Monday, August 17, 2009

Freedom and Health Care Reform

In a society founded on individual freedom, most of the health care plans currently in Congress should not even be an option. If we have a shred of decency, most of the bills being worked on in Congress will be tossed out and reforms based on the individual freedoms our country was founded on will be devised. Most of the bills in Congress will do exactly what they claim will happen if things are not fixed, except it will happen even faster. There are very few people who say nothing should be done. Do not buy into that straw man argument.

Many jobless Americans would rather have the economy be the number one priority. This does not diminish the health care problems. But first show you can help the economy or at least not make it worse. A growing, healthy economy will alleviate many health care problems. Believe me there are many people and small businesses that are sitting back waiting for fear that cap & trade, all the taxes being talked about to pay for ObamaCare, the health coverage penalty taxes, surtaxes and others will be enacted. This uncertainty will keep jobs from being created and keep the recovery from happening. Many businesses have done all the cuts they can do. Some still offer their employees health insurance, especially those that have found the high-deductible variety with an HSA. Cap & tax, other taxes and the current health care bills in congress, with their included massive tax increases, will cause layoffs and most likely put many out of business, even if they dump health care onto a public option. There are so many in this situation. Small business should be fueling the recovery. Instead they are struggling. This is a bad sign for a recovery.

Many have read the bills that are in Congress and they have deemed them to be disastrous. Yes, many of the claims are exaggerated, however, those writing the bills and those who advise the President have said publicly they want a single-payer system. Those who devised the public option admit publicly that it was designed as the first step to a government-run single-payer system, and even the President has publicly said several times in the past he is in favor of a single-payer system. These facts just make people uneasy and wary of what is in the bills. The ideas the President’s advisers espouse and the fact that he would surround himself with these advisers is troubling. These ideas may be watered down or taken out of the bills. But I believe they should not be advising on something this personal. The bills in Congress have many aspects i.e. taxes, employer taxes and penalty fees, surtaxes, coverage mandates in the exchange and many other things in HR 3200 that will cause many to be dumped onto a public option or co-op if it is available.

Mandates will just raise health care costs. These bills do not address high costs; they just build on the problems without fixing them. Even a deficit neutral ObamaCare plan would cost more. Higher taxes would only pay for part of the trillions in cost. Costs would skyrocket year after year, like Medicare, Medicaid and other government entitlements, because these plans do not address the high costs, they just build on these crumbling foundations. If you have to raise taxes to pay for health care, you are not saving any money; you are making it more costly. The plans in Congress spend trillions and raise taxes, yet they still leave 17-34 million uninsured. This is not a good investment, especially considering it will slow the economy and lower the quality of health care.

You cannot dismiss the plans that are in congress just because they are a work in progress. They are similar and they represent the direction those in congress wish to go. Do not allow yourself to be deceived. Do not dismiss anything until you have vetted it out. Just because you hear it on TV does not make it true. In fact, those pushing the reforms in Congress and sometimes even the President have made wild claims.

Don’t forget the original plan was to get a bill done before the August break. Which means a bill similar to the House HR 3200, Baucus or Kennedy plans would have been voted on with an included public option. One could say that is what they really want. This is far too important for that amount of speed and deception. The American people should have been included from the beginning. That has added to the distrust and related falling poll numbers of Congress, the President and the current health care plans. This has added to the frustration that is now being released at town hall meetings across the country.

The framework for a panel to curb costs and build guidelines for treatments for doctors to follow has already been set up in the stimulus bill and it is in HR 3200. In medicine there is no one size fits all. Everyone is different, everyone responds differently to various treatments. The same form of cancer, for instance, responds differently to the same treatment from patient to patient. Sometimes there has to be fine-tuning or a combination of treatments. If certain treatments are mandated and others are deemed too expensive or take too long to be certified, many patients will not receive the care they deserve. A centralized panel would lower the standard of care. A panel or bureaucracy making these decisions would by their nature arbitrarily discriminate against some, with no recourse for the patient. For those who think health care is a right, this would infringe on that right. In any case, with real reforms there is no need for a panel to curb costs.

Rationing already happens in Oregon, MA (just started because of costs) and the VA. The pharmaceutical companies often pay for drug treatments for cancer patients themselves when these states will not cover it.

There were amendments introduced to add to the bills that would prohibit rationing etc. These amendments would have put to rest those rumors once and for all. They were defeated.

I urge everyone to take more time to research material even if only to debunk it.

A centralized, government mandated and controlled health care system with a “public option” that will lead to single payer health care will lead to disaster. This statement taken on its own is a true statement. I do not make this claim, rather history and current systems around the globe show this. The health care plans in congress have to be studied to make sure they are not going in this direction.

Until there is a plan that is going in the direction of true reform, many Americans will continue to fight for rational reforms and against what currently is in Congress.

Links to Must Read information & resources.
A comprehensive list of Must Read Articles on Health Care Reform
What The Health Care Bill Actually Says
Physicians for Reform
Fix Health Care Policy Project
How To Fix the Health-Care 'Wedge'
Health Reform Requires Lawsuit Reform
Health Care - Heritage (Comprehensive Research)
The WSJ Guide to ObamaCare
Condition Critical: What Doctors Think About Health Reform, IBD Series
Health-Care Reform: How the Bills Stack Up
Hold The Mayo
The Whole Food Alternative to ObamaCare
We Don't Spend Enough on Health Care
Open Letter On Health Care
Deadly Doctors
CBO Expert Says Preventive Care Will Raise - Not Cut - Costs
FACT CHECK: Obama's health care claims adrift? -AP
Obama & the Practice of Medicine
Deception is at the Heart of Dems' Plans (Part 3) - Sowell
Whose Medical Decisions? (Part 2) - Sowell
Whose Medical Decisions? (Part 1) - Sowell
No Compromise On Health 'Reform'
A Federal Health Insurance Exchange Combined with a Public Plan: The House and Senate Bills
The Pelosi Jobs Tax
House Health-Care Reform Bill Oversteps on End-of-Life Issues
Europe’s free, state-run health care has drawbacks

No comments:

Post a Comment

kristokoff{at}gmail{dot}com