The Rusted Musket

On March 25th I received an email from Wisconsin A/G JB VanHollen informing his constituents that he had reviewed the ObamaCare bill that was signed into law by President Obama and determined it was unconstitutional.  A/G VanHollen was requesting approval from either the Governor or either house of legislature (as required by Wisconsin law) to join other states in pursuing a lawsuit.  At the time he was asking for Wisconsin residents to voice their opinions to lawmakers in asking to join in this venture.  I took this opportunity and wrote a letter to Diamond Jim.  He replied with the following:

Dear Mr. XXXXX

Thank you for contacting me to express your views about the national health insurance reform recently signed by President Obama.  I always welcome your comments and appreciate the opportunity to respond to you.

This is a law passed by the Congress of the United States.  I understand that people may disagree with the policy.  However, I believe the legal challenges raised by the states are without legal merit.  It would be a waste of time and state resources to pursue a frivolous claim.

These reforms are good for the people of Wisconsin and the nation as a whole.

Sincerely,

Diamond Jim Doyle, Governor

Ok, so maybe I added Diamond to his signature.  The job of the A/G is to watch out for the best interests of Wisconsin residents.  If he feels that this law is unconstitutional the Governor should support him in this challenge.

You’ve gotta love partisan politics.  Thank God Diamond Jim won’t be back for another term.

Would you ever buy a car without first knowing how much it was going to cost? Of course not, stupid question. Alas, we routinely walk into hospitals and partake of their procedures and products without having a clue as to how much their procedures and products cost. We’ll send you the bill, a bill which usually mimics the price of a new car, sometimes much more so.

This lack of common sense cost transparency reminds me of that parlor game where you have a peanut hidden under one of three cups; quickly move around the cups and guess where the peanut is. Guessing where the price will be after insurance and hospital finish manipulating their “cups” is no better. This situation, could in part, be remedied by a posted price index of services. I’d be totally okay with the folks in Washington forcing the hospital/insurers hand in this regard. Iron out the costs, put these online, empower the patient!

Once again, the car dealership scenario of buying a car, driving it home, then, for the first time, becoming aware if its cost! Nonsensical, preposterous, why do we the people tolerate this very same bewildering model in heath care?

So a US senator had a very interesting comment about government universal health care in this AP article:

Sanders, an independent and socialist, said his approach is the only one “which eliminates the hundreds of billions of dollars in waste, administrative costs, bureaucracy and profiteering that is engendered by the private insurance companies.”

You see his comment is rather interesting because as I was reading it I could have swore he was talking about the federal government, specifically medicare and social security… Very interesting that he seems to think a government run option will be so efficient and waste-less, I mean just look at their excellent record deficit and astronomical debt, or the broken and nearly un-fixable social security debacle… Yep, lets let the government run our health care.

Obama isn’t trying to fix health care, he is trying to give health care away on tax payer’s dime. Read this article by Bloomberg…. You see, the real problem with health care isn’t that some people don’t have it, the real issue is rising costs in health care and the lack of proper legislation. We don’t need a “public” option, what we need is for a cap on malpractice lawsuits, we need better consumer education about health care options. We need doctors to be paid not based on how many patients they see, but on the level of service they provide. Last time I was at the doctors office I was charged $150 and I only saw a doctor for 10 minutes and a nurse for about the same. They ran some basic tests and that was it. A visit like that shouldn’t cost so much.

Don’t get me wrong though. Doctors should be paid well. They had to go to school for 11ish years and they can have a high stress, risky environment. They ought to be paid well, but $150 for 10 minutes of a doctor’s time is absurd.

Just thought everyone should read some of the highlights of the bill…
You can get it here: http://docs.house.gov/edlabor/AAHCA-BillText-071409.pdf

I found a list of points about the bill but some of it was inaccurate, so I’ve written or reworded each point and checked the actual bill to make sure that it was accurate.

Page 22: Mandates audits of all employers that self-insure.

Page 29 Lines 3-16: There will be a annual dollar limit on health care cost-sharing, meaning that YOU will have to pay what the government won’t cover

Page 30: A government committee will “recommend” (mandate?) what treatments and benefits people will get

Page 42: The “Health Choices Commissioner” will decide health benefits (similar to the committee)

Page 50 Sec 152: Is interesting because it is vague enough that it provides health care for everyone, including illegal immigrants… Unless there is some other provision I’m missing that counters that.

Page 58 Lines 5-13: The Government will have real-time access too all of your finances and every person will be issued a National ID Healthcard.

Page 59: The federal government will ‘‘(C) enable electronic funds transfers, in order to allow automated reconciliation with the related health care payment and remittance ad-vice” so basically they can transfer money from your account. It doesn’t specify whether they have to notify you or not.

Page 102 point 3: Those eligible for Medicaid will be automatically enrolled, apparently whether you want to or not. Which would probably mean that the current health care you have you wouldn’t be able to use.

Page 124: No company can sue the government for price-fixing. No “judicial review” is permitted against the government. Put simply, private insurers will be crushed.

Page 127: The government sets Doctor’s wages.

Page 145: An employer MUST auto-enroll employees into the government-run public plan. However, the employee may explicitly state that they wish to use different insurance.

Page 146: Employers MUST pay at least 72.5% of full-time employee’s medical premiums, no if ands or buts. Employers MUST also pay a portion of health care costs for part-time employees as well.

Page 149: Any employer with a payroll of $400K (about 8 employees, we are talking small businesses) or more, who does not offer a health care plan, pays an 8% tax on payroll

Page 150: Any employer with a payroll of $250K-400K, who does not offer a health care plan, pays a 2 to 6% tax on payroll

Page 167: Any individual who doesnt’ have acceptable health care (according to the government) will be taxed 2.5% of their income. What is acceptable isn’t spelled out very well.

Page 170: Any NON-RESIDENT alien is exempt from the above tax

Page 195: Officers and employees of Government Healthcare Bureaucracy will have access to ALL American financial and personal records.

Page 203 line 13-14: “The tax imposed under this section shall not be treated as tax.” Verbatim quote…

Page 241 lines 6-8: “Service categories established under this paragraph shall apply without regard to the specialty of the physician furnishing the service.’’ So from the sounds of it a pediatrician will get paid the same as a brain surgeon (no offense to pediatricians).

Page 253: Government sets value of doctors’ time based on “time, mental effort and professional judgment, technical skill and physical effort, and stress due to risk”.

Page 265: Government mandates and controls productivity for all healthcare industries. On the surface this may not look like a bad thing, but given what the rest of the bill is about, they could they could basically put anyone out of business that they don’t like.

Page 268: Government regulates rental and purchase of power-driven wheelchairs.

Page 272: Cancer patients get special health care rationing

Page 280: Hospitals will be penalized for what the government deems preventable re-admissions.

Page 298: If a doctor treats a patient during an initial admission that results in a readmission, you will be penalized by the government.

Page 317: Doctors are now prohibited for owning and investing in healthcare companies!

Page 317 line 21: Prohibition on hospital expansion. Hospitals cannot expand without government approval.

Page 341: Government has authority to disqualify Medicare Advantage Plans, HMOs, etc.

Page 379: Telehealth Advisory Committee (healthcare by phone).

Page 425: Government will instruct and consult regarding living wills, durable powers of attorney, etc.

Page 429: Advance Care Planning Consult will be used to dictate treatment as patient’s health deteriorates. This can include an ORDER for end-of-life plans.

Page 430: Government will decide what level of treatments you may have at end-of-life.

Page 469: Community-based Home Medical Services: ACORN maybe?.

Page 494: Government will cover mental health services: defining, creating and rationing those services.

The next 25 pages deal with creating a medical research facility
The next section is about improving transparency of nursing homes.

And thats about as far as I feel like going. It is a 1000+ page document after all…

It’s fine that there are those who think government sponsored health care is all good, will only bring fair low prices, and won’t smash small private health care providers out of business if they can provide the same value.  In order for you to be consistent though, I never want to hear or see you picket or complain about Walmart’s symbolically similar business model ever again.  Ironically, I shop at Walmart so maybe government sponsored health care is for me after all…