Donald Berwick is Doctor Death
Aug 16, 2010 Political
Looks like Sarah Palin was on target when she discussed the death panels that would come with Obamacare and it looks like she, along with many other Americans, were right on top of things regarding bureaucrats coming between you and your doctor.
Obama’s recess appointment, Donald “Dr. Death” Berwick will, for the first time, not allow an FDA approved drug to be used to treat Medicare patients with ovarian cancer.
Provenge, a vaccine to treat the recurrence of prostate cancer, has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)… Medicare usually covers the cost of FDA-approved anti-cancer therapies. However, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is still reviewing whether it will cover Provenge, and at what rate.
The CMS statute states that Medicare must cover therapies that are reasonable and necessary, while the FDA is instructed to approve drugs that are safe and effective. Because of the conflicting Federal coverage and approval requirements, there are some non-FDA approved drugs (called off-label drugs) that are paid for by CMS. However, with respect to Provenge, it appears that CMS is arguing that while the treatment is safe and effective, it may not be reasonable and necessary. For the first time, an FDA approved anti-cancer therapy may not be covered by Medicare. Doug Ross
As Doug points out, withholding a treatment that could save lives sounds like a death panel. To top it off, a bureaucrat is between you and your doctor with regard to what treatment you should receive. That was another thing we were told would not happen.
The article also points out that the FDA is working on removing another previously approved breast cancer drug, a move opposed by the Susan G Koman for the Cure® and the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance (OCNA).
Yet, Obama told seniors that despite what others were saying their guaranteed benefits would not be cut.
The end of Doug’s article is the most sobering and every senior should pay attention:
Folks, this is precisely why the cancer survival rate for the U.K. is so much lower than that of the U.S. — and, in some cases, lower than Eastern Europe’s. And why Donald Berwick’s nickname is Dr. Death.
America’s seniors are about to find out that having coverage is not the same thing as receiving care. And our seniors are about to pay the piper.
This is what happens when uneducated people vote. This is what happens when a smooth talking Socialist combines with a secret list of journalists dedicated to being his propaganda machine (no Journo-Lister should ever be given credibility). This is what happens when Americans allow their attention to be diverted. This is what happens when the youth of this country are brainwashed in school and then allowed to vote. This is what happens when seniors are held hostage to a Ponzi scheme falsely marketed as their retirement plan.
This is what happens when people listen to a person say he will fundamentally transform the country and then vote for him anyway.
America, you have been sold a bill of goods. You can reverse that in November.
It is a matter of life or death both for the country and for those who will be affected by Dr. Death and his policies…
Cave Canem!
Never surrender, never submit.
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Tags: death panel, donald berwick, dr. death, lies, medicare, obamacare, socialism
This Will Spread To More Sectors
Mar 19, 2010 Political
Walgreens in Washington state will stop accepting new requests for prescriptions to be filled for Medicad patients because the state does not reimburse enough to cover the cost of the drugs. Several other stores have also decided to stop accepting new Medicaid patients for the same reason.
Quite a few doctors in this country have stopped taking Medicare patients because the federal government does not reimburse enough to cover costs. The hospital Obama held up as a model has stopped taking Medicare patients.
Do you see the pattern here?
The government run systems control costs by shortchanging doctors on the reimbursement. Obama clearly told us that this was the safety valve that is used when there is a cost problem.
Of course there are some progressives who think this is perfectly acceptable and that doctors get paid too much or that health care and medicine should be given away. How dare these people go to school and learn a tough profession and then expect to be paid for doing it?
Well, the doctors are tired of it. Some pharmacies are tired of it.
And it will only get worse if the government passes the health care takeover plan.
Yes there will be shortages and yes there will be doctors who opt out of all of it and work on a personal level with people who pay out of pocket. It is already happening and it will happen more.
The country is at a precarious place in its history and it is up to a few truly courageous people in Congress to stop this.
And we don’t mean Obama courage where he hides behind Pelosi’s skirt.
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Tags: health care, lies, medicaid, medicare, Obama, walgreens
The Ghost Of Health Care Yet To Come
Jan 2, 2010 Political
During this entire health care takeover debate we have been deluged with the supposed support for the plan among the nation’s health care professionals. The prop doctors at the White House provided a stunt to show all the “support” out there among the medical community. The AMA board gave its support to the plan after some deal making even though most of the members oppose it (and keep in mind the AMA only accounts for about 18% of doctors in this country). The AARP came out in favor of the bill because it will get rid of Medicare Advantage and seniors will need a Medi-Gap plan. The AARP happens to have one of those and it will make a ton of money by selling it to seniors.
Let us not forget that the pharmaceutical industry was against this until Obama made deals with it, deals that favor the industry and go against what Obama promised.
Then we have the Mayo Clinic in Arizona. The clinic, which Obama touted this “as a national model for efficient health care”, has stopped accepting Medicare patients (unless they pay for their own care) because the government does not reimburse enough to cover expenses.
The Mayo Clinic, praised by President Barack Obama as a national model for efficient health care, will stop accepting Medicare patients as of tomorrow at one of its primary-care clinics in Arizona, saying the U.S. government pays too little.
More than 3,000 patients eligible for Medicare, the government’s largest health-insurance program, will be forced to pay cash if they want to continue seeing their doctors at a Mayo family clinic in Glendale, northwest of Phoenix, said Michael Yardley, a Mayo spokesman. The decision, which Yardley called a two-year pilot project, won’t affect other Mayo facilities in Arizona, Florida and Minnesota. Bloomberg
Obama has said that the amount of money that doctors and hospitals are reimbursed is used as a safety valve by Congress to control costs. In other words, the doctors are screwed out of money by Congress in an attempt to balance the books (they never balance). Many doctors do not accept Medicare because of the reimbursement problems and now the model clinic will follow suit.
Imagine now if health care is run on a national scale by the US government. The government will set reimbursement rates and doctors and hospitals will begin dropping patients because the reimbursement is too low. This will lead to rationing of services and it will lead to more out of pocket expenses for those who rely on government. If a hospital or doctor refuses to accept the patients in the government plan then it matters not whether they have coverage.
Mayo’s hospital and four clinics in Arizona, including the Glendale facility, lost $120 million on Medicare patients last year, Yardley said. The program’s payments cover about 50 percent of the cost of treating elderly primary-care patients at the Glendale clinic, he said.
“We firmly believe that Medicare needs to be reformed,” Yardley said in a Dec. 23 e-mail. “It has been true for many years that Medicare payments no longer reflect the increasing cost of providing services for patients.”
No matter what they do to reform Medicare the purse will be controlled by Congress and as long as Congress can decide the reimbursement all the reform in the world will not make the situation any better. Yes, Congress could enact some reform but nothing can stop it from fixing prices in the future. This is true for any other government run health care.
Maybe the doctors and hospitals in Nebraska should contact Ben Nelson and tell him they will all stop accepting Medicare patients because he sold his soul to the devil. That would negate much of his sweetheart deal and it would keep the rest of us from having to pay into our Medicare and for theirs as well.
Health care needs to be reformed but not in the manner that government proposes. We need to scrap this whole mess and do some common sense things that will fix the problem and not enslave the people to government.
You people in Massachusetts can help. There is a special election this month for Ted Kennedy’s seat. The corrupt politicians in your state manipulated and changed laws to put a Democrat in there in the interim so that the majority would have 60 votes. If you vote the Republican candidate into office he will deny the Democrats their filibuster proof majority. The Senate will not have the 60 votes it needs to get closure. It is up to you to fight back against the corruption that your state has engaged in. Remember, if they had not changed the law (a law that existed until they changed it to prevent a Republican from being appointed by Romney should Kerry win the presidency) then the bill would have been dead.
Instead we have billions of dollars used as bribes for Senators, we have middle of the night legislation, and we have corruption at the highest level.
Massachusetts, you have the opportunity to keep the bill from passing by electing a Republican to the Senate. Look at Romney care and see how bad it is. Then you will see what it will be like for the country. Do us all a favor and elect the Republican. Besides, the Democrat has demonstrated that she is an unethical person who should never hold elected office.
Well, the Mayo Clinic in Arizona has fired the first shot across the bow of the government takeover of health care. They will no longer accept Medicare patients and this is being looked at in their other facilities and by physicians around Arizona. You can be sure that this is taking place across the country as well.
Seniors, this affects you. Get out in full force and vote these bums out of office. Especially you seniors in Massachusetts. Vote for the Republican in the Senate race that takes place this month. If you don’t step up then you have no right to complain when they are denying you care or doctors stop accepting Medicare.
“Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point,” said Scrooge, “answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be, only?” –Source
Like Ebeneezer Scrooge, the future of health care can change. It all depends upon heeding what the ghost of health care yet to come has shown…
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Tags: denial, health care, Massachusetts, mayo clinic, medicare, Obama, stop care
Government Run Care Is Wasteful
Sep 19, 2009 Political
The idea that the government can run anything efficiently is one that I cannot get my hands around and I cannot understand those who believe this to be true. How many government programs have to run out of money and how many have to be funded with tax increases or reduction in benefits before people begin to see that government is not in the business of business and is inefficient?
Social Security will be paying more than it takes in in a few short years (something Bush warned about) and the paper IOUs that the government exchanged for the money it confiscated from the program are worthless. We have NO money to pay out when the bill finally comes due and current recipients will receive no cost of living increase next year. The Democrats have a solution and that is to raise the cap on which people pay Social Security taxes. This would happen without a corresponding increase in benefits that a person would receive in retirement. One would get the same for paying taxes on 130,000 dollars as the guy who paid taxes on 90,000. There is never a corresponding increase in benefits when taxes are increased.
Medicare is broke. It pays out more than it takes in. This, like Social Security, is a huge Ponzi scheme in which the current workers are paying for those who have retired. The only difference between these government programs and what Bernie Madoff ran is that the government’s Ponzi scheme is legal.
Medicare is touted as a success story by those on the left. They claim it runs efficiently and has a 2 or 3% operating cost. This is absolutely incorrect and is extremely misleading. Medicare has a lot of costs that are absorbed in other parts of the federal budget and the methods it uses to calculate administrative costs are based on fuzzy math.
Speaking of scams, the argument that Medicare’s administrative costs are 2% is one of the biggest scams out there.
Public figures for Medicare’s administrative costs count only what it takes to print reimbursement checks. Normal operating costs — rent, management, health insurance, taxes, capital to start a business and new equipment — which private insurers must include in their administrative costs, are counted elsewhere in the federal budget.
Official Medicare administrative costs simply exclude what most companies must include. No administrative cost savings exist in the public plan, and the true costs will never be counted because they’ll be hidden in the federal budget. American Spectator
A frequent argument is that, by removing the profit motive, the federal government, as through Medicare and Medicaid, does a more efficient job insuring health care than do private insurers. Congressional Research Service estimates Medicare’s administrative costs at 2 percent of the total program costs, compared to 12 percent for HMOs, and 10 percent for private insurers. A study by the consulting firm Milliman and Robertson, however, estimates that when factoring in the hidden costs shifted to care providers, and the social costs of collecting taxes for funding, Medicare and Medicaid actually spend 27 cents per dollar more on administration, compared to 16 cents per dollar spent by private insurers. The Evening Times
This program is what Obama wants for America and he claims that it will not add one dime to the deficit. He claims it will be deficit neutral. That is what he says now but what did he say when he was candidate Obama? He said that going to a Medicare like program would cost and additional 90 or 100 BILLION dollars a year. He said that it would cost 15 BILLION dollars to set up certain programs and he said that the idea that this kind of coverage would save money is only a theory. He said the reality was it would COST money.
Then he said that the reason that Medicare reimburses at about 62 cents on the dollar is because politicians use that program as a safety valve when there are budget problems. He said that when money is tight the politicians delay reimbursement or lower the rate and that doctors have to “suck it up.” Gateway Pundit has the video and what he said as a candidate is drastically different from what he is saying now. Please go look at the video and see for yourself that he is lying now about the costs.
It is also important to listen to what he said about how politicians use this program to ease budget problems. If they are tight on money then they delay payments or reduce them and expect doctors to suck it up. If his takeover of the health care system passes there will be plenty of budget shortfalls and that means delayed reimbursements and lower rates with doctors sucking up more of it. And keep this in mind, if they can do this to the doctors to ease budget problems then they can also ration care to accomplish the same thing. Obama would rather you take a pain pill in the first place. If he gets control of your health care then some government bean counter can decide if you should get the treatment you need based on the budget. The savings have to come from somewhere and Obama already said that the government uses Medicare as a safety valve.
The government is not efficient. Do you like the Postal Service? I think it is amazing they can get a letter to anywhere in the US for less than 50 cents but they also run a deficit in the billions of dollars. If they were a private business they would have gone belly up but they are a government entity so they are going nowhere. Article I, Section 8, Clause 7 of the United States Constitution allows Congress to establish the Postal Service and postal roads. This means they are here to stay no matter how poorly they are run.
Do you like the Department of Motor Vehicles? Run by state governments, they are an exercise in inefficiency. How about the Passport Office? Ever go there to get a Passport? IRS, Customs, and just about any other government agency you can name specializes in the run around and expending huge amounts of money.
Hell, The TSA is a government agency and look at how it operates. TSA stand for Thousands Standing Around.
The idea that government run health care will be a good thing is beyond reason. It is not about health and it is not about care. It is all about control over our lives.
Lastly, take notice in the video. Obama mentions single payer health care. That is the ultimate goal.
The government does not belong involved in this and if it succeeds the only thing we will have is a further erosion of our freedom.
I suppose the DNC will now try to rain hell down upon me. Two words for you morons; Bring It.
Related:
Mandatory Health Care is unconstitutional
Medicare efficiency over-hyped
Fannie Med?
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Tags: health care, inefficient, medicare, Obama
Government Run Health Care; The Preview
Aug 25, 2009 Political
The government cannot run anything efficiently. The Post Office, The DMV, Welfare, Medicare, you name it and it is in financial trouble and possibly on the verge of collapse. Even Obama indicated that the Post Office was in trouble as he was saying the government should run health care because the Post Office has not kept FedEx or UPS from succeeding.
To interpret that, he said that insurance companies would still be profitable when government is involved in health care because government screws things up and is inefficient. His admission is not stopping him from wanting YOU to have the health care run as well as the Post Office.
The Obamabots also point out how well Medicare is run. The truth is that Medicare spends more than it takes in and that its administrative costs are much higher than reported because the true costs are spread throughout the government and are not reported.
Then we get to the VA. Obama and his ilk tout how well the VA is run. Ask most veterans who receive care at the VA and you will get a different story. Now I know many doctors and nurses who work for the VA and those that I know provide great care. However, the system is broken and the administrative tasks are burdensome. Not to mention the waste.
A large number of veterans were the recipients of government efficiency known as the VA when 1200 of them received letters telling them they were dying of an incurable disease. The letters were intended to notify veterans who have Lou Gehrig’s Disease (ALS) that they were eligible for benefits. The letters went to the wrong people in what the VA is describing as a coding error.
This is not the only snafu. A number of veterans recently received endoscopic procedures with dirty equipment possibly exposing them to a number of diseases including hepatitis and HIV. One man is suing the government because he blames his HIV on a colonoscopy.
The number of contaminated veterans is now at 57 and the VA still accepts no blame.
I know that there have been horror stories in the private sector but in that sector people are free to change providers and insurance carriers and there are legal avenues available to them. It is hard to sue the government and their army of lawyers will ensure that the cases drag on forever.
And to top it off, they do not accept blame for the things they do wrong.
This is what Obamacare will turn in to. People will be shortchanged in the name of saving money and they will die as a result of the “blameless” government.
We do not need more of this no matter how great Obama says it is.
Capitalism works much better at driving down costs and there are plenty of ways to fix what is broken without overhauling the entire system.
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Tags: health care, inefficiency, lou gehrig's disease, medicare, Obama, VA