Daschle’s revenge: Porkulus also a universal health care Trojan Horse

[shagdrum]

Daschle’s revenge: Porkulus also a universal health care Trojan HorseBy Michelle Malkin

I’ve made note before of the Generational Theft Act’s universal health care promotion provisions (see here). Betsy McCaughey goes over the text with a fine-tooth comb and explains how the porkulus is, among many other abominations, yet another universal health care Trojan Horse. I call it Tom Daschle’s revenge:

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

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

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

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

But the bill goes further. One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.” According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and “learn to operate less like solo practitioners.”
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2/10 9:54am Eastern update. Arlen Specter was just on Fox responding to questions about these intrusive provisions. He mumbled that he would make sure that they were “clarified” and “corrected” and that we could be “rest assured” that he would prevent new federal bureaucrats from dictating medical treatments. He complained that the bill didn’t have proper hearings and bemoaned the “rush to judgment” — which he helped lead.

2/10 10:05am Eastern update. Democrat Sen. Jon Tester was just grilled about these provisions. He blubbered like Specter that he wasn’t aware of them: “The language will be fixed if it’s in there.” Buffoonery.

Related flashback: Kathy Shaidle reported in December on Daschle’s designs.

 

[luxuryrules]

Lol, blubbered about language being fixed? Also known as... they didn't read the bill.

I'm not convinced it's a health care trojan horse so much as a measure to attempt to control the spiraling cost of health care. Regardless of what it is, it won't work. This is truly disappointing, yet; with any luck, after a few years of this hopefully it can be reversed.

 

[Calabrio]

Regardless of what it is, it won't work.

Government rarely, if ever, works. But that seemingly has no bearing on the desire of some to expand it into every sector of our lives.

 

[Calabrio]

Ruin Your Health With the Obama Stimulus Plan
Commentary by Betsy McCaughey

Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Republican Senators are questioning whether President Barack Obama’s stimulus bill contains the right mix of tax breaks and cash infusions to jump-start the economy.

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

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

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

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

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

New Penalties

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

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

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

Elderly Hardest Hit

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

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

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

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

Hidden Provisions

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

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

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

More Scrutiny Needed

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

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

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

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=D7D59855-A16E-4A82-95E6-107D6940B224

Perhaps more troubling than Daschle’s lobbying résumé is what he will do in his new HHS role. To judge from his new healthcare policy manifesto, Critical: What We Can Do About the Health Care Crisis, Daschle’s proposals for revamping the U.S. health care system are cause for concern. Among them is his proposal to create a “super board” of “experts” to oversee decisions about medical care for average Americans. As Daschle explains in his book, “In choosing what it will cover and how much it will pay, [this ‘super board’] could steer providers to the services that are the most clinically valuable and cost effective, and dissuade them from wasting time and money on those that are neither.”

Dr. David Gratzer, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, notes that “much of the book is standard fare.” He worries, however, about Daschle’s vision of a bureaucratic “super board.” “Daschle envisions using public money to demand that doctors, clinics, and hospitals comply with the best practices set out by the all-powerful super board,” says Gratzer. “If his idea is implemented and it works, the very practice of American medicine would change. The doctor-patient relationship would become the doctor-patient-super board relationship.”

Gratzer warns against the dangers inherent in such a bloated bureaucratic system. “How would a government panel figure out the best treatment for, say, depression? How can payment consider ‘best practices’ without massively increasing paperwork for everyone involved? The U.S. federal government is already involved in a massive pricing experiment of health-care services -- Medicare pays for 9,000-plus services, pricing them down to the penny. No one is satisfied with that system. Now the federal government would have to judge not only price but quality?”

Overall, Gratzer is concerned that Daschle’s proposals, if implemented, would greatly expand the reach of government into healthcare. If Daschle’s prescriptions come to pass, he notes, “Washington's role would be significantly increased: literally determining what is good care and funding services accordingly. The United States wouldn't have a Canadian-style system in terms of payment (that is, a single payer system), but -- like the Canadian and British systems -- the government would be much more dominant.”

 

[shagdrum]

Lol, blubbered about language being fixed? Also known as... they didn't read the bill.

I'm not convinced it's a health care trojan horse so much as a measure to attempt to control the spiraling cost of health care. Regardless of what it is, it won't work. This is truly disappointing, yet; with any luck, after a few years of this hopefully it can be reversed.

It is a health care trojan horse.

The spiraling cost of healthcare has many causes, but can be traced back to the creation of medicare and medicaid in the 1960's. Less private sector competition got it all snowballing from there, but we have been able to maintain a high level of quality in healthcare up till now.

Healthcare was killed in the 1990's by an argument which had two key points.

• The massive negative economic effects of Universal Healthcare when the government absorbs the costs
• The sharp drop in quality of healthcare due to government bureaucracy determining healthcare and rationing it.

The second point was the far stronger point in that argument. This will effectively negate that. Instead of one bureaucracy determining healthcare (insurance companies) you will have two (insurance companies and government).

They are sneaking in Daschle's plan. He views European Healthcare as a positive because they are, "more willing to accept 'hopeless diagnoses' and 'forgo experimental treatments,' and he chastises Americans for expecting too much from the health-care system". He is of course spinning. European's are not simply "more willing" to accept the hopeless diagnoses and forgo experimental treatment, they are forced to by the government. They are not given any other options (unless they are super-rich).

This is a program designed to get the healthcare in this country down to European levels without the American people noticing until it is too late.

The article Calabrio posted shows that the dems even admit as much:

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

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

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

After that, the only point left to overcome is the weaker, more abstract and harder to prove point of the negative economic effects of universal healthcare. When you are being told you won't have to pay for healthcare anymore, the chances of the conterargument based purely in abstracts winning the day is very slim. Heck, you may even see a slight upswing in healthcare quality as the bureaucracy of insurance companies is removed from the equation, but the quality will still be far lower then we have today.

The argument that this will somehow cut costs is a joke. It will add bureaucracy and that will add time and inevitably will add costs (further strengthening their position when they move for government to absorb costs all together).

When costs were determined by the free market, quality of healthcare was unparalleled, and costs were reasonable. When government started getting involved in a major way through medicare and medicaid, that is when costs started rising. Why would further government intervention reduce costs? History has shown the opposite to be true.

This is another example of the modern Democrat party showing their true socialist agenda and dishonest, deceitful and underhanded nature. They are only driven by concern for getting,maintaining and cementing party political power (like in the USSR or Red China) and use dishonest and deceitful methods to accomplish that end.