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Government Run Healthcare Reform

The United States has the best healthcare system in the world. Period! There is no other country where the composites of overall care, outcomes and effects on the economy are better. Most Americans are in agreement with this assessment. A poll taken in 2006 by ABC News, the Kaiser Family Foundation and USA Today found that 89% of Americans were quite happy with their healthcare.

Does this overwhelmingly positive sentiment by Americans provide a reason to totally dismantle and destroy the best system in the world and replace it with a government controlled one? Of course not! Can improvements be made to our healthcare system? Of course! What we don’t need is an excuse by the Federal government to take full control of our healthcare thereby abridging our freedoms and liberties to make choices regarding our health and the ability to obtain the appropriate care.

You and every other American have the right to know the facts regarding the proposed Federal government healthcare reform. Unfortunately, what has been sold to the public is a Trojan Horse – it is not what it appears to be and what many politicians want you to believe (so they can garner public support for its passage). The Federal government wants to impose socialized medicine on us, a system which has failed everywhere else that it has been implemented. That is why, for example, tens of thousands of Canadians come to the United States each year to have routine and not so routine procedures performed. They were either told either that they would not be eligible for treatment or would have to wait months or even more than a year to be able to be treated. If you have a brain tumor, breast cancer or advanced heart disease, this is a death sentence.

You may also want to know that if this plan of socialized medical care were so superior, how come Congress is exempting itself from it and will have its own gold-plated plan? When President Obama was asked a theoretical question that if the need arose for his family to obtain care which it couldn’t obtain through this government run system, he indicated that he would look elsewhere for their care. These are definitely not ringing endorsements of the government run plan from those who should know its design best!

Politicians may point to the AMA’s (American Medical Association) and ANA’s (American Nurses Association) endorsement of a government run one-payer system as a selling point for the plan. After all, these are the professionals who are intimately involved in our medical care. This is an unfortunate misconception. Although the AMA has been in existence for over 160 years, it is not the true, representative political voice of or for American doctors. As a matter of fact, less than 30 percent of physicians belong to the organization and most of these are not doing so for political reasons. The overwhelming consensus of physicians and nurses nationwide is that this plan is very bad for Americans and for America.

The following are just some of the issues that you need to consider regarding the proposed government takeover of the healthcare system:

It will:

  1. Result in the rationing of care. Many individuals for a variety of reasons (such as age or cost) will be unable to obtain medical care despite having the government coverage
  2. Decrease the quality of medical care
  3. Cause prolonged waiting times to see your physicians
  4. Increase the death rate both due to inability to obtain medical care in a reasonable period of time as well as a result of inability to receive certain treatments because government bureaucrats deems them too expensive
  5. Increase morbidity/ suffering because of prolonged waits to see a physician and inability to receive certain treatments because government bureaucrats deems them too expensive
  6. Place layers of bureaucracy between what your doctor recommends for you and what you can actually receive
  7. Allow for full government access to your medical records and privacy and make protecting your private medical information nearly impossible
  8. Result in massive tax increases that will affect all Americans directly and indirectly
  9. Cause a permanently higher unemployment rate (see European countries) due to the exorbitant costs of mandated coverage on businesses
  10. Result in lower salaries and hourly rates of employees to compensate for the high cost of employee mandated insurance – whether or not the employee wants or needs the insurance
  11. Massively increase the budget deficit by trillions of dollars or more – and still not be able to be fully funded
  12. Will be far more expensive than our present system of healthcare – which was a major selling point of this plan.
  13. Be extremely complex and convoluted with the creation of many new government agencies and oversight groups. Think of the Post Office inefficiencies and poor customer service on steroids.
  14. Result in the stifling of medical innovations and implementation of new technologies

It will not:

  1. Result in universal medical coverage for all Americans
  2. Lower the total cost of healthcare
  3. Increase the quality of medical care delivered
  4. Make it painless to obtain medical care
  5. Increase the efficiency of healthcare
  6. Allow you to maintain your private insurance long term for a variety of reasons
  7. Address tort reform in any meaningful way. In order to protect themselves from frivolous lawsuits, doctors are forced to practice “defensive medicine”. This translates into subjecting patients to costly unnecessary tests and procedures (many of which the patients demand and the doctors don’t feel would otherwise be warranted) adding up to billions of dollars wasted every year.

The following are some very informative articles and editorials on the proposed Federal government healthcare reform legislation. Many are taken from Investor’s Business Daily’s healthcare series entitled Government-Run Healthcare: A Prescription For Failure. It is not meant to be all inclusive.

If you are strongly opposed to this legislation, I urge you to contact your Senators and Representatives and let them know your sentiments.

The Doctor Shortage Added 03/08/2010

Health Reform: Democrats promise their plan will improve care at lower cost while thinning the ranks of the uninsured. How will they do this with fewer doctors?

Unreconciled Added 03/06/2010

Survey after survey, including our own IBD/TIPP Poll, shows that Americans firmly oppose more government control over health care. Yet President Obama's new reform plan does just that.

He and other Democratic leaders seem willing to ignore both the voters and the well-founded doubts of opponents to ram a plan down our collective throats — making the grand bet that Republicans, even if they retake Congress in November, will have neither the political clout nor the guts to undo the damage.

Mayo Vs. Medicare Added 1/6/2010

President Obama suggested last summer that the Mayo Clinic was the model for government medical care. On January 4th, the Mayo Clinic in Arizona stopped taking Medicare patients. If the nonprofit Mayo Clinic is "what works," as the president believes, then it's clear that government health care doesn't.

10 Lumps Of Coal In The Health Care Bill Added 12/26/2009

This 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, Congress and Obama still will have their own gold plated healthcare plan with innumerable choices all subsidized at the taxpayers’ expense.

Reform For You, But Not Congress Added 12/13/2009

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.

… 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.

Rationing's First Step Added Nov. 29, 2009

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.

The Rationing Commission Added Nov. 16, 2009
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...

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.

Unhealthy Taxes Added Nov. 7, 2009

The giant health care bill that just passed will cost far more than its authors estimated. Which means it'll also require massive new tax hikes on all Americans, rich, middle class and poor alike.

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.

Health Reform Faces Moment Of Untruth Added Nov. 7, 2009

As Congress works to "make history" with health care reform, the American people have a far more sensible ambition for policymakers: get a grip on our unsustainable fiscal course.

By 2-to-1, Americans continue to believe that Congress should address the deficit first, then health care. Yet the best that Congress has come up with to address our entitlement and fiscal crisis is to create a costly new open-ended entitlement.

The American people suspect what we know to be true: Congress really has no idea how to pay for "reform," or anything else for that matter. Fiscal restraint remains off the agenda, while there is of course the desire to appear to be fiscally responsible.

Treating seniors as 'clunkers' Added Oct. 27, 2009

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.

Healthcare for All Has Become Punishment for All Added Oct. 17, 2009

In the 2008 campaign, we heard healthcare in this country is “broken” and must be “reformed.” We heard “healthcare reform” would be the signature piece of an Obama Presidency. We were promised no new taxes on anyone earning less than $250,000 per year. We heard promises of transparency in government. We heard promises of a White House that would listen to all. Now that President Obama and a Democratic majority are in office, what have we gotten?

The healthcare proposals have become a massive power grab to control your money, your health options, your businesses, your liberty, and ultimately your life. It is not about insuring the poor.We already have Medicaid to cover the poor.

What the Democratic majority is doing to healthcare in this country is a crime. Punishment won’t fall on Congress and the President, who are excluded from the healthcare proposals. Punishment falls on the American people, especially the elderly.

A Future With Fewer Health Benefits Added Sept. 27, 2009

We keep hearing that "nobody is talking about" taking away anyone's coverage or doctor. But people are talking about it. They know serious change will come if any of the Democrats' plans become law.

Tort Reform Is Key To Health Reform Added Aug. 29, 2009

Though common-sense Americans have repeatedly raised the issue of tort reform while discussing health care legislation with members of Congress during town hall meetings this month, too many lawmakers and analysts still stubbornly insist that medical liability lawsuits do not contribute significantly to rising health care costs. These lawmakers and analysts are wrong.

Dems Want Gov't to Control Health Decisions

The trademark political tactic of the Obama administration is speed: ramming legislation through Congress as fast as possible—too fast for anyone to subject the bills to scrutiny, search for objectionable provisions, or develop effective counter-arguments in a public debate. They push the bills through so fast that even President Obama and his allies in Congress don't have time to read them and don't know what's in them.
That's why we should be relieved that Obama's health-care bill did not get pushed through before the August congressional recess. The bill got blocked, in part, because the people got just enough time to start reading it. And the more time we get to read it, the less we're going to like it.
This editorial completely captures and illustrates the stark and important differences in healthcare between the United States now versus the government run socialized medicine in Canada from personal experiences. It is a must read.

Still Not An Option

In their investigative series, IBD stated that the reform plan moving through the House essentially outlaws the private individual medical insurance market. They prove their point by reading through the legislation.

Reformers' Claims Just Don't Add Up

Many extravagant claims have been made on behalf of the various health care "reforms" now emerging from Congress and the White House. But on closer inspection, virtually all prove to be false.

Politicians, Heal Thyselves!

If Democrats in Washington think their health care reform with a public option is a good thing, why have they exempted themselves from it? Why isn't what's good for their constituents good for them?

Bay State Rationing

Massachusetts' universal medical program is no longer universal. Coverage is being dropped for 30,000 because not enough money is around to pay for everyone. There's a lesson in this for Congress.

How House Bill Runs Over Grandma

Buried within the more than one thousand page Congressional healthcare legislation is a provision for end of life counseling of seniors. The intent, of course, is to reduce expenditures for healthcare for those that may have a poor prognosis for survival. Depending on whether it is you, your relative or someone else’s family member, this proviso is in essence a form of rationing.
According to Betsy McCaughey, an expert on this legislation, a "troubling provision of the House bill compels seniors to submit to a counseling session every five years (and more often if they become sick or go into a nursing home) about alternatives for end-of-life care (House bill, Pages 425-430)."

Tax Hike Comin'

New data from a nonpartisan think tank confirm our worst fears about health care reform: The plans proposed by the White House and Congress will lead to economically ruinous tax hikes.

It's Not An Option

It didn't take long to run into an "uh-oh" moment when reading the House's "health care for all Americans" bill. Right there on Page 16 is a provision making individual private medical insurance illegal.

Fix Medicare First

President Obama says a new public insurance plan is needed to keep private companies "honest." Well, to be honest, there's already a public plan, and it's hurtling toward insolvency.

Hold The Mayo

The administration has touted the world-class Mayo Clinic as a model for Congress' health care bills. Just one problem: Mayo itself says what's on offer will make us all "losers."

The editorial perpetuates the claim that the Mayo Clinic is a low cost system of care which is absolutely not true. This fact adds further irony and undermines Congress’ citing of the Mayo Clinic as their ideal model for healthcare as well as demonstrates an inexcusable lack of understanding and incompetent research.

Inside the Monstrous Obamacare Bureaucracy

If you think government is too big and too costly, wait until Obamacare kicks in. The Congressional Budget Office put the price tag of the House Democrats' health care takeover plans at $1.5 trillion over 10 years. But the CBO's fine print included a telltale caveat…

The Undercovered

Many are concerned about the plight of the uninsured. However, they're not similarly aware of the facts.

HELP For Whom?

A Senate health care bill will force Americans to buy health insurance whether they want it or not. Where the extra doctors to treat them will come from is anybody's guess.

Canada's Single-Prayer Health Care

A critically ill premature baby is moved to a U.S hospital to get the treatment she couldn't get in the system we're told we should emulate. Cost-effective care? In Canada, as elsewhere, you get what you pay for.

Lower-Cost Health Reform? Yeah, Right

Does the public option plan stand a better chance of becoming law now that a new estimate pegs the cost at less than $1 trillion? Better hope not. It's just another rosy federal projection hiding the true cost.

Reparations By Way Of Health Care Reform

If you actually read the health care bill you will find that … It's affirmative action on steroids, deciding everything from who becomes a doctor to who gets treatment on the basis of skin color.

Public Menace

President Obama defends his federal plan as a tool to "discipline" private insurers. If that's really what he wants, why not set up a national market with real competition for a change?

Union Favors

With health care nationalization apparently headed for the morgue in the House and Senate, the latest scheme to revive it is to give union health plans a special tax break. This will create a Frankenstein.

Dead Wait

As Americans debate who's in control of their health care system, a lot of Britons aren't concerned about how the argument turns out. They're too busy trying to get a hospital room before it's too late.

Why The Rush?

A pattern is emerging for this new presidency. The more radical and far-reaching the plan, the less time the public gets to debate it. Is this due to ambition or fear of push-back?

Congress' Unhealthy Care Plan

The CBO says a government-run health care system would cause 23 million Americans to lose private coverage, cost $1 trillion dollars and still leave 30 million uninsured.

Why He Was Booed

President Obama talked a lot about cutting medical costs during his 7,300-word speech. But he rejected the only item he brought up that would actually cut medical costs. Tort reform.


The Phantom Uninsured

The administration uses the "46 million uninsured" as a reason to nationalize health care. But the Census Bureau says about a fifth of those aren't U.S. citizens. In fact, a goodly number are illegal aliens. This editorial explains who these people are.

AMA Takes Harmful Pill

Editorial by a physician who indicates that the AMA does not represent the vast majority of physicians.

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