An Assessment of The Senate Healthcare Reform Legislation

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Ten Important Issues You Need to Know Regarding The Democrats’ Healthcare Reform Legislation

The following article enumerates 10 immensely important issues related to the healthcare legislation in its present iteration. This is not what America needs or wants but instead, what Congressional Democrats and Obama insist on imposing on us. Meanwhile, Obama and Congress will still have their own gold plated healthcare plan with innumerable choices all subsidized at the taxpayers’ expense.

As we have iterated myriad times, this is not about healthcare. This is about increased government power, control and regulation of our lives and restrictions of our rights and freedoms. If we don’t become more vociferous, passionate and actively fight this legislation in a united fashion, the government will relentless continue to further diminish and suppress our rights, freedoms and choices.

We must do whatever it takes to reclaim our country!

10 Lumps Of Coal In The Health Care Bill
By Betsy McCaughey

For most Americans, the health reform bill that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is pushing to pass will be worse than coal in their stockings. Herewith, the Top 10 List of Things You Don't Want From Health Care Reform This Christmas — But Will Get Anyway From Congress.

1. Higher premiums: If you pay for your own insurance, your premiums will cost 10% to 13% more than if the bill didn't pass, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Insurance won't be more affordable. Sixty percent of the newly insured are being enrolled in Medicaid, the public program for the poor.

2. A cost you can't afford and can't avoid: Though moderate-income families will get subsidies, buying insurance is mandatory. A family earning $54,000 will be expected to pay $9,000 (17% of pre-tax income) for the premium, co-pays and deductibles, according to the CBO. If you don't enroll, the IRS will find you and penalize you (Senate bill, p. 345).

3. A one-size-fits-all health plan: Your benefit package will be prescribed by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Whether you choose basic, silver or gold, and whether you pay for it yourself or qualify for a subsidy, your benefits are the same.

Gold plans simply collect more up front and give you a lower co-pay or deductible. It's unclear how possible it will be to buy supplemental insurance. The goal is to discourage health consumption and differences based on ability to pay.

4. A sin tax on your generous plan at work: This is another equalizer to discourage some people from getting more than others. The Senate bill puts a 40% tax on Cadillac plans (p. 1,980). About one-fifth of employer-provided plans fall into that "luxury" category. The CBO predicts that employers will downgrade your coverage to avoid the tax or reduce your take home pay.

5. Government controls on your doctors' decisions: The Senate bill bars doctors from participating in the private insurance system unless they implement whatever regulations the secretary of health and human services chooses to impose to "improve health care quality" (p. 149). That broad phrase encompasses everything in medicine.

This would be the first time in history that the federal government is given power over how doctors treat privately insured patients

6. Hospitals closed to seniors: The House and Senate bills slash payments to hospitals and other institutions that care for seniors. The chief actuary for Medicare, Richard Foster, warns that cuts in the House bill are so severe that some institutions may face severe losses or end their participation in Medicare (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, 11/13/09 report). Some seniors won't know where to go.

7. Bare-bones hospital care: Patients of all ages (and all incomes) will suffer when hospitals are in financial distress. Hospital budget cuts will mean shortages of nurses, equipment and cleaning staff. The president's chief health advisor, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, argues that hospitals in the U.S. offer more privacy and comfort than hospitals in Europe, and this "abundance of amenities" drives up costs (Journal of the American Medical Association, June 18, 2008).

8. Future Medicare cuts: Look out baby boomers, the Senate bill establishes an Independent Medicare Advisory Commission to make automatic spending reductions in future years while insulating Congress from the political fallout. You won't get as much care as people in Medicare currently get.

9. A new social agenda: Money is allocated for adult preparation activities, including lessons on positive self-esteem and relationship dynamics, friendships, dating (and) romantic involvement (Senate bill, p.612). There are also giveaways to immigrants. The Senate bill hands low-income legal immigrants government subsidies as soon as they get here, instead of waiting the five years Medicaid requires (Senate bill, p. 274).

10. A tell-all relationship with every doctor you see: What happens in your doctor's office must be recorded in an electronic data base that can send the information to insurers and other medical offices (Senate bill, p. 62-66). Every doctor you see will have access to your medical history. See a psychiatrist? Your foot doctor will know about it.

These congressional tidings bring no comfort or joy. We must save ourselves from Congress' power now that it has gone astray.

• McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York state and founder of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths.

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The Democrats’ Healthcare Legislation Will Sink The Greatest Healthcare System In The World

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What Congress Will Do to the American People With Healthcare Reform

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Congressional Democrats Show No Regard In Trampling Over Our Constitutional Rights in the Healthcare Legislation

The magnitude of corruption, bribery with our tax dollars and complete contempt and disregard for the wishes of the American people that occurred in the process of trying to legislate healthcare reform is essentially unprecedented in national politics. Congress’ responses to questions of Constitutionality of some of the mandates and clauses are dismissive. Obama and these Democrats are telling us: We don’t give a damn about what you want or don’t want and we will do as we please.

As we have been warming for a long time, this has become a dictatorial government that will trample over our rights and freedoms, steal and deal our tax dollars, and impose at will whatever legislation they deem important in order to satisfy their ideological goals.

We must do whatever it takes to reclaim our country!

Forever Gone
Investors Business Daily 12/22/2009

DeMint: Is health care reform even constitutional? AP Photo

Any law can be repealed, but the Democrats' radical health bill contains unprecedented language that could wreck the U.S. health system permanently. It's one of the dirtiest tricks yet.

'Page 1,020" — it may soon be a mantra for one of the most disturbing abuses of legislative power in history. In setting up an Independent Medicare Advisory Board, that page of the Senate health overhaul bill passed in the dead of night early Monday says, "It shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection."

This enters the realm of "hyperlaw" or "laws on steroids."

As Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., pointed out on the Senate floor, it isn't lawmaking, but rather "creating a Senate rule that makes it out of order to amend or even repeal the law."

DeMint is "not even sure that it's constitutional," since it affects "the fundamental purpose of Senate rules: to prevent a tyrannical majority from trampling the rights of the minority or of future Congresses."

Clearly liberal Democratic leaders will stoop to record depths to expand the federal government's powers.
Public support plummets well down into the 30s? They don't bat an eyelash.

Mandating an individual's purchase of a private service like insurance tramples the Constitution? Just watch them do it.
Bribe Senators Tom, Dick and Ben? Here's the cash.

As John Steele Gordon noted in Commentary, the Medicaid bribe that bought the vote of Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., is so unprecedented it may not withstand constitutional muster.

According to Gordon, "one could argue that Nebraskans will be getting what amounts to a rebate on federal taxes through the backdoor of lower state taxes," which might violate Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution requiring government collections to be "uniform throughout the United States."

As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid admits, "I don't know that there's a senator that doesn't have something in this bill that isn't important to them," adding that "if they don't have something in it important to them, then it doesn't speak well of them."

That is the arrogance of the mind-set dominating the legislative and executive branches: Your money is really theirs, to be handed out like a Mob-backed union boss toting a bag of cash on the waterfront.

When you put together Medicare and Medicaid recipients, government employees and contractors, and active and former military members and their dependents, over 40% of Americans receive government-subsidized health care. The Democrats' health care revolution would up that to a solid majority of our citizens.

American history shows that once an entitlement is enacted, it's next to impossible to erase. Catastrophic health care for seniors, passed 20 years ago, is the only such program ever repealed; the 1996 welfare reform severely limited that socially destructive entitlement.

The statists may now finally have bitten off more than they will be able to chew politically. If Republicans act like Republicans and convince the populist Tea Party movement not to go the suicidal third-party route, the coming public backlash will see to it that the greatest health care system in the world is not gone for good.

Look for demonstrators to start burning copies of Page 1,020 the way '60s radicals used to burn their draft cards.

URL   http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=516040

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A Clarion Warning: Obama’s Plans For America Are Indisputably Evil, Destructive and Must Be Thwarted!

The ever increasing magnitude of anger that is being generated by American citizens in response to what we see as an imperious, arrogant, dictatorial government is nothing short of remarkable. We are being treated contemptuously by a Government that disregards the will of the people, seeks to tax us to oblivion and “legally” redistribute the fruits of our labors, and aims to insinuate itself in every activity of our daily lives, restricting our freedoms and rights. Our present political and socioeconomic milieu is far more dire and repressive than what the Colonists contended with under King George just before the American Revolution.

Unfortunately, we are in the midst of a political perfect storm which threatens the whole underpinnings of our culture, rights, freedoms, and economic system. Our government has been hijacked by the extreme far left which has malevolent intentions for America. It has a super-majority that is essentially unstoppable legislatively but is also willing to employ corrupt, heavy handed tactics if warranted. Complicit in this and facilitating the situation is the vast majority of the press whose role in the past had always been to serve as a watchdog to protect the average American and keep the government more honest and in check.

Millions of Americans are not only concerned by our present situation but also by the perceived malignant intentions of our government starting with Obama on down. The rhetoric of these politicians is indisputably incongruous with their legislative actions whether it pertains to healthcare reform, the national debt or even our rights. These Democrats and radicals are actively and aggressively seeking to destroy the free America we knew and instead, transform it into a pseudo-dictatorship with the likes of Obama, Reid, Pelosi, Frank and Schumer at the helm.

It is imperative that we all understand the gravity of our present circumstances and then aggressively and pertinaciously act in whatever manner necessary to oppose and reverse this course. Unfortunately, with the Government’s relentless consolidation of power by means of unfettered legislative actions, a political solution may be difficult if not impossible to obtain.

We must do whatever it takes to reclaim our country!

The following article brilliantly, insightful and thoroughly explains why what we see as illogical actions by Obama and other “representatives of the people” are instead intentional, calculated, rational but malignant moves that can and may destroy America. This is a must read!

Cloward-Piven Government
By James Simpson

It is time to cast aside all remaining doubt. President Obama is not trying to lead America forward to recovery, prosperity and strength. Quite the opposite, in fact.

In September of last year, American Thinker published my article, Barack Obama and the Strategy of Manufactured Crisis. Part of a series, it connected then-presidential candidate Barack Obama to individuals and organizations practicing a malevolent strategy for destroying our economy and our system of government. Since then, the story of that strategy has found its way across the blogosphere, onto the airwaves of radio stations across the country, the Glenn Beck television show, Bill O'Reilly, and now Mark Levin.

The methodology is known as the Cloward-Piven Strategy, and we can all be grateful to David Horowitz and his Discover the Networks for originally exposing and explaining it to us. He describes it as:

The strategy of forcing political change through orchestrated crisis. The "Cloward-Piven Strategy" seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse.

Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven were two lifelong members of Democratic Socialists of America who taught sociology at Columbia University (Piven later went on to City University of New York). In a May 1966 Nation magazine article titled "The Weight of the Poor," they outlined their strategy, proposing to use grassroots radical organizations to push ever more strident demands for public services at all levels of government.

The result, they predicted, would be "a profound financial and political crisis" that would unleash "powerful forces ... for major economic reform at the national level."

They implemented the strategy by creating a succession of radical organizations, most notable among them the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), with the help of veteran organizer Wade Rathke. Their crowning achievement was the "Motor Voter" act, signed into law by Bill Clinton in 1993 with Cloward and Piven standing behind him.

As we now know, ACORN was one of the chief drivers of high-risk mortgage lending that eventually led to the financial crisis. But the Motor Voter law was another component of the strategy. It created vast vulnerabilities in our electoral system, which ACORN then exploited.

ACORN's vote registration scandals throughout the U.S. are predictable fallout.

The Motor Voter law has also been used to open another vulnerability in the system: the registration of vast numbers of illegal aliens, who then reliably vote Democrat. Herein lies the real reason Democrats are so anxious for open borders, security be damned.

It should be clear to anyone with a mind and two eyes that this president and this Congress do not have our interests at heart. They are implementing this strategy on an unprecedented scale by flooding America with a tidal wave of poisonous initiatives, orders, regulations, and laws. As Rahm Emmanuel said, "A crisis is a terrible thing to waste."

The real goal of "health care" legislation, the real goal of "cap-and-trade," and the real goal of the "stimulus" is to rip the guts out of our private economy and transfer wide swaths of it over to the government to control. Do not be deluded by the propaganda. These initiatives are vehicles for change. They are not goals in and of themselves except in their ability to deliver power. They and will make matters much worse, for that is their design.

This time, in addition to overwhelming the government with demands for services, Obama and the Democrats are overwhelming political opposition to their plans with a flood of apocalyptic legislation. Their ultimate goal is to leave us so discouraged, demoralized, and exhausted that we throw our hands up in defeat. As Barney Frank said, "the middle class will be too distracted to fight."

These people are our enemies. They don't use guns, yet, but they are just as dangerous, determined, and duplicitous as the communists we faced in the Cold War, Korea, Vietnam, and bush wars across the globe, and the Nazis we faced in World War II.

It is time we fully internalized and digested this fact, with all its ugly ramifications. These people have violated countless laws and could be prosecuted, had we the political power. Not only are their policies unconstitutional, but deliberately so -- the goal being to make the Constitution irrelevant. Their spending is off the charts and will drive us into hyperinflation, but it could be rescinded, had we the political power. These policies are toxic, but they could be stopped and reversed, had we the political power. Their ideologies are poisonous, but they could be exposed for what they are, with long jail sentences as an object lesson, had we the political power.

Every single citizen who cares about this country should be spending every minute of his or her spare time lobbying, organizing, writing, and planning. Fight every initiative they launch. It is all destructive. If we are to root out this evil, it is critical that in 2010 we elect  competent, principled leaders willing to defend our Constitution and our country. Otherwise, the malevolent cabal that occupies the government today will become too entrenched.

After that, all bets are off.

Businessman and Examiner.com columnist Jim Simpson is a former White House staff economist and budget analyst.

URL   http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/clowardpiven_government.html

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Obama Spews Audacious and Irresponsible Lies About Congressional Healthcare Reform Plan Just To Get It Passed

With audacious dishonesty and or abysmal comprehension of economic factors, Obama claimed in an interview that the Federal Government will go bankrupt if his healthcare reform isn’t passed. He is so suffused with arrogance and narcissism that he stated this with believable conviction.  All reputable studies indicate the opposite is indisputably true – we would all be better off if Obamanocare succumbed before it is implemented. Furthermore, they also revealed that health insurance premiums would be much higher under the government plan versus if nothing were done at all.

Congress with its most optimistic assessment has front loaded the fees and taxes to “pay” for the plan – collecting four years before any care (and therefore costs expended) is delivered. They attempt to show fiscal balance (and responsibility) in the first ten years by collecting 10 years of taxes and fees but just six years of care. This is just brazen but typical Congressional legerdemain. After this period even their data reveals that costs will exceed the collections. To make matters worse, experience has shown us repeatedly that the government estimates are always off a factor of three to ten or more – so the claimed $1 trillion cost becomes $3 to $10 trillion. Not chump change!

Read: President Obama: Federal Government 'Will Go Bankrupt' if Health Care Costs Are Not Reined In

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Come Hell or High Water, Congressional Democrats Want to Pass Obamacare

Congressional Democrats have arrogantly and unequivocally indicated in no uncertain terms that they know what’s better for the America than its citizens do and want to pass Obamacare come hell or high water and do it soon. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is seeking an immediate vote on the recently changed legislation despite the fact that no Senators have had the opportunity to read what they will be voting on. This is all in the face of strong and vociferous opposition by the majority of voters who don’t want the government running their healthcare.

The following editorial by Larry Elder clarifies some of the general issues in a straightforward manner.

Is Imbecility Covered Under Obama Plan?
By Larry Elder

Americans overwhelmingly like their health care and insurance. While they reject ObamaCare, the president and Congress insist on driving it through.

Up to 85% of us already have health insurance and are satisfied with it. Lacking health insurance is different from lacking health care — which, by law, emergency rooms must supply. Millions go without health insurance by choice.

Deduct from the number without insurance those who have access to it via entitlement programs, those temporarily without it while between jobs, those here illegally and those who could go on their parents' insurance plans by paying affordable amounts — and you're down to 10 million to 15 million people without insurance for longer than a year. This is 5% of Americans.

To address this, the president and the Democrats are this close to a complete government takeover of health care. And a takeover it is. Assuming some kind of plan reaches the president's desk, it will — at minimum — force all Americans to purchase health insurance or pay fines or worse.

It will force nearly all employers to provide health insurance or pay fines. It will tell health insurers that they must accept applicants with pre-existing illnesses and restrict their ability to "discriminate" based on factors like sex and age.

Incredibly, the president and Congress tell us that our economic recovery hinges on "health care reform" and that they can achieve it — providing millions of people with health insurance estimated to cost a trillion dollars in the first decade — while simultaneously reducing the deficit.

The plan anticipates cutting hundreds of billions from the popular Medicare programs, whose beneficiaries vote in numbers greater than any other age group. Doctors and hospitals already complain that Medicare reimbursements fall short of costs, let alone profits. Good luck with that.

"Health care reform" achieves its deficit-reducing magic by collecting taxes in the early years — building up money — while paying out very little. Only after the first four years does money go out. It also forces states to pick up part of the tab. So, voila, it actually reduces the deficit — at least in the first decade. Then what?

The Congressional Budget Office — in cost estimates full of caveats, conditions and on-the-one-hands — says that it could/might/may reduce the deficit in the second and third decades, too. Again, this assumes continued cuts in doctor and hospital reimbursements.

Despite the White House photo-op of docs in their white frocks, most physicians oppose ObamaCare. They resent further government supervision and control over their practice. An IBD poll found that 65% "oppose" ObamaCare and that 45% would consider taking early retirement or leaving their practice if the bill went through.

Given the broad opposition — most Americans, most doctors and seniors in fear of cuts in Medicare — why do it?

First, the Democrats — now in control of all three branches of government — have convinced themselves that they face a political price if they fail.

ObamaCare supporters, based on bogus assumptions and inflated numbers, argue that many, if not most, bankruptcy filings are due to health care bills. If, as President Obama asserts, "reforming" health care and economic prosperity go hand in hand, how can they abandon it?

Second, while a large majority of Republicans and most independents oppose these "reforms," Democrats overwhelming support them. They consider health care and health insurance a right — never mind the Constitution or the price tag — and think "the rich" should bear the costs.

Congressmen fear an electorate upset at a failure "to deliver" a victory over the evil, money-grubbing insurance companies.

Third, many believe in good faith that this is the "right thing to do."

This ignores the mountain of evidence that government command-and-control health care reduces quality, reduces innovation and inevitably leads to rationing. The president of the Canadian Medical Association says Canada's system — a single-payer kind, favored by President Obama — is "imploding." She calls for more competition.

Critics of our health care system say citizens in other countries enjoy longer life expectancies. But after adjusting for homicides, infant mortality due to teen pregnancies and low birth weights, obesity and other factors, the discrepancy disappears.

Our system produces the world's best results for cancer patients who go into medical care at the same time similarly situated patients enter their countries' care. Our drug companies lead the world in coming up with new life-extending and -enhancing drugs, a record at risk given new controls and taxes under the guise of "reform."

When the ObamaCare bill comes due — when the deficit explodes and the costs are "controlled" through government-directed rationing — supporters, including Obama, will long have departed Washington, leaving others to deal with the mess.

Meantime, bend over and cough. Or else.

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The Costs of Obamacare Will Destroy America

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Congressional Budget Office Increases Estimated Healthcare Savings From Meaningful Tort Reform By a Factor of 13

The Congressional Budget Office Director’s Blog post of Dec. 10th noted that an updated assessment of the effects of tort reform revealed a far greater potential savings could be realized than previously thought. The extent of change is quite staggering, going from an estimated $4 up to $52 billion for the period of 2010 to 2019 which is greater than a factor of 13. With our previous research, we strongly feel that even this updated number considerably underestimates the billions of dollars that could be saved annually with appropriate tort reform.

Additional Information on the Effects of Tort Reform

CBO has released a letter responding to questions posed by Senator Rockefeller about our recent analysis of the budgetary effects of proposals to limit costs related to medical malpractice (“tort reform”), as described in a letter to Senator Hatch on October 9. Today’s letter addresses questions about how recent empirical studies affected CBO’s analysis, why CBO’s latest estimates of the budgetary effects of tort reform are larger than the agency’s previous estimates, and whether tort reform would have a negative impact on patients’ health.

Recent Research Findings

CBO’s latest assessment of the effects of tort reform on spending for health care draws on a considerable amount of analysis that the agency has undertaken during the past several years and a stream of recent research studies that have used a variety of data and empirical techniques. Despite that analysis, estimates of the budgetary effects of tort reform are unavoidably uncertain, as is true for many other issues that CBO studies. In dealing with uncertainty, the agency consistently strives to produce estimates that lie in the middle of the distribution of plausible outcomes based upon available knowledge. After a careful evaluation of the research relevant to tort reform, along with discussions with members of the agency’s Panel of Health Advisers who have particular expertise in this topic, CBO concluded that the weight of empirical evidence now demonstrates a link between tort reform and the use of health care services.

CBO’s Updated Estimates of the Budgetary Effects of Tort Reform

CBO had previously estimated that enacting a common package of tort reform proposals would reduce federal deficits by $4 billion from 2010 to 2019, but CBO now estimates that those proposals would reduce federal deficits by about $54 billion during that period. The latest estimates are substantially larger for four principal reasons:

• The estimates include a larger effect of tort reform on medical malpractice costs;
• The estimates incorporate the effect of a gradual reduction in the utilization of health care services resulting from changes in the practice patterns of providers;
• The estimated effect on federal revenues was substantially smaller in the previous estimate (which reflected only a reduction in malpractice costs) than the estimated effect on revenues in the current estimate (which reflects the combined  effects of the reduction in malpractice costs and the change in spending attributable to changes in practice patterns); and
• The reduction in utilization is projected to generate a proportionately larger reduction in federal spending on health care than in other spending on health care.

Effects of Tort Reform on Patients’ Health

The potential impact of tort reform on the quality of health care and on health outcomes is an important consideration for policymakers. CBO’s letter to Senator Hatch observed that imposing limits on suits for damages resulting from negligent health care might be expected to have a negative impact on health outcomes. However, the limited evidence currently available about the effects of tort reform on health outcomes is much more mixed than the larger collection of evidence currently available about the effects of tort reform on health care spending.

URL  http://cboblog.cbo.gov/?p=441

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Congressional Democrats Acting Like Plantation Owners to the Enslaved American Public Regarding Healthcare

Sen. Harry Reid despicably called those who opposed his healthcare plan on par with slave owners and supportive of slavery. We feel that he has it all backwards. It is Congress that is acting like the slave owner, imposing crushing and intrusive mandates, massive increases of taxes, limitation of choices and rationing of healthcare on the American public.

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Healthcare Reform Legislation: Good Enough For the American Public But Not Good Enough For Congress

We have stated many times in previous posts that Obama and the Democrats in Congress want to impose a healthcare system on an unwilling American public that is the polar opposite of what these politicians speciously claim it to be. There will be severe restrictions on choices and availability of care with governmental rationing. Waiting times will be longer while the quality of care will plummet yet the total cost borne by each individual will significantly increase both through more expensive premiums and usurious taxation.

Congressional Democrats and Obama claim that their healthcare legislation establishes a great system for the American people. If it really is so fantastic then why are they refusing to agree to amendments that would force them to use the same healthcare system as they want to impose on us? The answer is because they know this system will be disastrous – limiting choice, rationing and restricting care, creating prolonged waiting times before receiving care and being far more costly for significantly inferior quality. Why should they have to give up their privileged premium care that is subsidized by the American taxpayer and provides them with myriad choices?

This whole healthcare reform is all about government control and nothing more. As Investors Business Daily put it:

“… health reform's purposes were advertised as cost containment and near-universal coverage. But what Democrats are set to enact will spend trillions dramatically increasing insurance premiums, and leave millions still without insurance.

In other words, their push for health reform has been based on lies. The real purpose: to gain control of America's health system.

And on top of the lies is the hypocrisy the American people have come to expect from their politicians: continuation of the nearly 50-year-old loophole providing senators and House members with a wide choice of private health plans.”

We need to continue fighting to stop this legislation as well as vigorously work at ousting these arrogant, imperious members of Congress who are ruling us rather than representing us!

Reform For You, But Not Congress
Investors Business Daily 12/04/2009

Hypocrisy: If the $2-trillion-plus government health care plan that Congress has come up with is so great, why do lawmakers refuse to live under it themselves? Their designs have been based on lies from the start.

The left thinks Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and David Vitter, R-La., have shot themselves in their feet. After unveiling last week their amendment that would force Senate and House members to cover themselves with any government health plan that passes into law, Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, a champion of the public option, proceeded to ask if he could sign on as a co-sponsor. Liberal Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said he might want to, as well.

"Coburn and Vitter weren't counting on that kind of support," gloated Nation magazine Washington correspondent John Nichols. "If they're smart, the rest of the Democratic caucus will follow Brown's lead and sign on for the public option."

Well, when it comes to feathering their own nests, congressional Democrats are smart. And they're not about to subject themselves to anything less than the taxpayer-subsidized, gold-plated array of private coverage choices they've enjoyed for nearly a half century in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.

Coburn and Vitter's idea of politicians living under a government plan "was opposed unanimously by Democrats during interviews on Thursday," the Hill newspaper reports. The paper also noted opposition from senior Republican senators such as National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn of Texas and Minority Whip Jon Kyl of Arizona, who asked: "Why would I want to put my family in that, let alone anybody else's family?"

Senators and representatives from both sides of the aisle know how good they have it under the FEHBP, the world's largest group health program. The reason Congress' own health care works so well is that it's based on consumer choice and market competition — the opposite of what it's trying to impose on everybody else.

Members of Congress and millions of federal workers may choose from hundreds of private fee-for-service plans, HMOs or preferred provider organizations, with no federal worker living anywhere enjoying fewer than a dozen options.

FEHBP members can easily switch plans if they become dissatisfied; that puts competitive pressure on insurers to provide quality and value. Surveys show that members love their coverage, which is why almost all federal employees join the program.

The FEHBP is shielded from state regulation and Uncle Sam subsidizes premiums by more than 70%. Canadian physician and Manhattan Institute senior fellow Dr. David Gratzer, whose opposition to government-run health care comes from first-hand experience, observes that "the federal government's role in the FEHBP is to pay the bills," unlike the fiscally doomed Medicare program, of which "Washington is the designer of benefits."

Today, instead of the federal takeover Democrats are rushing to enact, lawmakers could give Americans the kind of high-quality health care choices they enjoy. A simple system of vouchers would allow recipients to choose any health plan on the market. The system could be means-tested, with Medicare giving "larger vouchers to poorer and sicker seniors and smaller vouchers to healthy and wealthy seniors, using current health-risk-adjustment mechanisms and Social Security data on lifetime earnings," says Michael F. Cannon, director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute.

Vouchers "would contain Medicare spending, and are the only way to protect seniors from government rationing," according to Cannon.

"The FEHBP is an excellent model for designing a system based on broad personal choice," argues Robert Moffit, the Heritage Foundation's director of health policy studies. "There is no reason," he adds, "why a reform of Medicare could not establish a similar structure for national plan options," including integrating private retiree health insurance into the system.

But instead of such common-sense reform, Americans are staring at thousands of pages of new regulations on their personal medical treatment, including a government-run option that will devastate the private coverage most Americans have and like. The inevitable result, as independent studies warn, is thousands of dollars more to pay in health premiums.

In last year's presidential campaign, health reform's purposes were advertised as cost containment and near-universal coverage. But what Democrats are set to enact will spend trillions dramatically increasing insurance premiums, and leave millions still without insurance.

In other words, their push for health reform has been based on lies. The real purpose: to gain control of America's health system.

And on top of the lies is the hypocrisy the American people have come to expect from their politicians: continuation of the nearly 50-year-old loophole providing senators and House members with a wide choice of private health plans.

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Obamacare Will Be Really Painful In More Than One Way

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Harry Reid Enslaving Americans With Government Run and Taxpayer Funded Healthcare

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Harry Reid Repugnantly and Contemptuously Compares Opponents of Healthcare Reform to Supporters of Slavery

On Monday, Dec. 7th, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid repugnantly, contemptuously and irresponsibly compared Republican opponents of the healthcare reform with those individuals who supported slavery in the 1800’s before the Civil War. This racist and destructive vituperation should not be uttered by any member of Congress but having the Senate Majority Leader perpetrating such an offense is intolerable. He should be censured immediately and mandated to make an official retraction.

Unfortunately, the vitriol and intolerance by the Democrats of opposing points of view has become the norm with the most egregious offenders being the “leaders” of the Democratic Party including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, Charles Schumer and, of course, Barack Obama . These individuals have been corrupted by power and seek to acquire absolute power over the American people. They are not legislating as in a benign democracy but rather as in an oppressive totalitarian government.

We must relentlessly work to remove these corrupt politicians from office. Vigorously support the Tea Parties and alternative candidates before we reach the point of no return which we are fast approaching

and IMPEACH OBAMA!

Reid Compares Opponents of Health Care Reform to Supporters of Slavery
FOXNews.com   December 07, 2009

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid took his GOP-blasting rhetoric to a new level Monday, comparing Republicans who oppose health care reform to lawmakers who clung to the institution of slavery more than a century ago.

The Nevada Democrat, in a sweeping set of accusations on the Senate floor, also compared health care foes to those who opposed women's suffrage and the civil rights movement -- even though it was Sen. Strom Thurmond, then a Democrat, who unsuccessfully tried to filibuster the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and it was Republicans who led the charge against slavery.

Senate Republicans on Monday called Reid's comments "offensive" and "unbelievable."

But Reid argued that Republicans are using the same stalling tactics employed in the pre-Civil War era.

"Instead of joining us on the right side of history, all the Republicans can come up with is, 'slow down, stop everything, let's start over.' If you think you've heard these same excuses before, you're right," Reid said Monday.
"When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery, there were those who dug in their heels and said 'slow down, it's too early, things aren't bad enough.'"

He continued: "When women spoke up for the right to speak up, they wanted to vote, some insisted they simply, slow down, there will be a better day to do that, today isn't quite right.

"When this body was on the verge of guaranteeing equal civil rights to everyone regardless of the color of their skin, some senators resorted to the same filibuster threats that we hear today."

That seemed to be a reference to Thurmond's famous 1957 filibuster -- the late senator switched parties several years later.

Reid's office stood by the remarks, with spokesman Jim Manley saying Republicans have "done nothing but obstruct health care" in the Senate.

"Today's feigned outrage is nothing but a ploy to distract from the fact they have no plan to lower the cost of health care, stop insurance company abuses or protect Medicare," Manley said.

But Republicans said they were genuinely appalled. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said Reid's remarks were over the top.
"That is extremely offensive," he told Fox News. "It's language that should never be used, never be used. ... Those days are not here now."

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who on the Senate floor read from this FoxNews.com article and asked that it be placed in the record, called on Reid to return to the floor and, if not apologize, at least explain what he meant.

Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., suggested Reid was starting to "crack" under the pressure of the health care reform debate.
"I think it's beneath the dignity of the majority leader," Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., said. "I personally am insulted."

URL   http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/12/07/reid-compares-health-care-reform-foes-slavery-supporters/?loomia_ow=t0:s0:a16:g12:r1:c0.452332:b29257420:z10

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Ah, Yes … Our Compassionate Government Has Our Best Interests in Mind

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Government Trying To Grab More Assets To Pay For Healthcare

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Mammogram Recommendations Touted By Government Panel Grossly Irresponsible, Morally Corrupt and May Be the Basis to Ration Their Use

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) has issued new recommendations regarding obtaining mammograms that are irresponsible, shocking and not evidenced based but are concordant with requisite rationing for Obamanocare. The following editorial assesses this morally corrupt pronouncement.

Rationing's First Step
Investors Business Daily  11/18/2009

Health Care: A government task force has decided that women need fewer mammograms and later in life. Shouldn't that be between patient and physician? We have seen the future of health care, and it doesn't work.

We have warned repeatedly that the net results of health care bills before Congress will be higher demand, fewer doctors, more cost control, all leading to rationing. New recommendations issued by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) regarding breast cancer and the necessity for early and frequent mammograms do not convince us otherwise.

Just six months ago, the panel, which works under the Health and Human Services Department as a "best practices" study group, was shouting its concern about a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study showing a 1% drop in the number of women regularly undergoing such screening and prevention.

The task force was saying that women older than 40 should get a mammogram every one to two years. It found that frequent screening lowered death rates from breast cancer mostly for women ages 50 to 69. But that was then, and this is now.
"We're not saying women shouldn't get screened. Screening does save lives," Diana Petiti, task force vice chairman, said of the recommendations published Tuesday in Annals of Internal Medicine. "But we are recommending against routine screening."

Now the panel recommends that women in their 40s stop having routine annual mammograms and that older women should cut back to every two years. The concern allegedly is that too frequent testing can result in increased anxiety, false positives, unneeded follow-up tests and possibly disfiguring biopsies. Preventing breast cancer and saving lives almost get lost in the new analysis.

"I have a particular concern in this case about who was involved in this task force," says Rep. Charles Boustany, R-La., who was a heart surgeon in private life. "There are no surgeons or oncologists who deal directly with breast cancer or even radiologists. ... I've seen far too many young women develop late-stage breast cancer because they didn't have adequate screening."

Little, if anything, has happened medically in the last six months to cause such a shift. A lot, however, has happened politically as a health care overhaul has limped forward on life support. The Congressional Budget Office has been busy pricing these various bills, a process that includes screening and prevention.

As we have warned, the growing emphasis seems to be on cost containment rather than quality of care. About 39 million women undergo mammograms each year in America, costing the health care system more than $5 billion.

"The American Cancer Society continues to recommend annual screening using mammography and clinical breast examination for all women beginning at age 40," says Otis Brawley, its chief medical officer. "Our experts make this recommendation having reviewed virtually all the same data reviewed by the USPSTF, but also additional data that the USPSTF did not consider."

Daniel Kopans, a radiology professor at Harvard Medical School, says: "Tens of thousands of lives are being saved by mammography screening, and those idiots want to do away with it. It's crazy — unethical, really."

This, sadly, appears to be the future of medicine under government-run health care. Aside from taxes on insurers, providers and device manufacturers, we'll be up to our eyeballs in cost-effectiveness boards that will decide who gets what tests and treatments, when and if. These are only recommendations for now, but they are the shape of things to come.

URL   http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=512837

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Scientifically Unfounded Recommendations Regarding Mammograms is the Inaugural Move In the Implementation of Rationing By Our Malignant Government

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Obamanocare: The Big Lie That Will Bankrupt America

Obama and Congressional Democrats are disingenuously and dishonestly attempting to impose a bill of goods on healthcare that is rotten to the core on myriad fronts. Let’s focus just on the costs here. They claim that Obamacare (Pelosicare) is fiscally responsible and will not “add a dime” to the deficit. Even with the imposition of massive tax increases, unconstitutional mandates that force people to “purchase” health insurance, and front-end loaded receipts, this is an intentional audacious lie.

Using financial legerdemain, Congress and Obama have removed real costs from within the bill and simply applied them elsewhere. They still exist and are real but they don’t appear in the Obamacare bill so the costs ostensibly appear not as large. Of course, there are other tricks as well.

Furthermore, their assessment of patients’ usage of the system far underestimates reality. Add to that the government’s notorious inaccuracies of underestimating program costs by a factor of 3 to a factor of 10. Dealing now with trillions of dollars, we have the recipe for irreversible financial collapse if Obamanocare is implemented.

Read: Obamacare: Buy now, pay later

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Hopefully, Several Senate Democrats Will Also Have What Joe Lieberman Has

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Dealing With “Pre-Existing” Isn’t So Straightforward

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Obamanocare Mandates A Government Commission That Will Ration Care and Restrict Treatment Options

Despite inexorable denials by Obama, Pelosi and Congressional Democrats, the basic fiscal tenet of Obamanocare is rationing of healthcare. Plain and simple. Ignore the prevarications about rationing, cost savings, compassionate care, keeping your own doctor who will make the healthcare decisions along with you, etc. These are all part of the nefarious scheming intended to deceive the public about their ultimate goal of government control of healthcare, transfer of wealth and further aggrandizement of government power.

The following editorial from The Wall Street Journal, delineates some of the inimical dictates of the legislation.

The Rationing Commission
Meet the unelected body that will dictate future medical decisions.

As usual, the most dangerous parts of ObamaCare aren't receiving the scrutiny they deserve—and one of the least examined is a new commission to tell Congress how to control health spending. Democrats are quietly attempting to impose a "global budget" on Medicare, with radical implications for U.S. medicine.

Like most of Europe, the various health bills stipulate that Congress will arbitrarily decide how much to spend on health care for seniors every year—and then invest an unelected board with extraordinary powers to dictate what is covered and how it will be paid for. White House budget director Peter Orszag calls this Medicare commission "critical to our fiscal future" and "one of the most potent reforms."

On that last score, he's right. Prominent health economist Alain Enthoven has likened a global budget to "bombing from 35,000 feet, where you don't see the faces of the people you kill."

As envisioned by the Senate Finance Committee, the commission—all 15 members appointed by the President—would have to meet certain budget targets each year. Starting in 2015, Medicare could not grow more rapidly on a per capita basis than by a measure of inflation. After 2019, it could only grow at the same rate as GDP, plus one percentage point.
The theory is to let technocrats set Medicare payments free from political pressure, as with the military base closing commissions. But that process presented recommendations to Congress for an up-or-down vote. Here, the commission's decisions would go into effect automatically if Congress couldn't agree within six months on different cuts that met the same target. The board's decisions would not be subject to ordinary notice-and-comment rule-making, or even judicial review.

Yet if the goal really is political insulation, then the Medicare Commission is off to a bad start. To avoid a senior revolt, Finance Chairman Max Baucus decided to bar his creation from reducing benefits or raising the eligibility age, which meant that it could only cut costs by tightening Medicare price controls on doctors and hospitals. Doctors and hospitals, naturally, were furious.

So the Montana Democrat bowed and carved out exemptions for such providers, along with hospices and suppliers of medical equipment. Until 2019 the commission will thus only be allowed to attack Medicare Advantage, the program that gives 10 million seniors private insurance choices, and to raise premiums for Medicare prescription drug coverage, which is run by private contractors. Notice a political pattern?

But a decade from now, such limits are off—which also happens to be roughly the time when ObamaCare's spending explodes. The hard budget cap means there is only so much money to be divvied up for care, with no account for demographic changes, such as longer life spans, or for the increasing incidence of diabetes, heart disease and other chronic conditions.
Worse, it makes little room for medical innovations. The commission is mandated to go after "sources of excess cost growth," meaning treatments that are too expensive or whose coverage will boost spending. If researchers find a pricey treatment for Alzheimer's in 2020, that might be banned because it would add new costs and bust the global budget. Or it might decide that "Maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller," as President Obama put it in June.

In other words, the Medicare commission would come to function much like the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, which rations care in England. Or a similar Washington state board created in 2003 to control costs. Its handiwork isn't pretty.

The Washington commission, called the Health Technology Assessment, is manned by 11 bureaucrats, including a chiropractor and a "naturopath" who focuses on alternative, er, remedies like herbs and massage therapy. They consider the clinical effectiveness but above all the cost of medical procedures and technologies. If they decide something isn't worth the money, then Olympia won't cover it for some 750,000 Medicaid patients, public employees and prisoners.

So far, the commission has banned knee arthroscopy for osteoarthritis, discography for chronic back pain, and implantable infusion pumps for pain not related to cancer. This year, it is targeting such frivolous luxuries as knee replacements, spinal cord stimulation, a specialized autism therapy and MRIs of the abdomen, pelvis or breasts for cancer. It will also rule on routine ultrasounds for pregnancy, which have a "high" efficacy but also a "high" cost.

Currently, the commission is pushing through the most restrictive payment policy in the nation for drug-eluting cardiac stents—simply because bare metal stents are cheaper, even as they result in worse outcomes. If a patient is wheeled into the operating room with chest pains in an emergency, doctors will first have to determine if he's covered by a state plan, then the diameter of his blood vessels and his diabetic condition to decide on the appropriate stent. If they don't, Washington will not reimburse them for "inappropriate care."

If Democrats impose such a commission nationwide, it would constitute a radical change in U.S. health care. The reason that physician discretion—not Washington's cost-minded judgments—is at the core of medicine is that usually there are no "right" answers. The data from large clinical trials produce generic conclusions that rarely apply to individual patients, who have vastly different biologies, response rates to treatments, and often multiple conditions. A breakthrough drug like Herceptin, which is designed for a certain genetic subset of breast-cancer patients, might well be ruled out under such a standardized approach.

It's possible this global budget could become an accounting fiction, like the automatic Medicare cuts Congress currently pretends it will impose on doctors. But health care's fiscal pressures will be even stronger than they are today if ObamaCare passes in anything like its current form. And that is when politicians will want this remote, impersonal and unaccountable central committee to do the inevitable dirty work of denying care.

The only way to take the politics out of health care is to give individuals more power to control medical dollars. And the first step should be not to create even more government spending commitments. The core problem with government-run health care is that it doesn't make decisions in the best interests of patients, but in the best interests of government.

URL   http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703792304574504020025055040.html?mod=djemEditorialPage

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Massive Tax Increases Necessary To Partially Pay For Obamanocare

The healthcare reform legislation, AKA Obamanocare or Pelosicare, is disastrous no matter which way it is assessed – cost, quality, delivery, rationing, disorganization, corruption, effects on medical research, etc. The ultimate reality based astronomical price tag will bankrupt our country and obliterate the standard of living for years to come as a consequence. The massive and oppressive tax hikes that Congressional Democrats disingenuously claims will pay for the government takeover of healthcare will not cover the costs but will most assuredly crush and destroy our economy.

“Congress has barely finished blowing the ink dry on its bill, but already its central fiscal premise is being convincingly challenged.

While Democrats have claimed the overhaul will cost $900 billion, the Congressional Budget Office puts the real cost at $1.1 trillion. The Associated Press, citing unnamed Democratic sources, comes up with $1.2 trillion; Republicans say it'll cost $1.3 trillion or more; others say it's more like $1.8 trillion.”

Read: Unhealthy Taxes

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Democrats Attitude on Imposing Their Healthcare Legislation

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Healthcare Reform and Fiscal Realities

The following insightful editorial written by Sen. Tom Coburn (R. – OK) and Representative Paul Ryan (R. – WI.) exposes the fallacies of the Democrats’ rhetoric and numbers as well as the multitude of dangers that the healthcare reform legislation poses to the average American. They write:

“The current reform product does not meet the test of either real reform or fiscal responsibility. Nor does it represent the best of both parties. It represents the frustrated ideological ambitions of one party that believes the way to pull the welfare state back from bankruptcy is by expanding it.”

Addressing just the financial aspects of the bill and the liabilities that it engenders, they note that:

“What is at stake in this process is not merely a lower standard of living for future generations, but a decline of freedom at home and abroad. We are risking our own national economic stability and security if we continue — through excessive borrowing — to hand potential adversaries leverage over our foreign and domestic policy.”

Read: Health Reform Faces Moment Of Untruth

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Convoluted and Massive Bureaucracy Created in Pelosi Healthcare Legislation

The House Republican Conference has compiled a list of all the new boards, bureaucracies, commissions, and programs created in H.R. 3962 which is Pelosi's legislation for the government takeover of health care and the abrogation of the rights, freedoms and pillaging of the hard earned incomes of American citizens. Specifically identified in the article New Federal Bureaucracies Created in Pelosi Health Care Bill on the GOP.gov website, these include:

1. Retiree Reserve Trust Fund (Section 111(d), p. 61)
2. Grant program for wellness programs to small employers (Section 112, p. 62)
3. Grant program for State health access programs (Section 114, p. 72)
4. Program of administrative simplification (Section 115, p. 76)
5. Health Benefits Advisory Committee (Section 223, p. 111)
6. Health Choices Administration (Section 241, p. 131)
7. Qualified Health Benefits Plan Ombudsman (Section 244, p. 138)
8. Health Insurance Exchange (Section 201, p. 155)
9. Program for technical assistance to employees of small businesses buying Exchange coverage (Section 305(h), p. 191)
10. Mechanism for insurance risk pooling to be established by Health Choices Commissioner (Section 306(b), p. 194)
11. Health Insurance Exchange Trust Fund (Section 307, p. 195)
12. State-based Health Insurance Exchanges (Section 308, p. 197)
13. Grant program for health insurance cooperatives (Section 310, p. 206)
14. "Public Health Insurance Option" (Section 321, p. 211)
15. Ombudsman for "Public Health Insurance Option" (Section 321(d), p. 213)
16. Account for receipts and disbursements for "Public Health Insurance Option" (Section 322(b), p. 215)
17. Telehealth Advisory Committee (Section 1191 (b), p. 589)
18. Demonstration program providing reimbursement for "culturally and linguistically appropriate services" (Section 1222, p. 617)
19. Demonstration program for shared decision making using patient decision aids (Section 1236, p. 648)
20. Accountable Care Organization pilot program under Medicare (Section 1301, p. 653)
21. Independent patient-centered medical home pilot program under Medicare (Section 1302, p. 672)
22. Community-based medical home pilot program under Medicare (Section 1302(d), p. 681)
23. Independence at home demonstration program (Section 1312, p. 718)
24. Center for Comparative Effectiveness Research (Section 1401(a), p. 734)
25. Comparative Effectiveness Research Commission (Section 1401(a), p. 738)
26. Patient ombudsman for comparative effectiveness research (Section 1401(a), p. 753)
27. Quality assurance and performance improvement program for skilled nursing facilities (Section 1412(b)(1), p. 784)
28. Quality assurance and performance improvement program for nursing facilities (Section 1412 (b)(2), p. 786)
29. Special focus facility program for skilled nursing facilities (Section 1413(a)(3), p. 796)
30. Special focus facility program for nursing facilities (Section 1413(b)(3), p. 804)
31. National independent monitor pilot program for skilled nursing facilities and nursing facilities (Section 1422, p. 859)
32. Demonstration program for approved teaching health centers with respect to Medicare GME (Section 1502(d), p. 933)
33. Pilot program to develop anti-fraud compliance systems for Medicare providers (Section 1635, p. 978)
34. Special Inspector General for the Health Insurance Exchange (Section 1647, p. 1000)
35. Medical home pilot program under Medicaid (Section 1722, p. 1058)
36. Accountable Care Organization pilot program under Medicaid (Section 1730A, p. 1073)
37. Nursing facility supplemental payment program (Section 1745, p. 1106)
38. Demonstration program for Medicaid coverage to stabilize emergency medical conditions in institutions for mental diseases (Section 1787, p. 1149)
39. Comparative Effectiveness Research Trust Fund (Section 1802, p. 1162)
40. "Identifiable office or program" within CMS to "provide for improved coordination between Medicare and Medicaid in the case of dual eligibles" (Section 1905, p. 1191)
41. Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (Section 1907, p. 1198)
42. Public Health Investment Fund (Section 2002, p. 1214)
43. Scholarships for service in health professional needs areas (Section 2211, p. 1224)
44. Program for training medical residents in community-based settings (Section 2214, p. 1236)
45. Grant program for training in dentistry programs (Section 2215, p. 1240)
46. Public Health Workforce Corps (Section 2231, p. 1253)
47. Public health workforce scholarship program (Section 2231, p. 1254)
48. Public health workforce loan forgiveness program (Section 2231, p. 1258)
49. Grant program for innovations in interdisciplinary care (Section 2252, p. 1272)
50. Advisory Committee on Health Workforce Evaluation and Assessment (Section 2261, p. 1275)
51. Prevention and Wellness Trust (Section 2301, p. 1286)
52. Clinical Prevention Stakeholders Board (Section 2301, p. 1295)
53. Community Prevention Stakeholders Board (Section 2301, p. 1301)
54. Grant program for community prevention and wellness research (Section 2301, p. 1305)
55. Grant program for research and demonstration projects related to wellness incentives (Section 2301, p. 1305)
56. Grant program for community prevention and wellness services (Section 2301, p. 1308)
57. Grant program for public health infrastructure (Section 2301, p. 1313)
58. Center for Quality Improvement (Section 2401, p. 1322)
59. Assistant Secretary for Health Information (Section 2402, p. 1330)
60. Grant program to support the operation of school-based health clinics (Section 2511, p. 1352)
61. Grant program for nurse-managed health centers (Section 2512, p. 1361)
62. Grants for labor-management programs for nursing training (Section 2521, p. 1372)
63. Grant program for interdisciplinary mental and behavioral health training (Section 2522, p. 1382)
64. "No Child Left Unimmunized Against Influenza" demonstration grant program (Section 2524, p. 1391)
65. Healthy Teen Initiative grant program regarding teen pregnancy (Section 2526, p. 1398)
66. Grant program for interdisciplinary training, education, and services for individuals with autism (Section 2527(a), p. 1402)
67. University centers for excellence in developmental disabilities education (Section 2527(b), p. 1410)
68. Grant program to implement medication therapy management services (Section 2528, p. 1412)
69. Grant program to promote positive health behaviors in underserved communities (Section 2530, p. 1422)
70. Grant program for State alternative medical liability laws (Section 2531, p. 1431)
71. Grant program to develop infant mortality programs (Section 2532, p. 1433)
72. Grant program to prepare secondary school students for careers in health professions (Section 2533, p. 1437)
73. Grant program for community-based collaborative care (Section 2534, p. 1440)
74. Grant program for community-based overweight and obesity prevention (Section 2535, p. 1457)
75. Grant program for reducing the student-to-school nurse ratio in primary and secondary schools (Section 2536, p. 1462)
76. Demonstration project of grants to medical-legal partnerships (Section 2537, p. 1464)
77. Center for Emergency Care under the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (Section 2552, p. 1478)
78. Council for Emergency Care (Section 2552, p 1479)
79. Grant program to support demonstration programs that design and implement regionalized emergency care systems (Section 2553, p. 1480)
80. Grant program to assist veterans who wish to become emergency medical technicians upon discharge (Section 2554, p. 1487)
81. Interagency Pain Research Coordinating Committee (Section 2562, p. 1494)
82. National Medical Device Registry (Section 2571, p. 1501)
83. CLASS Independence Fund (Section 2581, p. 1597)
84. CLASS Independence Fund Board of Trustees (Section 2581, p. 1598)
85. CLASS Independence Advisory Council (Section 2581, p. 1602)
86. Health and Human Services Coordinating Committee on Women's Health (Section 2588, p. 1610)
87. National Women's Health Information Center (Section 2588, p. 1611)
88. Centers for Disease Control Office of Women's Health (Section 2588, p. 1614)
89. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Office of Women's Health and Gender-Based Research (Section 2588, p. 1617)
90. Health Resources and Services Administration Office of Women's Health (Section 2588, p. 1618)
91. Food and Drug Administration Office of Women's Health (Section 2588, p. 1621)
92. Personal Care Attendant Workforce Advisory Panel (Section 2589(a)(2), p. 1624)
93. Grant program for national health workforce online training (Section 2591, p. 1629)
94. Grant program to disseminate best practices on implementing health workforce investment programs (Section 2591, p. 1632)
95. Demonstration program for chronic shortages of health professionals (Section 3101, p. 1717)
96. Demonstration program for substance abuse counselor educational curricula (Section 3101, p. 1719)
97. Program of Indian community education on mental illness (Section 3101, p. 1722)
98. Intergovernmental Task Force on Indian environmental and nuclear hazards (Section 3101, p. 1754)
99. Office of Indian Men's Health (Section 3101, p. 1765)
100. Indian Health facilities appropriation advisory board (Section 3101, p. 1774)
101. Indian Health facilities needs assessment workgroup (Section 3101, p. 1775)
102. Indian Health Service tribal facilities joint venture demonstration projects (Section 3101, p. 1809)
103. Urban youth treatment center demonstration project (Section 3101, p. 1873)
104. Grants to Urban Indian Organizations for diabetes prevention (Section 3101, p. 1874)
105. Grants to Urban Indian Organizations for health IT adoption (Section 3101, p. 1877)
106. Mental health technician training program (Section 3101, p. 1898)
107. Indian youth telemental health demonstration project (Section 3101, p. 1909)
108. Program for treatment of child sexual abuse victims and perpetrators (Section 3101, p. 1925)
109. Program for treatment of domestic violence and sexual abuse (Section 3101, p. 1927)
110. Native American Health and Wellness Foundation (Section 3103, p. 1966)
111. Committee for the Establishment of the Native American Health and Wellness Foundation (Section 3103, p. 1968)

Does anyone really think that this massive increase in the federal government bureaucracy will actually improve our healthcare, make it more efficient and less costly?

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The Dismantling of America: A Clarion Call To Action

The following editorial, written by Thomas Sowell, should serve as a clarion call to all Americans that our country, rights, freedoms and way of life are on the precipice of annihilation due to the inimical ideologies combined with contemptuous, nefarious, imperious politicians who desire unfettered power. In a very comprehensive yet succinct and persuasive manner, he states his case … which we must act on immediately and decisively before the situation becomes even more dire.

Dismantling America — Piece By Piece

By THOMAS SOWELL

Just one year ago, would you have believed that an unelected government official, not even a Cabinet member confirmed by the Senate but simply one of the many "czars" appointed by the president, could arbitrarily cut the pay of executives in private businesses by 50% or 90%?

Did you think that another "czar" would be talking about restricting talk radio? That there would be plans afloat to subsidize newspapers — to create a situation where some papers' survival would depend on the government liking what they publish?

Did you imagine that anyone would even be talking about having a panel of so-called "experts" deciding who could and could not get lifesaving medical treatments?

Scary as that is from a medical standpoint, it is also chilling from the standpoint of freedom. If you have a mother who needs a heart operation or a child with some dire medical condition, how free would you feel to speak out against an administration that has the power to make life-and-death decisions about your loved ones?

Does any of this sound like America?

How about a federal agency giving schoolchildren material to enlist them on the side of the president? Merely being assigned to sing his praises in class is apparently not enough.

How much of America would be left if the federal government continued on this path? President Obama has already floated the idea of a national police force, something we have done without for more than two centuries.
We already have local police forces all across the country and military forces for national defense, as well as the FBI for federal crimes and the National Guard for local emergencies.

What would be the role of a national police force created by Barack Obama, with all its leaders appointed by him? It would seem more like the brownshirts of dictators than like anything American. How far the president will go depends of course on how much resistance he meets. But the direction in which he is trying to go tells us more than all his rhetoric or media spin.

Barack Obama has not only said that he is out to "change the United States of America"; the people he has been associated with for years have expressed in words and deeds their hostility to the values, the principles and the people of this country.

Jeremiah Wright said it with words: "God damn America!" Bill Ayers said it with bombs that he planted. Community activist goons have said it with their contempt for the rights of other people.

Among those appointed as czars by Obama have been people who have praised enemy dictators like Mao, who have seen public schools as places to promote sexual practices contrary to the values of most Americans, to a captive audience of children.

Those who say that the Obama administration should have investigated those people more thoroughly before appointing them are missing the point completely. Why should we assume that Barack Obama didn't know what such people were like, when he has been associating with precisely these kinds of people for decades before he reached the White House?

Nothing is more consistent with his lifelong patterns than putting such people in government — people who reject American values, resent Americans in general and successful Americans in particular, as well as resenting America's influence in the world.

Any miscalculation on his part would be in not thinking that others would discover what these stealth appointees were like. Had it not been for the Fox News Channel, these stealth appointees might have remained unexposed for what they are. Fox News is now high on the administration's enemies list.

Nothing so epitomizes Obama's own contempt for American values and traditions like trying to ram two bills through Congress in his first year — each bill more than a thousand pages long — too fast for either of them to be read, much less discussed.

That he succeeded only the first time says that some people are starting to wake up. Whether enough people will wake up in time to keep America from being dismantled, piece by piece, is another question — and the biggest question for this generation.

Internationally, Obama has made every mistake that was made by the Western democracies in the 1930s, mistakes that put Hitler in a position to start World War II — and come dangerously close to winning it.

At the heart of those mistakes was trying to mollify your enemies by throwing your friends to the wolves. The administration has already done that by reneging on this country's commitment to put a missile defense shield in Eastern Europe and its lackadaisical foot-dragging on doing anything serious to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons. That means, for all practical purposes, throwing Israel to the wolves as well.

Countries around the world that have to look out for their own national survival, above all, are not going to ignore how much Obama has downgraded the reliability of America's commitments.

Iraq, for example, knows that Iran is going to be next door forever, while Americans may be gone in a few years. South Korea likewise knows that North Korea is permanently next door, but who knows when the Obama administration will get a bright idea to pull out?

Countries in South America know that Hugo Chavez is allying Venezuela with Iran. Dare they ally themselves with an unreliable U.S.A.? Or should they join our enemies to work against us? This issue is too serious for squeamish silence.

URL :     http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=510870&Ntt=

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Congress Wants to Penalize Doctors If They Provide More Care To The Elderly Than The Government Deems Appropriate

"The Senate Finance Committee health bill released last week controls doctors by cutting their pay if they give older patients more care than the government deems appropriate. Section 3003(b) (p. 683) punishes doctors who land in the 90th percentile or above on what they provide for seniors on Medicare by withholding 5 percent of their compensation.

This withhold provision forces doctors to choose between treating their patients and avoiding government penalties. HMOs used the same cost-cutting device in the early '90s until it was deemed dangerous to patients and outlawed. Now, lawmakers want to use it against the most vulnerable patients, the elderly. This bill and four others under negotiation also would slash about $500 billion from future Medicare funding."

Do you really want the Government dictating your medical care?

Read: Treating seniors as clunkers'

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An Ever More Powerful and Corrupt Government Now Attacking Health Insurance Companies

“The latest villain in the politicians' demagogic fantasyland is private health insurance. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has accused private insurers of making "immoral profits." And they're a prime target for taxes to pay for the health care revolution Congress and the White House have planned.

But in fact, as we pointed out recently in these pages, this is an industry that actually lags many others in the U.S. economy. Plenty of other sectors of private industry are doing far better.

And some of the things Washington has planned — in particular a "public option" — would leave private insurers bankrupt.”

The following editorial exposes the fallacy of the belief that insurance companies are reaping exorbitant profits. It also should serve as a warning that no dissenting or politically out of favor individual, group or industry is exempt from the demagoguery and the vicious, punitive and morally corrupt attacks by an ever more powerful neo-fascist government.

Read: Insuring Doom

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The Government Should Not Be Running Healthcare…

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Stealth Socialism With The Healthcare Legislation

The Democrats’ plans for healthcare reform would be disastrous for Americans medically and financially as we have noted many times here before. Realizing that a vast majority of Americans are vehemently against the plans and socialized medicine in general, Pelosi and the Democrats are intent on imposing their ideological misguided legislation on us no matter what. They see it as government knows best and the greater its power and control, the better. We see it as an arrogant and corrupt power grab and abrogation of our rights and freedoms that will be a fiscal and social calamity.

Read: Stealth Socialism

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The Public Option

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Canadians Discuss Their Failing Socialized Healthcare System

In the following video, Canadians share their opinions on their healthcare system - and it is not good.

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