PELOSI HAS IT ALL WRONG!!

With Obama's poll approval numbers falling and the polls showing that a majority of Americans oppose the government take over of the best health care in the World.
The Speaker of the House of Representatives is using an Obamaism to deflect the anger that the voters have toward her and Harry Reid for trying to ram through socialized medicine.

The Reuters News Service has this report in which Pelosi attempts to demonize the Insurance Industry. The same people who made it possible to put down the HMO Industry's attempt to control and dictate who and how Americans could be treated by doctors. The insurance industry brought us the PPO concept, that allows patients to select any doctor and pays the doctor a decent fee unlike the HMO's who dictate that you use one of their panel doctors and limit the amount of payment that is covered under the provisions of the HMO contract!

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Friday "the glory days are coming to an end" for the health insurance industry and predicted it will fail to stop healthcare overhaul legislation moving through Congress.

Speaking to reporters as the House prepared to go into a monthlong August recess, she cited the example of cancer patients who "will not have a cap on the benefits that they receive," if the current proposals are passed.

She said Democrats in August will counter the insurance industry's "shock and awe" campaign against healthcare reform and said the industry is "the biggest opponent of this passing with a public option in it." The House bill would include a government-run public insurance option to compete with private insurers.

Maybe "the glory days" for Pelosi should end. She flies home with her entourage very frequently on a military plane, an if it is not a big plane she complains to the military authorities.

Representatives for Judicial Watch, which obtained e-mails and other documents from a Freedom of Information request, said the correspondence shows Pelosi has abused the system in place to accommodate congressional leaders and treated the Air Force as her "personal airline."

Pelosi's office disputed the claim, pointing to White House policy enacted after the Sept. 11 attacks allowing for the House speaker to travel to his or her congressional district via military aircraft whenever possible for security reasons. Her office said she typically uses the same kind of aircraft used by her predecessor, Dennis Hastert.

But Judicial Watch said that Pelosi was notorious for making special demands for high-end aircraft, lodging last-minute cancellations and racking up additional expenses for the military.

The e-mails showed repeated attempts by Pelosi aides to request aircraft, sometimes aggressively, and by Department of Defense officials to accommodate them.
According to the group, she took at least 50 military flights between February 2007 and November 2008.

Using private charter rates, 50 flights coast to coast would cost close to $1 million.
This is not about her having secure communications and secure aircraft available to her. It's about an arrogance of extravagance that demands a jumbo jet that cost $22,000 an hour to operate to taxi her and her buddies back and forth to California.

CNN and The Washington Times reported that it's the equivalent of a 757 military aircraft. It has 42 seats. It's what the Secretary of State, and Secretary of Defense use to travel to the Middle East. . This is what we use for cabinet secretaries to get halfway around the world.

Pelosi is the last one who should refer to any business as living the "the glory days"! But then as a Democrat and a devotee of Obama, she comes by the identity demonizing naturally!

OBAMA IS A WANNABE LBJ AND ROOSEVELT

Behind the slippery smooth talk that president Obama spins almost every day is a calculating community organizer who wants to "change" our Republic into a collective "nanny" state.
He is a student of history in some areas, even if he did not know that Hirohito was NOT the Japanese representative that signed the surrender on the battleship Missouri.He apparently is trying to follow the methods and procedures that Roosevelt used to get Social Security passed, and LBJ used to pass the original Medicare bill.

If you bear with me, and work your way through this lengthy Blog. You will see the comparison.

In 1965 the Social Security Act was amended and Medicare became a social insurance program administered by the United States government, providing health insurance coverage to people who are aged 65 and over, or who meet other special criteria.To begin with the thrust was to help people pay for M.D. and hospital care!

Medicare operates as a single-payer health care system. The Social Security Act of 1965 was passed by Congress in late-spring of 1965 and signed into law on July 30, 1965, by President Lyndon B. Johnson as amendments to Social Security legislation. At the bill-signing ceremony President Johnson enrolled former President Harry S. Truman as the first Medicare beneficiary and presented him with the first Medicare card.

Now America stands on a precipice that may turn 1/6th of the GNP over to government control.The medical care industry is the greatest and admittedly the most expensive in the world. Therefore, it is appropriate to study how we got to this point.
Democrats and Socialists in Congress did not wake up on Obama's inauguration day and decide we need to Nationalize the health care!


This attempt to socialize our medical care began decades ago, and this blog will review how we go to this point.
Americans now face the transferring of massive additional powers over their personal health care to the federal government. Politico-economic techniques used to pass the original Medicare legislation in 1965 are being employed again in 2009 to secure passage of expansive new health care measures despite resistance of the public at large. Passage in 1996 of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act,whose less publicized provisions criminalize aspects of the practice of medicine and jeopardize the privacy of doctor-patient relations through a compulsory nationwide electronic database,was achieved largely through techniques similar to those used to pass Medicare.

Correct interpretation of Medicare's politico-economic history is therefore central to understanding ongoing attempts to enlarge the federal government's role in the market for medical care.

Like the Social Security Act that it amended, the 1965 Medicare program was ostensibly a vehicle for reducing dependency in old age. In reality, both laws were dependency-shifting rather than dependency-reducing: mandated dependence of the elderly on the federal government and taxpayers replaced potential dependence on family and charity. This blog describes how and why Medicare became law and considers what the observed pattern of institutional change implies for America's future.

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. In the end Medicare's passage was anything but a spontaneous societal embrace of one of the pillars of President Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society."

The federal government's involvement with this issue began in earnest in 1934. In that year President Franklin Roosevelt established the Committee on Economic Security (CES) and charged it with drafting a Social Security bill. Although the original CES report on Social Security stated with Roosevelt's approval that a "health insurance plan would be forthcoming," the CES statement caused such a stir that Roosevelt decided to postpone the health insurance issue, fearing that it jeopardized passage of the Social Security bill (Corning 1969: 38).

The provision in the original Social Security bill proposing a "Social Insurance Board" and authorizing study of health insurance was changed so as to delete all reference to health and "rechristen" the board as the "Social Security Board" (Chapman and Talmadge 1970: 342). President Roosevelt had decided that "health insurance should not be injected into the debate at that point, nor should the final report on health be made public as long as the social security bill was still in the legislative mill." Indeed, as of 1969 the final CES report on health still had not been made public.

By 1964 sustained efforts to legislate compulsory health insurance at the national level had continued for three decades. For 30 years since the Committee on Economic Security first endorsed the idea, Congress and the public repeatedly rejected it. In these circumstances, how could a Medicare bill possibly be passed in 1965? First, as shown below, the 1965 bill and the procedures employed in its passage were rife with transaction-cost augmentation, allowing government officials who supported it to impede public opposition.

Consistent with the theory, concurrent changes in the variables posited to be determinants of this behavior more strongly encouraged legislators to support such transaction-cost-increasing measures on the Medicare issue than at any previous time in U.S. history.

Politically, what changed in 1964 was the resounding victory by Democrats in the general elections in November.( sound familiar?) Many perceived the election of Lyndon B. Johnson as an endorsement of compulsory national health insurance and other social programs regarded as pillars of his personal vision of the "Great Society." Congress was heavily in the hands of the Democrats.(This is the way we find ourselves today).
A Gallup poll released on January 3, 1965, showed that efforts to sway public opinion on the national health insurance issue had been at least superficially successful: 63 percent of respondents now approved of the idea of a "compulsory medical insurance program covering hospital and nursing home care for the elderly. To be financed out of increased social security taxes",even though 48 percent of those interviewed still did not know why the AMA opposed the program (Gallup 1972, Vol. 3: 1915).

Political and ideological winds had shifted, nursed by the incremental politics of preceding years. But they had not shifted enough to procure compulsory health insurance for Social Security beneficiaries without deploying a full arsenal of transaction-cost augmenting stratagems to deflect and silence the opposition.

A major obstacle to Medicare legislation was widespread fear that compulsory federal insurance would result in federal control over medicine and over doctor-patient relationships. To counter this fear, the bill's authors drafted a provision specifically disavowing such control,( sounds strangely similar to Obama, Pelosi and Reid's line) the same strategy used to secure passage of public education bills in 1958 and 1965 (Twight 1996).

Questioned about whether the 1964 bill represented socialism, Celebrezze directly addressed the issue of control, stating: "There is nothing in this bill which tells a doctor whom to treat or when to treat him.There is nothing in this bill by which the Government would control the hospital, and as I understand socialism, it is Government control and operation of facilities.It is merely a method of financing hospital care, and that is all" (U.S. House Hearings 1963-64: 50).

He added,we are a paying agency and I don't see where you get any control of any kind out of that.(today we know he who pays the piper, calls the dance) Naturally, there will be minimum requirements like these which are required now under Blue Cross. I see no evidence where this would lead to control over the doctors [U.S. House Hearings 1963-64: 54]. Note: In those days Blue Shield was still run by the Doctors!

Underlying government officials' support for the insurance approach and the myth of the separate trust fund was their desire to remove the associated taxing and spending from the official budget. Such off-budget strategies exemplify a recurrent form of political transaction-cost augmentation in the United States (Twight 1983). Testifying before the House Ways and Means Committee, HEW Secretary Celebrezze stated that "what we are attempting to do,is that we are trying to get away from making the assistance program our first line of defense. To get away from heavy Government expenditures out of general funds"( a flat out lie!) (U.S. House Hearings 1963-64: 67).

They succeeded, at least initially. As Marmor (1970, 1973: 22) noted, the Social Security programs were "financed out of separate trust funds that were not categorized as executive expenditures; the billions of dollars spent by the Social Security Administration were until 1967 not included in the annual budget the president presented to Congress." But in 1967 that came to a screaching halt!!

In addition to manipulating political information costs in the ways described above, governmental supporters of national health insurance used a variety of other transaction-cost-increasing strategies to increase the costs of taking political action to resist the Medicare proposal. Even in 1965, proponents of compulsory health insurance feared that it could not be passed as a stand-alone measure. Accordingly, they packaged it with the "Social Security Amendments of 1965." Most politically irresistible among the measures contained in the amendments was an across-the-board 7 percent increase in cash benefits to Social Security recipients, a benefit increase made retroactive to January 1, 1965.

The Social Security amendment package also contained politically appealing benefits such as grants for maternal and child health services, liberalization of disability coverage, and the like. Without doubt, these linkages increased the political transaction costs facing the public and facing members of Congress of resisting the compulsory medical insurance proposal.

The tying was not happenstance. In 1964 hearings held by both the House and Senate on Social Security amendments, including compulsory medical insurance as well as an increase in Social Security benefits. The House and Senate passed different versions of the bill increasing benefits, with the medical insurance provisions omitted from the House bill but included as an amendment to the Senate bill. When the conference committee appointed to reconcile the two bills ended in deadlock over the Medicare issue, conferees decided to forgo the Social Security benefit increase passed by both the House and the Senate in a deliberate effort to give Medicare another chance in the following year. As Rep. Byrnes (R., Wisc.) put it, "The amendments to the old-age survivors disability insurance sections of this bill could have been passed last fall if the word had not come down, and the insistence made that 'Oh, no, you have to tie all of these together because of the fear that the medical part of this program could not stand on its own merits'" (U.S. Cong. Rec.-House 7 April 1965: 7219). The administration's insistence on this linkage was central to its transaction-cost-increasing strategy.

In 1965 the executive support, party support, ideology, and media publicity variables more strongly favored transaction-cost augmentation on the Medicare issue than in any previous year. Both President Roosevelt and President Truman had favored compulsory national health insurance, but for a variety of reasons,Social Security, World War II, the Korean War,each put Medicare legislation on the back burner. President Kennedy was constrained by his narrow electoral margin.

In contrast, after making Medicare a major campaign issue, President Lyndon Johnson won a landslide victory and proceeded to support Medicare actively as one of the pillars of his "Great Society" agenda. Active presidential support for Medicare and the transaction-cost-increasing measures needed to pass it thus encouraged other government officials to employ transaction-cost-augmenting measures on this issue as never before.

The fact that no public hearings were held in the House of Representatives in 1965 meant that the media was less able to inform the public regarding transaction-cost-increasing features of the legislation. Rep. James F. Battin (R., Mont.) noted that if open hearings had been held "the working press of the country could then have advised the people of all 50 States on what the proposals were, the arguments for and against, and then we as representatives of the people could have had an expression from our constituents on their thinking" (U.S. Cong. Rec.-House 8 April 1965: 7399). The lack of publicity given to transaction-cost-increasing features of the legislation also favored government officials' support for such measures.

Moreover, following the general practice of the Ways and Means Committee, Mills insisted that the committee's bill be considered by the House under a "closed rule" that prevented floor amendments. In floor discussion, representatives complained bitterly about these transaction-cost-increasing strategies. Rep. Curtis (R., Mo.) said he had "urged that there should be open hearings and people with knowledge in our society on this subject should be given the opportunity to come before us" (U.S. Cong. Rec.-House 4 April 1965: 7229). Curtis recounted the secretive nature of the committee's deliberation:

Congress members knew in 1965 that in passing Medicare they were legislating for all time to come. Political transaction costs had been molded to accomplish precisely that end. Senator Mundt (R., S.D.) regarded it as an "irreversible step" in that Medicare "would be exceedingly difficult to discontinue without breaking faith with those who have to pay the tax" (U.S. House Hearings 1963-64: 264). Senators and administration officials alike understood that they were "legislating in perpetuity" and would face strong pressures to expand the program (U.S. Senate Hearings 1965: 134).

They also knew that Medicare would create a vast new public dependence on the federal government for financial security in old age, continuing the pattern set by Social Security in 1935. Senator Mundt (R., S.D.) described it as "another step toward destroying the independence and self-reliance in America which is the last best hope of individual freedom for all mankind" (U.S. Cong. Rec.-Senate 9 July 1965: 16122). Moreover, legislators knew that Medicare would take money from the poor and middle classes to subsidize the rich. Senator Gordon Allott (R., Colo.) described it to the Senate as a "program of 'Robin Hood in reverse'" that showed "complete disregard for need in disbursement" and represented a "giant step" toward making "every citizen as dependent as possible on his Government for his every need" (U.S. Cong. Rec.-Senate 8 July 1965: 15935).

But they also knew that Medicare would serve their political interests. As majority leader Rep. Carl B. Albert (D., Okla.) told his colleagues on the House floor, H.R. 6675 "is a bill which in my opinion will serve well those of us who support it, politically and otherwise, through the years" (U.S. Cong. Rec.-House 8 April 1965: 7435). Or, as Rep. Phillip Burton (D., Calif.) more crassly expressed it, "This bill is going to put into the pockets of my fellow Californians some $213 million its first year.

All in all our fair State and its people in the first year will be favored to the tune of some $550 million, a not modest sum" (U.S. Cong. Rec.-House 8 April 1965: 7429). Without doubt, the Social Security Amendments of 1965 were "so drafted that quite a bit of honey had been placed under the beehive in order to attract the bees" (U.S. Cong. Rec.-Senate 9 July 1965: 16071). TODAY WE CALL IT PORK!

We have seen that political transaction-cost augmentation enabled government officials to embed Medicare in America's institutional structure at precisely the time when all the theoretical determinants of such behavior supported its pro-Medicare use for the first time in U.S. history. Indeed, the strategies most influential in passing and entrenching Medicare had as their goal and effect the manipulation of political transaction costs. By tying Medicare with a 7 percent increase in Social Security benefits, proceeding incrementally, narrowing the bill's coverage, misrepresenting its content, concealing its costs, and using countless other transaction-cost-increasing strategies described in this blog, government supporters of Medicare were able to achieve their objectives. These same tools, so instrumental in passing Medicare, today continue to serve those who seek further increases in federal control over U.S. health care. SOUND FAMILIAR?
Source: Ihe Cato Institute

A HARD LOOK AT THE COST OF MEDICAL CARE

Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.” —Ronald Reagan

The thrust of the argument proposed by those who want to socialize our medical care system is it's prohibitive cost.But when they tell you medical care cost too much they do not tell you that included in their estimate of medical care costs is this fact.

While Americans may complain about the high cost of health care, they're still willing to shell out roughly $34 billion a year out-of-pocket on alternative therapies that aren't covered by insurance, a new study shows.
That's a growth of more than 25% in the past decade, says an in-person survey of 23,000 Americans from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and National Institutes of Health

In a desperate attempt to deflect criticism from the Congress for try to ram through a trillion dollar bill that would not only socialize the best medical care in the world. And I say that with out any reservations, because you do not find many people going to Canada or Great Britain from the USA for medical care. But thousands come here every year to be treated at such medical centers as Mayo Clinic, and the Cleveland Clinic! Speaker off the House, Nancy Pelosi on Thursday ramped up her criticism of insurance companies, accusing them of unethical behavior and working to kill a plan to create a new government-run health plan.

"It's almost immoral what they are doing," Pelosi said to reporters, referring to insurance companies. "Of course they've been immoral all along in how they have treated the people that they insure," she said, adding, "They are the villains. They have been part of the problem in a major way. They are doing everything in their power to stop a public option from happening."

If any one is immoral it is those in Congress that are pushing Euthanasia, abortion and medical care rationing disguised as a "reform" of Medical Care!!

Author Sally Pipes wrote this about the proposed Congressional health plan. "The top three myths are: 46 million Americans have no health insurance and therefore no health care; an individual mandate will lead to universal coverage; and socialized systems such as those in Canada and Europe are cheaper and more efficient than ours. If I were to write the book today, I would add another myth: that America’s health-care system puts our employers at a competitive disadvantage and hurts our economy. No less an authority than the Congressional Budget Office has debunked this myth, noting that it is employees who pay the tab, not the company, as it’s merely a substitute for wages. Yet this is a major selling point in the Democratic push to government health care.

Health care is a necessity of life, similar to food, clothing, shelter, and to some degree transportation in modern America. It’s not a right, as traditionally understood in our constitutional system informed by the great truths of the Declaration of Independence’s promise of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
The American Revolution was fought and based on the natural rights of man. Society should be organized to assist individuals in providing these things through the protection of property rights and keeping taxes low so Americans can make their own decisions on how to spend their money rather than putting government in charge. Unfortunately, supporters of government-run health care and the mainstream media have been telling the American people that health care is a right, and that view has been gaining significant momentum over the last few years.

Americans certainly enjoy government-granted rights to health-care services. Medicaid is a categorical program for low-income Americans that meet its criteria. Children have rights under SCHIP [the State Children’s Health Insurance Program], seniors under Medicare, and we all enjoy rights to being treated at hospitals, regardless of our ability to pay. This is similar to how we deal with the other necessities.

When people say health care is a right, there is the underlying notion that it should be provided at zero price at point of consumption, or, worse yet, no cost at all, ever. This is impossible, as doctors, nurses, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, and other providers in the system can’t be expected to work for free. We don’t expect other necessities to be free or provided by the government or paid for collectively. In fact, we’d be horrified if they were provided this way. A little known fact is that of all of life’s necessities, save clothing, health care is by far the least costly. It’s not until Americans become senior citizens that the average household spends more out of pocket on heath care than entertainment and dining out. Yet we don’t decry the crisis in restaurant bills, football games, and rock concerts".

Of the almost 46 million Americans counted as uninsured by the U.S. Census Bureau, 14 million of them are eligible for existing government programs but have not signed up. Another 17 million of them are earning over $50,000 a year but do not buy insurance because they feel it is too expensive. Two-thirds are young people between 18 and 31 who consider themselves “invincible.” They would buy insurance if it were cheaper and available to cover catastrophes, which is why one has insurance.

Because 64 percent of Americans get their insurance through their employer and insurance is not portable, many of the uninsured are just between jobs and hence counted as uninsured, even if they are only uninsured for a short period of time. There are only about 8 million uninsured that need some assistance".

Our health-care system is already dominated by government. We do not have a market- based health-care system today. Forty-seven percent of the American health-care sector is in the hands of government through Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, and the Veterans Administration. Today’s political leaders and the Obama administration want to take over the other 53 percent.

According to a recent poll by Harvard professor Robert Blendon, 82 percent of Americans rate their health care as good or excellent. This statistic would drop significantly if the government became the only provider, with a global budget set by government to control costs. Or if people got shunted to a Medical Home, the current Orwellian term for staff-model HMOs, and were told they could only see a restricted number of specialists after their overworked and underpaid primary-care doctor had granted permission. They would be very dissatisfied if, in order to keep costs under control, government denied care, long waiting lists appeared, they were denied access to the latest technological innovations, and they faced a shortage of doctors. This is the situation in Canada today.

Instead of increasing the role of government in the system, we need to put patients and doctors in charge of health-care decisions. The tax code needs to treat the purchase of health care equally, whether a family secures it in the private market, through an employer, through being self-employed, or through a trade association or other affinity group. This would allow many coverage options to emerge, some of which would surely guarantee a lifetime of coverage, just as private insurance guarantees disability insurance over a working life and life insurance until death.

The key is to free up options for innovation. There are about 2,000 mandates on insurance companies across the nation adding between 20 to 50 percent to the cost of premiums. Guaranteed issue and community rating (not allowing coverage to be based on health status or age) also increase costs. These costly mandates should be eliminated. Individuals should be allowed to buy insurance across state lines so they can get the type of insurance that fits their particular needs.

Last but not least, there should be medical-malpractice reform. A lot of doctors practice defensive medicine for fear of being sued. This practice also adds to costs.

If we can offer Americans universal choice, we will be able to achieve universal coverage or, more important, universal access to care and indemnification from financial ruin due to health-care expenses.

SOURCE: NATIONAL REVIEW

AND IF YOU HAVE ANY DOUBTS THAT ONE OF THE CORNER STONES OF SOCIALIZED MEICINE; This should ally your doubts.
"On its Flu.gov Web page, HHS says the government is working to produce enough vaccine for the entire population, but there will be shortages when a vaccine first becomes available – probably in mid-October.

That means the “limited supply” will have to be “prioritized for distribution and administration.”

On July 29, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices – a group that advises the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention -- recommended that novel H1N1 flu vaccine be made available first to the following five groups:

-- Pregnant women
-- Health care workers and emergency medical responders
-- People caring for infants under 6 months of age
-- Children and young adults from 6 months to 24 years
-- People aged 25 to 64 years with underlying medical conditions (e.g. asthma, diabetes)

Nothing is said about people over the age of 64, with or without underlying medical conditions.
Source:CNSNEWS.com

DOES AMERICA WANT TO SUBSTITUTE MEDICAL HOMES FOR HOSPITALS FOR THE "OLD PEOPLE"?

(CNSNews.com) - The House health-care reform bill proposes to decrease hospital visits by establishing a “medical home pilot program” for elderly and disabled Americans.Is this part of Obama's grandiose schemes?
Such a medical home would not require a physician to be on the staff, and therefore could be run solely by nurse practitioners and physician assistants. Medical homes also would practice “evidence-based” medicine, which advocates only the use of medical treatments that are supported by effectiveness research.

To quote Judie Brown "The current debate over health care is one of those scenarios that might play well in a science-fiction thriller, but must not be allowed to play out on the backs and over the dead bodies of the uninformed. The intent to create a nationalized health-care system appears more and more like a behind-the-scenes project based on government control over who lives and who dies".

In the draft now circulating in the House of Representatives is an alarming concept, but apparently interests only a few of those who should be warning the public about it. The target audience should be those who are approaching age 65 and, of course, those who are elderly and needing care. This target audience is going to become the walking target of Obama’s health-care “reform.”It was not long ago when people like me warned that the culture of death would not be satisfied with abortion, but would push for euthanasia soon. Well, the time is NOW!!

It is time to review the tragedy that beauracratic medicine begets! The following is from an article entitled "IT COULDN'T HAPPEN IN GREAT BRITAIN" PUBLISHED ON THE NET BY NHS BLOG DOCTOR.
• Assessing the priority of care for patients in accident and emergency (A&E) was routinely conducted by unqualified receptionists.

• No all-day, on-call cover by consultants because of shortages meant junior doctors were not adequately supervised.

• The trust had two clinical decision units (CDUs) which staff said were used as dumping grounds to avoid breaching the four-hour target for being treated in A&E

• There were not enough nurses to care properly for emergency patients

• Nurses lacked training

• The shortage of nurses on wards meant call buttons went unanswered…patients were sometimes left for hours in wet or soiled sheets...

• Delays in operations were commonplace

• There was often no experienced surgeon in the hospital after 9pm

• Few patients were given the drug warfarin to help prevent blood clots

• Essential equipment was not always available or working

• The trust board was more concerned with finance, targets and achieving foundation status, with little evidence that poor standards of nursing care were identified or discussed

• The trust was poor at identifying when things went wrong and managing risk

As a result of hospital's "appalling" emergency care, many patients died needlessly! The NHS watchdog has said about 400 more people died at Staffordshire General Hospital between 2005 and 2008 than would be expected, the Healthcare Commission said.Note the words "then would be expected"! If Obama Care is passed all patients "too old" and infirmed will be encouaged to die!

It said there were deficiencies at "virtually every stage" of emergency care and said managers pursued targets at the detriment of patient care.

One of the most damning provisions of the bill being circulated through the House of Representatives and the Senate, includes provisions to designate MEDICAL HOMES!
Provisions for the medical home pilot program are an amendment to the Social Security Act, which governs the administration of Medicare and Medicaid services.

The medical home is an approach to medical practice that “facilitates partnerships” between patients and physicians, according to the proposed bill.

The pilot program targets Medicare beneficiaries who have a high medical “risk score” or who require regular monitoring, advising or treatment. This currently applies to more than 22 million Americans, according to Kaiser Family Foundation statistics.

At least $1.5 billion would be redirected from the Federal Supplementary Medical Insurance Trust Fund to fund the medical homes, “in addition to funds otherwise available,” according to the bill.

The Senate health-care reform bill also includes provisions for medical homes, although to lesser detail than the House bill.

If this portion of the legislation passes through Congress, medical homes will be part of the greater health-care reform experiment known as "the public (health insurance) option."

According to the committee, the provisions for medical homes will make the public option a stronger competitor against private health insurance companies.

“The public health insurance option will be empowered to implement innovative delivery reform initiatives so that it is a nimble purchaser of health care and gets more value for each health care dollar,” the House Committee on Energy and Commerce’s summary says about the bill.

Medical homes are tied to “comparative effectivness research” via something called “evidence-based medicine.”

“It will expand upon the experiments put forth in Medicare and be provided the flexibility to implement value-based purchasing, accountable care organizations, medical homes, and bundled payments. These features will ensure the public option is a leader in efficient delivery of quality care, spurring competition with private plans,” the committee’s summary also said.

A statement by the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) said that the effectiveness of the medical home model should be carefully evaluated before applying the model far and wide.

“There should be more research to demonstrate the benefits and continuing costs associated with implementation of the full (patient-centered medical home) model,” the ACEP statement said.

“Demonstration projects being conducted by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services must be carefully evaluated. There should be proven value in healthcare outcomes for patients and reduced costs to the healthcare system before there is widespread implementation of this model.”

The proposal, meanwhile, specifically allows for facilities to be run by staff who do not possess medical degrees – including nurses and nurse practitioners.

While the House bill being pushed by the president reduces access to cures and specialists, it ensures that seniors are counseled on end-of-life options, including refusing nutrition where state law allows it (pp. 425-446). In Oregon, the state is denying some cancer patients care that could extend their lives and is offering them physician-assisted suicide instead. DO AMERICANS WANT THIS TO SATISFY THE 47 MILLION UNINSURED!!

Kissing Up To The Chinese Communists

For decades our presidents have recognized that Communist China is one of the "bad Guys" in our universe. They violate the basic human rights of their citizens, have provide arms, materials and soldiers to fight our troops in the Korean and Viet Nam wars.
Now they have backed the USA into a corner with their buying of a massive amount of our Treasury Bonds that are the result of profligate spending by our Congress during the last two years of the Bush administration, and the first six months of Obama has made it worse!

At any rate, the attitude of the Communist Chinese has not changed toward their quest to dominate the economy of the world. And for the past decade our Congress has helped them to attain that objective. Now Obama is poised to make it easier for them with his Cap and Trade and Card Check legislation that will drive what little industrial jobs we still have to either China or India.

As a result of China's holding so much of our debt, and the apparent propensity of Obama for liking totalitarian leaders such as Chavez, Putin and Medvedev and an apparent devotee of One World Order. The attitude of our present government in Washington has softened toward Chinese Communists.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has really gotten the Obama diplomatic routines down pat in the last six months. And right now she's laying things on especially thick. Clinton stood before the assembled journalists, next to the head of the 100-person strong Chinese delegation that's come to Washington for two days of talks, and really let it fly. "Thorough, comprehensive, very open' are the words she uses to describe the two days of talks. She throws in 'direct' and 'very useful' for good measure."What Ms.Clinton did not mention was that China executed 1718 people in 2008. Some for political corruption! Whereas the USA which is a target for anti-death penalty people executed only 37!!

"Enthusiastic words, even for a top diplomat who's practically obliged to be welcoming all high ranking members of foreign countries. And Clinton wasn't alone with her praise. President Barack Obama sounded like a fan of the Chinese Communists in his address. "Cooperation, not confrontation,' he said, should be the goal with China. The US-Chinese relationship would shape the 21st century."

"That's perhaps the most telling part of his message to this meeting, which many experts see as carving a sort of 'G-2' alliance in stone. A new world order, where the US and China will set the tone."
Source: DerSpiegel.com

America is rarely this softspoken. They are ( our elected officials) not quite kowtowing, but bowing quite low to greet the dignitaries from China who have traveled to Washington for bilateral strategy and economic summit. Gone are the days when US politicians made long (and honest) speeches about human rights to the powers that be in the Middle Kingdom. Likewise, they've abandoned the old ritual of criticizing the way China subsidizes its exports, and devalues their money to make their products more appealing to foreign buyers like the USA!

Instead, it is exercising humility. Washington knows what it owes Beijing! The Chinese hold US bonds worth at least $800 billion in their hands. No other nation in the world is in as much debt as is the USA!
The Obama administration should remember that it needs all the friends it can get at this point,and many allies like Germany , England and France are not as inclined to cozy up to China the way Obama's minions are. For example, China shouldn't talk about the USA responsibility, but instead act on their own. And it would be helpful if China was on our side with important problems like North Korea, and Iran.

Obama should be trying to get the Chinese to stop manipulating its currency. It’s buying about $400 billion a year of U.S. dollars with their yuan that it prints, giving them to us by buying our "paper", and that basically keeps their currency cheap and makes those products artificially cheap in our markets.

WHEN WILL AMERICANS WAKE UP TO THE FACT THAT OBAMA'S "CHANGE" IS FINE FOR COUNTRIES LIKE COMMUNIST CHINA, BUT NOT FOR AMERICANS!

"BLUE DOGS OBEY THEIR MASTERS!!

Why the southern and border states congressional representatives are called 'blue dogs" escapes me. But just like my two Labrador dogs obey when I call them, the blue dogs apparently have responded to the commands of their master.
The master is the leadership of the House that had numerous meetings with these Democrats who publicly had said they would not vote for the House version of the Obama Care bill.
I can imagine that these meetings were also attended by the Obama enforcer Rahm Emanuel, and the conversation probably went like this.

You can either vote with your leadership or the next time you stand for election we will select an opponent to run against you, and you can expect that we will use the money needed, to see that you are beaten. Do you like the princely life you live here in the House of Representatives? If so you better vote with us not against us!!

As a result the "Blue Dogs" made this announcement today. "Democratic leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives have reached a deal with a group of fiscal conservatives in their own party on how to move forward with healthcare legislation, a leading lawmaker said on Tuesday.

Representative Mike Ross, who leads the so-called "Blue Dog" conservative coalition, said they had reached a deal with leadership after days of long negotiations. There are presently 51 Blue Dogs.

CNN said that under the agreement, a healthcare bill would be moved to committee by Friday but that the full House would not take the issue up until September after it returns from its month long break.

Prior to this meeting the fiscally conservative Democrats wanted the House bill to not increase the already soaring deficit as this report indicates.
The Blue Dogs say they want to wring out hundreds of billions of dollars in additional cost savings from the medical system before agreeing to legislation that would extend coverage to uninsured Americans. They also insist that Congress find a way to pay for the plan without increasing the deficit.

“The bottom line of the Blue Dogs has not been met at this time,” North Dakota Democrat Earl Pomeroy told reporters.

If you have any doubt that coercion was applied by the White House Chief of Staff. Then this quote from Bloomberg.com should be enlightening to you.
"With the Senate already planning to leave for its recess without voting, Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, went to Capitol Hill to meet with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and members of the so-called Blue Dog coalition of Democrats, who object to the cost and structure of the legislation.

The House would only stay in session a few days after the start of the August break if an agreement can be reached to allow the bill to clear the Energy and Commerce Committee, where the Blue Dogs are holding up the legislation, Hoyer said earlier. It looks like the agreement was to vote after the August recess, but I would not make book on "Queen" Pelosi going along with this decision!

The Blue Dog Coalition was created in 1995 and came about to promote positions "...which bridge the gap between ideological extremes" according to their House web site. "Many of the group's policy proposals have been praised as fair, responsible, and positive additions to a Congressional environment too often marked as partisan and antagonistic," say the Blue Dogs in their mission statement.

A PARTNER IN WHAT?

Yesterday,the Obama administration began a two day high level meeting with the Chinese Communists. President Obama kicked the "pow-wow" off with a speech that implied he and his administration want a partnership with the Chinese.
U.S. President Barack Obama set the tone of his administration's first high-level talks with China Monday by focusing on "mutual interests" the two countries share rather than growing tensions on trade and currency issues.

I guess he and his followers forgot that it was 56-years ago on the same day that the U.S. and North Korea signed the armistice that ended active combat in America’s forgotten war. More than 36,000 Americans gave their lives defending South Korea from invasion first by the communist North and then by the Red Chinese Army.
With the exception of pressing China on respect for human rights, Mr. Obama laid out a broad range of areas where the U.S. will seek to find common ground over the course of the two-day talks, from the economic crisis and climate change to nuclear and terrorist threats.
How he will bring China to adhere to reducing CO2 emissions after they have already announced that they will not reduce them because it would affect their economy negatively, is a question to ponder.

What kind of partnership can you have with a country that does not have religious freedom, freedom of speech and is run by a dictatorship?
The Chinese are holders of 900 billion dollars of our national debt, and are concerned that the socialist spending of Obama and the Democrat controlled Congress is devaluating their investment.

China is threatening to liquidate the $900B in U.S. bonds that they hold, which would likely send the U.S. tumbling into a recession and send the value of the dollar plummeting. China scares me. It was just a decade ago that the U.S. had more soft power than any other nation in the world. Now it’s China. Maybe this is the main reason for the Chinese visit to Washington!?

As a wise man once said: "It will be a cold day in H**l when China does anything to destabilize the U.S. Dollar because the U.S. is by far China’s number one customer, and also because the United States is also China’s number one investor. If the U.S. dollar is worth less then we have less money to invest in China. They will just sell some if not a major portion of the bonds they hold to African nations and some unsuspecting European Country. They will not be caught holding the bag!

China's deplorable record on human rights cannot be "redeemed" by
the economic progress that took place mostly because U.S. industries have moved their plants to China.
Major industries and politicians do not care about slave labor. They do not care about the execution of the innocent. They do not care about human rights. They care about copyrights and profits, and China satisfies both!

But what they( American companies) have done is to help turn China into an economic and military giant. But it is still a communist giant which crushes human beings.Make no mistake about this point!

Is this the type of country we should be partnering with? Remeber bad things happen in the world when there is uncertainty about the U.S. commitment to defend freedom against oppression!

IS THIS ANY WAY TO REFORM MEDICAL CARE?

Many people who are pushing hard to get the Obamcare passed often refer to the cost of our medical care with that of Canada and England. What they do not discuss is the downside of having a bureaucratic government run medical plan.
The most glaring example of socialised medicine is the incumbent rationing that must be instituted to affect savings. There is a good example of the rationing of care going on in England that is revealed in this article found in today's edition of the London Telegraph.

Implementing the European Working Time Directive next Saturday, when the NHS is already under pressure with 100,000 new cases of swine flu being diagnosed in a week, is the 'probably the worst time in living memory to do this', the junior doctors' campaign group RemedyUK said.

Junior doctors are the last group of NHS staff to come into the Directive this Saturday by cutting their working week from 56 hours to 48.

NHS consultants need to work more nights, experts say, because the Working hours directive 'will put lives at risk in hospital'
Junior doctors 'pressurised to lie about long working hours to meet EU rules' Experts have warned that the NHS is not ready for the change and there will be gaps left in rotas putting patients at risk.

John Black, president of the Royal College of Surgeons said if swine flu turns into a major crisis, the Government should show leadership and suspend the Directive.

He said: “We could have a one, two or three-stage serious pandemic.

"If that happens everybody of course will work whatever hours are necessary to keep the patients alive in a crisis.

“I trust that if that happens the Government will not fudge it and they will actually say that the European Working Time Directive leaves no slack at all in the system and if there is a major crisis it should be suspended.”

Richard Marks, Head of Policy at Remedy, said: “Millions have been spent on staff call-centres using non-medical staff to diagnose and prescribe (for swine flu) but at the same time they are reducing doctors’ working week by one full day". The important point here is that in England they are using NON-Medical staff to do what is the job that doctors are trained to do, DIAGNOSE DISEASE!

"It’s probably the worst time in living memory to do this.”

Doctors are likely to be in short supply during a flu outbreak as they are in the frontline of exposure to the virus and are at increased risk of falling ill themselves and may also have sick children to care for during the peak of a pandemic.

RemedyUK has called for the introduction of the Directive to be delayed until the uncertainties over how the flu outbreak are resolved. The doctor group has to ask bureaucrats to do what they know is best for their potential patients. No decisions are allowed by the doctors!

Dr Matt Jameson Evans, chairman of Remedy, said: “Unfortunately we have a camel’s back situation and swine-flu is more of a sledge hammer than a straw. I do not know what the reference to a camels back situation has to do with the directive, but I do know that doctors are treating there patients like store owners not a medical professional. With apologise to the store owner!

"We already know most doctors are against EWTD, we just need the leadership to do the right thing here.”

A spokesman for the Department of Health said: "Doctors, nurses and other healthcare staff can work longer hours when they need to. During national emergencies there are special provisions and flexibility within the regulations for emergency situations.

"Medical Directors have plans in place to ensure NHS organisations are able meet the needs of patients and that the hours doctors and other healthcare staff work are balanced over a period. Medical directors will carefully review the local situation as the current Pandemic Flu outbreak continues."

Dr Andy Thornley, Chairman of the BMA’s Junior Doctor Committee said: “Clearly pandemic flu is going to place additional pressure on an NHS that is trying to adapt to the introduction of the 48-hour week for junior doctors.

"The government need to be much clearer in communicating how it plans to deal with these additional pressures as it is unacceptable that so little information is trickling down to junior doctors.

"It is also important that the NHS works hard to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy and inappropriate work so that junior doctors can do what they do best – treat their patients.

"Abandoning the Working Time Directive days before it’s due to be implemented would be inappropriate given that most of the extra work is currently being done by colleagues in general practice.”


This follows a law suit that was brought by the "Junior Doctors" against there Seniors doctors. Junior MD's won the lawsuit as this quote illustates: "RemedyUK called for the GMC to investigate the doctors who designed the shake-up of medical training which left thousands of doctors scrabbling for jobs in 2007.

The campaign group claimed the senior medics, including chief medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson, brought the profession into disrepute and they fell below the standard required of doctors in management.

Now RemedyUK has won the right to proceed to a Judicial Review of the decision not to investigate.

Sir Liam was the architect of the new selection system for medical training posts which doctors need in order to qualify as a consultant. The online application system, the Medical Training Application Service, gave weight to candidates 'creative writing skills' and there was little emphasis on medical experience. The computer system failed and was replaced, but critics said many exceptional doctors did not get the training jobs they deserved and some left to work abroad.

If Congress passes Obama Care, you can kiss all your relatives who are elderly good by! The only way these socialists will cut costs is to ration care, and the first ones to be targeted are the old and infirmed, you can bet on that!There has to be a better way to get medical care to those who are not covered because it is too expensive. And there are not 47 million Americans who qualify for that category as in many cases it is a matter of "needs versus wants"!