Right Minded Online

Rush Limbaugh did a terrific job dissecting ABC’s infomercial on ObamaCare, noting what we all know. Specifically, in no way is ObamaCare a means to extend health care to the uninsured — at least that’s not the primary objective. The primary objective is control. The primary objective of liberalism is control. And if you control a person’s health care, you control a lot.

All he did there was admit: “Yeah, I want the best healthcare possible.” Well, so the hell does everybody else! That wasn’t the question. The question was: “Are you going to go outside the plan that you have prescribed for everybody?” See, the dirty little secret is he’s going to be exempt from the plan, as are all members of Congress. The question was a good one: “Are you going to go outside the plan if you find a better doctor, better treatment that your plan doesn’t cover?” “You’re right. I’d go get the best care I could. I want the best care.” Then comes this irrelevant, non sequitur answer: That we have a bunch of care that’s being provided indicates may not be making us healthier. Folks, I’m telling you, the answer to this question you need to focus on: Obama is looking to cut healthcare. He’s looking to cut it because that’s the only way he can keep costs where they are or reduce them, which is not going to happen anyway. We have the best healthcare system in the country and he’s going to restrict access to it, as a means of saving money.

Limbaugh urged his listeners to call their congressmen and ask if they are going to subject themselves to the same health care plan they want to subject us to. That’s the true measure of just how good this health care plan is going to be.

Obama’s Government Will Decide If You Deserve Medical Treatment?.

The details of ObamaCare are beginning to take shape, and it looks like individual liberty is about to take another hit from President Obama and the Democrats. Aside from all the numbers and the enormous price tag, here’s a curious part of the plan:

President Barack Obama says he’s open to requiring all Americans to buy health insurance, as long as the plan provides a “hardship waiver” to exempt poor people from having to pay.

Obama opposed such an individual mandate during his campaign, but Congress increasingly is moving to embrace the idea.

What part of the Constitution grants the federal government this kind of power? Well, that’s a rhetorical question. It doesn’t. But that hasn’t stopped the left. Remember, the left claims to be pro-choice, yet these people are instead pro-government and anti-individual liberty.

Obama plan would provide health care for all – Yahoo! News.

The Associated Press is making its pitch for President Obama’s universal health care behemoth by trying to get us angered into accepting a far worse system than what we currently enjoy.

Health insurance premiums for an average family are $1,000 a year higher because of costs of health care for the uninsured, a new report finds.

And private coverage for the average individual costs an extra $370 a year because of the cost-shifting, which happens when someone without medical insurance gets care at an emergency room or elsewhere and then doesn’t pay.

The report was released Thursday by advocacy group Families USA, which said the findings — which it calls a “hidden tax” — support its goal of extending coverage to all the 50 million Americans who are now uninsured. Congress and the Obama administration are working on a plan to do that.

First of all, there are nowhere near 50 milion uninsured Americans. I explain why here.

Second, according to this news account, those who are uninsured cost insured families $1,000 a year because of the cost of providing health care to the uninsured. Now, President Obama’s plan would cost the taxpayers $1.5 trillion over the first ten years. Assuming there are no cost overruns — wink-wink — that comes out to $150 billion per year, or about $500 per man, woman, and child.

But that’s $1.5 trillion the federal government does not have, so it will have to be borrowed. So the true cost of President Obama’s health care plan will simply be passed off to future generations, interest and all.

No thanks.

Report concludes uninsured are costly for all – Yahoo! News.

Blue Collar Muse points out that a bill in the Tennessee General Assembly — shouldn’t those folks be out of Nashville by now? — would open up private medical records for government use. I don’t like this one bit.

TN House Bill 2289 (HB2289) and Senate Bill 2239 (SB2239), according to the state’s website, are innocuous bills on insurance, medical fees and accreditation typical of the uninteresting legislation passed nationwide. Reading the text of HB2289, it is anything but.

It establishes an All Payer Claims Database (APCD). The APCD requires private insurance companies to report to the state the details on the claims they process. For perspective, one particular Tennessee insurer processes 32,000 of those details every hour. That’s 250,000 details per day about private citizens the state wants turned over to them.

In fact, there are over 6000 details which might be reported about you under HB2289 including data on prescriptions, medical conditions, sexually transmitted diseases, surgeries and more. If I know Government, 6000 is nothing but a good start!

TN HB2289 Gives Goverment Access to Private Medical Information | Blue Collar Muse.

Check this out: Faces of Government Healthcare.

When the media began to breathless report the swine flue as the next medieval bubonic plague, I immediately recognized it as simply the next mad cow disease and bird flu — diseases that affect only a handful of people, but send half the world’s population into a panic because of media overplay. Well, Foreign Policy reports that “Swine flu has infected 1,500 people worldwide and killed around 30, almost all in Mexico. But it is far from the world’s most serious disease outbreak.”

The five most serious outbreaks are: cholera, spinal meningitis, AIDS, ebola, and dengue fever.

Foreign Policy: The List: Five Disease Outbreaks That Are Worse Than Swine Flu.

Americans, including our elected leaders, are getting a little fatter. It’s the fault of the recession. I kid you not.

The federal deficit isn’t the only bulge members of Congress are battling this year.

Health experts say the economic downturn has wreaked havoc on Americans’ diets, as people cancel gym memberships, dine at fast-food restaurants and, in some cases, take on additional work hours as companies shrink their work forces.

Members of Congress haven’t been immune. Inundated by Wall Street woes, a recession and looming legislative fights over health care and global warming, members say they’re facing one of the most intense legislative sessions in recent memory — and many are also trying to stave off the weight gain that can come with the pressure.

Members battle the bulge – Erika Lovley – POLITICO.com.

Here we go.

Daschle told lawmakers it was unacceptable that 1 in 4 people in the United States don’t have health insurance coverage. He said that’s only part of the problem, though. Incentives for reimbursing health care providers are not focused enough on prevention. Also, costs are rising too quickly as insurance premiums rose three times faster than overall inflation during the past nine years.

“Any health care reform plan must achieve the three goals of increasing access and quality while containing cost,” Daschle said.

Daschle said one point of emphasis will be on lowering drug prices for consumers. For example, he said he would support giving the secretary of HHS authority to negotiate drug prices on behalf of Medicare participants.

“I think that there’s a great deal to be said for that,” he said. “I’ve supported it in the past, and I’d support it in the future.”

Critics of that approach say that the private sector is better at generating price concessions than the government.

Daschle also voiced support for reducing a coverage gap in the Medicare drug benefit, known as the doughnut hole, where insurance no longer covers part of the cost of a participant’s medicine.

“It’s a very expensive fix,” Daschle said. “We’ll have to work together to see how we find solutions to that.”

A couple of points. First, the “1 in 4 people in the United States don’t have health insurance coverage” is bogus, and Democrats have been allowed to perpetuate that lie for far too long.

Second, Mark Stein, who guest-hosted for Rush Limbaugh a couple of weeks ago, made one of the most succinct statements on health care I’ve ever heard. To paraphrase, under the free market system, profit-seeking health care providers have a vested interest in treating patients as soon as possible. Under the Canadian and British socialized systems, the government has a vested interested in denying or delaying those same services.

Health secretary pick seeks health care overhaul – Yahoo! News.

One longtime psychiatrist has concluded that liberals are mentally ill. Here’s a portion of his supporting observations:

Dr. Rossiter says the liberal agenda preys on weakness and feelings of inferiority in the population by:

- creating and reinforcing perceptions of victimization;

- satisfying infantile claims to entitlement, indulgence and compensation;

- augmenting primitive feelings of envy;

- rejecting the sovereignty of the individual, subordinating him to the will of the government.

“The roots of liberalism – and its associated madness – can be clearly identified by understanding how children develop from infancy to adulthood and how distorted development produces the irrational beliefs of the liberal mind,” he says. “When the modern liberal mind whines about imaginary victims, rages against imaginary villains and seeks above all else to run the lives of persons competent to run their own lives, the neurosis of the liberal mind becomes painfully obvious.”

It’s no wonder then that repeated studies on happiness show conservatives to be far happier than liberals, regardless of economic circumstances or the outcomes of elections.

Veteran psychiatrist calls liberals mentally ill.

A hat tip to Ben Cunningham for this link. It turns out that the British system of socialized medicine is leaving many of its critically ill patients with the medicines they need. Don’t believe the lie that universal, government-run health care being touted by Democrats will be the cure-all for our overhyped uninsured crisis. Ours isn’t perfect, but judging by stories such as this, we’ve got it a whole lot better than those who have to rely on government for their health care.

The Rarer Cancers Forum, which compiled the data, called on ministers to intervene to end a “bizarre and demeaning” postcode lottery, which it said was leaving patients to die.

Their analysis shows that almost all patients in some areas were given the often expensive drugs, while in other areas no patient received them.

The call comes just days after patients groups and doctors reacted angrily to a decision that four kidney cancer drugs were not cost effective enough to be provided on the NHS.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) judged that the drugs, which can prolong the average sufferers life for around five or six months, did not provide enough benefits for their cost of up to £24,000.

Over 1,000 cancer patients refused drugs by NHS managers – Telegraph.

In England, where they have a health care model the American left would love to emulate, the number of dentists has decreased so significantly that some Brits are pulling their own teeth.

Almost half of all dentists — 45 percent — said they no longer take NHS patients, while 41 percent said they had an “excessive” workload. Twenty-nine percent said their clinic had problems recruiting or retaining dentists.

“These findings indicate that the NHS dental system is letting many patients down very badly,” said Grant.

“It appears many are being forced to go private because they don’t want to lose their current trusted and respected dentist or because they just can’t find a local NHS dentist.”

Folks, this is exactly where socialism (i.e., “free” health care) gets you — a lack of availability. In this country, we have excellent health care that is available to a large majority of citizens, while the remaining few, roughly 3-4% of the U.S. population, has a hard time finding care.

Liberals would take our health care system, the envy of the world, that serves almost all of the population, and make it so the remaining 3-4% of Americans have equal access. But in doing so, we’d all end up pulling our own teeth, so to speak. I’d much rather have a great system that serves 96-97% of the people than a crummy system that “serves” 100%. But that’s liberalism, where the definition of equality is the equal distribution of misery.

John “Two Americas” Edwards has a universal health care plan — and what Democrat doesn’t have one? — that would force Americans to go to the doctor for preventative care.

“It requires that everybody be covered. It requires that everybody get preventive care,” he told a crowd sitting in lawn chairs in front of the Cedar County Courthouse. “If you are going to be in the system, you can’t choose not to go to the doctor for 20 years. You have to go in and be checked and make sure that you are OK.”

Folks, liberals are the most meddlesome bunch on the planet. These people cannot resist telling the rest of us how we are supposed to live. They want to tell us what to drive, what to eat, where to smoke, where we can and cannot exercise religion, how much toilet paper to use, how much of our paychecks we can keep, how to raise our children, what we can and cannot listen to on the radio, that we cannot buy “Choose Life” license plates with our own money, and now that we have to go to the doctor, even when we are well.

Three questions:

1). What would be the penalty if we didn’t go?

2). Would John Edwards subject himself to the same program as he would the rest of us?

3). What part of the Constitution grants this sort of authority to the government?

World Net Daily cites the Business and Media Institute, pointing out that “President Bush, Hillary Clinton, Michael Moore and much of the mainstream media are incorrect when they claim the number of Americans without health insurance to be 40 to 50 million, with the actual number possibly under 10 million.”

“The actual total is open to debate,” says BMI analyst Julia Seymour. “But there are millions of people who should be excluded from that [high] tally, including: those who aren’t American citizens, people who can afford their own insurance, and people who already qualify for government coverage but haven’t signed up.”

She notes government statistics also show 45 percent of people without insurance are not completely in dire straits, as they’ll have coverage again within four months after switching jobs.

“Accounting for all those factors, one prominent study places the total for the long-term uninsured as low as 8.2 million – a very different reality than the media and national health care advocates claim,” said Seymour.

[Link]

The Tennessean ran one of it’s trademark “Tennessee sucks” op/eds today, this one having to do with our shoddy lifestyle choices and — gasp! — turns to big government to provide solutions.

We’ll skip to the last three paragraphs of the editorial, where the editorial board paints its ghastly picture.

The reasons for this are evident to most of us: Too many Tennesseans smoke, eat unhealthy foods and overdo alcohol, leading to cancer, diabetes, hypertension and other fatal diseases. Unhealthy lifestyle choices and income disparity both contribute to Tennessee’s dismal infant mortality rate of 9.3 deaths per 1,000 live births — 47th nationally.

Not to mention abortion, which the Tennessean editorial board advocates, and where the infant mortality rate is much higher — 100%, in fact.

Our state government, to its credit, has taken a number of positive steps. Smoking will soon be banned in most public buildings and gathering places; GetFit Tennessee, with spokesman Eddie George, was launched last year to promote active lifestyles; and junk food is being phased out of our public schools.

Indeed, the Tennessee General Assembly raised taxes on a product they banned so they could raise taxes for schools. Hey, I live a healthy lifestyle, and not because of Eddie George. My cholesterol is good, I’m in pretty good shape, but I also listen to REALLY LOUD MUSIC when I run, which I know isn’t good for my hearing. Plus, I love those sugar-laden cappuccinos you get at Mapco, and I have an insatiable sweet tooth. But, hey, everyone has his vices. It could be worse. I could be a lottery player.

But it is clear that more aggressive measures may be needed. Just as Gov. Phil Bredesen has made education a focus, Tennessee must awaken citizens to the notion that taking care of themselves is not just about feeling better, but lower insurance costs for everyone, higher worker productivity, and fewer health problems handed down to future generations.

And what aggressive measures would those be? More laws? Bigger government? Liberal politicians telling the rest of us how to live? Professional athletes telling us how to live? Newspaper columnists telling us stupid people how to live?

Captain’s Quarters cites a Swedish study that shows the American health care system outperforms the socialized systems in Europe in getting new medicines to cancer patients. Quoting CQ, which quotes the Telegraph:

The researchers studied Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, South Africa and the US, as well as 19 European countries, with a total population of 984 million, and looked at access to 67 newer cancer drugs.

They found that the proportions of female cancer patients surviving five years beyond diagnosis in France, Spain, Germany, Italy were 71 per cent, 64 per cent, 63 per cent and 63 per cent respectively. In the UK it was 53 per cent.

Among men the proportions still alive at five years in the same countries were 53 per cent, 50 per cent, 53 per cent and 48 per cent. Again in the UK it was lower at 43 per cent.

…

Dr Nils Wilking, a clinical oncologist at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, said: “Our report highlights that in many countries new drugs are not reaching patients quickly enough and that this is having an adverse impact on patient survival. Where you live can determine whether you receive the best available treatment or not.

“To some extent this is determined by economic factors, but much of the variation between countries remains unexplained. In the US we have found that the survival of cancer patients is significantly related to the introduction of new oncology drugs.” …

The proportion of colorectal cancer patients with access to the drug Avastin was 10 times higher in the US than it was in Europe, with the UK having a lower uptake than the European average.

Knowing that the American health care system is superior to socialized system, why on earth would Democrats seek to unload the current system with something that is inferior. Surely they must understand socialized medicine simply cannot meet the demands that our quasi-capitalist system can. It’s the same with tax cuts. Even though the Bush tax cuts are responsible for record amounts of revenue at the federal level, Democrats want to undo them so they can have more control over our paychecks. With health care, Democrats would rather dump our superior system with an inferior socialized system so they can exert more control over that. With Democrats, it’s never about what’s best for the people. It’s about what’s best for Democrats, and that is increased political power and control.

Wal-Mart announced in a press release last Thursday that its customers have saved $290 million on selected generic prescription drugs since September, 2006, when the company began selling generic prescriptions for $4 each.

In Friday’s Tennessean editorial, “HIV testing for all,” the paper advocates for a CDC recommendation that all Americans ages 13-64 receive voluntary HIV tests as part of their routine checkups.

Until now, about half of new infections were discovered when patients who were already sick came in for care. That’s often too late to extend their lives, or to protect their partners.

Routine testing will detect the virus in more people sooner, reducing spread of the virus and helping infected people live longer.

The new guidelines also step up HIV testing for pregnant women, to further stem mother-to-child infection.

Some physician groups say doctors will find the recommendations costly to implement, but given the endorsement of the plan by the American Medical Assocation, doctors will be expected to comply.

Of course, those who practice abstinence or heterosexual monogamy need not worry with it.

Dr. Robert S. Berry touts free-market clinics in today’s Nashville Eye column in the Tennessean. Here is some information I did not know about:

Bredesen’s scheme also assumes that the uninsured should not or cannot pay doctors more than $25 for their services. The assumption that non-insured patients can’t afford to pay more than $25 to see a doctor is simply inaccurate. Cash-only clinics generally charge about $40 per visit, and patients receive a wide range of medical services.

Are uninsured patients willing to pay $40 for an office visit? The 4,000 uninsured patients that have visited my Greene County clinic during the past five years is proof enough for me.

…

Instead of relying on another untested top-down socialist-style government approach to address the health-care needs of Tennesseans, Bredesen should consider tried-and-true solutions currently bubbling up from the grassroots. Perhaps his visions for health coverage for all would be better served were he to gain a fresh perspective by visiting cash-only clinics and the patients they serve.

You mean average citizens might actually have better ideas about health care than Governor Bredesen, who made his fortune in health care? Maybe so.

Here’s one from the Agape Press:

The toddler, known as “Baby Charlotte,” was born prematurely, weighing just one pound and measuring only five inches, with serious brain, lung, and kidney damage. She suffers from severe breathing problems, although earlier this year there was evidence that her breathing is becoming stronger and she is less dependent on an oxygen supply. Her parents, both committed Christians, believe in preserving life at any cost; but a British judge said doctors do not have to resuscitate Charlotte if she stops breathing.

This is one outcome of socialized medicine. Under the British system, doctors can play God refuse to treat a patient if they feel the treatment serves no purpose, or if the quality of life is deemed to be such that it’s not in the patient’s interest. However, if there is disagreement between the family and doctors, the case goes to the High Court. (Doesn’t that sound familiar?)