“Obamacare”

March 12. 2010 by Dick.

Even the NYTimes calls it that in “Health Reform Myths,” an op-ed by Paul Krugman this morning. The teaser starts out, “Well-informed people are buying into three big myths about Obamacare.”

Mr. Krugman gets it wrong, though. “This is a reasonable, responsible plan,” he writes. “Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

I’m here to tell you otherwise and I hope you listen.

“The second myth is that the proposed reform does nothing to control costs. To support this claim, critics point to reports by the Medicare actuary, who predicts that total national health spending would be slightly higher in 2019 with reform than without it.

“Even if this prediction were correct, it points to a pretty good bargain. The actuary’s assessment of the Senate bill, for example, finds that it would raise total health care spending by less than 1 percent…

Health care costs more than $6,300 a piece for every man woman and child in this country today. That’s already verging on criminal. Raising that cost, even a measly $63, ain’t a bargain. In the real world we need to cut health care costs in half. ObamaCare doesn’t even pretend to try.

50 percent off? Now that’s a bargain.

Posted in ObamaCare, Politics & News, Random Access | No Comments »

First Among Equals

March 8. 2010 by Dick.

A bill in the Vermont House shows that “Vermont First” is not always a distinction.

Vermont is the pilot project for the nation. The U.S. Post Office printed its first stamp in Brattleboro in 1846. The Social Security Administration issued the first check, $22.54, to a Vermont widow in 1940. The first program to force universal health care came with a Vermont law that banned cherry picking in 1992. Now the Vermont Assembly would legislate our non-profit hospitals out of business.

An Act Relating to Health Care Cost Containment is now in the hands of the House Committee on Health Care.

Buried among the Medicaid information technology funds, task forces, hospital budget review programs, and certificate of need rules, this bill will require that insurers participate in the Blueprint for Health and will prohibit hospitals from paying for “marketing and advertising.” It also sets up the State to take over any hospital in financial jeopardy. Shades of General Motors. The experience we have had with the State Hospital at Waterbury shows how well Vermont runs health care in the real world.

That experience matters not. The Vermont House has 94 Democrats, 5 Progressives, 3 Independents, and 48 Republicans. The Vermont Senate has 22 Democrats, 1 Progressive, and 7 Republicans. Senate President Pro Tempore Peter Shumlin (D-Windham) is running for governor. House Speaker Shap Smith (D-Lamoille-Washington) has not announced.

The “Blueprint for Health” in the bill will become a new statewide infrastructure/prevention/care management bureaucracy. It includes “an integrated approach to patient self-management, community development, health care system and professional practice change, and information technology initiatives.” The Blueprint Bureaucracy has the carrot of withholding Medicare payments from “under performers” and the stick of taking over the hospitals. Vermont docs and other providers receive about 40 percent of their revenue from Medicare and Medicaid.

• “Marketing and advertising” means promotion, or any activity that is intended to be used or is used to influence individuals seeking health care services to use a specific hospital to attain those services.
• Individual hospital budgets established under this section shall: … include a finding that the analysis provided in subdivision (b)(9) of this section is a reasonable methodology for reflecting a reduction in net revenues for non-Medicaid payers; and not include spending on marketing and advertising.
• The term hospital shall also include all corporate or other entities affiliated with the licensed hospital…

I’m glad the Legislature has finally noticed that the skyrocketing cost of health care is a wee bit of a problem. That’s why House Health Care Committee Chair Steve Maier (D-Middlebury) says he included a provision to prohibit hospital from spending money for advertising and marketing. “It’s not producing health care,” he told the Burlington Free Press.

When I read about the bill, I thought this was a First Amendment issue. After all, even Vermont Law School constitutional law scholar Cheryl Hanna told the Burlington Free Press the legislation raised significant constitutional questions.

That’s a red herring.

The bill is another land grab, perpetrated by a legislature determined to gobble up all segments of health care from patient’s the first tiny down payment to the last visit to the morgue.

Here’s how that works. Hospitals get squeezed by shrinking Medicare payments, swelling Medicare patient loads, new budget caps mandated by the Blueprint for Health bureaucracy, and fleeing traditional payments. Hospital owners leave the state when confronted by a power grab at their books. Hospitals fail. Hospitals get taken over by the Blueprint for Health bureaucracy.

I would be werry werry afwaid if I were a hospital owner or administrator in any state in the union. After all, as Vermont goes, so goes the nation.

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Did We the OverTaxed People sit out the last couple of election cycles? If we can’t learn from the Vermont experience, we could learn from the Sunni Arabs who sat out Iraqi elections in 2005. The need to protect their own interests brought Sunni Arabs out in droves on Sunday.

Posted in ObamaCare, Throw Da Bums Out, Society, Politics & News, Random Access | 1 Comment »

Theatrical

March 1. 2010 by Dick.

I believe in tax support of the arts.

Art is an economic engine but it is far more than a retail sale or a paycheck. The Arts boost school test scores. The Arts improve our sense of community. And it doesn’t hurt that a painting or photograph, an original song, a well-staged play, or a warm book on a cold winter day all bring light to our lives. This state and this nation cannot afford to lose the Arts. I’ll let you decide if there is a small, dramatic branch that might be cut from the Arts tree.

Here we go. National theater in three acts. Or, as the great philosopher Frank Zappa wrote, “We are a nation of laws, poorly written and randomly enforced.”

ACT I — THE FLORIDA STAGE
The Miami Herald called Gov. Charlie Crist (R-FL) “the ingenue” last year when he planned to empanel a statewide grand jury to root out corruption in Florida politics. Corruption in Florida politics ain’t news; Monroe County’s public servants can be as south of the border-ish as any Central or South American junta. The governor’s theatrical remark followed FBI arrests of about half the public officials and influence peddlers in nearby Broward County.

Of course, the governor is unable to empanel even a tiny jury, let alone a Grand one. That power lies with the courts. The Legislature will promise to investigate and clean up the mess. Just as they did 17 years ago in the Public Service Commission scandals of 1993. And 1994. And 1995… And 2009.

It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. –Wm. Shakespear

ACT II — THE VERMONT STAGE
On Wednesday, Vermont State Senator (and gubernatorial candidate) Peter Shumlin pushed the state’s Senate into. The vote means the nuclear generator will stop operating in 2012. The vote came after weeks of political leaks in Montpelier and tritium leaks in Vernon, Vermont. The Senate, with no experts elected or on staff and no substantive reports to back their beliefs, and against the advice of the Public Service Board and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission voted against Vermont Yankee’s license renewal.

Governor Jim Douglas (R-VT) says the debate over the state’s only nuclear power plant is far from over. Bloggers have expressed their “disgust at the governor’s dismissive comments” because “the senate vote reflects the will of his constituents” thus showing how well a good stage play can sway the populace.

Of course, the law that allows the Legislature to decide the issue requires them to vote “Yes” to allow the Public Service Board to grant the relicensing the nuclear plant. Any other vote is simply free advertising for the man who would act as governor next year.

We have too many high sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them. –Abigail Adams

ACT III — THE NATIONAL STAGE
Meanwhile, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN.), Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND), and Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) faced each other on Face the Nation yesterday. After steadfastly ignoring costs for more than a year, they all agreed that the cost of health care is suddenly the most important problem to tackle.

Sen. Coburn thinks that “we can save $250 a year [by eliminating] defensive medicine costs.”

Sen. Conrad thinks that “reconciliation cannot be used to pass comprehensive health care reform” because reconciliation works only on budget items.

Rep. Blackburn thinks we need to buy our health insurance in other states. “[My constituents] could generally save about $1,000 from being able to get past that stop sign at the state line.” Until next year when the out-of-state insurance companies raise their premiums. Again.

Rep. Hoyer thinks a specific proposal will be surface within “the next couple of weeks.”

The rest of us think the whole ObamaCare exercise proves the Far Green is right about anthropogenic global warming but wrong about the source. The source is not man-made carbon-dioxide or even methane. The source is man-made hot air. Methane smells sweeter.

Political theater /n/ Much ado about nothing or the art of playing fast and loose with the facts with no climax in the script.

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We live in a society that loves a soap opera. Six months ago it was David Letterman. Six weeks ago it was Tiger Woods. Every day it’s politics. Who among you believes we’ll get anything for the money we send to the Capitol besides a few more episodes on “reality” TV?

Taxpayer support of the arts. We can afford just one branch. Do you want to keep the art that lights the way or the hot air that brings the darkness?

Posted in ObamaCare, Throw Da Bums Out, Politics & News, PC, Random Access | 4 Comments »