Stimulus: A Rationed Health Care Trojan Horse

Currently one of Drudge's one line banners. I don't think this will play well in Peoria. Read it all.

Hidden Provisions

If the Obama administration’s economic stimulus bill passes the Senate in its current form, seniors in the U.S. will face similar rationing. Defenders of the system say that individuals benefit in younger years and sacrifice later.

The stimulus bill will affect every part of health care, from medical and nursing education, to how patients are treated and how much hospitals get paid. The bill allocates more funding for this bureaucracy than for the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force combined (90-92, 174-177, 181).

Hiding health legislation in a stimulus bill is intentional. Daschle supported the Clinton administration’s health-care overhaul in 1994, and attributed its failure to debate and delay. A year ago, Daschle wrote that the next president should act quickly before critics mount an opposition. “If that means attaching a health-care plan to the federal budget, so be it,” he said. “The issue is too important to be stalled by Senate protocol.”

More Scrutiny Needed

On Friday, President Obama called it “inexcusable and irresponsible” for senators to delay passing the stimulus bill. In truth, this bill needs more scrutiny.

The health-care industry is the largest employer in the U.S. It produces almost 17 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. Yet the bill treats health care the way European governments do: as a cost problem instead of a growth industry. Imagine limiting growth and innovation in the electronics or auto industry during this downturn. This stimulus is dangerous to your health and the economy.

(Betsy McCaughey is former lieutenant governor of New York and is an adjunct senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. The opinions expressed are her own.)

Comments

[Lala]

Betsy McCaughey is the one who foiled the Hillary Clinton plan.

She's not just the former Lt.Gov. she has taken on the responsibility to wipe out MRSA in hospitals.

[mark l.]

"Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system."
from the article.

I have nothing to hide, but then the last doctor I saw was over 12 years ago. I can't wait to have the press given access to everyone's medical records.

any congress critters have a kid or wife in rehab?
family members instituionalized?
getting treatment for stds?
or gasp...having an abortion? (This is my personal favorite-unless they provide an exemption for abortion, then all the work of those who are out there getting 15 year olds an abortion, out of fear their parents will find out...well, now they will.

[WBestPresidentEver]

Funny, I just read the entire article before I stopped by here. I AM OUTRAGED !!
PEOPLE NEED TO RAISE HELL ABOUT THIS.
Obama is a sneaky S**. I am beginning to detest him more and more everyday.

Here is the rest of it.

Republican Senators are questioning whether President Barack Obama’s stimulus bill contains the right mix of tax breaks and cash infusions to jump-start the economy.

Tragically, no one from either party is objecting to the health provisions slipped in without discussion. These provisions reflect the handiwork of Tom Daschle, until recently the nominee to head the Health and Human Services Department.

Senators should read these provisions and vote against them because they are dangerous to your health. (Page numbers refer to H.R. 1 EH, pdf version).

The bill’s health rules will affect “every individual in the United States” (445, 454, 479). Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system. Having electronic medical records at your fingertips, easily transferred to a hospital, is beneficial. It will help avoid duplicate tests and errors.

But the bill goes further. One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.” According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and “learn to operate less like solo practitioners.”

Keeping doctors informed of the newest medical findings is important, but enforcing uniformity goes too far.

New Penalties

Hospitals and doctors that are not “meaningful users” of the new system will face penalties. “Meaningful user” isn’t defined in the bill. That will be left to the HHS secretary, who will be empowered to impose “more stringent measures of meaningful use over time” (511, 518, 540-541)

What penalties will deter your doctor from going beyond the electronically delivered protocols when your condition is atypical or you need an experimental treatment? The vagueness is intentional. In his book, Daschle proposed an appointed body with vast powers to make the “tough” decisions elected politicians won’t make.

The stimulus bill does that, and calls it the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research (190-192). The goal, Daschle’s book explained, is to slow the development and use of new medications and technologies because they are driving up costs. He praises Europeans for being more willing to accept “hopeless diagnoses” and “forgo experimental treatments,” and he chastises Americans for expecting too much from the health-care system.

Elderly Hardest Hit

Daschle says health-care reform “will not be pain free.” Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them. That means the elderly will bear the brunt.

Medicare now pays for treatments deemed safe and effective. The stimulus bill would change that and apply a cost- effectiveness standard set by the Federal Council (464).

The Federal Council is modeled after a U.K. board discussed in Daschle’s book. This board approves or rejects treatments using a formula that divides the cost of the treatment by the number of years the patient is likely to benefit. Treatments for younger patients are more often approved than treatments for diseases that affect the elderly, such as osteoporosis.

In 2006, a U.K. health board decreed that elderly patients with macular degeneration had to wait until they went blind in one eye before they could get a costly new drug to save the other eye. It took almost three years of public protests before the board reversed its decision.

[mary]

People from all over the world come to the US to use our health care system. Wonder if they will continue to come?

[WAHOO WILLIE]

"Daschle says health-care reform “will not be pain free.” Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them. That means the elderly will bear the brunt."

Man, I bet Komrade Harpie is breathing a sigh of relief over this....His mom probably isn't happy "Sorry maam, you're 70 and life expectancy is 73, soooooo no breat cancer treatment for you. The money is needed to provide abortions to twelve year olds.....do die with dignity please."

[Lala]

Here's a sample of rationing health care in England - by having an approval process -

Forty per cent of GPs 'regularly' have their referrals of patients to hospitals blocked

This is a grim account of one way in which treatment in the NHS is, effectively, being delayed. None of this, I assume, will appear in the calculation of 'waiting lists'. So this is also another way in which the waiting list calculation is being manipulated. To put it more bluntly, it is anothe way in which the waiting list figures are lies.

Family doctors say that new "referral management" systems, set up to allow primary care trusts (PCTs) to overrule decisions taken in the surgery, are being used to delay and cancel hospital care, and to divert patients referred to a hospital consultant to cheaper clinics in the community.

Other schemes run by PCTs have offered GPs payments if they reduce the number of patients sent to hospital.

Of 750 doctors polled across Britain, 75 per cent said they had referred patients to hospital only to have their decision overruled, with 40 per cent saying that it happened regularly. Dr Laurence Buckman, the chairman of the British Medical Association's GP committee, himself a London family doctor, said such schemes were a short-sighted attempt to save money by delaying hospital care.

"If I think my patient needs to see an orthopaedic surgeon, the chances are they do," he said. "These kinds of schemes just set up an extra layer, which delays the patient getting to see the right person."

Dr Buckman said he believed the schemes were "simply about saving money" by delaying hospital bills. "Most PCTs are on the verge of bankruptcy and if they can find a way to defer payment until the next quarter, or next financial year, they will," he added.

Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrat health spokesman, said that GPs in his North Norfolk constituency had complained to him after referrals for teenagers requiring psychiatric help were delayed, while local PCTs had introduced "minimum waits" for surgery in order to push hospital bills into the next financial year.

He warned: "Patients will be confused. They will trust their GP to make the right judgment and when their referral comes back, they can only assume it was for financial reasons."

Katherine Murphy, from the Patients' Association, said her group was hearing a growing number of complaints from orthopaedic patients who believed their health had worsened after they were diverted for treatment by a physiotherapist when their GP had intended them to see a surgeon. She described the policy as "a prime example of deficits putting lives at risk".

Paul Rybinski, a GP in Croydon, Surrey, said doctors were under increasing pressure to reduce hospital referrals to save NHS funds. His own practice has a referral cuts target of 5 per cent.

Dr Rybinksi said he feared "referral centres" would make decisions based on very partial knowledge of the patient. "When I make a referral it is based on a complex decision relating to the individual in front of me. It is very difficult for a panel at a PCT to second-guess what I was thinking, and the factors I was taking into account, based on a reading of a basic referral letter."

The poll, by Pearl Medical, which provides mobile communications to GPs, also found that doctors strongly opposed Government plans to create networks of "polyclinics", replacing individual GP surgeries with huge group practices, serving populations of 50,000.

The full article in The Sunday Telegraph is here.

http://www.thewelfarestatewerein.com/archives/nhs/index.php

[SacTownMan]

I've discussed the parsing out of health care in England here for some time. When I gave a talk in Inverness, Scotland in May, 2005 I was shocked at the government boards that determine who gets scans and, when needed, treatment.

My talk discussed our use of PET/CT scans used for radiation treatment planning for the majority of our patients with Head and Neck cancer. When I took questions and was able speak in person with other medical professionals I was shocked that besides the 2-3 month wait for a PET scan they were seldom allowed. You see there is only so much money in the kitty and they have to "budget" health care accordingly.

This database will be used for the same parsing out of health care we see in Canada and England. Just hope you don't get cancer and have a troll minion decide your fate!

[seekeronos]

Socialised medicine!

Just what the Politicos ordered!