Scary Obamacare Chart!

This is the new and improved chart of the gross expansion of the federal government thanks to Obamacare. Looking at it makes me kind of sick.

Click on the image for the full PDF image, that is, if you can stomach it.

Senator Jim DeMint's recent blog post spells it out:

Developed by the Joint Economic Committee minority, led by U.S Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas and Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, the detailed organization chart displays a bewildering array of new government agencies, regulations and mandates.

“For Americans, as well as Congressional Democrats who didn’t bother to read the bill, this first look at the final health care law confirms what many fear, that reform morphed into a monstrosity of new bureaucracies, mandates, taxes and rationing that will drive up health care costs, hurt seniors and force our most intimate health care choices into the hands of Washington bureaucrats,” said Brady, the committee’s senior House Republican. “If this is what passes for health care reform in America, then God help us all.”

Brownback, the committee’s ranking member, added, “This updated chart illustrates the overwhelming expansion of government control over health choices and the bewildering complexity facing everyone affected by this law. It doesn’t take long to see how the recently signed health care bill causes a hugely expensive and explosive expansion of federal control over health care. Personal choices that should be between a doctor and a patient will quickly be strangled in a never ending web of bureaucracy.”

Senate Steering Committee Chairman Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina) called Obamacare “a bureaucratic nightmare. The Democrats’ takeover of health care creates a byzantine network of 159 new federal programs and bureaucracies to make decisions that should be between just the patient and their doctor. It should concern everyone that at the center of this regulatory web is the new CMS chief, Donald Berwick, who has championed rationing and European socialized medicine. Americans were rightly outraged that this big government bill was rushed through Congress before anyone read or fully understood the bill’s consequences. Republicans will fight to repeal this reckless takeover and to ensure health care freedom to American families.”

But it gets even worse. This chart only shows about a third of the new bureaucracy created by Obamacare. They couldn't fit everything in there. This is the stuff nightmares are made of!

H/T Dana Loesch

Donald Berwick Has Insurance for Life: Berwick's Real Recess Appointment Story

Obama's czar of Medicare and Medicaid, Donald Berwick, thinks it is just so sweet that your health care will be rationed, but much, much sweeter that he personally will never have to worry about health care for himself or his wife. Berwick's Institute for Health Care Improvement, a "non-profit health care charitable organization" of his own creation, has conferred lifetime health care for him and the Mrs.

Donald Berwick

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services

Consider the missions of Berwick's "non-profit health care charity:

1)  building "the will for change"
2) "cultivate promising concepts"
3) "helping health care systems put those ideas into action

Obama appointed Berwick to his lofty postion in a recess-appointment, but only after the Democrat Senate failed to schedule a confirmation hearing. Or maybe there was another reason: Byron York says Senator Charles Grassley, on behalf of the Senate Finance Committee, began asking questions about Berwick's "non-profit charity." That's when Obama made the recess-appointment. The Senate confirmation of a presidential nominee is essential to the tenets of the U.S. Constitution. When the Senate is blocked in their decision, Presidents do make recess appointments, but Berwick's confirmation didn't even make it to the Senate.

From Byron York at The Examiner:

As it turns out, Berwick himself does not have to deal with the anxieties created by limited access to care and the extent of coverage. In a special benefit conferred on him by the board of directors of the Institute for Health Care Improvement, a nonprofit health care charitable organization he created and which he served as chief executive officer, Berwick and his wife will have health coverage "from retirement until death."

In 2008, the "non-profit charity" Berwick took home $2.3 million in compensation, excluding the health care for life, $637,006 in 2007 and $585,008 in 2006.

In Berwick's recent speech to the British National Health Service, Berwick said "I am romantic about the NHS; I love it. Read the transcript here.

The Institute for Health Care Improvement claims a mission to health care improvement by building "the will for change, cultivating promising concepts" for patient care, "and helping health care systems put those ideas in action."

It has about 110 employees and net assets of $49.5 million, according to its 2008 filing with the IRS. (2008 is the most recent year for which such filings are publicly available.) A 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization, the Institute reported receiving $12.2 million in contributions and grants in '08, as well as $27.4 million in revenue from its various programs.

Daniel Henniger in the Wall Street Journal says:

Berwick's "ideas on the design and purpose of the U.S. system of medicine aren't merely about change. They would be revolutionary.

"Revolutionary," yes, but not in a good way. Henninger gives numerous Berwick quotes you should know about. Here are a three:

Indeed, the Holy Grail of universal coverage in the United States may remain out of reach unless, through rational collective action overriding some individual self-interest, we can reduce per capita costs." 

"For-profit, entrepreneurial providers of medical imaging, renal dialysis, and outpatient surgery, for example, may find their business opportunities constrained."

I would place a commitment to excellence—standardization to the best-known method—above clinician autonomy as a rule for care." 

"Autonomy" is important to Berwick, but not your autonomy, or your doctor's autonomy. Berwick's autonomy lies completely with the government. The question is, what are we going to do about this man?

Linked by The Lonely Conservative - Thank you, Karen