The Future Of American Health Care -- "Just Boil It and Reuse It!"

I'm not sure why but I have yet to see the root problem with government writing a prescription for America's health care needs articulated using an easy to verify example.

The fact is, the root problem doesn't involve the debate over inclusion of a government option, it goes far far deeper then that; to the root of governments involvement in the health care process.

Most of us feel it deep down but don't really realize what the problem is.  Perhaps that is because many people see evidence of what bothers them on a daily basis right there on their own television without even realizing it!
 

Government Central Planning of medical care through the Medicare system lead to the brilliantly idiotic idea that catheters could and should be reused.  Medicare only covered 4 a month under the old ruling, today they cover up to 200.

People either had to pay for additional catheters or, it was recommended that users BOIL AND REUSE THEM.  Seriously, grab a pan, we're cooking up a wonderful plan for your health!  If you have had two (2) serious urinary tract infections in the past you could get yours covered -- that's right, you had go through the pain and risk twice.

Here is the kicker:


Even after the governments own FDA changed the labeling of catheters making them one time use products they were not covered!

Since the governments centrally planned Medicare system determined reuse was okay almost all private insurance companies followed suit!  With the change in the ruling most insurances have changed their coverage as well.

This went on for DECADES! 

It took people getting upset and finally getting a congressman to act -- that is not how we want our medical care coverage determined, via congressional fiat?

The key point -- when the government sets rules of coverage, for whatever reason (and you just know it will get political -- God forbid you get a disease out of favor with today's political will) the entire industry follows.  Doctors change their recommendations, insurers change their coverage. Having the same policy as the government keeps you just one more step away from the lawyers! 

The public option is not the devil, the devil is in the details of any program that offers or requires central planning by the government or any entity they set up.  Leave the planning to your own doctors!

Governmental Central Planning is almost always the worst solution to even simple problems, and we know from history that it is a joke when it comes to larger issues!

Increase competition in both the insurance and the medical sides of the business, reduce government interference, and reform medical malpractice, that should be all the involvement the government should have in your health care!
DKK

Medicare Changes Catheter Ruling -- IC Disease Today

Update:  It gets even better -- did you know that the Baucus plan included a tax on all medical devices?  This tax would increase the cost to everyone.  Initially it was all devices, tongue depressors, catheters, etc. but the saw some wisdom in that an have now increased that to items priced over $100.  But does that make any sense?  Imagine you need a prosthetic, or a back brace due to an accident -- you now will pay more for those, already very expensive items!   Literally adding insult to injury!  And as Hot Air points out this includes powered breast milk pumps!

Amazing, the ,"Boil it and reuse it," mentality will flourish even more then today -- seriously, do they even care about us at all because if they did they wouldn't be pulling this crap!
DKK

Public Health, Didn't We Try That Once? How Did That One Work Out?

Updated and bumped*

You know I got to thinking, didn't we already try a public health option before?  Then I remembered a reference to the Public Health System -- PHS -- it lasted about 40 years or so.

Here is what they offered:

• "special free treatment"
  
• "lower class African Americans, who often could not afford health care, the chance to join"
• "Patients were to receive free physical examinations"
•  "free rides to and from the clinic"
•  "hot meals on examination days"
• "free treatment for minor ailments"

Oh, it started great, there was a dedicated staff, the care was quality, they received praise for their work, they also received special praise for their, "flair in framing," the message to the potential patients encouraging many to join who would normally have been reluctant.

They had control of the costs and the treatments, what tests were done, what treatments were issued and it worked all quite well for the PHS.

Then about 1972 a whistleblower contacted the Washington Star and The New York Times and all hell broke lose.

I am simply amazed that anyone would even consider allowing the government to run a health system or more specifically set standards and recommended cost contained treatments for conditions.  Even today when the government makes recommendations about medications and treatments most insurers and doctors use that as their guide and only cover or prescribe those treatments.  That is why experimental treatments or medications are not covered!

But what really amazes me is why any black person in America would be in favor of a Public Health System following the end result of the above listed Tuskegee Experiment!

If you weren't aware of this your friends probably weren't either, send it to them all, click the email icon below and send it to them.
DKK

Update 9/15/2009


With the cries of racism reaching a fever pitch directed at anyone who would dare question the President (see Ace this week or HotAir this week), much of it directed at Republican lawmakers you would think that this would really freak liberals out -- how can you trust a PHS that may one day end up in the hands of those racists (everyone of them)!!!

Not gonna happen!

I keep waiting for Scotty to get that transporter fixed so he can beam me out of this alternate universe where everything is upside down!
DKK


*Update 12/11/2009 (original post date 09/14/2009 17:45)


Baldilocks tries to explain the reason Why Black Americans Think That the Federal Government Is Our Friend.  

Whether it's the Emancipation or the desegregation of the Armed Forces or Brown v. Board or the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, the federal government for the most part had seemed to be on the side of the black American as his constitutional rights were being oppressed by state or local governments.
What needs to be spelled, however is what the federal government did in the above-mentioned areas: it legally removed obstacles to the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of Americans who are black.  And that it what it was supposed to do.
The present problem in my unlearned opinion is this: the federal government began overstepping its bounds during the Great Depression and did so most infamously in the late sixties via the Great Society programs
Doing more that getting local racists out of the way, the federal government sought to and succeeded in making itself the suppliers of life, liberty and, putatively, the happiness of many black Americans.  (Try telling a senior of any race that Social Security is sending the country to financial ruin. You'll get an earful about her "rights".) 
And even many black Americans who do not rely on the federal government still view the fed as our friend because of that history.
What's needed in order to change this perception is obvious: education--not a new education but the old one, one which contains an objective explanation of the role of government.
Simply put, the role of the American government is to remove obstacles to liberty of the People--even when that obstacle is American government itself.  Supplying all of one's needs is not government's role.  That's God's purview.

Their Language and Concepts Were So Foreign to Our Way of Thinking...

Aliens (Not The Good Kind) Descend Upon Washington DC, 
Their Language and Concepts Were So Foreign to Our Way of Thinking We Dare Not Attempt to Translate.


That is what the headline should have read for the Washington Post's coverage of the DC Tea Party.

The WaPo seemed at a such a complete loss of understanding of what was happening and how these people could think this way that it seemed as if it was as foreign to them as, well, as MEAN HATEFUL scary aliens (NTGK - not the good kind) who had landed right there on the Mall!  Ideas so foreign to them that they dare not interpret choosing rather to just listed the thoughts for all to see.

Wonder how that compares to other recent protest marches?

So did I so I checked back to see how they covered the anti war protest of 2002 and 2005.  Here is what I found (all emphasis mine).

Headlines:

Tea Party

Lashing Out at the Capitol
Tens of Thousands Protest Obama Initiatives and Government Spending

2005

Antiwar Fervor Fills the Streets
Demonstration Is Largest in Capital Since U.S. Military Invaded Iraq

2002

100,000 Rally, March Against War in Iraq

The scary aliens (NTGK) lashed out and protested OBAMA while the others let their fervor fill the street, they didn't protest Bush mind you, no...

First paragraph:

Tea Party

Tens of thousands of conservative protesters, many complaining that the nation is racing toward socialism, massed outside the U.S. Capitol on Saturday, angrily denouncing President Obama's health-care plan and other initiatives as threats to the Constitution.

2005

Tens of thousands of people packed downtown Washington yesterday and marched past the White House in the largest show of antiwar sentiment in the nation's capital since the conflict in Iraq began.

2002

Tens of thousands of people marched in peaceful protest of any military strike against Iraq yesterday afternoon, in an antiwar demonstration that organizers and police suggested was likely Washington's largest since the Vietnam era.

Hmm, strange that isn't it -- scary aliens (NTGK) were angry and they were protesters who massed in the city center!  Run, see if you can get out of the city before they attack!  There were threats, or they saw threats or something like that.  Pray all we get some of the peaceful people to help save us!  But remember they were complaining, they complained for God's sake.

Second Paragraph:

Tea Party

The crowd -- loud, animated and sprawling -- gathered at the West Front of the Capitol after a march along Pennsylvania Avenue NW from Freedom Plaza. Invocations of God and former president Ronald Reagan by an array of speakers drew loud cheers that echoed across the Mall. On a windy, overcast afternoon, hundreds of yellow "Don't Tread on Me" flags flapped in the breeze.

2005

The demonstration drew grandmothers in wheelchairs and babies in strollers, military veterans in fatigues and protest veterans in tie-dye. It was the first time in a decade that protest groups had a permit to march in front of the executive mansion, and, even though President Bush was not there, the setting seemed to electrify the crowd. 

2002

Organizers with International ANSWER, a coalition of antiwar groups that coordinated the demonstration, had hoped for a turnout rivaling that of its pro-Palestine rally in April that officials estimated at about 75,000. Organizers said they easily eclipsed that figure yesterday, assessing attendance at well more than 100,000. D.C. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey also said he figured yesterday's rally turnout exceeded that in April, but he didn't provide a specific number.

You've got to be kidding me, right? -- Grandmothers, wheelchairs, and everything  -- the scary aliens (NTGK) are loud and animated are clearly threatening grandmothers with vaporization from a primitive leader and their GOD  (if Obama doesn't get them first).   If only an electrified crowd could channel that power and save the babies!

Third Paragraph

Tea Party

"Hell hath no fury like a taxpayer ignored," declared Andrew Moylan, head of government affairs for the National Taxpayers Union, urging protesters to call their representatives. The demonstrators roared their approval. 

2005

Signs, T-shirts, slogans and speeches outlined the cost of the Iraq conflict in human as well as economic terms. They memorialized dead U.S. troops and Iraqis, and contrasted the price of war with the price of recovery for areas battered by hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Riffs on Vietnam-era protests were plentiful, with messages declaring, "Make Levees, Not War," "I never thought I'd miss Nixon" and "Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam." Many in the crowd had protested in the 1960s; others weren't even born during those tumultuous years.

2002

"We think this was just extremely, extremely successful," said Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, a D.C. organizer with International ANSWER, Act Now to Stop War and End Racism. "It absolutely shows that when George Bush says America speaks with one voice, and it's his voice, he's wrong."

Mommy, the scary aliens (NTGK) roared, they roared I tell you!  Antiwar protests were nothing but impressive!  Hey, wait, they mentioned they were against Bush, huh!

You get the point.

A few more statistics:

Number of signs quoted:    
Tea party -- 9              
2005  --  0 (mentions of Bush signs and one sign with the picture of a mothers son who was in Iraq)

Chanting/shouting:
Tea Party  -- "We Own the Dome!"
2005  --  "Shame on you, Shame on you!" (a counter protester shouted)

"Peaceful"
Tea Party --0 (none)
2005 -- 1

"Angrily" or Angry
Tea Party -- 1
2005 -- 0

"Grandmother" and"Babies"
Tea Party -- 0
2005  -- One of each


Crowd estimate:
Tea Party -- No "official" estimate given
2005 -- 300,000 the organizers claim

Reason for protest:
Tea Party --

The demonstrators are part of a loose-knit movement that is galvanizing anti-Obama sentiment across the country, stoking a populist dimension to the Republican Party, which has struggled to find its voice since the 2008 elections.

2005 --

(T)he events were sponsored by groups including the ANSWER Coalition and United for Peace and Justice and focused on a succinct theme: "End the War in Iraq and Bring the Troops Home Now."

Interesting:

Tea Party -- "(H)e watches Fox News host Glenn Beck "all the time" and wanted to be part of an event that he thinks will be historic. Beck had drummed up support for the march."

2005 -- "The protest groups helped organize caravans and carpools, and many participants began arriving early in the morning after bumpy, all-night bus rides."

BEEEECCCCCKKKKK!

Yea, I'm a bit over critical perhaps, but 8 years of coded Bush hate in the press and 2 years of blatant Obama love in the same press will do that.

Hey WaPo, how are that Acorn and vetting of the Czars story going?
DKK

Please forgive the grammar and if this reads choppy -- my meds have failed in clearing the cognitive issues lately.