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Dangerous healthcare provisions hidden in stimulus

Discussion in 'Political Debate & Discussion' started by rbell, Feb 10, 2009.

  1. rbell

    rbell Active Member

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    SOURCE

    From the article:

    Congratulations to those who want the federal government--the folks who bring us FEMA and the IRS, condoners of partial-birth abortion, and numerous other acts of genius...you're about to get your wish. Your family doctor will no longer answer to you, but to them. Nicely done. :mad:
     
  2. donnA

    donnA Active Member

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    The governement is not my doctor and has no right to interfere with my medical treatments. Whatever happeend to medical privacy laws. Down the drain I supose.

    Governement in control of the health care of every citizen, not the patient or their doctor.
    Just why do they think they have the right.
     
  3. KenH

    KenH Well-Known Member

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    hope this gets us closer to a single payer system.


    WHAT IS THE LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE?

    The Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care (LCGHC) is the national alliance for single payer healthcare reform–publicly funded, privately delivered healthcare for all. We are a coalition of groups promoting comprehensive reform legislation to guarantee health care for all Americans as a basic human right. Despite spending twice as much as other industrialized nations, our mostly private health insurance system performs poorly. One third of every health care dollar spent pays for something other than healthcare–paperwork, profit and other administrative costs of private insurance that have little to do with addressing disease or injury. Poor health and poor healthcare hold down the U.S. economy and reduce productivity and further weaken the nation’s economy. A guaranteed health care program patterned after Medicare can provide coverage for all, while at the same time saving close to $300 billion per year.

    - http://guaranteedhealthcare4all.org/
     
  4. rbell

    rbell Active Member

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    The only time you have a "right to privacy" is if you are killing your child, apparently. :tear:
     
  5. rbell

    rbell Active Member

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    Most Americans are no longer willing to take enough initiative and personal responsibility to watch after their medical affairs.

    And with Government Almighty "handling it" for them, most Americans won't even bother looking at their bill, precriptions, etc.

    This train wreck will be such a hotbed of corruption, it'll make Congress, FEMA, and Illinois Government look like a boys' choir.

    But hey...who cares, as long as "someone else" foots the bill, huh?

    We deserve what we get as Americans, because we'd rather someone else take care of us, than us take care of ourselves.
     
  6. Aaron

    Aaron Member
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    That pretty much happens with people who have insurance. The insurer is the customer, not the insured.
     
  7. Deacon

    Deacon Well-Known Member
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    WoW Aaron I agree with you! :laugh:

    Doctors have already given up their autonomy.
    To reduce costs, health care insurers already monitor and approve what tests can be performed.

    They reduce the amount of tests performed by refusing to approve physicians orders until the physician jumps through multiple hoops.

    Approvals for tests are ever increasingly becoming an arduous burden.

    Slowing approvals (referrals) frustrates a people who inevitably delay or never have the tests done.
    Result... lower costs for the insurance company, who don't pay out.

    There are two best outcome scenarios for an insurace company.
    1. A well patient that pays for his insurance and never needs his benefits.
    2. A sick patient that pays for his insurance and never gets his tests and then dies at home.

    Rob
     
  8. donnA

    donnA Active Member

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    apparently, you are right.
     
  9. rbell

    rbell Active Member

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    Even though you're right, in a perfect world, folks would realize not checking one's bill, or shopping for the best price, etc., ends up costing you...the insured...as costs are passed on.

    IMO, this is especially a problem with folks who pay nothing for insurance...because the cost isn't passed on to them...yet.

    Since I'm forking over $10K per year out of my pocket, I keep a watch on things. I wish others did. :(
     
  10. billwald

    billwald New Member

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    >The governement is not my doctor and has no right to interfere with my medical treatments.

    Unless my tax money is paying for your viagra. The one who pays the piper names the tune.
     
  11. rbell

    rbell Active Member

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    Which strikes at the heart of why government healthcare is such a terrible idea: Loss of one's liberty.
     
  12. StefanM

    StefanM Well-Known Member
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    Shopping for the best price isn't always useful when you have insurance. The sticker price is almost never going to be what is allowed by the plan, and the doctor may not necessarily be able to quote what the insurance plan will allow. Plus, if you go to an in-network doctor (or on plans like mine, you HAVE to), the rates are pretty much going to be the same.

    Plus it's not always easy to get an appointment in a timely fashion if you are a new patient. Shopping around may end up delaying treatment.
     
  13. rbell

    rbell Active Member

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    Those are valid points.

    I do wish that anytime anyone went into the hospital, they would get an itemized bill, and go over it.

    When my last child was born (C-section, complications, NICU for two weeks...bill: $90K+), I got an itemized bill. When I was done correcting errors and asking questions (nicely), over $1,000 went away. If those kind of overcharges, duplicate charges, and errors are made on my bill...how many more of those issues are out there? And how many are simply ignored?

    Was I going to pay that $1K? Not then...but someday, someone would.
     
  14. StefanM

    StefanM Well-Known Member
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    With my insurance, I have no incentive to request an itemized bill. I pay $500 flat rate for a hospital admission, with everything else covered 100%.

    It all depends on the plan.
     
  15. rbell

    rbell Active Member

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    BUt...if your insurance is paying for medicine you didn't take...duplicate charges...billing errors...

    ...Isn't it in your best interest to find those errors and correct them, so that the excess costs eventually aren't passed on to the consumer?
     
  16. KenH

    KenH Well-Known Member

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    Misinformation On Health Information Technology

    Late last month, the House passed an economic recovery package containing $20 billion for health information technology, which would require the Department of Health and Human Services to develop standards by 2010 for a nationwide system to exchange health data electronically. The version of the recovery package passed by the Senate yesterday contains slightly less funding for health information technology ("health IT"). But as Congress moves to reconcile the two stimulus packages, conservatives have begun attacking the health IT provisions, falsely claiming that they would lead to the government "telling the doctors what they can't and cannot treat, and on whom they can and cannot treat." The conservative misinformation campaign began on Monday with a Bloomberg "commentary" by Hudson Institute fellow Betsy McCaughey, which claimed that the legislation will have the government "monitor treatments" in order to "'guide' your doctor's decisions." McCaughey's imaginative misreading was quickly trumpeted by Rush Limbaugh and the Drudge Report, eventually ending up on Fox News, where McCaughey's opinion column was described as "a report." In one of the many Fox segments focused on the column, hosts Megyn Kelly and Bill Hemmer blindsided Sens. Arlen Specter (R-PA) and Jon Tester (D-MT) with McCaughey's false interpretation, causing them to promise that they would "get this provision clarified." On his radio show yesterday, Limbaugh credited himself for injecting the false story into the stimulus debate, saying that he "detailed it and now it's all over mainstream media."

    McCAUGHEY GETS THE FACTS WRONG: In her commentary, McCaughey writes, "One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective." But the fact is, this isn't a new bureaucracy. The National Coordinator of Health Information Technology already exists. Established by President Bush in 2004, the office "provides counsel to the Secretary of HHS and Departmental leadership for the development and nationwide implementation" of "health information technology." Far from empowering the Office to "monitor doctors" or requiring private physicians to abide by treatment protocols, the new language tasks the National Coordinator with "providing appropriate information" so that doctors can make better informed decisions. As Media Matters noted, the language in the House bill, on which McCaughey based her column, does not establish authority to "monitor treatments" or restrict what "your doctor is doing" with regard to patient care. Instead, it addresses establishing an electronic records system so that doctors can have complete, accurate information about their patients. The Wonk Room's Igor Volsky pointed out that "this provision is intended to move the country towards adopting money-saving health technology (like electronic medical records), reduce costly duplicate services and medical errors, and create jobs."

    HEALTH I.T. BELONGS IN RECOVERY PACKAGE: Projected to create over 200,000 jobs, the funding for health information technology in the recovery package is both an important stimulus and a down-payment on broader health care reform.

    ...

    MCCAUGHEY'S POISONING HEALTH REFORM AGAIN: Responding to her Bloomberg commentary, the New Republic's health care writer Jonathan Cohn noted that "Elizabeth McCaughey is up to her old tricks again." "Not content to have poisoned one major health care debate, she seems determined to poison this one, too," wrote Cohn. In 1994, McCaughey published a "viciously inaccurate" article on the Clinton health care plan in the New Republic, which is credited with having "completely distorted the debate on the biggest public policy issue of 1994." McCaughey's article claimed that there would be "no exit" from the Clinton plan, and individuals would be prevented from "going outside the system to buy basic health coverage" that they preferred. But, as the Atlantic's James Fallows pointed out after the Clinton plan was defeated, McCaughey ignored "the first provision of the bill," which clearly said: "Nothing in this Act shall be construed as prohibiting the following: (1) An individual from purchasing any health care services." Just like in 1994, McCaughey's latest Bloomberg commentary provides page numbers from the legislation to give her claims the aura of credibility. But just as in 1994, McCaughey's assertions are not supported by the language of the bill she cites.

    - rest at http://pr.thinkprogress.org/2009/02/...ml/mobile.html
     
  17. rbell

    rbell Active Member

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    Thank you, Ken, for such an unbiased analysis. :rolleyes:

    I'd rather my doctor be in charge of my healthcare than some Washington Bureaucrat. "Government" healthcare, by definition, is not controlled by the individual or their caregivers.
     
  18. billwald

    billwald New Member

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    Read someplace that Medicare spends 90% of their money in the last two years of a person's life. If statistical analysis was used to "triage" the cases - I think Oregon is doing it - and Medicare expenses could be cut 80% . . . the Bible only promises 70 years?

    Thanks to Medicare and an AT&T pension, the medical costs of my Dad's last two years cost someone, not him, more cold cash than he earned in his entire life. I suspect this is true in many case.

    Is the government obligated to keep every person alive as long as it is technically possible no matter the cost?

    Is every doper and wino "owed" medical treatments equal to that which past presidents routinely receive?
     
  19. LeBuick

    LeBuick New Member

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    I saw this on Fox this morning and what is being alleged by the right is simply not the case. The legislations says the government will make information available but the final decision will still be made by the doctor and patient. The additional information means your doctor may learn of treatments and procedure they were not aware of. I understand this will bring modern techniques to the rural doctors.

    It's incredible how the right is falsely representing this bill. I am not saying it's perfect but they should find the real problems and stop these fear campaigns spreading untruths.
     
  20. StefanM

    StefanM Well-Known Member
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    If we ALL did it, yes. But as an individual, no.
     
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