Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Daschle/Dole/Baker! Health care on the fast track -along with the entire Nation's finance

Right after this Yellow Brick Award ceremony, I'm thinking that it may save my life for me to learn to use Twitter and Facebook. Now.

While President Obama is planning to take over the entire finance world ASAP, ABC is planning their all-day infomercial for Obama and his push - there is no "plan," yet - for health care "reform" by July 4. No opposing or alternate viewpoints will be allowed. They're even refusing to take a paid-for program in rebuttal, according to the Drudge Report.

ABC REFUSES PAID ADS OFFERING ALTERNATIVE VIEWPOINT FOR WHITE HOUSE HEALTH CARE PROGRAM
ABC is refusing paid ads for its health care program at the White House. Thus they're refusing even a paid-for alternative viewpoint.

Conservatives for Patients Rights requested the rates to buy a 60 second network spot immediately preceding the broadcast of the Town Hall meeting.


While looking for verification of this story, I came across several that report that former Senators Tom Daschle, Bob Dole and Howard Baker are working on a health care "compromise." (Come on! there's a reason they aren't Senators any more!)

See their report, "Crossing the Streams Lines" here.

So, we'll have a Secretary of the Treasury (who claims to be unable to do his own taxes using Turbo Tax) running Wall Street and all the banks. We'll have a known plagiarist and serial failed Presidential candidate (who also can't figure out that gifts and services are taxable) working with another serial failed presidential candidate (who took money for telling the world that he needs a little pharmaceutical help in the bed room) working to reign in the cost of doctors, hospitals, and those pharmaceutical companies. (The third player in the health care waters is Baker, another serial failed presidential candidate. It's just that no one's ever heard of him.)

But don't worry -- even if you are able to vote for a completely new House and a turnover of a good portion of the Senate in 2010, Obama will still run the Census out of his Committee to Reelect the President.

In the meantime, Obama is planning to cut Medicare fees to Hospice, hospitals and doctors while instituting a new tax on health care insurance benefits from employers, according to the Washington Post.

Why not? After all, Daschle had to pay taxes on his limo and driver and Geithner had to pay them on his kids' summer camp!


Addendum after skimming the report:
The "Crossing the Lines" report is full of calls for more regulation with a sprinkling of pablum.

First, they demand that everyone have health insurance. (Could be acceptable if we were allowed to chose between Major Medical and From-First-Dollar. And if it weren’t for the rest of the trash.)

They believe - or at least claim to believe - that it will pay for itself. (Who knew old white haired men could be so funny?)

How will the money be raised?

By a “trigger” to enforce cuts when costs reach a certain point and by not paying for those treatments that are considered less effective.

What are they going to do with all the men and women who insist on antibiotics, today, for their bronchitis? Will they protect the doc when the patient develops bacterial pneumonia?

How about my man in his mid-80’s with a 102 fever in the ER, a bladder infection, multiple falls that resulted in bruises and skin tears, and potassium at 2 (normal is 4)? Medicare would not allow me to actually admit him because he turned out not to be septic by their criteria. He ended up on “Observation” for 3 days while his wife and I tried to find some safe place for him to go after discharge and I tried to get a handle on his potassium. He left for the rehab hospital with a potassium of 2.6. On a heart monitor. Because Medicare rules threaten us with charges of “fraud and abuse.”

How about our local hospice? Obama has announced his intention to cut funding to hospice. I guess there’s not much efficacy in hospice. After all, the hospice patient is, by definition, expected to die within 6 months. However, hospice patients are less likely to present at the ER, with the costs of their care much less than hospitalization.

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