"I have not said that I was a single-payer supporter because, frankly, we historically had a employer-based system in this country with private insurers, and for us, a transition to a system like that [ed. to a single payer system] I believe, would be too disruptive."(I guess he figured that out from all the hullaballoo the public is making.)
But, in fact, he DID say previously that he was a single-payer supporter. According to Kelly, Obama said in 2003, "I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer health care program." See video.
I heard him say with my own ears that a public tax-supported option in the healthcare system would be competition to bring prices down. But it's not fair competition considering that gov't is tax-subsidized without paying taxes. Oddly, today he cited the U.S. Post office as an example of a public service that is losing out to the private competition. Indeed! The Post Office is an example of how gov't does NOT work effectively or efficiently without continually raising the costs. The P.O. and Medicare/Medicaid being in the red are reasons to NOT have anymore gov't healthcare than we already have. If doctors and hospitals had to rely solely on gov't income, THEY would operate in the red, too. (After all, the litigious lawyers and their clients have to make a living, too! What will they do when no one can afford to insure gov't doctors?) So how do we put the whole country on medicare/medicaid and suddenly operate in the black??? He does a lot of double-talk to answer that question, but none of it sounds like a guy who has ever run a medical business --or any business, for that matter.
As for the so-called "death panels," Obama was right to say today in Colorado that conservatives have also said we couldn't possibly provide all that is technologically possible for all people at gov't expense. It's true that insurance companies now deny some care --and for sure, Medicare/Medicaid already refuse to pay the price tag for care. (My mother on Medicare had to pay at least $1500 out of pocket for a recent hospital visit.) We've been told by democrats that all people should have all the care they need provided for them--and conservatives have said it is impossible for gov't to pay for ALL the care that is possible to sustain people with very serious problems without our entire tax revenue going for healthcare.
That's why private insurers are the way to go; they have a profit incentive --but they also compete for our business. So people pay for the kind of care they can afford --and want to pay. Some people want to gamble and not pay much for insurance; they should get the results of their gamble --the minimal care they were willing to pay for --which is what gov't care will become --MINIMAL! Granted, however, we don't let the indigent and the children suffer.
Meanwhile, for whom will doctors work? the insurance that pays them the most --or the gov't that pays them the least?
They can't afford the malpractice settlements and attorneys if healthcare isn't profitable.
He clarifies that we would not be "forced" to use the gov't programs. Sure, we can always pay a lot on top of taxes for private programs. But once again, people will complain that the wealthier get better care because they pay for it --and so, socialists will always push to close private options and raise taxes to equalize poor care for all. (For all except the politicians --who already have the best plans and unlimited care.) Just like the Communist state and party.
Now about the so-called DEATH PANELS: According to Kelly, the president's medical advisor, Ezekiel Emanuel, "touted the fiscal benefits of physician-assisted suicide" in a 1998 New England Journal of Medicine article. He said the following this past January -- which contributes to concerns about "death panels": he explained his "principles of allocation of scarce medical interventions: when implemented, the complete lives system produces a priority curve on which individuals aged between roughtly 15 and 40 years get the most substantial chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get chances that are attenuated" [decreased, weakened, reduced.] Sounds to me, like Dr. Rahm is suggesting we may pull the plug on Grandma after all!
We know that England does not provide any extraordinary remedies for people in their 60's and above --and Canadians must wait until it's too late for essential care.
Again, we need to have some healthcare and social security reforms or watch Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security (our biggest budget items) further sink the financial U.S. ship--but we also need tort reform to get the lawyers off the doctors' backs --and that will be a major cost saver.
STIMULATE YOUR AILING ECONOMY, DR. OBAMA! INFUSE IT WITH TAX CUTS! THEN, LET'S TALK ABOUT PANACEAS FOR WHATEVER ELSE AILS US!
And one more thought: If you are so bent on taxing the wealthy, why are you letting corporate leaders get their millions in benefits before paying back the tax-payers who bailed them out????
"God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and have eternal life."--the Bible
9 comments:
a hundred years from now when we are all slaves to our machine overlords.. I don't think any of this will matter.
Not if I have anything to say about it!
The title was, "Obama Lies About His Positions."
It starts with:
Columnist Jack Kelly, in The Toledo Blade, today, quotes Obama in a town hall meeting,
Jack Kelly quoted Obama once, and lied or distorted at least twice. Lies and distortions Barb repeated.
The big lie:
According to Kelly, the president's medical advisor, Ezekiel Rahm, "touted the fiscal benefits of physician-assisted suicide" in a 1998 New England Journal of Medicine article.
Well, that's Ezekiel Emanuel, not Rahm, and that article is available online.
www.snipurl.com/emanuelnejm
In that article he not only did not "tout" the financial benefits of physician assisted suicide,but he concluded there was no significant fiscal benefit. He, and his co-author, found the projected savings to be less than 1/10th of one percent of health care spending. Too small to be a consideration. Further, the article opened by saying the two co-authors disagreed on the morality of the issue, but were only considering the economics. I have since found out the co-author is pro-physician assisted suicide, and Emanuel is opposed to it. Considering his name seems Hispanic, that would indicate he is Catholic, and his position would be in keeping with the Catholic position.
As to the article in the Lancet, the one about "allocation of scarce medical interventions,"
www.snipurl.com/emanuelscarce
That is not an advocacy article about anything. It is a technical study of what the title says, allocation of scarce medical interventions. The medical field does that all the time, it's called Triage. And there are cases where you have two patients and only one treatment available. One example he gave was two heart transplant recipients, but one heart.
Tell me Barb, if you were 70 and needed a heart transplant, and your child was 40 and also needed a transplant, would you take the one heart available, and leave your child to die, or refuse it and let your child live?
Now, what if the 40 year old was a complete stranger with a family dependent on him? Would you make another choice?
BTW, I am a member of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, a pro-life group in adherence with the Catholic Churches teachings on social justice, including the sacredness of life from conception to natural death.
You can call the views your bloggers express here conservative, but calling them Christian is an insult to Christianity.
Further Barb said:
"That's why private insurers are the way to go; they have a profit incentive --but they also compete for our business. So people pay for the kind of care they can afford --and want to pay. Some people want to gamble and not pay much for insurance; they should get the results of their gamble --the minimal care they were willing to pay for --which is what gov't care will become --MINIMAL! Granted, however, we don't let the indigent and the children suffer."
The one thing you do not want is health care in the hands of those who profit more by denying health care. That is where the insurance industry stands.
People pay for the kind of care they can afford? Don't even try to call that Christian. That is the one of the most immoral positions in the entire debate, and that is where we stand now.
"... we dont' let the indigent and the children suffer"?
That is exactly what we are doing. Don't you realize, the
wealthy and well employed are insured. The welfare poor, the elderly and handicapped get Medicare and Medicaid.The uninsured are, by a large majority, working poor and their dependents.
"They can't afford the malpractice settlements and attorneys if healthcare isn't profitable."
"...we also need tort reform to get the lawyers off the doctors' backs --and that will be a major cost saver."
You want to cut malpractice costs? National Health Care does it throughout the world. The rest of the industrialized world has far less malpractice cost, not because they have fewer lawyers, they don't, but because they cover most malpractice costs in their much cheaper National Health Care. The great majority of malpractice judgment costs are not for someone making a profit off it, but for continuing treatment to fix the malpractice damage. Which alone tells you it wasn't a frivolous suit. Under National Health Care there are no such judgments, because the needed health care is provided for automatically.
Instant fix.
"STIMULATE YOUR AILING ECONOMY, DR. OBAMA! INFUSE IT WITH TAX CUTS! THEN, LET'S TALK ABOUT PANACEAS FOR WHATEVER ELSE AILS US! "
It was the Bush tax cuts that got us into this economic mess. Notice that the national debt load, the ratio of debt to GDP, was over 120% at the end of WW2. It went down From then until Reagan took office, under republicans and democrats, war and piece, prosperity and recession. Notice that the debt load has only gone up under anti-tax presidents. And has gone down under all others.
All my figures are easily verifiable, the Statistical Abstract of the US is available online, http://www.census.gov
and the Federal Budget historical files, http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/
Thanks, Bob, for correcting Ezekiel's name --he is Rahm's brother, I know.
Don't get your britches in a wad because I believed what Jack Kelly believed and what he reported in the blade about Dr. Emanuel's article. I think of Kelly as reputable. Like me, he surely intends to be factual.
I'm very relieved if Dr. Emanuel really doesn't see any benefit to assisted suicide--but did he say the other? that there would be priority given to people between 15 and 40 in a system that covers all people with universal healthcare? Sarah Palin's concern is real --I can imagine a gov't system that believes in abortion will eventually not pay for the extraordinary care needed by a child with Down's --saying those children should be aborted --or their parents can bear the cost. Even before Hitler, some of our states implemented eugenics policies --and the Planned Parenthood founder believed some people groups should not reproduce.
It's a legitimate concern that the resources WILL be limited if government runs the system --especially if they don't get tort reform and improve the economy.
I'm all for covering everybody for every age for every condition.
But I also believe that getting a job for healthcare is a terrific motivation to get a job! And I think it's a good idea to tie healthcare to employers who make enough to offer insurance. And let gov't and charity and other safety nets (forgiveness of debt by healthcare profession happens frequently) provide for the rest.
I don't personally hear of people in USA who are unable to get essential and emergency care, do you --really? I hear that the most liberal state in the union, California, has kicked some vagrants out of their ER waiting rooms. I don't know the details of that.
I did read that some hospitals are in financial trouble because they have been over-run by illegal aliens who don't pay getting care in their ER's --and also by meth users seeking care. Healthcare people need to be paid and too many patients think the hospital should be free --and that Uncle Sam is to pay everybody's way including people here illegally.
I want these people to get care --I can't see me turning people away --but there are some people who need to get legal, then get jobs, pay taxes and then get their care.
Yes, we are a compassionate nation. We have many compassionate hospitals underwritten by charities --and many gov't programs to help the needy.
Yes, I would give the liver or the kidney to my child instead of myself. But I also think that people ought to be able to buy an insurance policy that will pay for the transplant for them according to the waiting list--should an organ become available.
My observation is that Americans DO get the best healthcare in the world. People with scarcely any money are getting new knees,e.g. that's not to say that we don't have people who don't take care of themselves or have genetic liabilities. My source says something like 90% of certain people groups in US have diabetes and a huge percentage of these groups smoke. And our national obesity will cause bad stats in the Baby Boomers. These affect our data compared to other industrialized nations who, by the diet and habits of their culture (the lack of excessive fattening foods), beat us out on some health stats.
I'm told that the people in the world who live the longest are the non-smoking, white, American women --who now live to be, on average, 93.
Views expressed on this blog represent a wide range of people --as for my views being Christian, don't judge me. I'm not wishing death on anyone. But I know that gov't healthcare is already not paying for itself, so we need to improve the economy first and figure out how to make our existing entitlement programs work --before giving the gov't more responsibility. Yes, everybody should be cared for --should the gov't do it? NO.
by the way, I myself heard Obama say the first quote of this blog at a town hall meeting --that's no lie. I ALSO heard him talk with a doctor at an earlier town hall meeting about the need to pull the plug on the elderly--ONLY HE DIDN'T USE THOSE WORDS.
and yes, INSURANCE companies already weigh the efficacy of giving the terminally ill all the care available to keep them breathing instead of pulling the plug. I think Hospice actually hastens death--just watching my neighbors die after Hospice came in to administer the morphine --morphine does hasten death ----and seems to make them out of their heads, too.
I want to be kept comfortable as possible when I'm terminal --but I'm not sure I want the mental terrors and disorientation and hallucinations I've seen people have on morphine.
As for who caused our fiscal problems--we were headed out of the recession that started in Clinton's last years after Bush reduced taxes --and then the gas prices soared. We always get more tax revenue when we REDUCE taxes because it DOES stimulate the economy. However, yes, the natural disasters and the wars and millions to all the victims of all the disasters and 9/11 were a big drain on the national purse --BUT OBAMA HAS SPENT LIKE THERE IS NO TOMORROW --SPENT MUCH MORE THAN BUSH IN HIS FIRST HALF YEAR!!! And national health care will be the biggest price tag ever in the national history.
You think Gov't isn't interested in profit when they run a program? This is how bureaucrats profit: limited work hours, many holidays, early retirement with double-dipping, inefficiency, continual raises, strikes, consultancy groups, lawyers --there is no limit to what they'll spend or waste of the gov't's money--but at the same time, they will limit what they will pay to doctors and pharmaceutical companies and hospitals to where these groups can't operate --can't research --can't pay their overheads.
Whatever the doctor charges, Medicare pays less --ridiculously less in some cases. So doctors charge, e.g., $80 for a office call --in order to get $20 from Medicare. If they charged $20, they'd get $4.
We spend more on our cars.
And so much goes into paper work when government is involved --and since government IS involved, the paper work is already upon us. So many forms to fill out --so many things to check before doctor can communicate with a patient's home, e.g. We have to check the chart and see if the privacy form has been filled out and see whom we can talk to.
A doctor's office is filled with little worker bees always pulling up charts and studying them and recording on them --mainly to protect doctors and their staffs from lawyers. Lawyers decided that every piece of paper in a patient's paper chart had to have the doctor's whole signature --and finally there was such a backlash that they said, "OK, you can just initial or put your mark on the paper --as before." But they don't want anyone but the doctor to determine that a lab result says normal and so the doctor's eyes are supposed to see every result --no one can screen them for him. Every sunday night, my husband has to sit with a fax stack thats 18 inches high for that week's results and put his John Henry on them.
I don't know what it will mean to go entirely computerized --THEN he says he's hung up by windows and screens not opening.
Bob says: "and Emanuel is opposed to it. Considering his name seems Hispanic, that would indicate he is Catholic, and his position would be in keeping with the Catholic position."
I don't want to be quarrelsome to you, Bob, but the Emmanuels are Jews and not Hispanic. They practice the Jewish faith and not Catholicism.
On a bright note - there are a number of Federal enticements (and pieces of legislation controlling Social Security benefits and who may bill for Medicare funds),that require hospitals to provide hospital treatment to indigent and uninsured people.
Every state has their own version of a provider program which was approved by the Feds.
In Ohio it's called the HCAP, Health Care Assurance Program. And anyone who falls into the criteria qualified for free hospital treatment.
They must:
1. Be a resident of Ohio
2. Not be a recipient of Medicaid.
Be a person whose annual income is below $10,210. Add $3,480 for each family member.
Many people who are discussing uninsured and indigents seem to have the belief that they don't have access to hospital care when in fact, they do.
Each County has a health department as well which provides early childhood (vaccinations, checkups) and many adult services as well at no charge.
For the elderly we run a national Medicare program which I have had some dealings over the last 6 years or so and I find it to be very workable and very fair.
People with a more substantial income have the option of buying their own health care and it is quite expensive. Tort reform would reduce much of the cost.
I'd also like to see some sort of accountability for people who file obviously frivolous lawsuits. But that could be difficult to assign values to define them fairly. And nothing should ever interfere with the People's access to the Court.
But America by and large is doing a good job in making hospital and preventative services available to the most vulnerable segments of the population.
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