. In Canada, Germany and Austria, a premature baby weighing less than 500 grams is not considered a living child and is not counted in such statistics. They're considered "unsalvageable" and therefore never alive.
Norway boasts one of the lowest infant mortality rates in the world — until you factor in weight at birth, and then its rate is no better than in the U.S.
In other countries babies that survive less than 24 hours are also excluded and are classified as "stillborn." In the U.S. any infant that shows any sign of life for any length of time is considered a live birth.
A child born in Hong Kong or Japan that lives less than a day is reported as a "miscarriage" and not counted. In Switzerland and other parts of Europe, a baby is not counted as a baby if it is less than 30 centimeters in length.
In 2007, there were at least 40 mothers and their babies who were airlifted from British Columbia alone to the U.S. because Canadian hospitals didn't have room. It's worth noting that since 2000, 42 of the world's 52 surviving babies weighing less than 400g (0.9 pounds) were born in the U.S.
It must be embarrassing to Canada that a G-7 economy and a country of 30 million people can't offer the same level of health care as a town of just over 50,000 in rural Montana. Where will Canada send its preemies and other critical patients when we adopt their health care system?
As we have noted, in Canada roughly 900,000 patients of all ages are waiting for beds, according to the Fraser Institute. There are more than four times as many magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) units per capita in the U.S. as in Canada. We have twice as many CT scanners per capita.
Expensive? Wasteful. Just ask the Jepps or the parents of Ava Isabella Stinson.
Massachusetts health care
The State of Massachusetts-Dropkick Murphys
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzF0hHb7xMc
Massachusetts Health Care: A Model Not to Copy
by Phyllis Schlafly
The Obama-Kennedy health plan is modeled after the Massachusetts plan, which, when adopted, many applauded as innovative and destined for success. In fact, the Massachusetts plan has been a massive failure and is a model for what not to do.
It has increased costs. It has wasted taxpayer dollars. It has limited patients' choice. It has hurt small business. It has failed to achieve its goal of universal coverage. Most objectionable, it has created shortages and waiting lists.
Promoters predicted that the Massachusetts plan would lower health-care costs, but -- so far -- costs are moving in the opposite direction. State government spending on health-care programs in Massachusetts has increased by 42 percent since the plan was adopted in 2006 and currently is 33 percent above the national average.
Advocates promised that the Massachusetts plan would make health insurance more affordable, but according to a Cato study, insurance premiums have been increasing at nearly double the national average: 7.4 percent in 2007, 8 percent to 12 percent in 2008, and an expected 9 percent increase this year. Health insurance in Massachusetts costs an average of $16,897 for a family of four, compared to a national average of $12,700.
The Massachusetts plan incorporates a system of middle-class subsidies called Commonwealth Care to help pay for insurance for families with incomes up to 300 percent of poverty level ($66,150 for a family of four) and also expanded eligibility for Medicaid.
The Massachusetts Connector, a new bureaucracy that was supposed to increase patient choice, has become an overbearing regulatory arm of government that has decreased competition by prescribing benefits insurance must offer. The Connector is evidently unpopular with patients, since only 18,000 people have used the Connector to buy insurance during the past three years.
The Connector has imposed regulations that add to the cost of insurance and limit consumer choice, such as requiring prescription-drug coverage and preventive-care services, restricting high-deductible policies and putting limits on annual or per-sickness policies. Complying with the Connector's rules means changing from your current insurance that you like.
The costs to the taxpayers are rising, too, and one tax increase has not satisfied the appetite of the hungry plan. The prospect of huge deficits has elicited discussion of cuts in reimbursements to providers and the imposition of a "global budget," which is a euphemism for rationing.
Even though Massachusetts has more doctors per capita than any other state, the Boston Globe reports that waiting periods to see physicians have grown. The average wait is now 63 days to see a family doctor, 50 days to see a specialist and the second trimester of pregnancy to see an obstetrician-gynecologist.
If you want to see the busiest, most popular physicians, the wait can be up to a year. The longer waits are the result of thousands of newly insured residents coming into the health-care system.
Massachusetts has reduced the number of uninsured, but there are no reliable figures on how many are still uninsured since some statistics are based on telephone surveys that don't reach significant groups of people who lack landline telephones (such as young people and illegal aliens). Cato estimates that 200,000 are still uninsured.
If the number of uninsured had been measurably reduced, that should be reflected in the use of hospitals' emergency care facilities for uncompensated care. But hospitals don't confirm this effect.
Small business is hurting, too. The Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council ranks Massachusetts last of all the 50 states for business-friendly health-care policies.
A June 21 front-page article in The New York Times reported that one cancer unit in a Philadelphia Veterans Administration hospital bungled 92 of 116 prostate cancer treatments over six years (requiring these patients to undergo a second operation) before the errors were discovered.
The real problem is that the government cannot run health care safely (or cheaper).
Canada is another model of what not to do. It's fortunate that Canada is so close to the United States because Canadians rely on American medicine for serious surgery.
De facto rationing in Canada is practiced by waiting lists rather than by using its realistic name. The Globe and Mail in Toronto reports that the physician shortage is so acute that some towns hold lotteries to win a ticket granting access to the local doctor and that Ontario sent 160 patients to New York and Michigan for emergency neurosurgery between 2006 and 2008.
Although President Obama told the American Medical Association that single-payer (government-controlled) health care works "pretty well" in some other countries, no government has ever been able to run a health-care system as well as private enterprise. Less regulation of health care, not more government control, is the way to healthier Americans and lower costs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzF0hHb7xMc
Massachusetts Health Care: A Model Not to Copy
by Phyllis Schlafly
The Obama-Kennedy health plan is modeled after the Massachusetts plan, which, when adopted, many applauded as innovative and destined for success. In fact, the Massachusetts plan has been a massive failure and is a model for what not to do.
It has increased costs. It has wasted taxpayer dollars. It has limited patients' choice. It has hurt small business. It has failed to achieve its goal of universal coverage. Most objectionable, it has created shortages and waiting lists.
Promoters predicted that the Massachusetts plan would lower health-care costs, but -- so far -- costs are moving in the opposite direction. State government spending on health-care programs in Massachusetts has increased by 42 percent since the plan was adopted in 2006 and currently is 33 percent above the national average.
Advocates promised that the Massachusetts plan would make health insurance more affordable, but according to a Cato study, insurance premiums have been increasing at nearly double the national average: 7.4 percent in 2007, 8 percent to 12 percent in 2008, and an expected 9 percent increase this year. Health insurance in Massachusetts costs an average of $16,897 for a family of four, compared to a national average of $12,700.
The Massachusetts plan incorporates a system of middle-class subsidies called Commonwealth Care to help pay for insurance for families with incomes up to 300 percent of poverty level ($66,150 for a family of four) and also expanded eligibility for Medicaid.
The Massachusetts Connector, a new bureaucracy that was supposed to increase patient choice, has become an overbearing regulatory arm of government that has decreased competition by prescribing benefits insurance must offer. The Connector is evidently unpopular with patients, since only 18,000 people have used the Connector to buy insurance during the past three years.
The Connector has imposed regulations that add to the cost of insurance and limit consumer choice, such as requiring prescription-drug coverage and preventive-care services, restricting high-deductible policies and putting limits on annual or per-sickness policies. Complying with the Connector's rules means changing from your current insurance that you like.
The costs to the taxpayers are rising, too, and one tax increase has not satisfied the appetite of the hungry plan. The prospect of huge deficits has elicited discussion of cuts in reimbursements to providers and the imposition of a "global budget," which is a euphemism for rationing.
Even though Massachusetts has more doctors per capita than any other state, the Boston Globe reports that waiting periods to see physicians have grown. The average wait is now 63 days to see a family doctor, 50 days to see a specialist and the second trimester of pregnancy to see an obstetrician-gynecologist.
If you want to see the busiest, most popular physicians, the wait can be up to a year. The longer waits are the result of thousands of newly insured residents coming into the health-care system.
Massachusetts has reduced the number of uninsured, but there are no reliable figures on how many are still uninsured since some statistics are based on telephone surveys that don't reach significant groups of people who lack landline telephones (such as young people and illegal aliens). Cato estimates that 200,000 are still uninsured.
If the number of uninsured had been measurably reduced, that should be reflected in the use of hospitals' emergency care facilities for uncompensated care. But hospitals don't confirm this effect.
Small business is hurting, too. The Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council ranks Massachusetts last of all the 50 states for business-friendly health-care policies.
A June 21 front-page article in The New York Times reported that one cancer unit in a Philadelphia Veterans Administration hospital bungled 92 of 116 prostate cancer treatments over six years (requiring these patients to undergo a second operation) before the errors were discovered.
The real problem is that the government cannot run health care safely (or cheaper).
Canada is another model of what not to do. It's fortunate that Canada is so close to the United States because Canadians rely on American medicine for serious surgery.
De facto rationing in Canada is practiced by waiting lists rather than by using its realistic name. The Globe and Mail in Toronto reports that the physician shortage is so acute that some towns hold lotteries to win a ticket granting access to the local doctor and that Ontario sent 160 patients to New York and Michigan for emergency neurosurgery between 2006 and 2008.
Although President Obama told the American Medical Association that single-payer (government-controlled) health care works "pretty well" in some other countries, no government has ever been able to run a health-care system as well as private enterprise. Less regulation of health care, not more government control, is the way to healthier Americans and lower costs.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Health care
Rushing Ahead In Health Care Wonderland
By THOMAS SOWELL Posted Monday, June 29, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Most political and media discussions of medical care have an air of unreality reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland. There is an abundance of catch-phrases but remarkably few coherent arguments.
Let's start at square one. Why is there alarm about American medical care? The most usual reason given is because its cost is high and rising.
That is certainly true. We were not spending nearly as much on high-tech medical procedures in the past because there were not nearly as many of them. And we weren't spending anything at all on some of the new pharmaceutical drugs because they didn't exist.
This general pattern is not peculiar to medical care. Cars didn't cost nearly as much in the past, when they didn't have air conditioning, power steering and high-tech safety features. Homes were cheaper when they were smaller, had fewer bathrooms and lacked such conveniences as built-in microwave ovens.
Benefit Fairy
We would like to have all these things without the rising costs that come with them. But only with medical care is such wishful thinking taken seriously, with government regarded as a sort of fairy godmother who will give us the benefits without the costs.
A cynic is said to be someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. If so, then it is political cynicism to point to other countries that spend less on medical care, including some countries where there is "universal health care" provided "free" by their governments.
Cheaper For A Reason
Just as medical care, houses and cars were all cheaper when they lacked things that they have today, so medical care in other countries is cheaper when they lack many things that are more readily available in the United States.
There are more than four times as many magnetic resonance imaging units (MRIs) per capita in the United States as in Britain or Canada, where there are government-run medical systems.
There are more than twice as many CT scanners per capita in the United States as in Canada and more than four times as many per capita as in Britain.
Is it surprising that such things cost money?
The cost of developing a new pharmaceutical drug is now about a billion dollars. Neither political rhetoric nor government bureaucracies will make those costs go away.
We can, of course, refuse to pay these and other medical costs, just as we can refuse to buy air-conditioned homes with built-in microwave ovens. But that just means we pay attention only to prices and not to the value of what we get for those prices.
We can even refuse to pay for so many doctors. But that just means that we will have to wait longer to see a doctor — as people do in countries with government-run medical systems.
In Canada, 27% of the people who have surgery wait four months or more. In Britain, 38% wait that long. But only 5% of Americans wait that long for surgery.
Surgery may well cost less in countries with government-run medical systems — if you count only the money cost, and not the time the patients have to endure the ailments that require surgery, or the fact that some conditions become worse, or even fatal, while patients wait.
A recent report from the Fraser Institute in Canada shows that patients there wait an average of 10 weeks to get an MRI, just to find out what is wrong with them. A lot of bad things can happen in 10 weeks, ranging from suffering to death.
Stop, Think
Politicians may talk about "bringing down the cost of medical care," but they seldom even attempt to bring down the costs. What they bring down is the price — which is to say, they refuse to pay the costs.
Anybody can refuse to pay any cost. But don't be surprised if you get less when you pay less. None of this is rocket science. But it does require us to stop and think before jumping on a bandwagon.
The great haste with which the latest government expansion into medical care is being rushed through Congress suggests that the politicians don't want us to stop and think. That makes sense, from their point of view, but not from ours.
Copyright 2008 Creators Syndicate, Inc
By THOMAS SOWELL Posted Monday, June 29, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Most political and media discussions of medical care have an air of unreality reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland. There is an abundance of catch-phrases but remarkably few coherent arguments.
Let's start at square one. Why is there alarm about American medical care? The most usual reason given is because its cost is high and rising.
That is certainly true. We were not spending nearly as much on high-tech medical procedures in the past because there were not nearly as many of them. And we weren't spending anything at all on some of the new pharmaceutical drugs because they didn't exist.
This general pattern is not peculiar to medical care. Cars didn't cost nearly as much in the past, when they didn't have air conditioning, power steering and high-tech safety features. Homes were cheaper when they were smaller, had fewer bathrooms and lacked such conveniences as built-in microwave ovens.
Benefit Fairy
We would like to have all these things without the rising costs that come with them. But only with medical care is such wishful thinking taken seriously, with government regarded as a sort of fairy godmother who will give us the benefits without the costs.
A cynic is said to be someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. If so, then it is political cynicism to point to other countries that spend less on medical care, including some countries where there is "universal health care" provided "free" by their governments.
Cheaper For A Reason
Just as medical care, houses and cars were all cheaper when they lacked things that they have today, so medical care in other countries is cheaper when they lack many things that are more readily available in the United States.
There are more than four times as many magnetic resonance imaging units (MRIs) per capita in the United States as in Britain or Canada, where there are government-run medical systems.
There are more than twice as many CT scanners per capita in the United States as in Canada and more than four times as many per capita as in Britain.
Is it surprising that such things cost money?
The cost of developing a new pharmaceutical drug is now about a billion dollars. Neither political rhetoric nor government bureaucracies will make those costs go away.
We can, of course, refuse to pay these and other medical costs, just as we can refuse to buy air-conditioned homes with built-in microwave ovens. But that just means we pay attention only to prices and not to the value of what we get for those prices.
We can even refuse to pay for so many doctors. But that just means that we will have to wait longer to see a doctor — as people do in countries with government-run medical systems.
In Canada, 27% of the people who have surgery wait four months or more. In Britain, 38% wait that long. But only 5% of Americans wait that long for surgery.
Surgery may well cost less in countries with government-run medical systems — if you count only the money cost, and not the time the patients have to endure the ailments that require surgery, or the fact that some conditions become worse, or even fatal, while patients wait.
A recent report from the Fraser Institute in Canada shows that patients there wait an average of 10 weeks to get an MRI, just to find out what is wrong with them. A lot of bad things can happen in 10 weeks, ranging from suffering to death.
Stop, Think
Politicians may talk about "bringing down the cost of medical care," but they seldom even attempt to bring down the costs. What they bring down is the price — which is to say, they refuse to pay the costs.
Anybody can refuse to pay any cost. But don't be surprised if you get less when you pay less. None of this is rocket science. But it does require us to stop and think before jumping on a bandwagon.
The great haste with which the latest government expansion into medical care is being rushed through Congress suggests that the politicians don't want us to stop and think. That makes sense, from their point of view, but not from ours.
Copyright 2008 Creators Syndicate, Inc
Banana Democrats
Banana Democrats
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted Monday, June 29, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Americas: During his campaign, President Obama made a big deal of criticizing leaders who are elected democratically but don't govern democratically. He's had a chance to show that it mattered in Honduras. He didn't.
That's the sorry story as Honduras' now ex-president, Mel Zelaya, last Thursday defied a Supreme Court ruling and tried to hold a "survey" to rewrite the constitution for his permanent re-election. It's the same blueprint for a rigged political system that's made former democracies like Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Ecuador into shells of free countries.
Zelaya's operatives did their dirt all the way through. First they got signatures to launch the "citizen's power" survey through threats — warning those who didn't sign that they'd be denied medical care and worse. Zelaya then had the ballots flown to Tegucigalpa on Venezuelan planes. After his move was declared illegal by the Supreme Court, he tried to do it anyway.
As a result of his brazen disregard for the law, Zelaya found himself escorted from office by the military Sunday morning, and into exile.
Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Cuba's Fidel Castro rushed to blame the U.S., calling it a "yanqui coup."
President Obama on Monday called the action "not legal," and claimed that Zelaya is still the legitimate president.
There was a coup all right, but it wasn't committed by the U.S. or the Honduran court. It was committed by Zelaya himself. He brazenly defied the law, and Hondurans overwhelmingly supported his removal (a pro-Zelaya rally Monday drew a mere 200 acolytes).
Yet the U.S. administration stood with Chavez and Castro, calling Zelaya's lawful removal "a coup." Obama called the action a "terrible precedent," and said Zelaya remains president.
In doing this, the U.S. condemned democrats who stood up to save their democracy, a move that should have been hailed as a historic turning of the tide against the false democracies of the region.
The U.S. response has been disgraceful. "We recognize Zelaya as the duly elected and constitutional president of Honduras. We see no other," a State Department official told reporters.
Worse, the U.S. now contemplates sanctions on the tiny drug-plagued, dirt-poor country of 7 million, threatening to halt its $200 million in U.S. aid, immigration accords and a free-trade treaty if it doesn't put the criminal Zelaya back into office.
Not even Nicaragua, a country the State Department said committed a truly fraudulent election, got that. Nor has murderous Iran gotten such punishment, even as it slaughters Iranian democrats in the streets. But tiny Honduras must be made to pay.
We understand why the White House is so quick to call this a "coup" and to jump to the side of Hugo Chavez. The Venezuelan despot has made political hay against the U.S. over its premature recognition of the Venezuelan coup leaders who tried to overthrow Chavez in 2002. Obama wants to avoid that this time.
The White House also wants to mollify the morally corrupted Organization of American States, which, by admitting Cuba, is no longer an organization of democracies and now, through its radical membership, tries to dictate how other countries run themselves.
Such a response says that democracy effectively ends with elections. It says rule of law is irrelevant and that rulers have rights, not responsibilities. But if leaders can't be held accountable, they should be removed, as happened in Honduras.
If the U.S. does hit Honduras with sanctions, it will earn ill will in the country lasting for years. It will further erode U.S. moral authority and cost us influence in the region — becoming an embarrassing footnote in the history of U.S.-Latin American relations.
Is that what the U.S. wants? It's time for a more sophisticated definition of democracy — one that includes the rule of law and the will of the people.
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted Monday, June 29, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Americas: During his campaign, President Obama made a big deal of criticizing leaders who are elected democratically but don't govern democratically. He's had a chance to show that it mattered in Honduras. He didn't.
That's the sorry story as Honduras' now ex-president, Mel Zelaya, last Thursday defied a Supreme Court ruling and tried to hold a "survey" to rewrite the constitution for his permanent re-election. It's the same blueprint for a rigged political system that's made former democracies like Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Ecuador into shells of free countries.
Zelaya's operatives did their dirt all the way through. First they got signatures to launch the "citizen's power" survey through threats — warning those who didn't sign that they'd be denied medical care and worse. Zelaya then had the ballots flown to Tegucigalpa on Venezuelan planes. After his move was declared illegal by the Supreme Court, he tried to do it anyway.
As a result of his brazen disregard for the law, Zelaya found himself escorted from office by the military Sunday morning, and into exile.
Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Cuba's Fidel Castro rushed to blame the U.S., calling it a "yanqui coup."
President Obama on Monday called the action "not legal," and claimed that Zelaya is still the legitimate president.
There was a coup all right, but it wasn't committed by the U.S. or the Honduran court. It was committed by Zelaya himself. He brazenly defied the law, and Hondurans overwhelmingly supported his removal (a pro-Zelaya rally Monday drew a mere 200 acolytes).
Yet the U.S. administration stood with Chavez and Castro, calling Zelaya's lawful removal "a coup." Obama called the action a "terrible precedent," and said Zelaya remains president.
In doing this, the U.S. condemned democrats who stood up to save their democracy, a move that should have been hailed as a historic turning of the tide against the false democracies of the region.
The U.S. response has been disgraceful. "We recognize Zelaya as the duly elected and constitutional president of Honduras. We see no other," a State Department official told reporters.
Worse, the U.S. now contemplates sanctions on the tiny drug-plagued, dirt-poor country of 7 million, threatening to halt its $200 million in U.S. aid, immigration accords and a free-trade treaty if it doesn't put the criminal Zelaya back into office.
Not even Nicaragua, a country the State Department said committed a truly fraudulent election, got that. Nor has murderous Iran gotten such punishment, even as it slaughters Iranian democrats in the streets. But tiny Honduras must be made to pay.
We understand why the White House is so quick to call this a "coup" and to jump to the side of Hugo Chavez. The Venezuelan despot has made political hay against the U.S. over its premature recognition of the Venezuelan coup leaders who tried to overthrow Chavez in 2002. Obama wants to avoid that this time.
The White House also wants to mollify the morally corrupted Organization of American States, which, by admitting Cuba, is no longer an organization of democracies and now, through its radical membership, tries to dictate how other countries run themselves.
Such a response says that democracy effectively ends with elections. It says rule of law is irrelevant and that rulers have rights, not responsibilities. But if leaders can't be held accountable, they should be removed, as happened in Honduras.
If the U.S. does hit Honduras with sanctions, it will earn ill will in the country lasting for years. It will further erode U.S. moral authority and cost us influence in the region — becoming an embarrassing footnote in the history of U.S.-Latin American relations.
Is that what the U.S. wants? It's time for a more sophisticated definition of democracy — one that includes the rule of law and the will of the people.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Myths and lies about health care
Myths, Lies and Stupidity About Health Care
by Ben Shapiro
President Barack Obama's health care plan, we are told, will spend $1 trillion over the next 10 years. But since trillion is the new billion, Americans aren't supposed to worry about that.
Obama's health care plan will cause employers to stop providing private health insurance for millions of employees and instead shift employees to public care. But Obama says that government is the best arbiter of your health, so Americans aren't supposed to worry about that.
Obama's health care plan, according to the Congressional Budget Office, will add only 16 million of the 46 million uninsured to the rolls of the insured. But Obama says that's an improvement, so Americans aren't supposed to worry about that.
Here's something we should worry about: Who are the current uninsured for whom all of us are supposed to sacrifice our current health care plans? And should the other 300 million of us turn to government care just to help those 46 million?
Here's a quick profile of those who are uninsured. Ten million of the uninsured are illegal immigrants -- which, by the way, doesn't mean they don't get health care.
Walk into virtually any emergency room in California and illegal immigrants are the bulk of the population. Education costs and health care costs for illegal immigrants compose between 16.4 percent and 20.5 percent of California's budget deficit.
Liberal commentators are already urging that Obama's nationalized health care plan cover illegal immigrants.
Ezra Klein of the Washington Post suggests that a failure to include illegal immigrants in the new health care redesign would create unemployment among U.S. citizens; businesses would not be forced to pick up the health care tabs for illegal immigrants and would therefore hire them at greater rates. This is undoubtedly true.
But the solution is to prosecute businesses that hire illegal immigrants -- or, better yet, not to require employers to cover employees. Only liberals would use employer malfeasance as an excuse to sacrifice workers' current insurance plans.
Another 9 million "uninsured" have household incomes of above $75,000. That's 3.4 times the federal poverty standard for a family of four. For a married couple, that's 6.9 times the federal poverty standard. Some of these people – 30 percent -- are just temporarily without health insurance for six months or less. Others voluntarily avoid health insurance, even if they can afford it. And that's a perfectly reasonable position -- many people worry less about paying for the occasional visit to the doctor than about paying the monthly premiums.
In essence, the Obama plan would force insurance on these people and force public insurance on the rest of us.
And then there are "12 million uninsured Americans … eligible for Medicaid and the State Children's Health insurance program -- but they haven't signed up," according to Sally Pipes of the Pacific Research Institute and author of The Top Ten Myths of American Health Care.
Again, voluntary behavior is voluntary. It's not an excuse for government involvement.
So, to sum up, of those 46 million "uninsured," a solid 31 million are uninsured in ways that require no fix from the federal government.
That leaves 15 million uninsured unaccounted for.
A nationalized health care plan of the sort Obama proposes therefore shifts health care for literally 95 percent of the population on behalf of 5 percent of the American population -- 5 percent who, like illegal immigrants, receive emergency care under federal law.
The media and Obama have portrayed the American health system as a system in crisis. They point to skyrocketing premiums -- the cost of a family policy is now $1,000 per month for employers.
Obama says, "One out of every five dollars we earn will be spent on health care in a decade." Premiums for family coverage have risen 78 percent since 2001. And the government programs Medicare and Medicaid will comprise a huge chunk of the federal budget in ten years, more than any other government expenditure.
Why these exponentially higher costs? Because of increased government involvement in the health care system.
State regulations have decreased market flexibility by requiring that insurers cover unhealthy individuals at lower-cost and requiring that insurers cover certain hospitals and doctors. The federal and state governments have required that health care providers care for individuals without reimbursement – which means escalating costs for those who do pay. And both federal and state health care subsidization programs have encouraged health care providers and insurance to raise costs.
The answer is more of a free market, not less of one. The answer is competition between insurers, not government monopoly. The answer is a private system, not a public one.
by Ben Shapiro
President Barack Obama's health care plan, we are told, will spend $1 trillion over the next 10 years. But since trillion is the new billion, Americans aren't supposed to worry about that.
Obama's health care plan will cause employers to stop providing private health insurance for millions of employees and instead shift employees to public care. But Obama says that government is the best arbiter of your health, so Americans aren't supposed to worry about that.
Obama's health care plan, according to the Congressional Budget Office, will add only 16 million of the 46 million uninsured to the rolls of the insured. But Obama says that's an improvement, so Americans aren't supposed to worry about that.
Here's something we should worry about: Who are the current uninsured for whom all of us are supposed to sacrifice our current health care plans? And should the other 300 million of us turn to government care just to help those 46 million?
Here's a quick profile of those who are uninsured. Ten million of the uninsured are illegal immigrants -- which, by the way, doesn't mean they don't get health care.
Walk into virtually any emergency room in California and illegal immigrants are the bulk of the population. Education costs and health care costs for illegal immigrants compose between 16.4 percent and 20.5 percent of California's budget deficit.
Liberal commentators are already urging that Obama's nationalized health care plan cover illegal immigrants.
Ezra Klein of the Washington Post suggests that a failure to include illegal immigrants in the new health care redesign would create unemployment among U.S. citizens; businesses would not be forced to pick up the health care tabs for illegal immigrants and would therefore hire them at greater rates. This is undoubtedly true.
But the solution is to prosecute businesses that hire illegal immigrants -- or, better yet, not to require employers to cover employees. Only liberals would use employer malfeasance as an excuse to sacrifice workers' current insurance plans.
Another 9 million "uninsured" have household incomes of above $75,000. That's 3.4 times the federal poverty standard for a family of four. For a married couple, that's 6.9 times the federal poverty standard. Some of these people – 30 percent -- are just temporarily without health insurance for six months or less. Others voluntarily avoid health insurance, even if they can afford it. And that's a perfectly reasonable position -- many people worry less about paying for the occasional visit to the doctor than about paying the monthly premiums.
In essence, the Obama plan would force insurance on these people and force public insurance on the rest of us.
And then there are "12 million uninsured Americans … eligible for Medicaid and the State Children's Health insurance program -- but they haven't signed up," according to Sally Pipes of the Pacific Research Institute and author of The Top Ten Myths of American Health Care.
Again, voluntary behavior is voluntary. It's not an excuse for government involvement.
So, to sum up, of those 46 million "uninsured," a solid 31 million are uninsured in ways that require no fix from the federal government.
That leaves 15 million uninsured unaccounted for.
A nationalized health care plan of the sort Obama proposes therefore shifts health care for literally 95 percent of the population on behalf of 5 percent of the American population -- 5 percent who, like illegal immigrants, receive emergency care under federal law.
The media and Obama have portrayed the American health system as a system in crisis. They point to skyrocketing premiums -- the cost of a family policy is now $1,000 per month for employers.
Obama says, "One out of every five dollars we earn will be spent on health care in a decade." Premiums for family coverage have risen 78 percent since 2001. And the government programs Medicare and Medicaid will comprise a huge chunk of the federal budget in ten years, more than any other government expenditure.
Why these exponentially higher costs? Because of increased government involvement in the health care system.
State regulations have decreased market flexibility by requiring that insurers cover unhealthy individuals at lower-cost and requiring that insurers cover certain hospitals and doctors. The federal and state governments have required that health care providers care for individuals without reimbursement – which means escalating costs for those who do pay. And both federal and state health care subsidization programs have encouraged health care providers and insurance to raise costs.
The answer is more of a free market, not less of one. The answer is competition between insurers, not government monopoly. The answer is a private system, not a public one.
Obamacare funding
Who's Funding the Obamacare Campaign?
by Michelle Malkin
If you believe the White House, there are 30 million Americans who support a government health care takeover. But if you look at the funding behind the Obamacare campaign, it's the same few leftist billionaires, union bosses and partisan community organizers pushing the socialized medicine agenda. Let's connect the dots.
On Thursday, a national "grassroots" coalition called Health Care for America Now (HCAN) will march on Capitol Hill to demand universal health care. The ground troops won't have to march very far. HCAN, you see, is no heartland network. It is headquartered at 1825 K Street in Washington, D.C. -- smack dab in the middle of Beltway lobby land.
In fact, 1825 K Street is Ground Zero for a plethora of "progressive" groups subsidized by anti-war, anti-Republican, Big Nanny special interests. Around Washington, the office complex is known as "The Other K Street." The Washington Post noted in 2007 that "its most prominent tenants form an abbreviated who's who of well-funded allies of the Democratic Party. … Big money from unions such as the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, as well as the Internet-fueled MoveOn, has provided groups like those at 1825 K Street the wherewithal to mount huge campaigns."
MoveOn, of course, is the recreational political vehicle of radical liberal sugar daddy George Soros. The magnate's financial fingerprints are all over the HCAN coalition, which includes MoveOn, the action fund of the Center for American Progress (a Soros think tank) and the Campaign for America's Future (a pro-welfare state lobbying outfit).
HCAN has a $40 million budget, with $10 million pitched in by The Atlantic Philanthropies -- a Bermuda-based organization fronted by Soros acolyte Gara LaMarche. Also in the money mix: notorious Democratic donors Herb and Marion Sandler, the left-wing moguls who made billions selling subprime mortgages and helped Soros fund his vast network of left-wing activist satellites.
By their side is billionaire Peter Lewis of Progressive Insurance, whose "Progressive Future" youth group has dispatched clueless volunteers armed with clipboards and literature bashing Rush Limbaugh and Fox News to scare up support for Obamacare.
And two more left-wing heavyweights joining the HCAN parade: the corruption-plagued SEIU (which has battled numerous embezzlement scandals among its chapters across the country while crusading for consumer and patients' rights) and Obama's old chums at fraud-riddled ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.
ACORN and HCAN are linked by left-wing philanthropist Drummond Pike, who heads the nonprofit Tides Foundation/Tides Center. As the tax disclaimer for HCAN discloses, "HCAN is related to Health Care for America Education Fund, a project of The Tides Center, a section 501(c)(3) public charity." For decades, the Tides Center and its parent organization, the Tides Foundation, have seeded some of the country's most radical activist groups of the left, including the communist-friendly United for Peace and Justice, the jihadist-friendly National Lawyers Guild and the grievance-mongering Council on American-Islamic Relations.
Pike is the same philanthropist who assisted ACORN founder Wade Rathke after his brother, Dale, was caught embezzling nearly $1 million from the group. Wade Rathke sits on the Tides Foundation board of directors. In a conspiracy to cover up Dale Rathke's massive theft of funds, Pike volunteered to buy a promissory note worth $800,000 to cover the debt. These are the populist do-gooders supposedly looking out for you and your health.
Why do they want Obamacare? An internal ACORN memo I obtained from August 2008 makes the motives clear: "Over our 38 years, health care organizing has never been a major focus either nationally or locally for ACORN," wrote ACORN Philadelphia regional director Craig Robbins. "But increasingly, ACORN offices around the country are doing work on health care." The goal: "Building ACORN Power."
The memo outlines the ACORN/HCAN partnership and their strategy of opposing any programs that rely on "unregulated private insurance" -- and then parlaying political victory on government-run health care "to move our ACORN agenda (or at least part of it) with key electeds that we might otherwise not be able to pull off."
The objective, in other words, is to piggyback and exploit Obamacare to improve and protect their political health. The "grassroots" movement is not about representing Main Street. It's about peddling influence and power at 1825 K Street.
by Michelle Malkin
If you believe the White House, there are 30 million Americans who support a government health care takeover. But if you look at the funding behind the Obamacare campaign, it's the same few leftist billionaires, union bosses and partisan community organizers pushing the socialized medicine agenda. Let's connect the dots.
On Thursday, a national "grassroots" coalition called Health Care for America Now (HCAN) will march on Capitol Hill to demand universal health care. The ground troops won't have to march very far. HCAN, you see, is no heartland network. It is headquartered at 1825 K Street in Washington, D.C. -- smack dab in the middle of Beltway lobby land.
In fact, 1825 K Street is Ground Zero for a plethora of "progressive" groups subsidized by anti-war, anti-Republican, Big Nanny special interests. Around Washington, the office complex is known as "The Other K Street." The Washington Post noted in 2007 that "its most prominent tenants form an abbreviated who's who of well-funded allies of the Democratic Party. … Big money from unions such as the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, as well as the Internet-fueled MoveOn, has provided groups like those at 1825 K Street the wherewithal to mount huge campaigns."
MoveOn, of course, is the recreational political vehicle of radical liberal sugar daddy George Soros. The magnate's financial fingerprints are all over the HCAN coalition, which includes MoveOn, the action fund of the Center for American Progress (a Soros think tank) and the Campaign for America's Future (a pro-welfare state lobbying outfit).
HCAN has a $40 million budget, with $10 million pitched in by The Atlantic Philanthropies -- a Bermuda-based organization fronted by Soros acolyte Gara LaMarche. Also in the money mix: notorious Democratic donors Herb and Marion Sandler, the left-wing moguls who made billions selling subprime mortgages and helped Soros fund his vast network of left-wing activist satellites.
By their side is billionaire Peter Lewis of Progressive Insurance, whose "Progressive Future" youth group has dispatched clueless volunteers armed with clipboards and literature bashing Rush Limbaugh and Fox News to scare up support for Obamacare.
And two more left-wing heavyweights joining the HCAN parade: the corruption-plagued SEIU (which has battled numerous embezzlement scandals among its chapters across the country while crusading for consumer and patients' rights) and Obama's old chums at fraud-riddled ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.
ACORN and HCAN are linked by left-wing philanthropist Drummond Pike, who heads the nonprofit Tides Foundation/Tides Center. As the tax disclaimer for HCAN discloses, "HCAN is related to Health Care for America Education Fund, a project of The Tides Center, a section 501(c)(3) public charity." For decades, the Tides Center and its parent organization, the Tides Foundation, have seeded some of the country's most radical activist groups of the left, including the communist-friendly United for Peace and Justice, the jihadist-friendly National Lawyers Guild and the grievance-mongering Council on American-Islamic Relations.
Pike is the same philanthropist who assisted ACORN founder Wade Rathke after his brother, Dale, was caught embezzling nearly $1 million from the group. Wade Rathke sits on the Tides Foundation board of directors. In a conspiracy to cover up Dale Rathke's massive theft of funds, Pike volunteered to buy a promissory note worth $800,000 to cover the debt. These are the populist do-gooders supposedly looking out for you and your health.
Why do they want Obamacare? An internal ACORN memo I obtained from August 2008 makes the motives clear: "Over our 38 years, health care organizing has never been a major focus either nationally or locally for ACORN," wrote ACORN Philadelphia regional director Craig Robbins. "But increasingly, ACORN offices around the country are doing work on health care." The goal: "Building ACORN Power."
The memo outlines the ACORN/HCAN partnership and their strategy of opposing any programs that rely on "unregulated private insurance" -- and then parlaying political victory on government-run health care "to move our ACORN agenda (or at least part of it) with key electeds that we might otherwise not be able to pull off."
The objective, in other words, is to piggyback and exploit Obamacare to improve and protect their political health. The "grassroots" movement is not about representing Main Street. It's about peddling influence and power at 1825 K Street.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Obama's health care
Obama: "There Are Countries Where a Single-Payer System Works Pretty Well"
by Terry Jeffrey
President Obama told the American Medical Association on Monday that he thinks single-payer health care systems -- socialized medicine -- work "pretty well" in other countries, but that he does not want to create such a system here because he wants to "build on our traditions."
In fact, the predictable endgame of the health care plan Obama is trying to rush through Congress this summer is socialized medicine.
We now know Obama does not oppose socialized medicine in principle or on practical grounds. So on what grounds does he oppose it? Just one: rhetorical.
If Obama candidly said he is trying to put America on the path to government-run health care, it would excite exactly the sort of massive national grassroots opposition needed to kill his plan.
So what Obama is doing is paving a one-way street to a socialized medicine while expressly denying he is doing so -- and while accusing those who point out what he is doing of being untruthful.
Some in the liberal press are helping Obama perpetrate this big lie.
The coverage of his AMA speech provides a stunning example specifically related to Obama's declaration that single-payer health care systems have worked "pretty well."
The full context of Obama's remark is available from the official transcript posted on the White House Website. One paragraph of this transcript reads:
"Let me also say that -- let me also address a illegitimate concern that's being put forward by those who are claiming a public option is somehow a Trojan horse for a single-payer system. I'll be honest, there are countries where a single-payer system works pretty well. But I believe -- and I've taken some flak from members of my own party for this belief -- that it's important for our efforts to build on our traditions here in the United States. So when you hear the naysayers claim that I'm trying to bring about government-run health care, know this: They're not telling the truth."
On Tuesday afternoon, I ran a search of the Nexis "major newspapers" database to see if any major American newspaper had quoted Obama's remark that "there are countries where a single-payer system works pretty well." I searched the terms "Obama," "single-payer" and "pretty well." There was not a single hit.
Then I discovered, also using Nexis, that The Washington Post, The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times had all artfully quoted words Obama said both immediately before and after he said single payer systems work "pretty well" -- without actually quoting his statement about single-payer systems working "pretty well."
The Washington Post reported it this way: "In his speech, Obama said, 'Let me also address an illegitimate concern that's being put forward by those who are claiming that a public option is somehow a Trojan horse for a single-payer system. … When you hear the naysayers claim that I'm trying to bring about government-run health care, know this: They're not telling the truth."
The Post artfully replaced Obama's statement that "I'll be honest, there are countries where a single-payer system works pretty well" with three dots.
The New York Times reported it this way: "'The public option is not your enemy,' Mr. Obama said. 'It is your friend, I believe.' Saying it would 'keep insurance companies honest,' the president dismissed as 'illegitimate' the claims of critics that a public insurance option amounts to 'Trojan horse for a single-payer system' run by the government."
Artfully using broken phrases, the Times was able to report Obama's attack on his critics while avoiding his statement that single-payer systems work "pretty well."
It was the Los Angeles Times, however, that struck upon the cleverest tactic. It reported what Obama said this way:
"'Let me also address an illegitimate concern that's being put forward by those who are claiming that a public option is somehow a Trojan horse for a single-payer system,' Obama said. 'But I believe, and I've taken some flak from members of my own party for this belief, that it's important for our reform efforts to build on our traditions here in the United States."
Just as Obama was about to say he believes single-payer systems work "pretty well," the Times broke off the quote and inserted the words "Obama said." It then resumed the quote with the words "but I believe," which come after Obama said he believes single-payer systems work "pretty well."
The Washington Post, The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times are not part of an adversarial press asking tough questions of a president trying to radically reorganize the health care system. They are his accomplices.
In his AMA speech, Obama again said he supports creating a "public option" government-run health insurance company and mandating that every American buy health insurance. The only thing he isn't calling for now is mandating that everyone buy their mandatory insurance from the government company.
Once the "public option" is in place, slight changes in regulations and taxes can make it the only option. When that happens, don't expect to see it reported plainly in a major paper.
by Terry Jeffrey
President Obama told the American Medical Association on Monday that he thinks single-payer health care systems -- socialized medicine -- work "pretty well" in other countries, but that he does not want to create such a system here because he wants to "build on our traditions."
In fact, the predictable endgame of the health care plan Obama is trying to rush through Congress this summer is socialized medicine.
We now know Obama does not oppose socialized medicine in principle or on practical grounds. So on what grounds does he oppose it? Just one: rhetorical.
If Obama candidly said he is trying to put America on the path to government-run health care, it would excite exactly the sort of massive national grassroots opposition needed to kill his plan.
So what Obama is doing is paving a one-way street to a socialized medicine while expressly denying he is doing so -- and while accusing those who point out what he is doing of being untruthful.
Some in the liberal press are helping Obama perpetrate this big lie.
The coverage of his AMA speech provides a stunning example specifically related to Obama's declaration that single-payer health care systems have worked "pretty well."
The full context of Obama's remark is available from the official transcript posted on the White House Website. One paragraph of this transcript reads:
"Let me also say that -- let me also address a illegitimate concern that's being put forward by those who are claiming a public option is somehow a Trojan horse for a single-payer system. I'll be honest, there are countries where a single-payer system works pretty well. But I believe -- and I've taken some flak from members of my own party for this belief -- that it's important for our efforts to build on our traditions here in the United States. So when you hear the naysayers claim that I'm trying to bring about government-run health care, know this: They're not telling the truth."
On Tuesday afternoon, I ran a search of the Nexis "major newspapers" database to see if any major American newspaper had quoted Obama's remark that "there are countries where a single-payer system works pretty well." I searched the terms "Obama," "single-payer" and "pretty well." There was not a single hit.
Then I discovered, also using Nexis, that The Washington Post, The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times had all artfully quoted words Obama said both immediately before and after he said single payer systems work "pretty well" -- without actually quoting his statement about single-payer systems working "pretty well."
The Washington Post reported it this way: "In his speech, Obama said, 'Let me also address an illegitimate concern that's being put forward by those who are claiming that a public option is somehow a Trojan horse for a single-payer system. … When you hear the naysayers claim that I'm trying to bring about government-run health care, know this: They're not telling the truth."
The Post artfully replaced Obama's statement that "I'll be honest, there are countries where a single-payer system works pretty well" with three dots.
The New York Times reported it this way: "'The public option is not your enemy,' Mr. Obama said. 'It is your friend, I believe.' Saying it would 'keep insurance companies honest,' the president dismissed as 'illegitimate' the claims of critics that a public insurance option amounts to 'Trojan horse for a single-payer system' run by the government."
Artfully using broken phrases, the Times was able to report Obama's attack on his critics while avoiding his statement that single-payer systems work "pretty well."
It was the Los Angeles Times, however, that struck upon the cleverest tactic. It reported what Obama said this way:
"'Let me also address an illegitimate concern that's being put forward by those who are claiming that a public option is somehow a Trojan horse for a single-payer system,' Obama said. 'But I believe, and I've taken some flak from members of my own party for this belief, that it's important for our reform efforts to build on our traditions here in the United States."
Just as Obama was about to say he believes single-payer systems work "pretty well," the Times broke off the quote and inserted the words "Obama said." It then resumed the quote with the words "but I believe," which come after Obama said he believes single-payer systems work "pretty well."
The Washington Post, The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times are not part of an adversarial press asking tough questions of a president trying to radically reorganize the health care system. They are his accomplices.
In his AMA speech, Obama again said he supports creating a "public option" government-run health insurance company and mandating that every American buy health insurance. The only thing he isn't calling for now is mandating that everyone buy their mandatory insurance from the government company.
Once the "public option" is in place, slight changes in regulations and taxes can make it the only option. When that happens, don't expect to see it reported plainly in a major paper.
Health care
'45 Million Americans' -- Who Are Those Guys?
by Larry Elder
About 45 million Americans lack health care insurance. Or do they?
A pro-"universal health care" television host recently cited this widely accepted "fact." The number is bogus.
Here's the skinny.
Start with the math. We have 300 million Americans. Subtract the 45 million -- 15 percent of us -- with no health insurance. That leaves 255 million Americans, or 85 percent, with it.
And the insurance is lousy, right? Not according to a 2006 ABC News/Kaiser Family Foundation/USA Today survey. It found that 89 percent of Americans were satisfied with the quality of their own health care.
Nearly half of the 45 million fall in the category of my 26-year-old nephew. He smokes cigarettes, dates, eats out, goes to movies and, like all young people, lives through his cell phone. With a slight change in priorities, he could afford health insurance, the cost of which at his age and health starts at about $100 a month. Take a look at a Reason Foundation video of interviews with a bunch of non-health-insured 20-somethings.
These Gen Xers copped to dropping money on clothes, booze, nightlife, the latest tech gizmos and other things of interest to them. With a change in priorities, these young folks -- far more representative of those without insurance than the forlorn husband and wife sitting on a porch swing -- could both afford and qualify for health insurance. They simply consider it a low priority.
Millions more can access health care -- through SCHIP (State Children's Health Insurance Program), Medicaid or other government programs. But for whatever reason, 11 million people simply refuse to take advantage of them.
Several million other Americans who want insurance do, indeed, go without it -- for a time. Many are, however, between jobs, and most -- at some point -- will find employment that either offers health insurance or pays enough so that they can buy it. Millions more work at companies that offer health insurance, and for a few dollars out of every paycheck, they could add family members. They choose not to.
What about criminals without insurance? More than 2 million Americans -- with access to health care, by the way -- use jail, prison or penitentiary mailing addresses. And for every one behind bars, how many live among us who survive by theft, drug dealing, prostitution or some similar career path? Taxpayer health insurance for them, too?
So now we're down to the Americans without health insurance on a persistent, long-term basis. This is approximately 10-15 million, a big number to be sure. But does this warrant a government takeover of the entire health care system?
Lacking health care insurance is not the same as lacking health care . By law, most emergency rooms must provide health care -- to both legals and illegals. Yes, they stand in line, but no health insurance does not equal no health care.
Government (aka taxpayers) already pays half of our health care dollar, with programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP and other federal and state plans. The stated goals are accessibility and affordability. Congress passed Medicare in 1965. In the 20 years before the program's inception, the cost of a day in a hospital increased threefold. In the 20 years following Medicare, a day in a hospital increased eightfold -- substantially higher than inflation over that period. Because of cost controls on government plans, providers increased the cost on everybody else.
So here's the question.
Do we allow a complete government takeover of the section of health care it doesn't already run, for 10-15 million or so without health insurance on a persistent basis? Again, 255 million Americans already have it. Many millions more could get it if they wanted to. And 89 percent of Americans are satisfied with the care they now receive.
What to do? Unleash the free market. Allow greater competition among health care providers. Decrease costly regulations that increase the price tag. Enable consumers to purchase insurance plans across state lines. Allow non-government-licensed paraprofessionals and others -- currently prevented by law from offering any medical services -- to provide low-cost care.
What about poor care and negligence? We have laws against force and fraud, as well as a common-law duty of care. That's why God created lawyers. (Just give us "loser pays.")
What about those who cannot afford it? What about those with pre-existing illnesses whose insurance applications carriers turned down? What's wrong with charity -- people helping people? America remains the most generous nation on the face of the earth. We donate more of our time and money than countries like England, Germany and Japan. During the Great Depression, before the New Deal, charitable giving skyrocketed. After the New Deal, charitable giving continued, but not at nearly the same rate. People expected government to address the problem, and taxpayers felt they gave at the office.
We can provide such "universal" coverage at a "low cost" -- through rationing. That means long lines, lower quality and less innovation for services that Americans currently take for granted.
Economists call it T.A.N.S.T.A.A.F.L. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
by Larry Elder
About 45 million Americans lack health care insurance. Or do they?
A pro-"universal health care" television host recently cited this widely accepted "fact." The number is bogus.
Here's the skinny.
Start with the math. We have 300 million Americans. Subtract the 45 million -- 15 percent of us -- with no health insurance. That leaves 255 million Americans, or 85 percent, with it.
And the insurance is lousy, right? Not according to a 2006 ABC News/Kaiser Family Foundation/USA Today survey. It found that 89 percent of Americans were satisfied with the quality of their own health care.
Nearly half of the 45 million fall in the category of my 26-year-old nephew. He smokes cigarettes, dates, eats out, goes to movies and, like all young people, lives through his cell phone. With a slight change in priorities, he could afford health insurance, the cost of which at his age and health starts at about $100 a month. Take a look at a Reason Foundation video of interviews with a bunch of non-health-insured 20-somethings.
These Gen Xers copped to dropping money on clothes, booze, nightlife, the latest tech gizmos and other things of interest to them. With a change in priorities, these young folks -- far more representative of those without insurance than the forlorn husband and wife sitting on a porch swing -- could both afford and qualify for health insurance. They simply consider it a low priority.
Millions more can access health care -- through SCHIP (State Children's Health Insurance Program), Medicaid or other government programs. But for whatever reason, 11 million people simply refuse to take advantage of them.
Several million other Americans who want insurance do, indeed, go without it -- for a time. Many are, however, between jobs, and most -- at some point -- will find employment that either offers health insurance or pays enough so that they can buy it. Millions more work at companies that offer health insurance, and for a few dollars out of every paycheck, they could add family members. They choose not to.
What about criminals without insurance? More than 2 million Americans -- with access to health care, by the way -- use jail, prison or penitentiary mailing addresses. And for every one behind bars, how many live among us who survive by theft, drug dealing, prostitution or some similar career path? Taxpayer health insurance for them, too?
So now we're down to the Americans without health insurance on a persistent, long-term basis. This is approximately 10-15 million, a big number to be sure. But does this warrant a government takeover of the entire health care system?
Lacking health care insurance is not the same as lacking health care . By law, most emergency rooms must provide health care -- to both legals and illegals. Yes, they stand in line, but no health insurance does not equal no health care.
Government (aka taxpayers) already pays half of our health care dollar, with programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP and other federal and state plans. The stated goals are accessibility and affordability. Congress passed Medicare in 1965. In the 20 years before the program's inception, the cost of a day in a hospital increased threefold. In the 20 years following Medicare, a day in a hospital increased eightfold -- substantially higher than inflation over that period. Because of cost controls on government plans, providers increased the cost on everybody else.
So here's the question.
Do we allow a complete government takeover of the section of health care it doesn't already run, for 10-15 million or so without health insurance on a persistent basis? Again, 255 million Americans already have it. Many millions more could get it if they wanted to. And 89 percent of Americans are satisfied with the care they now receive.
What to do? Unleash the free market. Allow greater competition among health care providers. Decrease costly regulations that increase the price tag. Enable consumers to purchase insurance plans across state lines. Allow non-government-licensed paraprofessionals and others -- currently prevented by law from offering any medical services -- to provide low-cost care.
What about poor care and negligence? We have laws against force and fraud, as well as a common-law duty of care. That's why God created lawyers. (Just give us "loser pays.")
What about those who cannot afford it? What about those with pre-existing illnesses whose insurance applications carriers turned down? What's wrong with charity -- people helping people? America remains the most generous nation on the face of the earth. We donate more of our time and money than countries like England, Germany and Japan. During the Great Depression, before the New Deal, charitable giving skyrocketed. After the New Deal, charitable giving continued, but not at nearly the same rate. People expected government to address the problem, and taxpayers felt they gave at the office.
We can provide such "universal" coverage at a "low cost" -- through rationing. That means long lines, lower quality and less innovation for services that Americans currently take for granted.
Economists call it T.A.N.S.T.A.A.F.L. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
Obama health care
The Obamacare Horror Story You Won't Hear
by Michelle Malkin
The White House, Democrats and MoveOn liberals are spreading health care sob stories to sell a government takeover. But there's one health care policy nightmare you won't hear the Obamas hyping. It's a tale of poor minority patient-dumping in Chicago -- with first lady Michelle Obama's fingerprints all over it.
Both Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa and Democratic Rep. Bobby Rush of Illinois have raised red flags about the outsourcing program run by the University of Chicago Medical Center. The hospital has nonprofit status and receives lucrative tax breaks in exchange for providing charity care.
Yet, in fiscal year 2007, when Mrs. Obama was employed there, it spent a measly $10 million on charity care for the poor -- 1.3 percent of its total hospital expenses, according to an analysis performed for The Washington Post by the nonpartisan Center for Tax and Budget Accountability. The figure is below the 2.1 percent average for nonprofit hospitals in surrounding Cook County.
Rep. Rush called for a House investigation last week in response to months of patient-dumping complaints, noting: "Congress has a duty to expend its power to mitigate and prevent this despicable practice from continuing in centers that receive federal funds."
Don't expect the president to support a probe. While a top executive at the hospital, Mrs. Obama helped engineer the plan to offload low-income patients with non-urgent health needs. Under the Orwellian banner of an "Urban Health Initiative," Mrs. Obama sold the scheme to outsource low-income care to other facilities as a way to "dramatically improve health care for thousands of South Side residents."
In truth, it was old-fashioned cost-cutting and favor-trading repackaged as minority aid. Clearing out the poor freed up room for insured (i.e., more lucrative) patients. If a Republican had proposed the very same program and recruited black civic leaders to front it, Michelle Obama and her grievance-mongering friends would be screaming "RAAAAAAAAACISM!" at the top of their lungs.
Joe Stephens of The Washington Post wrote, "To ensure community support, Michelle Obama and others in late 2006 recommended that the hospital hire the firm of David Axelrod, who a few months later became the chief strategist for Barack Obama's presidential campaign. Axelrod's firm (ASK Public Strategies) recommended an aggressive promotional effort modeled on a political campaign -- appoint a campaign manager, conduct focus groups, target messages to specific constituencies, then recruit religious leaders and other third-party 'validators.' They, in turn, would write and submit opinion pieces to Chicago publications."
Some health care experts saw through Mrs. Obama and PR man Axelrod -- yes, the same Axelrod who is now President Obama's senior adviser. But the University of Chicago Medical Center hired ASK Public Strategies to promote Mrs. Obama's initiative. Axelrod had the blessing of Chicago political guru Valerie Jarrett -- now a White House senior adviser.
Axelrod's great contribution: re-branding! His firm recommended renaming the initiative after "internal and external respondents expressed the opinion that the word 'urban' is code for 'black' or 'black and poor.' … Based on the research, consideration should be given to re-branding the initiative." Axelrod and the Obama campaign refused to disclose how much his firm received for its genius re-branding services.
In February 2009, outrage in the Obamas' community exploded upon learning that a young boy covered by Medicaid had been turned away from the University of Chicago Medical Center. Dontae Adams' mother, Angela, had sought emergency treatment for him after a pit bull tore off his upper lip. Mrs. Obama's hospital gave the boy a tetanus shot, antibiotics and Tylenol, and shoved him out the door. The mother and son took an hour-long bus ride to another hospital for surgery.
I'll guarantee you this: You'll never see the Adams family featured at an Obama policy summit or seated next to the first lady at a joint session of Congress to illustrate the failures of the health care system.
Following the Adams incident, the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) blasted Mrs. Obama and Axelrod's grand plan. The group released a statement expressing "grave concerns that the University of Chicago's policy toward emergency patients is dangerously close to 'patient dumping,' a practice made illegal by the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA)" -- signed by President Reagan, by the way -- "and reflected an effort to 'cherry pick' wealthy patients over poor."
Rewarding political cronies at the expense of the poor while posing as guardians of the downtrodden? Welcome to Obamacare.
by Michelle Malkin
The White House, Democrats and MoveOn liberals are spreading health care sob stories to sell a government takeover. But there's one health care policy nightmare you won't hear the Obamas hyping. It's a tale of poor minority patient-dumping in Chicago -- with first lady Michelle Obama's fingerprints all over it.
Both Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa and Democratic Rep. Bobby Rush of Illinois have raised red flags about the outsourcing program run by the University of Chicago Medical Center. The hospital has nonprofit status and receives lucrative tax breaks in exchange for providing charity care.
Yet, in fiscal year 2007, when Mrs. Obama was employed there, it spent a measly $10 million on charity care for the poor -- 1.3 percent of its total hospital expenses, according to an analysis performed for The Washington Post by the nonpartisan Center for Tax and Budget Accountability. The figure is below the 2.1 percent average for nonprofit hospitals in surrounding Cook County.
Rep. Rush called for a House investigation last week in response to months of patient-dumping complaints, noting: "Congress has a duty to expend its power to mitigate and prevent this despicable practice from continuing in centers that receive federal funds."
Don't expect the president to support a probe. While a top executive at the hospital, Mrs. Obama helped engineer the plan to offload low-income patients with non-urgent health needs. Under the Orwellian banner of an "Urban Health Initiative," Mrs. Obama sold the scheme to outsource low-income care to other facilities as a way to "dramatically improve health care for thousands of South Side residents."
In truth, it was old-fashioned cost-cutting and favor-trading repackaged as minority aid. Clearing out the poor freed up room for insured (i.e., more lucrative) patients. If a Republican had proposed the very same program and recruited black civic leaders to front it, Michelle Obama and her grievance-mongering friends would be screaming "RAAAAAAAAACISM!" at the top of their lungs.
Joe Stephens of The Washington Post wrote, "To ensure community support, Michelle Obama and others in late 2006 recommended that the hospital hire the firm of David Axelrod, who a few months later became the chief strategist for Barack Obama's presidential campaign. Axelrod's firm (ASK Public Strategies) recommended an aggressive promotional effort modeled on a political campaign -- appoint a campaign manager, conduct focus groups, target messages to specific constituencies, then recruit religious leaders and other third-party 'validators.' They, in turn, would write and submit opinion pieces to Chicago publications."
Some health care experts saw through Mrs. Obama and PR man Axelrod -- yes, the same Axelrod who is now President Obama's senior adviser. But the University of Chicago Medical Center hired ASK Public Strategies to promote Mrs. Obama's initiative. Axelrod had the blessing of Chicago political guru Valerie Jarrett -- now a White House senior adviser.
Axelrod's great contribution: re-branding! His firm recommended renaming the initiative after "internal and external respondents expressed the opinion that the word 'urban' is code for 'black' or 'black and poor.' … Based on the research, consideration should be given to re-branding the initiative." Axelrod and the Obama campaign refused to disclose how much his firm received for its genius re-branding services.
In February 2009, outrage in the Obamas' community exploded upon learning that a young boy covered by Medicaid had been turned away from the University of Chicago Medical Center. Dontae Adams' mother, Angela, had sought emergency treatment for him after a pit bull tore off his upper lip. Mrs. Obama's hospital gave the boy a tetanus shot, antibiotics and Tylenol, and shoved him out the door. The mother and son took an hour-long bus ride to another hospital for surgery.
I'll guarantee you this: You'll never see the Adams family featured at an Obama policy summit or seated next to the first lady at a joint session of Congress to illustrate the failures of the health care system.
Following the Adams incident, the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) blasted Mrs. Obama and Axelrod's grand plan. The group released a statement expressing "grave concerns that the University of Chicago's policy toward emergency patients is dangerously close to 'patient dumping,' a practice made illegal by the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA)" -- signed by President Reagan, by the way -- "and reflected an effort to 'cherry pick' wealthy patients over poor."
Rewarding political cronies at the expense of the poor while posing as guardians of the downtrodden? Welcome to Obamacare.
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