Video: Stephen Moore: Hidden Obamacare Tax Will Cost Consumers Another $100-$500 a Year
Get ready for another hidden Obamacare tax...
Stephen Moore, economist and Wall Street Journal contributor, discussed the hidden Obamacare tax that will take effect in two weeks.
The hidden Obamacare tax will cost consumers $100-$500 a year and will take effect on January 1, 2014
WSJ:
First of all, let’s call affordable health care what it really is: It’s socialized medicine.
I’ve had an opportunity to watch the Canadian version of affordable health care in action with all its limitations with my Canadian husband’s family. A few years ago, I was startled to see the cover of Maclean’s, a national Canadian magazine, showing a picture of a dog on an examining table with the headline, “Your Dog Can Get Better Health Care Than You.” It went on to say that young Canadian medical students have no incentive to become doctors to humans because they can’t make any money. Instead, there is a great surge of Canadian students becoming veterinarians. That’s where the money is. A Canadian animal can have timely MRIs, surgeries and any number of tests it needs to receive quality health care.
My sister-in-law had to wait two months to get a General Practitioner. During this period she spent her days in bed vomiting continuously, unable to get any food or drink down because she couldn’t get an appointment with the doctor. When she finally did, the doctor said, “Oh you don’t need me, you need a specialist.” That took another two weeks until she got a pill that corrected the problem.
Really, is this what we want?
All of my husband’s cousins are doctors. Several have moved to the U.S. because after their years of intensive schooling, they want to reap financial rewards. My 75-year-old Canadian girlfriend was denied treatment because she was too old. She died recently, having been given palliative care. That’s all the system would allow.
Affordable care will allow for pre-existing conditions. That’s the good part for retirees. But, let’s get down and dirty; the word “affordable” is a misnomer. So far, all you are hearing on the news is how everyone’s premiums are doubling and tripling and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to recognize that the whole thing is a big mess. Plus, even after Obamacare is fully implemented, there still will be tens of millions of people not covered. So what’s the point? Medical care will be degraded, the costs will skyrocket, and most frightening of all, your most intimate and personal information is now up for grabs.
So, is affordable care a good thing for retirees? Perhaps over time, it might work if you don’t get too old and you don’t get too sick, and you don’t live too long. But frankly, the economic ramifications with our already swollen debt load don’t add up. Retirees who are on Medicare will suffer the consequences of 700 billions of Medicare dollars instead being used to cover the skyrocketing cost of Obamacare. In essence, less dollars for seniors, means less service. Not fair. The Boomers are going to take the “hit.” In Obamacare, “too old” has limitations of service.
Boomers are smart. They see the train wreck coming… most I speak with think the Affordable Care Act is a greater Ponzi scheme than that pulled off by Bernie Madoff.
CORRECTIONS AND AMPLIFICATIONS:
An earlier version of this post contained a quotation attributed to Lenin (“Socialized medicine is the keystone to the arch of the socialist state”) that has been widely disputed. And it included a quotation attributed to Churchill (“Control your citizens’ health care and you control your citizens“) that the Journal has been unable to confirm.
Also, the cover of a Maclean’s magazine issue in 2008 showed a picture of a dog on an examining table with the headline “Your Dog Can Get Better Health Care Than You.” An earlier version of this post incorrectly said the photo showed and headline referred to a horse.
What will the Affordable Care Act mean for retirees?
Suzanne Somers (@SuzanneSomers) is a health advocate, entrepreneur, Emmy-nominated actress and author including: Newest Book: I'm Too Young for This!: The Natural Hormone Solution to Enjoy Perimenopause (Kindle), as well as: Bombshell: Explosive Medical Secrets That Will Redefine Aging, The Sexy Years: Discover the Hormone Connection: The Secret to Fabulous Sex, Great Health, and Vitality, for Women and Men, Sexy Forever: How to Fight Fat after Forty, Ageless: The Naked Truth About Bioidentical Hormones, Suzanne Somers' Get Skinny on Fabulous Food, Breakthrough: Eight Steps to Wellness, Suzanne Somers' Eat Great, Lose Weight: Eat All the Foods You Love in "Somersize" Combinations to Reprogram Your Metabolism, Shed Pounds for Good, and Have More Energy Than Ever Before, Bombshell: Explosive Medical Secrets That Will Redefine Aging and more.
EIB/Rush: BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here's Denise in Trenton, Michigan, as we head back to the phones. Welcome to the Rush Limbaugh program. Hi.
CALLER: Hey, Rush. My question is pretty simple, but I also want to ask, you talked to somebody on Tuesday, it was a guy, I know you'll remember him, he worked two part-time jobs and he had a one-year-old and he talked about how he can't get benefits. And you had told him that you had hope to give him, and you talked about a time where there were people in like their fifties and stuff, and they had to go back and they basically lost their jobs, and they did what they really wanted to do.
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: And I just hope he's listening today, 'cause I was on the phone with you on hold saying, "Please take my call so I can tell him." It was true then, and it's true now. That's what we're doing. That's what our family is doing, 'cause of course thanks to Obama and his infinite wisdom, I went through the same thing and lost two of my jobs, and I'm back in school and I'm gonna do what I want to do. And I just want your guy -- I hope he hears this because anybody can do it, and you are who you are not because of who they let you be, but because of you. He has to do what you said and follow his passion, because --
RUSH: That's a good point. It really is. Just to recap, I remember the guy. He was working two jobs because he had been downsized because of Obamacare. He'd been reduced in both jobs to part-time status, so he'd lost his benefits. Even though with two jobs he had the equivalent of a full-time job, he didn't have any benefits, and health care, particularly, was gone. He didn't know what he was gonna do. He was from Asheville, North Carolina, and I told him, "You know, even true today, most of the limitations that people face are self-imposed." And I asked him, "Are you willing to move to pursue your dream?" He said, "Yeah."
Okay, well, that's the big one. Once you're willing to move you're really over a hump, but if you're not gonna leave Asheville, then you have to realize your potential is dictated by what Asheville has, what there is to do there job-wise, career-wise, or what have you. But the point that I made that you recounted here that's really worth it, all these guys in the nineties laid off in their middle ages, fifties, white-collar guys, could not get rehired at the salaries that they were earning. So what they did late in life was start businesses with the things they really loved and always wanted to do but had never done.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Now, one thing from our last caller. The caller she was talking about was Andy from Asheville, North Carolina. This is worth repeating. He was downsized in two jobs, so he had a full-time workweek with two jobs. So he was part time in two jobs, did not have any benefits as a result. He was been downsized in both jobs because of health care. The companies where he worked converted him to part-time status so that they would not have to provide him health care coverage, and that's common and it's happening with greater frequency and will increase its occurrences as more companies realize what they have to do to be complicit with Obamacare.
If they want to stay in business they're gonna have to let people go. If they want to stay in business they're gonna have to convert people to part time. They're gonna have to reduce their hours and they're gonna have to reduce their benefits. No, that's not the spirit of Obamacare at all. In fact, Obamacare officials are shocked and stunned that this is happening. Actual people in the government can't believe this. They thought that the health care experience in America would be, as they said, enriched because of Obamacare. They're just a bunch of political lug heads who accept the flawed premise and promises of liberalism. And because they're good people and because they've put the program together, it's magically gonna work. Never does.
(interruption)
I was just asked if they just discount all the articles that point out how it's not being implemented as it was designed. 'Cause it isn't a surprise. It isn't a surprise that business is doing this. Everybody that paid any attention, had any smarts at all, knew exactly what businesses were gonna have to do in order to stay in business once this thing started to be implemented. And so the question is, don't these guys in government -- how do they not know this? Don't they read these stories? I don't know. Maybe they don't read them. But more likely they do and just discount what they're reading. They do. They think it's all right-wing propaganda, no matter where it runs.
All of these forecasts, Obamacare not working, all of these stories of companies downsizing, they just think that's evil business profit-taking. These people in the government who really thought that Obamacare and even do still think Obamacare is gonna lower costs and expand coverage, and when it doesn't happen, what do they think? They think that evil CEOs are being greedy and they're just laying people off using the excuse of Obamacare, but all they're doing is hoarding money and building bigger houses for themselves and buying nicer cars while they're firing or laying people off. That's what they think. They think that all of this is right wing conspiratorial activity designed to harm Obama. When they read these stories -- look, try this one. This is from the Washington Examiner but this is just a repeat of an LA Times story.
"UnitedHealth, the nation’s largest private insurer, will not participate in California’s Obamacare health exchange, the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday. Health insurance giants Aetna and Cigna will also opt out of Covered California, the state agency charged with implementing Obamacare. All three insurers will still provide health insurance through large employers in the state," but they're not going to participate in the Obamacare exchanges.
"Kaiser Permanente, the largest health insurer in California, will work with Covered California, as will Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of California. Together, these two companies already control 87 percent of the state’s individual health insurance market. That number will only go up as UnitedHealth, Aetna and Cigna drop out of the individual market entirely. Market consolidation and decreased consumer choice is exactly what some supporters of Obamcare hoped would happen all along."
This is my point. As UnitedHealth pulls out, as Cigna pulls out, as Aetna pull out, what does that mean? It means consumers have fewer choices. That's the design. The people that really thought about this at the government, the Obamacare people, the people that really put this together with their ultimate aim in mind, intended all of this. They intended for it to be too big, too unworkable, and too expensive. They intended for all of these companies, be they businesses or insurance companies, to pull out, to not insure people, they intended this. That's why the fines for not having insurance in the first couple years are very cheap.
The fines for not having a policy cost much less than having a policy. They want people to not have the policy. They want people to pay the fine. They want to upset the market and create a mess -- and, then to clean up the mess, they want everybody just to finally say, "You know what? You know what would fix this? Single payer! Just have the government do it. To hell with Aetna, to hell with Cigna, to hell with United Health, to hell with private insurance. Just have the government do it."
That will be the solution.
It's not me saying so. Obama said this in 2007 in a speech to the Service Employees International Union. We've played the audio of that speech on this program I don't know how many times where he said to 'em, "I know you want single payer. I want single payer, too. But we can't get there overnight. It's gonna take 10, maybe 15 years. People are going to have to be slowly conditioned to it and ultimately it's going to have to be the only option available. That's how we'll get it done."
Because people don't want that. Obama knows it. He knew it in 2007; he knows it today. He's governing against the will of the people. People do not want single-payer, government-run health care. They don't want Obamacare. Still, the numbers are 60%. But the people in the regime who believe in this, who think that all of this is the perfect solution to our health care problems, they'll read a story here. They'll read this LA Times story: United Health, Aetna, Cigna pulling out.
They will tell themselves that the people running these companies are just a bunch of greedy Republicans trying to screw Obama. Everything is political to them, and there is no legitimacy in capitalism, and therefore no capitalistic entity is legitimate. They're all cheats, liars. They're all frauds. "Capitalism is unfair. Capitalism is what the 1% use to stay the 1%, and they got to be the 1% by taking everything from everybody else!"
So if you start out from the standpoint that there's nothing legitimate about free markets, if there's nothing legitimate in capitalism, and you read a story like this (and you know how mean and nasty Republicans are), well, you're just gonna assume that the people running these companies are Republicans and hate Obama and they're trying to screw up his grand plan. Then, at some point, they realize what's going on. That's when you get the stories, "Yeah, we really thought it was gonna lower costs!
"We really thought it was going to enrich health care experience for people." The cookie-cutter liberal, the standard operating procedure liberal is really a giant ignoramus. I mean that seriously. They're really ignorant. They are so politically oriented, and they are so arrogant and condescending -- and they have such solid boundaries built around themselves -- that the truth of anything doesn't permeate. The only truth is what they believe and what they think, including all of their biases and all of their prejudices.
Those things are truth. Anything outside their believability system, outside the cocoon, is a conspiracy designed to undercut them or destroy Obama -- or it's just a bunch of right-wing kooks. That's the challenge. That's why there's no working with these people. There isn't any point in bipartisanship. There is no area of commonality. We don't have anything in common with these people. That's why, in my mind, politically they're to be defeated. The problem is we usually do. They are a minority.
We're just being governed by a minority. It's made to look like the majority because of their never-ending media support. I mentioned yesterday that even the union for the people who are going to enforce Obamacare, the IRS, is begging out of it. It's the National Treasury Employees Union, which runs the IRS. That's the union that all IRS workers are members of. They want to be exempted from it. Their job is to make sure you sign up. Their job is to make sure you are assessed a fine if you don't get insurance under the terms of Obamacare.
They want an exemption. That is liberalism for you. They set up two sets of rules: One set for everybody else, and another set for them. They never have to live by the rules that they set up for everybody else. 'Cause they're special! They're better. They're more important. The rules set up for everybody else are to handle "the masses," the bourgeois -- you know, the slow-witted, dim-witted, mindless people that are incapable of taking care of themselves.
So they set up rules for them, and then another set for themselves, and that's how it works. United Health, Aetna, and Cigna opt out of the California Obamacare exchange -- and they're going to continue to offer insurance policies to employers. Eventually what is designed to happen, and therefore will, is that the policies are going to be so much more expensive than what will be found at the exchanges, private insurance will end.
END TRANSCRIPT
Liberty’s Spirit - Cross posted at Raising Asperger’s Kids:
There are new controversies surrounding Obamacare now that the IRS is mired in a political scandal. These emerging issues surround federal government control of medical/healthcare rights/information and the abuse of political power. The Wall Street Journal had an interesting insight into the problem (unfortunately the WSJ article has been pulled since this was written):
Even as the politicized tax enforcement scandal expands, the Internal Revenue Service continues to expand its political powers thanks to the Affordable Care Act. A larger government always creates more openings for abuse, as Americans will learn when the IRS starts auditing their health care in addition to their 1040 next year.
Over the last decade or so the tax agency has stretched its portfolio and become an enforcer and decision-maker for government benefits and programs. Three years ago, National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson, who operates within the IRS, presciently noted that ObamaCare is “the most extensive social benefit program the IRS has been asked to implement in recent history.
This March the IRS Inspector General reiterated that ObamaCare’s 47 major changes to the revenue code “represent the largest set of tax law changes the IRS has had to implement in more than 20 years.” Thus the IRS is playing Thelma to the Health and Human Service Department’s Louise. The tax agency has requested funding for 1,954 full-time equivalent employees for its Affordable Care Act office in 2014.
These are issues that need to be vigorously debated. If a Presidential Administration can use the power of the IRS to harass and malign its political opponents, then what does the IRS and HHS having life and death rights over these same political opponents mean?
What if you object to the government’s handling of a controversy and the first issue asked is not “how is your health” but “do you belong to the right political party?” This is how life was in the Soviet Union and still is in totalitarian/oligarchical nations. Think this is a hysterical approach? Ask the people harassed by the IRS because they belong to conservative political groups or to pro-Israel groups that didn’t follow in-lock-step with the President’s view of the Middle East, or taught about the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights (it seems under these criteria my entire family is up the creek without a paddle) and then tell me it can’t happen here.
Furthermore, an additional aspect of the controversy appeared yesterday. Apparently the IRS gave private tax information of conservatives to politically left-leaning groups during the Presidential campaign. The powers that be continually tell us that under Obamacare our health documents would be sacrosanct. After the recent revelations about IRS conduct, it is apparent that the inherent potential for abuse dangerously exists.
ELECTION 2012 LAST CHANCE TO REPEAL OBAMACARE… VOTING FOR ROMNEY-RYAN on November 6th: Healthcare, Financials, Defense Stocks in Play as Voters Head to Polls - Wall Street Journal
Investors keen to do some stock picking on Election Day have a massive landscape to consider as voter decisions at the ballot box have the potential to shake up major industries from healthcare to financials and beyond, while ballot measures in individual states put other stocks in play.
At the top of that list is President Barack Obama's signature 2010 healthcare overhaul, which Mitt Romney has pledged to repeal if he is made president.
While full repeal may prove challenging depending on how Tuesday's election shakes out in Congress, the law--major parts of which don't go into effect until 2014--could ...
Read More Here
Related:
5 Effects Obamacare Will Have on Working Americans
March 23rd Second Anniversary of ObamaCare… March 26th a Future Day in American Infamy?
Did You Get Your ObamaCare Letter Yet?
Thanks Obamacare: 83% of Doctors Surveyed Say They May Quit
Obama Gets Civilian Army In Healthcare Bill
Obamacare Now Estimated to Cost $2.6 Trillion in First Decade
Killing Obamacare Before It Kills Us – Part 1: The Political Battlefield
“Death Panel” Three Years Later
Do you have a gun in your house? Your Doctor wants to know and so does the government.
Lawyers Have Already Drafted 13,000 Pages of Regulations for New ObamaTax Law
Obamacare Has Literally Replaced the Constitution
Meet the ObamaCare Mandate Committee
Obamacare rationing panels an ‘immediate danger to seniors’: former AMA president
Obamacare’s Second Anniversary: No Gift for Seniors
IPAB Spells Gloom And Doom For Medicare - Just yesterday (03.22.12) the House of Representatives voted to repeal key 'Obamacare' provision” IPAB (the CLASS ACT has also been nullified)
Obamacare to Herd Disabled Seniors to Bare-Bones Medicaid Plans
Settling the Question of a Real Estate Tax in Obamacare
"Taxmageddon" in 2013? Can We Avoid It? Can You Afford It?
RFID Implant Law Hidden in Obummercare Implementation 2013 -
Update on RFID: There is definitely a provision in the ObamaCare law, whose wording is purposely vague, for a database and tracking of implanted medical devices – pacemakers, artificial joints, things that are surgically implanted to bring function back to as close to whole as possible that could eventually lead to the mark of the beast technology. But after some additional research, it appears that the regulations for this have ‘not’ been written, and probably won’t be by year end, since they are behind on so many others. This means it probably won’t happen in 2013… but if ObamaCare remains and Obama is re-elected, it is only a matter of time. Luckily since it will require lots of compliance on this piece from the device manufacturers and importers, and they’re about to get hit with sales taxes, they probably won’t be implementing much else for a while, since they must get set up for all that mayhem of reporting requirements. This is another bullet dodge for a while to give Americans the opportunity to turn things around. We know it is part of the plan: Joe Biden mark my words (RFID). The question is when will they implement… if we don’t reboot and get rid of both ObamaCare and Obama as President.
Think the contraception decision was bad? Wait until bureaucrats start telling your insurer which cancer screenings to cover.
Offended by President Obama's decision to force health insurers to pay for contraception and surgical sterilization or my religious institutions mandated to go against their core beliefs? It gets worse: In the future, thanks to ObamaCare, the government will issue such health edicts on a routine basis—and largely insulated from public view. This goes beyond contraception to cancer screenings, the use of common drugs like aspirin, and much more.
Under ObamaCare, a single committee—the United States Preventative Services Task Force—is empowered to evaluate preventive health services and decide which will be covered by health-insurance plans.
The task force already rates services with letter grades of "A" through "D" (or "I," if it has "insufficient evidence" to make a rating). But under ObamaCare, services rated "A" or "B"—such as colon cancer screening for adults aged 50-75—must be covered by health plans in full, without any co-pays. Many services that get "Cs" and "Ds"—such as screening for ovarian or testicular cancer—could get nixed from coverage entirely.
That's because mandating coverage for all the "A" and "B" services will be very costly. In 2000, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the marginal cost of similar state insurance mandates was 5%-10% of total claims. Other estimates put the cost of mandates as high as 20% of premiums.
Health plans will inevitably choose to drop coverage for many services that don't get a passing grade from the task force and therefore aren't mandated. Insurance companies will need to conserve their premium money, which the government regulates, in order to spend it subsidizing those services that the task force requires them to cover in full.
David Klein
Americans first became familiar with the task force in November 2009, when it made the controversial decision to recommend that women ages 40-49 shouldn't get routine mammograms. More recently, it rebuffed routine prostate-cancer screening and the use of tests that detect the viruses that can cause cervical cancer.
The task force relishes setting a very high bar. Like the Food and Drug Administration in approving new drugs, it usually requires a randomized, prospective trial to "prove" that a diagnostic test or other intervention improves clinical outcomes and therefore deserves a high grade of "A" or "B."
This means its advice is often out of sync with conventional medical practice. For example, it recommended against wider screening for HIV long after such screening was accepted practice. As a result, many of its verdicts are widely ignored by practicing doctors.
The task force is a part-time board of volunteer advisers that works slowly and is often late to incorporate new science into its recommendations. Only in 2009 did it finally recommend aspirin for the prevention of stroke and heart attack among those at risk—decades after this practice was demonstrated to save lives and had become part of standard medical practice.
The task force is also the only federal health agency to have the explicit legal authority to consider cost as one criterion in recommending whether patients should use a medical test or treatment.
Over time, the task force will surely recommend against many services that patients now take for granted, while mandating full insurance coverage for things that they'd be just as happy paying for. Among the interventions that it plans to consider in 2012 are screening for hepatitis C in adults, for osteoporosis in men and for depression in children; counseling for obesity in adults and for alcohol use in adolescents; and daily aspirin for heart-attack and stroke prevention in people over 80.
The task force's problems are compounded by the fact that it is deliberately exempted from the rules that govern other government advisory boards and regulatory agencies. Thus it has no obligation to hold its meetings in public, announce decisions in draft form or even consider public comments. Consumers have no way to directly appeal its decisions. And health providers or product developers affected by its decisions can't sue it for recourse.
To begin addressing these problems, Congress should make the task force subject to the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which would at least require it to hold its deliberations in public. Congress could also make it a full-fledged part of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, which already convenes its meetings. That would make the task force subject to the Administrative Procedures Act and all the rules that bind other regulatory bodies, including the legal requirement to consider public comments and provide avenues for appeal.
Better still, Congress could let private health plans—and their members—decide on their own how preventive tests and treatments should be covered. If not, Americans will soon be surprised by all the important tests and treatments that become more costly, and all the less relevant stuff that's suddenly free.
It's all a reminder that President Obama's decision on contraception isn't a one-off political intervention but the initial exploit of an elaborate new system.
by Dr. Gottlieb, a physician and resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, has served as deputy commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration and senior policy adviser to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. He consults with and invests in health-care companies. - WSJ
As time goes on… if people don’t start reading the ObamaCare Bill and make sure it is repealed in its entirety, either by the Supreme Court or a New President and a primarily new Congress in November 2012, Americans will soon find out that former Alaska Governor and GOP VP candidate in 2008, Sarah Palin plus others who were paying attention, was 100% right about rationing, death panels or whatever you want to call it in ObamaCare and a lot more that we all won’t like… especially seniors, the disabled and special needs children and adults! Wake-up America… before it is too late.
Related:
Families Who Reject Inoculations Told to Find a New Physician; Contagion in Waiting Room Is a Fear
Medical associations don't recommend such patient bans, but the practice appears to be growing, according to vaccine researchers.
Adam Bird for The Wall Street Journal
Dr. Allan LaReau in Michigan stops treating families who refuse to vaccinate their children. 'You feel badly about losing a nice family,' he says.
In a study of Connecticut pediatricians published last year, some 30% of 133 doctors said they had asked a family to leave their practice for vaccine refusal, and a recent survey of 909 Midwestern pediatricians found that 21% reported discharging families for the same reason.
By comparison, in 2001 and 2006 about 6% of physicians said they "routinely" stopped working with families due to parents' continued vaccine refusal and 16% "sometimes" dismissed them, according to surveys conducted then by the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Most pediatricians consider preventing disease through vaccines a primary goal of their job. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and AAP issue an annual recommended vaccination schedule, but some parents ask if their child's immunizations can be pushed back or skipped altogether, pediatricians say.
It's hard to imagine an outbreak of smallpox today. But for centuries the deadly virus wiped out entire populations. WSJ's Christina Tsuei reports on how the discovery of vaccines (with the help of cows) eradicated the disease and led to the prevention of many other diseases.
While rates for several key inoculations in young children rose between 2009 and 2010, according to the CDC, lower immunization rates have been blamed as a factor in U.S. outbreaks of whooping cough and measles in recent years.
Parents often voice concerns about autism or that their child's immune system may be overwhelmed by too many vaccines at once. Worries about a link between vaccines and autism arose because some parents noticed their children regressed, or lost some skills, around the time of their vaccinations at two years of age. Another concern centered on the former use of mercury as a vaccine preservative.
Numerous studies since have dispelled these concerns among scientists. Rather, scientists say, it is more likely that autism symptoms begin showing up around the same age children are vaccinated.
The rise in patient firings reflects another factor. As patients have become savvier and more willing to challenge doctors, physicians have become increasingly reluctant to deal with uncooperative patients, said Arthur Caplan, a bioethics professor at the University of Pennsylvania. In addition, doctors may feel financial pressure to see more patients and so have less time to contend with recalcitrant ones.
Pediatricians fed up with parents who refuse to vaccinate their children out of concern it can cause autism or other problems increasingly are "firing" such families from their practices. Stefanie Ilgenfritz has details on Lunch Break.
For Allan LaReau of Kalamazoo, Mich., and his 11 colleagues at Bronson Rambling Road Pediatrics, who chose in 2010 to stop working with vaccine-refusing families, a major factor was the concern that unimmunized children could pose a danger in the waiting room to infants or sick children who haven't yet been fully vaccinated.
In one case, an unvaccinated child came in with a high fever and Dr. LaReau feared the patient might have meningitis, a contagious, potentially deadly infection of the brain and spinal cord for which a vaccine commonly is given. "I lost a lot more sleep than I usually do" worrying about the situation, he said.
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"You feel badly about losing a nice family from the practice," added Dr. LaReau, but families who refused to vaccinate their kids were told that "this is going to be a difficult relationship without this core part of pediatrics." Some families chose to go elsewhere while others agreed to have their kids inoculated.
Pediatricians disagree about what their duty is to these families. "The bottom line is you should try to do whatever you can to maintain the family in the best care," said Michael Brady, chair of the pediatrics department at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, and a member of the AAP's immunization committee. "If they leave your practice, they're probably going to gravitate toward another practice with unhealthy practices."
Other physicians say they rarely have had luck persuading vaccine opponents to change their minds.
David Fenner and his 20-plus colleagues at Children's Medical Group in Rhinebeck, N.Y., discuss vaccine concerns but ask families to leave if they don't comply by a certain point.
Dr. Fenner said he tells new families, "You've been bombarded with information before you came here, some accurate and some not." Iif a family refuses to vaccinate after a discussion of the issue, he tells them "there are so many things we're not going to see eye-to-eye on."
So far, the practice has fired a couple of families per year since it implemented the policy about five years ago.
Pamela Felice, who lives in an Atlanta suburb, had difficulty finding a pediatrician for her two children though they have waivers from a previous pediatrician exempting them from school requirements for immunizations. Her older child had gastrointestinal trouble and regressed development after receiving vaccines, she said, which she believes were related to the shots.
Ms. Felice received a letter from her pediatrician a few years ago stating that because the family chose not to vaccinate, it needed to find another doctor. She called four or five other practices but none would agree to an appointment after she told them she was opposed to vaccines. The family ended up with an elderly family doctor who said he had "seen it all" and was willing to treat the children if they got sick, Ms. Felice said.
"A doctor should feel obligated to discuss [potential vaccine] risks with any parent who wants to discuss them," said Ms. Felice.
By SHIRLEY S. WANG - Write to Shirley S. Wang at shirley.wang@wsj.com - WSJ
Medical Journal Says Autism Study 'Fraud' (Jan. 6, 2011)
More Parents Seek Vaccine Exemption (July 6, 2010)
Book Review: The Shot Heard Round the World (March 26, 2011)
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83 percent of brain injury vaccine compensation payouts were for autism caused by vaccines
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Tells Truth About Government Coverup of Vaccine Dangers
Healthy 7-Year-Old Girl Dies in Her Mother's Arms After Flu Shot
Eugenics in Action: 3-Year Old Denied Kidney Transplant
Anyone Recall Jane Bergermeister and the Letha Vaccinations??? It’s Back!
Wall Street Journal: Obama and Shinseki now pressuring Veterans toward Euthanasia
HOT PETITION to STOP OBAMA'S SOCIALIST HEALTH CARE
TAKEOVER. Please select, sign, and WE WILL FAX your petition automatically to all 52 "Blue-Dog" House Democrats and/or all 100 Senators, right away (saving you hours of labor!) We've already sent over 400,000 faxes, can you help us reach 1,000,000? The campaign is working and Americans are responding now lets make it work in the Senate.
If you choose not to use AmeriPac’s Petition system, which is easier and faster, the information for Congress is below for you to fax, call, email and write them directly. Either way, make it part of your 9/11 remembrance and let your congressperson, your Senator and the Blue Dogs (and anyone else you’d like to contact) know that ObamaCare and the deplorable treatment of our Veterans cannot be passed or stand!!)
WSJ: Obama and Shinseki now pressuring Veterans toward Euthanasia
The Wall Street Journal just published a shocking editorial written by a respected University President, confirming the Obama Administration is now using VA hospitals to order doctors to pressure all military veterans to sign "pull the plug" do-not-resuscitate orders, hastening their premature deaths through mandatory "end of life" counseling.
President Jim Towey of Saint Vincent's College, founder of the non-profit "Aging With Dignity" and former White House Director of faith based initiatives, wrote a blistering expose entitled "The Death Book For Veterans," revealing President Obama's new Veterans Administration (VA) directive, presumably signed by VA Secretary, General (ret.) Eric Shinseki, which mandates all veterans' primary care physicians must graphically discuss "end of life planning" with all VA patients (not merely those nearing death), and must refer them to "Your Life, Your Choices," a book that openly encourages Euthanasia and was written with guidance from the group formerly known as the Hemlock Society. That same pro-suicide group now boasts on their web-site of directly leading the charge to ensure "end of life counseling" is mandated in the Obamacare bill, HR 3200.
On page 21 of the Shinseki-mandated Veteran's Euthanasia book, all military veterans are encouraged to complete a checklist of various scenarios, to decide whether their own life would be "not worth living." For example, the booklet asks veterans 7 questions pressuring veterans to sign a "living will" that authorizes doctors to terminate your life, if you are:
"This hurry-up-and-die message is clear and unconscionable," says Towey, "Worse, a July 2009 VA directive [presumably signed by Shinseki] instructs its primary care physicians to raise advance care planning with all VA patients and to refer them to 'Your Life, Your Choices.' [the Euthanasia booklet.] Not just those of advanced age and debilitated condition-all patients. America's 24 million veterans deserve better." Towey recommends a "five wishes" living-will document that does not pressure suicide.
But instead the Hemlock Society booklet is now MANDATED for doctor referral to all patients in all VA hospitals, heaping more evidence upon the growing list of proofs that the Obama Administration is LYING TO THE PUBLIC by denying their health care plan pushes Euthanasia on the elderly. They already do it today. Just imagine if ALL hospitals become government-run like the VA.
We all gasped when the federal government seized control of General Motors, and Obama effectively fired the Chairman and replaced the board with government bureaucrats selected by Treasury Secretary Geithner. Now Obama and his liberal Democratic House allies want to replace your doctors with bureaucrats, hasten grandma's demise, abort and kill children in urban neighborhoods, cut doctors' pay and control their religion, and transform Private hospitals into government-controlled atheist bureaucracies. Does any of this remind you of Communism? I won't stand idly by to allow this. I will fax Congress to say, "no to Obamacare." Will you? Please sign our petition and I'll send your faxes now. Then please forward this email to all your friends who care about our beloved country, especially those senior citizens who may be at greatest risk.
Please, take action right away to STOP this bill dead in its tracks!
For more information, visit http://www.ameripac.org/
Defend America, 
Alan Gottlieb
AmeriPAC
President and Founder
P.S. Time is urgent! When the House and Senate return from summer vacation their first priority is to send Obama this dangerous "health" care bill. Please don't delay, but sign our petition today!
P.S. America needs health care reform. But new government programs, mandates, and price controls would deny patients control over their most important and personal medical decisions -- and it's "reform" that we cannot afford.
THIS ATTEMPT BY LIBERALS IS OUTRAGEOUS -- and it MUST be stopped! Send your faxes right away to make sure these Senators get a STRONG message, to REJECT the socialized plan of "Obamacare" NOW -- Thank you!
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And let us take note, that if the administration and Dems in the House are lying to us about “Duty to Die” as it relates to Veterans, who fought to keep them and us free and we know that rationing takes place in Canada and Britain and in other “government-run” healthcare countries, the notion that the same will be done with seniors and special needs patients is hardly far fetched!
NO Public Option of Any Kind!!!
Government-Run Co-ops = a Public Option
A Trigger = a Public Option… Just Delayed
We Need Healthcare Reform, but ObamaCare is not it!!
Insist that Congress dump all the Bills presently on the table and START OVER! in a logical and bipartisan manner!
Source: Knowledge Creates Power – Cross Posted: Daily Thought Pad
Posted: True Health Is True Wealth
A Catholic mother holds her 2-year-old son as she visits the Sacred Heart of Mary Memorial Wall for the Unborn near Boulder, Colo., where thousands of fetal remains are buried. (AP Photo)With Democrats planning a September vote on a sweeping new healthcare plan, America’s Catholic leadership is becoming increasingly concerned that the legislation will lead to federal funding of abortions.
Though U.S. Catholic bishops have long supported universal healthcare, they now find themselves in the troublesome position of seeing such a program fund abortion.
The implications of government-controlled healthcare would have serious implications for Catholic health institutions. One in eight hospitals in the United States is affiliated with the Catholic Church, according to The Wall Street Journal. They employ 750,000 people and care for 16 percent of all hospital admissions.
If government bureaucrats or the courts mandated abortion coverage, it could place the nation’s Catholic hospitals in a difficult situation. Some Catholic leaders have threatened to close their facilities if they are forced to conduct abortion procedures.
If Democratic healthcare reform becomes law, it will engender a huge expansion of abortion, said Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz.
"You know, one of the side issues that nobody pays any attention to, this healthcare plan will be the largest expansion of abortion in the United States since Roe v. Wade," Franks said on Fox News on Sunday. "Only this time, it will be paid for with taxpayer dollars."
"People don't see that as healthcare," he added.
In late July, Cardinal Justin Rigali, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Pro-Life Activities, wrote a letter to the House Energy and Commerce Committee warning that "much-needed reform must not become a vehicle for promoting an 'abortion rights' agenda."
In Massachusetts, the state-run health plan already subsidizes abortions for low and moderate-income women. This has created conflict between Church and state due to the requirement for Catholic hospitals to provide abortion referrals. The mandate flies in the face of Catholic teaching, and the Church hopes to keep this from happening nationwide.
Before the 1977 Hyde Amendment barred Medicaid from paying for abortions, courts and bureaucrats mandated abortion coverage because it was legal and not excluded from Medicaid. This precedent has reinforced Catholic concerns, because the House version of the healthcare reform bill lacks specific language barring abortion coverage.
Rigali's letter took issue with provisions of the bill, asserting that it could lead to federal funding of abortions and thereby violate the spirit of the Hyde Amendment.
“The legislation delegates to the Secretary of Health and Human Services the power to make abortion a basic or essential benefit in all health plans, or in the 'public plan' created by the legislation,” Rigali wrote. “This would be a radical change.”
Rigali also expressed concern that provisions in the bill requiring “timely access to all benefits covered by qualified health plans” could be used by the courts to invalidate state laws regulating abortions, such as those aimed at promoting a woman’s safety and parental notification.
His letter calls for the protection of conscience rights to prevent pro-life healthcare providers from being discriminated against if they decline to be involved with abortions.
The Rev. Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, and Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, echo the cardinal’s concerns and contend the healthcare legislation would cover abortions by default.
“This is a stealth FOCA bill,” Pavone said, referring to the Freedom of Choice Act.
That bill would guarantee women the "fundamental right" to "terminate a pregnancy prior to fetal viability," or to protect the life of the mother. Catholic opposition has prevented it from coming up for a vote this year.
“We know the provisions remain the goals of the abortion advocates, and healthcare reform offers them a good opportunity to put part of it in the bill," Pavone said.
"They may say [the bill] doesn’t mention abortion, but we say that unless abortion is specifically excluded from the bill, it is included.”
Catholics United, a left-leaning Catholic group, contends that the Capps amendment addresses Cardinal Rigali’s concerns and those of other pro-life Catholics. The amendment, which Rep. Lois Capps, D-Calif., introduced, passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee on July 30.
Supporters say it would bar the use of federal money to directly fund abortions, while allowing the funding of plans that provide abortions. It also includes a conscience provision that would bar discrimination against health providers who refuse to be involved with abortions, and would prevent state laws regulating abortion from being preempted.
“Capps is as close to a 95 percent abortion-neutral bill as we can get,” said Chris Korzen of Catholics United. “Work still needs to be done on specific parts, but the Capps amendment is still a little ways away from [providing] a true common ground on this issue.”
Donohue and others remain unconvinced that the Capps amendment would prevent federal dollars from being used to fund abortions.
“There is no question that the AP and New York Times are right that it does in fact provide funding for abortion,” Donohue said. “When [Republican Congressman Joe Pitts of Pennsylvania] put the question to counsel asking if it would allow for funding of abortion, he was told it would, so it is not a moot question.”
Passage of a healthcare reform package that angers Catholics could make abortion a huge issue in upcoming elections. Catholics number slightly more than 68 million in the U.S., according to the Official Catholic Directory 2009. They constitute 22 percent of the population, making them a key swing-voting group.
If the healthcare reform passes as it is written in HR 3200…
By: John Rossomando - Monday, August 10, 2009 7:08 PM – NewsWeek
Posted: TrueHealthIsTrueWealth
My "Citizens, heal thyselves" item Wednesday on the responsibility of individuals to reform their own health care prompted inquiries from readers wanting to know more about what I referred to as Safeway Inc.'s stick-and-carrot approach.
The carrot: discounted premiums or refunds for passing the screenings or showing improvement. The stick: higher premiums for failing tests and no measurable improvement in behavior. "Holding people accountable gives them incentives," said Ken Shachmut, the Safeway senior vice president who oversees the health program.
It has also kept Safeway's health care costs, amounting to $1 billion or so a year, mostly flat over the past five years, an achievement few other companies can claim, said Shachmut, who admits battling his own weight problems.
The voluntary program now covers 25,000 employees, or about three-quarters of Safeway's nonunion workforce. Elements of the program are included in contracts covering Safeway's union workers, who fall outside the company's self-insurance plan. Shachmut said most of its 200,000 union workers should be participating in the program within the next six years. The main thing that employees covered by the program seem to want, said Shachmut, is "more discounts."
In the meantime, Safeway is spreading its consumer-driven approach via the recently formed Coalition to Advance Healthcare Reform (coalition4healthcare.org), founded by company CEO Steve Burd. The 63 corporate members include Bay Area companies McKesson Corp., PG&E, Clorox Co., and Kaiser Permanente.
"This is the silver lining in the cloud of rising health costs. If we can design incentives in these core areas, we have a fighting chance of getting our arms around it," Shachmut said.
More details: You can find more on Safeway's program at links.sfgate.com/ZHIV. A Chronicle feature that ran earlier this year, is online at sfgate.com/ZHJB. Safeway CEO Burd penned on op-ed on the subject in Friday's Wall Street Journal, available at links.sfgate.com/ZHIX.
The Journal also has a news story in Friday's edition questioning the efficacy of prevention programs (links.sfgate.com/ZHIY). On the other hand, a 2007 nationwide survey of 355 human resources and health benefits managers suggested a strong correlation between wellness programs and increased productivity and market and shareholder value. (links.sfgate.com/ZHIZ).
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How Safeway Is Cutting Healthcare Costs
At Safeway we believe that well-designed health-care reform, utilizing market-based solutions, can ultimately reduce our nation's health-care bill by 40%. The key to achieving these savings is health-care plans that reward healthy behavior. As a self-insured employer, Safeway designed just such a plan in 2005 and has made continuous improvements each year. The results have been remarkable. During this four-year period, we have kept our per capita health-care costs flat (that includes both the employee and the employer portion), while most American companies' costs have increased 38% over the same four years.
Martin Kozlowski
Safeway's plan capitalizes on two key insights gained in 2005. The first is that 70% of all health-care costs are the direct result of behavior. The second insight, which is well understood by the providers of health care, is that 74% of all costs are confined to four chronic conditions (cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes and obesity). Furthermore, 80% of cardiovascular disease and diabetes is preventable, 60% of cancers are preventable, and more than 90% of obesity is preventable.
As much as we would like to take credit for being a health-care innovator, Safeway has done nothing more than borrow from the well-tested automobile insurance model. For decades, driving behavior has been correlated with accident risk and has therefore translated into premium differences among drivers. Stated somewhat differently, the auto-insurance industry has long recognized the role of personal responsibility. As a result, bad behaviors (like speeding, tickets for failure to follow the rules of the road, and frequency of accidents) are considered when establishing insurance premiums. Bad driver premiums are not subsidized by the good driver premiums.
As with most employers, Safeway's employees pay a portion of their own health care through premiums, co-pays and deductibles. The big difference between Safeway and most employers is that we have pronounced differences in premiums that reflect each covered member's behaviors. Our plan utilizes a provision in the 1996 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act that permits employers to differentiate premiums based on behaviors. Currently we are focused on tobacco usage, healthy weight, blood pressure and cholesterol levels.
Safeway's Healthy Measures program is completely voluntary and currently covers 74% of the insured nonunion work force. Employees are tested for the four measures cited above and receive premium discounts off a "base level" premium for each test they pass. Data is collected by outside parties and not shared with company management. If they pass all four tests, annual premiums are reduced $780 for individuals and $1,560 for families. Should they fail any or all tests, they can be tested again in 12 months. If they pass or have made appropriate progress on something like obesity, the company provides a refund equal to the premium differences established at the beginning of the plan year.
At Safeway, we are building a culture of health and fitness. The numbers speak for themselves. Our obesity and smoking rates are roughly 70% of the national average and our health-care costs for four years have been held constant. When surveyed, 78% of our employees rated our plan good, very good or excellent. In addition, 76% asked for more financial incentives to reward healthy behaviors. We have heard from dozens of employees who lost weight, lowered their blood-pressure and cholesterol levels, and are enjoying better health because of this program. Many discovered for the first time that they have high blood pressure, and others have been told by their doctor that they have added years to their life.
Today, we are constrained by current laws from increasing these incentives. We reward plan members $312 per year for not using tobacco, yet the annual cost of insuring a tobacco user is $1,400. Reform legislation needs to raise the federal legal limits so that incentives can better match the true incremental benefit of not engaging in these unhealthy behaviors. If these limits are appropriately increased, I am confident Safeway's per capita health-care costs will decline for at least another five years as our work force becomes healthier.
The Healthy Measures program currently applies only to our nonunion work force. While we have numerous health and wellness provisions in our union contracts, we are working with union leaders like Joe Hansen of the United Food and Commercial Workers to incorporate healthy measures provisions in our union work force as well.
While comprehensive health-care reform needs to address a number of other key issues, we believe that personal responsibility and financial incentives are the path to a healthier America. By our calculation, if the nation had adopted our approach in 2005, the nation's direct health-care bill would be $550 billion less than it is today. This is almost four times the $150 billion that most experts estimate to be the cost of covering today's 47 million uninsured. The implication is that we can achieve health-care reform with universal coverage and declining per capita health-care costs.
There is a very real possibility that we will see positive transformational health-care reform in the near future. I am encouraged by the effort I see on Capitol Hill, particularly the bipartisan effort in the Senate. While some tough issues remain, if we continue to work in a bipartisan manner I believe we will resolve these issues successfully and find agreement on meaningful reform.
By STEVEN A. BURD - Mr. Burd is CEO of Safeway Inc., and the founder of the Coalition to Advance Healthcare Reform.
Steven Burd has testified in Washington D.C. and appeared on Fox News’ Huckabee. He has caught the attention of people from Senator Barbara Boxer to Rush Limbaugh; definitely opposite ends of the spectrum!! This is a great alternative to $600 Million in additional taxes and $400 Million in cuts to Medicare and Medicaid!!
Source: Daily Thought Pad
Posted: True Health Is True Wealth
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![[Steven A. Burd]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_sRdjxVhAMbM4ZskmRj1glmF9GcY9V_jPtTmOg25KCNmotHmoNLm_ruH69ezZ4A9zDYHpA-3zfPtH9bwdy1vF9GseqD5au8TPnRax_5wwAAE2b0tpdHOFxc3qMyTdVDA8VWlk4fdXoIu4znXDxzJw=s0-d)