Category: Health Care

Reader Tom C has sent a link to this article describing how Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke says that unemployment will remain high for the next four or five years regardless of change in GDP.

Is this so hard to understand? With rising unemployment insurance costs and uncertain 0bamaCare demands why would any employer not bend-over backwards to avoid new hiring?

And with regard to 0Care, for those with insurance how do you like your new premiums?

Reader Fran C sent this fascinating report by David Spady of American for Prosperity, California describing how welfare recipients from that state are using their state-supplied ATM cards at luxury vacation spots and on cruise ships.

And casinos. Hey, Fast Eddie, how come you missed that one?

The Trustees of the Medicare Trust Fund announced, Aug. 5, that the Fund’s solvency has been extended 12 years by the ‘Affordable’ Care Act better known as ObamaCare and now frequently referred to as 0Care with the first symbol being a numeral and not a letter.

The fund’s trustees include Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen “Wash-Your-Hands-After-You-Sneeze-Or Swine-Flu-Will-Kill-Us-All” Sebelius; Treasury Secretary Tim “Taxes-For-Thee-But-Not-For-Me”  Geithner; Labor Secretary Hilda “Illegals Need Raises ” Solis, and  Social Security Commissioner Michael J. “Tough Break Kids” Astrue, all of whom are members of the 0 Administration. These were the ones who appeared at the press conference to provide the pretty picture of unicorns and rainbows .

Was what they said true?  Maybe, which is rather remarkable since they are members of the 0 Administration and their lips were moving. They did, however, have to struggle to ignore Mephistopheles leeringly grinning over their shoulders as he pondered his future payment for this small and temporary possible success.

The report can be found here as a pdf.  Skip the baloney which is basically everything up until “Statement Of Actuarial Opinion” which was written by the widely respected Richard S. Foster, who chief actuary for the centers of Medicare & Medicaid Services, and says:

While the Part B projections in this report are reasonable in their portrayal of future costs under current law, they are not reasonable as an indication of actual future costs. Current law would require physician fee reductions totaling an estimated 30 percent over the next 3years — an implausible result.
Further, while the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, as amended, makes important changes to the Medicare program and substantially improves its financial outlook, there is a strong likelihood that certain of these changes will not be viable in the long range. Specifically, the annual price updates for most categories of non-­physician health services will be adjusted downward each year by the growth in economy-­wide productivity. The best available evidence indicates that most health care providers cannot improve their productivity to this degree — or even approach such a level — as a result of the labor-­intensive nature of these services.
Without major changes in health care delivery systems, the prices paid by Medicare for health services are very likely to fall increasingly short of the costs of providing these services. By the end of the long-­range projection period, Medicare prices for hospital, skilled nursing facility, home health, hospice, ambulatory surgical center, diagnostic laboratory, and many other services would be less than half of their level under the prior law. Medicare prices would be considerably below the current relative level of Medicaid prices, which have already led to access problems for Medicaid enrollees, and far below the levels paid by private health insurance. Well before that point, Congress would have to intervene to prevent the withdrawal of providers from the Medicare market and the severe problems with beneficiary access to care that would result. Overriding the productivity adjustments, as Congress has done repeatedly in the case of physician payment rates, would lead to far higher costs for Medicare in the long range than those projected under current law.
For these reasons, the financial projections shown in this report for Medicare do not represent a reasonable expectation for actual program operations in either the short range (as a result of the unsustainable reductions in physician payment rates) or the long range (because of the strong likelihood that the statutory reductions inprice updates for most categories of Medicare provider services will not be viable.)

Foster encourages readers to check his projections at this pdf . To sum it up in one sentence he is saying “Soylent Green is people”

In what could be a plot for Twilight Zone, Harry Reid has written a blistering letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius regarding Medicare cuts to Nevada hospitals as required by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

“I am very concerned that his proposal will result in a net reduction in payment to Nevada hospitals at a time when they are unable to absorb such a cut,” he said.

Reid is the Nevada Democrat who is the Senate Majority Leader and is as responsible as anyone for getting the monstrosity passed.

Don’t blame Harry for being surprised at this development. Do you really think it fair to ask him to read 2,000 pages of law before voting on it?

Click for the letter.

Hat tip to John Goodman

Brit Recorded Death Via Phone Pixs As State-Paid Docs Ignored Her — A terrified 25-year-old woman in a British hospital recorded the spreading rash using her cellphone camera nearly up to the time the disease of which it was a symptom took her life 14hours after she was admitted, it was revealed at two-day coroner’s inquest that began Wednesday.

Joanne Dowling was admitted 3:25 p.m., Nov. 23   to Milton Keynes Hospital, which is in the town of Milton Keynes 45 miles northwest of London. Her family doctor, Nessan Carson, diagnosed the  purple mark as a  symptom of meningococcal septicaemia and so informed hospital authorities.

The rash, however, began spreading after the state-paid National Health Service doctor Chris Akubuine ignored that diagnosis, removed her from antibiotics and put her on pain relievers in an observation ward at which the staff was not very observant.

Vivake Roddah, a doctor in training, failed to keep a written observation record but told theinquest he had not seen any purple rash. Five nurses also testified they had not seen any rash.

Meanwhile, Miss Dowling was emailing photos — more than 40 — of the spreading rash that she had taken with her cellphone camera. The last message was sent about four hours before her death which came at 5:20 a.m., Nov. 24. The last time someone at checked in on her was about three hours before her death from septic shock and fluid-filled lungs.

This is America’s future under ObamaCare. If you don’t believe it work it out for yourselves fewer doctors + fewer nurses +less motivation + more patients =

Hat tip to FreeRepublic.Com

Brit Recorded Death Via Phone Pixs As State-Paid Docs Ignored Her

Half Losing Insurance Under OCare — The consequences of the ObamaCare monstrosity hammered through by Democrat Party against the will of the American people March 23 are beginning to be revealed.

Half Losing Insurance Under OCare

This may not be true since the source is the New York Times but when voting to inflict ObamaCare on the nation, Congress appears to have stripped itself and staffers of health coverage.

The Times says:

The law apparently bars members of Congress from the federal employees health program, on the assumption that lawmakers should join many of their constituents in getting coverage through new state-based markets known as insurance exchanges.

But the research service found that this provision was written in an imprecise, confusing way, so it is not clear when it takes effect.

The new exchanges do not have to be in operation until 2014. But because of a possible “drafting error,” the report says, Congress did not specify an effective date for the section excluding lawmakers from the existing program.

Under well-established canons of statutory interpretation, the report said, “a law takes effect on the date of its enactment” unless Congress clearly specifies otherwise. And Congress did not specify any other effective date for this part of the health care law.

Believe it or not, the Times actually asks: The confusion raises the inevitable question: If they did not know exactly what they were doing to themselves, did lawmakers who wrote and passed the bill fully grasp the details of how it would influence the lives of other Americans?

Watchdogs are supposed to give the warning before the burglar robs the family jewels.