The scheme-ulous bill gets worse and more frightening by the day. Today we find out that there are provisions in the bill that create a bureaucracy to track your medical treatment. Further, if hospitals and doctors don’t follow the government’s guidelines they will be subject to fines. You might want to read these last sentences again and let it sink in a bit.
And there’s more. Other language in the bill will apply a cost-benefit standard to treatment. This would mean that the government will judge whether you are worthy of treatment. Elderly people, in particular would be hurt. You know, those people that Democrats always claim to champion and whine that they are “choosing between food and medicine.” Well, if the stimulus bill passes they will be more likely to die than they are now under the current system.
Ironically, the person behind a lot of this is none other than tax cheat Tom Daschle. Story from Bloomberg.com, Betsy McCaughey:
The bill’s health rules will affect “every individual in the United States” (445, 454, 479). Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system. Having electronic medical records at your fingertips, easily transferred to a hospital, is beneficial. It will help avoid duplicate tests and errors.
But the bill goes further. One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.” According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and “learn to operate less like solo practitioners.”
Keeping doctors informed of the newest medical findings is important, but enforcing uniformity goes too far.
New Penalties
Hospitals and doctors that are not “meaningful users” of the new system will face penalties. “Meaningful user” isn’t defined in the bill. That will be left to the HHS secretary, who will be empowered to impose “more stringent measures of meaningful use over time” (511, 518, 540-541)
What penalties will deter your doctor from going beyond the electronically delivered protocols when your condition is atypical or you need an experimental treatment? The vagueness is intentional. In his book, Daschle proposed an appointed body with vast powers to make the “tough” decisions elected politicians won’t make.
The stimulus bill does that, and calls it the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research (190-192). The goal, Daschle’s book explained, is to slow the development and use of new medications and technologies because they are driving up costs. He praises Europeans for being more willing to accept “hopeless diagnoses” and “forgo experimental treatments,” and he chastises Americans for expecting too much from the health-care system.
Elderly Hardest Hit
Daschle says health-care reform “will not be pain free.” Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them. That means the elderly will bear the brunt.
Medicare now pays for treatments deemed safe and effective. The stimulus bill would change that and apply a cost- effectiveness standard set by the Federal Council (464).
The Federal Council is modeled after a U.K. board discussed in Daschle’s book. This board approves or rejects treatments using a formula that divides the cost of the treatment by the number of years the patient is likely to benefit. Treatments for younger patients are more often approved than treatments for diseases that affect the elderly, such as osteoporosis.
In 2006, a U.K. health board decreed that elderly patients with macular degeneration had to wait until they went blind in one eye before they could get a costly new drug to save the other eye [emphasis added]. It took almost three years of public protests before the board reversed its decision.
More..
The stimulus bill will affect every part of health care, from medical and nursing education, to how patients are treated and how much hospitals get paid. The bill allocates more funding for this bureaucracy than for the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force combined (90-92, 174-177, 181).
Let’s also not forget, this comes on the heels of the recent passage of SCHIP legislation, also aimed at getting socialized healthcare through the back door. See here and here.
You see, the liberal socialists have learned their lesson from 1993’s failure. They know the American people will oppose a plan to nationalize our healthcare system because it won’t be able to withstand the scrutiny, with specifics like these coming to light. So, instead they are doing it under dark of night while they think no one will notice.
To put it another way, the Democrats are stealthily leading us towards full-blown socialism. And once we’re there, there’s not much chance of going back.
Cross-posted at Conservatives with Attitude!
Congressman Rothman
