FreedomWorks - single payer en Vermont nixes single-payer healthcare, because socialism is ridiculously expensive <div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="//"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="//" width="480" height="200" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>The outrageous tax increases that would have been required to make Vermont's proposed single-payer healthcare program a reality forced Gov. Peter Shumlin to pull the plug after years of planning.</p> <p>In May 2011, Shumlin, a Democrat, signed legislation into law that established a government-run, taxpayer-financed healthcare system that would provide coverage to all residents of Vermont. "In Vermont we are pursuing a plan that we think will control healthcare costs, not just by cutting fees to doctors and hospitals, but by fundamentally changing the state's healthcare system. I have launched an ambitious effort, with support from the Vermont legislature, to implement a single payer system in Vermont," <a href="">Shumlin wrote in an August 2011 editorial at the Huffington Post</a>. "Under the plan, single payer coverage will be a right and not a privilege, and will not be connected to employment."</p> <p>The proposed program was hailed by the political left, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT), a self-identified socialist. "If Vermont can pass a strong single-payer system and show it works well, it will not only be enormously important to this state, it will be a model," <a href="">Sanders said in February 2013</a>. "If we do it and do it well, other states will get in line and follow us, and over years, it will take years, we will have a national system."</p> <p>As Margaret Thatcher once said, "The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money."</p> <p>Shumlin, a Democrat, quickly learned that building the program -- the first of its kind at the state level -- is easier said than done. Advisers struggled to come up with a reasonable financing plan to cover the <a href="">estimated $2 billion price tag</a>, which, by the way, is roughly the size of the <a href="">state's $2.3 billion budget</a> (excluding federal funds) for FY 2015. The Vermont Democrat would have had to sign off on an 11.5 percent payroll tax on all businesses in the state and a 9.5 percent public premium tax to finance the program. These new taxes would have been in addition to the <a href="">state's already heavy tax burden</a>.</p> <p>On Wednesday, Shumlin pulled his support for the proposed single-payer system, known as Green Mountain Care. "These are tax rates that I cannot responsibly support or urge the Legislature to pass. In my judgment, the potential economic disruption and risks would be too great to small businesses, working families and the state’s economy," <a href="">said Shumlin</a>. "Although our economy is still growing, that growth is slower than expected and we have faced two revenue downgrades. Given this new reality, every percent of tax raises fewer dollars than we had anticipated, requiring higher tax rates than we had hoped to fund this system." Shumlin also noted that federal funds to help cover the cost "is over $150 million less" than his administration had expected.</p> <p>It's also worth pointing out that Vermont hired Jonathan Gruber, the now-infamous MIT economist who worked on ObamaCare, to help craft its single-payer system. The state <a href="">ended the $400,000 consulting agreement</a> after videos surfaced in which Gruber <a href="">insulted</a> <a href="">Americans</a> and <a href="">bragged about the designed lack of transparency</a> in ObamaCare.</p> </div></div></div> Fri, 19 Dec 2014 14:39:46 +0000 jpye 60946 at The Horrors of State Run Medicine <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>American Conservatives have been sounding the alarm about state run health care and what horrors await us in a government run health care plan for most of the last century. In fact, Ronald Reagan warned us what was to come several decades ago.</p> <p><iframe src="" width="420" height="315" frameborder="0"></iframe></p> <p>Those that favor a single payer or other government run health care, continue to tell us that the problems we face are caused by the free market system, and that only government intervention is capable of solving these problems - ignoring, of course, the inconvenient truth that many of those issues are caused by governmental intrusion into the market in the first place. They also tug on our heartstrings and tell us countless stories of people without care. But what about those who get the worst type of care?</p> <p>Several stories have emerged recently from Great Britain's National Health Service - a single payer health system run by bureaucrats . These stories should lay to rest any such romantic notions that government knows best when it comes to your health, or that government has any competence in controlling free markets for a desired outcome. That the decay of care is happening not in a communist society, but rather in a democratically elected government, should give everyone pause.</p> <p><a href="">This article in the UK Daily Mail</a> got a lot of attention last week, and rightly so. Subheadings from the article read:</p> <blockquote><ul><li>Now sick babies go on death pathway: Doctor's haunting testimony reveals how children are put on end-of-life plan</li> <li>Practice of withdrawing food and fluid by tube being used on young patients</li> <li>Doctor admits starving and dehydrating ten babies to death in neonatal unit</li> <li>Liverpool Care Pathway subject of independent inquiry ordered by ministers</li> <li>Investigation, including child patients, will look at whether cash payments to hospitals to hit death pathway targets have influenced doctors' decisions</li> </ul></blockquote> <p>The article reveals, in horrifying detail, the treatment of patients put on the Liverpool Care Pathway once it's been determined that their lives are no longer worth living.</p> <p>And how is eligibility for the 'death pathway' determined?</p> <blockquote><p>Medical critics of the LCP insist it is impossible to say when a patient will die and as a result the LCP death becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. They say it is a form of euthanasia, used to clear hospital beds and save the NHS money.</p> </blockquote> <p>The effects on the patient are something out of a horror movie:</p> <blockquote><p>The practice of withdrawing food and fluid by tube is being used on young patients as well as severely disabled newborn babies.</p> <p>Earlier this month, an un-named doctor wrote of the agony of watching the protracted deaths of babies. The doctor described one case of a baby born with ‘a lengthy list of unexpected congenital anomalies’, whose parents agreed to put it on the pathway.</p> <p>The doctor wrote: ‘They wish for their child to die quickly once the feeding and fluids are stopped. They wish for pneumonia. They wish for no suffering. They wish for no visible changes to their precious baby.<br />Their wishes, however, are not consistent with my experience. Survival is often much longer than most physicians think; reflecting on my previous patients, the median time from withdrawal of hydration to death was ten days...</p> <p>Parents and care teams are unprepared for the sometimes severe changes that they will witness in the child’s physical appearance as severe dehydration ensues.</p> </blockquote> <p>Horrible. Yet, this unfortunately has become all too common across the system. <a href="">Another article in the Manchester Guardian</a> detailed the grief and guilt felt by the wife of a member of parliament who died in misery in a hospital stay:</p> <blockquote><p>Ann Clwyd has said her biggest regret is that she didn't "stand in the hospital corridor and scream" in protest at the "almost callous lack of care" with which nurses treated her husband as he lay dying in the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff.<br /><br />Clwyd, the Labour MP for Cynon Valley since 1984 and Tony Blair's former human rights envoy to Iraq, told the Guardian she fears a "normalisation of cruelty" is now rife among NHS nurses. She said she had chosen to speak out because this had become "commonplace".<br /><br />Describing how her 6'2'' husband lay crushed "like a battery hen" against the bars of his hospital bed with an oxygen mask so small it cut into his face and pumped cold air into his infected eye, Clwyd said nurses treated the dying man with "coldness, resentment, indifference and even contempt".</p> <p>Owen Roberts died on Tuesday, 23rd October from hospital-acquired pneumonia. The former television director and producer had multiple sclerosis for 30 years and had been in a wheelchair for the previous two years. He had been in the flagship hospital for ten days.</p> <p>"I have had nightmares about what happened," said Clwyd, speaking to the Guardian after initially making the claims on BBC Radio 4's World at One.</p> </blockquote> <p>These are the death panels that the Left constantly derides. We can provide example after example of the reduction of access to care under government run health systems, and it seems they can never accept the truth.</p> <p>Or maybe they can. Could it, in fact, be intentional or are the incentives as such that it's just a matter of scarce resources and tough decisions need to be made? </p> <p>S.R. Larson of The Liberty Bullhorn makes a compelling case toward the former in a new post, <a href="">Eugenics and the welfare state</a>:</p> <blockquote><p>Eugenics is advancing in the modern welfare state as an instrument of cost containment. It is being used in health care primarily as a sorting instrument among patients in need of scarce medical resources. Disguised as advanced science, hidden behind an inconspicuous acronym called QALY, the contemporary version of the “science” of population health does its best not to tarnish the falsely compassionate reputation of the welfare state.</p> <p>The trend of killing babies to save money for a government-run health care system stretches beyond abortions. The aforementioned medical ethicists made a long and intricate case not for abortions – which they support – but for infanticide. They claim that there is no difference between aborting a disabled baby to save taxpayers money on future health care and killing that baby after it has been born.</p> </blockquote> <p>Larson explains the cold, calculating bureacracy that determines whether your life is still worth living or not, using the Orwellian name of Quality Adjusted Life Years:</p> <blockquote><p>At the bottom of this, of course, is the fact that the British government runs the National Health Service. Their prime purpose is not to deliver health care, but to deliver health care provided that government can afford to deliver it. In order to decide whose health care government can afford to deliver, the health care system applies something called Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALY). It is a system according to which government can assess the costs and benefits of providing care to individual patients.</p></blockquote> <blockquote><p>.... At the heart of QALY is the question: how can a tax-paid bureaucracy compare Jack’s and Jill’s need for health care? To make this comparison the QALY model converts Jack’s and Jill’s health experiences into one common denominator. This common denominator is a utility value scale. The theoretical basis for this scale is the ethical value theory of utilitarianism, with the explicit premise that government, not Jack and Jill, assign utility values to their health care experiences. A life in perfect health is considered to have a utility value of 1, while death has a utility value of 0. In between are various health conditions that span the entire continuum between 0 and 1.</p> <p>.... Suppose Jack and Jill want treatment at the same hospital. There is not enough resources to treat both of them, so a health care bureaucrat is assigned the duty to decide who will be admitted. He asks the question: how close to 1 or 0 are Jack’s and Jill’s health experiences? Jack and Jill both suffer from the same type of cancer. It is currently curable in both cases but if left untreated it will kill them. The bureaucrat now asks four questions to determine who will be admitted. … 1. How many more years is the patient likely going to live? 2. How many of those years will the patient be affected by his/her health condition? 3. How much less worth living will his/her life be without treatment? 4. Is the patient likely to be paying enough taxes over the course of his/her life to compensate government for the treatment costs?</p> <p>Please note again that the patient is not involved in answering any of these questions.</p> <p>.... The choice is, however, not based simply on the utility calculation. There is another aspect involved as well. Suppose the health care bureaucrat finds that Jack’s utility from his remaining life years is only slightly higher than the utility that Jill will experience. At this point, the decisive variable will be – expected tax revenues. If Jill makes more money and her future expected income will produce a lot more tax revenues for government than Jack’s income, then she will get the treatment because he is more likely to pay for his treatment through taxes than Jill is.</p> <p>There is another way to look at how QALY works. Suppose Jack and Jill have the same income, are the same age and suffer from the same type of cancer. Suppose Jack was in perfectly good health before the cancer but Jill suffered from a disability. The disability means that the doctors have to provide more complex, and more costly, treatment for her cancer. The cost of surgery on her is in other words significantly higher than it is to save Jack’s life.</p> <p>In this case the QALY calculation will recommend that the government-run hospital admit Jack for treatment but let Jill go without it. Because she is less able to pay for the cost of her treatment – same income, more expensive surgery – government is less likely to recover the cost of surgery in her case.</p> </blockquote> <p>One eventually comes to the conclusion that, regardless of the order of cause and effect, eugenics are a vital aspect to any totalitarian society. As Larson puts it:</p> <blockquote><p>There is a continuum from the most outrageous forms of oppression – Cambodia, China, The Soviet Gulag camps – to its more “lenient forms” – travel restrictions, food rationing. Everywhere within this continuum government rank themselves and their interest above the individual citizen’s needs and, in some cases, very right to exist.</p> </blockquote> <p>On one hand, you have command societies and economies such as Cuba and the Soviet Union that require population control to make the system work in a way that does not overburden governmental resources.  On the other hand is this concept of single payer health care that seems theoretically to solve many societal ills, but once the details of implementation and the realities of public budgeting are taken into account, turns out to require the same type of totalitarianism that we profess to want to avoid. Either way, the effect on the individual is always the same - less choice, less input into your own medical care decisions, and the need for the state to decide how much of its limited resources to spend on your care. </p> </div></div></div> Fri, 07 Dec 2012 16:23:23 +0000 LT1800 55805 at DE Legislature Attempts Disasterous Healthcare Overhaul in Wake of ObamaCare Ruling <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>A new bill recently proposed in the Delaware legislature is threatening to implement a single-payer healthcare system that will destroy private health insurance, raise taxes, and drive away jobs and businesses in the First State.&nbsp; In the midst of a potential ObamaCare failure in the Supreme Court, this bill would essentially work towards effectively socializing medicine in Delaware.&nbsp;</p> <p>This unprecedented overhaul of the Delaware health insurance market would essentially ban payments to private insurance companies in favor of a one-size-fits-all single-payer system.&nbsp; This new system would be implemented and enforced by an ambiguous Delaware Health Security Authority, ominously referred to throughout the bill as the “Authority.”&nbsp; Excuse the eerie 1984 reference, but this “Authority,” working as a supposed “non-government” entity, could easily be renamed “The Party: Healthcare edition.”&nbsp; In other words, this entity would be made up of government appointed bureaucrats who would not be held accountable to anyone nor anything other than themselves in controlling essentially the entire Delaware healthcare industry.&nbsp; This “Authority” would mandate coverage of “essential” benefits, determine doctors’ wages, and regulate health costs regardless of market demand.&nbsp; This bill would also effectively stifle competition in the healthcare industry, thereby driving up costs while simultaneously driving drown the quality of care.</p> <p>Not only does this bill threaten the quality of the entire healthcare system, but it could lead to a gross job loss in Delaware, as employers are forced to pay for a great deal of the bill’s costs.&nbsp; In addition to federal dollars, a majority of the costs are covered through increased income taxes.&nbsp; As approximately 50% of Delawareans eligible for health insurance under this proposed legislation do not pay income tax, this bill would lead to a huge redistribution of wealth, forcing employers and employed citizens to cover the healthcare costs of the poor and the unemployed.&nbsp; This would result in a downtrodden economy defined by growing unemployment, as more and more wealthy job creators leave the state in search of lower income taxes elsewhere.</p> <p>Given that the bill relies a great deal on federal funding from Congress, healthcare in Delaware under this newly proposed legislation would constantly rely on the ever-evolving, hostile political climate in Washington.&nbsp; For example, with Republicans in control of Congress, would Delaware still be guaranteed government funding for this huge bureaucratic monstrosity promising to take over the current system? If there’s anything that Greece taught us, it’s that a statist approach to healthcare does not work.&nbsp; To rely on funding from an increasingly unreliable and debt-ridden government is as careless as it is irresponsible.&nbsp;</p> <p>A single-payer, one-size-fits-all, bureaucratic nightmare is not the only approach to healthcare reform and nor by any means is it the most practical.&nbsp; What Delaware really needs is a more patient-centered approach to reform.&nbsp; This type of real reform would put individuals in charge of their own healthcare decisions and open up the insurance market to competition that will work towards lowering prices and increasing the quality of care.&nbsp; This can and will be done; however, the first step towards <em>real</em> healthcare reform is stopping HB 392 from ever seeing the light of day.</p> <p>With only three legislative days this week and four legislative days next week before the General Assembly leaves for vacation, the huge Democratic majority in the Delaware legislature appears to think they may be able to ram this bill through before any of their constituents catch on to its existence or its dreadful consequences.&nbsp; It’s time to prove these legislatures wrong and make them feel Delawareans push back against this unprecedented overhaul of their healthcare system.&nbsp; That’s why Delawareans need to call and email their representatives and senators <a href=";count=75&amp;nav=contact">here</a>&nbsp;and tell them to VOTE NO TO HB 392.</p></div></div></div> Mon, 18 Jun 2012 16:35:39 +0000 mfeely1 55393 at Obamacare Reality Check: If you like your plan, maybe you can keep it <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal">3 (a) GRANDFATHERED HEALTH INSURANCE COV</p> <p class="MsoNormal">4 ERAGE DEFINED.—Subject to the succeeding provisions of</p> <p class="MsoNormal">5 this section, for purposes of establishing acceptable cov</p> <p class="MsoNormal">6 erage under this division, the term ‘‘grandfathered health</p> <p class="MsoNormal">7 insurance coverage’’ means individual health insurance</p> <p class="MsoNormal">8 coverage that is offered and in force and effect before the</p> <p class="MsoNormal">9 first day of Y1 if the following conditions are met:</p></blockquote> <p class="MsoNormal"><a href=";docid=f:h3200ih.txt.pdf" target="_blank">From Page 16 of H.R. 3200</a></p> <p class="MsoNormal">We hear again and again that under the president’s health plan, we can keep our current insurance. Kavita Patel, who works with Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrett, said in the White House’s “You can keep your own insurance” video, “if you like your insurance, if you like the kind of health care you have right now and the plan you have, you can keep it.” President Obama at a June 23, 2009 press conference stated that: “If you like your plan and you like your doctor, you won't have to do a thing. You keep your plan. You keep your doctor. If your employer is providing you good health insurance, terrific, we're not going to mess with it.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">While that is technically true that people can keep the plan they have according to the section of H.R. 3200 quoted above, the bill gives government the power to make it extremely difficult if not impossible for insurance companies to continue providing those plans—even if you want to keep it. Following the above paragraph, restrictions are listed. This is one of them:</p> <blockquote><p class="MsoNormal">1 (3) RESTRICTIONS ON PREMIUM INCREASES.—</p> <p class="MsoNormal">2 The issuer cannot vary the percentage increase in</p> <p class="MsoNormal">3 the premium for a risk group of enrollees in specific</p> <p class="MsoNormal">4 grandfathered health insurance coverage without</p> <p class="MsoNormal">5 changing the premium for all enrollees in the same</p> <p class="MsoNormal">6 risk group at the same rate, as specified by the</p> <p class="MsoNormal">7 Commissioner.</p></blockquote> <p class="MsoNormal"><a href=";docid=f:h3200ih.txt.pdf" target="_blank">From Page 17 of H.R. 3200</a></p> <p class="MsoNormal">In other words, an insurance company cannot raise the price of the insurance plan.  That might sound good, but when combined with the <a href="/blog/joseph-onorati/obamacare-reality-check-fee-on-private-insurance">fee placed on private insurance under H.R. 3200</a>, it will make it difficult for private insurers to continue to provide the coverage with which those Americans who are happy with their coverage can keep. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Once an insurance company is forced to raise rates with the government fee to remain profitable, then the plan loses its special “grandfathered” status. Once an individual’s insurance loses grandfathered status, then the only way to purchase insurance is through the H.R. 3200 created <a href="/blog/joseph-onorati/obamacare-translator-national-exchange">national exchange</a>.  <strong>**Edit 3:02 PM Aug. 11, 2009**</strong> Even if the insurance company raises rates in accordance with the Commissioner on all enrollees in the same risk group at the same rate to compensate for the government-imposed fee on private insurance, then, as one of the gracious commentors pointed out, "nobody is going to subscribe."  Individuals will drop their now-more-expensive plans and they'll be required by law to purchase insurance through the government-controlled national exchange.  Either way--whether insurance companies stop offering the same insurance at the same rate or if they raise rates and individuals go looking for other options, H.R. 3200 will drive Americans away from health insurance plans that they have and like right now. <strong>**End edit**</strong></p> <blockquote><p class="MsoNormal">23 (c) LIMITATION ON INDIVIDUAL HEALTH INSURANCE</p> <p class="MsoNormal">24 COVERAGE.—</p> <p class="MsoNormal">with BILLS</p> <p class="MsoNormal">1 (1) IN GENERAL.—Individual health insurance</p> <p class="MsoNormal">2 coverage that is not grandfathered health insurance</p> <p class="MsoNormal">3 coverage under subsection (a) may only be offered</p> <p class="MsoNormal">4 on or after the first day of Y1 as an Exchange-par</p> <p class="MsoNormal">5 ticipating health benefits plan.</p></blockquote> <p class="MsoNormal"><a href=";docid=f:h3200ih.txt.pdf" target="_blank">From Page 16 of H.R. 3200</a></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The bill technically offers Americans the right to keep their own coverage, but once they seek out different insurance or their company is forced through fees to drop the plan, Americans will be forced to purchase insurance through a government-operated national exchange.</p> <p> </p></div></div></div> Tue, 11 Aug 2009 15:55:43 +0000 admin 53955 at Shocking Video: The Assault On Private Health Insurance <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p></p><p>"But I don't think we're going to be able to eliminate employer coverage immediately; there's going to be potentially some transition process..." - Barack Obama</p><p>Check out some statements like this one and similar ones from Obama from over the years.</p></div></div></div> Mon, 03 Aug 2009 15:39:23 +0000 admin 53945 at