"Ol' Man River"
(Comments: Until Medicare and VA Health Programs are fixed, any U.S. Healthcare program is doomed to failure. The amount of evidence is overwhelming even for the Most Reasonable Megalomaniac. The following examples of evidence are just a fraction of the criticisms, stories, and observations on the Internet regarding the failed promises of the U.S. Congress to present a workable solution to avert the financial disasters facing our current Healthcare systems. Please note the following facts: 1)"In 1975, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid in the US consumed 25% of all federal spending. Today, the three account for 43%." 2)"The cost of prescription drugs in the US has increased on average by 8.3% annually since 1994. The average rate of inflation during this time period only came to about 2.5%" 3)"The average CEO's salary in the US is 475 times greater than the average worker's salary. In Japan, it is 11 times greater; in France, 15 times; in Canada, 20; in South Africa, 21, and in Britain, 22.")
"Obama Promises Health Benefits to Tearful Vet"
By Nedra Pickler - The Associated Press
Posted : Friday Dec 28, 2007 7:26:43 EST
MASON CITY, Iowa —An Iowa voter who at first was teased by Democrat Barack
Obama ended up in a tearful embrace with the Illinois senator and presidential
candidate during a campaign stop Wednesday.
Retired Air Force veteran Andrew Hampton grew emotional when he rose to ask
Obama what he would do to ensure that others leaving the military get the health
benefits they were promised.
Obama called on Hampton during a question-and-answer session at the first stop
in his final slog through Iowa before the Jan. 3 caucuses. He said he felt bad about
the impression he might leave calling on Hampton because he was wearing an
Obama T-shirt, so he urged him to “make it a tough question.” The crowd
chuckled but soon grew quiet as it became obvious that Hampton was having a
hard time speaking without breaking down.
“I feel strongly about my question,” Hampton said as he paused to compose
himself. He said he joined the Air Force on active duty in 1956 and was promised
health benefits. He retired in 1988 and didn’t get coverage because of “political
decisions.” He said eventually he got what he was owed.
“For that I’m very grateful because I stand before you alive today because of the
surgery on my heart and a pacemaker, which you paid for, and I want to thank the
public,” he said to other voters gathered in a high school gymnasium. “But there
are other veterans who have been denied health care.”
He said he was especially worried about the veterans currently returning from the
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with terrible injuries, and left to the whims of a
Congress that “plays hollow politics” by deciding how much health care they
receive.
“We can’t desert them,” Hampton wept as he told Obama. The crowd responded
with a standing ovation, and Obama walked over and hugged him.
“You made the essential point, which is you earned your benefits,” Obama said.
He said if elected president, he would take care of veterans as a way of
encouraging future generations to enter the military, as well as provide mental
health screening and adopt a “zero tolerance” policy for homeless veterans.
“We have to fund all the services that have been promised to our veterans,”
Obama said. “We can’t play politics with it.”
"U.S.-Run Health Care? Ask a Veteran by Jim Powell"
Continuing problems with government-run health care for military veterans suggests some
issues we are likely to face if Congress passes President Barack Obama's plan for government run
health care. Michael Connelly has taken the time to read the entire bill. We should take the time to read his synopsis. It is critical to our future. The Truth About the Health Care Bills - Michael Connelly, Ret. Constitutional Attorney 08.24.09 Well, I have done it! I have read the entire text of proposed House Bill 3200: The Affordable Health Care Choices Act of 2009. I studied it with particular emphasis from my area of expertise, constitutional law. I was frankly concerned that parts of the proposed law that were being discussed might be unconstitutional. What I found was far worse than what I had heard or expected. Here is a link to the Constitution:http://www.archives.gov/ex hibits/charters/constituti on_transcript.html And another to the Bill of Rights: http://www.archives.gov/ex hibits/charters/bill_of_ri ghts_transcript.html
Jim Powell is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute
April 16, 2009
This article appeared on OCRegister.com on April 12, 2009.
Like other entitlement programs, government-run health care for veterans has expanded rapidly
and struggled amid financial pressures. The Veterans Affairs Department manages the largest
U.S. health care system, with more than 1,400 hospitals, clinics and nursing homes. Over the
years, it's gained a reputation for long waiting lists, staff shortages and a wide range of horror
stories.
President Obama proposed what he described as the biggest VA budget in 30 years –$93.4
billion –yet March 16, he implicitly acknowledged the funding pressures when he proposed
that veterans pay for war-related conditions through their own health insurance plans. Veterans
groups protested that the government had always paid for treatment of war-related conditions.
Two days later the president dropped the idea.
Why would veterans' health care be, as the president said, "underresourced"? One reason is that
officials are spending other people's money, so they tend to have ambitious spending
objectives. Also, as government grows bigger, the competition for appropriations becomes
more intense. By proposing to start new programs and expand old programs, President Obama
virtually guarantees that more programs will be underresourced.
In 1994, Dr. Kenneth W. Kizer began serving as the VA's undersecretary for health and was
credited with "the greatest transformation of VA health care since the system was created in
U.S.-Run Health Care? Ask a Veteran | Jim Powell | Cato Institute: Commentary Page 1 of 2
file://F:\My Webs\ppp\VAHealth\U_S_-Run Health Care Ask a Veteran Jim Powell Cato Institute Comm... 9/30/2009
1946." Kizer fired many incompetent doctors, decentralized decision-making, offered executive
contracts with performance compensation, expanded services for chronic conditions and
introduced a modern computer system. Following these reforms, veterans' hospitals were said
to offer "the best care anywhere." After five years, Kizer left the VA.
Meanwhile, pressure to cut corners seemed to have intensified. In 2003, a newspaper report
suggested that "problems continue: doctors not doing their jobs; unsupervised residents rotating
in and out of the VA, leaving veterans' medical care postponed; and death rates for open-heart
surgery centers that would be unacceptable at any other hospital."
Four years later, there were disturbing stories about "a vast outpouring of accounts filled with
emotion and anger about the mistreatment of wounded outpatients" at Walter Reed Army
Medical Center. Although Walter Reed isn't a VA facility, it became clear that many similar
problems occurred at VA facilities.
In February, the VA began notifying about 10,700 veterans in Florida, Georgia and Tennessee
that they might have been exposed to HIV or hepatitis because of unsterilized colonscopy
equipment.
If this is the kind of care the government provides those who have risked their lives for our
country, are the rest of us likely to fare any better if we end up in some kind of national health
care plan?
A patient's best protection is the freedom to opt for another health care plan if one's current
health care plan is cutting corners or becoming too expensive. Yet Obama's big government-run
health care plan would almost certainly drive alternatives out of the marketplace and become a
monopoly. This would leave patients at the mercy of Washington officials who have treated
veterans badly and might treat the rest of us even worse.
To begin with, much of what has been said about the law and its implications is in fact true, despite what the Democrats and the media are saying. The law does provide for rationing of health care, particularly where senior citizens and other classes of citizens are involved, free health care for illegal immigrants, free abortion services, and probably forced participation in abortions by members of the medical profession.
The Bill will also eventually force private insurance companies out of business and put everyone into a government run system. All decisions about personal health care will ultimately be made by federal bureaucrats and most of them will not be health care professionals. Hospital admissions, payments to physicians, and allocations of necessary medical devices will be strictly controlled.
However, as scary as all of that it, it just scratches the surface. In fact, I have concluded that this legislation really has no intention of providing affordable health care choices. Instead it is a convenient cover for the most massive transfer of power to the Executive Branch of government that has ever occurred, or even been contemplated. If this law or a similar one is adopted, major portions of the Constitution of the United States will effectively have been destroyed.
The first thing to go will be the masterfully crafted balance of power between the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of the U.S. Government. The Congress will be transferring to the Obama Administration authority in a number of different areas over the lives of the American people and the businesses they own. The irony is that the Congress doesn't have any authority to legislate in most of those areas to begin with. I defy anyone to read the text of the U.S. Constitution and find any authority granted to the members of Congress to regulate health care.
This legislation also provides for access by the appointees of the Obama administration of all of your personal healthcare information, your personal financial information, and the information of your employer, physician, and hospital. All of this is a direct violation of the specific provisions of the 4th Amendment to the Constitution protecting against unreasonable searches and seizures. You can also forget about the right to privacy. That will have been legislated into oblivion regardless of what the 3rd and 4th Amendments may provide.
If you decide not to have healthcare insurance or if you have private insurance that is not deemed "acceptable" to the "Health Choices Administrator" appointed by Obama there will be a tax imposed on you. It is called a "tax" instead of a fine because of the intent to avoid application of the due process clause of the 5th Amendment. However, that doesn't work because since there is nothing in the law that allows you to contest or appeal the imposition of the tax, it is definitely depriving someone of property without the "due process of law.
So, there are three of those pesky amendments that the far left hate so much out the original ten in the Bill of Rights that are effectively nullified by this law. It doesn't stop there though. The 9th Amendment that provides: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people;" The 10th Amendment states: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are preserved to the States respectively, or to the people." Under the provisions of this piece of Congressional handiwork neither the people nor the states are going to have any rights or powers at all in many areas that once were theirs to control.
I could write many more pages about this legislation, but I think you get the idea. This is not about health care; it is about seizing power and limiting rights. Article 6 of the Constitution requires the members of both houses of Congress to "be bound by oath or affirmation" to support the Constitution. If I was a member of Congress I would not be able to vote for this legislation or anything like it without feeling I was violating that sacred oath or affirmation. If I voted for it anyway I would hope the American people would hold me accountable.
For those who might doubt the nature of this threat I suggest they consult the source.
There you can see exactly what we are about to have taken from us.
Michael Connelly
Retired attorney,
Constitutional Law Instructor
Carrollton , Texas
(Can you tell which is which?)
1.) Although efforts have been made to reform the healthcare industry since 1912, we should not be too hasty in enacting change.
2.) The federal government has no business interfering in people's healthcare decisions, unless a woman is trying to terminate a pregnancy, or the patient’s last name is Schiavo.
3.) The government is incapable of running anything efficiently, and if allowed to offer a healthcare option, will run so efficiently that it will put private insurers out of business.
4.) We are a Christian nation, and we don’t believe in helping the least among us. Some people just don’t deserve healthcare. Getting sick is God's punishment for doing something wrong.
5.) The current system, with 47,000,000 uninsured, a million medical bankruptcies annually, and 18,000 deaths annually due to lack of insurance, is working just fine. In fact, we have the best health care system in the world!
6.) Even though many older couples are forced to divorce in order to avoid catastrophic financial losses due to medical expenses, it’s the terrorists who are destroying families.
7.) A conversation with your doctor about end-of-life issues is an opportunity for your doctor to convince you to kill yourself.
8.) We can afford to spend more on our military than all other nations combined, but we can’t afford universal health care.
9.) Single-payer, government-run healthcare is good enough for our men and women in uniform, but to offer the same to the general public would be socialism.
10.) Pooling our resources to provide roads, schools, clean water, military, police, and fire protection for each other is not socialism. Pooling our resources to provide each other health care is socialism.
11.) Socialism is bad. Very bad. Bad!
12.) Health care is an issue best handled by individual states; like slavery.
13.) We can afford to subsidize Israel, Iraq, and Afghanistan, all of whom have universal healthcare, but we can’t afford it ourselves.
14.) Money and corporate profits are more important than people's health. Sure, reforming the insurance companies would save thousands of lives, but shareholders’ portfolios might be damaged.
15.) Freeing people from holding on to their dead-end jobs for the insurance coverage and allowing them to become entrepreneurs would bankrupt our country.
16.) Someone like physicist Stephen Hawking would have been allowed to die under the British healthcare system. Oh, he’s British? And alive? Never mind.
17.) We already have universal health care: it’s called the Emergency Room. Uninsured people can go there for all their health needs (checkups, cancer pre-screening, chemotherapy, etc.), and it only costs the taxpayers a few thousand dollars per visit.
18.) The Obama healthcare initiative is part of the congressional agenda to take away your freedom! If this plan is passed, abortions will be mandatory, schoolchildren will be raped by their teachers, and terrorists will murder your Grandma with her pillow!
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