White House and Allies Set to Build Up Health Law (campaign to "sell" it, using tax exempt org)

NY Times ^ | June 6, 2010 | SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

[SmartInsight]

President Obama and his allies, concerned about deep skepticism over his landmark health care overhaul, are orchestrating an elaborate campaign to sell the public on the law, including a new tax-exempt group that will spend millions of dollars on advertising to beat back attacks on the measure and Democrats who voted for it.

Americans will see the first evidence of the public relations offensive on Tuesday, when Mr. Obama travels to Wheaton, Md., to conduct a nationally televised question-and-answer session with older citizens to trumpet one of the law's most popular features: $250 rebate checks to help Medicare beneficiaries pay for prescription drugs.

[SmartInsight]

How can a political organization be tax exempt?!

And -- do they think people are so stupid, that they won't realize that a one time $250 handout does NOT make up for the tax increases, higher costs and rationiong of the healthcare -- with a lot of cuts coming from Medicare?

[mo]

We need to cram this up his bu&*!!

[Man50D]

People need to keep in mind throughout BO/BS trying to sell this dog and pony show is that any federal version of health care is unconstitutional since Article 1 Section 8 does not specifically grant Congress the power to regulate health care! The people are not bound to comply with an unconstitutional act!

[Mouton]

This POS is the biggest threat to freedom in the US, ever. He has surpassed the commies and islamo facists long ago.

[AlexW]

“And — do they think people are so stupid,”

Yes, and 45 percent of “voters” ARE so stupid, if you watch Rasmussen.

[Venturer]

Wheaton, in Montgomery County. The most liberal County in the State. Think that has any effect on why Wheaton was chosen?

[SmartInsight]

“The president has also been intimately involved in planning the public relations rollout. “

He is too busy to attend to the oil spill cleanup, too busy to defend Israel, but not too busy to personally continue to work on cramming obamacare down our throats.

[sergeantdave]

“a one time $250 handout does NOT make up for the tax increases, higher costs and rationiong of the healthcare..”

This is like the robber who steals your wallet and gives you back a dollar for bus fare.

[savedbygrace]

And 50% score less than 100 on an IQ test.

[Madame Dufarge]

Not surprisingly, enthusiastic Mao admirer Anita Dunn's leading the propaganda campaign.

The president will have plenty of help. A veritable army of outside groups — including an ambitious new initiative by Anita Dunn, Mr. Obama’s former communications director, and Andrew Grossman, a top Democratic strategist who spent 2009 coordinating advocacy groups in support of the overhaul — are orchestrating campaigns to echo the White House message.

[JohnLongIsland]

Lets get one thing straight: DeathCare® is a tax bill, not a health bill...

[silverleaf]

they think most seniors will sell their votes next November for a one-time $250 rebate.

Maybe they are right- guess we will see. Most of their consituency can be bought on election day for a $20 bill, free cigarettes and sammiches.

[SmartInsight]

“Lets get one thing straight: DeathCare® is a tax bill, not a health bill...”

That and a “government will control you — you will be assimilated, resistence if futile” bill.

They will tell you what care you can get, who can provide it, kill private enterprise.

---

Suit Filed Over Health Care Reform Limits on Physician-Owned Hospitals

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202459299684&Suit_Filed_Over_Health_Care_Reform_Limits_on_PhysicianOwned_Hospitals

A suit filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas in Tyler challenges provisions in the new health care reform law that place new restrictions on physician-owned hospitals.

The plaintiffs allege in their complaint that the Physician Hospital Law, §6001 of the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act, prevents a new physician-owned hospital from receiving Medicare certification after this year if the physicians refer Medicare patients to the hospital. The patients further allege that the Physician Hospital Law restricts expansion of a physician-owned hospital unless the hospital meets “certain vague and contradictory qualifications that will allow an ‘exception’ to the law’s general prohibition on growth.”

[backhoe]

Seen this?

ObamaCare to Doctors: Accept our prices or face jail [Darleen Click]

…and don’t you DARE even have lunch with your peers to “talk shop”, ’cause we will charge you with conspiracy.

As I’ve long suspected, “health care reform” has emboldened the Justice Department to take a more active role in enforcing government price controls against physicians. Today the Antitrust Division, joined by Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden, forced a a group of Boise orthopedists to accept price controls for worker’s compensation and HMO contracts as part of a settlement accusing the doctors of “price fixing” [...]

The proposed settlement prevents the Idaho Orthopaedic Society and the named orthopedists from agreeing with their competitors on fees and contract terms. The settlement also prohibits them from collectively denying medical care to patients, refusing to deal with any payer or threatening to terminate contracts with any payer.

This case is a watershed for two reasons:

First, until now the Federal Trade Commission, not the Justice Department, has taken the lead in prosecuting physicians. Since 2000, the FTC has brought about three dozen cases against physicians (all but one of which settled without any trial). But the FTC only has civil and administrative jurisdiction; the Antitrust Division has civil and criminal jurisdiction. The Sherman Act makes no distinction between civil and criminal “price fixing,” so in a case like this, it’s entirely a matter of prosecutorial discretion whether to charge the doctors with a civil or criminal offense.

Based on the descriptions in the Antitrust Division’s press release, there’s certainly no reason they couldn’t have prosecuted the doctors criminally and insisted upon prison sentences — and there’s little doubt such threats were made or implied to obtain the physicians’ agreement to the proposed “settlement.”

The second reason this is a landmark case is that the Justice Department has unambiguously stated that refusal to accept government price controls is a form of illegal “price fixing.”

So, it’s ok for SEIU or Teacher’s Unions or any other labor entity to strike, threaten to strike, or get the Obama government to do their dirty work (take over GM, toss investors to the curb and hand over an equity share to the Union), but if a doctor says “hey, I’m not going to accept any more Medicare/Workers Comp/Blue Cross patients” that doctor is engaging in criminal behavior and, by golly, Barry will have none of it!

Oh, btw, Obama’s DOJ also says Doctors don’t have Constitution right of Free Speech, either:

The DOJ has released the proposed order and other documents. It’s a naked censorship order that restrains the physicians from

(A) encouraging, facilitating, entering into, participating in, or attempting to engage in any actual or potential agreement or understanding with, between, or among competing physicians about:

• any fee, or other payer contract term or condition, with any payer or group of payers, including the acceptability or negotiation of any fee or other payer contract term with any payer or group of payers;
• the manner in which the defendant or any competing physician will negotiate with, contract with, or otherwise deal with any payer or group of payers, including participating in or terminating any payer contract; or
• any refusal to deal or threatened refusal to deal with any payer;

Oh, yeah. Take out student loans of $100,000 or more to become a doctor and become a second-class citizen.

Yeah, that’s going improve both the quantity and quality of future physicians.

(h/t Simon at Classical Values)

Posted by Darleen @ 10:19 am
Comments (73)

 

"Medical schools are already reporting shortages of incoming students. ObamaCare will “have no choice” but to ban all private practice and go the full Brit/Canada socialist model."

[SmartInsight]

Canadian health care falls short of what we deserve

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/canadian-health-care-falls-short-of-what-we-deserve/article1592694/

“The doctor shortage is a major problem with our health-care system. Unfortunately, it’s just one of many. Our patients wait too long for basic care. The system is plagued by too much bureaucracy. And despite a massive infusion of money - the Ontario health budget has roughly doubled in the past decade - we must acknowledge what no government official is willing to admit: Canadian health care falls short of what we deserve.

Canadians, though, are routinely told how well our health-care system compares to those of other nations. It’s not so. Take the United States. Despite the heated political rhetoric north of the 49th parallel about American health care, their patients are more likely to survive cancer (66.3 per cent over five years for American men, but 58 per cent for Canadian men, based on recent data from national databases). Their outcomes are also better for heart attacks and transplants. And, based on data from the Joint Canada/U.S. Survey of Health, Americans have greater access to preventive screening tests and higher treatment rates for chronic illnesses, and the poor under our public system seem to be less healthy relative to the non-poor than their American counterparts. “

[EBH]

$250.00 handout...

Doesn’t even cover grandma’s prescriptions for the month.

Fools, just fools.

[SmartInsight]

“ObamaCare will “have no choice” but to ban all private practice and go the full Brit/Canada socialist model.”

THAT is his original goal!

See my post 15 about how “well” the Canadian socialist model is working. The article admits the superiority of the American system in terms of actually providing care and positive outcome and Obama wants us to go the other way, reducing care.

Question is how informed the voters will be who vote in Nov.

[Oceander]

[SmartInsight]

And more...

http://www.heartland.org/healthpolicy-news.org/article/27717/CMS_Nominee_Favors_GovernmentRun_Rationing_of_Health_Care.html

CMS Nominee Favors Government-Run Rationing of Health Care

President Barack Obama has nominated Donald Berwick, the founder of a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based think-tank, to head the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), America’s primary health care agency.

Berwick has attracted controversy as a strong supporter of single payer health care, particularly in an essay written with two colleagues and published in Health Affairs in 2008.

And in a 2009 interview on Comparative Effectiveness Research in Biotechnology Healthcare, Berwick focused on what he perceives as the benefits of the UK’s National Institute for Clinical Health and Excellence (NICE).

“NICE is extremely effective and a conscientious, valuable, and - importantly - knowledge-building system [which has] developed very good and very disciplined, scientifically grounded, policy-connected models for the evaluation of medical treatments from which we ought to learn, ‘ Berwick said.

[Oceander]

Yup. Bureaucrat-mandated early obsolescence - aka, death-panels. Just like they actually have right now in the UK.