For the first time federal officials have the power to overhaul the system under Obama's Affordable Care Act, which gives them authority to stop paying a provider they suspect is fraudulent. Critics have complained the current process did nothing more than rubber-stamp payments to fraudulent providers.Maybe we'll let the Dem Fraud hawks keep this lone provision when Obamacare is repealed . . .
The X-rays to the right show how the handle to the faucet on which Zhao had impaled himself penetrated about an inch deep into his eye socket. According to a CEN report, Zhao eventually grew tired of waiting for the pipework to be removed and, to the surprise of doctors, pulled it out of his head himself. While the man had suffered a fractured nose and facial bones from the ordeal, doctors said his brain and vision did not appear to be permanently affected. (EuroPics)
A Republican effort to force changes to the health-care reform bill appears to be gathering steam, but Tennessee's attorney general said Wednesday that his office will sit out for now.
Attorneys general in 13 states said in a letter to Congressional leaders sent Wednesday evening that they will sue unless lawmakers remove a deal that gives Nebraska a break on Medicaid payments in exchange for that state's Democratic senator's vote for health-care reform. The law violates the Constitution because it amounts to a tax break for citizens of one state, the group says.
These details are obnoxious not merely in and of themselves but because they tell us the truth about where we’re headed: Think of the way almost every Big Government project bursts its bodice and winds up bigger and more bloated than its creators allegedly foresaw. In this instance, the stays come pre-loosened, and studded with loopholes. Because the Democrat operators — the Nancy Pelosis and Barney Franks — know that what matters is to get something, anything across the river, and then burn the bridge behind you.
My Republican friends often seem to miss the point in this debate: The so-called “public option” is not Page 3,079, Section (f), Clause VII. The entire bill is a public option — because that’s where it leads, remorselessly. The so-called “death panel” is not Page 2,721, Paragraph 19, Sub-section (d), but again the entire bill — because it inserts the power of the state between you and your doctor, and in effect assumes jurisdiction over your body. As the savvier Dems have always known, once you’ve crossed the Rubicon, you can endlessly re-reform your health reform until the end of time, and all the stuff you didn’t get this go-round will fall into place, and very quickly.
As I’ve been saying for over a year now, “health care” is the fast-track to a permanent left-of-center political culture. The unlovely Democrats on public display in the week before Christmas may seem like just a bunch of jelly-spined opportunists, grubby wardheelers and rapacious kleptocrats, but the smarter ones are showing great strategic clarity. Alas for the rest of us, Euro-style government on a Harry Reid/Chris Dodd/Ben Nelson scale will lead to ruin.
Looking at the millions of Americans it leaves uninsured, and the millions it leaves with worse treatment and reduced access, and the millions it makes pay significantly more for their current health care, one can only marvel at Harry Reid’s genius: government health care turns out to be all government and no health care. Adding up the zillions of new taxes and bureaucracies and regulations it imposes on the citizenry, one might almost think that was the only point of the exercise.Nicely said.
Liberals cite medical horror stories from the very states they once cheered for enacting universal health care in order to argue for a national health care plan that will wreck the entire nation's medical care the same way liberal states already wrecked their own medical care.
Only Democrats could propose fixing one Bernie Madoff-style scam with an even bigger Bernie Madoff-style scam.
Dear Ned,
After months of debate, an overwhelming majority of Americans support a "robust public option" similar to Medicare.
And thanks to the heroic efforts of progressive activists, we have almost enough votes in the Senate and House to pass it.
The Democratic majorities in the Senate (60/40) and the House (258/177) are large enough to pass a "public option" even with no Republican support. But a handful of conservative "Democrats" are blocking the will of the Democratic majority.
These conservative "Democrats" refuse to listen to the Democratic voters who elected them. That means it's up to our Democratic leaders - Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and President Obama - to persuade them.
Join the Democratic Donor Strike for a Robust Public Option . . .
(12) Only national health care can provide "coverage that will stay with you whether you move, change your job or lose your job"
(13) The "public option" trigger is something other than a national takeover of health care.
(14) National health care will not cover abortions or illegal immigrants.
Apparently, promising to cut costs by having a panel of Washington bureaucrats (for short, "The Death Panel") deny medical treatment wasn't a popular idea with most Americans. So liberals started claiming that they are going to cover an additional 47 million uninsured Americans and cut costs ... without ever denying a single medical treatment!
Also on the agenda is a delicious all-you-can-eat chocolate cake that will actually help you lose weight!
Michael Vujovich, 61, of Windsor was taken to Detroit's Henry Ford Hospital for an angioplasty procedure after he went to a Windsor hospital in April. Vujovich said the U.S. backup doesn't show a gap in Canada's system, but shows how it works.
"I go to the hospital in Windsor and two hours later, I'm done having angioplasty in Detroit," he said. His $38,000 bill was covered by the Ontario health ministry.
When politicians interfere with free markets, unintended consequences harm everyone, except the companies that lobby hard enough to protect themselves.That term "rulers" has bite, doesn't it?
Is it too much to expect our rulers to understand this?
"However, it is now evident that an ugly campaign is underway not merely to misrepresent the health insurance reform legislation, but to disrupt public meetings and prevent members of Congress and constituents from conducting a civil dialogue,'' the two leaders write. "These disruptions are occurring because opponents are afraid not just of differing views -- but of the facts themselves. Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American.''I guess a fawning press coupled with an enormous bullhorn allows you to say just about anything.
Some lawmakers are holding town hall meetings or other public forums on health care reform over the next few weeks, where voters will get a chance to speak out about the various proposals for change. The poll indicates that seven in 10 Americans say they're very or somewhat likely to attend such events.(emphasis added)
To keep from so throwing out the baby with the bathwater, I suggest that we consider at least two crucial distinctions in determining what would be a protected refusal to provide a requested medical intervention; first, between elective and non-elective procedures, and second between treatments and patients. Thus, doctors should be permitted to refuse elective procedures—that is, interventions not immediately necessary to save the patient’s life or prevent serious physical harm—if their conscience so dictates, whether it be rhinoplasty, abortion, or assisted suicide. To prevent care refusals from being a mere cover for discriminatory attitudes, the requested procedure should generally be what violates the conscience, not bias against the patient. In this way, for example, an oncologist should not be able to refuse to treat a lung-cancer patient because the patient smoked or was a member of a racial minority.
Biden offered several criticisms of John McCain’s health-care plan which tracked precisely with the line of attack the Obama campaign has taken up against the plan in recent days, and which are flatly untrue and deceptive.Aw heck, you ought to read the whole thing. It is the BEST articulation of McCain's healthcare proposal that I've seen.
The Deregulation Canard
The approach involved two basic elements. First, after (somehow) implicitly attributing the current financial crisis to deregulation, Biden argued that McCain wants to do the same thing to the health care sector and so presumably send it into a similar crisis. “As a matter of fact,” Biden said, “John recently wrote an article in a major magazine saying that he wants to do for the health-care industry deregulate it and let the free market move like he did for the banking industry.” The same argument is advanced in a new Obama campaign commercial. Over images of Fannie and Freddie logos, the ad asserts that McCain wants to do to health care what “Bush/McCain policies have done to our economy,” by which they mean deregulation. The ad says:
McCain just published an article praising Wall Street deregulation; said he'd reduce oversight of the health insurance industry too, "just as we have done over the last decade in banking.”
The line they quote comes from an article by John McCain (i.e by his campaign) about the McCain health plan in the latest issue of Contingencies magazine. In a passage arguing for more competition to lower the cost of health insurance, McCain writes:
I would also allow individuals to choose to purchase health insurance across state lines, when they can find more affordable and attractive products elsewhere that they prefer. Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation. Consumer-friendly insurance policies will be more available and affordable when there is greater competition among insurers on a level playing field.
The Obama ad of course doesn’t quote all of that, but merely suggests McCain is endorsing some supposed deregulation of Wall Street. In fact, McCain is very plainly talking about the Riegle-Neal Interstate Banking Act, passed in 1994, which permitted banks to establish branches nationwide by eliminating the requirement for separate subsidiaries in each state and the prohibition against banks accepting deposits from customers out of their home states. This very sensible reform updated a 1956 law to modernize American banking, and there is simply no question it has been successful and useful. It passed the Senate 94 to 4, and Sen. Biden voted for it.
That important act of deregulation had exactly nothing whatsoever to do with the economic crisis we now face, and on the contrary has contributed to American prosperity and competitiveness. The Obama campaign could raise questions about how close an analogy there might be to that law in allowing health insurers, like banks, to work across state lines. But the tack they have actually taken — accepting the analogy and asserting it reflects poorly on McCain’s plan — is either dishonest or ignorant. Either way, it makes no sense.
