Impeding changes to our Health Care system

[TheMercenary]

With their health care plans in a holding pattern — and no George W. Bush to kick around anymore — Democrats are casting about for somebody to blame.


House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn says that Republicans have “perfected ‘just say no.’” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said insurance companies are chalking up “immoral profits.”


But even if they won’t acknowledge it publicly, most Democrats in Congress know the truth: It’s their own colleagues who are slowing down progress in both the House and the Senate

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/25494.html

[Happy Monkey]

This is good.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

This is good.

Those are nothing more than general goals of the Obama Admin. The Dems are wheeling and dealing with the lobbyists and there is no promise that any of that will actually come to fruition.

[TheMercenary]

Opinion bit from The WSJ.

GovernmentCare’s Assault on Seniors

By BY BETSY MCCAUGHEY
Since Medicare was established in 1965, access to care has enabled older Americans to avoid becoming disabled and to travel and live independently instead of languishing in nursing homes. But legislation now being rushed through Congress—H.R. 3200 and the Senate Health Committee Bill—will reduce access to care, pressure the elderly to end their lives prematurely, and doom baby boomers to painful later years.

The Congressional majority wants to pay for its $1 trillion to $1.6 trillion health bills with new taxes and a $500 billion cut to Medicare. This cut will come just as baby boomers turn 65 and increase Medicare enrollment by 30%. Less money and more patients will necessitate rationing. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that only 1% of Medicare cuts will come from eliminating fraud, waste and abuse.

The assault against seniors began with the stimulus package in February. Slipped into the bill was substantial funding for comparative effectiveness research, which is generally code for limiting care based on the patient’s age. Economists are familiar with the formula, where the cost of a treatment is divided by the number of years (called QALYs, or quality-adjusted life years) that the patient is likely to benefit. In Britain, the formula leads to denying treatments for older patients who have fewer years to benefit from care than younger patients.

When comparative effectiveness research appeared in the stimulus bill, Rep. Charles Boustany Jr., (R., La.) a heart surgeon, warned that it would lead to “denying seniors and the disabled lifesaving care.” He and Sen. Jon Kyl (R., Ariz.) proposed amendments to no avail that would have barred the federal government from using the research to eliminate treatments for the elderly or deny care based on age.

In a letter this week to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, White House budget chief Peter Orszag urged Congress to delegate its authority over Medicare to a newly created body within the executive branch. This measure is designed to circumvent the democratic process and avoid accountability to the public for cuts in benefits.

Continues:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...050552730.html

[TheMercenary]

Folks, you are going to be hoodwinked by backdoor deals the Dems are making with lobbyists...

snip:

The roiling debate about health-care reform has been a boon to the political fortunes of Ross and 51 other members of the Blue Dog Coalition, who have become key brokers in shaping legislation in the House. Objections from the group resulted in a compromise bill announced this week that includes higher payments for rural providers and softens a public insurance option that industry groups object to. The deal also would allow states to set up nonprofit cooperatives to offer coverage, a Republican-generated idea that insurers favor as an alternative to a public insurance option.

At the same time, the group has set a record pace for fundraising this year through its political action committee, surpassing other congressional leadership PACs in collecting more than $1.1 million through June. More than half the money came from the health-care, insurance and financial services industries, marking a notable surge in donations from those sectors compared with earlier years, according to an analysis by the Center for Public Integrity.

A look at career contribution patterns also shows that typical Blue Dogs receive significantly more money -- about 25 percent -- from the health-care and insurance sectors than other Democrats, putting them closer to Republicans in attracting industry support.

Records of political fundraisers since 2008 compiled by the Sunlight Foundation, a Washington-based watchdog group, show a steady schedule of events for Ross sponsored by the health industry or lobbying firms that represent health-care companies. They include two "health-care lunches" at Capitol Hill restaurants in May 2008 and March 2009, as well as receptions sponsored by Patton Boggs and other major lobbying firms.

Overall, the typical Blue Dog has received $63,000 more in campaign contributions from the health-care sector than other House Democrats over the past two decades, according to the CRP analysis. The top three recipients were Rep. Earl Pomeroy (N.D.), with $1.5 million, and Tennessee Reps. Bart Gordon and John Tanner, both of whom collected over $1.2 million from the industry and its employees, according to the data.

David Donnelly, national campaigns director for the Public Campaign Action Fund, which favors public financing of political races, said the heavy industry contributions cast doubt on the Blue Dogs' motives.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?hpid=topnews

[TheMercenary]

How influence is directed to get what the industry wants in health care reform.

Sorry this is so big.

http://assets.sunlightfoundation.com...fc_health.html

[TheMercenary]

This is great. From the link above. How all the parties, dems, repubs, etc are in on making deals. It is in a Google Map format but with peoples names and their key positions, and the companies with a finger in the pie.

http://www.sunlightfoundation.com/pr...lex/#democrats

The map shows only ten of the thirteen committee Democrats, as OpenSecrets.org does not report any staffers turned health care lobbyists for Sens. Jay Rockefeller, Jeff Bingaman or Bill Nelson. These ten Democrats are connected to a total of 20 former staffers turned health care lobbyists. Sen. Baucus leads all of the committee Democrats with five health care lobbyist connections and Sen. Chuck Schumer and Tom Carper both have three connections.

These 20 staffers represent approximately 91 different organizations, often overlapping in the clients they handle. The overlap usually occurs when the health care lobbyists are employed at the same firm. This can be seen clearly with David Castagnetti, Sen. Baucus’ former chief of staff, and Kelly Bingel, Sen. Blanche Lincoln’s former chief of staff. Both Castagnetti and Bingel work for Mehlmen Vogel Castagnetti Inc. and handle nearly all the same clients.

The organizations represented by these 20 health care lobbyists include some of the biggest opponents to center piece of President Obama’s health care plan: the public option. These include the American Medical Association, the American Hospital Association, PhRMA, and various pharmaceutical, medical device and insurance companies. The Senate Finance Committee is seen as the biggest obstacle to the public option.

When it comes to money from the health care and insurance industries, [Sen. John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic nominee for president, leads the pack. For senators who have not run for the presidency, which requires raising exhorbitant amounts of money, Sen. Baucus is ahead of other committee Democrats with Sens. Schumer and Kent Conrad following close behind. See the table below:

In the interest of fairness:

The money from the health and insurance industries into Republican committee member campaigns is relatively high. The insurance industry is the top contributor to Sen. Grassley’s campaigns over his career. Pharmaceutical companies are the top contributors to Sen. Hatch’s campaigns. In fact, every Republican committee member has a health or insurance industry as their one or more of their top five career contributors.

Keep in mind that the Republickins control no committees, neither majority in Congress, nor any other area where they can control the outcome of legislation.

[TheMercenary]

An interesting perspective from a patient.

snip

Patient-as-person will be a lost concept under the new health-care plan, where treatments will be based not upon individual patient needs, but upon what’s best for everyone. So cancer drugs for seniors might take second place to jungle gyms and farmers’ markets—so-called preventive care—which are covered under both the House and Senate versions of the health bill.

The stimulus package passed earlier this year allocated $1.1 billion for hundreds of “Comparative Effectiveness Research” studies. This project will compare all treatment options for a host of diseases in order to develop a database to guide doctors’ decisions. Research of this sort typically takes years. But the data will likely be hastily drawn conclusions that reflect the view of the government agencies that fund the studies: Cheap therapies are just as good as expensive ones.

In order to finance health-care reform, Democrats in Congress have proposed cutting $500 billion from Medicare over the next 10 years. Yet in his press conference last Wednesday, President Barack Obama denied that Medicare benefits would be cut. He has surrounded himself with advisers who believe otherwise.

Tom Daschle, Mr. Obama’s original pick to head Health and Human Services, argues in his book “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis,” that we should accept “hopeless diagnoses” and “forgo experimental treatments.” Mr. Daschle blames the “use and overuse of new technologies and treatments” for runaway health-care costs. He suggests a Federal Health Board modeled after the British “NICE” board to make decisions on health-care rationing.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...989102298.html

[TheMercenary]

Follow the money on Open Secrets:

http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2009...ance-sect.html

The AARP debunks the lies and distortions in the Merc's WSJ OpEd by the political hack Betsy McCaughey, who first spread the lies about "Obama's suicide program" on Fred Thompson's radio show last week and continued in this most recent op ed.

It debunks the Merc's patient's op ed as well, re: comparative effectiveness research.

The patient who wrote the op ed could be well-intention just not well informed...the same cant be said about McCaughey who has a blatant partisan political motivation.

AARP Responds to Health Reform Scare Tactics

Commentary by Betsy McCaughey “rife with gross, cruel distortions.”

WASHINGTON—AARP Executive Vice President John Rother issued the following statement in response to recent commentary by Betsy McCaughey in various media outlets on health care reform measures passed or currently being considered by Congress.

“Betsy McCaughey’s recent commentary on health care reform in various media outlets is rife with gross—and even cruel—distortions.

“Ms. McCaughey has again launched her customary broadside attack against comparative effectiveness research. She describes this term as ‘code’ for ‘limiting care based on a patient’s age.’ In fact the term for that is ‘age rating,’ a practice used by insurance companies to discriminate against older Americans against which AARP is vigorously fighting, and we look forward to her next column to help the cause.

“‘Comparative effectiveness research,’ on the other hand, is a technical term that just means giving doctors and patients the ability to compare different kinds of treatments to find out which one works best for which patient.

“Some estimates say that only about half of all therapies that patients receive have been backed up by head-to-head comparisons with alternatives. While our country spends more than $2 trillion a year on health care, we spend less than 0.1 percent on evaluating how that care works compared to other options.

“This research has been around (although sadly not enough) for decades, enjoying support from political leaders of both parties, doctors, patients, and consumer advocacy groups.

“The main opponents of this research are those groups with a vested interest in a health care system that wastes billions of dollars each year on ineffective or unnecessary drugs, treatments or tests. Given Ms. McCaughey’s position as a Director of a medical device producer, I would hope that any potential conflict of interest has not influenced her commentary.

“More concerning, Ms. McCaughey’s criticism misinterprets legislation that would actually help empower individuals and doctors to make their own choices on end-of-life care.

“This measure would allow Medicare to pay doctors for taking the time to talk with individuals about difficult end-of-life care decisions. It would help provide people with better information on the positives and negatives—both physical and financial—that different treatments can mean for them and their families.

“Facing a terminal disease or debilitating accident, some people will choose to take every possible life-saving measure in the hopes that treatment or even a cure will allow them more time with their families. Others will decide that additional treatment would impose too great a burden—emotional, physical and otherwise—on themselves and their families, declining extraordinary measures and instead choosing care to manage their discomfort. Either way, it should be their choice.

“This measure would not only help people make the best decisions for themselves, but also better ensure that their wishes are followed.

“To suggest otherwise is a gross, and even cruel, distortion—especially for any family that has been forced to make the difficult decisions on care for loved ones approaching the end of their lives.

AARP Responds to Health Reform Scare Tactics
http://www.aarp.org/aarp/presscenter...statement.html

[TheMercenary]

But of course the AARP is now in the back pocket of the Demoncrats. I wonder who they are giving their money to?

New AARP chief gave big to Obama
By Jeffrey Young
Posted: 03/12/09 12:47 PM [ET]
Incoming AARP CEO A. Barry Rand contributed $8,900 to President Obama's campaign committees, federal records show.

Rand, a retired senior executive at Xerox Corp., Avis Group and Equitant Inc. and the current chairman of Howard University's board of trustees, gave the maximum $4,600 to Obama's election campaign and an additional $4,300 to the Obama Victory Fund, a joint fundraising entity of Obama and the Democratic National Committee.

No way they don't have a blatant partisan political motivation in this one, right?

The AARP has it's own insurance program so they figure to gain greatly in any deals they make with the Demoncrats on this Bill. Of course they are going to support it.

[TheMercenary]

AARP is deeply imbedded in the Insurance Compaines back or in reality front pockets. They are essentially married to what ever the insurance companies can do to make a max profit.

More about the AARP and their partisan Insurance interests:

Dec. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Arthur Laupus joined AARP because he thought the nonprofit senior-citizen-advocacy group would make his retirement years easier. He signed up for an auto insurance policy endorsed by AARP, believing the advertising that said he would save money.

He didn’t. When Laupus, 71, compared his car insurance rate with a dozen other companies, he found he was paying twice the average. Why? One reason, he learned, was because AARP was taking a cut out of his premium before sending the money to Hartford Financial Services Group, the provider of the coverage.

Laupus stumbled onto something that many members of the world’s largest seniors’ organization don’t know: The group, formerly called American Association of Retired Persons, collects hundreds of millions of dollars annually from insurers who pay for AARP’s endorsement of their policies.

The insurance companies build the cost of these so-called royalties and fees, which amounted to $497.6 million in 2007, into the premiums they charge AARP members, according to AARP’s consolidated financial statement for that year.

AARP uses the royalties and fees to fund about half the expenses that pay for activities such as publishing brochures about health care and consumer fraud -- as well as for paying down the $200 million bond debt that funded the association’s marble and brass-studded Washington headquarters.

In addition, AARP holds clients’ insurance premiums for as long as a month and invests the money, which added $40.4 million to its revenue in 2007.

continues:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=a4OkPQIPF6Kg

The AARP advocates for seniors.

Betsy McCaughey advocates for the Hoover Institute....a conservative think thank that wants no government role in health care or any segment of the economy.

So you dont like the AARP?

I wouldnt expect you to.

That doesnt change the fact that McCaughey is spreading "gross distortions" about the health reform proposals, and particularly the impact on seniors.

McCaughey claims end-of-life counseling will be required for Medicare patients
The truth-o-meter says..... LIAR


The health care bill current before Congress mandates that seniors be given euthanasia counseling every fives years
Snopes says..... FALSE


McCaughey's Euthanasia Claims
FactCheck says..... FALSE

They must be "agents" of the Democratic party as well, huh?

You want to spread McCaughey's distortions and lies...that's your right.

Just as it is my right to call it the bullshit that it is.

And as i have said on more that occasion, debunking your partisan op eds (and as griff noted recently elsewhere, your O'Reilly tactics of ignoring context) is hardly a challenge.

Your obsession with Democrats is something I think you have to deal with on a personal level and I wish you well.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Redux

The AARP advocates for seniors.

Oh, that and thier insurance largesse that keep that 8 story building on K Street running and those multi-million dollar salaries going.

Betsy McCaughey advocates for the Hoover Institute....a conservative think thank that wants no government role in health care or any segment of the economy.

I can't say I don't disagree with her. But she is correct on many levels.

That doesnt change the fact that McCaughey is spreading "gross distortions" about the health reform proposals, and particularly the impact on seniors.

I doubt there are that many "gross distortions". She may have stretched the truth a little, sort of like AARP and how they overcharge seniors to keep the coffers padded. But I can see how you would not care for her opinion pieces.

They must be "agents" of the Democratic party as well, huh?

No, but you most certainly are one.

And as i have said on more that occasion, debunking your partisan op eds (and as griff noted recently elsewhere, your O'Reilly tactics of ignoring context) is hardly a challenge.

But yet you can't defend the actions of the Demoncrats in Congress and how they are spending away our future and thowing money at problems that have no sure fix. Tax and spend, tax and spend.

Your obsession with Democrats is something I think you have to deal with on a personal level and I wish you well.

I am more concerned with my future, and as the Demoncrats have shown us I need to be concerned with the future of my great great grandkids as well. Becasuse they sure as hell don't care. The Dems are in power, they get the blame.

[TheMercenary]

Well there you have it. The Demoncrats sold out to the big Pharmacy lobbyists. But they held the line on some other issues that were needed.

In the run-up to final approval, the panel handed the drug industry a victory, voting 47-11 to grant 12 years of market protection to high-tech drugs used to combat cancer, Parkinson's and other deadly diseases. The decision was a setback for the White House, which had hoped to give patients faster access to generic versions of costly biotech medicines like the blockbuster cancer drug Avastin.

The provision giving the federal government the right to negotiate for better drug prices under Medicare has long been a goal of Democrats who say it could lower costs for seniors. Critics argue that is unlikely unless Congress also limits the drugs than can be sold, thereby giving the government the ability to play one company off against another.

That has long been viewed as politically unfeasible under Medicare, because it would limit the choice that seniors now enjoy.

But including restrictions in the government health insurance option would place it in line with Medicaid, the government program for the poor, as well as the Department of Veterans Affairs and many private plans that limit drug choice.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php...show_article=1