DOH! “if we measure a health-care system by how well it serves its sick citizens,” writes Dr. David Gratzer, a Canada care whistle blower, “American medicine excels. Five-year cancer survival rates bear this out. For leukemia, the American survival rate is almost 50 percent; the European rate is just 35 percent. Esophageal carcinoma: 12 percent in the United States, 6 percent in Europe. The survival rate for prostate cancer is 81.2 percent here, yet 61.7 percent in France and down to 44.3 percent in England—a striking variation.”
Category Archives: Healthcare
Updated: Doctor Distribution
Affirmative Action, Constitution, Democracy, Economy, Healthcare, Regulation, Socialism, The State
THE AMERICAN AFFORDABLE HEALTH CHOICES ACT OF 2009, the shamelessly euphemized title of Obama’s unaffordable, choice-limiting, health care takeover, makes no attempt to conceal its radical, energetic, race-based distributive impetus.
The following initiatives come under the PREVENTION AND WELLNESS (IV) and the WORKFORCE INVESTMENTS (V) sections of the Act’s Summary:
—A focus on community-based programs and new data collection efforts to better identify and address racial, ethnic, regional and other health disparities.
—Greater support for workforce diversity.
With state takeover of 20 percent of the economy, more massive, racially-based transfers of wealth and resources are in the offing.
Understandably the ACT is not easy to locate. The White House’s promises of transparency notwithstanding, I hunted high and low for the accursed thing, finally finding a link on the Heritage Foundation’s website to the Act.
As shamelessly does the ponce in power speak of taxing the “rich” so as to be able to pay for his profligacy. Was it those earning more than a million or half a million? Is this equality under the law? As Peter Schiff has pointed out, “While the government has the constitutional power to tax to ‘promote the general welfare,’ it does not have the right to tax one group for the sole and specific benefit of another. If the government wishes to finance national health insurance, the burden of paying for it should fall on every American. If that were the case, perhaps Congress would think twice before passing such a monstrosity.”
Not once will you hear the following question from the pols and their media support system:
Is it constitutional?
All you’ll hear is:
How many Americans want it?
A nation of laws? Who are we kidding. This is a tyranny of the mindless, wayward majority.
Update (July 26): I understand “Moon Man’s” justified passions, but, at times, the Fed issue becomes a blanket charge. Who exactly are those earning half a million to a million depreciated dollars? Small business owners. Those of you who work in the corporate world, outside Wall Street, know that few and far between are the high-ups who garner such wages. The rich, middle-class entrepreneur: that’s who Obama is looking to filch without flinching.
Totaling Health Care For The Few Uninsured
I can’t say that Obama is bankrupting the country for the ostensible benefit of 26 or so million people, because the US is already insolvent, courtesy of this president and his predecessor. What I can do is present you with the number of uninsured, mostly by choice—prudent choice, given this demographic’s youth and risk—for whom the traitor-in-chief is burying the medical profession, and with it my health care and yours.
According to the Census Bureau report “Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2007” (p. 20), “In 2007, the percentage and number of children under 18 years old without health insurance were 11.0 percent and 8.1 million, lower than they were in 2006—11.7 percent and 8.7 million (Table 6). Although the uninsured rate for children in poverty decreased to 17.6 percent in 2007, from 19.3 percent in 2006, children in poverty were more likely to be uninsured than all children.
• The uninsured rate and number of
uninsured for non-Hispanic Whites
decreased in 2007 to 10.4 percent
and 20.5 million (from 10.8 percent
and 21.2 million in 2006). The uninsured
rate for Blacks decreased to
19.5 percent in 2007 from 20.5 percent
in 2006. The number of uninsured
Blacks in 2007 was not statistically
different from 2006, at 7.4
million. (Table 6).
• The percentage and number of
uninsured Hispanics were 32.1 percent
and 14.8 million in 2007,
lower than 34.1 percent and 15.3
million in 2006 (Table 6).
DOES anyone care to do the honors and total the number of people, of whom at least 15 million are illegal aliens, for whom the health care of the majority of Americans will be sacrificed? Be my guest.
Obamacare: Like Throwing An Anchor To A Drowning Man
Barack Obama, Government, Healthcare, Propaganda, Regulation, Socialism
This might seem obvious to my readers, still, some of the biggest fallacies peddled by Obama in the course of this health care “debate” require repetition. Michael D. Tanner of the Cato Institute does the dues:
“If you like your current health-care plan, you can keep it.” Even White House spokesmen have said that Obama’s oft-repeated pledge that you can keep your current insurance isn’t meant to be taken literally. The reality is that millions of Americans — perhaps most Americans — will be forced to change insurance plans.
First, the president supports an individual mandate — a requirement that every American buy health insurance. And not just any insurance but insurance that includes all the benefits government thinks you should have. That insurance could be more expensive or include benefits that people don’t want or are morally opposed to, such as abortion services.
[W]hen it comes to claims about the wondrous new world of government-run health care, a bit of skepticism might be in order.
And that doesn’t just affect those without insurance today. The bills now before Congress say that while you won’t be immediately forced to switch from your current insurance to a government-specified plan, you’ll have to switch to satisfy the government’s requirements if you lose your current insurance or want to change plans.
Plus, the president supports the creation of a government insurance program that would compete with private insurance. But because this ultimately would be subsidized by American taxpayers, the government plan could keep its premiums artificially low or offer extra benefit [A point made in Obama’s Politburo Of Proctologists.]
In the end, millions of Americans would be forced out of the insurance they have today and into the government plan. Businesses, in particular, would have every incentive to dump their workers into the public plan. The actuarial firm the Lewin Group estimates that as many as 118.5 million people, roughly two-thirds of those with insurance today, would be shifted from private to public coverage.
“You will pay less.” The Congressional Budget Office has made it clear that the reform plans now being debated will increase overall health-care costs, yet President Obama on Friday repeatedly said that his reform would reduce costs and save Americans money.
But no matter how many times he says it, the truth is you will pay more — much more — both in higher taxes and in higher premiums.
The final health-care bill is expected to cost more than $1 trillion over the next 10 years. That means much higher taxes, and not just for the wealthy.
If one totals up all the new taxes in the House Democratic health-reform bill — the income surtax, the penalties on businesses and individuals that fail to buy into the government health plan, as well as other fees and taxes — the cost to US taxpayers will top $800 billion. New York City will face marginal tax rates as high as 57 percent.
At a time of rising unemployment and economic stagnation, that is like throwing an anchor to a drowning man.
In addition, the new insurance regulations expected to be part of the final bill are likely to drive up insurance premiums. And, if the new government-run plan under-reimburses doctors and hospitals — as Medicare and Medicaid do — providers would be forced to recoup that lost income by shifting their costs to private insurance, driving up premiums. A study by the Council for Affordable Health Insurance estimates that the president’s proposals could increase premiums by 75 to 95 percent.
“Quality will improve.” Anyone who thinks a government takeover of the health-care system will improve quality of care has only to look at the health-care programs the government already runs: The Veterans Administration is overwhelmed with problems, Medicaid is notorious for providing poor quality at a high cost — and Medicare has huge gaps in coverage.
Worse, however, on Friday, Obama endorsed the creation of a government board with the power to dictate how your doctor practices medicine and all but endorsed the rationing prevalent in nationalized health-care systems around the world.
In short, when it comes to claims about the wondrous new world of government-run health care, a bit of skepticism might be in order.”
[SNIP]
Change that last bit to a lot of skepticism.