NO DRUG IMPORT APPROVAL Means No Health Care Reform!
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From: Rachel Uchitel on 18 Dec 2009 11:47 As Obama has hinted, without meaningful cost controls on major components of our medical-health programs, the result will eventually be U.S. BANKRUPTCY! ------------------------- "Health-reform legislation would accomplish more than critics admit" By Henry J. Aaron Op-Ed The Washington Post Friday, December 18, 2009; A31 In recent columns, Robert J. Samuelson has argued that extending health insurance to 25 million to 35 million uninsured Americans is undesirable unless and until health spending is controlled ["Obamacare: Buy now, pay later," Nov. 16; "A savings mirage on health care," Dec. 14]. The simple fact is that insuring tens of millions must initially raise health-care spending. How else could the previously uninsured enjoy an increase in health-care services? It is, however, fair to ask whether the bills under consideration pay for those added costs and promise credibly to slow the long-term growth of health-care spending. The Congressional Budget Office has answered the first question: The House-passed bill and the one before the Senate would offset the spending necessary to extend coverage with other spending cuts and tax increases. These bills would reduce the deficit slightly over the first 10 years and more later. Samuelson disparages the budget cuts because Congress has not always enforced promised spending reductions. Congress has, however, repeatedly stuck with promised cuts in health-care spending -- in 1990 and 1993 as part of budget deals that helped balance the budget in that decade, in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 and in the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. Most of these cuts, like those proposed in the health-care bills, were gradual. In contrast, Congress has refused to enforce poorly designed, meat-ax cuts in physicians' fees. Those cuts were so draconian that thousands of physicians were likely to have stopped serving Medicare patients. The poor design is regrettable. The failure to enforce a bad policy is not. In his column this week, Samuelson cited a Center for American Progress study and seemed to accept its estimates. But according to that study, the bills under consideration would shave more than $1 trillion from national health-care spending and use half that money to extend coverage. Yet Samuelson says that isn't good enough. He seems to want the legislation to identify sure-fire ways to slow the growth of health-care spending. What he does not note is that no one has guaranteed ways to slow the growth of health-care spending and that the pending bills include most of the ways experts believe are likely to succeed. The bills would simplify the administration of health insurance, support the study of which medical procedures work best, invest in preventive care, foster the creation of health-care organizations accountable for a broad range of services, bundle payments for in- patient and post-acute care, extend tests of "medical homes" that would organize primary-care delivery, penalize hospitals with excessive re-admission rates, reform the sale of insurance to individuals and small groups, and more. In addition, the Senate bill would tax high-cost health plans. It is easy to write about the need to transform health care and the evils of the fee-for-service system. But vague commentary does not help transform a $2.6 trillion industry -- an entity as large as the economy of Britain. It does not, as the proposed legislation would do, help to spread the team-oriented mode of health-care delivery that makes the Mayo Clinic both a high-quality and a low-cost deliverer of health care. It does not, as the proposed legislation would do, encourage all health providers to use health information technology as effectively as do Utah's Intermountain Healthcare and the Department of Veterans Affairs. It does not teach to every hospital administrator the advanced managerial techniques that make Pennsylvania's Geisinger Health System a leader in health-care management. It does not show private insurers how to replace the admittedly flawed fee-for-service system. Achieving these goals will take pilot programs, research and experimentation of the sort that the legislation before Congress would initiate. Enacting that legislation is the best way to slow the growth of health-care spending. But the reforms in that legislation will take effect slowly and they will operate against a powerful tide of population aging and advancing medical technology that will continue to drive up health-care spending. Like virtually every health-care analyst, I wish the bills before Congress did even more than they promise to do. In particular, I wish they moved more aggressively than any of the bills now does to curb the tax breaks for employer-financed health insurance that push up health-care spending. But waiting to pass reform until some undefined steps achieve unspecified additional savings would delay actions to improve the quality of health for all Americans. It would defer the very savings the nation needs. And it would force tens of millions of uninsured Americans to wait still more years (or even decades) for health coverage they need -- and deserve. [The writer, formerly director of economic studies at the Brookings Institution, is a senior fellow focusing on the reform of health-care financing; public systems such as Medicare; and tax and budget policy.] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/25/AR2009112503536.html
From: Peter B on 18 Dec 2009 11:53 "Rachel Uchitel" <lilhornie(a)yahoo.com> wrote in message news:da6cb9bf-acd9-42d3-83a7-3262bf56b50e(a)u20g2000vbq.googlegroups.com... > As Obama has hinted, without meaningful cost controls on major > components of our medical-health programs, the result will eventually > be U.S. BANKRUPTCY! > Darling, any health plan will result in us bankruptcy as well as the prelude of greatly reduced treatments such as is found in Canada and the UK.
From: James Fenimore on 18 Dec 2009 12:02 "Health-care bill wouldn't bring real reform" Op-Ed By Howard Dean The Washington Post Thursday, December 17, 2009; A33 IF I WERE A SENATOR, I would not vote for the current health-care bill. Any measure that expands private insurers' monopoly over health care and transfers millions of taxpayer dollars to private corporations is not real health-care reform. Real reform would insert competition into insurance markets, force insurers to cut unnecessary administrative expenses and spend health-care dollars caring for people. Real reform would significantly lower costs, improve the delivery of health care and give all Americans a meaningful choice of coverage. The current Senate bill accomplishes none of these. Real health-care reform is supposed to eliminate discrimination based on preexisting conditions. But the legislation allows insurance companies to charge older Americans up to three times as much as younger Americans, pricing them out of coverage. The bill was supposed to give Americans choices about what kind of system they wanted to enroll in. Instead, it fines Americans if they do not sign up with an insurance company, which may take up to 30 percent of your premium dollars and spend it on CEO salaries -- in the range of $20 million a year -- and on return on equity for the company's shareholders. Few Americans will see any benefit until 2014, by which time premiums are likely to have doubled. In short, the winners in this bill are insurance companies; the American taxpayer is about to be fleeced with a bailout in a situation that dwarfs even what happened at AIG. From the very beginning of this debate, progressives have argued that a public option or a Medicare buy-in would restore competition and hold the private health insurance industry accountable. Progressives understood that a public plan would give Americans real choices about what kind of system they wanted to be in and how they wanted to spend their money. Yet Washington has decided, once again, that the American people cannot be trusted to choose for themselves. Your money goes to insurers, whether or not you want it to. To be clear, I'm not giving up on health-care reform. The legislation does have some good points, such as expanding Medicaid and permanently increasing the federal government's contribution to it. It invests critical dollars in public health, wellness and prevention programs; extends the life of the Medicare trust fund; and allows young Americans to stay on their parents' health-care plans until they turn 27. Small businesses struggling with rising health-care costs will receive a tax credit, and primary-care physicians will see increases in their Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement rates. Improvements can still be made in the Senate, and I hope that Senate Democrats will work on this bill as it moves to conference. If lawmakers are interested in ensuring that government affordability credits are spent on health-care benefits rather than insurers' salaries, they need to require state-based exchanges, which act as prudent purchasers and select only the most efficient insurers. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) offered this amendment during the Finance Committee markup, and Democrats should include it in the final legislation. A stripped-down version of the current bill that included these provisions would be worth passing. In Washington, when major bills near final passage, an inside-the- Beltway mentality takes hold. Any bill becomes a victory. Clear thinking is thrown out the window for political calculus. In the heat of battle, decisions are being made that set an irreversible course for how future health reform is done. The result is legislation that has been crafted to get votes, not to reform health care. I have worked for health-care reform all my political life. In my home state of Vermont, we have accomplished universal health care for children younger than 18 and real insurance reform -- which not only bans discrimination against preexisting conditions but also prevents insurers from charging outrageous sums for policies as a way of keeping out high-risk people. I know health reform when I see it, and there isn't much left in the Senate bill. I reluctantly conclude that, as it stands, this bill would do more harm than good to the future of America. [The writer is a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee and was governor of Vermont from 1991 to 2002.] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/16/AR2009121601906.html
From: AZDuffman on 18 Dec 2009 12:20 On Dec 18, 11:47 am, Rachel Uchitel <lilhor...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > As Obama has hinted, without meaningful cost controls on major > components of our medical-health programs, the result will eventually > be U.S. BANKRUPTCY! You need to learn ECON 101. You CANNOT control the cost of something. If you slap a control on it, supply will shrink or dissapear. The probelm in health care is the "customer" is rarely the person who actually pays. Imagine if we had a truly competitive system. You would buy "insurance" for major thigs over say $5-10,000 only. This would greatly reduce paperwork, which will only expand under Obamacare. Then you put what you would be putting into premiums into a Health Savings Account. With that account you get a debit card under MC/ Visa. You use that debit card right at the doctor's office or when you get your perscription. Next, the doctor or clinic would be required to post prices for most procedures right in the office and online. This should be fairly easy since the majority of the office visit is a predictible cost. Then you act like a consumer and compare! Just like the price on LASIK came way down, so would other prices. This would be far better than nationalizing the health care system and having a "DMV Experience" at the doctor's office.
From: Citizen Jimserac on 18 Dec 2009 13:37
On Dec 18, 11:53 am, "Peter B" <origin...(a)frag.com> wrote: > "Rachel Uchitel" <lilhor...(a)yahoo.com> wrote in message > > news:da6cb9bf-acd9-42d3-83a7-3262bf56b50e(a)u20g2000vbq.googlegroups.com... > > > As Obama has hinted, without meaningful cost controls on major > > components of our medical-health programs, the result will eventually > > be U.S. BANKRUPTCY! > > Darling, any health plan will result in us bankruptcy as well as the > prelude of greatly reduced treatments such as is found in Canada and the > UK. Funny thing though, those Universal Health Care plans in Canada and UK have been in place for DECADES and in both case were adapted by POPULAR DEMAND. Pretty strange for systems that apparently you think DON'T WORK? Eh? Citizen Jimserac |