Liberty Counsel has a rundown of the Obama health care plan with identification of issues by section and page number in the bill. There are lots of people saying critics are lying about what's in the bill. Even when we quote chapter and verse, the Obama administration scream "right wing conspiracy." Read it for yourself. It's as bad or worse than what you've heard.
Here's the bill (all 1000+ pages).
Here's Liberty Counsel's rundown on some of the serious issues that should concern taxpayers.
Now I'll itemize a few that concern me (N.B. The numbers in the text are the lines on the page):
1) Rationing. The bill establishes a committee to determine what benefits will be allowed. "There is established a private-public advisory committee which shall be a
15 panel of medical and other experts to be known as 16 the Health Benefits Advisory Committee to rec17ommend covered benefits and essential, enhanced, 18 and premium plans." (p. 30) In view of the fact that the President says the bill will be funded in part by cuts in Medicare, this should raise red flags. What services will be denied to those considered too old or too handicapped to be worth the cost?
2) Illegal Aliens get free care paid for by citizens. "(2) NONRESIDENT ALIENS.—Subsection (a) [which imposes a 2.5% tax] 2 shall not apply to any individual who is a non3 resident alien." (pg. 170)
3) The government will limit and control hospital capacity, another form of health care rationing. "(C) PROHIBITION ON EXPANSION OF FA22CILITY CAPACITY.—Except as provided in para23graph (2), the number of operating rooms, pro24cedure rooms, or beds of the hospital at any25 time on or after the date of the enactment of •HR 3200 IH 1 this subsection are no greater than the number 2 of operating rooms, procedure rooms, or beds,3 respectively, as of such date." Should the feds really be deciding how many beds are available in every community in America? Some things are best decided at the local level. The Catholic Church calls that "subsidiarity."
4) Mandatory end-of-life counseling. This requirement goes on for ten pages (424-434) and gets very specific about counseling on palliative and hospice care, living wills, etc. Having been involved in both the Hugh Finn and Terri Schiavo cases where brain damaged individuals who were NOT comatose and were NOT terminally ill were deliberately murdered by dehydration and starvation, this section gives me the willies. It is clearly oriented toward urging people to refuse life-sustaining treatment when they are not imminently dying. Included in the document is government control over which health professionals can write an end-of-life order. Consider when these documents talk about chronic diseases that are "incurable" encompassed in that language are diabetes, high blood pressure, asthma, kidney disease, Down Syndrome, heart disease, and many other chronic conditions.
5) School based health clinics. Those in the pro-life movement have been fighting these clinics for years. They often provide contraception and referral for abortion without parental knowledge or consent. While the bill claims to follow state laws, what is the guarantee tht will be the case. The past is prologue to the future. School-based clinics usurp parents rights and often encourage fornication. (pg. 992 and following)
These are just a few of the items that concern me. There are dozens of others: the government having direct access to your bank account, home visitation programs for pregnant women and families with young children, government data networks of medical records, etc. ad infinitum. The more I read, the less I like it. Government already controls too much of our lives and this bill expands that intrusion exponentially.
Take a look at some of these things for yourself and you'll understand why folks are going out in droves to Town Hall meetings to protest Obama's health plan.
Well we have been here before. In 1961 these same things were predicted if Medicare was passed.
ReplyDeleteHere's a link to the past: http://newstalgia.crooksandliars.com/gordonskene/health-care-debate-february-23-1961
AHEFT shows African American health care has long been rationed by breeding us to limit our lives, so why should we pay for all those boomer pensions we will never benefit from? After all, it was the boomer pensions which caused the market to crash.
ReplyDeleteI'm a little confused by your comment, Vernon. What do you mean by "breeding us?" Just the opposite is the case today with minorities targeted for abortion. Blacks have almost 40% of the abortions but represent about 12% of the population. That sounds like ethnic cleansing to me. It makes me angry. Aren't you? I've saved a number of black babies sidewalk counseling outside abortion mills and counseling at a crisis pregnancy center.
ReplyDeleteThe health care bill forces taxpayers to pay for abortion. AP covered it up in their initial reporting until LifeNews forced a more accurate story. http://www.lifenews.com/nat5311.html The mainstream media is either deliberately misrepresenting the bill or they aren't doing their homework. And the administration refuses to allow a ban on abortion funding in the bill.
As for pensions. People pay into a system. If the pension fund works properly the money is invested and grows to meet the outlays. If you invested in the pension fund you have a right to a return on your money. Social Security is a pension system where the government spent the money instead of investing it. If they wree a private company the execs would go to jail.
As for Medicare, TK, it's just about bankrupt. So what's your point? And now the way the government proposes fixing it is to ration and deny care to the elderly. So the chickens are coming home to roost. And we're going to cover everybody? Get real!
Medicare is bankrupt because of the rising costs of health care which have been rising much faster than actual costs of health care. So fast that even private insurance companies are limiting or rationing coverage. Nobody has the health care insurance they did 10 years ago if they still have it.
ReplyDelete1 Rationing: would be valid if we were to socialize health care. The idea is not to replace the current system but to add to it in such a way as most Americans can be covered for basic services and the sick private industry refuse to cover are covered. Very complex process adding to the system and a committee is one kind of process. The idea and trick is to keep the system profitable for the development and research.
ReplyDeleteYour red flag is really a RED HERRING. The same cutting in Medicare COSTS will be enjoyed by Insurance companies as well. It’s the cutting or slowing down the rate of increasing costs. What we now have is under insuring and covering fewer and fewer.
2 Your assertion that Illegal (Undocumented) Aliens get free care is your fear doing your thinking. In fact the provision is to prevent the use of this program for nonresident aliens. Otherwise it would “over rule or by pass” section SEC. 246. NO FEDERAL PAYMENT FOR NDOCUMENTED 3 ALIENS. 4 Nothing in this subtitle shall allow Federal payments 5 for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are 6 not lawfully present in the United States.7
3) The government will limit and control hospital capacity, another form of health care rationing. Wrong again. This section deals with bonaide ownership and investment. This will prevent a lot of “begger thy neighbor” or consolidation by large corporations to decrease costs but might otherwise increase travel times.
4) Mandatory end-of-life counseling vs. Mandatory imposition of Catholic dogma on non-Catholics. This is a personal decision that one makes with family and considering your particular faith.
Your willies is fear of nightmare and not the power of change and hope. This unspecified fear blinding many to the fact that health care for some is bankrupting all of us in America.
5) School based health clinics. Eliminating these clinics is your solution for imposing your religious dogma on others. Parents do not have absolute right to their children. All children have to go to school of their choice, be fed and clothed or risk government intervention.
Sorry Vernon, it was not the pensions but the appropriate lack of confidence in banks which when the banks leveraged these assets at 40 to 1. Far too risky. It was the democratic congress that passed this legislation that Bush used to spike the economy for re-election instead of real investment and growth.
ReplyDeleteWhat are schools for? No wonder they can't teach the three R's when their job is drug ed, sex ed, touching safety, providing day care, meals, and now doing health care?
ReplyDeleteSecular humanism has been defined by the courts as a religion. How can I be "imposing my religion" to object to imposition of secular humanism? I'm the one resisting the imposition of religion in the schools.
I'm stepping out of the discussion for now. I've had kids/grandkids visiting for five weeks. My brother had a stroke and I'm back and forth 5 hours to the hospital. So discussion will have to take a back seat to life.