Britain Cuts Health Care Services: Behind Closed Doors UK Knee Hip Replacements Cut

Earlier today a report said Britain was turning control of a patient's health care back to local doctors. Another report just released says the Brits have "secret plans" to cut the most basic health care treatments, including knee and hip replacements.

Knee Replacement

Hospital beds will be reduced, including those for the mentally ill. Nursing homes are closing and thousands of jobs will be lost in NHS [National Health Service] hospitals:

Hundreds of thousands of pounds from budgets will be cut from the terminally ill, with dying cancer patients to b told to manage their own symptoms if their condition worsens at evenings or weekends....

The Sunday Telegraph found the details of hundreds of cuts buried in obscure appendices to lengthy policy and strategy documents published by trusts. In most cases, local communities appear to be unaware of the plans

Quality of life for those in need of hip and knee replacements will suffer. A spokesman for the Patients Association says the cuts are brutal. "We cannot return to the days of people waiting in pain for years for a hip operation or having to pay for operations privately." Looks like they will do exactly that. Why? Because the people bought into socialized medicine.

Their system is broken, yet this administration will emulate Britain's failure. We know what comes from backdoor deals. Without them, Obama's health care legislation would not have passed. He purchased the right to control our health. I won't forget.

Britain Puts Health Care in Hands of Local Doctors: Britain Centralized Health Care Didn't Work

Just as Donald Berwick is hired by the Administration to centralized Medicare and Medicaid, the UK announces their centralized health care has been a bad nightmare. Britain is putting the control of their health care back into the hands of the local doctor.

From The NYT:

Practical details of the plan are still sketchy. But its aim is clear: to shift control of England's $160 billion annual health budget from a centralized bureaucracy to doctors at the local level. Under the plan, $100 billion to $125 billion a year would be meted out to general practitioners, who would use the money to buy services from hospitals and other health care providers.

The plan would also shrink the bureaucratic apparatus, in keeping with the government's goal to effect $30 billion in "efficiency savings" in the health budget by 2014 and to reduce administrative costs by 45 percent. Tens of thousands of jobs would be lost because layers of bureaucracy would be abolished.

Donald Berwick, Obama's czar of Medicare and Medicaid, can't wait to begin his rationing. He told an audience in Britain he is "romantic about the NHS [system of rationing.] Berwick has private health care for life for he and his wife through his non-profit health care charity. I'll repeat that, his non-profit health care charity has provided private health care for life for Berwick and his wife - the man who will tell you, you cannot have that knee replacement. Berwick also received $2.3 million, excluding his health care benefit, from his "non-profit charity."

After bloating the UK health care system with a monstrous management and employee hiring, many will now lose their jobs. Remember the graphic above of Obama's planned many-layered government departments of health care?

The Obama plan for socialized health care has failed everywhere something similar has been adopted. Obviously, local doctors can take better care of their patients. It is also obvious that Obama cannot sufficiently control us, unless he also has control of our health. Any Republican or Conservative on Capitol Hill who will not agree to repeal ObamaCare, must be sent home to pick up their law practice.

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

Bye Bye Retiree Health Care - Hello Medicare for 2 Million?

Three American companies, Valero Energy, Deere and Company and Caterpillar announced yesterday that the loss of tax deductions in ObamaCare will cost them $265 million. These companies now provide prescription drug coverage for retirees. If these companies, and others losing tax deductions, choose to drop coverage due to the high cost, some 2 million people may be forced to enroll in Medicare:

From Hot Air's Ed Morrissey:

The Democrats in Congress argued that they would gain $5.4 billion in revenue by eliminating the tax break enacted in the 2003 Medicare Part D program as an incentive for businesses to keep their retirees out of the Medicare system.  Instead, they have given businesses a reason to dump their retirees out of the private networks and into the Part D system now. Not only will the expected tax revenues never appear, but now we will have to spend a lot more money covering those prescriptions out of public funds.  The seniors in these programs will suffer most of all, as the Part D coverage is vastly inferior to the private plans offered by businesses in the private sector....

For months, businesses have warned about the problem, and for months, Democrats have claimed this clause as a $5.4 billion revenue source.  One might think that the media would be interested in puncturing some bad assumptions.  Apparently not.

Just my opinion here, but it's possible this is not an oversight. The more on Medicare, the more under government control.

Linked by Storm'n Norm'n - Thank you Norm!

Paul Ryan Explains Double Counting in Health Care: Democrat Fuzzy Math

I want to hear the Democrat answer to Paul Ryan. So far, there hasn't been one. I want to hear how  Democrats Constitutionally support the mandatory purchasing of health care. Explain the Commerce Clause and how it applies to this legislation. I want to know how this president thinks he can ruin our industries - whatever the industry. I hope lawsuits are ready to go.

Rep. Paul Ryan Explains Democrat Double Counting - Fuzzy Math(video)

Medicare Doughnut Hole Gets $250 in new Health Care Bill. Big Dang Deal!

Remember the many speeches about that terrible doughnut hole (the gap) that Seniors reach when their prescription drugs reach a certain dollar amount? Remember the dedication of Liberals to do away with the gap, or make it smaller? Well, they are doing just that. The government will give you $250 toward your expenses incurred in the gap period. Source: CNN

Medicare Doughnut Hole Gap

Friends, that is laughable! The average Senior pays $4,350 in out-of-pocket prescription costs. My mother and mother-in-law have this happen every year. It costs them far more than $250 to get to the other side, and neither of them are on a long list of drugs. Neither of them complain - much. They pay it, and they sacrifice to do so, because the Medicare benefits they receive for other medical care are substantial.

About that Liberal dedication:

Senate majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) promised to close the gap in Medicare prescription drug coverage called the "doughnut hole," meeting the top priority of the powerful senior lobbyist group AARP. December 15, 2009.

[Harry Reid]: The legislation we will send to President Obama for his signature will make good on his promise and ours to forever end this indefensible injustice for America's seniors," said Reid, speaking from the floor of the Senate.  December 15, 2009

President Obama's proposed healthcare reform fix would close the Medicare Part D "doughnut hole," crack down on "pay-for-delay" deals on generics and hike fees on branded drugs. February 22, 2010. 

The Democrats and President Obama have been clear that the "doughnut hole" as the gap is known, would disappear gradually over the next 10 years. They have not mentioned that Medicare patients would, according to House figures, face a slightly larger hole in coverage during two of the next three years than they do today.

The doughnut hole is in the prescription Medicare plan because when the bill was passed, the government could not afford to close it. "The government" cannot afford any of the Liberal mandated health care coming our way, and the doughnut hole has nothing to do with "indefensible injustice" for America's seniors.

Paul Ryan: Health Care Gimmicks Smoke Mirrors Ponzi Scheme (Video Transcript)

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) used Obama's own stats to show the deception, gimmicks, smoke and mirrors, and a Ponzi Scheme in the Democrat health care bill. Video and transcript below.

 Paul Ryan

Gimmicks, smoke and mirrors, double counting and out-and-lies characterize the legislation that President Obama clearly indicated will be passed by reconciliation, if he can find the votes to do so.

Don't miss the point that at least one item has been removed from the current bill because it costs $371 billion dollars. By removing the $371 billion from the bill, $371 billion is absent from the deficit. But the $371 billion will be approved by the Senate in a stand-alone bill. In otherwords, there is major deception going on. An item is stripped out, but passed on its own - to make the deficit appear to be less by $371 billion.

This deception also happened in the smaller jobs bill passed this week. Senator Harry Reid cut the legislation from $80 billion to $15 billion, but he plans to pass some of the costlier cuts through stand alone bills. Reid's double-dealing is nothing short of deceit - or how about treason? "Treason" is an act to harm or kill sovereignty, or the betrayal of a trust and a breach of faith. Make no mistake about it, the financial carnage coming our way because the Obama administration refuses to tamp-down spending, in fact, by design is purposefully escalating spending, puts our sovereignty in jeopardy. The stand-along bills, which we generally never know about, is a betrayal of trust and confidence.

Watch Obama's face in the video, especially beginning about half-way in. A transcript follows the video.


Rep. Paul Ryan Pointa out Smoke and Mirrors in Obama's Health Care (video)

Begin Transcript:

Look, we agree on the problem here, and the problem is health inflation is driving us off the fiscal cliff. You said health care reform is budget reform. We agree with that. Medicare right now has a $38 trillion unfunded liability. That's $38 trillion in empty promises to my parent's generation, our generation, my kids generation.

Medicaid is growing at 21% this year. It is suffocating State's budgets. It is adding trillions in obligations that we have no means to pay for it.

In September when you spoke to us in the well of the House you said I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits either now or in the future. Since the CBO can't score your bill because they do not have sufficient detail, but it tracks very similar to the Senate bill. I want to unpack the Senate score a little bit. If you take a look at the CBO analysis, analysis from your Chief actuary, this bill does not control costs, this bill does not reduce deficits. Instead this bill adds a new health care entitlement, at a time when we have no idea how to pay for the entitlements we already have.

Let me go through why I say that. The Majority Leader said the bill scores as reducing the deficit $131 billion over the next 10 years. First a little bit about the CBO. I work with them every day. Very good people. Great professionals. They do their job well, but their job is to score what is placed in front of them, and what is front of them is full of gimmicks and smoke and mirrors. Now what do I mean when I say that? First off, the bill has 10 years of tax increases of about one-half trillion dollars, with 10 years  of medicare cuts of one-half trillion dollars to pay for 6 years of spending. What's the true 10 year cost of this bill? In 10 years it is $2.3 trillion. It does a couple of other things. It takes $52 billion in higher social security tax revenues and counts them as offsets, but that is really reserved for social security. So either we are double counting them or we are not planning to pay those social security benefits. It takes $72 billion and claims money from the Class Act, that's the long-term care insurance program. It takes the money from premiums that are designed for that benefit and instead counts them as offsets. The Senate Budget Committee Chairman said this is a Ponzi Scheme that would make Bernie Madoff proud.

Now, when you take a look at the Medicare cuts, it essentially treats Medicare like a piggy bank. It raids a one-half trillion dollars out of Medicare...not to shore up Medicare solvency, but to spend on this new government program.

Now when you take a look at what this does, according to the Chief actuary of Medicare, he is saying as much as 20% of Medicare providers will go out of business or stop seeing Medicare beneficiaries. Millions of Seniors who have chosen Medicare Advantage will lose the coverage they now enjoy.

You can't say that you are using this money to extend Medicare solvency and also offset the cost of this new program. That's double counting.

When you strip out the double counting and what I call the gimmicks, the full 10 year cost is a $460 billion deficit. The second 10 year cost of this bill has a $1.4 trillion deficit.

I think the most cynical gimmick in this bill is something we all probably agree on. We don't think we should cut doctors 21% next year. We've stopped those cuts from happening every year for the last 7 years. We all call this the Doc Fix.

Well the Doc Fix, according to your numbers, cost $371 billion. It was in the first iteration of all these bills, but because it was a big price tag, and made the score look bad, it has been taken out of this bill and is going along in stand-along legislation. But ignoring these costs does not remove them from the backs of the taxpayers. Hiding spending does not reduce spending, so when you take at look at all this, it just doesn't add up.

I'll finish with the cost curve. Are we bending the cost curve down or bending the cost curve up? If you look at your own Chief actuary at Medicare, we're bending it up. He's claiming we are going up $222 billion, adding more to the unsustainable fiscal situation we have.

When you take a look at this, it is deeper than the deficits, or the budget gimmicks or the actuarial analysis. There really is a difference between us. We've been talking about how much we agree on different issues, but there really is a difference between us. It is basically this: we don't think the government should be in control of all of this. We want people to be in control. At the end of the day, that is the difference.

Now we've offered lots of ideas all last year, all this year. We agree that the status quo is unsustainable. It's got to get fixed. It is bankrupting families, it's bankrupting our government it's hurting families with pre-existing conditions. We all want to fix this, but we don't think this is the answer to the solution, and all the analysis we get proves that point.

I'll respectfully disagree with the Vice President about what the American people are, or are not, or whether we are qualified to talk on their behalf. We are all representatives of the American people. We all do Townhall's meetings. We all talk to our constitutients. And I've got to tell you the American people are engaged. If you think they want a government takeover of health care, I would respectfully submit, you are not listening to them. So what we simply want to do is start over, work on a clean sheet of paper, move through these issues step by step, and fix them, and bring down health care costs and not raise them.

End transcript

Happy New Year Mayo Clinic Drops Medicare Patients:

Happy New Year everyone. Let's start this year off right - make President Obama a happy man - and kick Medicare patients out of the the Mayo Clinic's Glendale, Arizona facility. It's a happy, happy day for the Obamas. They are soon to hold your health care in their sweaty, greedy, grabby hands and they can hardly wait.

Mayo Clinic - Glendale, Arizona

Beginning today, "no Medicare patients" at the Glendale facility (a suburb of Phoenix) becomes a two-year-trial-run policy at one of the famous Clinic's facilities. About 3,200 patients are affected. Needless to say, the Glendale area is rife with retirees:

Obama in June cited the nonprofit Rochester, Minnesota-based Mayo Clinic and the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio for offering “the highest quality care at costs well below the national norm.” Mayo’s move to drop Medicare patients may be copied by family doctors, some of whom have stopped accepting new patients from the program, said Lori Heim, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, in a telephone interview yesterday....

Mayo’s hospital and four clinics in Arizona, including the Glendale facility, lost $120 million on Medicare patients last year, Yardley said. The program’s payments cover about 50 percent of the cost of treating elderly primary-care patients at the Glendale clinic, he said. 

If you are now on Medicare, but want to continue to be treated at Mayo-Glendale, here is what they have planned for you:

A Medicare patient who chooses to stay at Mayo’s Glendale clinic will pay about $1,500 a year for an annual physical and three other doctor visits, according to an October letter from the facility. Each patient also will be assessed a $250 annual administrative fee, according to the letter. Medicare patients at the Glendale clinic won’t be allowed to switch to a primary care doctor at another Mayo facility.

A few hundred of the clinic’s Medicare patients have decided to pay cash to continue seeing their primary care doctors, Yardley said. Mayo is helping other patients find new physicians who will accept Medicare.

Mayo’s decision may herald similar moves by other Phoenix- area doctors ...“We’ve got doctors who are saying we are not going to deal with Medicare patients in the hospital” because they consider the fees too low, Rivers said. “Or they are saying we are not going to take new ones in our practice.”

DoctorRX at Naked Capitalism says the following about Medicare patients paying cash and receiving treatment (referring to the same article I have quoted above):

Despite what the article says, It’s not easy under the regs to just charge cash. So I’m not sure what Mayo is referring to. Basically a physician has to drop out of being a Medicare provider in toto in order to then charge freely. Once out, I think you’re out for a whole year (at least). And that includes seeing a patient in hospital who’s a Medicare patient (Medicare “A” covers essentially all Medicare patients). So for a whole year the doctor has to only treat outpatients and have nothing to do with Medicare. Not easy. Especially if Glendale has an elderly population.

Obama's health care plan is not yet law, but he has his ball rollin' anyway.

Obama Medicare Tax Hike: Why you should care about Medicare Tax Hikes

So you are years away from enrolling in Medicare. So, you make less than $250,000 a year - so...you think hiking the tax rate for Medicare on those earning more than you is a good idea. Wrong.

Medicare Tax Hike

The Heritage Foundation says a new proposal to raise the current Medicare tax on those making $250,000 or more, is under consideration. At the moment, employees and employers each share the Medicare tax burden of 2.9 percent - each paying 1.45 percent. When you retire, Medicare covers your hospitalization.

The Medicare program is already paying out more than it is taking in. So, how will this higher tax on those making $250,000 or more, benefit you? It won't. Here's the scoop from the Heritage Foundation:

Raising the tax and using the revenue to fund a new entitlement does nothing to fix this shortcoming.

Using new revenue from the Medicare tax to fund health care reform would be as illogical as raising the federal gas tax, which sensibly funds highway construction and maintenance, to pay for a new welfare entitlement.

there is little doubt the tax hike would legally fall on those earning more than $250,000 a year so it remains in accordance with President Obama’s campaign pledge.


Nevertheless, those earning much less than $250,000 a year will feel the negative impact of the tax. Higher taxes on high earners will cause them to take fewer risks and cut back on investment. This will lower wages and reduce the number of jobs created. And much of the tax increase is likely to fall on small businesses, which will cause them to create fewer jobs and pay lower wages. Workers earning much less than $250,000 a year will bear the full brunt of these jobs lost and lower wages.

Thank you to OlBroad for graphic

Greta Van Susteren Olivia Newton John: Government Breast Cancer Guideline Rationing

Greta Van Susteran interviewed singer and actress, Olivia Newton-John, about a new live show she is promoting to recognize women and the role they play in battling cancer as a patient, a caregiver and an advocate. " The theme: a story of survivorship and providership."  Newton-John is a breast cancer survivor, so naturally, the conversation quickly got to the new government breast cancer guidelines, which are the first steps to health care rationing. See videos below.

Breast Cancer graphic courtesy Southern Sass on Crime

One in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer. In 2007, $7 billion was spent on treatment, including government and private payments. In President Obama's stimulus bill, he set aside $7 billion to "expand high-speed Internet access across the country." How ludicrous is that? If you cannot understand that your health care is of no consequence to this administration, then you are not doing your homework.

Greta and Olivia discussed disease and what it must be like to be a woman in a Muslim country. She first has to have the permission of her husband to get a mammogram. Then he, or some other approved male must drive her to the testing location. A woman performs the mammogram and looks out through slits for eye holes. If the diagnosis a bad one...it is often hopeless for that woman. The primary male in her life decides if she receives treatment.

Will we allow the the "Task Force" to decide our treatment? The guidelines recommend delaying mammogram screening until age 50 for American women. The recommendation allows ten years for undiagnosed breast cancer to grow.  American women have government making the decisions now, yet every doctor I've seen on television so far, has denounced the study as irresponsible and dangerous. And it is from a "government sponsored expert panel" - the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.

Interpretation: If you want a mammogram before age 50, you will pay for it, if you can get someone to perform it for you.

We also learned there is no longer a need to do breast self-exams. In fact, the recommendation is "against teaching" the proper exam method, and if you are 75 or older there is no evidence you need mammography.

Rationing has begun. Death panels have convened.

I am a breast cancer survivor. I was diagnosed under 50 years of age. I found the cancer in a self-exam that I was carefully and meticulously taught to perform.

Ironically, Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius said in October 2009 that 4,000 cancer deaths can be prevented with early screening, but now, if these guidelines are adopted, those 4,000 will fall the cracks. I can find no statement from Sebelius about the "Task Force" findings.

Are 4,000 women just so much garbage to this elitist government, who will make sure their women are covered?

The "Task Force" assigns their recommendations a letter grade: A through D, with A being the best finding for the highest net benefit. Here is how they explain the grades:

Each recommendation is linked to a letter grade that reflects the magnitude of net benefit and the strength of the evidence supporting the provision of the specific preventive service. The recommendation is graded from "A" (strongly recommended) to "D" (recommended against). When the evidence is insufficient to determine net benefit, the Task Force assigns a grade of "I."

Where is the supporting evidence? There is none. There is only concern that many women being screened do not have breast cancer. There is only concern that women will endure tests to rule out cancer, and those tests cause emotion pain. And the unspoken concern is that government money is going to test those cancer free. The government wants to free up the money.

Delaying mammograms until age 50 received a grade of C. The following is the actual wording of the guideline.

The USPSTF recommends against routinely providing the service. There may be considerations that support providing the service in an individual

The recommendation to no longer teach breast self-exam received a grade of D, which means:

The USPSTF recommends against the service. There is moderate or high certainty that the service has no net benefit or that the harms outweigh the benefits.

How can breast self-exam do harm? There is "moderate or high" certainty that there is no net benefit?" What if you find a lump or tumor? Where does that fall between moderate to high? There is only one reason for this evil, evil guideline, and that is money. Doctors and their staff spend time teaching the proper method for self-exam. The instruction is usually done only one time for each patient. How many appointments can be shaved by 15-30 minutes? What is the bottom line for the Doctor and insurance companies from this savings? What about the cost of more extensive treatment when the cancer is found years later in a more advanced stage? Surely the cost is more than the cost of a one-time instruction on self-exam.

Cancer at a later stage in women over 50 - probably will not be treated at all.

I know so many women of all ages battling breast cancer. Most had no family history. Most are not overweight. All are, or were, devastated. Some survived. Too many did not.

One Saturday afternoon I looked up at the television and there was Condoleeza Rice at a podium after a Susan G. Komen 'Race for the Cure' event. She said her mother was a breast cancer survivor. She talked about the things her mother accomplished in the 16 years she lived after dealing with the disease. When her mother died of breast cancer at the age of 61, Rice was 30. Without early detection and treatment, she could have lost her mother at as a teenager. See this video below.

I have a few years between me and "the event," of breast cancer. I passed 5 years and then  passed 7 years...and began to breath easier. I was beyond 7 years as I listened to Secretary Rice.

I made an appointment with my doctor, and asked: do people surpass 15 years, 20 years - do they ever die of anything other than breast cancer - how long did your longest survivor live? I'm not sharing his answer here because I know how "numbers" can influence our thinking, but I will tell you this, I plan to be his longest living breast cancer survivor. That's the plan, the hope, the prayer, of every diagnosed woman.

The truth is, you never stop battling breast cancer. Surgeries and treatments and check-ups...it goes on and on, and what a privilege it is to see my doctor and receive a good report. I am grateful for my doctor, grateful for modern medicine, grateful for the time with my husband, especially grateful that I lived to see my son a grown man.

These guidelines are designed to suck-in insurance companies to support Obama's audacious dream of government control of our health and private information. No surprise this comes just as the House health care bill is passed, just as Harry Reid says the Senate plan is about ready to be revealed, just as a report popped up tonight that drug manufacturers have already raised the price of their products in anticipation of what comes next from this government. Insurance will drop coverage of mammograms. To think they will not, is naive.

But...the "Task Force" says this is not about money. It is about concern for the healthy women who are recommended for follow-up tests and biopsies that may yield no negative results...it's about the angst a healthy woman might have:

With these recommendations, the task force has made "a value judgment that's subject to discussion and interpretation," says Len Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society, which is sticking to its recommendation that women begin annual screening mammograms at age 40.

Harms are tricky to measure. It's hard to quantify the psychological impact of additional tests and biopsies, for example. And estimates of overdiagnosis generally range only between 1 percent and 10 percent, according to the review consulted by the USPSTF. (Monetary costs weren't considered by the task force, says USPSTF Vice Chair Diana Petitti.) Lichtenfeld is also concerned about using computer models as the basis for the every-other-year recommendations, since so much is at stake. 

Marisa Weiss, a Philadelphia oncologist and founder of Breastcancer.org, says the task force's conclusions were based on outdated assumptions about treatment and mammography. For example, studies show that digital mammography is more accurate among young women, but the USPSTF discussed only the standard film mammography.

And it figured in certain harms that have been ameliorated over the years with procedures such as core biopsies rather than the more invasive open biopsies, as well as tests that can predict which women are likely to benefit from chemotherapy and which can skip it. She worries these recommendations will result in young women being entirely bypassed, so that women in their 50s will be diagnosed at later stages of cancer and will need more treatment.

 The above quote is from US News and World Report, by Katherine Hobson. I hope you will read the entire article.

This from Susan G. Komen for the Cure:

October 9, 2009:  According to the results of a study presented at the ASCO 2009 Breast Cancer Symposium, nearly three-quarters of breast cancer deaths occur among the minority off women who do not get regular screening mammograms.

Although breast cancer remains the second-leading cause of cancer death in U.S. women, breast cancer mortality rates have been declining for the last 20 years. The decline in mortality is thought to be due to improvements in both treatment and early detection.

Mammography (an X-ray of the breast) is an important part of routine breast cancer screening. The American Cancer Society recommends that women at average risk of breast cancer receive annual mammograms starting at the age of 40. Women at higher risk of breast cancer may need to begin screening at a younger age, and may be screened with breast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in addition to mammography.

Studies have indicated that mammography reduces the risk of death from breast cancer. To explore the relationship between mammography and breast cancer mortality in the general population, researchers collected information about 6,997 women diagnosed with breast cancer in Massachusetts between 1990 and 1999 and followed until 2007 (median follow-up period was 12.5 years).

Cady B, Webb M, Webb M, Michaelson J, Smith BI. Death from breast cancer occurs predominantly in women not participating in mammographic screening. Presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) 2009 Breast Cancer Symposium. Abstract 24.

 I've heard several doctors say this "Task Force" is independent from the government. That is not true. This is not an independent panel. Their website is a .gov url, and the banner, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services banner runs across the top. Sixteen doctors sit on the panel for a period of 4 years. Some are always rotating out at the end of the year. View a list of doctors here.

Kathleen Sebelius, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, released a statement in October 2009 about the need for health insurance reform and breast cancer. I find no statement on the findings of the "Task Force." She advocated for just the opposite of what this  "Task Force" is trying to do:

This year alone, an estimated 192,370 American women will be diagnosed with breast cancer and 40,170 will die from the disease, making it the second leading cause of cancer deaths in women.

America, you must understand that this is just the beginning. Your health care will soon be under government control. Here is something coming out of the Presiden't office that should shock you: President Obama's Chief of Staff, and close, close friend, Rahm Emanuel's brother,  Ezekiel Emanuel tells us how the government can cut costs:

Dr. Emanuel is a health policy adivser at the Office of Management and Budget and a member of the Federal Council on Comparative Effectiveness Research. He has the President's ear:

Savings, he writes, will require changing how doctors think about their patients: Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath too seriously, "as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of the cost or effects on others" (Journal of the American Medical Association, June 18, 2008).

The only way to come close to paying for the health care plan proposed, is to cut medical care to others. If you think cuts in medicare will pay for your insurance, think about the women not yet 50 - far too young for medicare. Everyone has a daughter, a mother, a niece, a wife, a grandmother, an aunt...Rationing has already started. Death panels have convened. The first video below is Condoleeze Rice and the second, Greta and Olivia.


 Condoleeze Rice - Vreast Cancer (video)

Greta Van Susteran and Olivia Newton-John (video)

Health Care Reform is Manufactured Crisis Strategy: Manufactured Healthcare Crisis

Jim Simpson, the owner and editor of Truth & Consequences, and an expert on manufactured crisis strategy, lays out the dangers that come with this method of community organizing, in a nation-wide sense. The Obama administration's health care reform is a manufactured crisis strategy. Here is a pull-out quote, and then Jim's article:

We hear constantly about the “47 million uninsured.” These figures include 10 to 25 million illegal immigrants, 14 million people who are already eligible for medical benefits but haven’t availed themselves, and 10 million people earning $75,000 or more who could presumably afford their own insurance if they chose to. Even assuming the lowest estimate for illegal immigrants, the true number of uninsured would be only 13 million. Yet the Democrats want to nationalize the entire industry, currently 17 percent of GDP, to provide benefits to 4 percent of the U.S. population

By Jim Simpson 

These are perilous times. Last November’s election of Barack Obama and a filibuster-proof majority of Democrats in both houses allowed a virulent criminal cabal to capture our nation’s seat of power. As with the Democrat takeover of Congress in 2006, it was a disaster of epic proportions.

With one shocking, enormous, blatantly partisan, self-serving and destructive proposal following on the heels of another, the sheer enormity of their power grab defies description. But as each new proposal moves forward, the hand of the Crisis Strategy becomes clear. If there was ever any doubt that Barack Obama personifies the Crisis Strategy, it should long since have been removed for anyone with a mind.

Since so many Americans seem to have lost theirs, I address this to the rest of you. For with God’s help, it is you and I, not our gutless, hapless, corrupt politicians, nor our sleeping populace that will save this country or allow it to fall. For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, the Crisis Strategy was the brainchild of two radical socialist college professors, Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven.

The idea was to overwhelm government with demands for services to the point where the system would collapse and provide an opening for the socialists to take over. Their strategy was behind creation of the National Welfare Rights Organization in the 1960s and 1970s which dramatically increased the welfare roles and caused the near bankruptcy of New York City in 1975; creation of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), prime instigators of the mortgage meltdown; the national Motor Voter law signed by President Clinton in 1993, which opened the floodgates to vote fraud by ACORN and similar groups; and the illegal immigrant amnesty movement.

As we all should know by now, Barack Obama worked with and trained ACORN workers for many years, and is known and supported by all the major players in this movement. Healthcare nationalization is a major component of this strategy. As Lenin said, “Medicine is the keystone of the arch of socialism.” The Left has agitated almost since the turn of the last century for some kind of socialized healthcare system. In fact, from 1939 forward, practically every Congressional session proposed national healthcare legislation. As aptly described in an incisive analysis of Medicare by the Cato Institute:

For more than 50 years before the 1965 enactment of Medicare, the American people repeatedly rejected the idea of government-mandated health insurance. Yet advocates of such federal power inside and outside of government did not take no for an answer. Year after year they kept coming back--pursuing incremental strategies, misrepresenting their proposals, even distributing propaganda paid for with government money in apparent violation of existing law.

Their dream was partially realized with creation of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965 as part of President Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society." The stated goal of these programs was to provide comprehensive healthcare for seniors and the poor.

As the programs grew, the Left clamored for ever more benefits to these groups and ever expanding definitions of covered individuals. Illegal immigration, also encouraged by the Left, contributed to a rapidly growing pool of beneficiaries. Like any free good, demand for services under these programs has skyrocketed. Spending levels were insignificant in the early years, but today Medicare and Medicaid today comprise 36 percent of total US healthcare spending. Medicare was originally to be funded with “Hospital Insurance” (HI) premiums tacked onto the Social Security FICA tax.

No one seriously believed the HI tax would cover all costs. And despite more than quadrupling the HI tax rate from 0.7 percent to 2.9 percent, it hasn’t. Today HI taxes cover a mere 40 percent of Medicare spending. About 21 percent comes from premiums paid by beneficiaries and other sources. Fully 39 percent comes from general revenues (i.e. you and me, pal.) Citation here. Medicaid is funded roughly 50/50 by federal and state governments. As an essentially free benefit to the poor, Medicaid has no tax associated with it, so it is covered by state and federal income tax revenues – that’s you and me again, sucker. In 2006, Medicaid spending alone totaled $314 billion.

For perspective, this is roughly equivalent to the baseline defense budget (i.e. excluding war spending like for Iraq/Afghanistan). State Medicaid programs are the largest single recipient of all federal grants, comprising 43 percent of the total.

 In 2008, federal Medicaid and Medicare spending totaled $656 billion. Comprising only 2.8 percent of the federal budget in 1967, these two programs today consume 22 percent of total federal spending. This is the largest component of the federal budget, even exceeding total wartime outlays for national defense. Corrected for inflation, Medicare and Medicaid spending has increased by 2,735 percent since funding began in 1967. That is a real annual growth rate of 8.5 percent, almost three times the annual rate of economic growth for the same period.^[1]

 All these effects were predicted by economists, and we were repeatedly warned. The Left knew. These spiraling costs have to be covered somehow. The Left knew this too. Besides raiding the General Fund, the federal government has used its monopsony power to strong arm ever greater price concessions from the healthcare industry. Medicare and Medicaid reimburse doctors a small and shrinking portionof the fees needed to cover their costs.

 For example, the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons recently responded to President Obama's wildly false claim that Surgeons charge "$30,000, $40,000 [or] $50,000" for a foot amputation. Instead they say, "Medicare reimbursements to physicians for foot amputations range from approximately $700 to $1200 which includes the follow up care the surgeon provides to the patient up to 90 days after the operation." That is simply outrageous!

 Private insurance on the other hand, provides a larger reimbursement, and uninsured individuals who do not qualify for the government programs pay full price. These prices are much higher than they would be in absence of the government programs because medical providers have to recoup their costs somehow. And because the pool of Medicare and Medicaid recipients continues to grow, prices keep going up.

 So while private citizens pay the lion’s share of taxes to fund Medicare and Medicaid, we are also cross-subsidizing these government programs through higher insurance premiums than we would otherwise pay. This is a primary reason medical care has become more expensive.

 The left has attacked the private healthcare system from another angle as well: malpractice lawsuits. It has gone largely unreported in the mass media, but the dramatic expansion of all forms of liability lawsuits since the 1960s is the result of a deliberate, organized effort by leftist law professors to turn civil courts into agents of income redistribution.

By undermining contract law and expanding the definition of liability – ideas advocated at leading law schools – legal precedents have allowed trial lawyers to pick the pockets of American business as never before. Liability costs have skyrocketed as a result. We see the consequences of their handiwork directly in the increased cost of products, liability insurance of all kinds, and the decline or in some cases elimination of domestic industries.

According to a study performed by the Pacific Research Institute (PRI), the United States pays out $589 billion per year in excessive tort litigation. That is approximately 5 percent of GDP and costs a family of four on average about $8,000 per year. Glorified ambulance chaser and Democratic Presidential Candidate John Edwards made his millions suing doctors for procedures that are inherently risky, and greatly increased jury awards with a new innovation: suing nurses, anesthesiologists, hospitals and anyone else in his path. Following is a quote from one doctor: "The John Edwards we know crushed [obstetrics, gynecology] and neurosurgery in North Carolina," said Dr. Craig VanDerVeer, a Charlotte neurosurgeon. "As a result, thousands of patients lost their health care."

 Following are some statistics on medical malpractice liability from the PRI report:

• Approximately $124 billion dollars is spent annually by the health care profession to avoid medical liability.

• About $30 billion more is spent on direct liability lawsuit costs.

• Malpractice liability cost is 1 percent of GDP and increases the cost of healthcare by approximately 7 percent.

• These added costs deny health insurance coverage to between 2.4 and 4.3 million people, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

The increasing costs of medical care resulting from Medicare, Medicaid and the dramatic growth of malpractice lawsuits have provided activists with the rationale they need to agitate for socialized medicine. But this has been their strategy all along. Medicare and Medicaid were designed to undermine private healthcare, making it ever more expensive and unmanageable, until enough interest could be generated for systemic change.

Similarly, changes in tort law aimed at turning our courts into vehicles for income redistribution have overburdened our legal system with massive caseloads and the highest liability costs in the world. While doubtless many thought they were doing good, the ultimate goal, as elucidated by the Left, has everywhere and always been Socialism.

 Furthermore, they grossly overstate the problem. We hear constantly about the “47 million uninsured.” These figures include 10 to 25 million illegal immigrants, 14 million people who are already eligible for medical benefits but haven’t availed themselves, and 10 million people earning $75,000 or more who could presumably afford their own insurance if they chose to.

Even assuming the lowest estimate for illegal immigrants, the true number of uninsured would be only 13 million. Yet the Democrats want to nationalize the entire industry, currently 17 percent of GDP, to provide benefits to 4 percent of the U.S. population. And while medical costs increase due largely to government manufactured problems, shrinking returns in the healthcare industry put doctors and hospitals out of business.

Meanwhile, the astronomical cost of medical school plus this increasingly hostile atmosphere toward the private medical market is turning more and more qualified people away from the medical field entirely. Costs increase while supply decreases, the classic consequence of government intervention. Yet Obama and the brain-dead Democrat Congress want to give us a government-run system that will guarantee magnitudes more of the same. Can you see the Left laughing at you? However, their true motives have finally been exposed.

For seniors Obamacare essentially advocates euthanasia. Benefits will be drastically cut, and in some cases will become completely unavailable. As Obama said publicly: “Maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller.” In other words, if you think you are going to die anyway, why don’t you just save us the money and go ahead… For others it will mean a dramatic reduction in both the availability and quality of care. Obama’s health policy advisor Ezekiel Emmanuel (brother of Rahm Emmanuel) admits as much. He even wants doctors to reconsider the Hippocratic Oath:

Amazingly, Dr. Emanuel criticizes the Hippocratic Oath as partly to blame for the "overuse" of medical care: "Medical school education and post graduate education emphasize thoroughness," he wrote. Physicians take the "Hippocratic Oath's admonition to 'use my power to help the sick to the best of my ability and judgment' as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of the cost or effects on others." (Journal of the American Medical Association, June 18, 2008.) Of course that is what patients hope their doctors will do. But Dr. Emanuel wants doctors to look beyond the needs of their own patient and consider "social justice" (emphasis mine.) They should think about whether the money being spent on their patient could be better spent elsewhere.

Who in God’s green earth are these people? The Left has relentlessly insisted for decades that we pay every penny for care of indigents, the poor, illegals and elderly to the point where hospitals are closing their doors because they can no longer afford it.

But once given the opportunity to transfer this responsibility to the government, their message to the elderly and the rest of us is essentially: drop dead! Let me put this as bluntly as possible. The Left has never cared about the elderly or the poor, but ruthlessly uses them as part of their long-term strategy to overburden private healthcare until it ultimately collapses. The same Leftists who so passionately demanded free healthcare for all now want euthanasia for seniors and dramatically lower services for the rest of us. It is a power grab, pure and simple. There is nothing more to it.

The Dems won’t cut benefits to the poor just yet though, because they still need their votes. Later on they will need them as hired muscle. But once they secure unchallengeable power, do you think they’ll care? They have willfully worked to destroy every beneficial thing in our society. These are vicious, selfish, utterly corrupt parasites.

They have spent a lifetime abandoned to a philosophy that makes excuses for everything and anything in the service of one ultimate goal: absolute power. These people have to be stopped. NOW. I went to Senator Ben Cardin’s town hall meeting last Monday and came across a woman who had worked as a nurse in Britain’s public health system. She provided a personal anecdote which is little peek into what we can expect should we adopt the Democrats’ plan.

Catherine Midkiff, RN RSN, has been a nurse since 1979 and lived in the UK in 1991 and 1992. She earned $10 per hour there, compared to the $22 per hour then being earned by nurses in the US. As an agency nurse she earned more than staff nurses. Those women had to live in a dormitory on site as their pay would not afford them private residences. She said at St. George’s Hospital she worked on a seniors ward where 23 elderly men and women shared the same room. When she asked where the code cart was, her British counterparts laughed, saying, “Oh you must be from America…”

For non-seniors, most British hospitals put six people in a room. Wait lists are extremely long. An elderly British citizen she knew came to the US to get heart surgery after waiting a full year in the UK system. Others weren’t so lucky. For many years, British hospitals had no trauma centers. Thousands died as a result. For his part, Cardin simply perpetuated the smear against Obamacare protesters, claiming they were Republican stooges spreading disinformation. However, there were over 2,000 of us and only a handful of ACORN, union and party thugs.

That we are no longer being fooled is becoming more and more apparent. The Dems control both houses of Congress so this remains an uphill battle, but if enough get the message that their careers are on the line, these utterly self-serving urchins may actually come around to our point of view, simply for sheer survival purposes. We cannot let up. Not for a minute. [1] Calculations based on Office of Management and Budget historical tables using OMB deflators, combined with state and local spending estimates provided by www.usgovernmentspending.com.