Thread: Enough Of The Mob

Originally Posted by candygirl

Put the blame where it belongs,all I and others are seeing are defeated Rupublicans turning to violence out of anger because they can't win anything

Riddle me this : why is it "passionate patriotic dissent" when it is Liberals and Dems but racist, treasonous, uncontrolled violence when it is Convervatives or GOP ?

:crickets:


Sunday, August 9, 2009
Preventive measures raise the cost of healthcare
http://www.punditandpundette.com/200...e-cost-of.html

Is there any aspect of ObamaCare that isn't a sham?

From Jake Tapper: CBO: Preventive care costs rather than saves money.

ObamaCare pushers from Pelosi, Dodd, Sebelius, and Linda Douglass, to Obama himself continue to dismiss the CBO's findings by asserting that the CBO refuses to take into account the savings that will be achieved by preventive measures. This is a misrepresentation. The CBO has looked at prevention and finds that it increases rather than decreases costs.

Mr. Elmendorf's conclusions are based on solid data (see Tapper's links):

Wrote Elemendorf, "After reviewing hundreds of previous studies of preventive care, the authors report that slightly fewer than 20 percent of the services that were examined save money, while the rest add to costs."

[. . .]

"For example, many observers point to cases in which a simple medical test, if given early enough, can reveal a condition that is treatable at a fraction of the cost of treating that same illness after it has progressed. In such cases, an ounce of prevention improves health and reduces spending — for that individual," Elmendorf wrote. "But when analyzing the effects of preventive care on total spending for health care, it is important to recognize that doctors do not know beforehand which patients are going to develop costly illnesses. To avert one case of acute illness, it is usually necessary to provide preventive care to many patients, most of whom would not have suffered that illness anyway. ... Researchers who have examined the effects of preventive care generally find that the added costs of widespread use of preventive services tend to exceed the savings from averted illness."

And this applies to actual preventive care measures. The costs go higher when pork projects are included, which they are in the various healthcare bills in the House and Senate.

Read the rest of Tapper's thorough piece. http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpu...cut-costs.html

See also http://patterico.com/2009/08/09/the-...e-health-care/

Mike K has pointed this out on several occasions. Perhaps the Obama Administration has been listening because Linda Douglass, the infamous White House communications director for Health Reform, responded that preventive care will save money because it will be targeted.

I wonder how they will decide who gets this targeted preventive care? It could be our personal physicians but I’m betting on the government death panel.

– DRJ

Comments

“Targeted” is the new Obama buzzword. Its vacuous nonsense. There is a lot of research on “preventative care” over the last couple of decades. With the exception of vaccination and smoking cessation, its almost all nonsense.

Comment by SPQR X — 8/9/2009 @ 3:58 pm

In the ’70’s, Democrats pushed HMO’s as the solution to our supposed health care woes specifically because they were supposed to be incentivized by capitation to focus on preventative care.

But the HMO’s discovered that preventative care was largely not cost effective. Vaccination is the best case. Smoking cessation programs the next best case but after that, almost no preventative care programs actually reduce health care costs in excess of the preventative care costs themselves.

Today, HMO’s are the bad guys – even for Democrats who themselves pushed so hard for legislation creating them like Ted Kennedy.

Comment by SPQR X — 8/9/2009 @ 6:58 pm

Riddle me this : why is it "passionate patriotic dissent" when it is Liberals and Dems but racist, treasonous, uncontrolled violence when it is Convervatives or GOP ?

:crickets:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGEnKh0ocb0

chirp, chirp b/c it's not the way most intelligent people think and people that perpetuate that kind of talk are sh!t stirrers. When I hear a statement like that from a lib or conservative I think, "generalizing, moron"
It's such a small percentage from both groups that make these statements but yet the stereotype marches on....

Saturday, August 8, 2009
An Inconvenient Truth About The "Death Panel"
http://legalinsurrection.blogspot.co...ath-panel.html

Sarah Palin has kicked off (another) firestorm of criticism because of the statement she released on her Facebook page:

The Democrats promise that a government health care system will reduce the cost of health care, but as the economist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.

The incoming fire has been withering, as usual. Palin is accused of becoming the "Zombie Queen," certifiably insane, "clinically wrong," and espousing a "gruesome mix of camp and high farce."

These critics, however, didn't take the time to find out to what Palin was referring when she used the term "level of productivity in society" as being the basis for determining access to medical care. If the critics, who hold themselves in the highest of intellectual esteem, had bothered to do something other than react, they would have realized that the approach to health care to which Palin was referring was none other than that espoused by key Obama health care adviser Dr. Ezekial Emanuel (brother of Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel).

The article in which Dr. Emanuel puts forth his approach is "Principles for Allocation of Scarce Medical Interventions," published on January 31, 2009. A full copy is embedded below. Read it, particularly the section beginning at page 6 of the embed (page 428 in the original) at which Dr. Emanuel sets forth the principles of "The Complete Lives System."

While Emanuel does not use the term "death panel," Palin put that term in quotation marks to signify the concept of medical decisions based on the perceived societal worth of an individual, not literally a "death panel." And in so doing, Palin was true to Dr. Emanuel's concept of a system which
considers prognosis, since its aim is to achieve complete lives.

A young person with a poor prognosis has had a few life-years but lacks the potential to live a complete life. Considering prognosis forestalls the concern the disproportionately large amounts of resources will be directed to young people with poor prognoses. When the worst-off can benefit only slightly while better-off people could benefit greatly, allocating to the better-off is often justifiable....

When implemented, the complete lives system produces a priority curve on which individuals aged between roughly 15 and 40 years get the most chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get chances that are attenuated.

Put together the concepts of prognosis and age, and Dr. Emanuel's proposal reasonably could be construed as advocating the withholding of some level of medical treatment (probably not basic care, but likely expensive advanced care) to a baby born with Down Syndrome. You may not like this implication, but it is Dr. Emanuel's implication not Palin's.

The next question is, whether Dr. Emanuel's proposal bears any connection to current Democratic proposals. There is no single Democratic proposal at this point, only a series of proposals and concepts. To that extent, Palin's comments properly are viewed as a warning shot not to move to Dr. Emanuel's concept of health care rationing based on societal worth, rather than a critique of a specific bill ready for vote.

Certainly, no Democrat is proposing a "death panel," or withholding care to the young or infirm. To say such a thing would be political suicide.

But one interesting concept which is central to the concepts being discussed is the creation of a panel of "experts" to make the politically unpopular decisions on allocating health care resources. In a letter to the Senate, Barack Obama expressed support for such a commission: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_...nd-Max-Baucus/

I am committed to working with the Congress to fully offset the cost of health care reform by reducing Medicare and Medicaid spending by another $200 to $300 billion over the next 10 years, and by enacting appropriate proposals to generate additional revenues. These savings will come not only by adopting new technologies and addressing the vastly different costs of care, but from going after the key drivers of skyrocketing health care costs, including unmanaged chronic diseases, duplicated tests, and unnecessary hospital readmissions.

To identify and achieve additional savings, I am also open to your ideas about giving special consideration to the recommendations of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), a commission created by a Republican Congress. Under this approach, MedPAC's recommendations on cost reductions would be adopted unless opposed by a joint resolution of the Congress. This is similar to a process that has been used effectively by a commission charged with closing military bases, and could be a valuable tool to help achieve health care reform in a fiscally responsible way.

Will such a commission decide to curtail allocation of resources to those who are not deemed capable of "complete lives" based on prognosis and age, as proposed by Dr. Emanuel? There is no way to tell at this point since we do not have a final Democratic proposal, or know who would be appointed to such a commission.

To exclude the issue of allocating resources away from the elderly and infirm from the debate over "cost cutting," however, ignores the ethical elephant in the room. Let's have the debate, and understand specifically how resources would be reallocated, before any vote on a health care restructuring bill.

And before we create a commission to make such decisions for us, let's consider whether we should outsource these ethical issues or deal with them as part of the political process.


Principles for Allocation of Scarce Medical Interventions
http://www.scribd.com/doc/18280675/P...-Interventions

"Certainly, no Democrat is proposing a "death panel," or withholding care to the young or infirm. To say such a thing would be political suicide."

No need for political suicide; just ram the bill through Congress as quickly as possible while demonizing your opposition, mainly, those concerned about the seriously ill, the old, the infirm, and the disabled. Ideally, no "death panel" is needed at all. Let ACORN and the bureaucrat bean counters hammer the regulations together, and the doctor (probably the nurse practitioner) can get stuck with passing sentence by way of diagnosis.

Quoting Ezekiel Emanuel from another of his published articles:

"[S]ervices provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens are not basic and should not be guaranteed. An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia."

As he says quite clearly in his article, "Where Civic Republicanism and
Deliberative Democracy Meet" (available online), this is Emanuel's version of the re-making of social "good."

It seems that "Thou shalt not kill," and " Honor thy father and thy mother" just don't cut it anymore, never mind "Do unto others."

Our response to Gladney's beating by bussed in ACORN/SEIU thugs. NOTE; NOT ONE TEA PARTY Patriot was arrested.

ALSO NOTE; completely peaceful protest

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZnK6...layer_embedded

The morning after beating, our idiotic representative held a secret press conference and blamed victim.

Just ridiculous

Originally Posted by speedygirl

ETA: Info on the fines. You only pay a fine if you refuse to get insurance and can afford it. If you can not afford it then generally you don't have to pay. people hear "fines" and get worried without realizing how it works.

That sounds great, now if Congress would just PUT THAT IN WRITING SOMEWHERE.

BTW, regardless as to what you earn, you WILL be fined on your taxes in HR3200 if you don't opt into something.

Originally Posted by speedygirl

If people who can afford healthcare continue to keep their private insurance nothing will change for them.

That is a lie. HR 3200 REQUIRES ALL POLICIES to meet a government standard. Therefore, the only policies that will be legally sold after the first day of the enactment of this bill will be ones the government sets the standards on. Could be catastrophic or hospitalization only policies will be illegal. Congress won't give details of the regulations. They are leaving that to the 53 regulatory bodies they will be setting up. So NOBODY really knows what will be made available.

Small businesses partner with others to be able to keep private insurance as an option. I think it's great option for the 50,000,000 people without insurance benefits.

Depends on how many small businesses will opt to keep private insurance for their employees. CBO estimates many will be dumped onto public option, so there's no way to know how many will be left to 'group' together.

I'm fortunate to be able to have this option if we lost our insurance. It's a shame that we have 50 seperate governments in one country and that all US citizens don't have the same level of care, education and over all quality of life.

MASS health care is WAY over budget. They're considering tossing 30,000 LEGAL IMMIGRANTS off the plan to cut costs.

I wouldn't take that security you have too seriously. Always good to have a plan B if gov can't come through. Count on yourself!

wouldn't take that security you have too seriously. Always good to have a plan B if gov can't come through. Count on yourself!

I'm perfectly comfortable with my situation having spent half of my life in the medical field and with family and friends who are physicians. There is a LOT more positive going on with the healthcare here in MA then what is written by certain bloggers or news organizations with an agenda.
I could tell you dozens of stories of people who finally are able to get treatment.

That is a lie.

And no, what I wrote is not a lie and I resent being called a liar since I was discussing what is going on here in MA. I am refering to the fact that it is not a friggin police state here as far as insurance goes. I have insurance through work and no one has a say about what I choose. People who have private insurance can continue with it if they are partnered with the Commonwealth Connector in the event of a layoff. If your insurance is not part of the connecter there are other options with those partnered. I don't know how this is considered a lie?

Originally Posted by speedygirl

And no, what I wrote is not a lie and I resent being called a liar since I was discussing what is going on here in MA. I am refering to the fact that it is not a friggin police state here as far as insurance goes. I have insurance through work and no one has a say about what I choose. People who have private insurance can continue with it if they are partnered with the Commonwealth Connector in the event of a layoff. If your insurance is not part of the connecter there are other options with those partnered. I don't know how this is considered a lie?

It's considered a lie because she cannot fathom the thought that mandatory insurance actually works in Mass...It's too big a concept for her apparently.