Impeding changes to our Health Care system

Originally Posted by classicman

There are also more MAJOR issues going on now, wouldn't you say? I'm not defending either party's actions.

Absolutely.

Like health care reform.

And for the first time in our lifetime, Congress and the White House have taken on the issue of serious and comprehensive health care reform.

The process has taken nine months, with hearings in numerous committees in both the House and Senate and town meetings around the country.

The Democrats will use the procedures available to them to prevent any further delay or obstruction that is solely for the purpose of delay or obstruction.

I have said repeatedly that I dont think the current legislation is perfect and most Americans probably agree for various reasons...it goes too far, it doesnt far enough.

It is built on an imperfect foundation (employer-based insurance) and IMO, to tear apart that foundation and start from scratch would be far too destructive.

But it does offer significant benefits to nearly all Americans....

...affordable and accessible insurance for 30+ million hard working people who are in the unfortunate circumstance of working for a small business that is not able to offer subsidized insurance.

--- greater protections for nearly 200 million Americans who receive their health insurance through their employer...no more exclusions, no more going bankrupt as a result of excessive out-of-pocket expenses.

And IMO, once implemented, with a much larger risk pool and new restrictions on insurance companies, it will reign in the costs that have been rising at 2-3 times the rate of wage/salary increases. Others will disagree.

Time will tell.

[TheMercenary]

It is a failed bill. They rushed the process to please The Savior. Now they have given the insurance companies a golden egg and allowed them to help craft the legislation. And as with the whorish spending bill in Feb, the final version is being crafted in secret with no bipartisan input. I am actually looking forward to the final bill.

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

It is a failed bill. They rushed the process to please The Savior....

*sigh" some things will never change around here.

Please get over "The Savior" nonsense. It is obvious to all that only those who disagree with Obama resort to that rhetoric.

Now they have given the insurance companies a golden egg and allowed them to help craft the legislation.

The insurance industry has spent $millions in lobbying to oppose the bill and $millions more recently, as it becomes closer to reality, in media campaigns against the bill.

I am actually looking forward to the final bill.

SO am I.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Redux

*sigh" some things will never change around here.

Please get over "The Savior" nonsense. It is obvious to all that only those who disagree with Obama resort to that rhetoric.

Ok, then why the rush to get it done by the end of the year. The most historic change and increase in taxes to partially fund "healthcare for all"? So the Congress could get home before Christmas?

The insurance industry has spent $millions in lobbying to oppose the bill and $millions more recently, as it becomes closer to reality, in media campaigns against the bill.

Half harted attempts. Why did Bacus let a insurance insider basically craft the bill for him? An industry that I have no doubt she will return to when this is over at what will most likely be a heafty income.

SO am I.

Me too, so I can point out it's failures.


Eight clips of Obama promising a public and open debate on healthcare.

http://www.breitbart.tv/the-c-span-l...-negotiations/

[TheMercenary]

Well this event has been a source of topic around the hospitals I work at for the last week or so. And more and more people agree they are just going to opt out of the care of these patients in their offices. They will still have to care for them in the hospitals, they just are going to no longer take on new patients or allow them to have lower cost care in the surgicenters and treatment centers. And the beat goes on.....

“Look at what the Mayo Clinic is able to do,’’ the president proclaimed at a rally in September. “It’s got the best quality and the lowest cost of just about any system in the country. . . . We want to help the whole country learn from what Mayo is doing.’’ On the White House website, you can find more than a dozen examples of Obama’s esteem.

So perhaps the president will give some thought to the clinic’s recent decision to stop accepting Medicare payments at its primary care facility in Glendale, Ariz. More than 3,000 patients will have to start paying cash if they wish to continue being seen by doctors at the clinic; those unable or unwilling to do so must look for new physicians. For now, Mayo is limiting the change in policy to its Glendale facility. But it may be just a matter of time before it drops Medicare at its other facilities in Arizona, Florida, and Minnesota as well.

Why would an institution renowned for providing health care of “the best quality and the lowest cost’’ choose to sever its ties with the government’s flagship single-payer insurance program? Because the relationship is one it can’t afford. Last year, the Mayo Clinic lost $840 million on its Medicare patients. At the Glendale clinic, a Mayo spokesman told Bloomberg News, Medicare reimbursements covered only 50 percent of the cost of treating elderly primary-care patients. Not even the leanest, most efficient medical organization can keep doing business with a program that compels it to eat half its costs.

In breaking away from Medicare, the Mayo Clinic is hardly blazing a trail. In 2008, the independent Medicare Payment Advisory Commission reported that 29 percent of Medicare beneficiaries - more than 1 in 4 - have trouble finding a primary-care doctor willing to treat them. A survey by the Texas Medical Association that year found that only 38 percent of the state’s primary-care physicians were accepting new Medicare patients.

But if you think that sounds grim, wait until Congress enacts the president’s health care overhaul. A central element of both the House and Senate versions of ObamaCare is that Medicare reimbursements to hospitals and doctors - already so low that many providers lose money each time they treat a Medicare patient - will be forced lower still.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a branch of the US Department of Health and Human Services, estimated last month that the Senate bill would squeeze $493 billion out of Medicare over the next 10 years. As a result, it cautioned, “providers for whom Medicare constitutes a substantive portion of their business could find it difficult to remain profitable and . . . might end their participation in the program (possibly jeopardizing access to care for beneficiaries).’’ In short, the Democratic understanding of health care reform - more government power to set prices, combined with reduced freedom for individuals - will make medical care harder to come by: an Economics 101 lesson in the pitfalls of price controls.

Nearly six months ago, the Mayo Clinic tried to sound an alarm. Instead of making American health care better and more affordable, it warned, the legislation working its way through Congress “will do the opposite’’ and “the real losers will be the citizens of the United States.’’

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ed...e_mayo_clinic/

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Ok, then why the rush to get it done by the end of the year.

Because if you don't set a deadline, it won't happen. Evah. Have you noticed the urgency the Iraqi government has in taking over their own security? No? Maybe because there's no deadline.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by Redux

it will reign in the costs that have been rising at 2-3 times the rate of wage/salary increases. Others will disagree.

But this HIGHLY Scientific chart shows that healthcare costs aren't rising as some would have us believe.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

Because if you don't set a deadline, it won't happen. Evah. Have you noticed the urgency the Iraqi government has in taking over their own security? No? Maybe because there's no deadline.

That was not the case and it was all the talk in Washington. They did it because Obamy wanted done before the end of the year. So now they have a shit bill that still leaves some 12 million people uncovered. Great job.

[TheMercenary]

This is just to good not to post in FULL

The Tom DeLay Democrats
So much for the President's pledge of C-Span transparency.

Rehabilitating Tom DeLay's reputation always seemed hopeless, or so we thought—but then again, President Obama ran on hope. Against the odds Democrats are making the former GOP Majority Leader look better by comparison as they bypass the ordinary institutions of deliberative democracy in the final sprint to pass ObamaCare.

Instead of appointing a formal conference committee to reconcile the House and Senate health bills, a handful of Democratic leaders will now negotiate in secret by themselves. Later this month, presumably white smoke will rise from the Capitol Dome, and then Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and the college of Democratic cardinals will unveil their miracle. The new bill will then be rushed through both chambers with little public scrutiny or even the chance for the Members to understand what they're passing.

Evading conference has become standard operating procedure in this Congress, though you might think they'd allow for the more open and thoughtful process on what Mr. Obama has called "the most important piece of social legislation since the Social Security Act passed in the 1930s and the most important reform of our health-care system since Medicare passed in the 1960s."

This black-ops mission ought to be a particular embarrassment for Mr. Obama, given that he campaigned on transparent government. At a January 2008 debate he said that a health-care overhaul would not be negotiated "behind closed doors, but bringing all parties together, and broadcasting those negotiations on C-Span so the American people can see what the choices are."

The C-Span pledge became a signature of his political pitch. During a riff at the San Francisco Chronicle about "accountability," he added that "I would not underestimate the degree to which shame is a healthy emotion and that you can shame Congress into doing the right thing if people know what's going on."

Apparently this Congress knows no shame. In a recent letter to Congressional leaders, C-Span president Brian Lamb committed his network to airing "all important negotiations," which if allowed would give "the public full access, through television, to legislation that will affect the lives of every single American." No word yet from the White House.

At a press conference in December, even Mrs. Pelosi said that "we would like to see a full conference." One reason she mentioned was that "there is a great deal of work involved in reviewing a bill and seeing what all the ramifications are of it," though her real motive at the time was that a conference seemed like a chance to drag the bill closer to the House version.

With public support collapsing, however, Democrats now think the right bill is any bill—and soon. Democrats know that a conference forces the majority party to cast votes on awkward motions and would give the Republicans who have been shut out for months a chance to participate. This sunlight, and the resulting public attention, might scare off wavering Democrats and defeat the bill. Ethics rules the Democrats passed in 2007 also make it harder to "airdrop" into conference reports the extra bribes they will no doubt add to grease the way for final passage.

Democrats howled at the strong-arm tactics Mr. DeLay used to pass Medicare drug coverage in 2003, and so did we. But they've managed to create an even more destructive bill, and their tactics are that much worse. We can't even begin to imagine the uproar if the Republicans had tried to privatize Social Security with such contempt for the democratic process and public opinion.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...n_AboveLEFTTop

[TheMercenary]

And so it becomes the Secret Healthcare Bill of 2010....

President Barack Obama and congressional Democratic leaders agreed Tuesday to forgo a formal conference committee for reconciling the Senate and House health care bills, according to three Democratic congressional aides.


The decision means that the White House, Senate Majority Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will attempt to reach an agreement through private negotiations with key lawmakers. Once a deal is struck, the bill will go back to the House for passage, then to the Senate and on to the president’s desk — a legislative path that has been described as “ping pong.”


The decision to bypass the conference committee, which the aides said came during an Oval Office meeting Tuesday, formalized what many Democrats had long known: If they have any hope of passing the health care bill quickly, they would need to circumvent the normal order of business.


But the move — though not unusual in the increasingly gridlocked Congress — has drawn sharp criticism from Republicans and even some Democrats, who say Obama is not living up to his promise of a transparent process.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories...#ixzz0bqoReeUo

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

That was not the case and it was all the talk in Washington. They did it because Obamy wanted done before the end of the year. So now they have a shit bill that still leaves some 12 million people uncovered. Great job.

Wrong. Fail.

"My attitude is, I want to get it right, but I also want to get it done promptly," Obama said. "And so as long as I see folks working diligently and consistently, then I am comfortable with moving a process forward that builds as much consensus as possible."

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

And so it becomes the Secret Healthcare Bill of 2010....

Yeah, it sounds like Bush's Energy Task Force and the resulting legislation.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

Wrong.

That link is from July 23, 2009 Thats pretty old news.

"I am very confident that we will be on schedule and we will be able to present a wonderful gift to the American people -- gift of confidence and of peace of mind," Pelosi said in a news conference.

Obama said. "And that's why I pledge that I will not sign health insurance reform. As badly as I think it's necessary, I won't sign it if that reform adds even one dime to our deficit over the next decade -- and I mean what I say."

Obama used the presidential bully pulpit to project his talking points...
He reiterated that message today in Cleveland, veering off script to admonish the previous administration.

"I have to say that folks have a lot of nerve who were -- helped us get into this fiscal hole and then start going around trying to talk about fiscal responsibility," Obama said. "I'm always a little surprised that… that people don't have a little more shame about having created a mess and then try to point fingers."

"We will pass reform that lowers cost, promotes choice and provides coverage that every American can count on, and we will do it this year,"

[classicman]

President Barack Obama signaled to House Democratic leaders Wednesday that they'll have to drop their opposition to taxing high-end health insurance plans to pay for health coverage for millions of uninsured Americans.

In a meeting at the White House, Obama expressed his preference for the insurance tax contained in the Senate's health overhaul bill, but largely opposed by House Democrats and organized labor, Democratic aides said. The aides spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was private.

Wait what?

House Democrats want to raise income taxes on high-income individuals instead and are reluctant to abandon that approach, while recognizing that they will have to bend on that and other issues so that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., can maintain his fragile 60-vote majority support for the bill.

Pelosi and four committee chairmen met with the president Wednesday as they scrambled to resolve differences between sweeping bills passed by the House and Senate. The aim is to finalize legislation revamping the nation's health care system in time for Obama's State of the Union address early last month.

"We've had a very intense couple of days," Pelosi said. "After our leadership meeting this morning, our staff engaged with the Senate and the administration staff to review the legislation, suggest legislative language. I think we're very close to reconciliation."

Congressional staff members stayed at the White House into the evening to continue work and a conference call of the full House Democratic caucus was scheduled for Thursday.

Hey Redux, Is this just the normal course of business in Washington or is this something special?

[classicman]

Seven hundred billion dollars. That's a ballpark estimate of how much money is wasted in the U.S. medical system every single year, according to a new Thomson Reuters (TRI) report. A sum equal to roughly one-third of the nation's total health-care spending is flushed away on unnecessary treatments, redundant tests, fraud, errors, and myriad other monetary sinkholes that do nothing to improve the nation's health. Cut that figure by half, and there would be more than enough money to offer top-notch care to every one of America's 46 million uninsured.

None of the health-care reform bills on the table in Washington do anything meaningful to address that wasted $700 billion. Nor do they call for changes in the underlying flaw that drives much of the waste—the fee-for-service system that pays doctors and hospitals for the amount of medical care delivered rather than for its quality. Under fee-for-service there is no financial incentive for doctors to eliminate waste, since they wouldn't pocket any of the resulting savings. They would just earn less.

By leaving this perverse reward system in place, Congress is virtually guaranteeing that health-care reform legislation, if passed, will do nothing to "bend the curve" of rising health-care costs, as President Barack Obama originally set out to do. Even the few cost-cutting efforts that the bills do include won't go into effect until at least 2013. As a result, U.S. health spending is on track to double over the next 10 years, to $5.2 trillion, about 21% of the gross domestic product.

Or possibly not. Politicians may be reluctant to rein in the medical-industrial complex, but the private sector is forging ahead. Faced with health-care costs that keep rising 6% to 7% every year—even during this year of negative overall inflation—plenty of insurers, hospitals, employers, and communities are figuring out how to offer better care for less money. They are willing to take experimental leaps in an attempt to solve some of the health system's most intractable problems.
A BIG STEP FORWARD

BusinessWeek has looked at 10 such attempts to lower health-care costs and improve patient care. These innovations cannot have the same impact as a comprehensive federal bill. Nor are the gains from private efforts assured. Paul B. Ginsburg, president of the nonprofit Center for Studying Health System Change, cautions that "there are a lot of things we know can improve health, such as wellness programs. But we don't know if they can save money on a large scale."

Still, companies and hospitals are taking the initiative, and some results are in plain view. "Three years ago, professional medical organizations were very reluctant to talk about inappropriate treatments, but I already see that changing," says Robert Kelley, vice-president for health-care analytics at Thomson Reuters. He points out that the American College of Cardiology recently published several standards of care for angioplasty and other common treatments, aimed at preventing unnecessary and costly interventions. Given that about one in six U.S. health-care dollars is currently spent on cardiovascular procedures, "that's a big step forward," says Kelly. Here are some others.

Link