Posted on 10/24/2009 12:20:10 AM PDT by kingattax
When it comes to health care legislation, the devil is in the details. Despite what politicians and interest groups are saying, details in current bills compromise both patient choice and medical privacy.
The leading House bill (H.R. 3200), for instance, forces all Americans to buy "acceptable" health insurance. According to the bill, the federal government -- always guided by special interests -- will decide what that means.
People who prefer to carry catastrophic insurance only, for instance, will lose that freedom and will be forced to buy much more comprehensive -- and expensive -- coverage for services they don't want. The secretary of health and human services would effectively serve as America's health insurance agent, having the final say on what benefits must be included in "acceptable" insurance plans.
A federal "commissioner," meanwhile, would oversee the new health insurance "marketplace" established by the bill. The commissioner would decide which plans qualify to be sold.
In other words, our choices would be limited to plans offering government-mandated benefits -- sold by companies approved by Washington. Individuals who don't comply with the mandate to buy "acceptable" coverage from federally "qualified" companies would face a financial penalty.
The health reform bills also require qualified insurance companies to exchange financial and health-related data electronically, most often without patients' consent.
Both H.R. 3200 and the Senate Finance Committee plan require insurance companies to abide by "administrative simplification," a system of linking and exchanging electronic health data nationwide. Section 163 of H.R. 3200 would "enable the real-time (or near real-time) determination of an individual's financial responsibility at the point of service and, to the extent possible, prior to service, including whether the individual is eligible for a specific service with a specific physician at a specific facility, which may include utilization of a machine-readable health plan beneficiary identification card."
The Senate Finance Committee plan would create "unique health plan identifiers." Health plans that don't comply with the rules to exchange data electronically would be penalized.
Both the House and Senate plans say that patients' privacy would be protected under federal medical privacy rules promulgated under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. The HIPAA rules, however, actually give the HHS secretary legal access to every citizen's medical records and permit personal health information to be shared with more than 600,000 organizations.
So by requiring every qualified insurance company to abide by "administrative simplification" and HIPAA privacy rules, and requiring every American to buy a qualified insurance plan, the health "reform" plans are essentially paving the way for everyone's most personal health information to begin flowing legally over the Internet without patient consent.
It's time for Washington to be honest with the American people about the details of health care "reform." Americans deserve to know how the bills will affect their right and ability to choose the insurance coverage that best suits their needs, and their medical privacy.
Patient choice and privacy are precious rights. Let's not lose them.
Sue A. Blevins is president of the Institute for Health Freedom
We need to stop calling it “Obamacare” and call it what it really is: Health Control.
As with gun control, what it is truly about is the CONTROL.
I find it hard to imagine anything but chaos and confusion if this kind of bill becomes law, which seems more than likely to happen. I believe the bill provides for gradual implementation, but the reaction will be immediate.
“Batten down the hatches, Prince Arcturus.”
It's a LEGACY bill, for 0bama, Baucus and all that sign on to it! They are legislating naming/claiming rights!
Currently, 90% of the country has insurance, all of the (5) bills mandate that everyone (the remaining 10%) purchase insurance.
This is an INSURANCE bill, not about health care.
Obama, foremost advocate of open-ness, is all for sharing of such personal info.
Except his own health info, birth info, academic info, etc etc.
And of course Obama and his Dem Party hacks will exempt themselves from the Health Swill they force every one else to drink down.
Yet another case of our feudal Lords forcing c**p down the throats of us peasantry.
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I think that the main purpose of Health Care Reform (HCR) is as a direct assault on individual liberties.
That is a direct loss of individual rights for health care providers. The collective right of the people to receive health care would supersede the provider's individual right to set fees and hours or to change their occupational status or even decide how to apply their skills and knowledge if taken to its logical extreme. A collective right, by practical definition, is a state right because it is a right that is created and given by the government to those it chooses to give it to. It is not a natural right possessed by each person protected by the Constitution from the government. It is also a state right by virtue of the fact that it would supersede individual rights when the two come into conflict. How else would the government view a right that it created and administers vs. one it has no control over?
Of course it isn't stated in any bill that a patient's right to care supersedes a provider's right to set fees and hours etc, but it doesn't need to. Rights, as always, are adjudicated in the courts. The Health Care Reform bills simply establish the foundation for the courts to rule in favor of the collective right.
Weiner’s view is collectivist, fascist and totalitarian. Collectivist because it has to be described as being a right of the many instead of the one and superior due to that fact. Fascist because ultimately the sole authority for its creation and oversight is from one entity the Federal government. Totalitarian because the Federal government is the enforcer of this collective right as well. State and local jurisdictions will have little say about it.
Congressman Weiner's view is the underlying philosophy of all of the Health Care Reform legislation in the House and Senate. Consider this section in the Senate version of the bill; the setting up of community watch dogs that will monitor citizens for various health parameters. Read pages 382 - 393.
TITLE I—QUALITY, AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE FOR ALL AMERICANS pps 382 - 393
So, even citizens themselves will be subject to Federal regulations on their behavior in order to fulfill the "human right" of universal health care. It isn't the individual's liberty that is being protected by that it is the government's control over its own health care system that is being guarded. How much clearer can it be that these bills abrogate the concept of individual rights? Someone will be checking your lifestyle, according to gov regulations, to be certain you serve the best interests of the "basic human right to health care" ie. "the Public Option."
Health Care is a Liberty Issue
Conservative Underground - 18 August 2009 - Tim Dunkin
Another Stupid Argument: Heath Care is a Right
Obama's Authoritarian, Unconstitutional Health Care Proposal
To Americans Who Believe Healthcare is a Right
OBAMA: HEALTH CARE DESTROYING FREE SPEECH
Second Bill of Rights aka FDR's economic bill of rights
(An early attempt to embed collective rights into American politics and society.)
Another post here tells of the revealing, of ‘’alien’’ life with new technology etc. What if they have medical tech. that we haven’t dreamed of? Only meds. would be for injuries from accidents. How’s this gonna set with the ‘’kill all you can’’ RATS? Hmmm.
So what's the downside? ;-) (For the Dems, of course -- and Mitt Romney, who's still praising the MA monstrosity, which includes the mandate.)
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