13 Comments Add your own

• 1. snuss  |  August 30th, 2009 at 10:58 am

  “You’ll have no choice in what health benefits you receive.”

  And you will lose choices.

  Obamacare Does Cut Your Medicare Benefits
  Posted July 29th, 2009 at 3.23pm in Health Care.

  Yesterday at his AARP townhall, President Barack Obama claimed: “Nobody is talking about cutting Medicare benefits.” The July 28th Barack Obama needs to talk to the January 11th Barack Obama, who told ABC News:

  We’ve got to eliminate programs that don’t work, and I’ll give you an example in the health care area. We are spending a lot of money subsidizing the insurance companies around something called Medicare Advantage, a program that gives them subsidies to accept Medicare recipients but doesn’t necessarily make people on Medicare healthier. And if we eliminate that and other programs, we can potentially save $200 billion out of the health care system.

  Over one in five Medicare patients are enrolled in the Medicare Advantage plans that President Obama wants to completely cut. The benefits that over 10.5 million seniors would probably lose as a result of President Obama’s $200 billion in Medicare Advantage cuts include:

  prescription drug coverage
  preventive-care services
  coor­dinated care for chronic conditions
  routine physical examinations
  additional hospitalization
  skilled nursing facility stays
  routine eye and hearing examinations
  glasses and hearing aids
  Congress has been down this road before. After con­gressional cuts in Medicare Plus Choice in 1997, millions of seniors lost access to private health coverage. Heritage fellow Bob Moffit explains:

  Traditional Medicare routinely covers only 54 percent of the total spending for beneficia­ries’ health care.[10] Without access to Medicare Advantage plans, seniors would have two choices: either settle for the inferior level of coverage of tra­ditional Medicare and go without the additional benefits or buy additional coverage through Medi­gap or some other supplemental coverage option. Meanwhile, the rollback of Medicare Advantage plans would impose a disproportionate burden on the low-income and minority seniors who enroll in them, as well as reduce seniors’ access to Medicare Advantage plans in rural areas.
  Source: http://foundry.heritage.org/2009/07/29/obamacare-does-cut-your-medicare-benefits/

  “Illegal immigrants will get free health insurance”
  Since there is no mechanism in place to verify their elegibility, what will stop them? As to “experts say that medicare………has no such problem.”, is not true. There is plenty of fraud in the Medicare system, with, or without illegal aliens.

  Muslim Doctor Indicted for Immigration/Medicare Fraud
  Dr. Ali S. Makki of Dearborn, Michigan, was indicted for Medicare and immigration fraud,
  Source: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1656344/posts

  Medicare hid fraud, report says

  A federal report suggested that Medicare deceived Congress by ordering auditors to ignore the agency’s own policies to detect fraud, waste and abuse.
  Posted on Fri, Aug. 22, 2008
  Medicare officials may have manipulated their 2006 audit to mislead Congress about the agency’s fight against fraud in the medical equipment industry, according to a damning inspector general report expected to be released early next week.

  Some veteran members of Congress said Thursday they felt deceived by the agency managing the giant entitlement program for the elderly and predicted lawmakers would hold oversight hearings in the fall to grill Medicare officials.

  A draft of the report said Medicare boasted it was gaining control over fraud, waste and abuse in the health insurance program, when in fact the agency’s payment error rate was four times higher than it was touting for medical equipment reimbursements, according to a leading lawmaker.

  The actual error rate: 31.5 percent.
  Source: http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-129153.html

  Illegal Aliens and American Medicine
  by Madeleine Pelner Cosman
  Ph.D., Esq.
  Read the article: http://www.sendemback.org/essays/authors/madelein/medicine.htm

  “Death panels will decide who lives.”
  Obamacare a Death Panel in Itself

  Tuesday, August 18, 2009 10:40 AM

  By: Dick Morris & Eileen McGann Article Font Size

  Washington is all atwitter about “death panels”: President Barack Obama derides the idea that his healthcare reform calls for them; the Senate is stripping “end of life” counseling language from its bill — and last Friday the voice of the liberal establishment, The New York Times, ran a Page One story “rebutting” the rumor that Obamacare would create such boards to decide when to pull the plug on elderly patients.

  But all those protests miss the fundamental truth of the “death panel” charge.

  Even without a federal board voting on whom to kill, Obamacare will ration care extensively, leading to the same result. This follows inevitably from central features of the president’s plan.

  Specifically, his decisions to (1) pay for reform with vast cuts in the Medicare budget and (2) grant insurance coverage to 50 million new people, vastly boosting demand without increasing the supply of doctors, nurses, or other care providers.

  Whether or not he admits it even to himself, Obama’s talk of cutting “inefficiencies” and reducing costs translates to less care, of lower quality, for the elderly. Every existing national health system finds ways to deny state-of-the-art medications and necessary surgical procedures to countless patients, and Obamacare has the nascent mechanisms to do the same. With the limited options that Obama’s vision would leave them, many will find that “end of life counseling” necessary and even welcome.

  Read the rest at: http://www.newsmax.com/morris/obamacare_obama_/2009/08/18/249184.html

  “The government will set doctors’ wages.”

  If they treat Government-optinion patients, it will. Medicare only reimburses doctors and hospitals at 64%.

  HR 3200, page 127 requires that physicians agree to accept the government’s rate of reimbursement, in order to participate.

  You may also want to check these sites:

  The Public Health Insurance Option: Unfair Competition on a Tilting Field
  http://www.heritage.org/Research/HealthCare/bg2311.cfm

  Obamacare: One Pill, Two Pill, Red Pill, Blue Pill
  http://www.heritage.org/Press/FactSheet/fs0036.cfm

  Why Obamacare is Sinking
  by Charles Krauthammer
  http://townhall.com/columnists/CharlesKrauthammer/2009/07/24/why_obamacare_is_sinking?page=full&comments=true

  52 reasons to reject Obamacare
  http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message848432/pg1

• 2. shawnnews  |  August 30th, 2009 at 6:35 pm

  SNuss’ partisan sources like Heritage, Town Hall and Free Republic vs. Pat’s Newsweek article: hmmmm. Who should I believe?

• 3. shawnnews  |  August 30th, 2009 at 6:44 pm

  Snuss’ last source bills itself as Godlike Productions: UFOs, Conspiracy Theorists, Lunatic Fringe.
  Thank you for your honesty.

• 4. snuss  |  August 30th, 2009 at 8:13 pm

  I see that you didn’t note HR 3200 as one of my sources. As to Heritage, they research their findings quite well, and document all their sources. Can you refute them, or will you just spout more Leftist blather?

  I am sure you will enjoy what Ann Coulter has to say, in a two-part article. From part 1:

  Liberals think they can improve the problem of a partial monopoly by turning it into a total monopoly. That’s what single-payer health care is: “Single payer” means “single provider.”

  It’s the famous liberal two-step: First screw something up, then claim that it’s screwed up because there’s not enough government oversight (it’s the free market run wild!), and then step in and really screw it up in the name of “reform.”

  You could fix 90 percent of the problems with health insurance by ending the federal law allowing states to ban health insurance sales across state lines. But when John McCain called for ending the ban during the 2008 presidential campaign, he was attacked by Joe Biden — another illustration of the ironclad Ann Coulter rule that the worst Republicans are still better than allegedly “conservative” Democrats.

  (2) National health care will “increase competition and keep insurance companies honest” — as President Barack Obama has said.

  Government-provided health care isn’t a competitor; it’s a monopoly product paid for by the taxpayer. Consumers may be able to “choose” whether they take the service — at least at first — but every single one of us will be forced to buy it, under penalty of prison for tax evasion. It’s like a new cable plan with a “yes” box, but no “no” box.
  Read the rest at: http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=33213

  Part two:
  National health care won’t cover abortions.

  There are three certainties in life: (a) death, (b) taxes, and (C) no health care bill supported by Nita Lowey and Rosa DeLauro and signed by Barack Obama could possibly fail to cover abortions.

  I don’t think that requires elaboration, but here it is:

  Despite being a thousand pages long, the health care bills passing through Congress are strikingly nonspecific. (Also, in a thousand pages, Democrats weren’t able to squeeze in one paragraph on tort reform. Perhaps they were trying to save paper.)

  These are Trojan Horse bills. Of course, they don’t include the words “abortion,” “death panels” or “three-year waits for hip-replacement surgery.”

  That proves nothing — the bills set up unaccountable, unelected federal commissions to fill in the horrible details. Notably, the Democrats rejected an amendment to the bill that would specifically deny coverage for abortions.

  After the bill is passed, the Federal Health Commission will find that abortion is covered, pro-lifers will sue, and a court will say it’s within the regulatory authority of the health commission to require coverage for abortions.

  Then we’ll watch a parade of senators and congressmen indignantly announcing, “Well, I’m pro-life, and if I had had any idea this bill would cover abortions, I never would have voted for it!”

  No wonder Democrats want to remind us that they can’t be trusted with foreign policy. They want us to forget that they can’t be trusted with domestic policy.
  Source: http://townhall.com/columnists/AnnCoulter/2009/08/26/liberal_lies_in_national_health_care_second_in_a_series?page=2

• 5. Neftali  |  August 30th, 2009 at 8:14 pm

  shawnnews - Your literary eloquence in debunking each of of Snuss’ many statistical facts is unparalleled. Chomsky would be proud.

• 6. expdoc  |  August 30th, 2009 at 8:29 pm

  No need to debunk Pats link item by item. There is only one argument needed. Medicare is going bankrupt. We the people can’t afford Obamacare.

• 7. snuss  |  August 30th, 2009 at 10:42 pm

  Neftali sez: “Chomsky would be proud.”

  As would Saul Alinski.

  You might want to see a Republican alternative bill:
  http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h111-3400

• 8. Pablo  |  August 31st, 2009 at 7:00 am

  google SWINE FLU IS A HOAX for some real truth about health care….or how about googling GOVERNMENT SPONSORED TERRORISM or GOVERNMENT SPONSORED EUGENICS….

  GET A CLUE!!!

• 9. DingDong  |  August 31st, 2009 at 10:01 am

  It is all crap. No Tort Reform means the same old stuff. It just goes to show how disingenuous the are. Show me some tort reform, then we can talk about real reform. Obama is giving in to one of the largest special interest out there, the trial lawyers association. It is not only what is in the Bill, but what is not in the Bill. Whatever is not there is up to whatever agency to set the rules.

• 10. Craig Knauss  |  August 31st, 2009 at 9:57 pm

  snuss, I see you have linked to your usual miriad of rightwing propaganda sites, including Heritage Foundation, Newsmax, etc. and as usual, you try to pass them off as neutral, balanced sites. What a joke!

• 11. Craig Knauss  |  August 31st, 2009 at 10:03 pm

  Dingaling wants us to believe the high cost of health care is all due to lawyers. Another joke. First, at least 75% of all malpractice goes unreported because the patient or his/her family doesn’t even know it occurred. Second, about 90% of the cases filed are dismissed early on or quickly settled by the insurance companies. And of the handful of cases that ever get to trial, most are won by the doctors or hospitals, if not settled by the insurance companies. It is damn hard to get a judgement against a doctor unless the plaintiff can prove GROSS negligence or incompetence. And that would usually require supporting testimony from another doctor, which seldom happens. I’ve been there and done that. And my wife has worked for a hospital for 25 years.

• 12. snuss  |  September 1st, 2009 at 6:54 am

  Craig, if you can provide documented rebuttal for the information that I presented, please do so. Your whiny Leftist attacks are not a substitute for facts, logic, or reasoned dialog.

• 13. expdoc  |  September 1st, 2009 at 12:47 pm

  Craig,

  The increased cost of healthcare related to malpractice is not direct, it is indirect. Billions of dollars of unnecessary tests are performed each year to insure that a rare diagnisis is not missed. These tests are not only expensive but can be harmful to the patient.

  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124631652544770707.html

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