Hope-N-Change In Health Care

Somehow I'm guessing this isn't what most people thought they were getting when they voted for Obama's message of hope-n-change:

On This Week with George Stephanopolous, president-elect Barack Obama proposed eliminating the ENTIRE Medicare Advantage program:

We've got to eliminate programs that don't work, and I'll give you an example in the health care area.  We are spending a lot of money subsidizing the insurance companies around something called Medicare Advantage, a program that gives them subsidies to accept Medicare recipients but doesn't necessarily make people on Medicare healthier.

And if we eliminate that and other programs, we can potentially save $200 billion out of the health care system that we're currently spending, and take that money and use it in ways that are actually going to make people healthier and improve quality.  So what our challenge is going to be is identifying what works and putting more money into that, eliminating things that don't work, and making things that we have more efficient.

Since there are 9 million people (senior citizens, of course) who are currently utilizing this program, that means the Obamessiah is planning to kick 9 million people off of their Medicare coverage.

Hope!  Change!

Some more analysis:

Medicare Advantage allows seniors to choose a private health plan rather than get their health coverage from the traditional Medicare program.  ...  The Left has long dreamt of eliminating Medicare Advantage, in part because it poses a threat to their plans for a completely government-run, single-payer health care system.  Yet the Left has had to settle for attacking and attempting to eliminate the "overpayments" that Medicare Advantage plans receive.  Of course, one can eliminate Medicare Advantage stealthily by reducing payments to private plans until none will participate.

For Obama to suggest eliminating Medicare Advantage outright, however, is extraordinary.  First, Obama made a campaign promise that he will let Americans keep their current health insurance.  Eliminating Medicare Advantage would force 9 million seniors out of their current health plans and back into traditional Medicare.  Second, a man who wants to reform America's health care sector ought not begin the effort by proposing to take something away from seniors, America's largest and most politically active voting block.  Maybe the Obama folks haven't learned the lessons of the Clinton health care battle.

Eliminating Medicare Advantage would be bad for non-seniors, too, because it would block innovations that make medicine better, cheaper, and safer.  The main reason that the U.S. health care sector fails to coordinate care, fails to provide patients with electronic medical records, and fails to prevent medical errors is that whenever providers try to do those things, the traditional Medicare program's change-resistant payment system punishes them for doing so.  (Universal coverage kills.)  Medicare Advantage plans use different financial incentives that actually encourage coordination, EMRs, and error reduction.  What a novel thought…

Taking on socialized health care is going to be a tough one, even for the almighty Obamessiah.  Things like this won't help him any, and that's good news for the rest of us.

But let's take a moment to envision the successful socialization of American health care.  A good way to see what a socialized American health care system is to look at a couple other socialized health care systems around the world (sources here, here, and here).  For example, here's a heart-warming story out of England:

NHS records show that 3,645 people died as a result of "patient safety incidents" - including botched operations and the outbreak of infections - between April 2007 and March 2008. The figure was 1,370 higher than two years earlier.

Patient groups have warned that the true toll is likely to be higher because some hospitals do not record all incidents.

But hey, at least they didn't have to pay for those incidents, right?

This sort of thing is repeated throughout the world, wherever socialized medicine exists.  It's not a trend, it's a guarantee. This might lead one to believe that the quality of care has drastically declined in socialized systems, not only because of a stifling lack of innovation and incentive, but also because people are treated as numbers and herds rather than individuals.  One might also conclude that when human life is devalued into a mere category, people may stop caring for the sick altogether.  One might be right:

A vulnerable patient starved to death in an NHS hospital after 26 days without proper nourishment. Martin Ryan, 43, had suffered a stroke which left him unable to swallow. But a 'total breakdown in communication' meant he was never fitted with a feeding tube.

Emma Kemp, 26, was denied cancer treatment that could have saved her life, while 30-year-old Mark Cannon died two months after being admitted to hospital with a broken leg.

Three other cases followed similar patterns, with warnings ignored or problems missed until it was too late, often because the patients had difficulty communicating.

Sources said the overall picture of neglect that it paints is devastating. Campaigners will seize on the findings as evidence of a wider problem of institutional discrimination in the health service. The six cases were first highlighted by the disability charity Mencap in a report entitled Death By Indifference.

Death By Indifference.  Kind of puts things in perspective, doesn't it?  But it gets worse.

This is what we get when a nameless, faceless State controls things.  A nanny state doesn't care about a person.  If someone has to suffer and die because of budget shortfalls, well, that's not the State's problem.  The State is only concerned with keeping its own bloated ship afloat at all costs, and that means controlling the lives of its citizens.  The logic is no less inescapable for its simplicity:

[O]pponents of single-payer health care worry that once the government pays for our medical care, it will have the authority to dictate lifestyle choices to its citizens subjects day-care denizens.

Do you still think that diet and exercise choices are no one else's business?  Not when other people pay your medical bills.  If I have to pay for my neighbor's doctor bills, I'm going to demand that he stops smoking, stops eating pizza five nights a week, and starts getting some exercise.  If necessary, I'll find a way to make him stop.

Of course, I won't have much power to enforce the Ed Morrissey Rules on him, except to not pay his medical bills.  Replace me with Uncle Sam, and suddenly we have the massive power of the state behind those rules.

And it's happening all over:

• Britain banned some egg advertisments from television because they promoted an "unhealthy lifestyle."
• New Zealand refused entry to a British citizen and submarine cable expert because of his obesity.  After he lost some weight, New Zealand finally relented — but his wife is still persona non grata because of her weight.
• The German government has campaigned to brand those who don't eat right and exercise as "antisocial" for burdening the nanny state with their problems — which has certain uncomfortable historical echoes.
• Los Angeles and New York City have already banned restaurants from cooking with trans fats. 
  
• A few California communities have banned smoking in private residences, which should be a real joy to enforce
• [S]ome states have sugar taxes on soft drinks.

Those last three are happening here in the U.S., without socialized health care!  And take a look at Japan:

Imagine a country where the government regularly checks the waistlines of citizens over age 40. Anyone deemed too fat would be required to undergo diet counseling. Those who fail to lose sufficient weight could face further "reeducation" and their communities subject to stiff fines.

Is this some nightmarish dystopia?

No, this is contemporary Japan.

The Japanese government argues that it must regulate citizens' lifestyles because it is paying their health costs.

Am I saying our current system is perfect?  No, far from it.  There is way too much government involved already.  The more pay points there are in a system (co-pays to the hospital, insurance premiums from the patient, insurance payments from the hospital, payments from the insurance company to the hospital, etc.), the more potential there is for corruption and artificial inflation of prices.  There's less and less competition involved, and competition is the best driver of high quality and low cost - that's why a single Tylenol in the hospital costs $18, but a bottle of 100 Tylenol at Wal-Mart costs $4.

While socializing our health care system would certainly convert everything into a single pay point (our tax dollars going straight to the federal government), it would also remove all competition whatsoever, all incentive to innovate and lower costs, and all personal choice about health care options and decisions.  The Nanny State would reign supreme about the most important decisions in anyone's life: their own well-being.

Is this what you really want?  I've just shown you a bunch of examples of how this is reality in other countries, so we're not talking speculation here - this is what will happen if America goes fully down this path.  Is this truly what's best for you, your kids, or anyone else?  Quite honestly, I can't fathom having to defer to a bureaucrat's decision on whether my kid gets a treatment that could save his or her life.  Can you?

If Obama and the radical Left Dems in Congress win this battle, that's exactly what will happen with Obamacare.

There's my two cents.