The health-care debate has centered on the uninsured. That so many people do not have health insurance is a consequence of foolish government policies: regulations that raise the price of insurance, and a tax code that ensures that most people get their insurance through their employer. If you don’t work for a company that provides health insurance, you’re out of luck. People locked out of the insurance system still have access to health care. But they often end up in emergency rooms because they did not receive preventive care.

For most people, however, it is another aspect of our employer-based health-care system that causes the most trouble: the insecurity it creates. People worry that if they switch jobs, they will lose their health insurance. They worry that their company will cut back on health benefits. Universal coverage is not necessary to address these worries. Making it possible for individuals to own their health-insurance policies themselves, rather than getting them through their companies, would solve the problem. It would also reduce the political momentum behind socialized medicine.

Question posted courtesy of: Caffeinated Content

Here is a basic run-down of the Canadian Universal Health Care.
Do you think it’s sounds like a success?

Canadian Health Care

Hey Guys; I seen on the news up here in Canada where Hillary Clinton
introduced her new health care plan. Something similar to what we have in
Canada. I also heard that Michael Moore was raving about the health care up
here in Canada in his latest movie. As your friend and someone who lives
with the Canada health care plan I thought I would give you some facts about
this great medical plan that we have in Canada.

First of all:

1) The health care plan in Canada is not free. We pay a premium every month
of $96. For Shirley and I to be covered. Sounds great he. What they don’t
tell you is how much we pay in taxes to keep the health care system afloat.
I am personally in the 55% tax bracket. Yes 55% of my earnings go to taxes.
A large portion of that and I am not sure of the exact amount goes directly
to health care our #1 expense.

2) I would not classify what we have as health care plan, it is more like a
health diagnosis system. You can get into to see a doctor quick enough so he
can tell you “yes indeed you are sick or you need an operation” but now the
challenge becomes getting treated or operated on. We have waiting lists out
the ying yang some as much as 2 years down the road.

3) Rather than fix what is wrong with you the usual tactic in Canada is to
prescribe drugs. Have a pain here is a drug to take- not what is causing the
pain and why. No time for checking you out because it is more important to
move as many patients thru as possible each hour for Government
re-imbursement

4) Many Canadians do not have a family Doctor.

5) Don’t require emergency treatment as you may wait for hours in the
emergency room waiting for treatment.

6) Shirley’s dad cut his hand on a power saw a few weeks back and it
required that his hand be put in a splint – to our surprise we had to pay
$125. For a splint because it is not covered under health care plus we have
to pay $60. For each visit for him to check it out each week.

7) Shirley’s cousin was diagnosed with a heart blockage. Put on a waiting
list . Died before he could get treatment.
Government allots so many operations per year. When that is done no more
operations, unless you go to your local newspaper and plead your case and
embarrass the government then money suddenly appears.

9)The Government takes great pride in telling us how much more they are
increasing the funding for health care but waiting lists never get shorter.
Government just keeps throwing money at the problem but it never goes away.
But they are good at finding new ways to tax us, but they don’t call it a
tax anymore it is now a user fee.

10) My mother needs an operation for a blockage in her leg but because she
is a smoker they will not do it. Despite her and my father paying into the
health care system all these years. My Mom is 80 years of age. Now there is
talk that maybe we should not treat fat and obese people either because they
are a drain on the health care system. Let me see now, what we want in
Canada is a health care system for healthy people only. That should reduce
our health care costs.

11) Forget getting a second opinion, what you see is what you get.

12) I can spend what money I have left after taxes on booze, cigarettes,
junk food and anything else that could kill me but I am not allowed by law
to spend my money on getting an operation I need because that would be
jumping the queue. I must wait my turn except if I am a hockey player or
athlete then I can get looked at right away. Go figger. Where else in the
world can you spend money to kill yourself but not allowed to spend money to
get healthy.

13) Oh did I mention that immigrants are covered automatically at tax payer
expense having never contributed a dollar to the system and pay no premiums.

14) Oh yeh we now give free needles to drug users to try and keep them
healthy. Wouldn’t want a sickly druggie breaking into your house and
stealing your things. But people with diabetes who pay into the health care
system have to pay for their needles because it is not covered but the
health care system.

I send this out not looking for sympathy but as the election looms in the
states you will be hearing more and more about universal health care down
there and the advocates will be pointing to Canada. I just want to make sure
that you hear the truth about health care up here and have some food for
thought and informed questions to ask when broached with this subject.

Step wisely and don’t make the same mistakes we have.

Dean

Question posted courtesy of: Caffeinated Content – Members-Only Content for WordPress

Hillary vs. Rudy on health care, is Hillary crazy

Today’s health-care debate previews the fall 2008 election, if today’s presidential frontrunners win their respective party nominations. Senator Hillary Clinton (D., N.Y.) and former mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani (R., N.Y.) are promoting reforms that contrast like midnight and high noon.
As Clinton cheers, Congress moves to reauthorize the State Child Health Insurance Program. Launched modestly in 1997, SCHIP was targeted at kids whose families were too prosperous for Medicaid, but too poor for private coverage. Like nearly every federal scheme, SCHIP is metastasizing. Clinton, her Democratic comrades, and some weak-kneed Republican appeasers are widening SCHIP into a self-contradictory contraption, complete with a tax hike and a fiscal blunderbuss.

“It is one of our most important national priorities to cover all Americans, and that should start now with all of our children,” Clinton said July 16. Of course, it depends on what the meaning of the word “children” is. Washington already lets 14 states cover 670,000 “boys” and “girls,” up to age 25, some of whom have been drinking legally for four years and voting for seven. Ninety-two percent of Minnesota’s SCHIP budget insures adults.

Clinton’s proposal, like the House Democrats’ bill, would cover children in families up to 400 percent of the Federal Poverty Line (FPL), double today’s target. Thus, a family of four making $82,600 could receive federal-government medicine. Meanwhile — the Heritage Foundation’s Rea Hederman estimates — 70,000 “American families are both poor and high-income — simultaneously.” They qualify for SCHIP and the Alternative Minimum Tax.

Madder still, 77 percent of children between double and triple FPL and 89 percent between 300 and 400 percent of FPL already have private health insurance, notes Cato Institute scholar Michael Cannon. Nonetheless, the Democratic House Wednesday night approved $47 billion for SCHIP through 2012, 88 percent above its current $25 billion, five-year budget.

Senate Democrats would fund this extravaganza via a 156 percent cigarette-tax hike — from 39 cents to $1 per pack. Heritage forecasts that 22 million new smokers would have to light up by 2017 to keep SCHIP afloat. So, SCHIP promises to improve children’s health while exploiting adult tobacco addiction. And if those smokers never materialize, future Congresses simply will invoice smoke-free taxpayers.

“The Left is pretty blatant about this being their vehicle to move to universal coverage,” one health-policy expert told me. “Make kids think you get health insurance from the government, and in less than a generation, you’re there.”

While Democrats and some lily-livered Republicans ceaselessly invoke “the children” to impose government medicine, Giuliani does the reverse. His just-unveiled health plan rejects public entitlements and tax hikes and embraces private property and tax incentives to extend health coverage overall — beyond just kids.

“America’s health-care system is being dragged down by decades of government-imposed mandates and wasteful, unaccountable bureaucracy,” Giuliani told New Hampshire voters Tuesday. “To reform, we must empower all Americans by increasing health-care choices and affordability, while bringing accountability to the system.”

Giuliani specifically would grant uninsured families $15,000 tax exemptions, and singles $7,500, to help them buy private coverage that they, not their bosses, would own, control, and transport throughout their careers — much like car, home, and life insurance. Funds remaining after insurance purchases could be deposited tax-free into Health Savings Accounts for routine medical expenses.

He also would let Americans acquire health plans across state lines, as they now do with non-medical insurance. For instance, unmarried New Yorkers, who now must buy such unneeded mandatory benefits as in-vitro fertilization, would be free to secure no-frills plans from insurers in, say, mandate-light Ohio.

Giuliani also would curb malpractice costs by capping lawsuit damages and requiring frivolous plaintiffs to cover victorious doctors’ legal bills.

“If a person gets injured, he should be compensated, but he shouldn’t get the brass ring or win the lottery,” Giuliani explained.

Unlike President Bush, whose happy talk fuels Leftist disdain, Giuliani describes Democrats’ ideas with bracing candor. He calls their health proposals “heavily influenced by Marxism.”

“We’ve got to solve our health-care problems with American principles, not the principles of socialism,” Giuliani says. “I know Democrats will say this is unfair, I know they’ll squeal…But I am a realist. I face reality, which is: If you take more people and have government cover them, it’s called socialized medicine.”

Question posted courtesy of: Caffeinated Content

RUSH: A little bit about something I brought up in Philadelphia last night: health care. I’ve talked about it in a similar vein on this program, but I had the occasion recently to meet with another liberal, a liberal chick. This liberal chick had this book on self-reliance, and she’s reading passages to me, and I was thinking to myself, “What is a liberal doing with a book on self-reliance?” So I’m thinking she can’t be as liberal as she thinks — and truly she is moving, even though she doesn’t know it. How could she not be, being with me a couple of hours? At any rate, as she read me some of these passages on self-reliance, I said, “Let me ask you a question. Where is self-reliance in the debate in this country over health care.”

“What do you mean?”

I said, “Well, why is it…?” and I asked the audience in Philadelphia this last night. I said, “Why is it that of all the needs in life, all of the needs — not wants, all of the needs — that we have in this country, how is it that we’re close to 50% of the American people who think it’s somebody else’s job to provide it for them? They’re self-reliant when it comes to buying their homes. They’re self-reliant when it comes to buying their cars, self-reliant when it comes to buying their lawn mowers, self-reliant when it comes to buying their televisions, self-reliant when it comes to buying hotel rooms, self-reliant when it comes to buying food, self-reliant when it comes to buying hardware supplies. Why is it that so many Americans now think that health care and insurance, is something they don’t have to be self-residential about? Does this trouble you?”

The answer I got was, “Well, you know, I really think we ought to provide health coverage for the poor because they’re overtaxing emergency rooms and that’s raising the price for everyone.”

I said, “Don’t give me that. Answer the question. Just answer the question. You’re going full bore here on self-reliance. This is good. Tell me why self-reliance gets thrown out the window when it comes to health care. I’ll tell you why. It’s politics! For years, and years, and years, Democrats and liberals have been telling people that health care is a constitutional right, that the government is supposed to provide it,” and I said, “The reason that they do this is because they want to control and they want to have as many people as possible dependent on them for the control they want over people,” and, of course, this is where the conversation started to break down, but at least I made the point, which leads me to the next story here in the Stack of Stuff. A Rasmussen poll. I have said we are approaching mob rule. Once we get to the point that, say, 55% of the American people think that health care should be “free,” paid for by somebody else, then we’re nearing mob rule. How are we going to stop that? Rasmussen poll: “Half of Americans support the notion of providing health care for free to all Americans, even though…” Listen to this, now: “even though they expect it will reduce the overall quality of care, increase the overall cost, and increase their personal costs.” What a bunch of lamebrains, if this is true — and the Rasmussen people are not cranks.

How do you go from providing health care “for free” to expecting your personal costs will go up? How can your personal costs go up if it’s free? Besides that, they say they’ll go for it even if it will reduce the overall quality of care and increase the cost. However, the support for free health care breaks down, falls dramatically “if the plan requires everybody with insurance to change their coverage and join a program administered by the government.” There is a silver lining in this dark cloud. “That’s consistent with a large body of research suggesting strong resistance to any proposal requiring people to switch from the current health insurance.” Folks, let me clue you in about something. You may not have a choice if Mrs. Clinton gets her way, and I point you back to this S-CHIP thing. This S-CHIP thing is no longer about kids. It’s about putting more and more people under a federal program. And Mrs. Clinton has said if her new health care plan is indoctrinated the way she wants or introduced, she’s going to let people keep their individual insurance, but she’s also going to have government programs, too, and she’s also said you might have to have health insurance when you go to a job interview. Well, if you can’t afford it, you go to the government and get it. That’s how you go get a job.

The point is that with the government competing with the private sector, the private sector is going to take it on the chin, and people are going to feel the need to leave because prices are going to continue to rise and so forth because the government’s going to affect supply and demand being involved in the mix — and, down the road, the objective is to force the private sector out on its own. Make them just give up, as in businesses saying like the automakers, “We can’t survive if $2,000 of every car is priced for health care, and we can’t continue to pay people that are no longer working for us.” And the government comes along, “Well, we’ll take over your health care for you.” The government says that, and the companies say, “Good!” These CEOs are not dumb when it comes to their bottom line. “Let the government take it over, and so this is how it’s going to happen.” It won’t happen immediately. It’s a stealth program. Look, the old Soviets, folks, they were very patient. They had goals to get something done five years, ten years, 100 years, whatever it took. You know, the old saying: Take two steps forward. If you have to go one step back, now and then, you do it, but you keep making progress. They don’t do things in four-year increments, eight-year increments. The liberals have been at this for a long time, and they’re going to keep at it, so this is one of the stealth techniques that they’re going to employ.

Question posted courtesy of: Caffeinated Content

Who needs a private sector when we have a Clinton make our health-care choices?

The new Hillary health-care plan is very different from the old 1993-1994 Hillary plan. It is far slyer, and far cleverer, far more well-packaged. The same arguments that applied to the old Hillary plan do not necessarily apply to the new plan. But the new health plan ends up in the same place as the old health plan — with the government running everything.

Here are the primary problems with the new Hillary health plan:

What Entitlement Crisis?
As everyone should know by now, our nation faces a dramatic entitlements crisis that will play out over the next 30 years. Federal spending has been hovering in a fairly stable manner, around 20-percent of GDP (Gross Domestic Product), for over 50 years now, since the early 1950s. But the Federal government’s own official projections show that over the next 30 years or so, federal spending will soar to 40-percent of GDP, requiring total federal taxes as a percent of GDP to double. This is due to the exploding costs of the entitlement programs we already have, primarily Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

Hillary Clinton and other Democrats respond to this overwhelming crisis by proposing that we not reform any of the existing entitlements. Rather, they suggest that we endorse massive new entitlements, including for instance, National Health Insurance. Policy suggestions like this force one to wonder, are the democrats numerically illiterate?

The Individual Mandate
Hillary Clinton’s plan starts out very simply: she will mandate under federal law that everyone in America must buy health insurance, and by this she supposedly achieves universal coverage. The catch, of course, is that once you start down the road with this mandate, you end up with government-run health care.

If you are going to require people to buy health insurance, then the next question which follows is, exactly what do they have to buy to fulfill this requirement? Suppose they buy the Fraternity Plan that pays only for unlimited beer and pizza during the weekends? Have they satisfied the requirement?

The serious point is if you are going to require people to buy health insurance, then you are going to have to specify exactly what health-plan people will have to buy to satisfy this requirement. So the government has gone from telling you that you need health insurance, to telling you what kind of health-insurance coverage or plan you must have. And with Hillary, we can assume that this will be no basic, minimum plan. But Hillary continues to insist that this is not government-run health care.

And this, of course, is only the beginning. Special interests will swarm to get their favored coverage in the required plan. People will merrily get used to billing everything in the plan to the insurance company. And costs will rise.

People will start complaining that they can’t afford paying for this costly coverage, and whining that the government must do something. The government itself will already be paying for a lot of this coverage, and budgets will therefore explode.

So the government will do something to control costs. It will start rationing. It will start telling people what services and treatments they can have, and when. It will start delaying access to new innovations. It will squeeze payments to health care providers so much that the providers will start rationing what they provide. Government guidelines will start dictating to these providers that they ration care, and how to do it. After a while, people start to realize, “hey, we have government run health care.”

Don’t doubt it. This is exactly what happens with every other country that tries to mandate or provide coverage through government. They realize ultimately there must be some way to control costs. There is no market in these plans to control costs. So the government must do it through the only alternative – rationing. Indeed (we will see below), Hillary’s plan already includes the machinery for this rationing.

It doesn’t help that a small band of too clever conservatives have been supporting just such an individual mandate since 1993-94, when broad objections from conservatives defeated their plan. Congratulations to these folks today. Hillary Clinton has adopted their plan, just as they were forewarned.

The Employer Tax
Since workers would now have to buy insurance under the Hillary plan; employers would have to pay for it wherever possible. All large companies would be required to provide health coverage for their workers (a plan, again, specified by the government), or pay a tax to the government. Already paying among the highest corporate tax rates in the industrialized world, this is just what our corporations need — another tax. Once the politicians get used to raiding this corporate cookie jar, the tax will soon be higher than the corporate income tax. When that tax burden leads to unemployment, no problem, we will just raise taxes on the rich again, and pay for more welfare. All of this will just improve the economy, the Clintons promise.

The Refundable Tax Credit
Where employers don’t pay for health coverage, the government will. Hillary proposes a refundable tax credit for the purchase of health insurance that will leave workers paying no more than a specified percentage of their incomes for the coverage. Hillary’s campaign is already calling this “A Net Tax Cut for American Taxpayers.”

The problem with this is that the bottom 40-percent of income earners do not pay any income taxes, and the middle 20-percent now pay for very little (this is the end result of all those Republican tax cuts for the rich all these years). But the tax credit is refundable, meaning that if you don’t have enough tax liability to take advantage of the credit, the government will still send you a check for the entire credit. So the tax credit here is not giving you back your own tax money. It is giving you back other people’s tax money. So this is not, in fact, a tax cut. It is a new spending program, a new entitlement program, in fact.

We already have a huge program called Medicaid to pay for health coverage for people who are too poor to pay for it themselves. The federal government is now spending close to $250 billion on this program, in addition to probably another $150 billion from the states. And these costs are just projected to explode and explode again over the next 30 years. In other words, we already can’t afford the Medicaid program as it currently stands. But what Hillary is proposing with these tax credits is a massive expansion of it. And we are back to the democratic chimeras again.

Unfortunately, some conservative Republicans have recently toyed around with the idea of refundable tax credits for the purchase of health insurance as well. They have rightly been trying to change tax code incentives to get workers to own their own health insurance rather than relying on employers. Realizing, however, that the tax changes would do nothing for at least half of all workers who now pay little or no income tax, they have been considering various refundable plans to expand the help to lower income workers. The fallacy here is trying to provide assistance to the poor, and to low income workers, through the tax code. This is what Medicaid is for, and lawmakers should focus on helping those with lower incomes through reforming that program.

But Hillary is not done with the refundable tax credits. She would provide such credits as well to small businesses who buy health insurance for their workers, paying for as much as 50-percent of premiums for firms with fewer than 25 employees. And she would also bail out big companies, who are now being crushed by foolish past promises to pay for health insurance for their retirees, with still more tax credits. In return, corporate big shots from these companies publicly intone that indeed, it is time for national health insurance. A better solution would be to just have the government take over these already socialized companies and finish running them into the ground.

Government-Run Health Care
Hillary wisely calls her plan the American Health Choices Plan. Accordingly, everyone will be “free” to choose one of the health insurance options in the Federal Employee Health Benefits Plan. But how is this not government-run health care? No company gets on the list of plans in the FEHBP without first complying with a host of federal requirements and controls. That’s alright when the government is providing insurance for its own employees. But should we be treating all workers in the economy as if they are government workers when it comes to health insurance? Is this not precisely what is meant by excessive government control?

While the FEHBP embodies good policy for the federal government dealing with its own employees, excessive rhetoric from the original designers of that system (about how it is a model for all health insurance) has now brought us to the point of believing that all workers in the private economy ought to be treated as government employees when it comes to health care.

Hillary will also provide, as another option, the choice of a completely government run, government financed health insurance plan. Why? And, again, how is this not government run health care? Moreover, how benign will this plan really be when she is done subsidizing it up the kazoo, and driving all the private plans out of business with her blizzard of regulatory requirements?

Bye, Bye Private Insurance
Hillary’s plan will also impose guaranteed issue on all private health-insurance plans. This means that insurers cannot reject anyone for their insurance, even on the grounds that the patient is already woefully sick and costly. Moreover, insurers won’t be able to charge more costly patients higher premiums.

Effectively, this would necessarily end any real private insurance in America. Under these requirements, companies are no longer insuring health costs, they are simply financing health costs. Health insurers would be like fire insurers who are required to issue new policies at standard rates to those who show up to buy coverage after their homes have already caught fire. Clearly, this is unworkable.

Hillary says the insurers are supposed to be in the business of spreading the risk, not cherry picking the most healthy. But when someone shows up to buy health insurance with cancer and heart disease, we are no longer talking about risks. We are talking about payout. This is not an insurance business.

Rest assured, moreover, that the healthy with health insurance do not want to see the “risks” of the irredeemably unhealthy spread to them. Those without health insurance who have become uninsurable can, and should, be served through other means, such as state uninsurable risk pools that do not involve trashing the health-insurance system for everyone else. But trashing the private health-insurance market is exactly what Hillary and her allies advocate.

Rationing
Finally, there is the Best Practices Institute, which should be called the Ministry of Truth for health care. These folks will study all sorts of medical care, issue protocols, and standards for what is the best way to treat this or that. And don’t expect any insurers anywhere, public or private, to pay for anything other than what these folks say is the best practice. To oppose the Institute, of course, would just be to pay for waste and inefficiency.

So this is the ideal mechanism for imposing the inevitably necessary rationing. New, expensive medical breakthroughs will be overlooked, or delayed. If your doctor has a brilliant insight on how to treat you, no problem. All you have to do is go to the Best Practices Institute in Washington, explain why this treatment is the right one for you, and get the regs changed. In this brave new world, life insurance will be a lot more valuable to people than health insurance.

Insurers, now all under the control of government, will also impose rationing by squeezing reimbursements to health providers, with the limited funds the new system will allow them, until the providers themselves cut back. This is what the government already does with Medicaid, and increasingly with Medicare.

And there is so much more. In Hillary’s three speeches and three papers on her website, she outlines dozens of new health care requirements in her new system, which will not be government run. The government is all wise and all knowing, and just needs to make sure the rickety old health-care system gets it all right, as it is dragged into the 21st century.

And when Hillary gets done with those fascist drug companies, you can forget about any new breakthrough drugs coming to market in the future, running up costs.

But remember, the system is not government run, and don’t let those nasty Republicans tell you otherwise.

Question posted courtesy of: Caffeinated Content

Wait-time debate continues

Pamela Cowan
Leader-Post

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Joyce Manz’s blood boils when she sees government health-care ads depicting shorter waits for surgery in Saskatchewan.

“When the commercials come on TV, anything to do with health care, I could take my chair and throw it at the television …,” Manz said Monday. “I feel very helpless and now I’m very frightened because I’m on morphine.”

Manz was put on a wait list for back surgery in August 2006. When she called the Saskatchewan Surgical Care Network last week she was told her surgery won’t happen until February but she wasn’t given a reason for the delay.

“Honestly, I don’t know how I’ll wait until February,” she tearfully told reporters on Monday morning. “As far as I’m concerned, anybody who is believing the ads they’re seeing on television are being misled. I would like to know, what is being done about the hospital wait times?”

To control pain that shoots down her right leg, the 61-year-old Holdfast woman got a prescription for morphine from her family doctor last week. Although the drug controls the pain, Manz is terrified she’ll be addicted to the narcotic by the time she has surgery. Despite her deteriorating condition, she hasn’t contacted her specialist since she saw him last year.

Saskatchewan Party health critic Don McMorris said his party’s MLAs have received an increase in calls about surgical wait concerns over the last month.

“People seeing these government ads saying that waiting lists are shortened, people aren’t waiting nearly as long and that’s not what people are experiencing throughout the province,” McMorris said.

Health Minister Len Taylor acknowledged that surgical waits are long in some areas, but said since 2004, when Saskatchewan and other provincial governments committed money to reduce wait times and improve access, the Saskatchewan Surgical Care Network’s figures show the number of people waiting for surgery has declined by more than 1,000.

When Regina’s day surgery centre opens, the wait for day surgeries will drop further, which will free up operating rooms for orthopedic procedures, he said.

He said the Saskatchewan Party misrepresents the status of health care “to erode confidence in the health-care system and therefore the government.”

When conflicts occur between patients and the system, Taylor said patients should contact their health region’s Quality of Care co-ordinator — positions the government created for that purpose.

“The Sask. Party understands and I think choose to ignore the fact that people are on waiting lists as a result of assessments done by surgeons and that surgeons work to establish their waiting lists based on the blocks of time available to them,” Taylor said. “If a patient’s needs change, they should be constantly in touch with their surgeons for re-assessment and replacement within that surgeon’s waiting list block of time.”

The Regina Qu’Appelle Health Region has a long wait for some orthopedic procedures, which tend to be time intensive, said Trent Truscott, the region’s executive director of surgical care services.

“It also was one of the areas that was fairly hard hit in the summer because of cancellations due to the humidity concerns,” he said.

High temperatures and mechanical problems with one of the Pasqua Hospital’s chillers forced the region to postpone more than 200 surgeries because of the risk that the humidity could increase post-operative infections. Job action by the Health Sciences Association of Saskatchewan earlier in the summer also resulted in more than 50 surgeries cancelled in the region.

Truscott suggests that those who are concerned about surgical waits call the surgical care co-ordinators, follow up with their family physician and specialist or call the region’s client representative.

Question posted courtesy of: Caffeinated Content

ABC Demands ‘Answers’ on U.S. Health Insurance Ills; Ignores Canadian Problems
On Monday’s “Good Morning America,” the ABC program shifted into full advocacy mode as anchor Chris Cuomo investigated the health insurance industry. A week after the network promoted Michael Moore’s new documentary “Sicko” for over 21 minutes, co-host Diane Sawyer announced that, regarding health care, the program was demanding “some answers” with a new segment. According to Sawyer, the series is “for you, for all of us.” At the close of the report, the ABC anchor even pleaded with the audience for examples of nefarious health care companies:
Diane Sawyer: “…If you have an insurance company policy, a question that you want to raise, you want us to tackle something that you think the insurance companies are doing, you write to us. You let us know about it. ABCNews.com. We are on the case.”
And while Cuomo was “on the case” of a woman who had difficulty getting her insurance company to approve a much needed eye surgery, there has been no similar look at Canadian horror stories where government run health care made one woman with breast cancer wait three months for radiation treatment.
A report by the Canadian Fraser Institute found that the average wait time in that country to see a general practitioner was 17.7 weeks. One such incident found a woman waiting over three months to receive radiation therapy for breast cancer:
A similar lawsuit was filed in Quebec on behalf of 10,000 women with breast cancer who were forced into long waits for radiation therapy. Anahit Cilinger was one such patient. After having a lymph node removed in October 1999, she was put on a waiting list for radiation therapy. Three months later and with no end to the waiting in sight, she traveled to her native Turkey and paid $12,000 for the treatment.
Sawyer began the piece by proclaiming “a GMA commitment to take a hard look at the health insurance industry, to get some answers about those policies we keep hearing about, about what happens to sick people in a time of need.” One would assume that such a commitment would include investigating long wait times and other ramifications of adopting government controlled plans.
The case of Shannon Dagher, the woman featured in the GMA piece, is certainly sad. After being diagnosed with a rare eye disorder, Ms. Dagher needed a surgery to prevent blindness. Instead, her insurance company, Blue Cross, launched an investigation into her claim. (They ultimately payed for the surgery.) But while unfortunate, it’s no less real then that of Canadians who must resort to leaving the country to obtain treatment. Sawyer describe the “GMA Gets Answers” segment as a new feature, one that viewers should expect to see again. Hopefully, the ramifications of universal health care will also be discussed.
Michael Moore’s appearances promoting his new health care movie, “Sicko,” can be found here and here.
A transcript of the segment, which aired at 7:39am on June 18, follows:
7:20am tease
Diane Sawyer: “And we got word this woman’s health insurance company was threatening to cancel her coverage when she needed it the most, so GMA went into action. She’s not the only one and we’re going to get some answers.”
7: 30am tease
Sawyer: “And coming up in this half hour, this is one of those stories that has Americans up in arms about insurance companies. You’re going to meet a young woman whose doctors say that she needs surgery or she could go blind. But her insurance company threatened to cancel her coverage. Why? A controversial practice. This morning, Chris Cuomo’s on the case. It’s our new series ‘GMA Gets Answers,’ for her and for you, for all of us.”
7:39am
Sawyer: “Well, today we are announcing a GMA commitment to take a hard look at the health insurance industry, to get some answers about those policies we keep hearing about, about what happens to sick people in a time of need. Today, you’re going to hear about something called rescission. It is a controversial practice where insurance companies retroactively cancel the policy, often after you’re trying to make a claim. Chris Cuomo here again with the story of a young woman who faced a real crisis. Her sight was at risk.”
ABC Graphic: “GMA Gets Answers: Can Your Insurance Be Taken Away?”
Cuomo: “Absolutely. Now, as background, in this country there are thousands of people purchase their own insurance. They don’t get it through a union or through their work. The young woman you’re about to meet has a story that could happen to any of them. According to the industry’s, the insurance industry’s own estimates, thousands of similar rescission investigations into policy holders occur every year. And most of them lose their coverage as a result. It’s a frightening practices you might miss in the fine print of your health insurance policy. Shannon Dagher, a 22-year-old college student, says she was at the eye doctor for a check-up last November, one month after her new insurance policy kicked in when she received terrible news.”
Shannon Dagher (Denied Insurance): “I was diagnosed with a very rare disorder It’s called pseudo tumor cerebri. It basically looks and acts like a brain tumor.”
Cuomo: “Now, Shannon’s doctors say she needs surgery or she may go blind.”
Dagher: “I’m petrified of the thought of going blind. I’ve never been sick before in my life. And now, in the past six months, I’ve started to lose my peripheral vision and I’ll never get that back.”
Cuomo: “But instead of authorizing the surgery, here insurer, Blue Cross of California stopped processing her bills. The company, whose slogan is ‘Put the power of blue to work for you,’ instead launched and investigation into Shannon. It threatened to cancel her coverage if she had failed to disclose accurate information about her health, like headaches on her original application. But look at Shannon’s Blue Cross application. It lumps headaches with more serious conditions like epilepsy, paralysis, stroke, all in one question. She didn’t have any of those serious conditions, so she checked no.”
Dagher: “I never lied to Blue Cross on my application. At the time when I got the insurance, I had no knowledge that anything was wrong with me.”
Cuomo: “Legislators around the country are paying attention to this little known practice. The state of Connecticut has just passed a law to make it harder for health insurers to pass rescind policies.”
Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal: “These instances are hardly isolated or random. They are part of a pattern, a prevalent practice in this industry that very simply has to be stopped.”
Cuomo: “Just getting an insurance company to talk about rescission is not easy. It’s Chris Cuomo from ABC News. The best we could do was get Blue Cross on the phone. Why do you rescind a policy?”
Voice of Shannon Troughton (Wellpoint Spokesperson): “It’s an very important tool for us to address any identified issues of abuse or misrepresentation. Anyone who causes fraud in the system increases the costs of health care for all of our members.”
Cuomo: “We called eight other insurers. None would talk to us on camera and referred us to their trade group. Isn’t this about saving money for the company?”
Susan Pisano (America’s Health Insurance Plans): “Health insurers pay large claims and pay millions of dollars in claims every day.”
Cuomo: “Isn’t it a little fishy though that this rescission review process only begins after someone files a claim? Isn’t that suspicious? You know, why don’t you just do it when I’m applying in the first place, figure out whether I’m telling you the truth, like most industries. Here, I filed a claim because I’m sick and now you start looking at me?”
Pisano: “Well, here’s the way it- Here’s the way it work. Here is the way it works. A policy is rescinded only if someone could have known that the condition existed, they were asked about it on the application and they didn’t provide the information.”
Cuomo: “GMA went back to Blue Cross for clarification on Shannon Dagher’s case. What really surprised us was that shortly after we asked about Shannon’s policy, she learned that her investigation was complete and her policy would not be canceled. Then, Blue Cross denied Shannon’s policy had ever even been considered for rescission. It said in a statement to GMA, ‘Although she may have received a letter from us indicating a review was being conducted in the past, her policy was not rescinded. For you to report that this member’s issues are in any way linked to rescission would be erroneous and misleading.’ But Blue Cross had sent Shannon multiple letters telling her that the, quote, ‘rescission review process was under way.’ And while Blue Cross says it sent Shannon this letter telling her the review was complete, Shannon tells us she never got anything in the mail.”
Cuomo: “You’re the trade group. You’re speaking for them. They don’t want to talk to me about it. All they say is ‘Don’t say she was rescinded,’ but she was going through that review process. She wasn’t getting her claim paid.”
Pisano: “The companies we represent understand full well the impact of the process of rescission. It must be terribly disruptive, especially at a time when somebody is sick.”
Cuomo: “Like Shannon, who recently had to drop out of college because of her sickness and hopes her insurance company will not add any more to her troubles.”
Dagher: “To be accused of fraud when I have no defenses, when I’m sick and when I’m relying on the coverage that they promised me and that is due to me, it really shakes my faith in humanity and the good of people.”
Cuomo: “But there is some good news. The company authorized the surgery. Shannon, who has a basic policy with a high deductible, did not file suit. And just recently, Blue Cross of California did authorize the surgery that surgery that may save her vision, so remember that. And a California attorney is currently settling a class action suit against Blue Cross of California. The settlement will require the insurer to prove there was intentional misrepresentation before they can cancel a problem. The insurer is denying any wrongdoing but has agreed to revise and clarify the application policy filled out by potential clients.”
Sawyer: “So, after we started looking into it, word came-”
Cuomo: “Yes. We’re not saying cause and effect, but we started looking into it. All of a sudden they started saying that’s not even going on what you said was going on, but Shannon certainly thought it was.”
Sawyer: “Well, we want to let everyone out there know that if you have an insurance company policy, a question that you want to raise, you want us to tackle something that you think the insurance companies are doing, you write to us. You let us know about it. ABCNews.com. We are on the case.”

Question posted courtesy of: Caffeinated Content

I live in Europe and I pay the equivalent of about $200 a month for private health insurance. I can use the public health care for free if I want to as well of course. What I found interesting is that I can use my private health care all around the world except for Canada and the USA. I would need to pay $900 a month instead. I was really shocked. The reason is because in Canada, the health care is very expensive since it is 100% socialized (no private). And…in America, it is high on account of the medical insurance costs for the doctors which they need to pay on account of multi-million dollar lawsuits. The great thing about private health care along with free health care, is that it keeps the costs down…and we also don’t allow these types of lawsuits which is the other reason why our costs are lower. I was wondering what any of you would think of adopting a system like this? It’s so logical, keeps costs down, and absolultely everyone has access to free health care.

Question posted courtesy of: Caffeinated Content for WordPress

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of ‘Free’ Health Care
Every new ‘right’ the U.S. government has promised has turned into a massively expensive failure, yet the media continue to cheer supporters of tax-funded programs.

Americans are obsessed with rights. We always have been.

But the concept of rights our forefathers laid out in the Declaration of Independence has changed dramatically. Those rights – life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – were acknowledged to come from the Almighty, given equally to all people. Today’s rights come from Almighty Government.

Health care is the newest “right.” From presidential candidates’ universal plans to the return of HillaryCare to Michael Moore’s movie “Sicko,” it’s all over the media.

Calling it a “right” is an emotional argument advanced by those who want others to pay for their health care. They bring out the children and ask whether anyone can deny them the “basic human right” of health care – but don’t bother with the evidence showing how health care in this country would be harmed by government control.

A look at other modern “rights” might give us a clue about how well a new system would work. These rights started out as privileges, among them education and a paid retirement.

Now education is not only considered a right, it’s a mandate. How well has it worked? American students attend school at least until their teen years, but 15-year-olds ranked 24th out of 29 countries in aptitude for “real-life math problems,” according to The Washington Post. Literacy surveys suggest one in five American adults is functionally illiterate. And taxpayers keep shelling out money to fund the system.

Americans also cherish the right to retire – but we expect to be supported in our old age. Younger workers and employers are forced to support retirees, funding another right.

And how well has that worked? The poorly designed, outdated Social Security system is disintegrating rapidly as the number of retirees balloons. But once you’ve established a right, it’s difficult to take it away. The government, which promises such rights, must go to its sugar daddy – taxpayers – to keep the rights coming.

We’re already well on our way toward the health care right/mandate. Want to be more like Canada? It’s not that far off. Cato’s Michael Cannon has pointed out that third parties in America pay 86 cents of every dollar of our health care – about the same as Canada’s socialized system.

What we – or rather, those third parties – pay for health care is already determined by the government as well. Emory University medical professor Robert Swerlick has noted that “the pricing of medical care in this country is either directly or indirectly dictated by Medicare.” This market meddling even causes doctor shortages, he says, in needed areas of specialty.

Prescription drugs are already considered a right, thanks to political moves like the Medicare drug benefit and massive media support. A Business & Media Institute study found broadcast journalists treating prescription drugs as though they grew on trees. Overall, the coverage supported the idea that medications should magically be available to everyone at far lower costs.

Of course, the magic behind new “rights” is your money.

Cannon and fellow Cato expert Michael Tanner explained problems with tax-funded care in their book “Healthy Competition: What’s Holding Back Health Care and How to Free It.” If health care is guaranteed to everyone, how much does everyone get? Who decides who receives what, and how would the care be administered? What happens if everyone wants the most expensive treatment available?

“With the wide variety of medical tests and treatments that consumers may claim as their right, someone at some point must decide where the right to health care ends, lest the nation be bankrupted,” they wrote.

We’re well on our way toward that as well. Our “rights” to Social Security and Medicare devour about 40 percent of the federal budget. State and local property tax revenue, which normally funds education, mushroomed about 35 percent between 2000 and 2005, according to the Tax Foundation. We can’t afford any more “rights” like that.

But the left says tax-funded care is right for the children. Meanwhile, what becomes of them? They’re growing up in an America where the “rights” mentality is deeply ingrained, and the media continue to feed them with it.

When the children come of age, perhaps they’ll want the right to a job. They won’t remember that France already tested that idea for us, and it led to high unemployment and rioting. Perhaps they’ll guarantee Disney vacations for all families and force childless Americans to pay for it. “The pursuit of” will conveniently fade away as they look to government to guarantee happiness.

They will know less and less of a true right – liberty – and have no idea where it comes from.

Question posted courtesy of: Caffeinated Content – Members-Only Content for WordPress