HARRY REID: "He talked about CBO saying that there would be $54 billion saved each year if we put caps on medical malpractice and put some restrictions — tort reform — $54 billion. Sounds like a lot of money, doesn’t it, Mr. President? The answer is yes. But remember, were talking about $2 trillion, $54 billion compared to $2 trillion. You can do the math. We can all do the math. Its a very small percent."
As as we all know… if Harry Reid is admitting to this… the cost is probably even higher and the savings are less. Add that to all the other negatives… This is and will be a disaster!!
I have been sitting quietly on the sidelines watching all of this national debate on healthcare. It is time for me to bring some clarity to the table by explaining many of the problems from the perspective of a doctor.
First off, the government has involved very few of us physicians in the healthcare debate. While the American Medical Association has come out in favor of the plan, it is vital to remember that the AMA only represents 17% of the American physician workforce.
I have taken care of Medicaid patients for 35 years while representing the only pediatric ophthalmology group left in Atlanta, Georgia that accepts Medicaid. For example, in the past 6 months I have cared for three young children on Medicaid who had corneal ulcers. This is a potentially blinding situation because if the cornea perforates from the infection, almost surely blindness will occur. In all three cases the antibiotic needed for the eradication of the infection was not on the approved Medicaid list.
Each time I was told to fax Medicaid for the approval forms, which I did. Within 48 hours the form came back to me which was sent in immediately via fax, and I was told that I would have my answer in 10 days. Of course by then each child would have been blind in the eye.
Each time the request came back denied. All three times I personally provided the antibiotic for each patient which was not on the Medicaid approved list. Get the point -- rationing of care.
Over the past 35 years I have cared for over 1000 children born with congenital cataracts. In older children and in adults the vision is rehabilitated with an intraocular lens. In newborns we use contact lenses which are very expensive. It takes Medicaid over one year to approve a contact lens post cataract surgery. By that time a successful anatomical operation is wasted as the child will be close to blind from a lack of focusing for so long a period of time.
Again, extreme rationing. Solution: I have a foundation here in Atlanta supported 100% by private funds which supplies all of these contact lenses for my Medicaid and illegal immigrants children for free. Again, waiting for the government would be disastrous.
Last week I had a lady bring her child to me. They are Americans but live in Sweden, as the father has a job with a big corporation. The child had the onset of double vision 3 months ago and has been unable to function normally because of this. They are people of means but are waiting 8 months to see the ophthalmologist in Sweden. Then if the child needed surgery they would be put on a 6 month waiting list. She called me and I saw her that day. It turned out that the child had accommodative esotropia (crossing of the eyes treated with glasses that correct for farsightedness) and responded to glasses within 4 days, so no surgery was needed. Again, rationing of care.
Last month I operated on a 70 year old lady with double vision present for 3 years. She responded quite nicely to her surgery and now is symptom free. I also operated on a 69 year old judge with vertical double vision. His surgery went very well and now he is happy as a lark. I have been told -- but of course there is no healthcare bill that has been passed yet -- that these 2 people because of their age would have been denied surgery and just told to wear a patch over one eye to alleviate the symptoms of double vision. Obviously cheaper than surgery.
I spent two years in the US Navy during the Viet Nam war and was well treated by the military. There was tremendous rationing of care and we were told specifically what things the military personnel and their dependents could have and which things they could not have. While I was in Viet Nam, my wife Nancy got sick and got essentially no care at the Naval Hospital in Oakland, California. She went home and went to her family's private internist in Beverly Hills. While it was expensive, she received an immediate work up. Again rationing of care.
For those of you who are over 65, this bill in its present form might be lethal for you. People in Britain face rationing of care in that there is an eight month wait for cataract surgery, 11 for hernia and the same for disc and total hip The government wants to mimic the British plan. For those of you younger, it will still mean restriction of the care that you and your children receive.
While 99% of physicians went into medicine because of the love of medicine and the challenge of helping our fellow man, economics are still important. My rent goes up 2% each year and the salaries of my employees go up 2% each year. Twenty years ago, ophthalmologists were paid $1800 for a cataract surgery and today $500. This is a 73% decrease in our fees. I do not know of many jobs in America that have seen this sort of lowering of fees.
But there is more to the story than just the lower fees. When I came to Atlanta, there was a well known ophthalmologist that charged $2500 for a cataract surgery as he felt the was the best. He had a terrific reputation and in fact I had my mother's bilateral cataracts operated on by him with a wonderful result. She is now 94 and has 20/20 vision in both eyes. People would pay his $2500 fee.
However, then the government came in and said that any doctor that does Medicare work cannot accept more than the going rate ( now $500) or he or she would be severely fined. This put an end to his charging $2500. The government said it was illegal to accept more than the government-allowed rate. What I am driving at is that those of you well off will not be able to go to the head of the line under this new healthcare plan, just because you have money, as no physician will be willing to go against the law to treat you.
I am a pediatric ophthalmologist and trained for 10 years post-college to become a pediatric ophthalmologist (add two years of my service in the Navy and that comes to 12 years). A neurosurgeon spends 14 years post-college, and if he or she has to do the military that would be 16 years. I am not entitled to make what a neurosurgeon makes, but the new plan calls for all physicians to make the same amount of payment. I assure you that medical students will not go into neurosurgery and we will have a tremendous shortage of neurosurgeons. Already, the top neurosurgeon at my hospital who is in good health and only 52 years old has just quit because he can't stand working with the government anymore. Forty-nine percent of children under the age of 16 in the state of Georgia are on Medicaid, so he felt he just could not stand working with the bureaucracy anymore.
We are being lied to about the uninsured. They are getting care. I operate at least 2 illegal immigrants each month who pay me nothing, and the children's hospital at which I operate charges them nothing also. This is true not only on Atlanta, but of every community in America.
The bottom line is that I urge all of you to contact your congresswomen and congressmen and senators to defeat this bill. I promise you that you will not like rationing of your own health.
Furthermore, how can you trust a physician that works under these conditions knowing that he is controlled by the state. I certainly could not trust any doctor that would work under these draconian conditions.
One last thing: with this new healthcare plan there will be a tremendous shortage of physicians. It has been estimated that approximately 5% of the current physician work force will quit under this new system. Also it is estimated that another 5% shortage will occur because of the decreased number of men and women wanting to go into medicine. At the present time the US government has mandated gender equity in admissions to medical schools .That means that for the past 15 years that somewhere between 49 and 51% of each entering class are females. This is true of private schools also, because all private schools receive federal funding.
The average career of a woman in medicine now is only 8-10 years and the average work week for a female in medicine is only 3-4 days. I have now trained 35 fellows in pediatric ophthalmology. Hands down the best was a female that I trained 4 years ago -- she was head and heels above all others I have trained. She now practices only 3 days a week.
(Now there will also be mandated racial equity in admissions… rather than admissions based on ability).
Background: Dr. Zane F. Pollard I did my undergraduate work at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. I graduated Tulane University medical School Alpha Omega Alpha ( medical school's top 10% of graduating class). Internship at the Univ. of Southern California in Los Angeles, one year of General surgery residency at the U. of California in San Francisco. Two years in the US Navy. Residency in Ophthalmology at the U.of S. California in Los Angeles, fellowship in pediatric Ophthalmology at the Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia. In practice with Eye Consultants of Atlanta for the past 35 years. Published 90 papers in peer reviewed Scientific Ophthalmology Journals. Member of the American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus, American Academy of Ophthalmology and the American Ophthalmological Society. Board certified in Ophthalmology.
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Barbara Wagner wanted to live, but Oregon Government-Run Healthcare would not pay for her cancer treatments. What they would do, was give her the meds for assisted suicide.
Washington is all atwitter about "death panels": President Obama derides the idea that his health-care reform calls for them; the Senate is stripping "end of life" counseling language from its bill -- and last Friday the voice of the liberal establishment, The New York Times, ran a Page One story "rebutting" the rumor that ObamaCare would create such boards to decide when to pull the plug on elderly patients.
But all those protests miss the fundamental truth of the "death panel" charge.
Even without a federal board voting on whom to kill, ObamaCare will ration care extensively, leading to the same result. This follows inevitably from central features of the president's plan. Specifically, his decisions to (1) pay for reform with vast cuts in the Medicare budget and (2) grant insurance coverage to 50 million new people, vastly boosting demand without increasing the supply of doctors, nurses or other care providers.
Whether or not he admits it even to himself, Obama's talk of cutting "inefficiencies" and reducing costs translates to less care, of lower quality, for the elderly. Every existing national health system finds ways to deny state-of-the-art medications and necessary surgical procedures to countless patients, and ObamaCare has the nascent mechanisms to do the same. With the limited options that Obama's vision would leave them, many will find that "end of life counseling" necessary and even welcome.
"Reform" would cut care to the elderly in several ways: * Slash hundreds of billions from Medicare spending, largely by lowering reimbursement rates to doctors and hospitals for patient care.
If a hospital gets less money for each MRI, it will do fewer of them. If a surgeon gets paid less for a heart bypass on a Medicare patient, he'll perform them more rarely. These facts of the marketplace are not only inevitable consequences of Obama's cuts but are also its intended consequence. Without them, his savings will prove illusory. * Expanding the patient load by extending full coverage to 50 million Americans (including such "Americans" as illegal immigrants) without boosting the supply of care will force rationing decisions on harried and overworked doctors and hospitals.
People with insurance use a lot more health-care resources -- so today's facilities and personnel will have to cope with the increased workload. Busy surgeons will have to decide who would benefit most from their treatment -- de facto rationing. The elderly will, inevitably, be the losers.
* The Federal Health Board, established by this legislation, will be charged with collecting data on various forms of treatment for different conditions to assess which are the most effective and efficient. While the bills don't force providers to obey the board's "guidance," its recommendations will still wind up setting the standards and protocols for care system-wide.
We've already seen Medicare and Medicaid lead a similar race to the bottom with their formularies and other regulations. With Washington dictating what every policy must cover and regulating all rates, insurers and providers will all have to follow the FHB's advice on limiting care to the elderly -- a de facto rationing system. * In assessing whether to allow certain treatments to a given patient, medical professionals will be encouraged to apply the Quality-Adjusted Remaining Years system. Under QARY, decision-makers seek to "amortize" the cost of treatment over the remaining "quality years of life" likely for that patient. Imagine a hip replacement costing $100,000 and the 75-year-old who needs it, a diabetic with a heart condition deemed to have just three "quality" years left. That works out to $33,333 a year -- too steep! Surgery disallowed! (Unless of course, the patient has political connections . . . )
Younger, healthier patients would still get the surgery, of course. The QARY system simply aims to deny health care to the oldest and most infirm, "scientifically" condemning them to infirmity, pain and earlier death than would otherwise be their fate.
In short, ObamaCare doesn't need to set up "death panels" to make retail decisions about ending the lives of individual patients. The whole "reform" scheme is one giant death panel in its own right.
The new president of the Canadian Medical Association, Dr. Anne Doig, has made comments that indicate that Canada's public run healthcare system is running on empty.
We all agree that the system is imploding, we all agree that things are more precarious than perhaps Canadians realize...We know that there must be change...We're all running flat out, we're all just trying to stay ahead of the immediate day-to-day demands.
These comments come as the outgoing CMA President Dr. Robert Ouellet, is expected to report that Canada's government-run system needs to become more patient-centered.
And the list goes on… The more time we have to study ObamaCare and other government run healthcare systems, the more negative and scary information keeps surfacing.
Democrats, realizing the success of the President's "Cash For Clunkers" rebate program , at least from their perspective, have revamped a major portion of their National Health Care Plan.
President Obama , Speaker Pelosi , and Senator Reid are expected to make this major announcement at a joint news conference later this week. I have obtained an advanced copy of the proposal which is named.
" CASH FOR CODGERS " and it works like this. Couple
s wishing to access health care funds in order to pay for the delivery of a child will be required to turn in one old person. The amount the government grants them will be fixed according to a sliding scale. Older and more prescription dependent codgers will garner the highest amounts.
Special "Bonuses" will be paid for those submitting codgers in targeted groups, such as smokers, alcohol drinkers, persons 10 pounds over their government prescribed weight, and any member of the Republican Party.
Smaller bonuses will be given for codgers who consume beef, soda, fried foods, potato chips , lattes, whole milk, dairy products, bacon, Brussel sprouts, or Girl Scout Cookies.
All codgers will be rendered totally useless via toxic injection. This will insure that they are not secretly resold or their body parts harvested to keep other codgers in repair.
Remember you heard it here first.
How much is your old family member worth? Turn them in to the nearest Planned Grandparenthood Center and find out! Receive cash prizes and free healthcare entitlements!
As part of a new incentive tied to Obama's upcoming healthcare reform, the network of Planned Grandparenthood Centers are to begin running ads, themed "Double Cash for Your Old Coot." The push offers a cash incentive or zero-percent financing on top of free government plans for all families whose trade-in old-timers qualify for the government's program known as "Cash for Clunkers," up to a maximum of four grandparents over 70 years of age.
Latest opinion polls show that seniors steal billions of dollars out the federal budget each year just by staying alive. This new bold initiative is calculated to save us all money by gently recycling high-maintenance old coots, thus taking them off the list of potential beneficiaries of the impeccable government health coverage.
"Everyone who signs up for our plan will get a cash incentive even if they don't turn in a qualifying old fogey," says White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. "But families who trade in their useless members will also get a free premium plan and - for a limited time only - a rationing coupon for an extra unaborted baby!"
At the opening of the first Planned Grandparenthood Center in Washington, DC last week, Barack Obama offered a brief, optimistic cheer:
"In the cold-hearted, uncaring capitalist society of the past, where every man was for himself, people often reached advanced age without any government help. It is a shame that in the richest country in the world, old people were abandoned by society and survived on their own, sometimes until they were 117 years old. No one knew or cared about how long they lived because everyone paid their own medical bills. But those dog-eat-dog days are over. In the caring, collectivist America, no one will be allowed to live without government care. And since we are paying for you, we decide how long you can be a drain on the collective wallet.
"From my meetings with community activists and focus groups I have learned one thing: once you're past seventy, you have outlived your usefulness. Progress requires sacrifice. Some don't buy a large flat-screen TV, some don't go on vacation, and some don't go on living. And since humans are nothing more than a random collection of chemical elements that can also be found in a flat-screen TV, human sacrifice is no different than material sacrifice. Do it for the children!"
Both syndicated columnist host Mark Steyn and author and former political advisor to Bill Clinton, Dick Morris, said today in separate interviews… “beware of the rhetoric on healthcare”!
“ObamaCare is not about healthcare reform, it is about a power grab and taking 40% of Medicare funds (from the elderly) and redirecting them to illegals. The key to this program is not the public option or end of life counseling, it is taking funding from the elderly, giving it to younger illegals and then rationing care. So the protestors’ victories in the past few days are not what they may seem” …Dick Morris
“Fraiser Care in British Columbia (their socialized medicine) just announced that they would again be cutting healthcare for seniors as well as 15 to 20% of elective surgeries for everyone. Obama and the Dems will do whatever they can to pass an embryonic healthcare program and then burn the bridge behind them, so that there is no going back, because their ultimate goal is to get to a single-payer government-run healthcare program as part of their re-making of America program. Their entire Healthcare Program (Obamacare) is a death system with them in charge. It is the nationalization of your body.” …Mark Steyn
They both say that the co-op plan that the Dems have now started talking about is the same thing as the public option plan… which will ultimately result in a single-payer plan and government running who is covered and who isn’t, price setting, and what procedures and drugs will be given to whom!! They will also cover abortions with government money, have full access to your medical records and your bank account, if this passes.
“One third of the uninsured are 18 to 25-year-olds categorized as ‘the invincibles’ who think they are just that and don’t have a lot of money, so choose not to purchase health insurance if not covered by their parents or their employer.
Another quarter of the uninsured are adults between the ages of 50 and 65, the pre-Medicare boomers, who have lost jobs or coverage through their employer and either can’t get coverage because of pre-existing conditions of themselves or someone in their family, or can’t afford the premiums, so they are waiting and praying they will be fine until Medicare kicks in.
And then there are another 12 to 19 million illegals depending on who is supplying the figures that are not covered but will be under Obamacare. Covering illegal aliens not specifically addressed because if something or someone is not specifically excluded… they are included, which is the goal of the left!
Medicaid (coverage for the poor) is broke, primarily because of fraud and waste caused largely by duplication and could be cleaned up.” …Ceci Connolly, Washington Post
The balance of people not insured is about 5 to 8 million people who could be covered and covered cheaper by:
Trashing all 5-bills that are presently being considered in the house and Senate
Clean up Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Veterans Affairs and Reservation Benefits… by controlling fraud and waste.
Invoke serious tort reform… stopping frivolous lawsuits and restricting the awards
Do not cover abortions with public funds
Do not cover people in the United State illegally
Allow individuals and small businesses to for groups and co-ops to get better rates
Allow the purchase of health insurance across state lines
Allow portable coverage (allowing you to take your insurance with you when you leave a job or move)
Pay on results not on number of procedures
No more exclusions because of pre-existing conditions by insurance companies
Crack-down on insurance fraud
Allow coverage of natural supplements, natural and holistic procedures like chiropractic care, acupuncture etc by insurance coverage
Force Big Pharma to honor price reduction they offered Team Obama
Allow generic medications to be covered by insurance, Medicare and Medicaid, etc.
Allow sharing of information and encourage the reduction of duplication of records… but not kept and managed by the government or in a central database by a company like GE, who is in bed with Team Obama. In today’s world if large companies and groups like Kaiser, Blue Cross, Medicaid, Cigna etc kept their own central databases, forwarding information electronically or giving a copy to the patient to hand carry to avoid the duplication of procedures or tests is and would be easy. Perhaps some the unspent stimulus money could go toward helping some of these companies updating their record systems, which would also create some permanent and temporary jobs. A central database of everyone’s information is just to tempting for future problems.
If the above measures were enacted, we could pay for the 5 to 8 million who are not insured and not are insurable, lower or at least maintain our costs without changing the quality of our medical care in the United States, keep additional government intrusion out of our lives and prevent rationing.
Add to this the ideas of dozens and dozens of present and ex-Governors, Senators and Congress people plus CEO’s of companies and experts in economics and medical care from the financial end, we could perhaps level the cost increase for a few years and improve our care for everyone.
Everyone agrees that we need some kind of reform. This kind of reform, not the ObamaCare versions (any of them)
HUGE PRO-OBAMA HEALTH CARE AD CAMPAIGN UNDER WAY
As you can see from the link below, the Obama people are launching a huge TV ad blitz to restore momentum behind their health care proposals. Funded by money from drug companies and other vendors who have been bought off to back the plan, it tries to refocus the campaign for his legislation on the supposed benefits of his plan for the average person.
Click here to watch the ad. We need to counter this offensive with all our resources.
The supposed benefits of the Obama package that are enumerated in the ad are all: 1. Easily available by federal or state regulatory legislation and need not be part of an overall change in the health care system; and
2. Have largely already been agreed to by the insurance companies at their White House meetings; and
3. Were, in many cases, solved by the Kennedy Kassenbaum bill, passed in 1996, that prohibited insurers from discriminating against patients whose pre-existing conditions were covered in their old jobs.
Yet, in a bid to drum up support for the bill and its inevitable rationing of care to the elderly, Obama is presenting these measures as integral to his legislation when, in fact, they are quite extraneous to it.
Strategically, he is trying to focus the debate on the needs of the younger population and avoid addressing the catastrophe that his plan would represent for the elderly. None of the people in the ad are old and the issues are those that concern the younger, working population.
The answer is to keep the debate focused on the elderly. If their opposition to these proposals grows and reaches a tipping point (as it is doing as we speak), the Democrats will not dare pass their legislation.
PLEASE... Go here and donate funds so we can run ads attacking Obama's plan and zeroing in on what it means for the elderly. We are now on the air in Montana, North Dakota, Arkansas, and Maine. We are about to go on in South Dakota, Nebraska, and Louisiana.
We need money to advertise in North Carolina, Wyoming, Indiana, and Connecticut. Please give generously so we can reach these Senators!
Thanks, Dick Morris
If you have the time and inclination to read the healthcare bill (HR-3200 - full report) yourself it would be great, most of the Congresspeople who are holding town halls have not.
Contact your Senator and Congressperson, any Blue Dogs or moderates in pivotal states and attend a local healthcare Townhall, healthcare Tea Party on 9/12 or the Big One in Washington. Read the Bill or at least some Reviews, Read Catastrophe, educate yourself on this and related issues And then please speak out America!!!
Call the switchboard for Congress in Washington today... your Senator, Congressperson and Nancy Pelosi and tell them “NO” on Government-Run Healthcare Takeover, "NO on Cap and Trade" & NO on the Carbon Tax… and to pay back the unspent stimulus money!!!
August is THE crucial month! While the Senators and Congressmen are home in their districts, let's give them a barrage of attacks on Obama's proposals to deform our health system! Even as public opinion has turned against the plan, he still has sixty votes in the Senate and an ample margin in the House to pass it. Unless we unleash a FIRESTORM of public outrage, the bill will pass! And your own personal health care will never be the same.
Here's how to fight it:
1. Arm yourself with the facts: Read Chapter 4 in Catastrophe, "Obama's Health Care Catastrophe", which details how Obamacare will destroy American health care and explains what has happened in Canada!
2. Donate Money: The League of American Voters is running an advertisement Dick wrote in the swing states with key Senators. Give them as much as you can to run these ads.
The League of American Voters 4152 West Blue Heron Blvd, Suite 1114 Riviera Beach, FL 33404 FedEx if possible! Time is of the essence. We need to run these ads this month!
3. Email your friends, family and associates: We need a massive outpouring of public opinion. Email your Christmas card list, your colleagues from the office, your friends, and your family. Bring them the facts about health care and Obama's dangerous proposals. Think particularly of anyone you know in the following states
(where the key Senators live):
a. Maine (Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snow) b. New York (Senator Kirsten Gillibrand) c. Virginia (Senator Mark Warner and Jim Webb) d. Indiana (Senator Evan Bayh) e. Ohio (Senator John Voinovich) f. North Carolina (Senator Kay Hagan) g. Florida (Senator Mel Martinez) h. Louisiana (Senator Mary Landrieu) i. Arkansas (Senators Mark Pryor and Blanche Lincoln) j. Nebraska (Senator Ben Nelson) k. South Dakota (Senator Tim Johnson) l. Iowa (Senator Chuck Grassley) m. North Dakota (Senators Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan) n. Montana (Senators Max Baucus and Jon Tester) o. Wyoming (Senator Michael Enzi)
4. Write or call your Senators and Congressman: Then sit down and write (by hand if possible) a letter to each of your Senators and your member of Congress. If you are not sure who your Congressman or Senators are, go to these links to find out: https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml
Your Senator or Congressman: US Senate or US House of Representatives, Washington DC 20510 (Senate) or 20515 (House)
Sending a letter by snail mail is much more effective than by email.
They haven't really caught up with the 21st Century in Washington. So buy a real live postage stamp and mail your letters directly. Use the info from Catastrophe in your letter. Explain how your personal health care and that of our family will be adversely affected.
Even if your Senator or Congressman is a liberal Democrat or a Republican, write then anyway. It can influence the atmosphere in Washington. Senators and Congressmen talk and the more mail they get, the more public opinion weighs on them all. Even the ultra-liberals.
You can call Congress at (202) 224-3121.
Believe us. It works. Write today!
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN - Published on DickMorris.com on August 3, 2009
"In the cold-hearted, uncaring capitalist society of the past, where every man was for himself, people often reached advanced age without any government help. It is a shame that in the richest country in the world, old people were abandoned by society and survived on their own, sometimes until they were 117 years old. No one knew or cared about how long they lived because everyone paid their own medical bills. But those dog-eat-dog days are over. In the caring, collectivist America, no one will be allowed to live without government care. And since we are paying for you, we decide how long you can be a drain on the collective wallet.