Meet the ObamaCare Mandate Committee Think the contraception decision was bad? Wait until

wsj ^ | 2/16/12 | Scott Gottlieb

[Nachum]

Offended by President Obama's decision to force health insurers to pay for contraception and surgical sterilization? It gets worse: In the future, thanks to ObamaCare, the government will issue such health edicts on a routine basis—and largely insulated from public view. This goes beyond contraception to cancer screenings, the use of common drugs like aspirin, and much more.

Under ObamaCare, a single committee—the United States Preventative Services Task Force—is empowered to evaluate preventive health services and decide which will be covered by health-insurance plans.

The task force already rates services with letter grades of "A" through "D" (or "I," if it has "insufficient evidence" to make a rating). But under ObamaCare, services rated "A" or "B"—such as colon cancer screening for adults aged 50-75—must be covered by health plans in full, without any co-pays. Many services that get "Cs" and "Ds"—such as screening for ovarian or testicular cancer—could get nixed from coverage entirely.

That's because mandating coverage for all the "A" and "B" services will be very costly. In 2000, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the marginal cost of similar state insurance mandates was 5%-10% of total claims. Other estimates put the cost of mandates as high as 20% of premiums.

Health plans will inevitably choose to drop coverage for many services that don't get a passing grade from the task force and therefore aren't mandated. Insurance companies will need to conserve their premium money, which the government regulates, in order to spend it subsidizing those services that the task force requires them to cover in full.

[JustMeMcGee]

The dems are doing a good job of framing the discussion (focusing on birth control and preventive care) so that other serious problems in the law aren’t getting the attention they should.

For example, there are “shared decision making” grants going to NGOs to develop “decision aids” (propaganda tools) to influence the few decisions left to vulnerable patients. Who needs death panels when patients can be led to choose euthanasia?

http://www.nrlc.org/HealthCareRationing/SharedDecisionmaking.html

Should the patient choose treatment, Obamacare penalizes hospitals for readmitting patients even when the readmission is medically necessary or a result of noncompliance. The law creates a strong disincentive for physicians and hospitals to accept patients with multiple medical problems, those who are especially fragile, or conditions that typically involve multiple hospitalizations.

Whoever gets the Republican nomination would do well to bring out more of Obamacare’s flaws such as these. It isn’t just religious freedom. Or having electives like abortifacients redefined as preventive with forced subsidies. The candidate needs to show that Obamacare is designed to squelch the liberty of every citizen, not just those targeted for ridicule during an election season. I fear the Republican candidates are following a script the Dems put forth to distract from other problematic aspects of the law while whipping up their base.

[unkus]

REPEAL THE ABOMINATION! Then we won’t HAVE to discuss what is in the horror!

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Exactly right!

[Nowhere Man]

If I'm ever forced into a position of needing to appear before one of these abominations, I promise you, it will be a death panel.

Here's what I wrote in another thread if this ever comes about. We need to repeal this thing now.

I've posted this many times before but what if somebody is denied healthcare under Bammycare? People naturally have spouses, children, siblings, friends, parents, grandparents, etc. depending on the age of the one denied. I would hate to be a member of a death panel making such a decision to deny. I'd stay out of dark allies, look under my car before starting it, keep my eyes out for shadows, and jump at every noise I hear at night. Is that noise I hear at 2:30 AM the neighbor's cat or is it Grandpa Jones' grandson, which I denied care to his granddad, with a posse of his friends armed with baseball bats and a shotgun? How about blocking the road in front of me, an old lady in a 1967 Caddy. Did she break down or is she the wife of the man who I denied a hip replacement to, waiting for me where as I step out of my car to help, the last thing I hear is a .45 going off just before St. Peter appears. It's 10 PM, my kid is late in coming home and the phone rings. How about this, what if I denied care to a Tony Soprano?

I know under the insurance companies, there are cases of denial but in a lot of cases, you can get the doctor and hospital to get them to reverse their decision or just go ahead and let the family pay for it and/or go on a charity case. Not so with the government, if you are denied, there is very little redress at all. Ayn Rand put in in a long monologue where it boils down to this, "the more laws you create, the more criminals you make" and when you eliminate the process and route where one can make a challenge to make things right legally, that leaves only one other way, revenge and/or at least forced coercion via illegal means. This is a pandora's box to be sure, people will do anything for their loved ones and for survival.

I remember Quark's quote from DS9 (Star Trek) about us humans, "Let me tell you something about humans, nephew. They're a wonderful, friendly people as long as their bellies are full and their holosuites are working. But take away their creature comforts, deprive them of food, sleep, sonic showers, put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time and those same friendly, intelligent, wonderful people will become as nasty and as violent as the most blood-thirsty Klingon."

I don't feel comfortable in visioning this scenario, but if we keep going on the present track, it will happen.

[Nowhere Man]

At the next point in this march to socialized medicine we will discover that many treatments and medicines will just not be available even if you pay for them. If the treatment isn’t covered, it won’t be offered because there will be insuficient demand or it will be forbidden by the government ( if the “poor” can’t get it why should the “rich”). Combined with the tort lawyers attacks on drug industry profits, our medical care will get much worse, very quickly.

I do forsee possible medical tourism to places like Mexico, Costa Rica, Grenada, Domincian Republic, India, Thailand, Brazil, etc., if this is not stopped. The downside is that it may not be affordable to some people, except maybe Mexico, you can drive there. Hmmm, an interesting brainstorming idea I just had, you might see foreign sources for insurance for people to buy so they can get healthcare in these countries. Alternately, you might see an underground medical railroad to these places too.

[okie01]

Combined with the tort lawyers attacks on drug industry profits, our medical care will get much worse, very quickly.

Another major consideration is that technological innovation will cease. Utterly. There'll be no incentive to pursue improvements or new ideas. There will be no market for them.

Instead, we'll be locked into the current state of the art. Or, more likely, something resembling the 1990 state-of-the-art -- since the more recent (thus, more expensive) technology won't be covered.

This is going to be a dreadful, dreadful mistake.

Well, it's not really a "mistake" is it. It's absolutely intentional.

[Mack the knife]

I do forsee possible medical tourism to places like Mexico, Costa Rica, Grenada, Domincian Republic, India, Thailand, Brazil, etc., if this is not stopped...

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Medical tourism has been happening for years.

Many “FDA unapproved” medical treatments were being performed in clinics just over the border in Mexico before NAFTA was signed. My cousin was getting ozone treatments for ovarian cancer at a clinic just over the border in Mexico, and it was reducing her cancerous tumors.

One of the many NAFTA rules required Mexico to move all such clinics to be 100 miles south of the US-Mexico border. My cousin lost contact with the clinic when it moved, and by the time she found it again (6 months), her cancer had returned with a vengence, and she died.

If you go online, you can find many US trained physicians in Mexico who perform many procedures at a fraction of the cost in the US.

[Nowhere Man]

Another major consideration is that technological innovation will cease. Utterly. There'll be no incentive to pursue improvements or new ideas. There will be no market for them.

Instead, we'll be locked into the current state of the art. Or, more likely, something resembling the 1990 state-of-the-art -- since the more recent (thus, more expensive) technology won't be covered.

This is going to be a dreadful, dreadful mistake.

Well, it's not really a "mistake" is it. It's absolutely intentional.

I know. I had the same thoughts where this will stifle innovation. 1990 levels, we can only hope, it could be worse than that.

[Nowhere Man]

Shame about your cousin, looks like she is like the Crispus Attucks of Obamacare (government meddling in medicine) assuming we do not stop it. IIRC, although the Boston Massacre did occur in 1770, Crispus Attucks is seen as the first Colonial death for the American Revolution. That’s another reason NAFTA is bad for us.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

If Obamao wins re-election, we’re screwed.

Nanny State PING!

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Remember this, folks?

PING!

[Borax Queen]

Dual citizen (if he’s like his brother) Ezekeiel Emanuel is directly imported from the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.

Many of them sold their souls to the Devil to live forever (e.g. Kissinger) and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the original Bolshevik. Even that aside, these Communists purposely wear the Bolshevik-style glasses.

We all need to remember that the Communists murdered at least 100 million Christians in the 20th century alone.

[Borax Queen]

I think they will make it too hard to know who the panel is, so that we can’t find them?

Unless it’s like that “Twilight Zone” episode where people become “obsolete.”

That said, I can’t tell you how upsetting CommunistCare is to me. I got my master’s degree in science, finally found an excellent job with fantastic benefits (and we work HARD for them, round the clock and weekends a lot) — and about 12 years later, it’s all going to be taken away and redistributed. All I have to look forward to in my “golden years” is being told to take a pill and die, sooner rather than lter.

[rlmorel]

Chief Heathcare Advisor to Obama and brother of Rahm Emanuel.

"Every favor to a constituency should be linked to support for the health-care reform agenda. If the automakers want a bailout, then they and their suppliers have to agree to support and lobby for the administration's health-reform effort."