| Subject: Ruin your health with the "Stimulus" |
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Date Posted: 21:59:26 02/12/09 Thu
From junjun:\Rants & Raves--
Commentary by Betsy McCaughey
Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Republican Senators are
questioning whether President Barack Obama’s stimulus
bill contains the right mix of tax breaks and cash
infusions to jump-start the economy.
Tragically, no one from either party is objecting to
the health provisions slipped in
without discussion. These provisions reflect the
handiwork of Tom Daschle, until recently the nominee
to head the Health and Human Services
Department.
Senators should read these provisions and vote against
them because they are dangerous to your health. (Page
numbers refer to H.R. 1 EH, pdf version).
The bill’s health rules will affect “every individual
in the United States” (445, 454, 479). Your medical
treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal
system. Having electronic medical records at your
fingertips, easily transferred to a hospital, is
beneficial. It will help avoid duplicate tests and
errors.
But the bill goes further. One new bureaucracy, the
National Coordinator of Health Information Technology,
will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is
doing what the federal government deems appropriate
and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and
“guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). These
provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually
identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book,
“Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care
Crisis.” According to Daschle,
doctors have to give up autonomy and “learn to operate
less like solo practitioners.”
Keeping doctors informed of the newest medical
findings is important, but enforcing uniformity goes
too far.
New Penalties
Hospitals and doctors that are not “meaningful users”
of the new system will face penalties. “Meaningful
user” isn’t defined in the bill. That will be left to
the HHS secretary, who will be empowered to impose
“more stringent measures of meaningful use over time”
(511, 518, 540-541)
What penalties will deter your doctor from going
beyond the electronically delivered protocols when
your condition is atypical or you need an experimental
treatment? The vagueness is intentional. In his book,
Daschle proposed an appointed body with vast powers to
make the “tough” decisions elected politicians won’t
make.
The stimulus bill does that, and calls it the Federal
Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness
Research (190-192). The goal, Daschle’s book
explained, is to slow the development and use of new
medications and technologies because they are driving
up costs. He praises Europeans for being more willing
to accept “hopeless diagnoses” and “forgo experimental
treatments,” and he chastises Americans for expecting
too much from the health-care system.
Elderly Hardest Hit
Daschle says health-care reform “will not be pain
free.” Seniors should be more accepting of the
conditions that come with age instead of treating
them. That means the elderly will bear the brunt.
Medicare now pays for treatments deemed safe and
effective. The stimulus bill would change that and
apply a cost- effectiveness standard set by the
Federal Council (464).
The Federal Council is modeled after a U.K. board
discussed in Daschle’s book. This board approves or
rejects treatments using a formula that divides the
cost of the treatment by the number of years the
patient is likely to benefit. Treatments for younger
patients are more often approved than treatments for
diseases that affect the elderly, such as osteoporosis.
In 2006, a U.K. health board decreed that elderly
patients with macular degeneration had to wait until
they went blind in one eye before they could get a
costly new drug to save the other eye. It took almost
three years of public protests before the board
reversed its decision.
Hidden Provisions
If the Obama administration’s economic stimulus bill
passes the Senate in its current form, seniors in the
U.S. will face similar rationing. Defenders of the
system say that individuals benefit in younger years
and sacrifice later.
The stimulus bill will affect every part of health
care, from medical and nursing education, to how
patients are treated and how much hospitals get paid.
The bill allocates more funding for this bureaucracy
than for the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force
combined (90-92, 174-177, 181).
Hiding health legislation in a stimulus bill is
intentional. Daschle supported the Clinton
administration’s health-care overhaul in 1994, and
attributed its failure to debate and delay. A year
ago, Daschle wrote that the next president should act
quickly before critics mount an opposition. “If that
means attaching a health-care plan to the federal
budget, so be it,” he said. “The issue is too
important to be stalled by Senate protocol.”
More Scrutiny Needed
On Friday, President Obama called it “inexcusable and
irresponsible” for senators to delay passing the
stimulus bill. In truth, this bill needs more scrutiny.
The health-care industry is the largest employer in
the U.S. It produces almost 17 percent of the nation’s
gross domestic product. Yet the bill treats health
care the way European governments do: as a cost
problem instead of a growth industry. Imagine limiting
growth and innovation in the electronics or auto
industry during this downturn. This stimulus is
dangerous to your health and the economy.
(Betsy McCaughey is former lieutenant governor of New
York and is an adjunct senior fellow at the Hudson
Institute. The opinions expressed are her own.)
To contact the writer of this column: Betsy McCaughey
at Betsymross@aol.com
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