How Does This Stimulate The Economy?

Hidden in the depths of the President's "stimulus" package is something that should make all citizens cringe.

Republican Senators are questioning whether President Barack Obama’s stimulus bill contains the right mix of tax breaks and cash infusions to jump-start the economy.

Tragically, no one from either party is objecting to the health provisions slipped in without discussion. These provisions reflect the handiwork of Tom Daschle, until recently the nominee to head the Health and Human Services Department.

The author brings example after example...

Senators should read these provisions and vote against them because they are dangerous to your health. (Page numbers refer to H.R. 1 EH, pdf version).

The bill’s health rules will affect “every individual in the United States” (445, 454, 479). Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system. Having electronic medical records at your fingertips, easily transferred to a hospital, is beneficial. It will help avoid duplicate tests and errors.

But the bill goes further. One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.” According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and “learn to operate less like solo practitioners.”

Emphasis mine......think about that. Your doctor is no longer has the autonomy to treat you as an individual and as he sees fit. He has to turn first to a federal bureaucrat to see what treatments the government will allow!

Hospitals and doctors that are not “meaningful users” of the new system will face penalties. “Meaningful user” isn’t defined in the bill. That will be left to the HHS secretary, who will be empowered to impose “more stringent measures of meaningful use over time” (511, 518, 540-541)

What penalties will deter your doctor from going beyond the electronically delivered protocols when your condition is atypical or you need an experimental treatment?

So if your doctor does not abide by their ill-defined rules he can be fined...and guess who pays those fines in the long run?

Daschle says health-care reform “will not be pain free.” Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them. That means the elderly will bear the brunt.

Medicare now pays for treatments deemed safe and effective. The stimulus bill would change that and apply a cost- effectiveness standard set by the Federal Council (464).

The Federal Council is modeled after a U.K. board discussed in Daschle’s book. This board approves or rejects treatments using a formula that divides the cost of the treatment by the number of years the patient is likely to benefit. Treatments for younger patients are more often approved than treatments for diseases that affect the elderly, such as osteoporosis.

HOLD THE PHONE!!!!! As long time readers of this blog know, senior care is a hot button issue for me because I am in dealing with aging parents and the problems that come with old age. You have also read more than a few posts about how the UK system has denied seniors the health care that they need. I have been "assured" time and time again by liberal commenters that we are not going toward a British style system and yet here is the President's ONLY CHOICE for HHS secretary saying that his system is modeled after the Brit's system! So much for those "assurances".....

Contrary to the President's threats, we have to slow this bill down. More permanent damage to the US economy will be done by passing this so-called "stimulus" then there will be by taking the time to pull out the non-stimulative portions of the bill. Send it through committee...let the "cooling saucer" of the Senate take the time to do what the "worlds greatest deliberative body" does best....debate and deliberate. Nothing that we do in a hurry will fix the economy - but (as we have seen from Wall Street of late) something done fact can certainly hurt the economy. Wall Street does not like this bill and neither does Main Street. It's time for the President and the Legislature to listen to the people that put them into office.