The Mike Anderson Site Blog » Health Care Legislation

N.I.C.E. is not nice

admin — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 18:50:34 +0000

The United Kingdom has a single payer health care system. One of the integral parts of the system is NICE. The National Institute For Health And Clinical Excellence assigns a value to a year of life that is based on the age and existing conditions of the patient.

This is rationing.

The Comparative Effectiveness Research Commission for medical issues was funded within the Stimulus package in house bill HR1. It is not authorized yet but will be as part of house bill HR3200.

Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel has made his views known through numerous articles and activity on many commissions. However, lately he seems to be backing away from a previously hard line stance on forced euthanasia.

Peter Singer has made his views known on the subjects of non-voluntary euthanasia and infanticide.

These are the people who are forming the broad tenets of the Comparative Effectiveness Research Commission with regard to health care.

Death panels may be a little over the edge, but are these people representative of the views of the American public. Does Uncle Sam believe in non-voluntary euthanasia and infanticide if the economic values of those lives do not meet some arbitrary government standard?

States rights, Federal rights

admin — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 18:31:10 +0000

Maybe I am confused but I thought that Insurance was a the purview of the individual states. As of last night it sounds like the federal government is taking over health insurance.

How would you like to be the insurance commissioner for Alabama after the President pointed out very critically the health insurance environment in Alabama? I have no ideal how efficient and effective the current health insurance is in the sovereign state of Alabama, but I would love it if it were exactly what Alabamians what. Where’s a poll when you need one?

Show Me The Money

admin — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 18:25:01 +0000

President Obama delivered a very impassioned speech yesterday evening. Many issues were covered. Many pleas for patriotic behaviour and support were made.

For 3 months I have been hearing about how the health care reforms will be financed through savings. It has been claimed that these savings will be found in Medicare/Medicaid inefficiencies. Other savings will be discovered as redundant testing procedures used by doctors to protect themselves against malpractice lawsuits. Others claim that savings will originate within the drug and health insurance industries – both in their inherent bureaucracies and the excessive profit motives.

There are probably a few more sources of savings but I was so flabbergasted by this list I might have missed some. Is the President telling us that he is going to finance $900,000,000.00 by finding savings? If these fraudulent and wasteful items are so obvious, then why do they still exist? Where are the government auditors? Why have we not reversed this waste already?

Probably working as well as the SEC boys who investigated Bernie Madoff for about 15 years while he bilked the public for billions. Bernie was very efficient. He just told everyone a fairy tale and did no trades whatsoever. Perhaps we should have Medicare tell everyone they are healthy and do nothing at all. If the SEC audits and investigates them, Medicare will get the green light and we could basically shut down all of the REAL side of medicine in Medicare and just deal with the GOVERNMENT side … I am obviously making an attempt at humour. However, there is one small truth here. If a government oversight Commission like the SEC could not uncover Bernie Madoff giant con, why would you think that another government oversight commission will be able to find savings in Medicare, drug companies, insurance companies, doctor offices, whatever?

Back to the title, show me the money.

Obamacare for Obama and Congress

admin — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 18:58:25 +0000

If Obamacare is such a wonderful deal, then it only seems fair that the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches of the federal government should be the first to adopt it.
Holding with the traditional battle between the Federal and State governments, all employees of any State and all companies doing business with any State must enroll in Obamacare to trigger the release of federal funds to the states. Furthermore, all state employees must enroll in Obamacare.
Of course, all federal employees must enroll in Obamacare.
Now that is a excellent test sample and should operate for at least a year. By then maybe it will be proven effective and efficient or at least many of the bugs will be worked out – all before it is available to the public, the ones who are paying for it.

Let’s Make Another Post Office

admin — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 15:26:11 +0000

Thank you President Obama for crystallizing the argument of public versus private enterprises. Comparing the efficiency of FedEx and UPS to our Federal Post Office was very helpful. Here is a link detailing personal experience with a Manhattan post office.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/08162009/postopinion/opedcolumnists/health_care_goes_postal_184853.htm

Horror stories in emergency rooms will increase by orders of magnitude. Can no one in Congress see the upcoming tragedy of a public option for health care?

Default positions of health care legislation

admin — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 00:41:27 +0000

The cry for transparency resounded throughout the Obama campaign last year. We all thought that maybe a new breed of politician had arrived.
Not.
Just another Chicago huckster.
My concerns here are the default positions in the proposed health care legislation. The legislation that was nearly passed in July.
The one which Obama and Pelosi demanded that the Congress pass in July.
What I mean by default positions is those items which are automatically covered as the baseline – the default positions.
This allows the Democrats to honestly say that there is no ‘abortion’ language in the legislation. The cost of abortions will be covered by the new health bill because it is a default position – meaning that unless an amendment to the bill is passed which bans, limits and/or describes the conditions under which the health costs of an abortion are covered under the new health bill – then there is no ban, limit and/or condition on the coverage of the health costs of abortions.
The same applies to many health items. By using this strategy, the politicians do not need to address many of the contentious issues which always surround legislation such as the currently proposed health care legislation.