Posted on 01/11/2009 1:37:09 PM PST by george76
Since being ousted from the U.S. Senate in 2004, Daschle has written extensively on health care. His recent book, Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis, might as well be a blueprint for the Obama Administration's position on health reform.
Unfortunately, the Obama-Daschle plan's assumptions are false, its details are alarming, and its results will ultimately be disastrous.
Government reimbursement rates already discourage doctors from accepting patients with government coverage. As the government program slowly becomes the only game in town, what then of physicians? Will they simply accept their fate? We can look to our north for a possible answer.
Canadians have "enjoyed" universal health coverage since the 1970s. They also enjoy the rationing of care. Both drugs and physicians are in short supply.
The governments of each province in Canada establish payment rates for physicians, and they're less than half what their American counterparts earn. Is it any surprise that 11 percent of Canadian-trained doctors pack up their stethoscopes and come to the U.S. to practice medicine?
Because there aren't enough doctors, Canadians must wait in line. Wait times for referrals from primary care physicians to specialists in Canada exceed 18 weeks -- twice what doctors consider clinically acceptable.
Daschle wants the government, not your doctor, to decide what the best treatment is for you. And he somehow equates cost-effectiveness with medical effectiveness.
Daschle wants to create a Federal Health Board (FHB) to make these medical decisions for us. He likens the FHB to the Federal Reserve, describing it as "a quasi-governmental organization" consisting of presidentially-appointed, Senate-approved governors.
(Excerpt) Read more at dcexaminer.com ...
Last visit to Vancouver Canada I met a lady who was severly gimped up with a bad knee. She had been waiting 6 month for simple orthoscopic surgery (an outpatient procedure) and had just recieved a notice that it would be at least 4 more months before she could be operated on.
As a 72 year old with some health problems, I will fight Socialized Medicine like the plague!! You should too!
I have had a wonderful family doctor for 35 years. Once I said to him that he had a pretty hard job, and he said that the only thing he doesn’t like is the two hours or so of paperwork he has to do every evening after seeing patients all day long. He is over 60, and I am certain, given what he said about the paperwork, that if Obama makes healthcare any more onerous for physicans than it already is, he will retire. That’s what’s going to happen to a WHOLE LOT of physicians in this country. Wait and see.
Without question, health care in America will look violently different in 24 to 36 months. Elections have consequences, and this will be a very painful consequence.
What will be more interesting is the fate of private insurance. Many on the left will be pushing to make private insurance illegal. My guess is the American people won’t bite. But eventually, you’ll end up with a much more “classist” health care system. One in which a sizable percentage of Americans will be stuck with single-payor, government managed and rationed health care. For the wealthier Americans, or people that work in jobs that are highly skilled (and thus highly compensated) probably won’t find much difference in their coverage of tomorrow vs their coverage of today.
If we can’t afford Medicare, how will we pay for an expanded government system?
It’s time to find out for sure if the AARP is a DNC front organization (as I strongly suspect) or will they show a willingness to really pressure these people to provide real solutions, including privatization.
Simple rule: I want whatever Federal Health Insurance Plan Daschle has for himself and his family. Or any other democrat in power.
You can safely bet that the democrats’ personal health insurance bears absolutely no relationship to the third world coverage Daschle has planned for us peons.
Another safe bet: The media will put massive lipstick on Daschle’s pet pig, when the time comes to fake the news.
Just print more money. That's the Bush plan but 0bama is gonna make Bush look like a piker.
When the time comes, we need to burn up the Congressional servers, phone and fax lines just as we did during the shamnesty scam two years ago.
I can’t believe you still have a question about that. The AARP is just another auxilliary to the DNC.
“If we can’t afford Medicare, how will we pay for an expanded government system?”
Yep. That’s the question that no one seems to be asking OR answering.
Pie in the sky.
Sound great.
Just like “requiring” them to use govt. schools for their kids.
The only thing that is consistent about demoncrats is their hypocrisy.
| Sen. Tom Daschle (D-SD) | Catholic politician who votes for abortion in contradiction to Church teachings. One of American Life League's "Deadly Dozen." |
“When the time comes, we need to burn up the Congressional servers, phone and fax lines just as we did during the shamnesty scam two years ago. “
Can’t we just line them all up against the wall and shoot them? Please?
Another socialist domino in the march to 0bama’a Utopia.
Put it up there with the domestic security service, trillion dollar deficits, sham foreign policy of appeasement and accommodation, marginalization of the Bill of Rights, and sworn allegiance to the supremacy of the UN.
It ain’t your Mother’s country anymore, Duckie...
Time to refresh the tree of Liberty, IMO.
The Senate has already held his confirmation hearings. Did any GOP (gutless other party) Senators ask that question?
If only . . .
What do you expect? By destroying manufacturing and shipping good jobs overseas that had benefits, millions lost their health insurance. As has been noted on this forum, Private insurance cost a fortune and as soon as you are ill the insurer jacks up your rates or drops you altogether. Millions of Americans will support national health care...including the unemployed, the underemployed, retirees from Delta and retirees from the big three -who either have lost retiree health care benefits or about to lose such benefits.
You talk about how long it takes to get a procedure in Europe...well my uncle could not get a heart operation at all in Ireland as he was above 60 so I know this is true and worse than you know. What is equally true is if he lived in the US and had no insurance, he would not get such an operation either...unless he was dirt poor and eligible for Medicaid...the uninsured millions are not eligible for Medicaid. If people can’t get what they need no matter what they do to better themselves-feel hopeless...they will turn to the government.
Those of you who bought foreign cars and a variety of foreign goods contributed to this problem...there is no free lunch. One of life’s great ironies is that free trade-a mostly conservative principle (yes, I know Clinton signed NAFTA, but it is more associated with Repubs. than Dems.) destroyed the jobs which stood between us and socialism...conservatives planted the seed of their own destruction.
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