status quo would be business as usual: higher rates, higher deductibles, higher co-pays, more Rx's and procedures removed from the plan and more doctors bailing out as participating physcians. it seems almost all who are upset about the cost for reform didn't bat an eye for the money wasted destroying afghanistan and iraq; why these same people are ready to waste more dollars to destroy iran, syria, etc. but no money that could help our own people.

What a twisted wording. What would be expensive would be the status quo, not reform. We're already paying twice as much as other country's citizens, and those private insurer bureaucrats are getting more and more between me and my doctor. It's a monopoly,-OK, more accurately an oligopoly of private insurers, with no choice for us.

Watchdog Group Sues for Disclosure of White House Meetings with Healthcare Execs / July 23, 2009 / http://tinyurl.com/mby2t4
I want to just talk about some of the names, as they’ve released this, naming some of the healthcare executives who have made multiple trips to the Obama White House.
Richard Umbdenstock, the president of the American Hospital Association, has visited the White House eight times since Obama took office, beginning on February 3rd, two weeks after Obama’s inauguration.
Former Congressman Billy Tauzin has visited five times, now head of the drug industry lobby, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, known as PhRMA.
Dr. James Rohack, president-elect of the American Medical Association, has visited four times, as has Karen Ignagni, president and CEO of America’s Health Insurance Plans, an industry trade group.
Other healthcare executives who have made multiple visits to the Obama White House include Jeffrey Kindler, CEO of drugmaker Pfizer; Stephen Hemsley, chief executive of UnitedHealth Group; George Halvorson, head of Kaiser Foundation Health Plan; Richard Clark, CEO of the Merck pharmaceutical company; Jay Gellert, CEO of Health Net; and Rick Smith, senior vice president of PhRMA, which Billy Tauzin heads.
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/7/23/watchdog_group_sues_for_disclosure_of

Status quo is worse. There are a lot of people who can not afford any health insurance. Basic insurance covering major health ilnesses and hospital stay must be available to all Americans at very low cost. Sore throats, skin rashes etc. should not be covered and must be paid by individuals, otherwise hospital emergency services will be overwhelmed by abuse and frivolent claims. Curently families earning $18,000 to $23,000 can not afford $800 monthly premiums. There is nothing to live on after mayment of those high premiums.

Framing in action with the wording of this question. Status quo sounds safe, while costly health care sounds ominous. In my opinion we could still be in danger of a depression, if we don't make some changes to our current health care system.

why the heck are comparing our health care situation with Canada. We are the leader in this world ,not Canada. We can do anything better than any other nation. Yes this is new to us,and we may make mistakes ,we correct mistakes.
So lets focus and stop wringing our hands and get down to what has to be done ,lets FIX IT. For GODS sake stand up be an AMERICAN and show the world how it's done.

JACK M>

Costly reform would be worse. If free health care is provided and no additional doctors and nurses are added proportionately for the 50 million who don't have insurance now, there will not be enough health care to go around. Thus the government will have to ration it. More demand coupled with no increase in supply of doctors with cost constraints legislated by the government means rationing. Plus the government will provide free health care to all illegal aliens. Thus more and more illegals will come to get in on the freebies increasing demand even more.

Go to congress.org and read the full text of the health bill. It gives the government authorization to go into bank accounts, and other financial information. It provides for a mandatory "every five years" end of life counseling for the elderly. It is more cost effective to deny medical treatment to the elderly. There is a fine for refusing to enroll in the government insurance, although Congress gets to keep their own insurance plan.

Information is also at Congress.gov

How bout just outlaw health insurance?

Caspian, Maria, Mike Q, MT, KD, Maggie Mama, Big Bob, fred, robert: Catch replay of Eliot Spitzer on todays MSNBCs Dylan Radigan's Morning Meeting Show if it is at all possible.
Spitzer Drops the Bomb on the Federal Reserve ponzi scheme!!!

Radigan conducts a BRILLIANT demonstration illustrating in depth a how to clinic on the clearly evident ponzi scheme in plain sight transpiring in the Fed. With a complete for DUMMIES course that everyone of us can fully understand without all the cross industry double speak that everyone of us can fully appreciate and understand w/o question. Utilizing the Fed/Goldman/AIG model as the key example.
Don't miss it!!!

Radigan then Tells America to sponsor the Ron Paul call for full disclosure that is being circulated in Congress.

Well over a 100 signatures to date.

The False Promise of Government Healthcare:

By: Investor's Business Daily
Friday, July 24, 2009

Many extravagant claims have been made on behalf of the various health care "reforms" now emerging from Congress and the White House. But on closer inspection, virtually all prove to be false.


Yet even as many Americans start to have second thoughts about our government's possible takeover of the health care system, Congress is rushing to make it happen.

On Friday, the House Ways and Means Committee approved a bill that would radically change our current system and expand coverage for the uninsured. The action came a day after the head of the Congressional Budget Office said none of the plans under review would slow health care spending. None of them.

Still, lawmakers and the White House press on, relying on GOP weakness in the House and a new veto-proof majority in the Senate. They're also relying on a lack of awareness that claims made on behalf of national health care may be mostly false. Among them:

• America has a health care crisis.

No, we don't. Forty-seven million people lack insurance. Of the remaining 85% of the population, or 258 million people, polls show high satisfaction with the current coverage. Indeed, a 2006 poll by ABC News, the Kaiser Family Foundation and USA Today found 89% of Americans were happy with their own health care.

As for the estimated 47 million not covered by health insurance, 20 million can afford to buy it, according to a study by former CBO Director June O'Neill. Most of the other 27 million are single and under 35, with as many as a third illegal aliens.

When it's all whittled down, as few as 12 million are unable to buy insurance — less than 4% of a population of 305 million. For this we need to nationalize 17% of our nation's $14 trillion economy and change the current care that 89% like?

• Health care reform will save money.

Few of the plans now coming out of Congress will save anything, says the CBO's current chief, Douglas Elmendorf. In fact, he says, they'll lead to substantially higher costs in the future — costs that will be "unsustainable."

As it is, estimates for reforming health care range from $1 trillion to $3.6 trillion. Much will be spent on subsidies to make a so-called public option more attractive to consumers than private plans.

To pay for it, the president has suggested about $600 billion in new taxes, meaning that $500 billion to $2.1 trillion in new health care spending over the next decade will be unfunded. This could push up the nation's already soaring deficit, expected to reach $10 trillion through 2019 without health care reform. Massive new tax hikes will probably be needed to close the gap.

• Only the rich will pay for reform.

The 5.4% surtax on millionaires the president is pushing gets all the attention, but everyone down to $280,000 in income will pay more. Doesn't that still leave out the middle class and poor? Sorry. Workers who decline to take part will pay a tax of up to 2% of earnings. And small-businesses must pony up 8% of their payrolls.

The poor and middle class must pay in other ways, without knowing it. The biggest hit will be on small businesses, which, due to new payroll taxes, will be less likely to hire workers. Today's 9.5% jobless rate may become a permanent feature of our economy — just as it is in Europe, where nationalized health care is common.

• Government-run health care produces better results.

The biggest potential lie of all. America has the best health care in the world, and most Americans know it. Yet we hear that many "go without care" while in nationalized systems it is "guaranteed."

U.S. life expectancy in 2006 was 78.1 years, ranking behind 30 other countries. So if our health care is so good, why don't we live as long as everyone else?

Three reasons. One, our homicide rate is two to three times higher than other countries. Two, because we drive so much, we have a higher fatality rate on our roads — 14.24 fatalities per 100,000 people vs. 6.19 in Germany, 7.4 in France and 9.25 in Canada. Three, Americans eat far more than those in other nations, contributing to higher levels of heart disease, diabetes and some cancers.

These are diseases of wealth, not the fault of the health care system. A study by Robert Ohsfeldt of Texas A&M and John Schneider of the University of Iowa found that if you subtract our higher death rates from accidents and homicide, Americans actually live longer than people in other countries.

In countries with nationalized care, medical outcomes are often catastrophically worse. Take breast cancer. According to the Heritage Foundation, breast cancer mortality in Germany is 52% higher than in the U.S.; the U.K.'s rate is 88% higher. For prostate cancer, mortality is 604% higher in the U.K. and 457% higher in Norway. Colorectal cancer? Forty percent higher in the U.K.

But what about the health care paradise to our north? Americans have almost uniformly better outcomes and lower mortality rates than Canada, where breast cancer mortality is 9% higher, prostate cancer 184% higher and colon cancer 10% higher.

Then there are the waiting lists. With a population just under that of California, 830,000 Canadians are waiting to be admitted to a hospital or to get treatment. In England, the list is 1.8 million deep.

Universal health care, wrote Sally Pipes, president of the Pacific Research Institute in her excellent book, "Top Ten Myths Of American Health Care," will inevitably result in "higher taxes, forced premium payments, one-size-fits-all policies, long waiting lists, rationed care and limited access to cutting-edge medicine."

Before you sign up, you might want to check with people in countries that have the kind of system the White House and Congress have in mind. Recent polls show that more than 70% of Germans, Australians, Britons, Canadians and New Zealanders think their systems need "complete rebuilding" or "fundamental change."

• The poor lack care.

Many may lack insurance, but that doesn't mean they lack care. The law says anyone who walks into a hospital emergency room must be treated. America has 37 million people in poverty, but Medicaid covers 55 million — at a cost of $350 billion a year.

Moreover, as many as 11 million of the uninsured qualify for programs for the indigent, including Medicaid and SCHIP. But for some reason, they don't sign up. Are they likely to sign up for the "public option" when it's made available?

Overheard: A top aide to Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY) was overheard admitting that "the increase in Hospice care which will solve the prolonging of life issue."

.... Democrats have been open about their desire to push seniors toward euthanasia as a cost savings option. In fact, the Democrats already have in the legislation a provision requiring senior citizens to receive instructions every five years on dying with dignity.

IT'S IN THE BILL. SAY GOODBYE TO YOUR ELDERLY PARENTS.

BB, MM, BF, and others:

It’s probably fair to say that you don’t have subscriptions to the Guardian or the Daily Mail, etc, and that you’ve never seen a single issue of these publications. These contextless headline blurbs you quote were culled and mass-emailed to the propaganda mills so that you and others can use them to claim that people outside the US are in deadly peril and left to die in the streets by the thousands, while nobody is ever denied treatment in the US, or some such rot. Now, who would put so much effort into this selective headline culling? Someone with a vested interest in the mind-bogglingly lucrative medical insurance racket, that’s who. There’s no truckload of money to be made in public insurance, so only a major wonk would do comparable research pro public insurance. And so we have a lavishly funded smear campaign against a system that is highly popular in nearly every civilized country, (despite highly suspect “polls” saying otherwise), and “only” the fervent desire of some 72% of Americans for such a system acting as a counter to the sponsored smear.

Take Canada. The ascent of single payer there was always driven by the enthusiastic approval of a commanding majority of the people. If single payer had ever been half as bad as the right in America makes it sound, the Canadian people would have tossed it out years ago. Since this has not happened speaks far more to truth than a handful of headlines or questionable statistics. And headlines, by the way, call out striking anomalies, not the million-times-more typical day-to-day successful functioning of a well-liked system. Of course, among millions of people you can surely find some gripers, and present them as a tidal wave of discontent. And they are likely artifacts from the brief ascendancy of global hypercapitalism, something that our current financial collapse has thrown out of fashion. Europe has returned to its progressive tendencies; expect rightist leaders to be voted out in future elections.

How can our 72% prevail against moneyed interests? Where’s OUR self-interest, where’s OUR influence, OUR power to make legislators vote OUR way? Does only money talk? Are the wishes, the well-being, the lives of so many millions of Americans beneath contempt without lavish bribes to advocate for them? Is there even a pretense of democracy here? Or is Greed the King of America, long live the King?

We’ll find out by this summer’s end.

"Why don't we live as long as everyone else? Three reasons. One, our homicide rate is two to three times higher than other countries. Two, because we drive so much, we have a higher fatality rate on our roads.... Three, Americans eat far more than those in other nations, contributing to higher levels of heart disease, diabetes and some cancers. These are diseases of wealth, not the fault of the health care system." -Investor's Business Daily

So, the US being behind forty other countries in infant mortality rates is due to newborns shooting each other in high-mileage drive-bys while suffering a massive coronary from years of Whopper overconsumption? I see.

Oh, of course,-this was printed in a financial publication. That will dictate what's said there as gospel. Cherchez la source.

The Bright Continent:

Thanks to President Bush and Tony Blair, West Africa is a more hopeful place

Friday, July 24, 2009


The Bush administration’s policy of regime change has been much maligned in recent years, with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan adduced as evidence of its failure. Little attention, however, has been paid to an area of the world where the so-called “Bush Doctrine” was highly successful: West Africa.

For most of the 1990s, a tiny strip of West Africa was perhaps the worst corner of the world. Liberia and Sierra Leone, two bordering nations, were both embroiled in brutal civil wars that killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions. Every imaginable atrocity – systematic rapes, forced slavery, child soldiers, intentional amputations – occurred with terrifying regularity. Most world leaders issued the customary condemnations of the conflicts, but as was the case with the 1994 massacres in Rwanda, very little was actually done to stop them.

Then, in the early part of this decade, both conflicts came to an end. No little credit for that must go to two former world leaders who have fallen out of favor with their respective publics: President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Just ask Charles Taylor, the West African warlord who was the focus point in the conflicts which butchered West Africa. In 1989, Taylor led a group of rebels seeking to depose the Liberian dictator Samuel Doe. Taylor’s war quickly descended into chaos, pitting various ethnic groups against each other. Taylor took power, but rebel organizations tried to depose him. The 14 years of fighting led to 200,000 deaths and close to one million displaced; these numbers are even more staggering when one considers that Liberia’s entire population is less than 3.5 million.

Taylor was not involved in just one war. Neighboring Sierra Leone was also embroiled in civil war. In this case, the main rebel group was known as the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), regarded as one of the most ruthless armies of its era. The RUF was renowned for not just murdering all who got in its path but for the particularly brutal way in which it dispatched its enemies, hacking off the limbs of survivors with machetes. Many of the RUF’s crimes were committed by mere children, kidnapped from their home and thrown into a life of drug-addled violence, as described by rehabilitated child soldier Ishmael Beah in his moving memoir A Long Way Gone. In an article in the Guardian, another child soldier recounted one of his experiences:

"It was fun, like a big boy's game," he says. "They made us so crazy, we enjoyed the smoking, the drinking, the shooting, all that." He didn't enjoy having to cut a man's arm off, though, one morning on the road in from the airport. They were all lined up at gunpoint, the men, shaking, their arms obediently held out. Saidu couldn't look when it was his turn to swing his machete. He doesn't think the man survived. "I can't forget his scream," he says.

Taylor has been accused of providing weapons and financial support to the RUF. In exchange, he wanted access to Sierra Leone’s many resources. Of particular value were the diamond mines located in Sierra Leone’s Kono region, home to some of the most coveted jewels in the world. Once the RUF captured the area, they used slaves to harvest their crop and then sold these “blood diamonds” around the world. Many have said that Taylor didn’t just profit from the sale of diamonds, but he was the mastermind behind their exchange. It has also been alleged that al-Qaeda had done business with Taylor in a fundraising campaign where the terrorist group purchased diamonds in order to resell in its part of the world.

The earliest days of the Sierra Leone conflict began in 1991; Liberia’s started two years earlier. For over a decade, the rest of the world turned a blind eye to West Africa, just as they had in Rwanda in 1994, when an estimated 800,000 were killed within three months. There was talk of sanctions of stern warnings from the international community. In 1999, the United Nations even created a special “peacekeeping force” in order to help quell the violence in Sierra Leone but the UN’s efforts were toothless. The RUF took over 300 of the UN’s peacekeepers hostage, holding them hostage in a jungle where many contracted malaria.

In May of 2000, with RUF forces nearing Sierra Leone’s capital of Freetown, Tony Blair decided to send 1,000 British troops the beleaguered nation. This was done largely to rescue foreign nationals trapped in the city, but British troops did much more. They managed to secure the area and a nearby airport, which allowed for more UN troops to enter the country. That in turn repulsed the RUF. Eventually, a truce was declared and the RUF laid down its arms.

But a major problem remained. Charles Taylor was still in power in Liberia, which was in the midst of its brutal conflict. Once again, most of the world said the right thing but did little. The United Nations charged Taylor with war crimes for his involvement in Sierra Leone. Calls were made for him to step down. Taylor remained in power.

No change occurred until George W. Bush, only a handful of weeks after US troops toppled Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq, demanded that Taylor step down. Initially defiant, Taylor caved after US military specialists started to investigate ways to enter the country on its own peacekeeping mission. On August 20, 2003, Taylor finally stepped down. As a reminder of who forced his ouster, some 2000 marines were waiting in ships just off of Liberia’s coast.

Taylor, who has since been apprehended and jailed, is now standing trial for his alleged war crimes. In his first remarks in his hearing, he blamed his political demise on President Bush’s “regime change politics.”

Taylor’s ouster was not the Bush administration’s only success in Africa. Soon after the capture of Saddam Hussein, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi announced that Libya would give up its efforts to develop nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, in an attempt to combat HIV in Africa, Bush launched the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. The campaign was a success. The president of the International AIDS Society recently said that HIV infections were down in countries served by the program.

But it is Bush’s regime change policies in Iraq and Afghanistan, supported by former Prime Minister Blair, that will be most remembered for in West Africa. On his arrival in Sierra Leone on his farewell tour from office, Blair was named by Sierra Leone’s 149 paramount chiefs, local leaders who have great influence in the country, as one of their own. Said one chief, "We have nothing, no money to give him but it is a way of recognizing him as a chief of our nation." Another example of Sierra Leone’s enduring affection for Blair comes from journalist Augustus Kamara, who named his son after the Prime Minister.

Liberians feel the same about Bush. On the eve of his arrival in Liberia in 2008, one organization released a musical album in his honor. And, as one Liberian blogger wrote on the eve of Bush’s departure from office:

“When President Clinton had a chance to save thousands of people in Rwanda during the 90s he refused to get involve, calling it an African Problem, and because of America and the world's inaction almost a million people die in the Rwanda Genocide.

Bush on the other hand got involved in Africa like no other president before him, he demanded that the Tyrant Charles Taylor leaves office and send U.S soldiers to help stabilized the country, and in the process ending almost 2 decades of civil war that left the country in a state of total ruin.

He called Sudan's military actions in Darfur, Genocide when most African and European countries refused to call it so.

Whatever his critics in the Liberal media say, President Bush, unlike any other U.S. Presidents, changed dramatically the way the United States dealt with Africa and her problems.

Farewell Mr President you were a great friend of Africa, may God bless you and your family as you end this chapter of your life and begin a new one.”

Bush and Blair’s attempts to build democracies around the world continue to be frowned upon by the political and media elite. But that assessment suffers from a serious blind spot. Ten years ago, West Africa was the home of mass death and political upheaval. Today, it is a land of hope.

Healthcare reform sets off euthanasia alarm:

7/24/2009

A health economist warns that President Obama's government-run healthcare plan may result in denying care to a significant number of Americans, especially senior citizens.

Conservative opponents of President Obama's healthcare plan have been arguing that a government takeover of healthcare will allow Washington bureaucrats to use "comparative effectiveness research" to dictate to doctors which treatments they should prescribe and how much those treatments should cost. Critics say this will lead to rationing of care.

In the medical journal The Lancet (January 2009 [PDF]) Obama's special health policy advisor Ezekiel Emanuel wrote that if healthcare has to be rationed, he prefers the "complete lives system," which "discriminates against older people."
Dr. Devon Herrick, a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, says Emanuel believes young adults should be given preferential care over seniors because they have more years of their life ahead of them.

"I guess the implication of that is if you're older, you will be assumed to have lived a complete life; whereas if you're younger, you'd have yet to live a complete life," Herrick suggests. "So in a way I kind of see it as a method to ration care to the elderly, but trying to use an ethicist's view to justify it."

In an article written more than a decade ago [PDF] for the Hastings Center Report, Dr. Emanuel suggested that health services should not be guaranteed to "individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens." He said "an obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia."

'Obamacare' targets young, healthy, wealthy

A Florida congresswoman says the healthcare legislation being pushed by President Obama sends a blunt message to senior citizens: "drop dead."

On Monday, President Obama said that "the single biggest threat to our fiscal stability" and "the single thing that could drive us into long-term staggering and difficult debt" is Medicare and Medicaid.

Obama told Jim Lehrer of PBS that he wants to "stop providing $177 billion worth of subsidies to the insurance companies for a Medicare Advantage program that offers no additional benefits to seniors, compared to regular old Medicare."

Congresswoman Ginny Brown-Waite (R-Florida) says the House healthcare bill essentially tells senior citizens to "drop dead." (Listen to audio report)

"Despite their promise to care for our seniors, Democrats have decided that it's too expensive to care for my senior constituents and everyone else's constituents," she contends. "This bill would cut an additional $156 billion from the Medicare Advantage program in order to pay for the government expansion of healthcare for the young, the healthy, and the wealthy."

Brown-Waite argues the cut in Medicare Advantage is not the first attack on senior citizens this year. She notes that in March the Obama administration announced that Social Security recipients would not receive a cost-of-living increase.

GovernmentCare’s Assault on Seniors:

THE WALLSTREET JOURNAL
JULY 23, 2009

Since Medicare was established in 1965, access to care has enabled older Americans to avoid becoming disabled and to travel and live independently instead of languishing in nursing homes. But legislation now being rushed through Congress—H.R. 3200 and the Senate Health Committee Bill—will reduce access to care, pressure the elderly to end their lives prematurely, and doom baby boomers to painful later years.

The Congressional majority wants to pay for its $1 trillion to $1.6 trillion health bills with new taxes and a $500 billion cut to Medicare. This cut will come just as baby boomers turn 65 and increase Medicare enrollment by 30%. Less money and more patients will necessitate rationing. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that only 1% of Medicare cuts will come from eliminating fraud, waste and abuse.

The assault against seniors began with the stimulus package in February. Slipped into the bill was substantial funding for comparative effectiveness research, which is generally code for limiting care based on the patient’s age. Economists are familiar with the formula, where the cost of a treatment is divided by the number of years (called QALYs, or quality-adjusted life years) that the patient is likely to benefit. In Britain, the formula leads to denying treatments for older patients who have fewer years to benefit from care than younger patients.

When comparative effectiveness research appeared in the stimulus bill, Rep. Charles Boustany Jr., (R., La.) a heart surgeon, warned that it would lead to “denying seniors and the disabled lifesaving care.” He and Sen. Jon Kyl (R., Ariz.) proposed amendments to no avail that would have barred the federal government from using the research to eliminate treatments for the elderly or deny care based on age.

In a letter this week to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, White House budget chief Peter Orszag urged Congress to delegate its authority over Medicare to a newly created body within the executive branch. This measure is designed to circumvent the democratic process and avoid accountability to the public for cuts in benefits.

Driving these cuts is the misconception that preventative care can eliminate sickness. As President Obama said in a speech to the American Medical Association: “We have to avoid illness and disease in the first place.” That would make sense if most diseases were preventable. But the two most prevalent diseases of aging—cancer and heart disease—are largely caused by genetics and their occurrence increases with age. Your risk of being diagnosed with cancer doubles from age 50 to 60, according to the National Cancer Institute.

The House bill shifts resources from specialty medicine to primary care based on the misconception that Americans overuse specialist care and drive up costs in the process (pp. 660-686). In fact, heart-disease patients treated by generalists instead of specialists are often misdiagnosed and treated incorrectly. They are readmitted to the hospital more frequently, and die sooner.

“Study after study shows that cardiologists adhere to guidelines better than primary care doctors,” according to Jeffrey Moses, a heart specialist at New York Presbyterian Hospital. Adds Jeffrey Borer, chairman of medicine at SUNY Downstate Medical Center: “Seldom do generalists have the knowledge to identify the symptoms of aortic valve disease, even though more than 10% of people over 75 have it. After valve surgery, patients who were too short of breath to walk can resume a normal life into their 80s or 90s.”

While the House bill being pushed by the president reduces access to such cures and specialists, it ensures that seniors are counseled on end-of-life options, including refusing nutrition where state law allows it (pp. 425-446). In Oregon, some cancer patients are being denied care by the state that could extend their lives and instead are afforded the benefit of physician-assisted suicide instead.

The harshest misconception underlying the legislation is that living longer burdens society. Medicare data prove this is untrue. A patient who dies at 67 spends three times as much on health care at the end of life as a patient who lives to 90, according to Dr. Herbert Pardes, CEO of New York Presbyterian Medical Center.

What is costly is when seniors become disabled. In a 2007 Health Affairs article, researchers reported that surgeries to unclog arteries and replace worn out hips and knees have had a major impact on steadily reducing disability rates. And nondisabled seniors use only one-seventh as much health care as disabled seniors. As a result, the annual increase in per capita health spending on the elderly is less than for the rest of the population.

Nevertheless, Medicare is running out of money. The problem is the number of seniors compared with the smaller number of workers supporting the system with payroll taxes. To remedy the problem, the Congressional Budget Office has suggested inching up the eligibility age one month per year until it reaches age 70 in 2043, or asking wealthy seniors to pay more.

These are reasonable solutions—reducing access to treatments and counseling seniors about cutting life short are not. Medicare has made living to a ripe old age a good value. ObamaCare will undo that.

Is the Obama Health Care Plan Really Better Than Nothing?
07/22/2009 / http://tinyurl.com/njv8w8
Candidate Barack Obama told us to judge his first term by whether he delivers quality affordable health care for all Americans, including nearly fifty million uninsured. So why does his proposal not cover the uninsured till 2013, after the next presidential election when Medicare took only 11 months to cover its first 40million seniors? Why are corporate media pretending that no opinions exist to Obama's left? And why has the public option part of the Obama health care plan shrunk from covering 130 million to only 10 million, with 16 million left uninsured altogether?
The real Obama Plan: doesn't cover the uninsured till 2013, if then.
The first clue that something is deeply wrong with the Obama health care proposal is its timeline. According to a copyrighted July 21 AP story by Ricardo Alfonso-Zaldivar,
“President Lyndon Johnson signed the Medicare law on July 30, 1965, and 11 months later seniors were receiving coverage. But if President Barack Obama gets to sign a health care overhaul this fall, the uninsured won't be covered until 2013 — after the next presidential election.
“In fact, a timeline of the 1,000-page health care bill crafted by House Democrats shows it would take the better part of a decade — from 2010-2018 — to get all the components of the far-reaching proposal up and running.”
http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/obama-health-care-plan-really-better-nothing

There was a time that if someone was a millionaire, they paid for their medical care, and NOT MEDICARE. In the late 1970's I processed medicare papers for over 65 individuals, who were millionaires, and they collected every penney they could THEN.

Since the 1970's everybody has jumped on the bandwagon and collects every penney they can get.

There is no pride, NOT TO TAKE A HANDOUT FROM THE GOVERNMENT.
All this has snowballed and inflated the cots of health care. And there is no end.


And, why should the CHILDREN be taken care of? Isn't everyone just as needful of health care?

There was a time that if someone was a millionaire, they paid for their medical care, and NOT MEDICARE. In the late 1970's I processed medicare papers for over 65 individuals, who were millionaires, and they collected every penney they could THEN.

Since the 1970's everybody has jumped on the bandwagon and collects every penney they can get.

There is no pride, NOT TO TAKE A HANDOUT FROM THE GOVERNMENT.
All this has snowballed and inflated the cots of health care. And there is no end.


And, why should the CHILDREN be taken care of? Isn't everyone just as needful of health care?

What happened to the clinics? and aren't parents responsible for their children?

There was a time that if someone was a millionaire, they paid for their medical care, and NOT MEDICARE. In the late 1970's I processed medicare papers for over 65 individuals, who were millionaires, and they collected every penney they could THEN.

Since the 1970's everybody has jumped on the bandwagon and collects every penney they can get.

There is no pride, NOT TO TAKE A HANDOUT FROM THE GOVERNMENT.
All this has snowballed and inflated the costs of health care. And there is no end.


And, why should the CHILDREN be taken care of? Isn't everyone just as needful of health care?

What happened to the clinics? and aren't parents responsible for their children?

Go to gov.track, congress.org or congress.gov and read through the many, many pages of legalese. Boiled down, here are a few sections:Pg 22 of the HC Bill MANDATES the Govt will audit books of ALL EMPLOYERS that self insure!!
Pg 30 Sec 123 of HC bill - THERE WILL BE A GOVT COMMITTEE that decides what treatments/benefits you get
PG 50 Section 152 in HC bill - HC will be provided to ALL non US citizens, illegal or otherwise
Pg 58HC Bill - Govt will have real-time access to individual’s finances & a National ID Healthcard will be issued!
Pg 59 HC Bill lines 21-24 Govt will have direct access to your banks accts for electronic funds transfer
PG 102 Lines 12-18 HC Bill - Medicaid Eligible Indivuals. will be automatically enrolled in Medicaid.. No choice
PG 265 Sec 1131 Govt mandates & controls productivity for private HC industries
PG 425 Lines 4-12 Govt mandates Advance Care Planning Consult. Think Senior Citizens end of life
Pg 425 Lines 17-19 Govt will instruct & consult regarding living wills, durable powers of atty. Mandatory!
PG 425 Lines 22-25, 426 Lines 1-3 Govt provides approved list of end of life resources, guiding you in death
PG 427 Lines 15-24 Govt mandates program for orders for end of life. The Govt has a say in how your life ends
Pg 429 Lines 1-9 An “advance care planning consult” will be used frequently as patients health deteriorates
PG 429 Lines 10-12 “advance care consultation” may include an ORDER for end of life plans." AN ORDER from GOVTPG 430