Thread: Obama outlines health care plan for all

I have heard of this before, that is one reason I was so against this from the start. The trouble and problems have only begun and it will only get worse as time goes on.

Penalty could keep smokers out of health overhaul
By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR | Associated Press – Thu, Jan 24, 2013.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Millions of smokers could be priced out of health insurance because of tobacco penalties in President Barack Obama's health care law, according to experts who are just now teasing out the potential impact of a little-noted provision in the massive legislation.

The Affordable Care Act — "Obamacare" to its detractors — allows health insurers to charge smokers buying individual policies up to 50 percent higher premiums starting next Jan. 1.

For a 55-year-old smoker, the penalty could reach nearly $4,250 a year. A 60-year-old could wind up paying nearly $5,100 on top of premiums.

Younger smokers could be charged lower penalties under rules proposed last fall by the Obama administration. But older smokers could face a heavy hit on their household budgets at a time in life when smoking-related illnesses tend to emerge.

Workers covered on the job would be able to avoid tobacco penalties by joining smoking cessation programs, because employer plans operate under different rules. But experts say that option is not guaranteed to smokers trying to purchase coverage individually.

Nearly one of every five U.S. adults smokes. That share is higher among lower-income people, who also are more likely to work in jobs that don't come with health insurance and would therefore depend on the new federal health care law. Smoking increases the risk of developing heart disease, lung problems and cancer, contributing to nearly 450,000 deaths a year.

Insurers won't be allowed to charge more under the overhaul for people who are overweight, or have a health condition like a bad back or a heart that skips beats — but they can charge more if a person smokes.

Starting next Jan. 1, the federal health care law will make it possible for people who can't get coverage now to buy private policies, providing tax credits to keep the premiums affordable. Although the law prohibits insurance companies from turning away the sick, the penalties for smokers could have the same effect in many cases, keeping out potentially costly patients.

"We don't want to create barriers for people to get health care coverage," said California state Assemblyman Richard Pan, who is working on a law in his state that would limit insurers' ability to charge smokers more. The federal law allows states to limit or change the smoking penalty. "We want people who are smoking to get smoking cessation treatment," added Pan, a pediatrician who represents the Sacramento area.

Obama administration officials declined to be interviewed for this article, but a former consumer protection regulator for the government is raising questions. "If you are an insurer and there is a group of smokers you don't want in your pool, the ones you really don't want are the ones who have been smoking for 20 or 30 years," said Karen Pollitz, an expert on individual health insurance markets with the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation. "You would have the flexibility to discourage them."

Several provisions in the federal health care law work together to leave older smokers with a bleak set of financial options, said Pollitz, formerly deputy director of the Office of Consumer Support in the federal Health and Human Services Department.

First, the law allows insurers to charge older adults up to three times as much as their youngest customers.

Second, the law allows insurers to levy the full 50 percent penalty on older smokers while charging less to younger ones.

And finally, government tax credits that will be available to help pay premiums cannot be used to offset the cost of penalties for smokers.

Here's how the math would work:

Take a hypothetical 60-year-old smoker making $35,000 a year. Estimated premiums for coverage in the new private health insurance markets under Obama's law would total $10,172. That person would be eligible for a tax credit that brings the cost down to $3,325.

But the smoking penalty could add $5,086 to the cost. And since federal tax credits can't be used to offset the penalty, the smoker's total cost for health insurance would be $8,411, or 24 percent of income. That's considered unaffordable under the federal law. The numbers were estimated using the online Kaiser Health Reform Subsidy Calculator.

"The effect of the smoking (penalty) allowed under the law would be that lower-income smokers could not afford health insurance," said Richard Curtis, president of the Institute for Health Policy Solutions, a nonpartisan research group that called attention to the issue with a study about the potential impact in California.

In today's world, insurers can simply turn down a smoker. Under Obama's overhaul, would they actually charge the full 50 percent? After all, workplace anti-smoking programs that use penalties usually charge far less, maybe $75 or $100 a month.

Robert Laszewski, a consultant who previously worked in the insurance industry, says there's a good reason to charge the maximum.

"If you don't charge the 50 percent, your competitor is going to do it, and you are going to get a disproportionate share of the less-healthy older smokers," said Laszewski. "They are going to have to play defense."

___

Online: Kaiser Health Reform Subsidy Calculator — http://healthreform.kff.org/subsidycalculator.aspx

http://news.yahoo.com/penalty-could-...205840155.html

If he doesn't "like" it, oh, you can do it, he'll just bankrupt you if you do.

yep it is starting! regulations, singling out certain groups, hmm sounds familiar to someone in history, I won't mention any names though.

It Figures. Liberal Media Already Pushing Death Panels for Fat People and Smokers

Posted by Jim Hoft on Saturday, January 26, 2013, 11:05 AM

We were warned.

The liberal media is already pushing a plan to let “health sinners” – like fat people and smokers – die without health care treatments.

Maybe they’ll make them secret death panels like in Great Britain where a national audit found that half of dying patients placed on the controversial “Liverpool Care Pathway” are never told that life-saving treatment has been withdrawn. Each year 57,000 patients die without being told life-saving treatments have been stopped.

The worries about Liverpool Care Pathway arise from reports that it is sometimes invoked without informing either the patient or family.

The AP reported: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...01-26-10-03-12

Faced with the high cost of caring for smokers and overeaters, experts say society must grapple with a blunt question: Instead of trying to penalize them and change their ways, why not just let these health sinners die?

Annual health care costs are roughly $96 billion for smokers and $147 billion for the obese, the government says. These costs accompany sometimes heroic attempts to prolong lives, including surgery, chemotherapy and other measures.

But despite these rescue attempts, smokers tend to die 10 years earlier on average, and the obese die five to 12 years prematurely, according to various researchers’ estimates.

And attempts to curb smoking and unhealthy eating frequently lead to backlash: Witness the current legal tussle over New York City’s first-of-its-kind limits on the size of sugary beverages and the vicious fight last year in California over a ballot proposal to add a $1-per-pack cigarette tax, which was ultimately defeated.

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013...e-and-smokers/

[i]comments

We were warned. https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=116471698434

Yesterday President Obama responded to my statement that Democratic health care proposals would lead to rationed care; that the sick, the elderly, and the disabled would suffer the most under such rationing; and that under such a system these “unproductive” members of society could face the prospect of government bureaucrats determining whether they deserve health care.

The President made light of these concerns. He said:

“Let me just be specific about some things that I’ve been hearing lately that we just need to dispose of here. The rumor that’s been circulating a lot lately is this idea that somehow the House of Representatives voted for death panels that will basically pull the plug on grandma because we’ve decided that we don’t, it’s too expensive to let her live anymore....It turns out that I guess this arose out of a provision in one of the House bills that allowed Medicare to reimburse people for consultations about end-of-life care, setting up living wills, the availability of hospice, etc. So the intention of the members of Congress was to give people more information so that they could handle issues of end-of-life care when they’re ready on their own terms. It wasn’t forcing anybody to do anything.” [1]

The provision that President Obama refers to is Section 1233 of HR 3200, entitled “Advance Care Planning Consultation.” [2] With all due respect, it’s misleading for the President to describe this section as an entirely voluntary provision that simply increases the information offered to Medicare recipients. The issue is the context in which that information is provided and the coercive effect these consultations will have in that context.

Section 1233 authorizes advanced care planning consultations for senior citizens on Medicare every five years, and more often “if there is a significant change in the health condition of the individual ... or upon admission to a skilled nursing facility, a long-term care facility... or a hospice program." [3] During those consultations, practitioners must explain “the continuum of end-of-life services and supports available, including palliative care and hospice,” and the government benefits available to pay for such services. [4]

Now put this in context. These consultations are authorized whenever a Medicare recipient’s health changes significantly or when they enter a nursing home, and they are part of a bill whose stated purpose is “to reduce the growth in health care spending.” [5] Is it any wonder that senior citizens might view such consultations as attempts to convince them to help reduce health care costs by accepting minimal end-of-life care? As Charles Lane notes in the Washington Post, Section 1233 “addresses compassionate goals in disconcerting proximity to fiscal ones.... If it’s all about obviating suffering, emotional or physical, what’s it doing in a measure to “bend the curve” on health-care costs?” [6]

As Lane also points out:

Though not mandatory, as some on the right have claimed, the consultations envisioned in Section 1233 aren’t quite “purely voluntary,” as Rep. Sander M. Levin (D-Mich.) asserts. To me, “purely voluntary” means “not unless the patient requests one.” Section 1233, however, lets doctors initiate the chat and gives them an incentive -- money -- to do so. Indeed, that’s an incentive to insist.

Patients may refuse without penalty, but many will bow to white-coated authority. Once they’re in the meeting, the bill does permit “formulation” of a plug-pulling order right then and there. So when Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) denies that Section 1233 would “place senior citizens in situations where they feel pressured to sign end-of-life directives that they would not otherwise sign,” I don’t think he’s being realistic. [7]

Even columnist Eugene Robinson, a self-described “true believer” who “will almost certainly support” “whatever reform package finally emerges”, agrees that “If the government says it has to control health-care costs and then offers to pay doctors to give advice about hospice care, citizens are not delusional to conclude that the goal is to reduce end-of-life spending.” [8]

So are these usually friendly pundits wrong? Is this all just a “rumor” to be “disposed of”, as President Obama says? Not according to Democratic New York State Senator Ruben Diaz, Chairman of the New York State Senate Aging Committee, who writes:

Section 1233 of House Resolution 3200 puts our senior citizens on a slippery slope and may diminish respect for the inherent dignity of each of their lives.... It is egregious to consider that any senior citizen ... should be placed in a situation where he or she would feel pressured to save the government money by dying a little sooner than he or she otherwise would, be required to be counseled about the supposed benefits of killing oneself, or be encouraged to sign any end of life directives that they would not otherwise sign. [9]

Of course, it’s not just this one provision that presents a problem. My original comments concerned statements made by Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, a health policy advisor to President Obama and the brother of the President’s chief of staff. Dr. Emanuel has written that some medical services should not be guaranteed to those “who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens....An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia.” [10] Dr. Emanuel has also advocated basing medical decisions on a system which “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.” [11]

President Obama can try to gloss over the effects of government authorized end-of-life consultations, but the views of one of his top health care advisors are clear enough. It’s all just more evidence that the Democratic legislative proposals will lead to health care rationing, and more evidence that the top-down plans of government bureaucrats will never result in real health care reform.





Concerning the "Death Panels".
by Sarah Palin on Wednesday, August 12, 2009 at 10:55pm


[1] See http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpu...entations.html.
[2] See http://edlabor.house.gov/documents/1...ext-071409.pdf
[3] See HR 3200 sec. 1233 (hhh)(1); Sec. 1233 (hhh)(3)(B)(1), above.
[4] See HR 3200 sec. 1233 (hhh)(1)(E), above.
[5] See http://edlabor.house.gov/documents/1...ext-071409.pdf
[6] See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...80703043.html].
[7] Id.
[8] See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...81002455.html].
[9] See http://www.nysenate.gov/press-releas...n-1233-hr-3200.
[10] See http://www.ncpa.org/pdfs/Where_Civic...cracy_Meet.pdf
[11] See http://www.scribd.com/doc/18280675/P...-Interventions.

Brazilian Doctor Charged As Serial Killer For Starting Death Panel
Posted on March 29, 2013 by Mark Horne

Up until now, the world’s greatest (i.e. worst) serial killer has been Harold Shipman—a doctor convicted in 2004 of killing 15 patients, but who is suspected to have killed over 260 in the previous years. Now there is a new contender for the title: Dr. Virginia Soares de Souza.

“Brazil’s Ministry of Health has warned that, beyond the 20 cases its investigation team has already looked into, there are 300 more within a total of 1,700 hospital records over the last seven years that may prove to be connected. The head of the ministry’s investigation team, Dr. Mario Lobato, has made a disturbing concession to a local news network regarding the 300 pending records: ‘They all have the same modus operandi, the same relationship between the drug and the death, and the timing,’ The Guardian quotes him as saying.”

Not only was Soares de Souza allegedly a killer, but she even recruited a team to help her in her murders. She was arrested along with three other doctors and a nurse.

Their motive was simply to use medical resources where they could do the most good :

“Prosecutors believe 56-year-old doctor Virginia Soares de Souza and her team routinely administered muscle relaxants and reduced patients’ oxygen supply while they were on life support, causing them to die of asphyxia. The motive behind the chilling practice behind the seven counts of first-degree murder was evidently to free up beds in the intensive care unit at the Evangelical Hospital in the southern Brazilian city of Curitiba. Opening such space would have required no more than a phone call by de Souza to her team.”

So why not give this woman a medal or a job at the World Health Organization or some similar group? Obviously this woman understands the problem of scarce resources. This is the same problem Paul Krugman promises will be solved by death panels. He told us that people like Dr. Soares de Souza would be the ones to sustain our economy in the coming years:

“We won’t be able to pay for the kind of government the society will want without some increase in taxes on the middle class, maybe a value added tax. And we’re also going to have to make decisions about health care, not pay for health care that has no demonstrated medical benefits. So the snarky version, which I shouldn’t even say because it will get me in trouble, is death panels and a sales tax is how we do this.”

Soares de Souza had simply started doing voluntarily what doctors will soon be ordered to do by the government if they are to keep their jobs. Should she be punished or rewarded?

All sarcasm aside, I believe this Doctor Death should be punished, but so should everyone who kills the sick—even if they do so according to law or regulations. What makes us think this woman is so different from many other doctors? What about the nurses not bothering to feed patients in the UK? Or who kill the elderly? Or babies?

As far as we know, if she’s guilty of the crimes, then Dr. Virginia Soares de Souza is typical rather than exceptional.

http://godfatherpolitics.com/10104/b...#ixzz2PAjxfRfA

2 April 2013
Obama proposes brain mapping project

US President Barack Obama has unveiled a new initiative to map the brain.

Speaking at the White House, he announced an initial $100m investment to shed light on how the brain works and provide insight into diseases such as Alzheimer's and epilepsy.

President Obama said initiatives like the Human Genome Project had transformed genetics; now he wants to do the same with the brain.

The project will be carried out by both public and private-sector scientists.

The project is called Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies - or BRAIN.

Mr Obama said: There is this enormous mystery waiting to be unlocked, and the BRAIN initiative will change that by giving scientists the tools they need to get a dynamic picture of the brain in action and better understand how we think and learn and remember. And that knowledge will be transformative."

Next frontier

The project will begin in 2014, and will involve the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), and the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Continue reading the main story
“
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We can't afford to miss these opportunities while the rest of the world races ahead”
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President Barack Obama

The $100m investment will be used to develop new technologies to investigate how the billions of individual cells in the human brain interact.

Scientists will also focus on how the brain records, stores and processes information, and investigate how brain function is linked to behaviour.

Mr Obama said that while our understanding of the brain was growing, there was still a long way to go.

"As humans we can identify galaxies light years away, we can study particles smaller than the atom, but we still haven't unlocked the mystery of the 3lb of matter that sits between our ears," he said.

The project will also involve partnerships with the private sector.

This includes the Allen Institute for Brain Science, which has committed to spending $60m annually on projects relating to the BRAIN initiative, and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, which has dedicated $28m.

An ethics committee will oversee the work.

Mr Obama said that it was worth investing in science, claiming that it would help to create new jobs and boost the economy.

He said that basic research was "a driver of growth".

"We can't afford to miss these opportunities while the rest of the world races ahead," he added.

The funding announcement comes after recent news of another push in neuroscience in Europe.

About 80 European research institutions and some from outside the EU will take part in the Human Brain Project, which is estimated to cost more than 1bn euros.

The project will use supercomputer-based models and simulations to reconstruct a virtual human brain to develop new treatments for neurological conditions.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22007007

maybe this is the way to true brainwashing??

Doctor Shortage?




Nurse-Practitioners: The Answer to the Doctor Shortage?

Posted on 03/29/2013 by Candy Sagon

Let’s do the math: We have nearly 30 million uninsured people about to get medical coverage under the health care law come January. And we have a projected shortage of 45,000 primary care physicians by 2020. Add to that the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP), with 43,000 members who say they can offer basic care if state laws would just let them set up an independent practice without doctor supervision.

And the answer is …

The nurse-practitioners, of course, say it’s a matter of simple addition: New laws are needed to give them more autonomy.

But doctors say it’s a miscalculation to think that patient safety won’t be compromised by not having a doctor overseeing things. Family physicians have more than four times as much education and training, accumulating an average of 21,700 hours, whereas nurse-practitioners receive 5,350 hours, the American Academy of Family Physicians points out.

Others question whether this is a situation of the health care industry looking for cheaper labor to provide services to patients. Pricier specialists have been providing 40 percent of primary care visits, studies show, although the number of medical-school graduates going into primary care is slowly rising, according to USA Today.

But with the health care deadline looming, a new push has been launched in about a dozen states to allow nurses with a master’s degree or higher to order and interpret diagnostic tests, prescribe medications and administer treatments without physician oversight, the Washington Post reports.

“We have a ready-made, no-added-cost workforce in place that could be providing care at a much higher level if we modernize our state laws,” Taynin Kopanos, vice president of state government affairs for AANP, told the Post. “So the question for states is, are you going to fully deploy this resource or not?”

Doctors say their opposition isn’t because they’re worried about keeping their jobs; they’re concerned about patient safety. A nurse-practitioner could miss something crucial in a patient with complex symptoms.

“I see it as physicians being true to their oath. And being true to their training and education. And I think most physicians feel that way. They are not threatened by this. At the end of the day what they want to do is deliver the best health care possible,” Ardis Hoven, M.D., president-elect of the American Medical Association, told the radio show Marketplace.

But John Rowe, M.D., of the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, told Marketplace that nurse-practitioners are already working without primary care doctors: “The fact is, this is going on in 16 to 17 other states, and there is no evidence that it’s not good for the patients.”

The Post story noted that the health care law itself encourages the creation of nurse-run practices by requiring insurers to pay nurses the same rates they pay doctors for the same services, starting next year. Medicare, however, will still reimburse nurses at 85 percent of the doctors’ rate.

http://blog.aarp.org/2013/03/29/nurs...ctor-shortage/