You stayed in a job you didn’t like, to lock in your family’s health care benefits; you invested in supplementary health insurance plus a tax-free medical savings account for good measure, figuring Medicare would go broke by the time you needed it. You thought you were set. What a sucker! Now Congress is redoubling its efforts to assure that some mix of “ObamaCare” and 1990s-era “HillaryCare” merges, plunging America into socialized medicine. Did we ask for this? Well, yes and no…

The President called for a health-care summit yesterday, February 25. The Washington Post’s E. J. Dionne, Jr., among others wrote last week that this new push would “determine the shape of American politics for the next three years.”

Mr. Obama and the socialist-minded Democrats in Congress pretended to throw the ball into the Republicans’ court. Labeling conservative GOP members “obstructionists” and “naysayers,” they believed, was a sure-fire way to nudge them in a more amenable direction. 

But if this gambit turned out not to lead to the passage of a comprehensive health-care bill, wrote Dionne, “Democrats and Obama are in for a miserable time for the rest of his term.” That’s because the Democrats’ version of health care reform would help solidify the imposition of a Nanny State.

But Thursday’s health care summit wasn’t expected to accomplish much, according to USA Today’s front page Thursday headline, given the angst already surrounding ObamaCare. It did represent, however, a determination by the President and Democratic Congress to draw a line in the sand and make health care reform a domestic priority.  It also reflected a recognition by the President that he must have at least some Republican support to get health-care reform pass.

Republicans, of course, accused the President of using the summit as political theater, and had even raised the prospect of not attending. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) called Democrats "arrogant" for refusing to scrap their legislation outright and start over.

"You know, they’re saying, ‘Ignore the wishes of the American people. We know more about this than you do. And we're going to jam it down your throats no matter what’," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Fox News Sunday.

"The only thing bipartisan about it would be the opposition to it,” he added, pointing to opposition in the Democratic camp as well. Even those who favor a Nanny State in principle, often aren’t ready for the kinds of choices being suggested in the name of reform being foisted upon their own extended family members. Remember that congressional health insurance — touted as “the best there is” —  is restricted to immediate, not to extended, family members.

Despite the partisan bickering, most people know all is not well in MedicalLand USA. With the exception of Members of Congress, the U.S. Supreme Court and the President, nobody gets the kind of “Cadillac” coverage which that term implies, including even run-of-the-mill Federal employees. While federal workers do get the Federal Government Program version of whatever insurance carrier they decide on, it doesn’t provide much when push comes to shove. There’s a small break on high-tech hearing aids, for example, which the average citizen does not get. And there’s a little better deal on copays for medicine. But for the five-and six-figure illnesses, it’s almost as bad as ordinary coverage.

In no way does anybody’s insurance compare to the treatment received by the extremely wealthy — a Senator Kennedy, for example, or a House Speaker Pelosi, or a well-known movie star—all of whom have so many millions that insurance “coverage” per se is not even a passing thought; they just pay up front. So, mandatory insurance coverage for these individuals would not be an altogether enticing prospect. And face it, these are the same folks bankrolling political campaigns.

What up-front payment buys in layman’s terms (not to put too fine a point on it) is that when the super-rich are told they must put up with the unpleasantness of preparing for a colonoscopy the next day, they can go to the hospital and avail themselves of some Tender Loving Care, instead of spending the entire night home alone in the bathroom in misery. Nor are they sent home the minute the procedure is completed to recuperate, again availing themselves of another miserable night in the restroom. And when the exceptionally wealthy woman delivers a baby, nobody suggests ejecting her from the hospital the day afterward; she spends, not one, but several, days recuperating in a well-equipped room, with someone to bathe her and supply her with pain medications should she want them.

When the rich are diagnosed with cancer, they may elect to undergo chemotherapy, but they are not intimidated doing so. If they choose to, they endure it with some measure of dignity.  They do not barf their lungs out in their bedroom, unable even to get up, or endure hour after hour of fire-hose diarrhea and then be expected to “just tough it out” the way most of the rest of us do. That’s the real meaning of “CadillaCare,” which back in the 1950s would not have been referred to as such because most of the middle class expected, and received, this quality of care.

That's no longer the case, unfortunately. The problems with health care are systemic, mostly owing to overregulation, competition for grant monies and poorly thought-out approaches to privacy in a computerized age. None of these can be dealt with by mandating universal insurance coverage, through medical savings accounts or tax breaks.

Indeed, you know something’s amiss when a stripper named Cynthia Hess (a.k.a. "Chesty Love"), of Green Bay, Wisconsin, can win a $2,088 tax deduction for implants that enlarged her bust size to freak show proportions (size 56FF, that’s 10 pounds per bosom, if you need to know). Yet, in Bethesda, Maryland, Karen Tomasow-Richardson, a federal employee with full coverage under the Federal Government Employee insurance program got only $3,000 of an approximately $90,000 bill for a series of operations that included a combination of emergency bone grafts and implants which staved off infection and, in the end, saved her life.

The upshot is that the present health care system has gotten out of hand and is no longer serving Americans well — regardless of political persuasion or ethnicity or employer. Sometimes the reasons are not addressed at all, or they are mischaracterized under current policy discussions. Among them:

• expensive new technologies, which are very useful, but way beyond the means of most Americans;
• pressure upon individuals to pursue expensive, exceedingly painful, experimental options at the threat of being charged with medical negligence (especially where their children are concerned), and leading many others to draw up highly detailed, expensive “Advanced Medical Directives” through an attorney ;
• artificially created shortages of doctors as a consequence of medical school admissions policies, in part influenced by such organizations as the American Medical Association;
• a precipitous decline in post-graduate course work, recordkeeping, and cross-training, leading to unjustifiable mistakes and unacceptable levels of patient discomfort;
• frivolous lawsuits by patients;
• a pharmacology industry that pushes medications having no established track record;
• health insurance companies that cover little but charge high premiums to satisfy investors (example from this author’s insurance:  the Blue Cross/Blue Shield Federal Government Program’s Metlife Dental supplement covering a mere $84 of a $3,389 bill);
• hospital emergency rooms that treat non-emergencies, often providing preferential care to the indigent and illegal aliens before legal citizens with insurance and life-threatening problems (to avoid allegations of “discrimination”);
• drug-enforcement policies that deny needed medications mainly to those who need them, while providing criminals and addicts with free care and, in the case of addicts, the highly addictive methadone as “treatment substitute”; and
• “privacy” regulations, via HIPPA, that discourage family involvement by denying necessary information, thereby often leaving their incapacitated loved ones in the lurch.

Stop-gap measures cannot address these issues, although there are some innovative ideas out there and available around the country. For example, private entities have opened 24-hour, walk-in emergency clinics in some cities, which is a step in a good direction. But that is a far cry from the “caring” doctor that came to people’s homes prior to 1960. And it does not begin to cover all the problem areas in the above list.

An enormous amount of well-considered, truly non-partisan work is needed to correct what has gone wrong in the nation’s health care system; among them, pilot projects, investment in research and development, better coordination with family members, programs aimed at encouraging training of more doctors and other medical personnel, restructuring of drug enforcement policies (absent the favoritism extended to government elites and celebrities), serious dialogue among the nation’s health insurers, improvements in record-keeping that incorporates privacy safeguards, and latitude in parental decision-making.

But such carefully considered approaches are being hijacked by the likes of left-wing, radical organizations like MoveOn.org, Health Care for America (HCAN) and  Service Employees International Union (SEIU). These particular three, for example, united on February 24, the day before the President's Health Care Summit to “deliver to Washington D.C., a scream they will never, ever forget.” Steve Elliott, of Grassfire Nation, took a look at their websites and noted that their so-called “One Million Voices for Healthcare Reform” was:

A Virtual March on Washington [that includes] calls, faxes, Tweets, Facebook, emails, telegrams, balloon drops and carrier pigeons. Whatever, it takes….   [Even] Obama's own organization, the one he relied so heavily upon to get elected, and renamed shortly after he arrived at the White House, Organizing for America (OFA) is calling for its volunteers to pledge 5 million hours to support members of Congress and candidates who fight for real health reform! According to their site, they already [had] 4 million volunteer hours!

Health care won’t be reformed until we discuss the good, the bad and the downright ugly. Ironically, it is the first wave of Baby Boomers who actually can remember the way it used to be, when they were children and the doctor came to the house. Right now, these now-aging retirees are thinking to themselves: We may have health, but it sure isn’t “care.”


Beverly K. Eakman is a former educator and retired federal employee who served as speechwriter for the heads of three government agencies as well as editor-in-chief of NASA’s newspaper (Johnson Space Center).  Today, she is a Washington, DC-based freelance writer, the author of five books, and a frequent keynote speaker on the lecture circuit. Her most recent book is Walking Targets: How Our Psychologized Classrooms Are Producing a Nation of Sitting Ducks (Midnight Whistler Publishers).

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CommieBlaster

February 26, 2010

76.107.180.104

Votes: +0

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OBAMACARE - YEAR IN REVIEW

This Brand New, 5-Star Hilarious and Shocking Video provides a Fast-Paced Look at the No-Lie-Too-Big, Socialist Ideologues Who Now Run Our Country.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Rv7aW3NF7w

MUST WATCH! 

Larry Brown

February 26, 2010

209.40.77.108

Votes: +4

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The ONE step that would go a long way is ...

IMHO, eliminating all third-party-payers would go a long way in reducing the cost of "health care." Third-party-payers would not exist without government "meddling" in the medical market place.

Socialism is the poison that kills nations.

rprew

February 26, 2010

72.201.107.33

Votes: +3

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Eliminate direct pay from insurance companies

Eliminating direct pay from insurance companies would do the following:
1. Drastically reduce fraud. Health care providers are not very liable to charge individuals for services not provided. Medicare and Medicaid are large fraud magnets and should be eliminated. Reducing fraud reduces costs to consumers.
2. The paperwork requirements placed on providers would be vastly eliminated and provide for reduced costs. This reduced costs are passed on to the consumer.
3. The patient-doctor relationship is improved and quality of care would be improved. No health insurance company is going to be second guessing treatment options. When the best treatment option is presented the first time, the patient recovers faster. Less treatment time results in savings, not just in dollars but in time. Having more time, health care professionals can treat more patients.
4. Some (many) consumers may better off without premiums, deductibles, and co-pays. Insurance would be more useful for catastrophic illness (e.g., cancer) than for day to day health care. Premiums would be based upon risk. Catastrophic insurance premiums for a young person could be quite low because of low risk, yet at the same time be entirely voluntary.

DDW

February 26, 2010

173.57.11.190

Votes: +2

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The best cure

Would be to get the government completely out of the way. Remember, government produces only mediocrity.

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