Natural Solutions Foundation
\nwww.HealthFreedomUSA.org<\/p>\n
Is “Medical Fascism” hidden in the “stimulus” bill being adopted by Congress? Here’s a copyrighted Opinion Piece Bloomberg published on it, offered here to further educate the public.<\/p>\n
http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/apps\/news?pid=20601039&refer=columnist_mccaughey&sid=aLzfDxfbwhzs<\/p>\n
Ruin Your Health With the Obama Stimulus Plan
\nCommentary by Betsy McCaughey<\/p>\n
Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) — Republican Senators are questioning whether President Barack Obama\u2019s stimulus bill contains the right mix of tax breaks and cash infusions to jump-start the economy.<\/p>\n
Tragically, no one from either party is objecting to the health provisions slipped in without discussion. These provisions reflect the handiwork of Tom Daschle, until recently the nominee to head the Health and Human Services Department.<\/p>\n
Senators should read these provisions and vote against them because they are dangerous to your health. (Page numbers refer to H.R. 1 EH, pdf version).<\/p>\n
The bill\u2019s health rules will affect \u201cevery individual in the United States\u201d (445, 454, 479). Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system. Having electronic medical records at your fingertips, easily transferred to a hospital, is beneficial. It will help avoid duplicate tests and errors.<\/p>\n
But the bill goes further. One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and \u201cguide\u201d your doctor\u2019s decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, \u201cCritical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.\u201d According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and \u201clearn to operate less like solo practitioners.\u201d<\/p>\n
Keeping doctors informed of the newest medical findings is important, but enforcing uniformity goes too far.<\/p>\n
New Penalties<\/p>\n
Hospitals and doctors that are not \u201cmeaningful users\u201d of the new system will face penalties. \u201cMeaningful user\u201d isn\u2019t defined in the bill. That will be left to the HHS secretary, who will be empowered to impose \u201cmore stringent measures of meaningful use over time\u201d (511, 518, 540-541)<\/p>\n
What penalties will deter your doctor from going beyond the electronically delivered protocols when your condition is atypical or you need an experimental treatment? The vagueness is intentional. In his book, Daschle proposed an appointed body with vast powers to make the \u201ctough\u201d decisions elected politicians won\u2019t make.<\/p>\n
The stimulus bill does that, and calls it the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research (190-192). The goal, Daschle\u2019s book explained, is to slow the development and use of new medications and technologies because they are driving up costs. He praises Europeans for being more willing to accept \u201chopeless diagnoses\u201d and \u201cforgo experimental treatments,\u201d and he chastises Americans for expecting too much from the health-care system.<\/p>\n
Elderly Hardest Hit<\/p>\n
Daschle says health-care reform \u201cwill not be pain free.\u201d Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them. That means the elderly will bear the brunt.<\/p>\n
Medicare now pays for treatments deemed safe and effective. The stimulus bill would change that and apply a cost- effectiveness standard set by the Federal Council (464).<\/p>\n
The Federal Council is modeled after a U.K. board discussed in Daschle\u2019s book. This board approves or rejects treatments using a formula that divides the cost of the treatment by the number of years the patient is likely to benefit. Treatments for younger patients are more often approved than treatments for diseases that affect the elderly, such as osteoporosis.<\/p>\n
In 2006, a U.K. health board decreed that elderly patients with macular degeneration had to wait until they went blind in one eye before they could get a costly new drug to save the other eye. It took almost three years of public protests before the board reversed its decision.<\/p>\n
Hidden Provisions<\/p>\n
If the Obama administration\u2019s economic stimulus bill passes the Senate in its current form, seniors in the U.S. will face similar rationing. Defenders of the system say that individuals benefit in younger years and sacrifice later.<\/p>\n
The stimulus bill will affect every part of health care, from medical and nursing education, to how patients are treated and how much hospitals get paid. The bill allocates more funding for this bureaucracy than for the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force combined (90-92, 174-177, 181).<\/p>\n
Hiding health legislation in a stimulus bill is intentional. Daschle supported the Clinton administration\u2019s health-care overhaul in 1994, and attributed its failure to debate and delay. A year ago, Daschle wrote that the next president should act quickly before critics mount an opposition. \u201cIf that means attaching a health-care plan to the federal budget, so be it,\u201d he said. \u201cThe issue is too important to be stalled by Senate protocol.\u201d<\/p>\n
More Scrutiny Needed<\/p>\n
On Friday, President Obama called it \u201cinexcusable and irresponsible\u201d for senators to delay passing the stimulus bill. In truth, this bill needs more scrutiny.<\/p>\n
The health-care industry is the largest employer in the U.S. It produces almost 17 percent of the nation\u2019s gross domestic product. Yet the bill treats health care the way European governments do: as a cost problem instead of a growth industry. Imagine limiting growth and innovation in the electronics or auto industry during this downturn. This stimulus is dangerous to your health and the economy.<\/p>\n
(Betsy McCaughey is former lieutenant governor of New York and is an adjunct senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. The opinions expressed are her own.)<\/p>\n
To contact the writer of this column: Betsy McCaughey at Betsymross@aol.com
\nLast Updated: February 9, 2009 00:01 EST<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Natural Solutions Foundation www.HealthFreedomUSA.org Is “Medical Fascism” hidden in the “stimulus” bill being adopted by Congress? Here’s a copyrighted Opinion Piece Bloomberg published on it, offered here to further educate the public. http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/apps\/news?pid=20601039&refer=columnist_mccaughey&sid=aLzfDxfbwhzs Ruin Your Health With the Obama Stimulus Plan Commentary by Betsy McCaughey Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) — Republican Senators are questioning whether President […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.staging.healthfreedomusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2060"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.staging.healthfreedomusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.staging.healthfreedomusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.staging.healthfreedomusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.staging.healthfreedomusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2060"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.staging.healthfreedomusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2065,"href":"https:\/\/www.staging.healthfreedomusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2060\/revisions\/2065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.staging.healthfreedomusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}