I saw this in our local paper and laughed out loud while simultaneously feeling a twinge inside. I just asked my gynecological oncologist a few questions about what I thought was a scary ‘next phase’ of treatment for my Cancer. And after having missed by ‘big” next step appointment because of an emergency, she has not called, emailed or rescheduled my appointment. She had her NP respond to approximately 15 questions I had posed via email, since she missed my appointment, and her response was:
It does not matter why your lymph nodes are swollen.
If the goal is a cure then you need to have the proposed radiation treatment plan.
And perhaps you should get a second opinion, which might help you in your discussion with the (her) hospital radiation oncologist teammate.
Saturday 3/14/2015 Pearls Before Swine Comic Strip
GOP senators’ Obamacare replacement beneficial to young people
Red Alert Politics: Just weeks into the new year and only months after Congressional Republicans attempted to defund the Affordable Care Act, a trio of Senate Republicans have unveiled a plan to replace Obamacare. And this alternative seeks to put money back in Millennials’ pockets.
Sens. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) joined forces in crafting a replacement for the Affordable Care Act, unveiling the proposal Monday. Called the Patient Choice, Affordability, Responsibility, and Empowerment Act, the law’s first step would be to repeal Obamacare. However, the proposed alternative does leave some key aspects of the current healthcare law in place, while offering some reprieves for Millennials.
“The American people have found out what is in Obamacare— broken promises in the form of increased health care costs, costly mandates, and government bureaucracy. They don’t like it and don’t want to keep it,” Burr said in a press release. “…We can lower costs and expand access to quality coverage and care by empowering individuals and their families to make their own health care decisions, rather than empowering the government to make those decisions for them.”
Since the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, young Americans have found their premiums increasing, some as much as 260 percent. However, the law was designed to require Millennials to pay more for health insurance to subsidize coverage for the elderly, whose health insurance is deemed to be more costly.
The Patient CARE proposal, however, seeks to take the financial burden off of young people’s shoulders.
“Unfortunately, young Americans are on the front lines of experiencing the costs and consequences of Obamacare’s costly mandates and broken promises: skyrocketing premiums, fewer choices, employers deciding not to offer health insurance, cutting back hours, or not hiring all together,” Burr said in an emailed statement to Red Alert. ”They know that Obamacare is not fair to them or their future.”
Under the Affordable Care Act, insurance companies can charge older Americans only three times as much as they charge “young invincibles.” This provision drives up the cost of health insurance for Millennials.
But under the Patient CARE proposal, that threshold is increased to allow insurance companies to charge the elderly a maximum of five times as much as they charge Millennials. States, though, can set their own ratio below that amount or opt out of the mandate by passing a law allowing it to do so.
Prior to the implementation of Obamacare, many states adhered to the federal benchmark proposed by Burr, Coburn and Hatch.
“Mr. President, we can see the importance of choice in the failings of ObamaCare, which is struggling to sign up young people who might just need a health plan that’s affordable instead of one that includes coverage they’ll never use or need,” Hatch said on the Senate floor Monday.
One of the Affordable Care Act’s most lauded provisions allows young people under the age of 26 to stay on their parents’ health insurance plans, and the measure has long been a staple of President Obama’s speeches and addresses surrounding his signature healthcare law. Sens. Burr, Corburn and Hatch included the provision in the Patient CARE proposal.
“While we believe fewer young consumers will utilize this option as the cost of health insurance decreases, retaining this policy has a very marginal effect on premiums and provides consumers with more choices,” it states.
The Congressional Budget office projected Obamacare would lead to 800,000 fewer jobs, likely as a result of the high cost of providing employees working more than 30 hours per week and other provisions in the employer mandate. But repealing the Affordable Care Act, as the Patient CARE measure seeks to do, provides both economic relief and opportunity for Millennials — a generation facing 15.9 percent unemployment.
“The Patient CARE Act would provide relief to young Americans by repealing Obamacare’s costly mandates, putting in place common-sense insurance protections – like guaranteed coverage for pre-existing conditions, and empowering them to find a plan that meets their needs, including allowing health savings account dollars to go toward health premiums for the first time,” Burr said.
The Patient CARE legislation has yet to be introduced in the Senate, as the Republican triad hopes to “further refine and improve upon the proposal” and build support on both sides of the aisle.
Meanwhile, Cancer-stricken Sen. Tom Coburn revealed Tuesday that his health insurance under Obamacare doesn’t cover his oncologist.
The Oklahoma Republican’s spokesman confirmed to POLITICO that since the senator enrolled in his health insurance plan under Obamacare, his coverage has been reduced and he lost coverage for his cancer specialist. Coburn will continue to pay out of pocket and see his oncologist, his office said.
Luckily the former physician and Senator can pay for his doctor of choice and treatment out of pocked, but that is not the situation for many Americans who are losing their specialists, doctors or choice or their healthcare coverage completely and can’t afford the replacement.
His spokesman said Coburn’s struggles with his own doctor illustrate the need for a new policy, saying that not every American has the option to pay out of pocket for care.
“We hope the White House will work with us to make sure Americans who can’t afford to pay out of pocket don’t lose access to life-saving care,” spokesman John Hart said. “As Dr. Coburn’s experience shows, the American people are about to learn they’re going to lose access to not only their doctors and plans, but their specialists and treatments.”
Doctor Posts Newspaper Notice: Closing Due to Obamacare
Townhall- Cross-Posted at AskMarion: Obamacare realities just became a little more intense in the Bluegrass State. Requirements in the Affordable Care Act presented Kentucky Dr. Stephen Kiteck with obstacles he “just couldn’t overcome.”
“It’s pretty basic really. The reason is that Obamacare requires electronic medical records and electronic prescribing and I simply don’t have the finances at this time to go into debt to provide that for my office, it would just be a complete new transfer of electronic equipment in my office for that.
So for me, at my age, I’m just not ready to go into financial debt. Of the 20,000 pages in there, probably up to 1,000 pages are about doctors' offices."
The Electronic Medical Records mandate requires an electronic overhaul by 2015 or penalization. Check out this visual of its implementation:
"I’ve got 6,000 records, some of them are two inches thick. It would just be basically impossible to scan all of these and put them on electronic medical records and very expensive, by the way,” said Dr. Kiteck, pointing to the many man hours of pay that an electronic overhaul would require.
“It’s a solo practice, I’m just a very small solo practice. I call myself a mom and pop practice,” Dr. Kiteck explained, “so I’ve had it for about twenty years here in Somerset, Kentucky.”
The ad ran for the sake of his customers, according to Dr. Kiteck, as a common courtesy to give patients a one-month notice,
“I just happened to start it out with that little notice there, because so many patients have questions why you’re doing it.”
Kiteck said his ad likely opened up a Pandora’s Box. But the truth is, the box had already been opened when Obamacare was signed into law, and the frightening effects are only beginning to fly out.
Breitbart: The notice closes with this message, "Dr. Kiteck wishes to thank all his patients that have visited his office over the past 20 years, and apologizes for this inconvenience."
Dr. Kiteck's office confirmed that he is indeed closing his practice and that he did publish the notice in the paper. Asked if he would agree to an interview, his receptionist indicated that he'd received many calls from the media but was not prepared to make any additional statement at this time.
There have been surveys which suggested a significant number of doctors might quit or retire early as a result of the new health law. A 2013 Deloitte Survey of U.S. Physicians found that 62 percent of doctors expected some of their colleagues to retire early.
Dr. Kiteck is a 64 year old board certified family physician with a good rating for patient satisfaction on healthgrades.com.
Update: Buzzfeed got through to Dr. Kiteck and he cites a specific reason for retiring, a requirement to use electronic medical records in his practice. That requirement was not part of Obamacare but was included in the stimulus act. Physicians must move to electronic records by 2015 and because of the way use is reported, that means mid-2014 is the deadline for a working system. Those who fail to meet the deadline are charged a fine of 1% (deducted from their reimbursements).
Examiner: When it comes to affordable health care, no one in America understands the concept quite like Russell Dohner. While medical costs and insurance rates continue to skyrocket and politicians and pundits continue to argue over the Affordable Care Act, a very special physician from a small town has been practicing affordable health care for nearly 60 years! But according to an NBC News article published on Nov. 1, after nearly six decades of practicing medicine, Dr. Dohner has hung up his stethoscope and closed his doors for the very last time. Sadly, just when we could use him and doctors like him the most!
Dr. Russell Dohner
Considered a local hero by many, the 88-year-old physician from Rushville, IL., has been the town doctor since 1955. He delivered more than 3,500 babies during his career (which is more than the entire population of Rushville) and treated generations of local families. And in all the years he's practiced medicine, he never took a vacation. He still made rounds at the local hospital and made house calls, too!
And if that weren't amazing enough, Dr. Dohner charged his patients $5 per visit. Yep, you read the right. He charged $5 since the fee was increased from $2 back in the 70s! You can imagine at $5 a visit, he was a pretty busy guy. In fact, patients lined up early to see him. With no appointments, it was strictly first come, first serve. And the fees weren't the only thing that stayed the same over the years. The office looked pretty much the same - wood paneling and all! With no computers, records were handwritten. You know - by hand!
Dr. Dohner didn't practice medicine for the money. He was there to take care of people. A life-sized bronze statue of Dohner was recently erected on the Rushville town square. The humble doctor was recently inducted into the Senior Hall of Fame at the Illinois Governor's mansion.
The end of an era has come. Please wish Dr. Dohner a happy and healthy retirement on his Facebook page.
The Razor: Ever wonder how malpractice lawsuits turn out and what their effects on physicians are? Then click here for a slideshow showing the results of a study of 1,400 physicians who were sued for malpractice. There are several interesting points to take from this survey, including the fact that the majority of plaintiffs, 57%, received no monetary reward. But the one thing that stands out by far should be the advice these doctors give on slide 22:
Follow up even when you think you don’t have to.
Practice more defensive medicine.
Document more often, more thoroughly.
Get rid of rude, demanding, noncompliant patients.
Anyone who expects doctors, particularly primary care physicians (who also happen to be the most likely to be sued) to take on the responsibility of lowering health care costs by ordering fewer unnecessary tests and procedures (I’m looking at you Professor Mead) are simply delusional. Doctors do not have any incentive to stop ordering these procedures, quite the opposite. Whenever they rule out a particular test they must consider a bullet-proof and infallible reason why the test is not required in case they have to testify on the Stand to support their decision. In medicine, as in life, there are few situations that can attain such a level of infallibility. A runny nose can indicate a cold or allergy in a hundred thousand cases but it can also can result from a leak of cerebral-spinal fluid into the nasal cavity in rare instances. Should a doctor order the highly invasive – and expensive – test to rule out this leak in the snot-faced six year old kid sniffling in front of her? This is an extreme example of course, but the point stands: why should doctors risk being sued, a type of punishment judging by the emotional toll the survey shows, for trying to contain costs?
It would seem to me that if you want to reduce unnecessary testing you would address the reasons why they are ordered in the first place, yet this has not been done. While some states have attempted to limit the maximum amount a plaintiff can be awarded from a successful malpractice suit, none have made laws to make it harder to file them in the first place. The cynic may see the hand of self-interest here, with the lawyers who write the laws the ones also profiting from malpractice lawsuits. After all, scientifically dubious malpractice lawsuits almost elevated former Sen. John Edwards to the White House. But to ask doctors to refrain from ordering unnecessary tests and procedures without legal reform is like asking them to commit professional suicide.
The last item is particularly interesting. Legally doctors in private practice do not have to treat everyone who comes through the door. They can turn down patients for any reason. Once they establish a relationship with a patient they can also terminate that care at any time as long as they do not abandon them, usually by offering to care for them for a period of time when they can establish care with another provider. Many medical system reformers have talked zealously about basing payments to doctors on the success based measures, for example, on how well their diabetes patients’ blood sugar levels are controlled. Every practice has a coterie of diabetes patients who are non-compliant. They come in suffering from associated illnesses and for whatever reason refuse to control their blood sugar levels through exercise and diet, then expect the doctor to fix them. Such outcome based reimbursement schemes will only lead to doctors drafting letters telling these patients to find another provider. But even for doctors who aren’t reimbursed partly based on outcomes, it is in their interest to get rid of these patients who are more likely to complain and perhaps sue them.
Doctors have done a poor job at getting their point across in the health care debate in America. This is partly due to the nature of the profession, which tends to operate in solo or small groups and not think in broader terms the way other professions such as teachers and lawyers have done. It is also due to the corruption of the American Medical Association through years of operation in Washington DC reaching it’s pinnacle in the organization’s support of Obamacare in 2010 against the best interests of its own membership (but in line with the leftist ideology of the organization’s staff). But doctors had better learn quickly because if they don’t their profession will become extinct, and the healthcare of Americans will be even worse than it is today… much worse!
There won't be enough doctors to run Obama's disease management system
NaturalNews.com: Millions of Americans have somehow been hoodwinked into the delusion that, once "Obamacare" is fully implemented in 2014, high-quality healthcare will be available for everyone, and the world will live happily ever after. But the truth of the matter is that there simply will not be enough primary care doctors to serve the tens of millions of newly insured patients that will join the healthcare ranks, which means emergency rooms will become even more overburdened than they already are, and quality of care throughout the country will sharply decline for everyone.
A new study published in the journal Annals of Family Medicine provides a logistical reality check into the future of American healthcare, which by all honest assessments is on a downward spiral both in terms of quality and availability. In order to simply keep up with the existing pace of things, the U.S. will need at least 52,000 additional family doctors by the year 2025 in order to care for everyone, according to the data. And a good half-or-so of this amount will result from the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, based on the figures.
"The health care consumer that values the relationship with a personal physician, particularly in areas already struggling with access to primary care physicians, should be aware of potential access challenges that they may face in the future if the production of primary care physicians does not increase," said Dr. Andrew Bazemore, Director of the Robert Graham Center for Policy Studies in Primary Care and co-author of the study, about the findings.
Very few graduating medical students are choosing to be primary care doctors these days
The situation is already a pretty big mess apart from Obamacare, as graduating new doctors have already been shying away from becoming primary physicians for years. Whether it is a deliberate decision to avoid having to deal with Medicare and Medicaid, or a desire to simply make more money -- primary care physicians are not as highly paid as sub-specialists -- many doctors are choosing other career paths. And the eventual consequence of this trend, if it continues at current rates, is that patients will have to wait in long queues just to see a personal doctor, if they can even find one in the first place.
"Looking at shear reality, we can't turn on a spigot and drop out new doctors. Expect long waits if we cannot figure out how to resolve it," added Dr. Randy Wexler of The John Glenn Institute of Public Service and Policy, who has some very serious concerns about the future of general medicine in America. "The only place left to go for primary care will be the emergency room."
"[Patients] won't be able to see a primary care physician hardly. Primary care will be past saturated with wait times longer and will not accept any new patients. There will be an increase in hospitalizations and increase in death rates for basic preventable things like hypertension that was not managed adequately."
To make matters worse, nearly one-third of all existing primary care physicians are expected to retire within the next 10 years, which means the situation will be even more dire. Unless more medical students decide to go into primary care -- and why would they, particularly in light of the fact that Obamacare will greatly lower the bar in terms of physician pay and workload? -- the American medical system as we know it is headed for an eventual collapse.
The Blaze: Dr. Benjamin Carson speaks during the National Prayer Breakfast at the Washington Hilton February 7, 2013 in Washington, DC. U.S. President Barack Obama reportedly used the occasion to call for unity and common ground Washington politics. Credit: Getty Images
With President Barack Obama sitting just feet away, Dr. Benjamin Carson stood up for conservative principles in his speech at Thursday’s National Prayer Breakfast, discussing the national debt, political correctness and even healthcare. Readers loved his speech so much that TheBlaze’s story on it went viral.
On Friday, Carson appeared on Fox News’ “Hannity” to explain why he felt compelled to speak out against the big government policies endorsed by Obama, in front of Obama.
Carson, a renown neurosurgeon, said the response to his speech has been “overwhelmingly” positive. However, he argued he didn’t make a conservative argument, but rather a “logical” and “common-sense” one.
“I don’t know where we left our brains,” he told host Sean Hannity.
Carson went on to talk about his life story, saying he grew up in a single parent home in a poverty-stricken area. He said his mother “refused to be a victim” and “never felt sorry for herself,” despite only having a third grade education.
Regarding his comments on political correctness, the neurosurgeon emphasized the importance of “freedom of speech and freedom of expression” in the United States.
“And yet, we have imposed upon people restrictions on what they say, on what they can think. The media, I think is the largest proponent of this,” he explained.
He lambasted the media’s outrage at Brent Musburger’s flattering comments about Alabama beauty queen Katherine Webb during the BCS National Championship.
In the second portion of his interview with Hannity, Carson argued he didn’t craft his message based on who was going to be in attendance. In other words, wasn’t trying to stick it to Obama in his speech.
“It really didn’t matter who I was sitting in front of, because I always pray before I give a speech and I ask God to give me the right things to say. And I think that it’s very rare these days for people to speak the truth,” he said. “Meanwhile, the fabric of our nation is being destroyed.
One of the “real dangers” facing America, according to Carson, is the fact that people don’t know “anything” about things like history or technology. “They don’t think for themselves,” he added.
Seizing upon what many of Carson’s supporters are probably wondering, Hannity asked him if he would ever consider running for president. The doctor did not it rule out, but said God would have to “grab him by the collar and make him do it.”
If nothing else, the look on Obama's face as he SUFFERS through the brilliance of Dr. Ben Carson is priceless! Dr. Carson takes shot after shot at Obama while Obama is forced to sit and listen. Dr. Ben Carson is the REAL deal, he (unlike Obama) was raised by a single mother in the ghetto's of Detroit. Obama, on the other hand, lived a pretty comfortable lifestyle. Dr. Ben Carson doesn't use his color of skin to his advantage (which is not the Obama way) and he doesn't think we should "punish" those who have earned their successes by taking from them and giving to others who have not. After watching this video in it's entirety, I am quite sure President and Mrs. Obama would have preferred to be sitting in a dental chair having a ROOT CANAL!
Rush Limbaugh Show:
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: As for Obama, he went to the National Prayer Breakfast today. I was reading a blog, the White House Dossier, a guy who used to be part of the White House press corps. Keith Koffler is his name. I didn't see Obama at the prayer breakfast today, but he said Obama was barely awake. You know, Obama doesn't show until ten o'clock in the morning. He's a nighthawk. He's a night owl. Obama stays up late and he doesn't get up early. So this guy's describing Obama at the prayer breakfast as having heavy eyelids and chewing Nicorette to deal with his nicotine addiction. He was openly chewing gum and wiping his eyes as though trying to remove the morning crustiness.
You ever have that happen to you, the morning crustiness in your eye and have to wipe that out?
That's what he described Obama as doing. Koffler said Obama's remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast were perfunctory and listless, as though he really didn't want to be there but has to do this kind of thing. So we have some sound bites from this. Let's go to 'em right now. This is Obama in Washington at the National Prayer Breakfast. Now, it didn't start 'til something like ten or 10:30 but apparently he had to get up early. He had to be somewhere at 7:30, I guess, for the actual breakfast itself. In the White House Dossier piece, Keith Koffler makes the point that -- well, I inferred from his piece that -- Obama's not out of bed by then.
So he was not entirely cogent. He just wasn't there. Let's give a listen. We have two sound bites of Obama.
OBAMA: It is always just a wonderful event.
RUSH: (snoring)
OBAMA: But I do worry sometimes that as soon as we leave the prayer breakfast, everything we've been talkin' about --
RUSH: (snoring)
OBAMA: -- the whole time of the prayer breakfast --
RUSH: (snoring)
OBAMA: -- seems to be forgotten on the same day of the prayer breakfast.
AUDIENCE: (smattering of laughter)
OBAMA: I mean --
RUSH: (snoring)
OBAMA: -- you'd like to think that that the shelf life wasn't so short! I go back to the Oval Office (snickers), and I start watching the cable news networks, and it's like we didn't pray.
RUSH: This is unreal.
I love this. So prayer doesn't work, and this proves it.
Obama goes to the prayer breakfast, and everybody else goes to the prayer breakfast. It's a wonderful event. And it's all about him, you see. The National Prayer Breakfast... (interruption) Oh, don't believe that when he says he doesn't watch cable news. He watches it, and he has people assigned to watch it, just like I do. (Obama interpretation) "It's a wonderful event, the National Prayer Breakfast. It's always about me every year, and I enjoy coming for that reason, but I do worry sometimes that as soon as we leave the prayer breakfast, everything we've been talking about the whole prayer breakfast seems to be forgotten, on the same day of the prayer breakfast.
"I mean, you'd like to think that the shelf life of the prayer wasn't short. I go back to the Oval Office, and I start watching cable news, and it's like we didn't pray at all." So God's not listening. (interruption) Well, I think everybody else is praying to Obama, but gods don't pray. They sit there and listen to the prayers. But, anyway, can you imagine any other president ripping prayer, even in a joke way? (Obama impression) "Well, we all come up here and -- and we pray, and (chuckling) it doesn't even work! It doesn't even last the whole day. I go back to White House, turn on TV, and I'm being criticized. The National Prayer Breakfast is all about Obama. Here's the second sound bite...
OBAMA: That's what I thought of as I took the oath of office a few weeks ago and touched those Bibles: The comfort that Scripture gave Lincoln and King. Most of all I thought about their humility. Let us retain that humility not just during this hour, but for every hour, and let me suggest that those of us with the most power and influence need to be the most humble.
RUSH: Right. Like right before you decide to pick somebody off the Kill List and launch the drone. Right! Now, the next speaker is the Johns Hopkins Hospital Pediatric Neurosurgery director, Dr. Benjamin Carson, and this guy rips Obamaism. He ripped into Obamaism at the prayer breakfast with Obama sitting there.
CARSON: Well, some people say, they say, "Well, that's not fair because it doesn't hurt the guy who made $10 billion as much as the guy who made ten." Where does it say you have to hurt the guy? He just put a billion dollars in the pot!
AUDIENCE: (applause)
CARSON: You know, we don't need to hurt him. It's that kind of thinking...
AUDIENCE: (applause)
CARSON: It's that kind of thinking that has resulted in 602 banks in the Cayman Islands. That money needs to be back here, building our infrastructure and creating jobs.
RUSH: Whoa! Right on. Did you hear that? This guy is talking to Obama. Obama's sitting there, and Dr. Carson is saying, "People say... 'Well, that's not fair because it doesn't hurt the guy who made $10 billion as much as the guy who made ten.' Where does it say you have to hurt the guy? He just put a billion dollars in the pot!" So this neurosurgeon is speaking out in favor of the 1%, the 5%, the 10% who are actually paying the freight in this country via income taxes. They're the ones actually paying the freight. What do we gotta hurt 'em for? I mean, they're already putting money in the pot. Why do we gotta hurt 'em?
He's exactly right. And then he says: You want to know why we got 602 banks in the Caymans with American money? Because they're running away. They don't want to be hurt.
I love this guy. He wasn't finished, either.
CARSON: Here's my solution: When a person is born, give him a birth certificate, an electronic medical record, and a health savings account to which money can be contributed -- pretax -- from the time you're born 'til the time you die. When you die, you can pass it on to your family members, so that when you're 85 years old and you got six diseases, you're not trying to spend up everything. You're happy to pass it on and there's nobody talking about death panels.
AUDIENCE: (laughter and applause)
CARSON: Number one. And also, for the people who were indigent who don't have any money we can make contributions to their HSA each month because we already have this huge pot of money. Instead of sending it to some bureaucracy, let's put it in their HSAs. Now they have some control over their own health care.
RUSH: That is Dr. Benjamin Carson, who is the Johns Hopkins Hospital Pediatric Neurosurgery director, and he has given his recipe there for a health care system the exact opposite of Obamacare. This is at the National Prayer Breakfast today. So you see, these people are out there, and they're willing to speak up. They need to be encouraged.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Okay, my friends, I want to spend some time here, just a few minutes, on Dr. Benjamin Carson. You don't hear people speak this way. The Republicans don't speak this way to Obama. They don't speak this way about Obama's policies. Here you have the guy who's head of neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital at the National Prayer Breakfast. He says, "People say... 'Well, that's not fair because it doesn't hurt the guy who made $10 billion as much as the guy who made ten.' Where does it say you have to hurt the guy? He just put a billion dollars in the pot!" The guy's paying the freight. What's he done?
His solution to health care: "When a person is born, give him a birth certificate, an electronic medical record, and a health savings account to which money can be contributed -- pretax -- from the time you're born 'til the time you die." We're already spending this money and more anyway. He's simply talking about reallocating resources. Put it in the hands of the people who are going to spend it. Put them in charge of their own health care. They build it up while they're young, while they're children. A nest egg gets built in their health savings accounts. It's pretax. It's put in this account from the time you're born 'til the time you die.
It's the equivalent of what would be spent on you in other forms -- and when you die, whatever you haven't used, you can pass on to your family members. Do with it what you want. You can pass it on. You can make it part of your estate. But you are in charge of your health care. You are in charge of how much you spend on it and how much you get and where you go. This reintroduces competition. This reintroduces market forces. This is what brings costs down. So in 43 seconds, the director of neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins gave the answer to Obamacare.
In 43 seconds.
It's not 2700 pages, and it doesn't enlarge the government.
It doesn't hire 16,000 IRS agents, and it covers everybody -- and there would probably be money left over after all of this.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I'm gonna take advantage of the occasion of these comments by Dr. Benjamin Carson to explain what a health savings account is to people who may not know. Because, you know, we have constant audience expansion and audience growth here. Since the election -- well, even prior to that, but -- there are people listening here for the first time ever or they've been listening for a year or two. So, of course, they haven't heard everything that you have if you've been here for the whole 20, 25 years.
But this is really profound what this man said at the National Prayer Breakfast. Now, let's put Obamacare in Column A and just briefly review. It has 2700 pages. The federal government is empowered to eventually make every health care decision for every American. The older Americans get, the less likely the government will authorize spending money to treat them, particularly if they have terminal diseases.
That's because the government will determine that it's not worth the money. If somebody is near the life expectancy, and they have a debilitating disease, the government will decide it's not worth it. This is in Obamacare. The term "death panel" isn't, but that's how it works out. This is all in Obamacare. It's "as the secretary of Health and Human Services shall determine." There is a board. There is a panel of people.
We don't know who it's gonna be, but there is a panel of people who will make decisions on the allocation of health care money which is all gonna come from government. That's eventually, when this is fully implemented. If your parent or grandparent comes down with a very bad disease late in life, the government may decide it makes no sense to spend the money in treating that disease because the expected number of years left in that person's life is very few.
They might think we can spend that money elsewhere on other people or on young people who might be more productive. Now, in a free society, this shouldn't happen. You need to be in charge, just like when you go rent a hotel room. You buy hotel room where you want, where you can afford, where you want to stay. Same thing with food, same thing with a car, same thing with anything else you buy. You buy it based on what you can afford, based on what you want.
Of course the American dream is that you continue to work hard and try to improve your standard of living so that you can afford better and more things for you and your family as you go on through life. That's what's fundamentally changed, and is in the process of fundamentally changing in our country. Imagine if you had to go to the government for a hotel room. Imagine if you had to go to the government for your food or for your telephone service or anything else, be it a need or a desire.
The fact that governments, state and federal, are involved in so much of the health care system is he reason why the price has skyrocketed. There isn't any competition per se. You're not in charge, and the consumer needs to be in charge of what is spent by that consumer for that consumer. That causes and creates competition for that consumer's dollar, and that's how prices are kept affordable. That doesn't exist in health care today.
So the Obamacare plan is 2700 pages with a panel that will determine who gets treated and who doesn't. There are 16,000 new IRS agents to determine whether or not you're complying with the law by either having an insurance policy or paying a fine or a penalty if you don't. Virtually every aspect of your health care, the portion of your life dealing with health care is going to be administered by and monitored by government, with you having nothing to do with it -- and that just scratches the surface.
Remember the woman who appeared...? Well, you may not remember. ABC, about three years ago, did a primetime special with the president the East Room of the White House where the president sought to explain his health care plan. There were American citizens in the audience. A woman stood up (an American citizen, folks) and actually asked the president of the United States -- not her doctor, not a family member, but the president of the United States (summarized) -- "Sir, what about my 100-year-old mother?
"She has a huge will to live, she's got a great spirit, but she needs a pacemaker. Will you factor things like spirit and the will to live in determining whether people like my mother will get a pacemaker?" Why is a citizen asking the president of the United States if her mother can have a medical procedure? Sometimes I think I'm the only one who thought that obscene. Well, the president stood up and answered it. He put a smile on his face and said, "No, we can't take things into account like will to live and spirit.
"We just can't do that. There are just gonna be times," the president said to this woman, "where the best thing we can do is just give your mother a pill and let her try to enjoy her remaining days." The show ended and people discussed it as though nothing offensive had happened. This doesn't it happen in a free country. This doesn't happen in the United States of five years ago! This doesn't happen.
The president of the United States doesn't conduct a health care seminar in the White House with citizens asking if he will permit their family members to live, if he will permit their family members to be treated medically! This was before Obamacare was signed into law. Well, now it's been signed into law and it's in the process of implementing. Now we've been told the IRS that the cheapest -- the cheapest -- mandatory health care plan for a family of four starting in 2016 or 2018, whenever this is fully implemented, will be between $16,000 and $20,000 a year.
The cheapest mandatory plan! If you don't have one, you have to pay a penalty. Whether you have health insurance or not, it's gonna cost you. So that's, briefly, what we have at present. This is what has been passed by Congress and signed into law, and this is what's being implemented. This and many other horror stories. So then we have Dr. Benjamin Carson who, again, spoke today at the National Prayer Breakfast. He is the Johns Hopkins Hospital Pediatric Neurosurgery director. He's got an entirely different idea. Play sound bite nine again. Let's hear it in his words.
This is his alternative to Obamacare.
CARSON: Here's my solution: When a person is born, give him a birth certificate, an electronic medical record, and a health savings account to which money can be contributed -- pretax -- from the time you're born 'til the time you die. When you die, you can pass it on to your family members, so that when you're 85 years old and you got six diseases, you're not trying to spend up everything. You're happy to pass it on and there's nobody talking about death panels.
AUDIENCE: (laughter and applause)
CARSON: Number one. And also, for the people who were indigent who don't have any money, we can make contributions to their HSA each month because we already have this huge pot of money. Instead of sending it to some bureaucracy, let's put it in their HSAs. Now they have some control over their own health care.
RUSH: Now, here's the point. What is a health savings account? Many of you in the audience already know, and I'm gonna ask you to indulge me as I try to explain them to people in the audience who don't know. Pretty much what Dr. Carson said. When you're born, a bank account -- look at it that way. When you're born, a bank account is started in your name. You get a birth certificate, and you get a medical card and a health savings account. Money is contributed pretax, from the time you're born until you die. They say, "Where do we get the money?"
We simply shift from all of the money that's being spent on health care now by governments, and we shift it to the people, to you. We put it in a bank account for you. Everybody gets one. Health care spending is 53% of GDP, or it's heading in that direction. We're spending $3.5 trillion dollars every year in this country, $1.3 trillion of which we don't even have. So we take 40, 50% of that and we allocate it to the people. It's theirs in the first place. They earned it. Your parents earned it if you don't have enough to start the health savings account. You obviously don't when you're an infant. But it grows.
You then need to go to the doctor, you then need medical treatment, you've got a health savings, you have a savings accounts, you've got a bank account with money in it that otherwise would go to insurance companies or go to the government or wherever else. But it's yours. You spend it as you need it, when medical events come up. Now, we're talking in this case, it's about standard, ordinary operating procedure doctor visits.
We're not talking about catastrophic injuries. Those are handled by insurance and would continue to be. But every day commonplace doctor visits, hospital treatments, and so forth, are handled by your health savings accounts. And whatever you don't spend, you get to keep and use however you wish, thereby motivating you to do two things: Not spend it all on medicine, because people are spending a lot more on their health than they actually need to be. And the second thing is you'll help create competition among medical providers, among doctors, among hospitals, among MRI testing centers, to get your business. They'll have to have a price that's attractive to you, just like anybody else trying to sell you anything.
There might even be sales someday on health care, if this system were ever implemented. But the point is you're in charge of it. And until we reach the point where the consumer has a direct relationship with his health care in terms of cost and expense, we're never gonna get costs down. In 43 seconds, Dr. Carson here gave the opposite to Obamacare and a way that would work, by putting every person in charge of his or her health care.
Now, some people might not want that responsibility, and that's what people like Obama and the Democrats bank on. But a health savings account is just money that's already being spent on health care and health insurance being reallocated, transferred, if you will, back to you. It was yours in the first place anyway. You earned it. That's the only way the government ever got it. You or your parents earned it. They don't have a dime without taking it from somebody first or borrowing it or printing it. This plan just, you keep your money. It's in an account where you use it for medical care. What you don't use is yours to do with as you wish, include pass on to your kids when you die.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: We got Jody from Madison, Wisconsin. Jody, great to have you here. Welcome to the EIB Network. Hi.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Oh, what a pleasure to talk to you. I've been listening to you since the eighties, and I never called you before, but I'm telling you, when you had that sound bite on with Dr. Carson, I almost dropped my jaw. And I did run in and I called Dr. Carson and told him he's my hero. It's amazing. I've been saying the same thing for years, ever since this health care junk coming out and explaining to people how HSAs would have solved all of the problems. Not only that, just think of how wages would increase, and employment, 'cause it's no longer on the backs of the employer. I just can't tell you how astounded I was today to hear some sanity out of a human being.
RUSH: Look, I realize this is extremely encouraging. It's uplifting to know that, A, there's somebody out there who understands and knows this, but even more than that, that's willing to say it --
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: -- to Obama's face. This man said it while Obama's sitting there. Now, this is easy for me to say, but I'm gonna tell you something. This is the kind of stuff the Republican Party needs to be saying. This is the kind of stuff the Republican Party should have been saying for the past four years. Now, I know they tried various times and places to talk about health savings accounts, but their plan was still the government at the center of everything. That's what I mean by the Democrats create an agenda item, the Republicans say, "Oh, okay, is that what we're talking about today? Okay, national health care? Well, we don't entirely believe in that, so we'll come up with an alternative," but it's still an agenda set by the Democrats.
What's remarkable about Dr. Carson. Here's my solution. A person's born. He gets a health savings account to which money can be contributed pretax. Think of it as a 401(k) for health care. You put as much money in it as you want and, by the way, we'll supplant that because there's money being spent on your behalf, theoretically, in health care by the government, just reallocate it. But in 43 seconds the man had a free market based solution to the problem that was understandable and inspiring. And it does make you say, it does make you ask, "Where's this been for the last four years? Where has been the leadership articulating this kind of thing?"
SACRAMENTO (LifeSiteNews.com) - The California Senate last week rammed through a bill allowing abortionists to practice without a doctor’s license, which now awaits approval from Governor Jerry Brown.
Senate Bill 623, introduced by Christine Kehoe, D-San Diego, extends a program run by the University of California at San Francisco, in which nurse practitioners, midwives, and doctors’ assistants are trained to perform abortions without any further training in medicine. Kehoe argues the bill is necessary because there aren’t enough doctors performing abortions in California.
The Life Legal Defense Foundation, a Napa-based group that has been calling on the UCSF program to expose its records, notes the revolutionary take on abortion was crammed into an unrelated bill at the end of the legislative session after previous attempts at passage failed.
“This bill was originally created to regulate boat paint,” said LLDF Executive Director Dana Cody. “Now it’s regulating and destroying human lives.”
Sen. Kehoe had unsuccessfully attempted to pass a broader measure earlier this year that was killed in committee. Rather than opening abortion to non-physicians generally, the latest bill focuses on extending a UC-San Francisco program that lawyers say has used a legal loophole to pursue the unorthodox training.
The program was the subject of pro-life lawyers’ Writ of Mandate demanding disclosure with a public records request for complete information. Lawyers say the public is not being told which abortionists are conducting the training, and whether women are being put at risk by non-doctors performing the invasive surgery.
“There have been numerous attempts to resist records requests, leaving us wondering what they have to hide,” said Katie Short, Legal Director of the Life Legal Defense Foundation. LLDF has issued a fact sheet about the push to lower standards for an abortion license.
It notes that Planned Parenthood has teamed with USCF and that the non-physicians in the program are, for the most part, selected from among individuals already employed at Planned Parenthood.
California affiliates of the abortion group, along with NARAL Pro-Choice America, had made a public push for dropping license requirements earlier this year.
Meanwhile, California’s Catholic bishops are decrying the “hastily concocted ‘gut and amend’ bill,” saying the previous attempts “failed, in part, because the ‘success’ touted by the project sponsors had not been professionally reported or peer reviewed.”
They also lamented that the program has already resulted in 8,000 abortions.
“With SB 623, the sponsors and managers of that project will be ‘rewarded’ with more time and more money so they can not only ‘do their homework,’ but also continue training yet more mid-level medical practitioners, who have already performed more than 8,000 abortions,” the bishops said in an action alert.
Comment: You know … California gets all they deserve… MOVE THE HELL OUT OF CA PATRIOTS!!! Victoria B.
This investigation by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, reveals why you are 6200% more likely to be killed by your doctor than by a homicidal shooter. This is based on U.S. government statistics from the Centers for Disease Control, combined with doctor-caused deaths published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
These data show that FDA-approved prescription drugs kill 290 Americans every single day, meaning that for mass shootings to approach that number, you'd have to see a Colorado Batman movie massacre take place EVERY HOUR of every day, 365 days a year.
That's how dangerous doctors and FDA-approved prescription medications really are. Read more at: http://www.naturalnews.com
