Hillary resurrects universal health care, claiming she's "learned a lot" - Page 12 - Big Big Forums

Jolie Rouge · 11-01-2009, 01:25 AM

Fed Insurer Drops Hernia Coverage As HC Bill Released

Come on. You can't expect a bunch of old white guys who sit around and drink at night to suddenly start carrying 20 lbs. around with them everywhere they go without hurting themselves, now can you?

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

Via Gateway Pundit with text, Rep. Michelle Bachman says the health care bill is the crown jewel of socialism. She's not far from wrong. This impacts every employer in the United States, giving the Federal Government an open invitation to wreak all sorts of havoc on them and the economy over all. And it's not repeal-able politically if passed. Time to draw a line in the sand if you can bend over after lugging the thing, which isn't even the final bill, around for a few days.

There's a DC rally set for November 5th.

Saturday, October 31, 2009

http://www.typepad.com/services/trac...20a69abea8970c

Jolie Rouge · 11-01-2009, 01:46 AM

After all the fuss, public health plan covers few
By Ricardo Alonso-zaldivar, Associated Press Writer
Sat Oct 31, 9:12 pm ET

WASHINGTON – What's all the fuss about? After all the noise over Democrats' push for a government insurance plan to compete with private carriers, coverage numbers are finally in: Two percent.

That's the estimated share of Americans younger than 65 who'd sign up for the public option plan under the health care bill that Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is steering toward House approval.

The underwhelming statistic is raising questions about whether the government plan will be the iron-fisted competitor that private insurers warn will shut them down or a niche operator that becomes a haven for patients with health insurance horror stories.

Some experts are wondering if lawmakers have wasted too much time arguing about the public plan, giving short shrift to basics such as ensuring that new coverage will be affordable.

"The public option is a significant issue, but its place in the debate is completely out of proportion to its actual importance to consumers," said Drew Altman, president of the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation. "It has sucked all the oxygen out of the room and diverted attention from bread-and-butter consumer issues, such as affordable coverage and comprehensive benefits."

The Democratic health care bills would extend coverage to the uninsured by providing government help with premiums and prohibiting insurers from excluding people in poor health or charging them more. But to keep from piling more on the federal deficit, most of the uninsured will have to wait until 2013 for help. Even then, many will have to pay a significant share of their own health care costs.

The latest look at the public option comes from the Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan economic analysts for lawmakers.

It found that the scaled back government plan in the House bill wouldn't overtake private health insurance. To the contrary, it might help the insurers a little.

The budget office estimated that about 6 million people would sign up for the public option in 2019, when the House bill is fully phased in. That represents about 2 percent of a total of 282 million Americans under age 65. (Older people are covered through Medicare.)

The overwhelming majority of the population would remain in private health insurance plans sponsored by employers. Others, mainly low-income people, would be covered through an expanded Medicaid program.

To be fair, most people would not have access to the new public plan. Under the House bill, it would be offered through new insurance exchanges open only to those who buy coverage on their own or work for small companies. Yet even within that pool of 30 million people, only 1-in-5 would take the public option.

Who's likely to sign up?

The budget office said "a less healthy pool of enrollees" would probably be attracted to the public option, drawn by the prospect of looser rules on access to specialists and medical services.

As a result, premiums in the public plan would be higher than the average for private plans. That could nudge healthy middle-class workers and their families to sign up for private plans.

"The concern was that the public option would destabilize the bulk of private insurance, but in fact what Congress has fashioned is very targeted," said economist Karen Davis, president of the Commonwealth Fund. "It's not going to be taking away the insurance industry's core business."

It's unclear whether there are enough votes in the Senate for a public plan. The version that Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has offered would let states opt out, probably leaving a smaller plan that the House would want.

Insurers aren't buying the budget office analysis. Asked if it might soften that opposition, industry spokesman Robert Zirkelbach of America's Health Insurance Plans responded with a curt "No."

While a government plan might start out modestly, insurers fear that Congress could change the rules later, opening it up to all people and setting take-it-or-leave payments for hospitals and medical providers, instead of negotiating, as the House bill calls for.

For the same reason, employer groups also remain wary. Big companies don't want to lose control of their health care budgets and instead have the government send them a tax bill.

"That cost is going to come back to you one way or another ... and it's coming back in the way of taxes and liabilities," said Eastman Kodak's chief executive, Antonio M. Perez, speaking for the Business Roundtable. "We just don't believe that there are miracles out there."

If Congress passes a public plan that's not much of a sensation, Democrats might have reason to regret all the time and energy they invested in it.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091101/...re_public_plan

On the Net:

House bill : http://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/legislation?id=0327

Jolie Rouge · 11-01-2009, 06:37 PM

Flex spending accounts face hit in health overhaul
By Erica Werner, Associated Press Writer
Sun Nov 1, 8:16 am ET

WASHINGTON – Those tax-free spending accounts that you and your co-workers use to help pay for dental work, insurance copayments or over-the-counter drugs face a hit under the health overhaul bills in Congress — unless a coalition that includes a powerful union, insurers and others can stop it.

Bills in the House and Senate would cap at $2,500 an employee's allowable annual contribution to a health care flexible spending account.

There is no federal cap on contributions now, though companies that offer the accounts — more than 80 percent of companies employing 500 or more workers do — typically impose their own limits, usually around $5,000.

Workers can use the accounts to save pretax income, which then can be used to reimburse a range of medical expenses, including dental and vision costs, prescription and over-the-counter medications and copays and deductibles — again without being taxed.

Capping contributions to the accounts would raise more than $13 billion over 10 years to help pay for Democratic health care legislation because it would limit the amount of employees' income that is exempt from taxation.

But an unlikely bedfellows coalition that is characteristic of this health care debate — where common interests can unite groups that might typically be at odds — is mobilizing to try to stop the change.

A limited print ad campaign declaring "Flexible spending accounts work!" appeared this past week in Capitol Hill publications. It's paid for by a group called Save Flexible Spending Plans that is backed by insurers, companies that administer consumer spending accounts and other businesses with a financial stake in the outcome. The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union endorsed the campaign and its logo appears on the ads.

"Our concern is that a cap of $2,500 is a definite tax on the middle class, particularly those with chronic illnesses," said Jody Dietel, executive director of Save Flexible Spending Plans and chief compliance officer at WageWorks, Inc. of San Mateo, Calif.

Advocates say the typical flexible spending account user makes $55,000 annually.

Although some lawmakers are sympathetic, the opposition appears unlikely to succeed in getting the flexible spending account cap out of Congress' health care bill. Unlike the initial Senate proposal, though, House members want to allow the cap to be adjusted so it would rise along with inflation. That would be a welcome improvement for advocates.

Aides to the Senate Finance Committee, which proposed the cap, defend it by saying it would help curb overuse of medical care. Money deposited in the tax-free accounts must be used within 2 1/2 months of the end of the plan year. That may create an incentive for people to spend all the money even if they don't have pressing needs.

In addition, committee spokeswoman Erin Shields said the impact of the cap would be limited. Data compiled by the consulting firm Mercer shows that the average flexible spending arrangement contribution in 2008 was $1,385, much lower than the one contemplated by Congress.

Mercer said that 27 percent of all employers offered health care spending accounts in 2008 — small businesses are much less likely to do so than large ones — and that 37 percent of eligible workers signed up for the accounts.

"The provision, in addition to helping reduce the overutilization of care, also affects only a limited number of people," Shields said.

Dietel said those averages are no comfort to people using the accounts to cover extreme costs of a chronic condition — say a single dad whose child has a peanut allergy requiring special treatment.

"The reality is that an average is an average," Dietel said. "It's the only tool out there that allows an individual to tailor coverage to their own individual need."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091101/...xible_spending

Jolie Rouge · 11-01-2009, 07:03 PM

Med, nursing schools teaching alternative remedies
By Marilynn Marchione, Ap Medical Writer
Sun Nov 1, 12:06 pm ET

EDITOR'S NOTE: Ten years and $2.5 billion in research have found no cures from alternative medicine. Yet these mostly unproven treatments are now mainstream and used by more than a third of all Americans. This is one in an occasional Associated Press series on their use and potential risks.

Future doctors and nurses are learning about acupuncture and herbs along with anatomy and physiology at a growing number of medical schools. It's another example of how alternative medicine has become mainstream. And it's often done with Uncle Sam's help.

The government has spent more than $22 million to help medical and nursing schools start teaching about alternative medicine — lesson plans that some critics say are biased toward unproven remedies.

Additional tax money has been spent to recruit and train young doctors to do research in this field, launching some into careers as alternative medicine providers.

Doctors need to know about popular remedies so they can discuss them nonjudgmentally and give competent advice, the government says, and many universities and medical groups agree.

"Patients are using these things" whether doctors think they should or should not, and safety is a big concern, said Dr. Victor Sierpina, an acupuncturist at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston who heads a group of academics who favor such training.

But to critics, it's like teaching Harry Potter medicine. Students are being asked to close their eyes to science principles that guide the rest of their training in order to keep an open mind about pseudoscience, they say.

"I'm concerned about the teaching of illogical thinking to medical students" and lending credence to biologically implausible theories like distance healing and energy fields, said Dr. Stephen Barrett, a retired physician who runs Quackwatch, a Web site on medical scams.

Teaching about alternative medicine implies acceptance of it and "potentially creates more gullibility and less critical, objective thinking," said Dr. Wallace Sampson, editor of the journal Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine. "This will be felt in many indirect ways," he said, including judgment errors, misguiding people with severe diseases, and lax standards and laws.

The real issue is not whether alternative medicine should be taught, but how, said Dr. Joseph Jacobs, former head of the federal Office of Alternative Medicine.

"The parallel here is creationism versus science," Jacobs said. "If the topic is taught objectively, to help students communicate with patients, it's a good idea. If it's being taught as part of an advocacy, for acceptance among physicians, I think that's a little bit bogus."

Sometimes the line is blurry.

Some schools have close ties to alternative medicine providers or advocates who shape information on the schools' Web sites or classes for students and the public. Two examples:

_The University of Arizona's Center for Integrative Medicine has medical residency programs in hospitals around the country, partly sponsored by well-known advocate Dr. Andrew Weil, the center's founder. A private group that promotes such care, the Bravewell Collaborative, gives scholarships for dozens of the Arizona school's students to get hands-on training in integrative care clinics.

_The University of Minnesota offers medical students an elective course in alternative healing methods at a Hawaiian medical center founded by a philanthropist-advocate of such care, although students pay their own transportation and living expenses. In interviews with an Associated Press writer in 2007, several students raved about things they had tried firsthand, and said they returned more willing to recommend acupuncture, meditation, yoga, herbal remedies and other nontraditional care.

"Consumers are demanding it" and more research is needed to see what works, said Mary Jo Kreitzer, who directs the Minnesota school's alternative medicine curriculum. "Ultimately we need to align policy" so that insurers pay for these therapies, she said. "You could say that in that respect, we are advocates."

The field got a boost 10 years ago, with creation of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. It made merging alternative and mainstream medicine "a central and overarching goal" and gave $22.5 million to 12 medical schools, two nursing schools and the American Medical Student Association to develop curriculum plans.

Kreitzer's and Sierpina's universities got grants, and both are active in the Consortium of Academic Health Centers for Integrative Medicine — 42 centers involved in researching or advocating for complementary and alternative medicine, or CAM.

However, a review of some of those teaching plans by Drs. Donald Marcus and Laurence McCullough of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston concludes that they are "strongly biased in favor of CAM," cite poor-quality research, and were not updated after better studies revealed a therapy did not work. The review is in the September issue of the journal Academic Medicine.

The section on herbals in the Medical Student Association's plan was written by the head of the American Botanical Council, an industry-supported research and education group, the article says.

Sierpina, the head of the medical school consortium, said the purpose of these lesson plans is not propaganda.

"We are not trying to make students CAM practitioners," but to train them to be "sensitive to where people come from, their folk medicine, their home remedies," he said.

Just as there are true believers who ignore evidence that something doesn't work, there are true doubters who are guilty of "arrogant thinking that we've got it all figured out," Sierpina said.

Dr. Mehmet Oz agreed. The Columbia University heart surgeon and frequent Oprah Winfrey guest, now with his own TV show, has long shown an open mind toward complementary and alternative medicine.

"Medicine is very provincial. We grow up thinking the way others have taught us to think. We are naturally biased. It is imperative that we look at what alternative cultures offer us, that we at least are fair in our skepticism of their impact." Otherwise, "we run a risk of locking out newcomers" with fresh ideas, he said.

That would be people like Jimmy Wu, a newly graduated doctor from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Raised in a family originally from Taiwan, Wu said traditional healing practices are "very much ingrained" in how he thinks about sickness and health.

"It's just a very different way of observing" a patient to decide on treatments, rather than relying so heavily on lab tests and other traditional medical tools, he said.

The Madison medical school offered an optional course in alternative medicine. Seeking more than that, Wu spent a summer in Beijing with a university faculty member observing traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture, and hopes to include these in a family medicine practice someday. With so many people using alternative care, "it is important that it be treated more than just an afterthought" by medical schools, Wu said.

Officials at several top schools say they teach respect for patient choices, but do not teach unproven remedies or theories.

"All medical treatments ought to be held to the same standard," whether a prescription drug, an herbal pill or a mode of care, said Dr. Philip Gruppuso, Brown University's associate dean for medical education.

For example, acupuncture comes up in several places in the curriculum where there is evidence that it may help certain types of pain. However, students are not taught about body meridiens that allegedly channel energy, which acupuncturists claim to affect. Whether a school is promoting magical thinking about a therapy depends "more on how it's taught than what's taught," Gruppuso said.

At Harvard University, students have a couple of elective courses in such topics as mind-body medicine, but a spokeswoman said the university does not advocate or teach alternative medicine.

Georgetown University, which started the nation's first graduate degree program in complementary and alternative medicine, strives for objectivity, said the program's director, Hakima Amri.

"We are giving the facts, teaching what we know today. We are not promoting anything," she said.

That means straight talk about controversial fields like homeopathy, or the energy medicines qi gong and reiki, which claim to heal through a healer's powers, even at a distance.

"The science is not there to support that," Amri said.

Georgetown's goal is "to train a new generation of open-minded but critical physicians or scientists," she said. "We have seen students who come who are all enthusiasm about CAM because they've seen it work on their grandmother or someone like that. Then they go through the program and they see it differently. We want them to be really critical, able to separate the good from the bad."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091101/...51cnNpbmdzYw--

___

On the Net: Medical school group: http://www.imconsortium.org/cahcim/about/home.html

Jolie Rouge · 11-02-2009, 01:56 PM

Op-Ed: Republican calls for patient-centered wellness
Mon Nov 2, 2:49 am ET
By Rep. Thaddeus G. McCotter (R-Mich.)

Washington, DC — Throughout the health care debate, the majority of Americans have expressed their opposition and frustration with the president and his Democratic Congress’ radical proposals. The public is opposed to the scheme’s practical harm; frustrated by the Democrats’ arrogant refusal to listen; and justified in its concern that willful Washington politicians will impose these unhelpful proposals despite the American people’s objections.

This is not how the sovereign citizens’ servant government is supposed to enact laws in our free republic. Especially when there is a far more sensible, affordable and contemporary path: patient-centered wellness for our people powered world.

Emulating the failure of their trillion dollar stimulus bill’s “wealth redistribution” that they assured Americans would stop unemployment from rising over 8.5%, the Democrats’ radical, nearly trillion dollar “health redistribution” will not work. For months, the case has been made and the public has concurred: government-run medicine’s cost, higher taxes, surcharges on employer provided benefits, Medicare cuts, rationing boards (such as the stimulus bill’s already appointed Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research) and personal mandates, will only increase the costs, decrease the quality and reduce the choices of Americans’ health care. Given such overwhelming and intense public opposition, why do the Democrats insist on imposing this scheme on the American people?

Ideologically, the Democrats are bent on governmentally reducing the supply of health care to “control” costs. This is patently absurd. According to the time-tested law of supply and demand, if the government reduces the supply of health care while the demand for it increases from demographic pressures and medical advances, the costs will spiral upward; and the government will increasingly intrude into your personal decisions and savings.

Believing their complete control of Washington provides a “once in a generational chance” to pass their radical health care scheme, Democrats bull ahead regardless of Americans’ opposition. Cynically, the Democrats feel the law, once passed, will prove immune to repeal. Accordingly, affronted Americans understand the Democrats’ health redistribution scheme is a threat to their wellness, prosperity and liberty.

Consequently, Americans have tirelessly sought to be heard and heeded by the president and his Congress. The response has been worse than silence. Confronted with public dissent, the administration and Democrats have sought to silence opposition by establishing a taxpayer-funded White House cyber “snitch site”; attacks on the messengers of unwelcome facts and statistics; smears against citizens peaceably assembling to petition this government for the redress of grievances; demonizing and investigating private sector entities; and assaults against a cable television network (and, thereby, the First Amendment). No wonder the American people’s disapproval of the president, his Democratic Congress and their health redistribution scheme is plummeting.

We live in a people-powered world, one which is finally catching up to America’s revolutionary experiment in human freedom and self-government. Therefore, in opposing the Democrats’ fossilized model of government-run health care that usurps self-government, the public and Republicans embrace the communications revolution and a globalized marketplace that disdains and decentralizes massive, bureaucratic entities and empowers people as citizens and consumers. Consequently, we understand health care reform must match – not resist – these economic and communications advances by decentralizing government to provide the sensible, affordable reforms that foster patient-centered wellness, which empowers American citizens to be consumers of health care through transparency and free market forces.

The heart of patient-centered wellness for our people-powered world is prudent, targeted, multi-track reforms that reduces costs by leveraging the communications revolution and market forces to increase the supply of health care amid rising demand. Immediate, obvious measures include reforming medical liability laws; ending exclusions for pre-existing conditions; expanding health savings accounts; providing tax credits for purchasing private health insurance; allowing association health plans; permitting health insurance purchases across state lines; encouraging individuals to insure against changes in health status; incentivizing preventative health care; and applying information technology to enhance transparency and increase efficiencies. All this can be achieved without trillions in new spending, taxes and government-dictated, radical changes to Americans’ current health care.

For the less fortunate and most vulnerable amongst us, there must be an expansion of Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs), which will provide patients with preventive and routine treatment; and end underserved people’s use of emergency rooms for primary health-care treatments. Doctors and other health care professionals can be incentivized to provide their services at these clinics for either immediate or future considerations; and a “Patient Navigator” program attached to each FQHC can assist the underserved in accessing the health care system. This approach will build true, community-based health care and increase the power of economically disadvantaged patients to control their own health care. Finally, people suffering from “orphan diseases" – rare afflictions requiring a lifetime of special care – should be compassionately assisted through our nation’s social safety net.

Unfortunately, trapped in the past of a big government ideology and purblind to the people-empowering wonders of our globalized world, the president and his Democratic majority cavalierly dismiss such sensible, affordable approaches and determinedly toil behind closed doors to impose their radical health redistribution scheme on unwilling Americans. If they prevail, their health redistribution will impel higher costs, lower quality, fewer choices and – yes – lost jobs during this painful recession. There is a better way – patient-centered wellness for our people powered world.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/200911...VkcmVwdWJsaQ--

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Jolie Rouge · 11-03-2009, 12:09 AM

House health bill totals $1.2 trillion
By David Espo, Ap Special Correspondent
1 hr 33 mins ago

WASHINGTON – The health care bill headed for a vote in the House this week costs $1.2 trillion or more over a decade, according to numerous Democratic officials and figures contained in an analysis by congressional budget experts, far higher than the $900 billion cited by President Barack Obama as a price tag for his reform plan.

While the Congressional Budget Office has put the cost of expanding coverage in the legislation at roughly $1 trillion, Democrats added billions more on higher spending for public health, a reinsurance program to hold down retiree health costs, payments for preventive services and more.

Many of the additions are designed to improve benefits or ease access to coverage in government programs. The officials who provided overall cost estimates did so on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to discuss them.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has referred repeatedly to the bill's net cost of $894 billion over a decade for coverage.

Asked about the higher estimate, Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly said the measure not only insures 36 million more Americans, it provides critical health insurance reform in a way that is fiscally sound.

"It will not add one dime to the deficit. In fact, the CBO said last week that it will reduce the deficit both in the first 10 years and in the second 10 years," Daly said.

Democrats have been intent on passing legislation this year to implement Obama's call for expanded coverage for millions, curbs on industry abuses and provisions to slow the rate of growth of health care costs nationally.

"Now, add it all up, and the plan I'm proposing will cost around $900 billion over 10 years," the president said in a nationally televised speech in early September.

Whatever the final cost of legislation, the calendar is working increasingly against the White House and Democrats. While a House vote is possible late this week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., may not be able to begin debate on the issue until the week before Thanksgiving. Additionally, the Republican leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, has hinted at efforts to extend the debate for weeks if not months, a timetable that could extend into 2010.

One casualty of the time crunch and threatened Republican delaying tactics may be formal House-Senate negotiations on a final compromise. An alternative is a less formal hurry-up final negotiation involving the White House and senior Democrats.

Pelosi and her lieutenants worked on last-minute changes in the measure to ease concerns among opponents of abortion and a contentious provision relating to illegal immigrants. Conservative Democrats have expressed concern about the cost of the bill, and an evening closed-door meeting gave the leadership its first chance to hear their response.

The bill includes an option for a government-run health plan.

The leadership can afford more than two dozen defections and still be assured of the votes to prevail on the bill, one of the most sweeping measures in recent years.

Republicans put the cost of the bill at nearly $1.3 trillion.

"Our goal is to make it as difficult as possible for" Democrats to pass it, House Republican leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said at a news conference. "We believe it is the wrong prescription."

One day after announcing Republicans would have an alternative measure, Boehner offered few details. He said it would omit one of the central provisions in Democratic bills — a ban on the insurance industry's practice of denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions. Instead, he said the Republicans would encourage creation of insurance pools for high-risk individuals and take other steps to ease their access to coverage.

Boehner also said Republicans would propose limits on medical malpractice lawsuits in what he said was an attempt to reduce the cost of coverage.

Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., the third-ranking leader, said that Democrats looked at their bill as a way to advance universal coverage. In contrast, he said, Republicans "believe the real issue back home is cost" of insurance, and said their alternative would be designed to tackle it.

Democrats have made elimination of the industry's practice a linchpin of their drive to overhaul the health care system. The industry has said it would not fight the change, and an accompanying restriction on its ability to charge higher premiums for certain groups, as the legislation includes a requirement for individuals to purchase insurance. Lacking that, the industry says millions of relatively healthy individuals would refuse to pay for coverage until they became sick, and the cost of premiums would rise sharply for everyone else.

Republicans oppose any government requirements for individuals to purchase insurance or for businesses to provide coverage.

The Congressional Budget Office is seen by lawmakers as the arbiter of claims about the costs and effects of proposed legislation, and the agency has been under intense pressure in recent weeks to compete assessments on several bills circulating in House and Senate.

In a letter last week, the agency's director, Dr. Douglas Elmendorf, said the net cost of expanding coverage in the House measure was estimated at $894 billion over 10 years, a figure reflecting a gross total of $1 trillion in federal subsidies as well as other spending.

The letter contained no similar assessment for the balance of the legislation and it was not clear when or whether one would be forthcoming.

In a letter last week to Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., on the general subject of health care, Elmendorf cautioned that some provisions in legislation have elements that raise costs and elements that lower costs.

"Tabulating all of the aspects of the proposal that would, in isolation, increase federal outlays would be complicated and would require somewhat arbitrary judgments" about calculating overall costs, Elmendorf said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091103/...Bzb3VyY2VzaG91

Jolie Rouge · 11-03-2009, 12:12 AM

Numbers, not shouting, overwhelm health care debate
Thu Oct 29, 6:41 pm ET
By Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.)

Washington, DC — We have the best medical professionals in the world, but fewer and fewer Americans can afford to pay for the care they can provide. The trends indicate that problem will get much worse.

About 17 percent of our $14 trillion dollar economy is dedicated to health care. We pay more for health care than we do for food. Too much of what we spend on our care does nothing to improve our health. We pay for our highly bureaucratic and unwieldy health care system not just with dollars, but with the lives and well-being of millions of Americans. The Affordable Health Care for America Act will reform our health insurance industry so companies prioritize policyholders’ health instead of investors’ profits.

The insurance industry has done everything possible to make you think otherwise. This summer’s massive disinformation campaign – exposed by Tim Dickinson in Rolling Stone magazine last month – has distracted millions of honest, engaged citizens during this debate. During two town halls in my District this summer, I witnessed first hand how fear hijacked a much-needed serious conversation.

But the facts scream louder than even the angriest protester – and the data tells us the current system could literally destroy our way of life. Consider these statistics:

• The top ten health insurance companies made $8.2755 billion last year and they stand to make more when medical costs go up.
• The average annual premium for employer-sponsored health insurance is $13,375 for family coverage.
• Approximately 45,000 people die each year because they lack health insurance.

This is why we must ignore pressure from the health care lobby, now spending $1.4 million a day spinning its story in Capitol Hill offices (that’s chump change when you consider the top ten health insurance companies saw profits soar 426 percent between 2000 and 2007).

This is not a time to give into fear. I say this to both the general public and my Democratic colleagues. Our party lost control of Congress in 1994 after voters watched Democrats cower in the face of massive pressure from the insurance industry. We must learn history’s lessons or again face questions on whether Democrats deserve to lead.

Reform is neither easy nor cheap, but the cost of inaction is far greater – in terms of lives lost, quality of life, and dollars. Make no mistake, if we don't reduce costs we face certain economic disaster. My father was one of the first members of Congress to fight to change the private insurance system in place today. His fight began in 1943, 66 years ago. If we go another 66 years with costs continuing to rise at the same rate they have over the last three decades, estimates project health care spending to approach 100 percent of our GDP. This is simply not sustainable.

On the other hand, President Obama has said slowing the growth of health care costs by just one-tenth of one percent each year could reduce our deficit by $4 trillion over the long term.

According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the House Democrats' health reform bill reduces the deficit by $30 billion over 10 years, costing less than $900 billion over that time and meeting the benchmark set by President Obama. The President asked for a deficit-neutral bill and we gave him that and then some. It is a reasonable price when you consider the Democrats’ bill will fix the current system which has left so many Americans without proper care and/or bankrupt.

And just how is the health insurance industry spending your money?

• In 2007, each American paid more than $500 to administer health insurance. The U.S. health insurance industry spends roughly 20 cents of every dollar it pays for “nonmedical costs, such as paperwork, reviewing claims and marketing,” according to T.R. Reid, author of “The Healing of America.” This figure is often referred to as “medical loss ratio” or the money spent on actual care versus the money spent on non-medical costs.

That $500 you pay funds a small army, about 463,000 people (more than the active military in Iran today), employed by the health insurance industry. Many of those employees spend their days looking for ways to slow payments or deny your claims.

• No other country has a medical loss ratio close to ours. Our administrative costs are more than double any other country, including France, where Reid points out everyone is covered by non-profit, private insurers. The French spend just 5 percent on administration, while Canada, with a single-payer, government-run system, spends only 6 percent. The McKinsey Global Institute estimates that $91 billion a year is excess insurance administrative costs due to complexity.

Look again at the previous points and replace "health insurance industry" with "government". If that was government waste there would be protests in the streets. So why is it okay when your money is wasted by corporations? As I will explain later, Democrats are prepared to fix it, despite the best efforts of the insurance industry to stop us.

So what are we getting for our money?

• Better health? No. A 2008 London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine study looking at deaths that could have been prevented by access to timely and effective health care placed the U.S. last among 19 countries. If the U.S. had performed as well as the top three countries (France, Japan, and Australia) 101,000 deaths per year would have been prevented.

• More care? No. In Japan, citizens average an astounding three times more visits to doctors’ offices than Americans and twice as many MRI scans and X-Rays. Even with all these visits, the Japanese still spend less than half as much per person on health care as we do. Life expectancy and recovery rates for major diseases there are much better than ours.

• Fiscal health? No. In 2006, our economy lost as much as $200 billion because of the poorer health and shorter lifespan of the uninsured.

• Premiums for small businesses are up 129 percent since 2000. And the insurance industry is quoting increases of 14-15 percent for the next year.

• The high cost of health care causes a bankruptcy every 30 seconds. In 2007, 60 percent of U.S. bankruptcies were due to medical costs. Reid points out medical bills force 700,000 Americans into bankruptcy, while there are ZERO medical bankruptcies in France, Britain, Japan and Germany.

• Security and Stability? No. The Kaiser Family Foundation reports last month “one third of Americans (33 percent) say they or someone in their household has had problems paying medical bills over the past year.” That’s up nine percentage points from August and represents the highest level in nearly a year.

• Health coverage for all Americans? Not even close, and believe me, the uninsured are costing you money. This year, every insured American family will pay the health insurance industry $1,017 -- and insured singles will pay $368 -- in premiums just to cover the medical expenses of the uninsured. This "Hidden Health Care Tax" will total $42.7 billion this year.

Jolie Rouge · 11-03-2009, 12:15 AM

And there are signs the future could be worse. Employees’ premiums and out-of-pocket charges will go up 10 percent – with the average employee paying $4,023 – next year, according to the benefits consulting firm Hewitt Associates. An Aon Consulting survey of employers found 70 percent plan to increase employee contributions, while 67 percent expect to raise deductibles, co-pays, coinsurance or out-of-pocket maximums. About three out of every five Americans under 65 get their insurance through their employers.

Acclaimed Princeton economist Uwe Reinhardt says if current trends hold, total health spending by or for a typical family of four will hit $36,000 a year in 2019. In 10 years, half of all American families will have to spend more than half of their income on health care.

That’s the future for those lucky enough to keep their health care. More than four Americans lose their coverage every minute. According to the think tank Third Way, the coverage for 88 million Americans dealing with factors like pre-existing conditions, expensive premiums, or high out-of-pocket costs could be at risk without reform. New findings from the Urban Institute indicate the number of uninsured could rise as high as 65.7 million in 2019 and the cost of uncompensated care could go up as much as 128 percent - that leads to higher premiums and taxes for all of us. So it is not enough just to create new policies, they have to be better than what exists and push other insurers to do better.

Our bill will boost the nation’s economic well-being and protect the pocket of patients and doctors

Under the Democrats bill, you can keep your plan and your doctor. The House bill will also create an insurance exchange with affordable options covering 96 percent of all American citizens, including millions currently uninsured and underinsured. Perhaps PricewaterhouseCoopers, in a report that was NOT paid for by the insurance industry, summed it up the best:

“Broader coverage, particularly if paired with an individual mandate, could reduce the cost shifting that increases medical costs to private payers.”

Other measures in the bill will put money back in your pocket, including:

• Ending co-pays for preventive care;

• Implementing a year cap on your out-of-pocket expenses with no caps on what insurance companies pay;

• 50 percent discounts on brand-name prescriptions for Medicare Part D beneficiaries and shrinking out-of-pocket costs by $500;

• Elimination of the donut hole (the gap in coverage that leaves beneficiaries on the hook for the cost of prescription drugs when the cost of their prescription drugs passes $2,700 in a year) by 2019; and

• Phasing out wasteful spending for Medicare Advantage (MA) – which costs beneficiaries an extra $1,000 per enrollee. Paying for the MA subsidies costs a couple using traditional Medicare an additional $78 to $90 a year.

Steps like this will strengthen Medicare, keeping the program solvent an additional five years. Medicare is one of the most successful government programs in our nation’s history. Without reform, large numbers of doctors, who face a 21 percent cut in payments next year, would certainly drop out. Already, physicians are burdened with both outrageous malpractice insurance charges as well as meeting insurance companies’ demands, which cost them on average 142 hours – worth $68,274 - a year. We’ve simultaneously introduced a separate bill which will prevent that 21 percent cut.

Many doctors will also applaud efforts to move away from the fee-for-service system. Over the summer, we strengthened incentives for the development of “accountable care organizations (ACOs)” which have lowered costs and improved care in several communities. Doctors and administrators at providers like Geisinger Health System in Pennsylvania and the world famous Mayo Clinic haved used such systems after deciding they could do better by shrinking insurance-driven incentives. They instead make more money by keeping costs down and meeting quality-of-care indicators. ACOs are run by doctors and hospitals with no government role whatsoever. CBO scored the ACO provisions in our bill and found savings of $2.6 billion through 2019.

These doctors and hospitals have shown a real commitment to bending the cost curve. I wish I could say the same about the insurance companies.

Better Corporate Behavior = Savings for Consumers

Currently, insurance companies do not compete to offer better plans, cheaper rates, or even better customer service. "Successful" companies are those best at shedding risk. Our bill will stop discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions and rescission – the practice in which insurers search for problems with patients’ policies while they are waiting on the gurney for emergency care. Three insurance company executives acknowledged during an Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing this summer that rescission saved those companies $300 million by canceling about 20,000 policies over five years.

There may be no number that can state how many families have lost a loved one or were financially decimated by these practices. But it is clear that without reform, the companies will go on with these kinds of practices. It will be business as usual unless the government steps in.

But new health insurance industry regulations would only prevent the tactics the industry employs now. Americans need more choices to allow them to fight back against new forms of rascality, especially while insurers enjoy almost near monopolies in dozens of states. I believe a marketplace with increased competition, coming from a public health insurance option, will push the insurance giants to behave better than even increased government oversight could.

The public health insurance option would have leverage to force insurers, pharmaceuticals, and hospitals to bring their prices down.

As promised, back to medical loss ratio: when California state lawmakers tried to require insurers to spend at least 85 percent on medical care, hundreds of industry lobbyists worked to kill the effort. Our bill includes a two-year fix establishing the ratio at 85-15. That will deal with the immediate concern while in the long-term, the public health insurance option and other safeguards will force insurers to be more efficient and cut their administrative costs on their own. A public health insurance option would likely have administrative costs similar to those of Medicare, which operates at 3-4 percent. This kind of competition is the best way to drive insurers to spend our money wisely and more efficiently.

As for fears the public option would crowd out other healthcare providers, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated fewer than 5 percent of Americans would sign up for it.

Without the public option, what you have is 47 million more people being added to the marketplace that the health insurance industry can charge whatever price they want. It's a wonderful way to drum up business for the insurance companies. How can we ask doctors, hospitals, drug makers and all other stakeholders to make enormous sacrifices without asking the same of the insurers?

The loyal opposition has provided no help. Neither the Republican leadership of the House nor of the Senate has offered comprehensive health care legislation for consideration. While they decry our efforts, they offer no alternative even though – as National Journal has reported – nearly half of the House Republicans (84 of 178) come from districts where the proportion of the uninsured exceeds the national average of 15 percent. Without a bill of their own, Congressional Republicans’ intractability is simply a thinly veiled defense of the status quo. Conservative think tanks cry for deregulation, but this to me is like trying to get a fox out of the hen house by letting in more foxes. The CBO said a 2005 bill allowing plans to be sold across state lines would have caused about 1 million people to lose employer-sponsored insurance. More bad plans and fewer people insured sounds like a step backwards to me.

Jolie Rouge · 11-03-2009, 12:19 AM

In a recent Reuters poll, 63 percent of respondents said they’d pay higher taxes to get serious health care reform. http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-H...58T0MY20090930 I believe they realize this is one case where investing in reform now could put more money in their pockets later. They know the screaming should stop and reasonable discourse must rise above the rancor.

Let me close with a personal note. I make an effort to treat each class of Congressional interns to a lunch in the Member’s dinning room. During that lunch, I take questions about any topic they want to discuss. Almost every time, these interns – many of whom regard Ronald Reagan as ancient history – ask me about votes like the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and the 1964 Civil Rights Act. In my more than 50 years here, I’ve cast ten to fifteen votes which are repeatedly revisited by the general public, both young and old, because they have such a dramatic impact on the world we live in today. And while public mood may color their sentiments or the way they ask the question, the basic premise behind the interns’ questions are always the same:

When history called, what did you do?

Without a doubt, the vote on this bill will join the list. I will tell my fellow members, when you explain a vote like this one to the generations that live with the consequences of these decisions there is no poll, not even an election result, that can justify your decision. You will be asked about this vote until the day you die. Years from now, none of these things we put so much stock in now will matter. All anyone will want to know is: did you do the right thing when history called on you? It is time for health care reform. We can’t afford to wait. We can’t afford to think small. We can’t afford to fail.

Democratic Rep. John D. Dingell has served Southeast Michigan for more than 53 years in the U.S. House of Representatives, making him the longest serving congressman in U.S. history. He has introduced and fought for legislation that would create health care coverage for all Americans since 1957.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_pl960

View Slides of graphs illustrating health care comparisons (click each thumbnail to enlarge) http://www.house.gov/dingell/yahoo_pics.shtml

Jolie Rouge · 11-03-2009, 12:26 AM

House Republicans roll out health insurance alternatives
By David Lightman, Mcclatchy Newspapers
Mon Nov 2, 5:57 pm ET

WASHINGTON — Small businesses would have an easier time banding together to offer insurance to employees. Consumers could cross state lines to buy coverage. There'd be no big government expansion.

Those are among the ideas that Republicans in the House of Representatives plan to push later this week, as lawmakers expect to begin debating how to overhaul the nation's health care system.

One longtime favorite Republican proposal apparently will be absent: The Republican plan will contain no tax incentives for consumers who buy insurance individually, said House Minority Leader John Boehner , R- Ohio .

"Cost," he said, was the reason for the omission.

Chances are that little or none of the Republican plan will become law, since the House has 177 Republicans and 256 Democrats and Democrats control 60 of the Senate's 100 seats.

The Republican strategy has two missions: Illustrate what the party stands for, and try to demonize and defeat Democratic initiatives.

Some analysts questioned whether the effort would work.

"It's hard to see how Americans worried about the cost of insurance or who goes without coverage would see this as a viable alternative to the Democratic plan. I guess its appeal is to the middle class, who may see it as a way of bargaining down costs," said Steven Smith , the director of the Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government and Public Policy at Washington University in St. Louis .

House Democrats have proposed a 1,990-page bill that includes a government-run insurance plan, or "public option," that would compete with private insurers. Savings in Medicare and a tax on the wealthy largely would pay for the legislation, which has been estimated to cost a net $894 billion over 10 years. The tax surcharge would apply to adjusted gross incomes of more than $500,000 for individuals and $1 million for joint filers.

Debate on that plan could begin late this week, with final votes late this week or early next week. The Republican plan would be offered as an alternative.

House Republicans plan a series of efforts, including a 12-hour online town hall meeting beginning Thursday afternoon, to call attention to what they see as problems with the Democrats' plan.

Their message: "This would be a government takeover of health care in this country," House Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence of Indiana said.

In the Senate , Majority Leader Harry Reid , D- Nev. , has proposed a public option that would permit states to "opt out" of the plan. He's encountered serious resistance from party centrists, and no Senate debate is expected this week.

Many of the Republican ideas are expected to surface in the Senate , where the rules make it easier to amend legislation.

In the House, Republican leaders began mounting an offensive last week built around four key principles, as Boehner outlined Monday:

— Giving states more flexibility to "create their own innovative reforms."

Republicans wouldn't bar insurers from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions, as Democratic legislation would, but they'd provide financial incentives for the private marketplace to create high-risk pools.

House Republican leaders fear that putting sicker consumers in with lesser risks could make coverage more expensive for the better risks. By encouraging high-risk pools, people with long medical histories would still be able to get coverage.

— Revamping medical malpractice laws to make it harder to bring what Boehner called "junk lawsuits." Republicans have long sought changes in medical malpractice laws, but Democrats traditionally have blocked them and show no inclination to bend this time.

— Permitting families and businesses to buy health insurance across state lines.

— Making it easier for employers, individuals and small businesses to set up risk pools.

Under one scenario, a small business that operates in different states could draw customers — and thus pool risks — from all states where it conducts business. Currently, such pools are subject to the rules and regulations of each state, which critics see as burdensome.

The Republican effort faces huge hurdles. There isn't yet a firm estimate of how much the entire plan would cost, nor is there a Congressional Budget Office estimate of how many people the Republican provisions would cover.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/3347253

ON THE WEB

House Republicans on health care http://www.gop.gov/solutions/healthcare

House Democratic leaders information on health care taxes http://www.majorityleader.gov/docUpl...CAREREFORM.pdf

House Democratic leaders' health care bill http://waysandmeans.house.gov/media/...CA09001xml.pdf

Side-by-side comparison of health care bills http://www.kff.org/healthreform/sidebyside.cfm

Jolie Rouge · 11-06-2009, 12:37 AM

There Is No Freedom Without Law
posted at 4:08 pm on November 5, 2009 by Doctor Zero

Senator Roland Burris (D-Illinois) was recently asked by CNS News to specify which part of the Constitution authorizes Congress to legally compel individuals to purchase health insurance, a key component of the last dozen versions of the twelve hundred page ObamaCare proposal. Burris replied:

Quote:

“Well, that’s under certainly the laws of the – protect the health, welfare of the country. That’s under the Constitution. We’re not even dealing with any constitutionality here. Should we move in that direction? What does the Constitution say? To provide for the health, welfare and the defense of the country.”

This is not a new sentiment. Burris is stating one of the core principles of American liberalism: the belief that the Constitution lays out a series of general directives, rather than imposing specific restrictions on the power of government… as if “promote the general welfare” and the interstate commerce clause were deliberately written into the Constitution as secret ingredients that would vaporize the rest of the document and give the government unlimited power, once some future generation of clever liberals combined them.

Many conservatives respond to the occasional RINO stampede, such as the one which tore through New York congressional district 23 in the recent special election, by suggesting the Republicans should advance a solid conservative platform, and require all candidates to swear allegiance to it. I understand this desire, but I’ve always been uncomfortable with the notion of threatening candidates with excommunication, unless they agree to support a list of positions stapled to their foreheads. We should all be able to come together around the defense of the Constitution, however. We need no other set of principles to guide us in repairing the damage of the past century. If the government is not restrained by loyalty to the Constitution, then its citizens are not free.

Freedom cannot exist in the absence of law. People living in a state of anarchy are not free. They live under the random tyranny of any warlord, gang, or predator who can overpower them. They also live within the prison of their own distrust for their fellow men. A code of clear, fairly administered laws enhances our ability to trust, and cooperate with, people we don’t know personally. Of course, laws restrict our actions, by punishing us for engaging in illegal activities… but they also enhance our freedom, by allowing us to work more easily with each other, and trade with confidence.

You submit to a fairly involved code of laws, backed up by steep financial penalties and the threat of deadly force, every time you climb into your car. Those very same laws make it possible for you to drive long distances quickly and easily – compared to foot or horse travel, anyway. Without those laws, the fast-moving and complex system of roads and highways would become so deadly that everyone would be afraid to use them.

This same principle applies to government. A lawless government is a tyranny, and its citizens are not free. It doesn’t matter if the lawless state was reached through a brutal thirst for power, or high-minded compassionate ideals. We wouldn’t indulge reckless defiance of the traffic laws by someone in a mad rush to make a large donation to the local Salvation Army chapter. Even ambulance drivers are expected to obey certain rules of the road, and would not be allowed to run down pedestrians in their race to the local emergency room.

Government cannot derive its legitimacy entirely from the approval of a democratic majority, as asserted by the demand that President Obama should be granted virtually limitless power over the lives of American citizens because he won the last election. This would be no less offensive to liberty if Obama had won with seventy, eighty, or ninety percent of the popular vote, instead of 52%. The need to assemble majority support cannot be the sole limit on the power of the State. If the male castaways of “Gilligan’s Island” decide to hold a purely democratic vote to enslave the women, then Mrs. Howell, Ginger, and Mary Ann are in deep trouble.

Some Democrats have responded to the Tea Party movement by whining that noisy minorities should not be allowed to interfere with governance. These are the same people who assert the power to nationalize the health insurance industry because 20, 30, or 47 million people lack adequate insurance. Freedom cannot be reduced to a struggle between whichever noisy minority puts on the biggest demonstration in Washington D.C. How much time, energy, and money has already been expended, fighting over a gigantic, ever-changing health care bill that never should have existed in the first place?

A strict adherence to the Constitution would “promote the general welfare” far more effectively than any program cobbled together in the back rooms of Congress, by saving us the waste of money and passion expended in arguing about those programs. A properly respected Constitution would be a peerless tool for bringing people together, because it would prevent government from tearing them into warring factions by offering fabulously expensive benefits to some, at the expense of others. It would reduce the level of anger and venom in our society, because no one would have to fight a desperate last-ditch battle to preserve his liberty in the voting booth. It would improve the civic pride of citizens, by giving them meaningful input into local policies, instead of demanding they submit to the agenda of distant politicians they will never be allowed to vote against, from states they might never even visit.

For too long, the Left has interpreted the Constitution as an ever-expanding warrant for the arrest of all those who dissent from its agenda. The glorious truth of that incredible document is exactly the opposite: it was designed to restrain the central government, with chains equally impervious to threats and pleading. A just government has very few laws its citizens cannot change by voting locally, or escape by moving to a different state. It cannot require the level of trust that free citizens extend only to each other. Reasoned deliberation can never involve blind votes on thousand-page bills written last week.
The Founding Fathers gave their descendants a luminous gift: a set of laws that transform a potentially tyrannical State into a mighty champion of liberty. Those laws are written on a sheet of antique parchment, which can be easily ignored by fallible men… unless other men have the courage and discipline to hold it up, and insist it be obeyed. That’s a job that every strain of conservative should be eager to rally around. Slicing our bloated, delusional government back down to something in line with the Constitution would be the work of a lifetime… and we’ve only got a few years to get it done, before its heart gives out, and we are crushed beneath it. If the Declaration of Independence was a challenge to foreign conquerors, then the Constitution is a challenge we issue to ourselves. Both documents await the signature of anyone who expects my vote.

http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives...m-without-law/