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The health care reform legislation would now become a joke if the consequences were not so devastating to million of Americans. In an effort to quickly pass legislation in the Senate, regardless of its content, legislators are removing anything that would prevent votes from being lost. This policy which, originates in the White House, reflects the President’s demand of passing a historic health care bill this year regardless of whether or not it meets the original goals. The goals were to insure all (or at least most) Americans, lower the cost of health care as well as the cost of health care insurance and to regulate the health insurance industry to cover patients with pre-existing conditions and to prevent coverage from being terminated. Guess what – we aren’t even close to achieving these fact, health care costs will increase, available care will be reduced, Americans will be taxed if they don’t purchase private insurance and in the end the cost of health care and insurance will increase significantly. Worst of all, it appears that the President and many members of Congress don’t care. We now have come to the point where not only Republicans are against this legislation but now many Democrats also oppose it. Regardless, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi (with the help of the President) are trying desperately to find enough votes to ram this bill through. The latest NBC/Wall Street Poll now indicates that only 32% of the people of the United States are in favor of this legislation, but this doesn’t matter either, the Democratic leadership is still hell bent on passing this disastrous legislation.
We lost the basic focus of what the goals are. First and foremost should have been the reduction of the cost of health care. There are a number of things that can be done. Tort reform would have created a tremendous savings by limiting the number of tests and procedures performed only to protect against litigation and it would have reduced physician and facility liability insurance premiums which could have been passed along to lower costs. Allowing most insurance carriers to offer insurance in most states would have created additional competition which almost always drives prices down. Regulating test and procedure costs based upon many years of historic data collected by government resources such as VA, Medicare, Medicaid, could have standardized costs at lower prices for most tests and procedures. Allowing FDA approved prescription drugs to be imported from other countries like Canada would provide substantial savings. Correcting Medicare/Medicaid fraud and mismanagement would save and reduce costs by hundreds of billions of dollars. This could be achieved by contracting independent auditors who would be paid based upon what they identified and recovered, thereby not costing anything, being paid from funds that were previously not collected and lost. When you add up the potential gains of implementing these actions, there is no question in my mind that ample savings could be used to cover more uninsured Americans under the Medicaid program. The costs to move these programs forward would be almost nonexistent when compared to the current legislation.
Instead our government is attempting to pass legislation that will reduce Medicare/Medicaid funding by $400-$500 billion dollars. This is supposed to save these programs that are deeply in debt. What it will do is reduce reimbursements to physicians and facilities. This will reduce the number of physicians who will accept Medicare/Medicaid patients, increase the number patients accepting physicians can treat, thereby drastically increasing the load and reducing the time available to schedule treatments, which of course creates a rationing situation. There will be additional taxing on most Americans. Those in the $200,000 earnings category will be taxed, those who have high end health care insurance policies nicknamed the “Cadillac Policies” which includes many union members and of course those who choose not to purchase health care insurance will be taxed, although some choose to call this a penalty. Insurance companies will be forced to take patients with pre-existing conditions, but they won’t be forced to offer low premiums. Forcing those who can’t afford this high cost insurance to pay a penalty for not carrying insurance on top of dealing with life threatening illnesses. There will be government agencies involved with health care decisions similar to one that recently suggested that women under the age of 50 do not need mammography screening. Prescription drug importing has been defeated in the Senate. Tort reform is not part of the legislation. And the list of negatives goes on and and on. Even the former director of the Democratic National Committee, Howard Dean, is now against passage of this legislation. Yet the President and Democratic leadership is still trying to push to through.
The passage of this bill has required the President to make deals with the American …