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Massachusetts Failed Healthcare Reform Plan Is A Microcosm of What to Expect With Obamacare

admin — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 09:00:55 +0000

For those who continue to support Obamacare and believe the fallacious claims regarding its benefits including substantial cost saving, maintenance of quality, easy availability of care with no rationing, we have a reality check for you: examine the Massachusetts “experiment” in healthcare. It is an unmitigated failure on the premier and expected fronts – cost, quality and availability.

The Massachusetts healthcare system should portend what America can expect when such a plan is implemented nationally. Well, actually worse as it would be run by the Federal Government.

Costs Soaring After Bay State Health Change
Sally C. Pipes 06/30/2010

Anyone wanting a preview of Obama-Care need just focus on Massachusetts, the state that provided the blueprint for Obama's plan. It makes a great case for making haste in repealing ObamaCare.

In Massachusetts, health care prices are out of control, emergency rooms are overcrowded, the government is at war with itself and private insurers are running in the red, refusing to enter critical markets on the government's unrealistic terms.

The party line now is that the Bay State's reform was not about cost control but rather expanding access to care. The program's backers claim that the price spiral they find themselves in was expected, anticipated, even if they didn't actually have a plan for it.

That's a revisionist's tale. In early 2006, the plan's backers — led by then Republican Gov. Mitt Romney — adamantly asserted that his plan would in fact control costs, provide universal coverage and improve the quality of care. (If this sounds familiar, it's because Obama's team borrowed the marketing scripts.)

Disinterested outsiders predicted that both prices and total costs would most likely increase under the government-dominated system, since massive new demand, reimbursed at the lowest prices, would be forced on a fixed supply. They were shouted down by insiders vested in getting the reform passed.

Guess who was right?

Two data points are harbingers of collapse. First, an academic study "The Effect of Massachusetts' Health Reform on Employer-Sponsored Insurance Premiums" by professors John F. Cogan, R. Glenn Hubbard and Daniel Kessler, confirmed the prediction.

Massachusetts' reform not only did not decrease prices and spending, as promised, but prices are increasing at rates greater than national trend lines and greater than rates in the Bay State prior to reform.

Three years prior to reform, insurance premiums for employers were increasing 3.7% more slowly in Massachusetts than in the rest of the country. Today, the opposite is true. Prices in Massachusetts are increasing 5.7% more than in other states. In Boston, prices for employer-provided family plans are increasing 8.2% faster than in other large metropolitan areas.

"Because the plan's main components are the same as those of the new health reform law," the study's authors note, "the effects of the plan provide a window onto the country's future."

Post-reform, prices are up, more people have insurance, and more people are headed to the emergency room. If this sounds odd, it should. Among former Gov. Romney's favorite arguments for reform was that it would shift dollars from inefficient emergency room care to the more efficient venue of the primary care doctor.

The Obama administration passed its reform on the backs of health insurers — couching the reform as health insurance reform rather than the actual remaking of health care delivery.

In this election year, Gov. Deval Patrick's administration has torn this page from Obama's playbook. He demanded the right to approve insurance prices in February and then had his bureaucrats deny necessary increases in April. Prior to reform, rates had to be actuarially sound. Post-reform, it's more important that they be politically sound.

Those in his own bureaucracy charged with making sure that insurers can pay their bills called this a "train wreck" and put three insurers under solvency watch. The Patrick administration stood resolute in its election-year pandering. "It's unacceptable for consumers to be treated this way and it will not be tolerated," thundered Massachusetts Insurance Commissioner Patrick Murphy, in April.

Last week, the administration's own hearing officers sided with the first insurance company whose case made it through the process. The increased rates, it determined, were fair and necessary.

The Patrick administration's political folks, like Romney's before, will not be swayed by inconvenient facts. Insurance commissioner Murphy "strongly disagrees" with his own hearing officers' ruling.

Is it any wonder then that the state's bureaucracy responsible for managing its health care cannot entice any of the state's major insurance carriers to offer plans to small businesses? Carriers representing 90% of the state's insurance market share are refusing to offer plans to small business through the state's Connector.

"Given the rate cap that the administration has imposed on the health plans, none of them is in a position to enter into any new endeavors with the state at this time," explains Eric Linzer, a spokesperson for the industry association. State officials have responded by sending letters to insurance carriers threatening legal action.

Get ready to wait, America — unless ObamaCare is repealed and reversed.

• Pipes is president and CEO of the Pacific Research Institute. Her next book, "The Truth About ObamaCare" (Regnery Publishing), will be released in August.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/539035/201006301859/Costs-Soaring-After-Bay-State-Health-Change.aspx

Congressional Testimony From Just One Florida Hospital On The Devastating High Costs Of Unreimbursed Illegal Alien Health Care

admin — Fri, 28 May 2010 09:00:27 +0000


This is just one hospital. Multiply this same story by every hospital in this country with every case and you can't even grasp the unlimited scope and cost of this problem. It is an absolute outrage that must be summarily stopped. It is bankrupting hospitals, forcing many to close. The costs of this unreimbursed care to the states is in the tens of billions of dollars per year at minimum with millions of taxpayers on the hook for these avoidable expenses. 
The answer is secure the border and immigration reform.
Now!



Obamacare is Quintessential Socialism and It Must Be Rescinded
admin — Thu, 20 May 2010 09:00:44 +0000
In the 1950’s, Ronald Reagan warned us that health care could be used as a means to introduce and implement socialism. His words were quite prescient.
Though the public was and is vehemently against government run health care, the Obama Administration, Pelosi and Reid used bribery of corrupt politicians, and threats, lies or disingenuous arguments with feckless other in order to acquire enough votes to pass the legislation.
Again this was done in spite of overwhelming sentiment by the public against socialized medicine. It was a coup by a power hungry and ideologically driven government that disdains its citizens.
Now it is our turn …!
Obamacare Equals Socialism on Steroids 

David Limbaugh      May 13, 2010
We knew Obama was prevaricating when he told us his purpose to cram through Obamacare was to provide universal access to coverage and reduce costs, but how many people did he manage to fool? How many are still fooled?
He repeatedly complained that America spent more on healthcare than other nations "but wasn't any healthier." He grossly distorted the numbers of chronically uninsured. He lied about his support for a single-payer plan and in denying that the "public option" was a Trojan horse for such a plan. He misled us concerning his intention to federally fund abortions and the coverage of illegals.
He deceitfully insisted that he wouldn't interfere with the patient-doctor relationship, that patients could choose to keep their own plans, that his plan wouldn't lead to rationing and that it would increase the quality of care.
Perhaps his most cynical fraud was his line that he would not sign a bill that would add one single dime to the federal deficit. Along with the uninsured canard, this was his biggest selling point for Obamacare: Healthcare costs were skyrocketing, and he had the magic bullet to remedy that.
Well, we already have objective proof (courtesy of a delinquent Congressional Budget Office pronouncement) that this, too, was a lie.
Obama and congressional Democrats moved budgetary mountains (in the way David Copperfield moves mountains onstage) to create the CBO-supported illusion that his bill wouldn't increase federal budget deficits.
By asking the CBO to make absurd assumptions and by borrowing from other mythical funds (Medicare), Obamacrats were finally able to make the numbers balance, just long enough to give Obama cover to sign the bill.
But less than two months after he signed the bill into law, the CBO, in response to Rep. Jerry Lewis' request for a rescoring based on realistic assumptions instead of the bogus ones Democrats submitted, has already admitted its estimate didn't take into account "discretionary" expenditures that will add some $115 billion worth of costs.
With the publication of this news, the administration is now making noise, threatening not to fund the bill unless Congress finds sufficient savings elsewhere to nullify that "unexpected" cost increase.
Give me a break. Just how stupid can these people think we are? They knew about these false assumptions before Obama signed the bill, and they're not about to withdraw their wholesale endorsement for Obama's crowning legislative "achievement."
But as bad as Obama's lies were about the costs of his plan, many of us warned that a greater evil in Obamacare was its guaranteed path to reducing our freedoms.
Ronald Reagan was not just issuing platitudes when he said, "One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It's very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project . . . From here, it's a short step to all the rest of socialism."
No truer words were ever spoken, and you can be sure that Obama believes it, too, which is exactly why he misrepresented almost every aspect of his plan in order to get it passed — and even then, just barely.
His real purpose, as many of us have been telling you ad nauseam, is to greatly increase the size and scope of government and government control and, in the process, further radically redistribute wealth. He's a socialist. These aren't just words. He really is.
As it turns out, we don't have to wait any longer to prove we were correct about this, too. Obama has nominated Donald Berwick to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
I discovered in research on my upcoming book that experts believe that under Obamacare, the role of the CMS will be greatly expanded to define the quality of healthcare for every insurance plan, set reimbursement rates for physicians in Medicare and Medicaid, and decide how valuable certain treatments are.
According to Robert M. Goldberg of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest, Berwick essentially "will get control of the practice of medicine."
It would be scary enough for a bureaucrat of normal sensibilities and saner politics to have such control, but RedState has uncovered the extent of Berwick's radicalism — like so many of Obama's other appointees.
Berwick is an Ivy League academic who loves wealth redistribution and believes that healthcare is an ideal vehicle to achieve it.
Berwick said: "Any healthcare funding plan that is just, equitable, civilized, and humane must . . . redistribute wealth from the richer among us to the poorer and the less fortunate. Excellent healthcare is by definition redistributional."
Berwick also lusts after the British system of socialized medicine, saying that America's healthcare system runs in the "darkness of private enterprise."
How much more proof do people need about Obama?
http://www.newsmax.com/Limbaugh/Obama-Obamacare-healthcare-public/2010/05/13/id/358958



Nancy Pelosi Touting Free Healthcare To Some To Be Paid By The Rest of Us.
admin — Tue, 18 May 2010 09:03:17 +0000
Pelosi to Aspiring Musicians: Quit Your Job, Taxpayers Will Cover Your Health Care

Sounds like socialism … er, communism as in communist Russia of the 1970’s. 
We need to stop this transfer of wealth and killer of motivation and productivity which enslaves working individuals and forces them to pay for those who are not contributing.



Almost 17K New IRS Agents Mandated In The Obamacare Legislation (But it is all about healthcare, right?)
admin — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 09:05:23 +0000




Come Hell or High Water, Congressional Democrats Want to Pass Obamacare
admin — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 09:00:13 +0000
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.
URL   http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=515697



Healthcare Reform Legislation: Good Enough For the American Public But Not Good Enough For Congress
admin — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 09:00:40 +0000
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.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=514427



Convoluted and Massive Bureaucracy Created in Pelosi Healthcare Legislation
admin — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:00:14 +0000
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:

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



Congress Wants to Penalize Doctors If They Provide More Care To The Elderly Than The Government Deems Appropriate
admin — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 09:00:09 +0000
"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'



Canadians Discuss Their Failing Socialized Healthcare System
admin — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 09:05:16 +0000
In the following video, Canadians share their opinions on their healthcare system - and it is not good.