So, you REALLY think you want Universal Healthcare?
Here is my rebuttal to two Letters to the Editor (here and here, also after the jump) demanding that the State of NH provide more money for Medicare and healthcare:
To The Editor:
One thing is true – two Letters demonstrate what happens when one becomes too dependent on Big Government (e.g., Brenda Baer's of 5/14: cuts in Medicare reimbursements to hospitals and medical professionals and John Swartz's of 5/13: rent-seeking as his company isn't getting what he believes to be sufficient monies). Mr. Swartz simply wants Bigger Government to pay more so that basic laws of economics can be repealed for his place of business (“... would both free our hospital of the burden of insurance costs...”) as if a non-profit should be exempt from what the rest of us face? In Ms. Baer's case, it readily shows a basic truth that is often ignored: what Big Government can give, it can also take away.
Promises,shromises. Benefits once granted by politicians when “life is good” revenue-wise to trade “promising you something from the public Treasury” for your vote, can just as easily be taken away when conditions (politicians, revenues) change. After all, how many politicians keep their own promises? And how good is a promise made by a long gone politician? Just as laws and regulations can be made, they can be unmade or changed.
Both give evidence that the Federal Government cannot provide true Universal Healthcare. There are too many competing entities trying to grab from an ever changing pie – no matter how high taxes might be raised anywhere on anyone, there is just not enough money to provide for all (and there aren't enough “rich” to go around). Even if Obama and the Democrats enact it, it will fail over time (just ask Britain or Canada).
The sad fact is that neither Letter writer mentioned the folks from whom they are demanding more – taxpayers in the cross-hairs once again. Taxpayers, as the Tea Parties are showing, will stomach paying only so much for others via forced charity; if implemented, there will be rationing either by lengthening wait times or restricting costly pharmaceuticals & procedures. “Free” creates demand (after all, “I'm not paying for it”) and remember – There Is No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.
A better solution? Less government, not more. One where Government subsidizes only the truly poor (and not $100K/yr families as in SCHIP in some states). By putting each citizen back in charge of their own healthcare, the dependency on Government is cut – no political whims to deal with. A true marketplace, free from the mandates and restrictions by greedy, power hungry, vote seeking politicians (and other rent-seekers). One in which costs can be seen and judged by those actually paying the bills instead of some faceless clerk or bureaucrat, will improve quality and lower costs (e.g., consider LASIK and plastic surgery where insurers and government play little or no role). Let families accrue tax free monies in Health Savings accounts for the every day”costs like doctors visits and seek out and purchase insurance plans from anywhere that suit their needs and protect against catastrophic bankruptcy rather than what politicians think they should have.
Unless, of course, you WANT to be dependent on the whims of Government for your well-being?
And indeed, Big Government will want to get right at your dinner plate - if they have to pay for obesity, you WILL pay for it with higher taxes and a more intrusive Government able to tell you what you can and cannot eat. Given that taxpayers and the Government will be paying for your healthcare, as with the financial firms, Government Statits and Nanny-Staters have decided that they should determine what you eat (e.g., Bloomberg in NYC banning transfats, MA forcing calorie counts on fast food restaurants, "sin" taxes will now include taxes on soda [here and here] - after all, WE know better than YOU what is best for you).
And they will make YOU pay for what THEY think is best with hundreds of new taxes being considered:
The beverage tax is just one of hundreds of ideas that lawmakers are weighing to finance the health-care plans. They're expected to narrow the list in coming weeks.
And what is being cooked up is not all that settling - rather, some of it is downright scary. ONLY in DC is Obama's "down payment" of $680 billion for U.H. not getting an eye blink (except for the true believers that have blinders on). Upon reading the CBO's estimate that it will actually take $1.2 Trillion, it took my breath away - just a few years ago, that WAS the annual Federal budget (no thanks to Bush and Clinton for starting and pushing the spending along!).
This massive change in policy should be debated, it should be vetted, and it should have hearings. Instead, Obama and his minions in Congress (NH Senator Shaheen, Congressmen Hodes and Shea-Porter) want to use a simple "reconciliation" process to by-pass the responsible process. To ram this through? This is akin to the sign at the NH Tea Party: "787 Billion and they didn't even read it"!
And it WILL be on the Dems for its failure - even if a couple/few RINOs vote for it. Payments are already being short-changed in Medicare, doctors and hospitals are refusing patients as payments dip below what is needed. It will only get worse, as it already is in MA as RomneyCare goes well above its estimated costs - access to doctors is already being restricted.
What are some of the plans?
- If Congress agrees, a public plan would be part of the health overhaul legislation that lawmakers want to put on President Barack Obama's desk later this year.
- Two of the designs that senators will consider call for a plan that's like Medicare, except it would pay doctors and hospitals a little more generously. In one version, the public plan would be run directly by the government. The alternative would be to have it administered by regional middlemen under contract to the government.
- A third idea would leave it up to each state to set up and run their own public insurance plans.
- A fourth option, promoted by Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., would try to address concerns about unfair competition from a public plan. Schumer's proposal would require the public plan to be financed by premiums, not tax dollars. It would have to follow the same solvency rules as private insurers, maintaining a reserve fund to cover liabilities. Doctors and hospitals would be free to participate in the plan, or opt out. And the public plan would have to operate under the same consumer protection rules as private insurers.
- RomneyCare on steroids - ALL employers have to provide health care insurance with the specs determined by Government.
Hugh Hewitt has more on the Henry Waxman 983 page (WTF? WHY can't they write simple?):
The Rush To Rationing, Con't. Old Folks, Get Those Burial Plans Updated
Finally, a lobbyist sends along the outline of the Waxman plan that will issue from the House to the Conference on Obama/Pelosi/Reid rationing:
The Waxman bill will include:
- Mandates
- Individual mandate for all Americans to purchase health insurance.
- Employer mandate – those who don’t offer insurance will be fined or taxed, not sure which
- National health insurance exchange.
- Government will regulate private plans, mandate minimum benefits.
- Three tier-options will exist for each plan.
- Individuals and families up to 400% FPL will be given a sliding scale of subsidies to purchase plans in the exchange
- New regulations private insurance regarding rating and guarantee issue
- A federal public option will compete with private plans.
- States can create their own public plans, opting out of the federal public plan.
- A Medicare payment structure will be used for reimbursement.
- Public plans will be geographically rated.
- “Evidenced based medicine practices” will be adopted in the public plan and Medicare/Medicaid (sounds like CE)
- Incentives to employers to keep employees healthy.
- Medicaid eligible patients will still receive traditional Medicaid.
- Workforce issues will be addressed – increasing primary care doctors, loan reimbursements, etc.
- Expansion of community health centers
- Improved data collection
The last bullet is my favorite: We can chart the declining expected life span as the elderly get "delayed" into dying. Rationing under such an unbelievably complicated bureaucracy as this one is of the very quiet sort. You never get denied urgently needed medical care. You just never get approved to receive it.
Right or wrong, more doctors will close their practices to new patients, especially patients carrying lower paying insurance such as Medicaid. Some doctors will opt out of the system entirely, going "cash only." If too many doctors take this route the government could step in -- as in Canada, for example -- to effectively outlaw private-only medical practice.
One problem? Why should a blue collar factory worker be subsidizing a "rich" family?
Regarding “affordability,” the committee is apparently looking at providing new premium subsidies to everyone below 400% of poverty. For a family of four, that’s about $88,000 per year. A very large segment of the working-age population falls below that threshold. If enacted, it would be a massive new health-care entitlement piled on top of the unaffordable ones already on the books.
Last time I looked, about $92K and above put one in the top 10% of wage earners. Take it from there and think - this is helping only the poor? And I thought Universal meant EVERYONE!
Oh, that vaunted claim of lower costs via Information Technology. Pure hype - the Government expects to run that huge system analyzing different costs and procedure to figure out how to be "cost effective"? The literature is chock FULL of Government IT projects gone bad. Heck, if they can't even get the IRS collections and FAA Air Traffic Control right, I SHUDDER to think of the fiasco-in-the-making this will be. Any savings - stuff that dreams are made of!
And remember, Medicare's "costs" are way understated because they "write off" from $60-$70 Billion / year of fraud. And those "lower costs" in other countries - easy when those Governments have "mandatory volunteerism" by doctors and others.
Another post at TCS Daily brings up a good question:
Think of it: Can anyone name a federal program that ever cut costs for anything? Let's not forget that the existing Medicare system is roughly $80 trillion in the hole.
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The other Letters:
Editor, The Citizen:
Where to begin. There is so much frustration out there and so much, so wrong going on, that it is hard to know which one to hone in on. However, after reading Tom Clairmont's letter to the editor about the hospital's plight in view of the Medicaid cuts, etc. I wanted to say something. This along with other things going on with hospital funds by the State and again the piece in Wednesday's paper, make me want to weigh in on it.
Unfortunately, most people simply read something, move on to the next article and do nothing. When the bottom falls out and they are personally affected they react. Too late! We must all react NOW. We must call, write, e-mail, whatever, our state senators and insist they restore Medicaid funding and return the $110 million they stole from the malpractice fund paid entirely by participating doctors and our own Lakes Region General Hospital. Not one penny of this money was funded by the State nor was it a program managed by the State. It seems nothing is safe or protected from the State.
We have State Senators and Representatives who continually take credit for increasing the number of people to be covered with insurance, namely children, and then take monies away from the institutions who have to deliver this healthcare to everyone including this growing number of participants. The Federal government wants to improve and nationalize healthcare. We all want protection for all citizens but how it can be done without costing more cuts to doctors and hospitals will be a huge problem. We all want medical care, but even more important, we want quality care. Will it be available to us if hospitals and doctors are denied reasonable payment. As Tom Clairmont, President of LRGH, said Wednesday, if the present State bill is not reversed, it could lead to layoffs and shrink the range of services and patients would have wait for care. This will affect all patients, not just Medicaid patients as more of the costs will be passed on to the private patients with private insurance, and that will mean increases in premiums to them down the line as well as feeling the effects of limited care.
The number I called yesterday for our State Senator Sgambati is 1-603-271-2641. If no answer, leave message. The message should be to reverse cutting Medicaid payments to hospitals.
Brenda Baer
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Editor, The Citizen:
As a health care professional, I want to see Single-Payer, "on the table". Currently the small New England hospital I work for is losing 200,000 a month. This loss is due to having to pay employee insurance costs and servicing either the uninsured or the underinsured, for which we receive no reimbursement for.
A Single-Payer system, specifically HR 676, would both free our hospital of the burden of insurance costs and it would allow our hospital to be profitable by providing a reimbursement for every patient we service.
This savings would allow our hospital to hire more staff, purchase more equipment, and have serviced the equipments now in disrepair. In short, a Single -Payer system will create jobs, free hospitals of debt and allow healthcare workers to do what we have been trained to to-help others. Put Single-Payer, "on the table".
John Swartz
Ashland
