No, Really, You'll Love It Once You Get To Know It...

Remember how we suffered through months and months of accusations of being Nazis, mobsters, racists, and all kinds of other niceties simply because we didn't want the federal government controlling our most intimate and critical health care decisions? Remember how the liberal Dems in Congress fled from their constituents, who knew more about the various versions of the unread, multiple-thousand-page bills that were released just days before critical votes? Remember how they finally passed DemCare on a Sunday evening in late March with the promise that we'll love it once we get to know it?

Moe Lane helps illustrate how that promise was exactly like all the others the Dems used to try to make up political cover for themselves (meaning, it was a total load of crap):

March 24, 2010

Rich with symbolism and ceremony, the White House event provided clues about how the administration plans to sell the measure to a skeptical public: as a moral necessity of historic proportion. Obama told his audience of allies that “we are not a nation that scales back its aspirations.” But his central challenge remains convincing an anxious nation that it can afford to help all, even at a time of rising debt, high unemployment and two distant wars.

April 22, 2010

White House ramps up health care messaging

Washington (CNN) - The White House announced Thursday that veteran Democratic strategist Stephanie Cutter will lead communications and outreach strategy efforts for the implementation of the new health care reform law.

May 11, 2010.

White House health-care campaign begins

The Obama administration’s campaign to sell the new health-care law to a skeptical public is beginning to take shape, with a focus on short-term changes that kick in before the November midterm elections.

June 6, 2010.

White House and Allies Set to Build Up Health Law

WASHINGTON — President Obama and his allies, concerned about deep skepticism over his landmark health care overhaul, are orchestrating an elaborate campaign to sell the public on the law, including a new tax-exempt group that will spend millions of dollars on advertising to beat back attacks on the measure and Democrats who voted for it.

And yet, strangely, DemCare is even more unpopular now that it was before it passed.

Moe offers the following rhetorical question:

Apparently, the President’s plan involves saying the exact same thing over and over and over again and hoping that he’ll get a different result this time.

I trust that I don’t need to elaborate that further?

I would add the same thing conservatives were saying when Obama launched the first effort to persuade America that the crap they just rammed down our throat really was chocolate: if you have to sell it to us after the fact, then you've clearly done something wrong.

The American people agree, and repeal is in the air. Let's hope it stays.

There's my two cents.


Related Reading:
DemCare closes insurance companies (already)
You have a duty to die, cheaper
94% of businesses believe DemCare will increase their costs
Competence on display: DemCare milestones are already being missed

British Preview Of Lethal DemCare

Well, this report from the U.K. is just awesome:

Millions of patients face losing NHS care as bosses prepare to axe treatments to make £20billion of savings by 2014, a top doctor has warned.

Among procedures being targeted by health trusts are hernias, joint replacements, ear and nose procedures, varicose veins and cataract surgery.

Dr Mark Porter, chairman of the British Medical Association’s consultants committee, warned NHS bosses wanted ‘wholesale reductions in budgets’.

He said primary care trusts – which commission care – are already compiling lists of ‘low value’ operations that would no longer be provided.

These include hip replacements for obese patients and some operations for hernias and gallstones. Procedures for varicose veins, ear and nose problems including grommets in children are also not funded in some areas.

Dr Porter said it was wrong to impose blanket bans on such procedures when some patients might benefit.

Seniors will be killed off first, but eventually we'll get to anyone deemed undesirable. Funny thing, though, how the U.K. is using the very same death panels that the liberal Left promised wouldn't be used here.

In other DemCare news, doctors still aren't happy about DemCare. That might be at least partly because they know ERs will be overrun and waiting lines will be excessive. Businesses hate DemCare because, well, it'll put them out of business. And no, the insurance companies aren't gouging all of us for excessive profits.

But hey, let's go ahead and believe the Left, which has been lying or wrong about every single aspect of DemCare thus far.

There's my two cents.


Related Reading:
Most Americans still favor repeal of DemCare
AAP decides genital 'nicking' is okay, thus illustrating how dangerous moral relativism can be
Repeal is possible
Repeal by reconciliation?
Tax = mandate

DemCare Is Taking On Water

This is great news:

As they followed one another off the political cliff in voting for the health-care overhaul, Democratic senators and representatives comforted themselves with their own self-created myth that, although ObamaCare was horribly unpopular as a bill, it would prove to be quite fetching as a law.  Furthermore, this transformation, this change they could believe in, would take place sooner rather than later — as voters would reward rather than punish them for passing ObamaCare in clear and open defiance of popular will.

In the two months since, President Obama has pulled out all the stops, aggressively trying to sell the overhaul while also rolling out ostensibly popular provisions ahead of schedule.  These provisions include a federal mandate that insurers cover all "children" up to the age of 26 on their mom's and dad's policies, with costs being borne through somewhat higher premiums for all families; and a tax credit for small businesses, but only — or at least mostly — for very small businesses (those with nine or fewer workers) with very low-paid full-time employees (those averaging less than $25,000 in annual income).

Unfortunately (from the perspective of ObamaCare supporters), a steady stream of revelations of previously undiscovered horrors buried in the bowels of ObamaCare appears to have more than negated any gains that the administration might otherwise have made.  Since passage, reports have revealed that ObamaCare would cost over $1 trillion by any standard, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), not "merely" $940 billion as previously reported (while its total costs in its real first decade, 2014 to 2023, would continue to be well over $2 trillion); that ObamaCare has prompted major corporations to discuss dropping their employer-provided health-care plans; that businesses would have to file 1099s not only for every person to whom they pay $600 in wages but for every vendor with whom they do $600 in business, thereby imposing a paperwork nightmare and incentivizing companies to avoid doing business with a myriad of small firms rather than a handful of big ones; that ObamaCare would create 159 new federal agencies, offices, or programs; that the Obama administration's Medicare Chief Actuary says ObamaCare would raise U.S. health costs by $311 billion in relation to current law and would shift about 14 million people off of employer-provided insurance — and some of them onto Medicaid; that ObamaCare's would discourage employment, as — for example — hiring a 25th worker would cost a business $5,600 in addition to wages and benefits; that ObamaCare would impose a severe marriage penalty, offering additional subsidies as high as $10,425 a year if couples merely avoid marriage; that a lone provision in ObamaCare, which would penalize employers if their employees spend more than 9.5 percent of their household income on insurance premiums, would cut the net income of businesses like White Castle by more than half; that even though ObamaCare was supposed to get people out of emergency rooms and into doctors' offices, those who build emergency rooms say the effect will be just the opposite and that they are gearing up for increased business; that doctors shortages are looming and would be accentuated by ObamaCare, both because more people would seek care (otherwise, what would the $2 trillion be buying?) and because fewer people would likely enter a demanding profession that would now promise greater restrictions and lower pay; and that President Obama's nominee to head Medicare and Medicaid under ObamaCare is an open advocate of the British National Health Services' NICE (National Institute of Clinical Excellence) and its methods of rationing care.

These revelations appear to have taken a toll.  Together, they seem to have made a notoriously unpopular law significantly less popular.

Hit the link for all the details of polling that shows DemCare is even less popular now than when it was signed into law.  The point of the article is to show that repeal is definitely on the table.  Americans definitely want health care reform, but they never did want this abomination, and if Republicans open their damned eyes and grow a spine they'd be able to ride the crest of this wave, take back majorities in Congress, and throw out DemCare before its worst insidiousness becomes reality.  Once DemCare is gone, we can start again on things that will truly benefit Americans, but we cannot 'fix' a fundamentally flawed starting point, so repeal must be the first step.  If we want to restore America, there can be no other course of action for conservatives.

On a related note, Canada is now rethinking their system of government health care.  Guess what they're moving toward because it's a better system?  Privatization.  Seems they think their (government controlled) system is too expensive and has an undesirable lack of quality to it.  Hmmm...

So, all these things together indicate that repeal is no pipe dream, no fantasy, and not an unattainable goal.  Far from it.  We should demand nothing less from our elected representatives.

There's my two cents.

You Can Keep Your Doctor If You Like Him...Actually, Never Mind, No You Can't

As with essentially every promise that Barack Obama made during the 2008 campaign, his line about you keeping your doctor after DemCare becomes law is a blatant lie.  Hot Air explains:

Barack Obama promised that people who currently have health insurance would not have any changes to their status forced onto them by ObamaCare.  "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor," Obama repeatedly promised, adding that the hundreds of millions of Americans currently insured would not have to change plans, either.  Dr. Scott Gottlieb explains in a Wall Street Journal essay exactly how wrong Obama and the Democrats were in making that promise, and describes the "defensive business arrangements" that will eliminate many provider choices for consumers:

President Obama guaranteed Americans that after health reform became law they could keep their insurance plans and their doctors. It's clear that this promise cannot be kept. Insurers and physicians are already reshaping their businesses as a result of Mr. Obama's plan.

The health-reform law caps how much insurers can spend on expenses and take for profits. Starting next year, health plans will have a regulated "floor" on their medical-loss ratios, which is the amount of revenue they spend on medical claims. Insurers can only spend 20% of their premiums on running their plans if they offer policies directly to consumers or to small employers. The spending cap is 15% for policies sold to large employers. …

One of the few remaining ways to manage expenses is to reduce the actual cost of the products. In health care, this means pushing providers to accept lower fees and reduce their use of costly services like radiology or other diagnostic testing.

To implement this strategy, companies need to be able to exert more control over doctors. So insurers are trying to buy up medical clinics and doctor practices. Where they can't own providers outright, they'll maintain smaller "networks" of physicians that they will contract with so they can manage doctors more closely. That means even fewer choices for beneficiaries. Insurers hope that owning providers will enable health policies to offset the cost of the new regulations.

Doctors, meanwhile, are selling their practices to local hospitals. In 2005, doctors owned more than two-thirds of all medical practices. By next year, more than 60% of physicians will be salaried employees. About a third of those will be working for hospitals, according to the American Medical Association. A review of the open job searches held by one of the country's largest physician-recruiting firms shows that nearly 50% are for jobs in hospitals, up from about 25% five years ago.

The end result of the consolidation that will follow ObamaCare will be increased bureaucracies and fewer choices.  The mandate burden will mean fewer independent clinics and providers, thanks to the increased start-up costs.  Doctors will look for the economies-of-scale approach and join a decreasing number of larger networks.  Insurers will affiliate themselves with fewer providers and networks as they pare down their offerings, which will already be constrained by the mandates for minimum coverage.  The so-called "Cadillac tax" will eliminate the high-end policies now offered as insurers attempt to avoid the ruinous taxes and fees imposed on those plans.

Meanwhile, insurers in Massachusetts have already felt the damage from its ObamaCare predecessor:

The state's four biggest health insurers today posted first-quarter losses totaling more than $150 million, with three of the carriers blaming the bulk of their deficit on the Patrick administration's decision to cap rate increases for individuals and small businesses.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, the state's largest health insurer, reported a $65.2 million net loss for the three months ending March 31. Its operating loss was even steeper, $95.5 million. The company drew $55 million from its reserve to cover the anticipated losses from the state-imposed premium cap in the second quarter, accounting for the majority of its operating loss. …

Harvard Pilgrim Health Care of Wellesley posted a quarterly net loss of $27 million and an operating loss of $28.6 million, drawing $21 million from its reserve against losses because of the state's limits on rate hikes. In last year's first quarter, traditionally a weak period for insurers, Harvard Pilgrim had a $3 million net loss and a $6.9 million operating loss.

Tufts Health Plan of Watertown, reported a first quarter net loss of $51.9 million and an operating loss of $59 million. That included $40 million drawn from its loss reserve. During the same period in 2009, Tufts had a $13.1 million net loss and a $16.5 million operating loss.

Megan McArdle sizes up the problem well:

The Massachusetts governor's answer to this problem was to simply deny the Massachusetts insurers the right to raise their prices.  Then, when they refused to quote prices on the exchange at the old, controlled prices, the government essentially argued that they were a bunch of whiny liars who didn't need all that extra money, and commanded them to list their insurance at the old prices.  As far as I know, they never did find an actuary to sign off on the mandated prices, but the insurers lost their hearing.

Well, now the whiny liars have upped the ante, claiming that they lost a bunch of money in the first three months of 2010, mostly thanks to the extra money they had to reserve against the losses they anticipate under the new rates.  It will be interesting to see whether we get another War on Accounting, where Deval Patrick accuses the state's biggest insurers of the dastardly use of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles in order to embarrass his awesome government program. …

It's hard to simultaneously expand demand, while lowering the incentives for supply (i.e. Medicare reimbursements), without having some pretty dramatic mismatches between the two.  There's an old adage common in restaurants and engineering that goes "Good.  Fast. Cheap. Pick Two."  Change that middle word to "Universal" and you've got a pretty good summation of the problem that Massachusetts now faces–and that the rest of us soon will.

I'm not even sure we've gotten one from ObamaCare.  So far, we've learned that it isn't cheap, it won't be fast (thanks to consolidation), and it's still not universal.  Thanks to the disincentives placed on innovation, even good may be at risk in the mid to long term.

Update (AP): And the good news keeps on coming. In Texas, the implosion of Medicare has begun:

Texas doctors are opting out of Medicare at alarming rates, frustrated by reimbursement cuts they say make participation in government-funded care of seniors unaffordable.

Two years after a survey found nearly half of Texas doctors weren't taking some new Medicare patients, new data shows 100 to 200 a year are now ending all involvement with the program. Before 2007, the number of doctors opting out averaged less than a handful a year.

"This new data shows the Medicare system is beginning to implode," said Dr. Susan Bailey, president of the Texas Medical Association. "If Congress doesn't fix Medicare soon, there'll be more and more doctors dropping out and Congress' promise to provide medical care to seniors will be broken."…

Ending Medicare participation is just one consequence of the system's funding problems. In a new Texas Medical Association survey, opting out was one of the least common options doctors have taken or are planning as a result of declining Medicare funding — behind increasing fees, reducing staff wages and benefits, reducing charity care and not accepting new Medicare patients.

Three words:

REPEAL...REPEAL...REPEAL...

There's my two cents.

Friday Update: DemCare

It's been quite a while since I last posted on DemCare, but Nancy Pelosi's eerily accurate statement that DemCare would have to pass before we found out all the nasty bits that were in it is now proving true. Here are just a few of the things we've discovered, now that it's actually the law of the land.

Obama's nominee to run the Death Panels is a huge, huge fan of Britain's Death Panel system of rationing health care. But don't worry about that because the Death Panels don't exist, of course.

Maybe the non-existent Death Panels will start by tracking your children's Body Mass Index to see how healthy they are. Oh, no, wait, that's not going to happen when DemCare gets fully implemented. It's happening now. But don't worry about that, either, because no government bureaucrat will be getting between you and your doctor.

One of the things that the Obama administration promised was that health care coverage would be cheaper. They planned to do this by bundling all states into high risk pools to help defray the costs to everyone, but -- and I know this is hard to fathom -- some states aren't too excited about paying for other states' unhealthy citizens, and are opting out.

Strangely enough, DemCare will hit you with a new 3.8% tax when you...wait for it...sell your house! No, I'm not kidding. But they're not adding new taxes, says President Wonderboy. Except that even the super-dense cheerleading squad Associated Press has figured out that new taxes are inevitable.

Also, shocker of all shockers, the CBO has now done some re-calculation, and published the fact that DemCare will be much, much more expensive than even the initial (jiggered) estimates. But don't worry about that because -- despite the numbers irritatingly being larger than before -- Obama assures us that DemCare will actually save us money long-term. So much so, in fact, that the medical device industry is now considering mass layoffs to recoup the costs savings DemCare will force on them. And try not to think about the coming doctor shortage, either. That would be depressing.

Also never mind the fact that businesses of all sizes will be hammered with new penalties, some for not providing the more less expensive health care required by the government. For those not decimated by the penalties, the IRS will require thousands of new forms to be filled out on an annual basis. Oh, and ignore the fact that DemCare will likely kill FSAs and Medicare Advantage. And ignore the job losses from hospitals that are actually owned by the physicians working there, which will also take a pummeling.

Seriously, what's not to love here?

Moving on...all this new information might have been good to know before it was signed into law, don't you think? Actually, we did know, or we at least had a pretty good idea. The problem was that Congress simply ignored the American people, thinking that we'd resign ourselves to it once it was over and done with. Wrong-o!

The number of U.S. voters who expect the recently passed health care bill to increase the federal deficit is at its highest level yet, and most voters continue to favor its repeal.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely Voters shows 63% now believe the health care reform legislation signed into law is likely to increase the federal deficit. That’s up four points from last week and up three points from when the law was passed in March.

The percentage of voters who expect the law to increase the deficit has ranged from 57% to 63% since March.

Support for repeal is proving to be just as consistent as opposition to the plan before it was passed into law. Fifty-six percent (56%) now favor repeal, including 46% who Strongly Favor it. Thirty-seven percent (37%) are opposed to repeal, with 28% Strongly Opposed.

Oops...!

That vast miscalculation may help explain why the Obama administration is getting so desperate that they're threatening to veto parts of their own bill.

It would be funny if it wasn't so serious.

There's my two cents.

News Roundup

A lot has happened over the past few days, and I thought it would be worth reviewing briefly.

The new U.K. government is taking shape, and it's going to have a definite conservative bent.  Hopefully America will follow suit in November.

First, the mainstream media has been strangely silent about it, but Tennessee is literally underwater in one of the worse floods in a very long time.  You can help.

Guess what country just got a 4-year spot on the U.N.'s commission on women's rights?  Iran.  No, I'm not kidding.  It's a sign of just how authentic and beneficial the U.N. has become that one of the members of the women's rights commission also happens to believe that genital mutilation, regular beatings for not wearing a blanket at all times, and honor killings are acceptable.

Another astoundingly inappropriate event happened when it was announced that there are plans to build a mosque at Ground Zero in New York.  That's right, they're going to build a temple and worship center for the religion that sponsored the 9/11 attacks that decimated that patch of ground.  Strangely, liberals don't seem to understand why anyone should have a problem with this.  On a related note, Ann Coulter succinctly points out that Obama's anti-terrorism policy seems to be nothing more than to hope that terrorists are stupid.  Why am I not reassured?

In Europe, the Greek economy is still melting down.  Basically, their long-time socialist nanny state is coming to its logical conclusion: not enough producers, and too many free-riders.  The EU is putting together a bailout package, but we can learn a few things from watching this happen right before our eyes.  First, that it's not so much a failure of a nation as a failure of socialist ideology.  Unfortunately, the problems causing Greece's woes are being replicated here in America, though Greece is much further down that road than we are.  Draw your own conclusion there.  Second, isn't it interesting that even liberals are suggesting that one of the biggest measures Greece can do to get back some fiscal health would be to privatize their universal health care system?  Really?  Then perhaps they should also explain WHY WE SHOULD GO FROM A PRIVATE SYSTEM TO A UNIVERSAL SYSTEM...!!!

*Ahem*  Moving on...

Remember that tiny little $1 trillion dive in the stock market last week?  It may have been economic sabotage.  Or a typo.  Well, no one really knows, but hey, don't worry, 'cause they're pretty sure it won't happen again.  Oh, and by the way, Michelle Obama is warning the youth of America that their life is going to suck in the future.  I'm sure the two aren't related.

Finally, some good news!  Now only 39% would re-elect Barack Obama if the election was held today.

There's my two cents.

Liberals Hate Unintended Consequences

Here's why:

Shortly after the boondoggle known as the health care bill was passed, corporations discovered that the bill had a lot of detrimental factors to it, which, as Nancy Pelosi infamously said, we couldn’t find out until the bill was passed. As such, upon its passage, corporations began taking write-downs due to the elimination, by the new law, of many deductions they had previously been allowed to take.

This didn’t sit well with Representative Waxman, being utterly ignorant in the ways of business, and it got his rather unfortunate nose out of joint. He decided to use strong arm tactics, in his position as Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and demanded various things from corporations, including confidential memos. Egregious enough as that was, he didn’t stop there. Unfortunately for him and his fellow Democrats, there were unintended consequences of his strong arm tactics. They ended up revealing the intended consequences of the Health Care Bill: No more employer-provided health care for you.

Waxman was angry that corporations were performing analysis, as they have a duty to do for their stockholders and so that they can, you know, remain financially feasible and not go out of business. That concept is foreign to the current crop of Democrats. Profits are evil! Instead, they believe that corporations are beholden to The State ™ and those beliefs led him to this:

But Waxman didn’t simply request documents related to the write down issue. He wanted every document the companies created that discussed what the bill would do to their most uncontrollable expense: healthcare costs.

The request yielded 1,100 pages of documents from four major employers: AT&T, Verizon, Caterpillar and Deere (DE, Fortune 500). No sooner did the Democrats on the Energy Committee read them than they abruptly cancelled the hearings. On April 14, the Committee’s majority staff issued a memo stating that the write downs were “proper and in accordance with SEC rules.” The committee also stated that the memos took a generally sunny view of the new legislation. The documents, said the Democrats’ memo, show that “the overall impact of health reform on large employers could be beneficial.”

Nowhere in the five-page report did the majority staff mention that not one, but all four companies, were weighing the costs and benefits of dropping their coverage.

In his utter audacity and abuse of power, paired with his woeful ignorance and incompetence, Waxman ended up revealing that the health care bill is designed so that the government can fully take over the entire health care market. So much for that oft-repeated “if you like your plan, you can keep your plan” promise of Obama’s. I, of course, use the term “promise” loosely, as that is how Obama plays with the truth.

For many corporations, it will now be in their best interests and financially preferable to drop employer-provided coverage, pay the penalty and create scores of newly uninsured. Guess where those newly unisured will go? Into one of the “exchanges”, a pre-cursor to a single-payer, government-covered system.

A document prepared for Verizon by consulting firm Hewitt Resources stated, “Even though the proposed assessments [on companies that do not provide health care] are material, they are modest when compared to the average cost of health care,” and that to avoid costs and regulations, “employers may consider exiting the health care market and send employees to the Exchanges.” (Under the new bill, employees who lose their coverage will purchase health care through state-run exchanges.)

Kenneth Huhn, vice president of labor relations at Deere, said in an internal email that his company should look at the alternatives to providing health benefits, which “would amount to denying coverage and just paying the penalty,” and that he felt he already had the ability to make this change under his company’s labor agreement. Caterpillar felt it would have to give “serious consideration” to the penalty option.

Huh. That doesn’t sound like “you can keep your plan” to me. Oh, and that whole For The 26 Year Old Children ™ deal? It makes it far costlier. It’s a ridiculous premise to begin with — if my daughter expects me to pay for her health insurance at age 26, I’ll have failed as a mother. Further, by insanely claiming that 26 year old adults are still children, Obama and the Democrats have punished all working parents.

Both Caterpillar (CAT, Fortune 500) and Verizon believe the requirement to allow dependents to remain on their parents’ policies until age 26 will prove costly. Caterpillar puts the added expense at $20 million a year.

All of the above was conveniently left out of the Committee’s report. It must have just slipped their minds and they forgot to mention it. Nope. It’s because Democrats lie. Including lies of omission. You see, not only will you lose your employer-based health care, but the resulting increase in government paid health care will cause federal health care costs to rise. You get to bend over and cough not once, but twice!

What does it mean for health care reform if the employer-sponsored regime collapses? By Fortune’s reckoning, each person who’s dropped would cost the government an average of around $2,100 after deducting the extra taxes collected on their additional pay. So if 50% of people covered by company plans get dumped, federal health care costs will rise by $160 billion a year in 2016, in addition to the $93 billion in subsidies already forecast by the CBO. Of course, as we’ve seen throughout the health care reform process, it’s impossible to know for certain what the unintended consequences of these actions will be.

I beg to differ with one part. They aren’t unintended consequences; they were intended. They knew this. It was the entire plan, no matter how often they lied about it and corruptly tried to hide the facts. Because it was never about cost savings or health care itself, was it? It was about the government and increasing it’s power. Not only at all costs, but at our cost, sadly.

Oops...!

On the other hand, it sure is helpful to the rest of us who aren't trying to lie and deceive to pass a monster takeover that most of the country doesn't want.

There's my two cents.

A Shiver-Inducing Preview Of The Coming DemCare Doctor Shortage

Remember that whole doctor shortage thing that will only get worse now that DemCare is law?  One of the solutions being bandied about is to utilize technology to make up for that lack of qualified doctors.  How might that play out?  Maybe like this:

The effort, loosely called e-Health or e-Care, combines health-care technology with 21st-century Internet connectivity. It will allow doctors to interact with their patients through innovations such as video chats, telephone health checkups, and home-health monitoring devices that relay data over wireless Internet connections.

 

"The development of the broadband network and health information technologies has the potential to truly transform health care and simultaneously enable better outcomes and lowering costs," said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine).

 

One of the new health technologies on display last Thursday was an automatic drug dispenser that can monitor and adjust medication dosages wirelessly, allowing doctors to tailor dosages of drugs such as insulin without having to schedule in-person visits with patients. 

 

"What we're talking about, folks, is using a device like this one," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said, as he displayed the small device. "It attaches to the patient's skin and is loaded with drugs that are administered in the exact way that the doctor prescribes – wirelessly. 

Okay, let's stop and think for a moment, shall we?  First of all, while this idea has some merit in terms of reducing costs and increasing efficiency, it is profoundly disturbing.  I believe there are times when just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do it.  This is one of those times.

What if you fall and dislodge the automatic injector?  What if the machine malfunctions and injects half a dose or twice the normal dose, or stabs you repeatedly?  What if your power goes out and the machine is in paperweight mode and you don't get your medication?  You have no qualified medical personnel around to spring into action in any of these or any other scenario.

Now, let's take the next step.  Do you trust anyone who has a wireless link directly into your body?  What if the doctor gets drunk after a birthday party and just happens to sit down in front of his computer for some real life entertainment?  What if his computer gets stolen, or what if he loses his smartphone?  Who's going to have access into your automatic injector?  Furthermore, do you trust the link itself?  Remember, the government is going to control the health care system in just a few more years...do you trust the government with a needle pointed at your heart and the ability to inject you remotely?  What if the link itself gets hacked?  Don't kid yourself that the United States has impenetrable security - remember this?  Or this?  If it's a wireless Internet connection, I assure you it can be hacked.

Quite frankly, this idea of having a wireless medical device strapped to (or, even worse, embedded in) my body that is controlled remotely by someone else is one of the scariest things I can imagine.  I would rather die than let that happen.  Of course, given where DemCare is headed -- unless the GOP can repeal it in the next four years -- that's entirely within the realm of possibility.

So be it.

But what do you think?  You'd better start giving it some thought...this isn't just science fiction anymore.

There's my two cents.

Dem Lies On DemCare Now Admitted Openly

Throughout the final weeks of the DemCare battle, what were the incessant mantras we heard from the Democrats? Something like this:

1. health care costs are out of control, and DemCare is needed to reign them in, especially for the lower and middle class
2. government won't control your health care
3. all Americans should be given health care coverage
4. no federal funding will be used for abortions

Right?

Well, now that DemCare has passed, we see that Nancy Pelosi's words rang true: we are now allowed to find out what's in it. Unfortunately for all of us, it appears that every single thing the Dems were saying about it were lies. We knew that already, of course, but now even the Dems are admitting it. Observe the tsunami of truth from a new report from the actuaries at Health and Human Services...

In case you're not into the video, here's the nutshell:

The report released by Medicare and Medicaid actuaries shows that medical costs will skyrocket rising $389 billion 10 years. 14 million will lose their employer-based coverage. Millions of Americans will be left without insurance. And, millions more may be dumped into the already overwhelmed Medicaid system. 4 million American families will be hit with tax penalties under this new law.

Hm...!

Ignore the fact that this report proves conservatives correct that the lower and middle classes will be smacked with major new taxes to pay for it. Ignore the fact that Dems swore taxpayer money wouldn't fund abortions...but it will (one state, Tennessee, has already opted out of the abortion piece, setting up yet another Constitutional showdown between the federal government and states; more will likely follow). Ignore the fact that at least 24 million Americans will remain uninsured under even DemCare, and those who are newly covered are covered at an unsatisfactory level. Ignore also the fact that the Senate has already -- ALREADY!!! -- begun the task of taking control of the insurance industry to 'prevent' skyrocketing prices. This is precisely what conservatives have been predicting would be the end result:

The plan is this:
1. force insurance companies to spike their premiums ...
2. step in and say that since insurance companies are charging such exorbitant premiums that the government really must get involved
3. implement the public option/single payer/government exchanges

Whatever they call it, it will be a government-controlled method of providing highly regulated insurance that will inevitably drive private insurance out of business. Once insurance companies start dropping off the face of the map, no one will have any choice but the government option.

And there's your government control of health care.

Finally, you must ignore the fact that the Obama administration itself is admitting that death panels will exist (and, in fact, will have a more important role in the economy than even the CBO):

But all of that is unimportant. What we must focus on now is implementing these lies DemCare policies.

Oh, and guess what the best part of this is?

The economic report released last week by Health and Human Services, which indicated that President Barack Obama’s health care “reform” law would actually increase the cost of health care and impose higher costs on consumers, had been submitted to the office of HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius more than a week before the Congressional votes on the bill, according to career HHS sources, who added that Sebelius’s staff refused to review the document before the vote was taken.

So they knew all this well in advance of the vote. They knew their talking points were bald-faced, brazen, outright lies.

As if that wasn't bad enough, they're going to use these tactics to ram other legislation that Americans don't want down our throats, too.

They are destroying this country from the inside out.

There's my two cents.


Related Reading:
Kathleen Sebelius admits they have no idea how much DemCare high risk pools will cost
It's official: higher health care costs

Pillar Talk

Brace yourself...this is one of the scariest posts I can recall doing.

Gateway Pundit:

The Hill reported:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) said the Democrats are one bill away from completing President Barack Obama’s “blueprint for American prosperity.”

“We have passed two of the three pillars in the historic healthcare and education reform and are working towards a clean energy and climate agenda in Congress,” Pelosi said in her remarks to the California Democratic Party state convention in Los Angeles on Saturday. “And essential to prosperity for middle-income Americans is reining in Wall Street.”

If this sounds vaguely familiar to you, it should - this is precisely the 're-making' project that Barack Obama promised, and we talked about over a year ago. In fact, this was something that was first thrown around back before the 2008 election, if you want to be accurate about it. Recall:

So, back to my theory from last fall - the radical Leftists who are now running the American government had three main legs in their takeover (i.e. 're-making') of this great nation:

1. financial industry
2. health care
3. energy

The first phase was largely completed with TARP, the 'stimulus' package, and historically unprecedented new spending. The House has now passed both of the other two measures, narrowly. The only hurdle left to preventing these anti-American radicals from completing their re-making project is the Senate. Two votes are all that stands between 230+ years of responsibility, limited government, and historically unmatched prosperity, and the destruction of the United States of America as we know it.

Oh sure, the country will still exist. But, it will mirror Europe - perpetually high unemployment, crippling taxation on the productive members of society, no will or ability to defend its people from attacks or aggressors, political correctness trumping common sense and justice, and government interference in every facet of life you can imagine.

The only thing left, as Nancy Pelosi says, is for the Senate to sign off on some kind of hoax-empowering climate change bill to combat what has now been proven to be the non-existent climate change hoax.

This 're-making' project is destroying the foundations of America, the principles on which it was founded -- and that made it so successful, free, and prosperous -- and those who don't fall in line with the radical Leftist viewpoint.

We need a 'Party of No' to stop this onslaught, and the polls indicate that Americans are embracing the theme in ever greater numbers. Let's hope that the GOP in Congress can find themselves a collective spine and get aggressive about not just saying no, but (in the immortal words of conservative legend William F. Buckley, Jr.) STANDING ATHWART HISTORY AND SHOUTING 'STOP'!!!

It's what America needs to happen. It's what Americans want to happen. It will take you getting involved, pressuring your elected reps, speaking the truth to friends and family before the next election, and then getting everyone you know out to vote. Then, and only then, we have a chance to roll back these three pillars of America's 're-making' destruction.

There's my two cents.

Government Competence And The Non-Existent Death Panels

What a great sign of things to come:

A woman battling a cancer battle was dealt a surprise blow by Uncle Sam this month.

Diana Smith has gone through six months of radiation and chemotherapy -- one week out of every month. She is in remission and had a donor for a transplant; being in remission is prerequisite for the transplant.

But her hopes of receiving the transplant were dashed in March, when she says, the Social Security Administration contacted her –without her soliciting it -- and told her that her three year-old son was entitled to receive Social Security disability payments. Even though she didn't ask for it, she signed the form and received her son's first check check.

In April, Medicaid canceled her universal health care policy because her income level had risen with her son's payments – making her ineligible for the insurance program.

The problem is Jackson Memorial Hospital cannot provide the procedure because the risk is too high. The universal policy from Medicaid helps shield the hospital from liability in this kind of case. Without it, they are subject to liability issues.

Even though Smith offered to cancel her son's disability benefits, she was told it's too late.

"She's gone through six months worth of radiation and chemo, her body can't take anymore. If they don't allow her to have this transplant coming up right now next week, they're in effect signing her death warrant," said her friend Tom Noonan.

"I want to live to see my son grow up and get on with my life," Smith told CBS4's Ted Scouten.

As a result of the WFOR CBS 4 report, State Sen. Dave Aronberg is prepared to take action over the weekend. Social Security officials are also looking into the case to make the surgery happen on Tuesday as had been planned.

Hm, so let's see here.  The government came to Ms. Smith and offered her financial assistance for her son.  She took it, which bumped her into a higher tax bracket, which then invalidated her universal Medicaid health coverage.  If she doesn't get that coverage restored, it's essentially a death sentence.  When she offered to cancel her son's payments, she was told to take the pain pill and die, just as Barack Obama wants.

The upside here is that Ms. Smith will probably get things sorted out due to the national attention she's getting now.  The downside is, of course: what if it was you, and what if you didn't get this level of national attention?  Do you trust the government not to botch your health care once it's paying for everything and making all the decisions?  And speaking of decisions, remember that Medicaid is the single largest denier of insurance claims, larger than any of the eeeeevil private insurance companies.  When you stop to think about it, this situation sounds startlingly similar to the death panels that supposedly don't exist, doesn't it?  Hmmm...

All the more reason to be demanding a full repeal of DemCare as soon as possible, with nothing less as an acceptable outcome.

There's my two cents.

Too Good To Be True: Congress Loses Health Care Due To DemCare!

Oh, this is just plain awesome:

Turns out that fantastically long, mind-bogglingly complex bills which no one has actually read may create unintended consequences. Remember how they forgot to require insurers to cover kids with preexisting conditions? Oh, and they forgot initially to let young adults be covered by their parents' insurance until Reid fixed it in reconciliation. Now this. Who knew that when Pelosi said they'd have to pass the bill so that people could find out what's in it, "people" meant Congress?

I'd call it comedy gold if not for the obvious point raised by the Times: "If they did not know exactly what they were doing to themselves, did lawmakers who wrote and passed the bill fully grasp the details of how it would influence the lives of other Americans?"

The law apparently bars members of Congress from the federal employees health program, on the assumption that lawmakers should join many of their constituents in getting coverage through new state-based markets known as insurance exchanges.

But the research service found that this provision was written in an imprecise, confusing way, so it is not clear when it takes effect.

The new exchanges do not have to be in operation until 2014. But because of a possible "drafting error," the report says, Congress did not specify an effective date for the section excluding lawmakers from the existing program.

Under well-established canons of statutory interpretation, the report said, "a law takes effect on the date of its enactment" unless Congress clearly specifies otherwise. And Congress did not specify any other effective date for this part of the health care law. The law was enacted when President Obama signed it three weeks ago.

In other words, theoretically the law kicks them out of the federal health plan now in order to force them to join insurance exchanges … that don't exist yet. Looking forward to tomorrow, when we're inevitably told that they meant to do that.

You can bet your bottom dollar that they'll fix this little oversight pronto.  After all, Congress knows full well what they've forced onto the American people, and there is absolutely no way in hell they are going to subject themselves to the same.  Still, I think it's comedy gold to see this when, if Congress had simply heeded the American people in the first place, this would never have happened.

The irony is pretty ironic, don't you think?

There's my two cents.

Oh, That Wonderful IRS!

Another outstanding video from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, this time on the exorbitant cost of simply complying with the IRS. It ain't pretty:

And do you really think this will get better with thousands of new IRS agents running around enforcing the new DemCare requirements?

It's a train wreck waiting to happen. Just hope it's not you who gets tied to the tracks.

There's my two cents.

The Latest Polls And What They Mean

Ace of Spades has the roundup:

Gallup: Obama Falls Again to All-Time Low, 47%

That's his weekly averaged approval. The latest three-day track has him even lower.

President Obama’s job approval rating fell to 47% for the week ending April 11, the lowest of his administration so far by one percentage point....

On a short-term basis, Obama’s latest three-day average (Friday through Sunday) is at 45%, with disapproval at 48% — both of which are the worst three-day averages since Obama took office).

He's underwater on the Real Clear Politics average, too.

Rasmussen has support for repealing ObamaCare at 58%.

Marc Thiessen urges Republicans not to lose their nerve on this issue and to forge boldy ahead:

Polls show that supporters of Obamacare are lukewarm, while the opponents are vehement. Many see Obamacare as just one element of a larger campaign by the Democrats to transform our country in the image of Europe by dramatically expanding the size and reach of the federal government. They want Republicans to repeal those efforts, not simply tinker around the edges.

This is why Newt Gingrich -- who led the successful Republican takeover of Congress before -- told the Southern Republican Leadership Conference last week that Republicans should think even bigger, and pledge to repeal not just Obamacare but also the economic stimulus and any other big-government legislation enacted by what he calls Obama's "secular socialist machine." To those Republicans who say repeal is a false promise -- because even if Republicans win both houses of Congress, Obama will still veto any repeal legislation -- Gingrich offered a two-stage solution: Stage one, win control of Congress this fall and promise that the GOP will refuse to fund Obamacare. Stage two, take back the White House in the next election and commit that "a Republican president and a Republican Congress in February and March of 2013 will repeal every radical bill passed by this machine."

Gingrich cautions that the GOP must be the "Party of Yes" and explain how it would replace Democratic legislation with something better. He is right. But without a pledge to repeal Obamacare, that message will fail. If Republican leaders can't commit to repealing a radical health care scheme that the Wall Street Journal correctly called the "worst bill ever," they can hardly expect Americans to say "yes" to a GOP Congress in November.

This is the point at which we usually start chomping on our nails because the GOP simply isn't reliable. Let's just take Reagan at his word when he said, "If you can't make them see the light, make them feel the heat." Yeah, it sucks that we have to fight not only the libs, but also our own weak representatives...but that's the world we live in. There are a few solid conservatives we can count on, but the rest, well, they need to feel the heat.

We should be ready to apply a whole heapin' lot of it.

There's my two cents.

Massachusetts Melts Down Over Failing Government Health Care

Whoa!  This is an astounding preview of what DemCare will do to the entire nation:

This week it became impossible in Massachusetts for small businesses and individuals to buy health-care coverage after Governor Deval Patrick imposed price controls on premiums. Read on, because under ObamaCare this kind of political showdown will soon be coming to an insurance market near you.

The Massachusetts small-group market that serves about 800,000 residents shut down after Mr. Patrick kicked off his re-election campaign by presumptively rejecting about 90% of the premium increases the state's insurers had asked regulators to approve. Health costs have run off the rails since former GOP Governor Mitt Romney and Beacon Hill passed universal coverage in 2006, and Mr. Patrick now claims price controls are the sensible response to this ostensibly industry greed.

Yet all of the major Massachusetts insurers are nonprofits. Three of largest four—Blue Cross Blue Shield, Tufts Health Plan and Fallon Community Health—posted operating losses in 2009. In an emergency suit heard in Boston superior court yesterday, they argued that the arbitrary rate cap will result in another $100 million in collective losses this year and make it impossible to pay the anticipated cost of claims. It may even threaten the near-term solvency of some companies. So until the matter is resolved, the insurers have simply stopped selling new policies.

A court decision is expected by Monday, but state officials have demanded that the insurers—under the threat of fines and other regulatory punishments—resume offering quotes by today and to revert to year-old base premiums. Let that one sink in: Mr. Patrick has made the health insurance business so painful the government actually has to order private companies to sell their products (albeit at sub-market costs).

One irony is that Mr. Patrick's own Attorney General and his insurance regulators have concluded—to their apparent surprise—that the reason Massachusetts premiums are the highest in the nation is the underlying cost of health care, not the supposed industry abuses that Mr. Patrick and his political mentor President Obama like to cite.

On top of that, like ObamaCare, integral to the Massachusetts overhaul are mandates that require insurers to cover anyone who applies regardless of health status or pre-existing conditions and to charge everyone about the same rates. This allows people to wait until they're about to incur major medical expenses before buying insurance and transfer the costs to everyone else. This week Blue Cross Blue Shield reported a big uptick in short-term customers who ran up costs more than four times the average, only to drop the coverage within three months.

Last July, Charlie Baker detailed similar gaming at Harvard Pilgrim, the health plan he used to run. Between April 2008 and March 2009, about 40% of its new enrollees stayed with it for fewer than five months and on average incurred costs about 600% higher than the company would have otherwise expected.

Mr. Baker is almost certain to be Mr. Patrick's GOP opponent in the fall election. The Governor's lurch toward price controls is obviously part of a bid to tar the former CEO as an industry villain. David Plouffe, the architect of Mr. Obama's Presidential campaign, has signed on as a Patrick 2010 consultant. These kinds of collisions between politics and health care are going to occur constantly across the country as ObamaCare kicks in.

So, let's step through this again.  The government determines the prices of health care, forcing insurance companies to increase premiums to stay in business.  Then the government steps in and forces those companies to lower prices to the point where they would go bankrupt.  Lawsuits begin, and these companies freeze while waiting on the outcome.  Then no one gets insurance or health care.

How does that grab you?

Brace yourself, because it's going to grab you...if DemCare isn't repealed.

There's my two cents.

Overstuffed (And Overdue) DemCare Update

It's been a while since I've posted about the health care takeover by the Democrats.  Quite frankly, I got really tired of talking about it and needed a break.  But, there are still many notable things happening on that front, so I feel I should provide another big update.  Tons of links here, so dig in.

In the rush to pass the bill without reading it or understanding what was in it, Congressional Dems somehow missed the fact that kids with pre-existing conditions weren't covered as promised.  Oops.  But don't worry, they're on top of all the rest of those 2,000+ pages of bill that they haven't read.  Trust them, they've totally got it covered...

Isn't it interesting that, now that DemCare has been signed into law, Obama is embarking on a major tour around the country to sell it to America?  Um...after an extremely contentious debate for the past year, I think that America has a really good grasp of what's in it already, and that's why we rejected it!  And if it's such a great thing, why are they still trying to sell it at all?  I find it quite ironic that the New York Times ran a story recently on one of the most odious parts of DemCare - there are death panels in there, after all!  Might have been nice for them to do their jobs before the vote took place, rather than blasting conservatives for raising the issue while there was still time to do something about it.  But hey, it's the NYT...what do you expect from Obama's front-line cheerleading squad?

To persuade reluctant Congress members to support them, Democrat leadership used the argument that Americans would accept (and maybe even love) DemCare after it was passed, promising a great poll bump after the dust settled...but that hasn't happened.  If anything, the opposition has grown even more.  So why did Bart 'Sell-out' Stupak and the inaccurately named pro-life Dems who supported DemCare change their minds at the last minute?  It's as we have observed is always true of elected Democrats: they sold their so-called principles for some political favors and cash.  And now Stupak knows his political career is over, so he's joined the stampede of Dems 'retiring' before they get thrown out on their faces by furious voters.  Democrats know what DemCare is, at least in part: a massive redistribution of wealth (the other part is control, of course).  They also know they over-promised.  All of these things are leading up to a massive blood-letting in the next election.  In fact, the Indiana Right to Life has officially stated that they will no longer support any Democrats because they folded on their 'pro-life' 'principles'.

Remember all those companies coming out to claim major losses because of the coming costs of DemCare?  They're legally required to do so, but even more have now added their losses to the list, including ski resorts, Prudential, Aetna, and Boeing.  How many billions of dollars -- which could instead be used to create jobs -- are going to be sucked out of the private sector due to DemCare?  Of course, the reality of having to remain profitable doesn't stop the Dems in Congress from bullying these companies for complying with their own laws.  We can also expect to see hospitals join the list of companies being bailed out in the future.

Do you recall who will be the enforcement arm of the DemCare mandate?  The IRS, which is now in the process of hiring thousands more enforcement troops.  Do you get a tax refund each year?  Stop doing that, because the government is going to start taking your DemCare payment out of your refund.  And, by the way, you still face penalties or jail time if you don't participate.  Freedom is sooooo 20th century, apparently.

Another fun part of this is that a lot of Americans were confused, and thought that as soon as DemCare was signed into law, they'd have all the free health care they could dream of.  It was life-saving utopia, remember.  But, when they descended upon doctor's offices and clinics demanding free procedures and medicine, they were rudely turned away.  You see, the dirty little secret (to them, not to anyone with a thinking brain and open eyes) is that most of the 'benefits' won't kick in until 2014, after several years of excessive taxation to 'pay for' DemCare.  How's that hope-n-change working out now?

Oh, and do you remember that doc fix thing, where they were going to cut the rates of reimbursement for doctors who accept Medicare patients?  You know, the same doc fix that the Dems had to hide in a separate bill so it didn't count against the bottom line cost of DemCare?  Yeah, they need another one of those.  But pay no attention to that.

But let's come back to the cost.  What will be more expensive as a result of DemCare?  How about medical devices, any restaurant with a menu, insurance (until they go out of business, that is), Medicaid payments for over half of all states (and Texas claims it will be 20 times more expensive than the federal government estimates), and pretty much everything for young people, who face the prospect of paying down this monster-sized debt mountain.  And while being more expensive, we'll all get blessed with longer lines, too, which will only get worse because of the inevitable doctor shortage that will come along shortly.  It won't reduce hidden costs, or any costs at all, and most Americans know it.  In short, it will be an utter disaster for America, not only in terms of health care, but also in terms of the economy.  And, as predicted, there is so much debt rolling downhill toward us that the idiot liberals in Congress are starting to talk about raising taxes...big time.  Chuck that no-taxes-if-you-earn-over-$250k promise right out the window!

But there is hope: the number of states formally suing the federal government over the mandate to buy insurance has risen to 18.  Several thousand doctors are suing, too.  The mandate is, as we've discussed before, brazenly unconstitutional.

So, that's where we are now.  DemCare is law, and the early effects are:
- private companies taking massive losses which will lead to lost jobs (or the prevention of new hiring)
- no actual 'benefits'
- tax increases

Funny, it sure seems like all of this stuff was predicted by conservatives on the Right -- and echoed by Americans of all political stripes at Tea Parties and town halls, and in millions of angry phone calls and e-mails -- for the past several months.

Obama and the Democrats in Congress are governing against the will of the people, and the anger is rising.  This isn't over yet...not by a long shot.

There's my two cents.