While we were away....

Our little min-blogging vacation over the weekend did not stop the bad news from rolling in with respect to the “new” federal healthcare law aka ObamaCare that will kick in starting October 1st.



First, the law continues to poll badly even while having many of the favorable benefits of the law front-loaded.



This unpopularity and the um, uneven, roll-out of the law, however is somehow the fault of the GOP.




Doctor rationing to begin in California:

The doctor can't see you now.

Consumers may hear that a lot more often after getting health insurance under President Obama's Affordable Care Act.
To hold down premiums, major insurers in California have sharply limited the number of doctors and hospitals available to patients in the state's new health insurance market opening Oct. 1.
New data reveal the extent of those cuts in California, a crucial test bed for the federal healthcare law.

Healthcare Company to Lay Off Over 100 Because of Obamacare:

A Georgia health care company will lay off over 100 employees due in part to Obamacare, according to a WSB-TV report:

"We have confirmed more than 100 Emory health care employees are going to lose their jobs in part because of the Affordable (health) Care Act," said a local anchor.

"I think it's bad it's affordable health care and people are losing their jobs," said a man interviewed by the reporter.

"It's sad. It really is," said another man. "A lot of people are going to lose their homes and cars and everything they worked all their life for."

Progressive darling Trader Joe’s to eliminate health care plans for part-time employees:

After extending health care coverage to many of its part-time employees for years, Trader Joe’s has told workers who log fewer than 30 hours a week that they will need to find insurance on the Obamacare exchanges next year, according to a confidential memo from the grocer’s chief executive.

In the memo to staff dated Aug. 30, Trader Joe’s CEO Dan Bane said the company will cut part-timers a check for $500 in January and help guide them toward finding a new plan under the Affordable Care Act. The company will continue to offer health coverage to workers who carry 30 hours or more on average.

Mickey Ds looking to get out from under ObamaCare’s onerous regulations:

Franchise restaurant owners have come to Washington seeking a change to ObamaCare that they say could prevent them from having to cut their employees’ hours.

The healthcare law requires large employers to provide insurance to employees who work at least 30 hours per week.

Franchise owners say the employer mandate threatens to erase their narrow profit margins and are telling lawmakers they need to overhaul the law before it’s too late.

“Employees won’t have the hours they need, and they won’t get employer-sponsored healthcare, either,” said Steve Caldeira, president and CEO of the International Franchise Association (IFA).

“[Franchisees] are dealing with high commodity costs, high energy prices, higher taxes from the ‘fiscal-cliff’ deal, and now they are trying to work through ObamaCare,” he said.

More than 300 members of the franchise association are making the rounds on Capitol Hill to lobby for the ObamaCare changes. Monday’s visitors included IFA members from Mr. Rooter, McDonald’s and Dunkin Donuts.

So, if Congress and Big Business are getting breaks from the law, why not the fast food sector? After all, now that health care in this country has been sufficiently politicized, the law will not be about “care” rather picking winners and losers.

The amount of lobbying being done on Capitol Hill by entities looking to get away from this law should tell you everything you need to know about it.





Finally, the President's BFF, Warren Buffett says it's time to scrap the law and start over and we whole-heartedly agree:

"Healthcare costs in the United States are like a tapeworm eating at our economic body.

"Those words come from famed investor Warren Buffett, who said he would scrap Obamacare and start all over.

"'We have a health system that, in terms of costs, is really out of control,' he added. 'And if you take this line and you project what has been happening into the future, we will get less and less competitive. So we need something else.'

"Buffett insists that without changes to Obamacare average citizens will suffer.

"'What we have now is untenable over time,' said Buffett, an early supporter of President Obama. 'That kind of a cost compared to the rest of the world is really like a tapeworm eating, you know, at our economic body.'

"Buffett does not believe that providing insurance for everyone is the first step to take in correcting our nation's healthcare system.

"'Attack the costs first, and then worry about expanding coverage,' he said. 'I would much rather see another plan that really attacks costs. And I think that's what the American public wants to see. I mean, the American public is not behind this bill.'"

This common sense approach to overhauling our healthcare system is precisely why it doesn't stand an ice cube's chance in hell in Washington D.C.

Maybe she'll have better luck than us in explaining this thing

If you thought that a law written in secretive fashion by a combination of members of Congress, their respective staffs and health care and big Pharma lobbyists and which was cobbled together to provide enough aptly-named sweeteners (Cornhusker Kickback, the Louisiana Purchase, Gator Aid) to garner sufficient votes and which also was ramrodded sideways through no fewer than 3 congressional committees might experience some minor problems with its roll-out, you would not be alone.


From The Hill:

Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said Wednesday he fears a "train wreck" as the Obama administration implements its signature healthcare law.


Baucus, the chairman of the chamber's powerful Finance Committee and a key architect of the healthcare reform law, said he fears people do not understand how the law will work.

"I just see a huge train wreck coming down," he told Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius at a Wednesday hearing. "You and I have discussed this many times, and I don't see any results yet."

Baucus pressed Sebelius for details about how the Health Department will explain the law and raise awareness of its provisions, which are supposed to take effect in just a matter of months.

"I'm very concerned that not enough is being done so far — very concerned," Baucus said.

Remember, we were told by the glittering jewel of colossal ignorance, then-Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, that we had to pass ObamaCare so we can find out what's in it. And now, over 3 years since its passage, the biggest problem the law faces according to those voted for it is that it has not been sufficiently explained to us. Never mind that Baucus, one of the chief architects of the law and who is facing re-election next year is in full CYA mode, the man has some valid concerns, and how!


More:

He pressed Sebelius to explain how her department will overcome entrenched misunderstandings about what the healthcare law does.

"Small businesses have no idea what to do, what to expect," Baucus said.

Citing anecdotal evidence from small businesses in his home state, Baucus asked Sebelius for specifics about how it is measuring public understanding of the law.

"You need data. Do you have any data? You've never given me data. You only give me concepts, frankly," he said.

Sebelius said in response that the administration is not independently monitoring public awareness of specific provisions but will be embarking on an education campaign beginning this summer.

Of course they're not monitoring public awareness. a) it's the law of the land so all you little people can go pound sand and b) they wouldn't like the feedback so please see a). And about that education campaign... mere months... weeks? before people can start signing up for ObamaCare at the state exchanges (which are nowhere close to being set up, by the by) on October 1st? That ought to be helpful.



Later, the article takes a curious turn down the avenue of why it is that 3+ years later we still don't know jack squat about this law and it has to do with our obvious misconceptions regarding the law. Here is the odd stand-alone paragraph:

A recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll found deep and persistent misconceptions about the healthcare law. Public awareness was highest for the most politically unpopular provisions, and many people wrongly believed the law contains provisions like a "death panel" to make decisions about end-of-life care.

We suppose this represents part of the education campaign: getting The Hill to provide cover for this horrible law.


But if Sebelius and her water carriers in the press want us to give up our misconceptions regarding "death panels", we'd be glad to except for the fact that it's not really a misconception.

Nearly 4 years ago, we read the section of ObamaCare that dealt with the alleged death panels and came to the conclusion that though there were no death panels, per se, the language of the legislation allowed for a steering of patients towards decisions that would be, shall we say, less than optimal for their immediate health.

Here's us from back in 2009 and please follow the link for a fuller explanation of our thoughts on the matter:

Conclusion: First and foremost, this legislation, because of the Byzantine fashion in which it is written should be opposed on principle alone. Well, all legislation is written in that manner. Perhaps, but we all reserve the right to be smarter than we used to be and nothing this important should give someone a headache while trying to read it, let alone interpret it.

So while there does not appear to be a death panel, per se, the vague manner in which the language is crafted leaves plenty of wiggle room for physicians to steer patients towards decisions that would lead to a lessening of treatment(s), malnourishment, dehydration and a cutback on anti-biotics.

And if you believe, as we do, that government-managed healthcare will lead to shortages and thus the eventuality of rationing, one can connect the dots to see where this is all going.

Benefit of the doubt: Denied. We’ve heard too much already with respect to what the President himself has related as to the potential of rationing end-of-life care and the immutable laws of economics when it comes to who’s paying for what to let this slide.

The current healthcare reform bill as written, will indeed impose pressure on physicians and thus their patients into decisions that will not have their personal-health best interests at heart with specific respect to end-of-life decisions.

At the end of the day: Keep your politics off our body.

If you had trouble comprehending what was written above, our apologies as we were taking our best crack at deciphering and then explaining perhaps the un-decipherable. This is what Baucus fashioned and this is what Ms. Sebelius will have to explain, herself, to the rest of us this summer. Best of luck with that, Ms. Sebelius.

Sarah sez

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One in a series that takes a look at some of the zany, wacky and madcap things said by the former governor of Alaska.





Here's Palin chiming in on the contraception mandate:

At a press conference on Capitol Hill, (Palin) explained her support for the Obama administration’s decision to require religious institutions to offer health insurance plans that cover contraception.

“I know that the records show that 90 percent of Catholic women of childbearing age use birth control,” (Palin) said to reporters on Thursday. ”So this is a women’s health issue.”

“It’s a matter of conscience for each woman, her doctor, her husband, her family, and her God to make their own decisions. And as a Catholic, I support the right of a woman to make that decision.”

Good lord, that is just preposterous and yep, you know the drill, that wasn't Palin at all rather Sarah sez regular and overall series leader, House minority leader, Nancy Pelosi.


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If 90% of Catholic women use birth control then you can pretty much throw the "access" argument issue out the window. Same goes for "controlling cost" argument as well. How expensive can birth control be if 90% of Catholic women (and, we might assume, a similar percentage of women overall) are using it?

And Pelosi is correct in that the decision on whether to use birth control is that particular woman's choice. How is it then that there is no choice for the rest of us who are now forced to buy that birth control for that woman? If the decision to use birth control is a choice then it certainly makes sense for that person and not someone else to foot the bill for it.

This is what now passes for logic with the statist-left.







And how did we get to this point? Peter Schweizer thinks he knows (H/T: Hot Air):

Forget for a minute the religious question and look at who wins big here: Big Pharma. This mandate is not really about condoms or generic versions of “the pill,” which are available free or cheap in lots of places. This is about brand-name birth control drugs and other devices that some consumers swear off because they are too expensive. The Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate requires health-insurance companies provide contraceptive coverage for all “FDA approved contraceptive methods.” It does not insist on generics. And it does not offer any cost containment.

What’s more, the mandate prevents health-insurance companies from having copays or deductibles for the benefit. This is the perfect set up for Big Pharma. Since the drugs will be paid for by a third party (insurance companies, who will pass the cost on to employers and the rest of us), the consumer won’t worry about the price. Expensive brand names will no doubt see demand rise. Ask more health-care analysts why the cost of medical services continues to rise so rapidly and near the top of the list is the fact that a third-party payment system won’t contain costs.

And this represents perfectly why there will be no cost containment provided by ObamaCare: lack of cost transparency. If the consumer isn't directly paying for the product, does he or she care how much it costs and thus impose any sort of self-rationing (i.e. paying for only what you need)? Of course, not.



During the crafting of ObamaCare we learned the phrase "If you are not at the table then you are on the menu." It certainly would appear that Big Pharma's support of ObamaCare after a brief initial pushback was assisted greatly with this sweetheart carve-out at the proverbial table.

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The Doctor is "out"

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Quietly, right before the Thanksgiving weekend, Dr. Donald Berwick, President Obama's recess appointee to be the HMFIC of the CMS (Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services) tendered his resignation. Berwick is infamous in these parts for being a strong proponent of ObamaCare and a huge fan of Great Britain's National Health Service. (BwD word search for Berwick, here. Damn, we love this guy).

The spin from the legacy media is that Republican obstructionism kept Berwick from being confirmed when, in fact, Berwick was never submitted for confirmation. That's odd because we can't imagine the President would believe that Berwick would have any problems defending any of these quotes in a public forum to the American people:

"It's not a question of whether we will ration health care. It is whether we will ration with our eyes open."

As you will see later, Berwick's "we" is not the fraternal, royal "we", rather a much more exclusive "we".

"Traditional medical ethics, based on the doctor-patient dyad must be reformulated...The primary function of regulation in health care, especially as it affects the quality of medical care, is to constrain decentralized individualized decision making."

Step aside Mr. Individual. There are cost curves to be bent downward.

Good god, the statist-Left have become budget hawks.

"For-profit, entrepreneurial providers of medical imaging, renal dialysis, and outpatient surgery, for example, may find their business opportunities constrained."

You can pretty much kiss medical innovation good-bye because innovation costs money (with the hope of a return (see also, evil profits)) and we now worship at the altar of cost containment.

"A progressive policy regime will control and rationalize financing—control supply."

The man is absolutely obsessed with rationing. And how is controlling supply which limits choice for the consumer/patient a good thing? We thought the idea was to bend the cost curve downward which comes as a result of more competition on the supply end. Unless, what they are really concerned with is controlling, ahem, demand, in a back-door manner.


And then there is this:

"Please don't put your faith in market forces," said Berwick. "It is a popular idea: that Adam Smith's invisible hand would do a better job of designing care than leaders with plans can do. I do not agree. I find little evidence anywhere that market forces, bluntly used, that is, just consumer choice among an array of products with competitors' fighting it out, leads to the health care system that you want and need. In the US, competition has become toxic. . . . Do not trust market forces to give you the system you need. . . . I cannot believe that the individual health care consumer can enforce through choice the proper configurations of a system as massive and complex as health care. That is for leaders to do." Berwick, as head of CMS, sought to be one of these "leaders with plans."

Translation: "You're too stupid to make health care decisions for yourself and your family. That's why people like myself and others in the benevolent ruling class are here to figure it all out for you."



Berwick has a point, though: our current healthcare system is so byzantine and so divorced from cost-price transparency, it's almost as if we need diviners' of Berwick's obviously massive intellect to guide us. Unfortunately, if you have been following this blog for any length of time, you know the 2,200 page ObamaCare has not only done nothing to improve the situation but will only perpetuate an increasingly hopeless situation.

At the end of the day, the quotes above reveal Berwick to be a dangerously un-democratic individual. Those are not the words of a man who believes in self-determination, individual choice or free will: American values, all. He is collectivist autocrat drunk on the assumption of his own moral and intellectual superiority who worships at the altar of the state.

There was no way in hell this guy would survive a confirmation hearing and worse, a public confirmation hearing would lay bare many of the counter-intuitive and completely bogus underpinnings that justify and rationalize ObamaCare. Rather than being rode out of town on a rail as he should, it figures that the President let this loser slip out of town under cover of darkness just ahead of a holiday weekend.



Good riddance.

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Your government-managed health care update

Do you all remember the outrageous claims of death panels being effectively built-in to ObamaCare? Take a read and tell us if any of this sounds familiar. From The Telegraph:

NHS managers are deliberately delaying operations as they wait for patients either to die or go private in order to save money, according to an official report.

Health service trusts are “imposing pain and inconvenience” by making patients wait longer than necessary, in some cases as long as four months, the study found.

Executives believe the delays mean some people will remove themselves from lists “either by dying or by paying for their own treatment” claims the report, by an independent watchdog that advises the NHS.

The Co-operation and Competition Panel says the tactic is one of a number used by managers that “excessively constrain” patients’ rights to choose where to be operated upon, and damage hospitals’ ability to compete for planned surgery.

It claims unfair practices are “endemic” in some areas of England and pose a “serious risk” to the Government’s drive to open up the health service to competition.

But managers, who are already rationing surgery for cataracts, hips, knees and tonsils, say they must restrict treatment as the NHS is under orders to make £20 billion of efficiency savings by 2015.

Lord Carter of Coles, chairman of the panel, said: “Commissioners have a difficult job in the current financial climate, but patients’ rights are often being restricted without a valid and visible reason.”

Katherine Murphy, chief executive of the Patients Association, said: “It is outrageous that some primary care trusts are imposing minimum waiting times. The suggestion that it could save money because patients will remove themselves from the list by going private or dying is a callous and cynical manipulation of people’s lives and should not be tolerated.”

The article goes on to report that managers have restricted patients' rights to choose among four hospitals, including private hospitals, in order to balance their own books

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(italics, ours)

Call us crazy but it's hard to think that the whole dying thing is what you would call a voluntary feature of the British NHS.

And given the above, you would not be mistaken for holding a sneaking suspicion that Britain's single-payer health care system doesn't seem to have quite as much emphasis on health or care as you might think.

But good to know they have a private system, right? Well, a private system only if you can afford it. So, not only is one paying into the British NHS that covers all Britons, one is also paying out-of-pocket for treatment that NHS managers are denying.

And wasn't this two-tier system of haves and have-nots precisely what government-managed health care like NHS and ObamaCare supposed to eliminate? Wasn't ObamaCare supposed to be all about equal and affordable access for everyone? Yeah, we thought so, also.

Death panels? Nothing to see here - please move along.

Just a preview of things to come, folks.

They're ba-aack...

After being dropped from text of ObamaCare, the controversial and supposed "death panels" section looks to be making a comeback via the regulations-writing process.

When a proposal to encourage end-of-life planning touched off a political storm over “death panels,” Democrats dropped it from legislation to overhaul the health care system. But the Obama administration will achieve the same goal by regulation, starting Jan. 1.


Under the new policy, outlined in a Medicare regulation, the government will pay doctors who advise patients on options for end-of-life care, which may include advance directives to forgo aggressive life-sustaining treatment.

Congressional supporters of the new policy, though pleased, have kept quiet. They fear provoking another furor like the one in 2009 when Republicans seized on the idea of end-of-life counseling to argue that the Democrats’ bill would allow the government to cut off care for the critically ill.

"...achieve the same goal by regulation."

Yet another kick in the nuts for those Blue Dogs who voted for this monstrosity.

So, it's not actually part of ObamaCare but will be part of ObamaCare anyway. And don't let anyone know about it.

Back in August of last year, we sunk our teeth into the infamous Section 1233 to see if, in fact, there were any "death panels" lurking about. Here are a couple of salient bits from our analysis:

Executive summary: Although our review of Section 1233 does not turn up any “death panels”, the language in that section contains enough wiggle room for these “counseling” sessions to produce unsavory situations and outcomes because of the inevitable rationing that will come with government-managed healthcare.

and this:

Conclusion: First and foremost, this legislation, because of the Byzantine fashion in which it is written should be opposed on principle alone. Well, all legislation is written in that manner. Perhaps, but we all reserve the right to be smarter than we used to be and nothing this important should give someone a headache while trying to read it, let alone interpret it.

So while there does not appear to be a death panel, per se, the vague manner in which the language is crafted leaves plenty of wiggle room for physicians to steer patients towards decisions that would lead to a lessening of treatment(s), malnourishment, dehydration and a cutback on anti-biotics.

And if you believe, as we do, that government-managed healthcare will lead to shortages and thus the eventuality of rationing, one can connect the dots to see where this is all going.

And it's not just us down here in the fever swamps of the blogosphere who believe that O-Care will eventually lead to health care rationing. Dr. Donald Berwick, the HMFIC of Medicare and Medicaid not only believes it but appears to be a big fan:

"It's not a question of whether we will ration health care. It is whether we will ration with our eyes open."

And it's because of this, we found the following quite amusing:

Mr. Blumenauer, the author of the original end-of-life proposal, praised the rule as “a step in the right direction.”

Here's a portion of an email from Blumenauer to his peeps:

The e-mail continued: “Thus far, it seems that no press or blogs have discovered it (ed.: uh-oh), but we will be keeping a close watch and may be calling on you if we need a rapid, targeted response. The longer this goes unnoticed, the better our chances of keeping it.”

In the interview, Mr. Blumenauer said, “Lies can go viral if people use them for political purposes.”

While we (the royal "we") have been accused of spreading misinformation and lies regarding ObamaCare, we've taken a look back at our criticisms of ObamaCare and have concluded that our biggest guns, our strongest arguments against ObamaCare have come directly from the mouths of its biggest supporters and the very people charged with executing, er, administering ObamaCare - people like Berwick, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, and the President himself.

And to think that they firmly believe the current unpopularity of ObamaCare is due to a "messaging" problem. Keep yakking, people, keep yakking.

Don't look now, it's already here.

File this one under, "We told you so", or perhaps more aptly, "He told you so" because if you didn't want to believe us or perhaps thought we were engaging in hyperbolic fear-mongering, we would've directed you to the musings of one Dr. Donald Berwick who has quite a bit to say on the subject of rationing.

And even then, if perhaps you thought the man's apparent affection towards rationing was taken out of context or otherwise distorted to make a point, well then...

A decision to rescind endorsement of the drug would reignite the highly charged debate over US health care reform and how much the state should spend on new and expensive treatments.

Avastin, the world’s best selling cancer drug, is primarily used to treat colon cancer and was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2008 for use on women with breast cancer that has spread.

It costs $8,000 (£5,000) a month and is given to about 17,500 women in the US a year. The drug was initially approved after a study found that, by preventing blood flow to tumours, it extended the amount of time until the disease worsened by more than five months. However, two new studies have shown that the drug may not even extend life by an extra month.

The FDA advisory panel has now voted 12-1 to drop the endorsement for breast cancer treatment. The panel unusually cited "effectiveness" grounds for the decision. But it has been claimed that "cost effectiveness" was the real reason ahead of reforms in which the government will extend health insurance to the poorest.

The FDA is charged with determining the "effectiveness" of a drug not its "cost effectiveness". A wild assumption, we realize, that "cost effectiveness" is best determined by an open and transparent market place.

For those of you out there that would say the article gave scant evidence that "cost effectiveness" was the actual reason the FDA shot down Avastin, that would not be an unfair critique. However, given the cravenly cynical and hyper-political manner in which ObamaCare was Bush-Pushed across the finish line and what proponents like Berwick, who will be in charge of running Obamacare, have flatly stated about rationing and comparative effectiveness boards, why on earth would we give these unaccountable and politically-manipulated bureaucrats the benefit of the doubt?

We see no reason to so, yes, we will be embracing our inner cynic towards any and all matters related to healthcare in a constant effort to remain ungovernable.

Paging Dr. Berwick

It would appear that Dr. Donald Berwick's (President Obama's pick to head Medicare and Medicaid) beloved British health care system is in some trouble.

Some of the most common operations — including hip replacements and cataract surgery — will be rationed as part of attempts to save billions of pounds, despite government promises that front-line services would be protected.

How would you describe what is happening in the paragraph above? We think it's reasonable to assume given the language that is used and given the specific action that is taken to achieve the desired result, what is happening in that paragraph is "rationing".

Patients’ groups have described the measures as “astonishingly brutal”.

Eye surgery could delay hip operations An investigation by The Sunday Telegraph has uncovered widespread cuts planned across the NHS, many of which have already been agreed by senior health service officials. They include:

* Restrictions on some of the most basic and common operations, including hip and knee replacements, cataract surgery and orthodontic procedures.

* Plans to cut hundreds of thousands of pounds from budgets for the terminally ill, with dying cancer patients to be told to manage their own symptoms if their condition worsens at evenings or weekends.

* The closure of nursing homes for the elderly.

* A reduction in acute hospital beds, including those for the mentally ill, with targets to discourage GPs from sending patients to hospitals and reduce the number of people using accident and emergency departments.

* Tighter rationing of NHS funding for IVF treatment, and for surgery for obesity.

* Thousands of job losses at NHS hospitals, including 500 staff to go at a trust where cancer patients recently suffered delays in diagnosis and treatment because of staff shortages.

* Cost-cutting programmes in paediatric and maternity services, care of the elderly and services that provide respite breaks to long-term carers.

Again, rationing, delays, cuts, job losses, cost-cutting programs, reduction (of services), closure(s), not our words but theirs used to describe the inevitable results of government-managed health care.

When you declare particular goods and services as a right, why should it surprise anybody when those rights to which everyone is entitled start costing far more than they would if they were subject to market forces?

The nerve of the British pols to start denying British citizens their "rights".

Perhaps the Senate confirmation hearings for Dr. Berwick will provide the appropriate platform to get his reaction to what is happening over in England and to explain how it is the same thing will not be happening over here.

All your health care are belong to us Pt. III

The hit machine that is Dr. Donald Berwick (President Obama's hopeful for heading up Medicare and Medicaid and who will now be subject to Senate confirmation) keeps on rolling (Pts. I and II can be found here).

If the terms "rationing", "regime" and fascist pig somehow offend you with respect to ObamaCare, we suggest you listen to the man himself.

Doc?

"For-profit, entrepreneurial providers of medical imaging, renal dialysis, and outpatient surgery, for example, may find their business opportunities constrained."

You can pretty much kiss medical innovation good bye because innovation costs money (with the hope of a return (see also, evil profits)) and we now worship at the altar of cost containment.

"One over-demanded service is prevention: annual physicals, screening tests, and other measures that supposedly help catch diseases early."

We love showing this quote and those similar made by other ObamaCare acolytes to women in our age group who have benefited from early detection. Let's just say that their reaction is usually less than favorable.

"I would place a commitment to excellence—standardization to the best-known method—above clinician autonomy as a rule for care."

"Health care has taken a century to learn how badly we need the best of Frederick Taylor [the father of scientific management]. If we can't standardize appropriate parts of our processes to absolute reliability, we cannot approach perfection."

"Young doctors and nurses should emerge from training understanding the values of standardization and the risks of too great an emphasis on individual autonomy."

"Political leaders in the Labour Government have become more enamored of the use of market forces and choice as an engine for change, rather than planned, centrally coordinated technical support."

"The U.K has people in charge of its health care—people with the clear duty and much of the authority to take on the challenge of changing the system as a whole. The U.S. does not."

Translation: All your health care no longer belongs to you. That physician-patient relationship? Forget it. Standardization is simply code for rationing. Rationing of medical goods and services that have passed through the bureaucratic wickets of Berwick's "people" who will, with missionary zeal, enforce equality over quality.


Follower update: Nickie Goomba and What Makes Us Right are in the house.

All your health care are belong to us Pt. II

If you were to come up with reasons as to why to be very troubled regarding the coming of ObamaCare, you can go to fine places like the Heritage Foundation or the Cato Institute, both of whom (among others) which have been doing yeoman's work in compiling studies and figures debunking the claims of ObamaCare supporters.

But why go through all the trouble when one of the chief players in administering ObamaCare, the recess-appointed Dr. Donald Berwick, gives you all the ammunition that you need.

Dr. Berwick, the floor is all yours (Pt. I is here):

"A progressive policy regime will control and rationalize financing—control supply."

The man is absolutely obsessed with rationing.

"The unaided human mind, and the acts of the individual, cannot assure excellence. Health care is a system, and its performance is a systemic property."

Again, you're too stupid to figure out complicated stuff like health care. Let "the machine" do it for you.

"And it's important also to make health a human right because the main health determinants are not health care but sanitation, nutrition, housing, social justice, employment, and the like."

"Hence, those working in health care delivery may be faced with situations in which it seems that the best course is to manipulate the flawed system for the benefit of a specific patient or segment of the population, rather than to work to improve the delivery of care for all. Such manipulation produces more flaws, and the downward spiral continues."

It's not really about "health" at all but rather about nearly every damn thing else. It's time to embrace the notion that ObamaCare really isn't about providing excellent health care but instead providing crappy health care as long as its provided equally.

We don't want to hear any static when we use the terms "rationing", "regime" and yes, "fascist" when describing ObamaCare when the big dogs of the ObamaCare regime use the exact same language or describe their vision of ObamaCare in manner that is synonymous with our chosen terms.

Again, a shout-out to our liberal friends and supposed fans of ObamaCare. Is Dr. Berwick's vision of health care in this country similar to yours?

All your health care are belong to us

For those of you who continue to insist that ObamaCare will not intercede in the relationship between the physician and the patient nor will it entail the rationing of services, we bring you some more quotes from the man who will be running Medicare and Medicaid, the effective ObamaCare Czar, Dr. Donald Berwick:

"I cannot believe that the individual health care consumer can enforce through choice the proper configurations of a system as massive and complex as health care. That is for leaders to do."

"You cap your health care budget, and you make the political and economic choices you need to make to keep affordability within reach."

"Please don't put your faith in market forces. It's a popular idea: that Adam Smith's invisible hand would do a better job of designing care than leaders with plans can."

"Indeed, the Holy Grail of universal coverage in the United States may remain out of reach unless, through rational collective action overriding some individual self-interest, we can reduce per capita costs."

(italics, ours)

Translation: You are too damn stupid to figure out this stuff for yourself. In fact, only people like me should be calling the shots with respect to you and your family's health care. Your silly notions of free markets and individual choice are completely irrelevant under this regime. Get used to it - I think you'll learn to like it.

We try to stay away from formerly-incendiary language that is now warmed-over and meaningless but how can you read those quotes and not come to the conclusion that the guy is a stinking fascist pig? The icing on the cake is the fact that this guy is a recess appointment... not even subject to an up or down vote by the Senate. Fitting, no?

So, again, where are the good-government liberals? Where are our pro-choice friends who used to march around in "Keep your laws off my body" t-shirts and declare any intervention into the physician-patient relationship by the government as an evil to be avoided at all costs? Did you all really mean it or was it just a highly selective ideology and battle cry reserved expressly for the unfettered right to abort the unborn?

The silence is deafening.

More to follow.

Specially reserved language

Who's up for some more Dr. Donald Berwick quotes (the man who will be running Medicare and Medicaid)?

Here's Berwick on British socialized medicine:

"I am romantic about National Health Service. I love it (because it is) 'generous, hopeful, confident, joyous and just.'"

The only adjective you should be using in favorable terms to describe a bureaucracy is "coldly efficient". However, you know you are in for interesting times when a high level appointee eschews this guideline to the point that you feel he's springing a wee bit o' wood.

And here's Berwick on the Brits' NICE (National Institute for Clinical Excellence):

"It acts as a comparative-effectiveness tool for the National Health Care Service, comparing various treatments and determining whether the benefits the patients receives - SUCH AS PROLONGED LIFE - are cost-efficient for the government" (lifenews.com, May 27).

(emphasis, ours)

Now, what is it you suppose that this NICE does, in effect? In case you are having some difficulties in figuring it out, let's let the good doctor, himself, explain:

"It's not a question of whether we will ration health care. It is whether we will ration with our eyes open."

We're not quite sure what that eyes open thing is all about but what we think Berwick is stating about ObamaCare is that there will be rationing. Just a thought.

Again, all the protestations from the Obamabots railing against the usage of terms like "rationing" and "death panels" aside, one only need to look at the language of those who will be administering it to see they are saying the same thing in both explicit and implicit terms.

When health care really isn't about health

Want to know what ObamaCare is going to look like? Look no further than its predecessor, RomneyCare in Massachusetts which only 4 years after being signed into law is unraveling at the seams.

Back in April, the Massachusetts insurance commissioner rejected 235 of 274 premium increases that state insurers had submitted for approval as the carriers said these increases were needed to cover unexpected claims, as underlying Mass. health care costs continued to rise annually at an 8% clip (but, didn't they tell us government-managed health care would bend the cost curve downward?)

Now we learn that the state's 5 major insurers have, so far, collectively lost $116 million due to a rate cap imposed upon them by fiat. And no amount of demagoguing the evil insurance industry is going to prevent rates from continuing to climb as long as the imposition of an ever-increasing regulatory regime is calling the shots in the health care industry.

But, they told us that government-managed health care would contain costs?

They may have said that and they may have even believed it but that's not what they are really pursuing. Though ardent ObamaCare supporters will swear up and down that rationing is simply not a component of ObamaCare, the very people who will be administering ObamaCare keep slipping up by exposing their true intentions.

"If you're going to do health-care cost containment, it has to be stealth," said Jon Kingsdale, speaking at a conference sponsored by the New Republic magazine last October. "It has to be unsuspected by any of the key players to actually have an effect." Mr. Kingsdale is the former director of the Massachusetts "connector," the beta version of ObamaCare's insurance "exchanges," and is now widely expected to serve as an ObamaCare regulator.

He went on to explain that universal coverage was "fundamentally a political strategy question"—a way of finding a "significant systematic way of pushing back on the health-care system and saying, 'No, you have to do with less.' And that's the challenge, how to do it. It's like we're waiting for a chain reaction but there's no catalyst, there's nothing to start it."

(italics, ours)

We don't know what Kingsdale would call that but we sure do.

And check out this short video clip (H/T: Left Coast Rebel) on Obama's freshly-minted recess appointment to head up Medicare and Medicaid, Dr. Donald Berwick:



Again, once you declare a particular goods and service a "right" you will be paying through the nose for it.

And how about "holding politicians accountable"? We currently have Congressmen refusing to meet with their constituents at town halls and other public meetings because of the hell they know they are going to catch because of ObamaCare. Is Berwick referring to that kind of accountability?

And then the money quote: "Health care is by definition redistributional". We're thankful for two things right now: These egg-head seminars and Youtube without either of which would we be able to hear people like Berwick lettin'er rip and exposing their true intentions.

By their own words, Berwick and Kingsdale, the very people who will be running ObamaCare, admit that the quality of individual care is not a priority but rather the degree of equality of care. If the degree of individual quality of care suffers and suffers greatly under ObamaCare as a result of rationing or price controls (rationing by proxy), as long as everyone has equal access to the same crappy health care then health care can be declared a success.

Don't believe us. Just take it from Berwick and Kingsdale.

A preview of coming attractions

W.C. Varones turned us on to the following:

With her lung capacity at 25 percent and dropping, 27-year-old Tiffany Tate was approved for a double lung transplant at Tucson's University Medical Center.

Tate, who has the genetic disease cystic fibrosis, began carrying her cell phone at all times, hoping to hear from the transplant center. The wait for matching donor lungs, she was told, could be between two months and one year.

That was April 20.

"I got to the point where I knew I was ready. I was excited," said Tate, who lives in Chandler.

Then the bad news.

The Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System announced it would stop paying for lung transplants as of Oct. 1.

AHCCCS officials say the cuts were necessary to keep the state's form of Medicaid from operating at a deficit.

Call it whatever you want, just don't call it rationing.

The cuts represent a savings of about $4 million per year, AHCCCS officials say. AHCCCS spokeswoman Monica Coury said her agency had the "horrible task" of putting together benefit reductions, and that the transplants affected represent a small number of patients.

"We looked at the clinical data, reviewed the literature nationally and looked at our own outcomes," she said.

A lung transplant does not cure cystic fibrosis, Coury said.

"Patients with cystic fibrosis who get a lung transplant might get extra time with a good quality of life, but inevitably the CF will reinfect the new lung," she said. "It's a horrible discussion to have, but that's the situation."

Yeah, it's not as if the lung transplant will actually cure cystic fibrosis. After all, what's all this nonsense about quality of life, any way? They've got costs to contain there in Arizona and that really is the bottom line.

Letting the mask slip Pt. VII

One in an occasional series designed to highlight the exposed intentions of those who support ObamaCare.


Sorry, Grams. Your ObamaCare end-of-life account balance is zero and you know what that means...

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Maurice Ferré says the United States spends an ``absurd'' amount on end-of-life care and should gradually move to a universal health system in which the government controls costs by setting prices for medical procedures and capping expenditures based on age and medical condition.

Speaking to The Palm Beach Post editorial board Wednesday, Ferré said he would have voted for the healthcare overhaul passed by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama as ``a step in the right direction.'' He said the ``Medicare-for-everyone'' system he favors should be phased in over about 25 years.

Ferré, 75, is a former Miami mayor running a low-budget Democratic primary campaign against U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek of Miami and Palm Beach billionaire Jeff Greene.


``Now you say, well, that's a `death panel.' Well, you know what, when you get to be 85 or 90 years old, you're going to die. And I'm sorry, you call it, Sarah Palin, what you want, but the fact is that it is absurd for us to be spending the types of money we're spending to extend life three months.''

(ed.: It is not known whether or not Sarah Palin was actually present during this interview)

Asked what he would do as a senator to control such costs, Ferré said: ``I would absolutely say that this is the cap on how much is available for you to spend at age 90, 87, with a heart condition of this sort, with diabetes of this sort, two legs missing and, you know, this is how much is available for you to spend. And you spend it any way you want.''

Do you want to know what's absurd? Spending $800 billion on a "stimulus" package and seeing unemployment rise to 10%.

Do you want to know what else is absurd? Throwing billions and billions more at game show-like Keynesian demand-side gimmickry that prevents the economy from unwinding and which will only contribute to a double-dip recession in 2011.

What is not absurd, though, with respect to ObamaCare is that its passage has served as a truth serum for its supporters who now feel free to admit that rationing, and yes, "death panels" Sarah Palin, wherever you are, are a featured and positive component of ObamaCare.

De-emphasizing the patient-physician relationship and personal decisions with respect to one's own health care is the inevitable result when you bow at the altar of controlling costs. In fact, we should all be grateful. Looks like those tough calls we all face as families regarding our elderly loved ones will soon be a thing of the past as someone else will simply break out a calculator and do it for us. Can you imagine the relief.

Sorry, Grams. Man here says that you can live out the rest of your days in dreadful misery or just take that blue pill there on the night stand.

Now, who says ObamaCare is stripping anyone of personal healthcare decisions?

We swear - this is not a recycled post

Now, about that unfolding, slow-motion disaster occurring on Obama's watch. No, silly, not the Gulf oil spill - we're talking ObamaCare.

Millions of patients face losing NHS care as bosses prepare to axe treatments to make £20billion of savings by 2014, a top doctor has warned.

Among procedures being targeted by health trusts are hernias, joint replacements, ear and nose procedures, varicose veins and cataract surgery.

Dr Mark Porter, chairman of the British Medical Association's consultants committee, warned NHS bosses wanted 'wholesale reductions in budgets'.

He said primary care trusts - which commission care - are already compiling lists of 'low value' operations that would no longer be provided.

These include hip replacements for obese patients and some operations for hernias and gallstones. Procedures for varicose veins, ear and nose problems including grommets in children are also not funded in some areas.

Dr Porter said it was wrong to impose blanket bans on such procedures when some patients might benefit.

Of course, "wrong" is subject to interpretation when you bow before the false god of "controlling costs". And how is that working, by the way?

Patients could find it harder to get into hospital under plans from the National Institute for health and Clinical Excellence, which advises on drugs and procedures to be funded.

Chief executive Andrew Dillon said a review of clinical guidelines will be finished by the end of the year, which will include 'evidence of overuse' of treatments to 'see what the prospects (for savings) might be'.

Nice will also push through 150 changes to medical practice aimed at saving money, from reducing prescribing of antibiotics by GPs to delaying some prostate cancer tests.

A Department of Health spokesman said: 'Savings will be implemented in a way that does not affect the quality of services and all savings will be reinvested back in the NHS.'

Saving implemented by cutting back on services, ostensibly "quality of life" services to be reinvested back into the NHS... to improve quality.

This is the sort of illogical tail-chasing one has to buy into with fanatical and religious fervor when one attempts to defend socialized medicine.

To not see "rationing" as determined by others, is to be completely delusional.

The post title refers to the near-daily drum beat we read of the sky-rocketing costs of "free" socialized medicine and the resulting imposition of mandatory cuts in services as determined by "others", aka, not "you".

Word of the day

Rationing. Rationing. Rationing. Rationing. Rationing. Rationing. Rationing. Rationing. Rationing. Rationing. Rationing. Rationing. Rationing. Rationing. Rationing. Rationing. Rationing. Rationing. Rationing. Rationing. Rationing.




OMB Director Peter Orszag continues the "quality vs. quantity" meme.

But get used to the reality of this IPAB, "Independent Payment Advisory Board" which will not be very independent nor will it be advisory as it will take 67 votes in the Senate to override their "recommendations".

Instead of letting medical procedures or drugs stand or fall on their own merits of cost effectiveness, this politically appointed board of bureaucrats will be playing judge, jury and executioner serving the statist god of "controlling costs" in the healthcare industry.

Exit question: With this IPAB in place and calling the shots with respect to what medical procedures, instruments and drugs are allowed to be brought to market, do you now think lobbying by medical and pharmaceutical firms on the Hill will be any less?

Great moments in the history of ObamaCare

Representative Kay Hagan (R-NC) on local radio last week touting ObamaCare while continually ducking the question of how is it constitutional to force people to buy health insurance.

At :35 dig the "quality care versus quantity care" which is just code for rationing.



She never answers the question. She scoots on the interview before answering as duly noted by the talk show hosts. She has every reason to bail out on the interview and the question because there is no rational justification for the compulsory nature of ObamaCare and no amount of droning on about the (Enron-like nature of) accounting that is contained in the bill which will allegedly reduce the deficit is going to change this fact.

Will Republicans possess the testicular fortitude to repeal ObamaCare? We'll find out next year.

Letting the mask slip Pt. VI

How can we learn to say no?

The federal government is now starting to build the institutions that will try to reduce the soaring growth of health care costs. There will be a group to compare the effectiveness of different treatments, a so-called Medicare innovation center and a Medicare oversight board that can set payment rates.

But all these groups will face the same basic problem. Deep down, Americans tend to believe that more care is better care. We recoil from efforts to restrict care.

The New York Times is beseeching each and every one of us to resist the natural human impulse of self-preservation for the good of ObamaCare. It's like your patriotic duty or something.

And we can't help but notice that the Times is suffering from the same truth-telling virus that are members of Congress now that the bill is the law of the land.

We have written extensively about the inherent rationed-care instincts of ObamaCare here and specifically about the alleged death panels, here and here.

As the truth-telling virus continues its scourge across the land over the next several months, you will again be hearing extensively about rationing and death panels but this time from the main stream press.


Exit question: Re: Medicare innovation center. What will be the most oxymoronic and/or Orwellian term to emerge from the pages of the main stream press? Let's start keeping track.

H/T: Hot Air

On wigs, rationing and pesky relatives

Our suspicions that nationalized healthcare would make health care politicized and thus leveraged by politicians was confirmed by the situation regarding an expensive breast cancer drug and New Zealand which has nationalized healthcare.

Check out reason.tv video below with a former Reason magazine Editor-in-Chief Virginia Postrel, a breast cancer survivor, herself.



And the President's own second cousin, once removed, Dr. Milton Wolf, chimes in with some thoughts on Obamacare:

The justification for Obamacare has been to control costs, but the problem is there is little in Obamacare that will do that. Instead, there are provisions that will ration care and artificially set price. This is a confusion of costs and price.

As one example, consider the implications of Obamacare’s financial penalty aimed at your doctor if he seeks the expert care he has determined you need. If your doctor is in the top 10 percent of primary care physicians who refer patients to specialists most frequently – no matter how valid the reasons – he will face a 5 percent penalty on all their Medicare reimbursements for the entire year. This scheme is specifically designed to deny you the chance to see a specialist.

Each year, the insidious nature of that arbitrary 10 percent rule will make things even worse as 100 percent of doctors try to stay off that list. Many doctors will try to avoid the sickest patients, and others will simply refuse to accept Medicare. Already, 42 percent of doctors have chosen that route, and it will get worse. Your mother’s shiny government-issued Medicare health card is meaningless without doctors who will accept it.

Again, Obamacare has gone all in with the obsession of controlling costs. If you think a bureaucracy as clumsy and cumbersome as the federal government will be able to affect bending the cost curve downward via innovation and an ability to efficiently respond to health care sector demands, you are sadly delusional.

The most effective means at its disposal to control costs is to employ broad-brushed rationing techniques such as that illustrated above.

Read the rest of Dr. Wolf's excellent take-down, here.