Obama Citizenship

Set for Conference, Major Healthcare Proposal Unearthed in ?Stimulus? Bill; Turncoats Snookered?; Offices Swamped

By Phil

The fact that the so-called stimulus bill has been pushed through the national Bicarmeral Legislature at breaknik speed without due legislative processes in both chambers may not be known by the American people, but even Democrats are concerned about how this apparent lack of oversight on bills will continue playing out.

One such instance of even Congress not knowing exactly what’s in this bill until the 11th hour is the call for a National Coordinator of Health Information Technology. On the face of it, many people might think it makes sense to make their medical records electronic so that it’s easier to transfer data from, say, one doctor to another or to a hospital, and the potential reduction in paperwork filing would be a tremendous asset to the industry.

Unfortunately, this proposal — despite any and all good intentions — has the potential of going much further. According to commentary in Bloomberg.com by former New York Lt. Governor and adjunct senior fellow at the Hudson Institute Betsy McCaughey, it’s the uniformity enforcement aspects that are troublesome:

These provisions reflect the handiwork of Tom Daschle, until recently the nominee to head the Health and Human Services Department. …

The bill?s health rules will affect ?every individual in the United States? (445, 454, 479; page numbers refer to H.R. 1 EH, pdf version). Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system. Having electronic medical records at your fingertips, easily transferred to a hospital, is beneficial. It will help avoid duplicate tests and errors.

But the bill goes further. One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and ?guide? your doctor?s decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, ?Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.? According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and ?learn to operate less like solo practitioners.?

Keeping doctors informed of the newest medical findings is important, but enforcing uniformity goes too far.

Hospitals and doctors that are not ?meaningful users? of the new system will face penalties.  ?Meaningful user? isn?t defined in the bill. That will be left to theHHS secretary, who will be empowered to impose ?more stringent measures of meaningful use over time? (511, 518, 540-541)

What penalties will deter your doctor from going beyond the electronically delivered protocols when your condition is atypical or you need an experimental treatment? The vagueness is intentional. In his book, Daschle proposed an appointed body with vast powers to make the ?tough? decisions elected politicians won?t make.

The stimulus bill does that, and calls it the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research (190-192). The goal, Daschle?s book explained, is to slow the development and use of new medications and technologies because they are driving up costs. He praises Europeans for being more willing to accept ?hopeless diagnoses? and ?forgo experimental treatments,? and he chastises Americans for expecting too much from the health-care system.

Daschle says health-care reform ?will not be pain free.? Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them. That means the elderly will bear the brunt.

Medicare now pays for treatments deemed safe and effective. The stimulus bill would change that and apply a cost- effectiveness standard set by the Federal Council (464).

The Federal Council is modeled after a U.K. board discussed in Daschle?s book. This board approves or rejects treatments using a formula that divides the cost of the treatment by the number of years the patient is likely to benefit. Treatments for younger patients are more often approved than treatments for diseases that affect the elderly, such as osteoporosis.

In 2006, a U.K. health board decreed that elderly patients with macular degeneration had to wait until they went blind in one eye before they could get a costly new drug to save the other eye. It took almost three years of public protests before the board reversed its decision. …

The stimulus bill will affect every part of health care, from medical and nursing education, to how patients are treated and how much hospitals get paid. The bill allocates more funding for this bureaucracy than for the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force combined (90-92, 174-177, 181).

Hiding health legislation in a stimulus bill is intentional. Daschle supported the Clinton administration?s health-care overhaul in 1994, and attributed its failure to debate and delay. A year ago, Daschle wrote that the next president should act quickly before critics mount an opposition. ?If that means attaching a health-care plan to the federal budget, so be it,? he said. ?The issue is too important to be stalled by Senate protocol.?

On Friday, President Obama called it ?inexcusable and irresponsible? for senators to delay passing the stimulus bill. In truth, this bill needs more scrutiny.

The health-care industry is the largest employer in the U.S. It produces almost 17 percent of the nation?s gross domestic product. Yet the bill treats health care the way European governments do: as a cost problem instead of a growth industry. Imagine limiting growth and innovation in the electronics or auto industry during this downturn. This stimulus is dangerous to your health and the economy.

The bill certainly needs more scrutiny; at the very least, it needs to be properly vetted in Committee and subsequently thoroughly debated on the floor of each Chamber. After all, if the above is in the bill, what else could similarly be lurking in 700+ pages of proposals that ought to be considered in separate measures?

As Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ) points out at RedState.com:

Americans are up in arms, decrying wasteful spending in the so-called stimulus bill. They should be. But one of the bill?s worst provisions has gone almost unnoticed, dangerously lurking below the radar of those exposing the bill?s flaws.

?Comparative Effectiveness Research,? sounds innocuous, but big-government programs always do. The $1.1 billion of the stimulus package earmarked for this project is a significant step toward government-run healthcare. Comparative effectiveness research is a tool for bureaucrats to decide which medical treatments Americans should or should not have access to.

In countries with government-run healthcare systems, comparative effectiveness is often used as an excuse to deny patients life-saving medical care on the grounds of cost-effectiveness. The healthcare board of the United Kingdom has repeatedly denied breakthrough drugs to citizens suffering with breast cancer, Alzheimer?s, and even multiple sclerosis on the grounds of comparative effectiveness. The British government has stripped citizens of the freedom to choose their own healthcare. Congressman David Obey, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, has already admitted as much. Just read his own words from the committee report on the stimulus, talking about this provision: ?Those items, procedures, and interventions? that are found to be less effective and in some cases, more expensive, will no longer be prescribed.? We must not allow it.

Comparative effectiveness ?research? presents a danger to freedom of healthcare choice in America. And if the potential consequences of the study alone don?t scare you, recall President Obama?s failed nominee to oversee the Department of Health and Social Services. In his own book, Critical, Daschle talks about his desire to create a federal planning board to make Americans? healthcare decisions. While Americans may have dodged a bullet with Daschle, the fight against government-run healthcare is only beginning.

Update: RedState.com is reporting the following:

The Wall Street Journal says that Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, and Arlen Specter may have been snookered. Now that the Senate has passed a slimmed-down porked up version of the Obama-Reid-Pelosi debt spending plan, the White House is pushing to add back many of the items that it cut out to get their support:

The White House is seeking to restore funding cut by the Senate for schools, health insurance and computerizing health records as the economic-stimulus plan headed into a final round of negotiations in Congress, with top lawmakers struggling to bring the price of the two-year package down to $800 billion.

That would be well below the $838.2 billion plan approved Tuesday by the Senate on a 61-37 vote, but would reflect pressure from influential moderates in the Senate to hold down costs. As lawmakers meet to reconcile the House and Senate versions of the legislation, the White House?s effort to reshape it is leading to skirmishes among House and Senate Democrats, as well as with the moderate Republicans and Democrats who pushed to cut the size of the original Senate package.

There?s even some whispering that House Democrats may be so addicted to spendingthat they?ll insist on adding the money back at the risk of scuttling the package. We?ll know soon enough, since Democrats are going back on their word to bring openness and transparency to government.

And there?s one other thing to keep in mind: Congress has still not passed the omnibus appropriations bill needed to fund the government for 2009. Drafting was complete weeks ago, and as of February 2, the total pricetag was reported to be around $410 billion. Expect a near dollar-to-dollar correlation between what was ?cut out? of this debt spending plan and what is added to that omnibus.

Maybe the Turncoat Three(tm) will be able to redeem themselves after all? Something tells me these Dem statists can’t help but to leave “No Pork Left Behind(tm)”.

Update: The Turncoat Three(tm) are really hearing it. From Politico.com (via HotAir.com):

When you call Collins? office, an automated voice quickly picks up and says, ?The voice mailbox is full. Goodbye.? Click. 

If you call Specter?s line, you automatically get a busy signal. (Nice.) Same for Snowe. …

?I haven?t gotten through. Calls are like 10-to-1 against,? sniffed one Senate aide. He?s annoyed as a result of having to actually ?learn the phone numbers? of those offices he wants to call, instead of just dialing 0. Hardships. 

A rep for Collins told us their offices are swamped, both in Maine and in D.C. Collins? spokesman Kevin Kelley said most are calling to thank Collins for her support. 

?I can?t tell you exactly how many calls we have received, though, if this is any indication, … we have three incoming lines which have been continuously busy for several days now, … and shortly after the voice mailbox is emptied, it fills again.? 

A rep for Snowe said: ?Our office has been inundated with phone calls … from Maine to California. The comments have run the gamut.?

-Phil

Full post as published by The Right Side of Life on February 11, 2009 (boomark / email).