Obama now wants to add Long Term Care
July 8, 2009 by Steven Ting
Filed under Business, General, Health Care
Obama, once again, is trying to expand the role of government. The article states it best.
Moving to broaden the scope of the proposed healthcare overhaul, President Obama threw his support yesterday behind the creation of a program to help families struggling with long-term care costs.
The voluntary insurance program, sponsored by Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, would pay a modest daily cash benefit of at least $50 that people could use for a range of in-home services or nursing home expenses.
If you do the math, this could cost tax-payers $18250 per person per year. Once we offer a benefit like this, we won’t be able to take it away. Now how much do you suppose the government is going to charge for such a benefit? A measely $780 per year. And I bet there’s a provision in there that if you can’t afford to pay that, you won’t have to pay anything at all.
Obama is expanding the welfare society. I always thought that social security was supposed to take care of these types of things. Most retirees collect about $18000 to $24000 a year from social security. The purpose of social security was to be social insurance to protect people from financial hardship. Why do we need another bill that does the exact same thing? If you’re disabled, you get disability from Social Security.
How viable is this plan? It’s not viable at all. Look at the example we have in Social Security. It’s completely underfunded. If Obama pushes for this Long Term Care proposal, it will also be underfunded. Like all politicians, Obama over promises and will under deliver.
Since the government version would only cost $780 per year per person, it is much less than private insurance which is currently around $2000 to $5000 per person per year. What else does that tell us? It means that the government is not collecting enough to cover the costs. The only reason they give us the low price tag is for all of the sheeple to say, “Oh, there is an affordable solution.” The problem is that it’s just not sustainable.
Obama continues to weaken the economy. He’s taking a very micro-economic approach. He needs to look at the macro aspect. He is hurting business, and in turn, hurting individual people. He may think he knows all, but he’s just dumb.
Obama’s Forced Healthcare
July 3, 2009 by Steven Ting
Filed under General, Health Care
This country was founded on freedom. Freedom of speech, freedom of religion. Freedom to do pretty much whatever we want. With our government becoming more socialistic, we are losing freedoms every day. The loss of freedoms has been gradual over many years. You have to pay taxes. You have to have car insurance. You have to submit to the harassment of the TSA at the airport. The latest in the long line of rights lost will be the requirement to purchase health care.
Under the Senate’s new proposal, those that refuse to sign up for health insurance will be fined $1000. What happened to personal responsibility? What happened to freedom of choice? If someone doesn’t want health insurance, they should be able to take care of themselves. They should accept any consequences of their actions. Instead, we have the government, once again, playing nanny to the public. Here is a quote from the article.
In a revamped health care system envisioned by senators, people would be required to carry health insurance just like motorists must get auto coverage now. The government would provide subsidies for the poor and many middle-class families, but those who still refuse to sign up would face fines of more than $1,000.
The details were unveiled Thursday in a health care overhaul bill supported by key Senate Democrats looking to fulfill President Barack Obama‘s top domestic priority.
What if I want to self-insure? Do people like Warren Buffet really need to have health insurance? They can pay for it themselves. It should be an individual choice. With the push for required health care, the government might as well require other things. Why don’t they require that congress spend within it’s mean? That is the kind of legislation we need. Legislation that promotes responsibility rather than enslavement to the state.
Obama challenged on Healthcare
June 25, 2009 by Steven Ting
Filed under General, Health Care, Politics
During Obama’s 75 minutes of primetime coverage, he was questioned by some doctors regarding a scenario on what he would do if his family became sick. Would Obama make a pledge to use his own plan and go with the public option? His response:
“…if it’s my family member, if it’s my wife, if it’s my children, if it’s my grandmother, I always want them to get the very best care.
In otherwords, no. He wouldn’t use his own plan. Like everyone else, he wants the very best. That means use of private insurers. With a government regulated health plan, they’re going to cut cost by limiting what treatment can be done.
The GOP Senators also have a concern.
“At a time when major government programs like Medicare and Medicaid are already on a path to fiscal insolvency, creating a brand new government program will not only worsen our long-term financial outlook but also negatively impact American families who enjoy the private coverage of their choice,” the senators wrote.
“The end result would be a federal government takeover of our health care system, taking decisions out of the hands of doctors and patients and placing them in the hands of a Washington bureaucracy.”
Obama responds by saying that they’re wrong. Obama has no executive experience. He has no business experience. How can he say they are wrong? Obama claims that the public option would have lower administrative costs. That’s a bunch of horse pucky. Since when has government ever had lower costs? It never has. Take Congress as an example. Congress can’t even live within it’s means. Now Obama is promising that a public run health care system will cost us less?
Obama continues on to say that:
he didn’t understand those advocates of the free market who constantly say the private sector can do things better and are yet worried about this plan.
He also said:
that the private sector might not necessarily be better, point out that users of Medicare and Veterans Administration hospitals constantly rate “pretty high satisfaction.”
The reason that he doesn’t understand is because he is dumb. He apparently doesn’t remember the VA hospital fiasco a couple years back. The only reason Medicare and the VA have “pretty high satisfaction” is because they have unlimited money through tax dollars. If the public plan is to compete and ofter the same great service, we will spend more than the promised “low administrative costs.”
And the only reason the administrative costs “might” be lower is because the costs is subsidized by the government. Since the private sector uses the free market, that is how much the services are worth. When government offers something for less, they have to subsidize it. It ends up costing more. How ever much we “save” on administrative costs are collected through taxes.
Obama’s Health Care Policy
June 5, 2009 by Steven Ting
Filed under General, Health Care
Let’s take a closer look at Obama and what he wants to do with our health care system. The following information is from Obama’s Home Page as of June 5, 2009.
The Current Situation
Making sure every American has access to high quality health care is one of the most important challenges of our time. The number of uninsured Americans is growing, premiums are skyrocketing, and more people are being denied coverage every day. A moral imperative by any measure, a better system is also essential to rebuilding our economy — we want to make health insurance work for people and businesses, not just insurance and drug companies.
The Solution
Reform the health care system:
We will take steps to reform our system by expanding coverage, improving quality, lowering costs, honoring patient choice and holding insurance companies accountable.
Promote scientific and technological advancements:
We are committed to putting responsible science and technological innovation ahead of ideology when it comes to medical research. We believe in the enormous capacity of American ingenuity to find cures for diseases that continue to extinguish too many lives and cause too much suffering every year.
Improve preventative care:
In order to keep our people healthy and provide more efficient treatment we need to promote smart preventative care, like cancer screenings and better nutrition, and make critical investments in electronic health records, technology that can reduce errors while ensuring privacy and saving lives.
So in the analysis of the “Current Situation” as described by Obama, his statement makes it sound as if millions of American’s don’t have access to health care. The fact is that everyone has access to health care. Health care is not a right. It is a privilege. If you have the money, you can get health care. But even if you don’t have money, hospitals are still willing to treat you. A good example of this is shown by the illegal alieans that use your health care system. Many of them receive health care, at the expense of tax-payers.
Obama mentions that “more people are being denied coverage every day.” This refers to health insurance, not to health care. There is no such thing as a right to insurance. Insurance is a business and they can’t do everything for free. People can still get health care, if they are responsible and pay for it.
Let’s take a look at the first part of the “solution”. Obama wants to “take steps to reform our system by expanding coverage, improving quality, lowering costs, honoring patient choice and holding insurance companies accountable.” When was the last time government took over a business and did something good? Remember the long lines at the DMV? How about the long lines at the US Postal Service? How about the VA Administration and hospitals? Government and business do not work.
As it stands, health insurance covers a lot of areas. The quality is pretty good and the costs are reasonable. When an emergency procedure needs to be done, people usually come to the United States. We have the best health care in the world right now. It sounds like Obama wants Health Insurance reform than health care reform.
In the second step, Obama wants to put “responsible science and technological innovation ahead of ideology when it comes to medical research.” Um, this would be great if the government had a research department. Unfortunately all of this is handled by private business. We do have researches in state universities, but I don’t think they’re working on medical research. In the second sentence, he talks about the capacity of “American ingenuity to find cures for diseases.” I wonder were most of this capacity is found? That’s right. It’s found in private business, which is usually found in capitalism.
Obama wants to take all of the research and technology from private industry and give it away for free, without compensation. This is another step into socialism. With the institution of a new “Pay Czar” for the financial industry, he’ll probably do something similar for the pharmaceutical industry, since they all make too much. But if you take away the purpose of a business, nothing is going to get done. Obama may demand that a drug company offer their product for free or at very reduced prices. If a drug company is forced to comply, what is their incentive to research and create new drugs? Obama will destroy your health care industry with his plans.
The third part to Obama’s plan is to improve preventative care. This is a great goal but Obama lacks the leadership to get this done. Preventative care lies with the people. If someone is going to eat fast-food for every meal, no amount of policy or regulation will help with their preventative care. The people have to want to be better.
Cancer screenings, better nutrition, all good ideas. But it’s not going to be free and it shouldn’t be provided by the government. Each person needs to be responsible for their own well-being.
And the last part about electronic health records and ensuring privacy? That’s not going to happen. Whenever anything is electronic, you will have no privacy. Mistakes will happen. Case in point, the list of US nuclear sites that was released the other day. While the information is not classified, it was not meant for public release.
Looking at the goals set by Obama, they’re good. But from what I know about Barack Hussein Obama, being the far-left liberal that he is, he will destroy this country trying to achieve his goal.
The author from New Black Bourgeoisie is also scared of what an Obama policy will do to our health care system.
We must all seriously consider the impact of a predominantly state sponsored health care system. Physicians should not be the group only concerned about how these changes could significantly alter physicians’ abilities to perform with the autonomy which they enjoyed in past times, but which has been greatly diminished with the advent of managed care. Although universal health care is available in most major developed countries, there are significant differences amongst physician salaries, availability and quality for patients in these places. Of course the situation varies from nation to nation, but there is a reason why the United States is the preeminent nation for modern health care. I agree that health care costs should be reigned in, but as more and more citizens become dependent on these government services the situation becomes more dire. Physicians are already working harder to stay afloat with continued cuts in reimbursement by the government and CMS (Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services). These factors in addition to the tax burden that physicians (statistically in the top 2% of earners) are sure to shoulder make me realize that many of my colleagues are correct in their politics and more conservative stances on this issue. My plea to the President is to not diminish the greatest health care system in the world by employing measures and creating policy which will increase apathy and drive some of the best and brightest amongst us away from, and out of the field of medicine.
