• Obamacare

    GOP: Doc Fix Can Break ObamaCare

    "Congressional Republicans are hoping to put Democrats in a no-win new year’s jam: defund a big chunk of their health care overhaul or slash Medicare payments instead.

    Despite rampant repeal rhetoric, Republicans have so far struggled to dismantle any part of health reform. Now, they see a new path forward: pilfer health reform dollars to pay for the next "doc fix," the must-pass patch to Medicare doctor payments.

    " Republican Senate aides familiar with the issue told POLITICO they are seriously looking at the new law’s $15 billion public health commitment to finance a one-year doc fix in the next session of Congress.

    The Senate has passed four doc fixes this year alone, none of which were longer than six months and two lasted just 30 days. The last patch, a one-month reprieve passed by the House on Monday, will expire on Dec. 31. Without a doc fix, Medicare provider rates would drop 25 percent.

    The idea of tying the doc fix to a partial health reform repeal has legs because it comes with a clear rhetorical message: Congress should not start creating new entitlements without the necessary funding to uphold existing ones.

    I have said for months now that I was not worried about ObamaCare legislation because the Congress would NEVER be able to fund it.

    And, they can’t without bankrupting the country or rationing care like the U.K.

    ObamaCare will be repealed a little at a time and will never be implemented.

     

    tags: Medicare ObamaCare

    Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

  • Obamacare

    ObamaCare: Massive Flight of Physicians and Closure of Hospitals

    Dr. Drew Pinsky on ObamaCare

    You think?

    I KNOW this will happen in medicine and dentistry will be impacted as well. Dentistry has been already impacted with Medicaid cuts and the loss of private employer provided dental insurance.

    The new Congress, when it takes office in 2011, cannot repeal and replace this law soon enough.

  • Democrats,  GOP,  Obamacare

    ObamaCare: Health Industry Leaves Democrats for the GOP

    Health industry leaders who stood with the president on health reform are now changing sides

    Well, this is really a no-brainer.

    Sixteen months later, with the midterm elections looming, that photograph seems a relic. A new portrait of the health industry landscape has begun to take shape, with some of those major players shifting their dollars from the very Democrats who passed the law they seemingly endorsed at the White House.

    The insurance industry, for instance, has consistently donated more to Republicans than to Democrats ever since August 2009, when it had a falling out with the Obama administration and became the brunt of withering White House attacks.

    Health professionals, bolting from the American Medical Association’s pro-reform position, have become the strongest supporters of the Tea Party Caucus, a coalition of conservative House members aligned with the movement born from a visceral rejection of the law.

    Drugmakers, which invested millions in television advertising last spring and summer to promote passage of the bill, are sitting on their wallets in the run-up to the November elections.

    Overall, the health sector has poured nearly $40 million into the 2010 election cycle through its many varied political action committees. A Center for Responsive Politics analysis for POLITICO reveals a marked shift from political giving to Democrats as health reform became more of a certainty — even among those who signed on as key partners in passing the overhaul.

    Uncertainty and a poorly designed health care reform plan that was RAMMED through the Congress does not make for good business.

  • Andy Griffith,  Obamacare

    ObamaCare Shill Andy Griffith Takes a Beating

    Actor Andy Griffith shilling for ObamaCare

    Sorry Andy, I loved your show when I was a young boy growing up but you and Opie (Ron Howard) gave us Obama as President and ObamaCare.

    Shame on the both of you.

    Too bad about your brand but you deserve it.

    How bad is it for Democrats in North Carolina? Even Sheriff Andy Taylor is taking a beating in the polls.

    Andy Griffith – star of the Andy Griffith Show, a Manteo resident and noted endorser of Democratic causes and candidates – has seen his approval ratings plummet, according to a poll published Tuesday by Raleigh-based Public Policy Polling.

    The Democratic pollster found that Griffith’s approval rating has fallen 25 points since 2008. Griffith has been a closer for Democrats, an unimpeachable saintly figure who fills his rare political spots with folksy charm and obvious references to his role as a small-town North Carolina sheriff.

    In July he cut an ad for the U.S. government promising “good things” to come from the Democratic-backed health care law. The ad prompted five Republican U.S. senators to accuse the Obama administration of using taxpayer money to bolster his policies.

    And as the poll suggests, the ad may have tainted the Griffith brand.

  • Obamacare

    ObamaCare: Physicians Asking Patients to Vote for Repeal

    Fred Shessel, M.D. Docs4PatientCare.org

    Physicans are not going to accept ObamaCare, and lay in wait for the demise of their profession and private American medicine. They will take/make their case to their patients.

    Facing a nationwide backlash, Democratic congressional candidates have a new message for voters: We know you don’t like ObamaCare, so we’ll fix it.

    This was the line offered by Democrat Mark Critz, who won a special election in Pennsylvania’s 12th congressional district after expressing opposition to the law and promising to mend it—but not to repeal it. As a doctor I know something about unexpected recoveries, and this latest attempt to rescue ObamaCare from repeal needs to be taken seriously.

    For Democrats who voted for ObamaCare, this tactic is an escape route, a chance to distance themselves from the president with a vague promise to fix health-care reform in the next Congress.

    To counter this election-year ruse, my colleagues and I at Docs4PatientCare are enlisting thousands of doctors in an unorthodox and unprecedented action. Our patients have always expected a certain standard of care from their doctors, which includes providing them with pertinent information that may affect their quality of life. Because the issue this election is so stark—literally life and death for millions of Americans in the years ahead—we are this week posting a “Dear Patient” letter in our waiting rooms.

    Here is Dr. Hal Scherz’s plea:

    Dr. Hal Scherz tells doctors about ObamaCare

    Here is the letter:

    To My Patients,Section 1311 of the new health care legislation gives the US Secretary of Health and Human Services and her appointees the power to establish careguidelines that your doctor must abide by or face penalties and fines. In making doctors answerable in the federal bureaucracy this bill effectively makes them government employees and means that you and your doctor are no longer in charge of your health care decisions.

    This new law politicizes medicine and in my opinion destroys the sanctity of the doctor-patient relationship that makes the American health care system the best in the world.

    In addition to also badly exacerbating the current doctor short age, the law will bring major cost increases, rising insur ance premiums, higher taxes, a decline in new medical techniques, a fall-off in the development of miracle drugs as well as rationing by government panels and bureaucrats like passionate rationing advocate Donald Berwick forcing delays of months or sometimes years for hospitalization or surgery. Finally, studies show the legislation will adversely affect the elderly, the poor and rural residents.

    Despite countless protests by doctors and overwhelming public opposition — up to 60% of Americans opposed this bill — the current party in control of Congress pushed this bill through with legal bribes and Chicagostyle threats and is determined now to resist any “repeal and replace” efforts.

    This doctor’s office is non-partisan — always has been, always will be. But the fact is that every Republican voted against this bad bill while the Democratic Party leadership and the White House completely dismissed the will of the people in ruthlessly pushing through this legislati on.

    In the face of voter anger some Democratic candidates are now trying to make a cosmetic retreat, calling for minor modifications or pret ending they are opposed to government-run medicine. Once the election is over, however, they will vote with their party bosses against repealing this bill. Please rememberwhen  you vote this November that unless the Democratic party receives a strong negative message about this power grab our health care system will never be fixed and the doctor patient relationship will be ruined forever.

    I will be glad to discuss this with you at the end of our consultation.

    Your Doctor

    I would say this is a fairly profoundly partisan statement which most physicians will be reluctant to pursue but WILL out of a sense of duty to their fellow Americans and patients.

  • Barack Obama,  Day By Day,  Jimmy Carter,  Obamacare

    Day By Day August 15, 2010 – Massage It

    Day By Day by Chris Muir

    Well, the air we breathe might be next.

    But, in all likelyhood a Value Added Tax (VAT) to pay for ObamaCare and other government stimulus spending is the reality here.

    Obama and the Congressional Democrats have turned the economy into a Jimmy Carter slow growth, high unemployment malaise. They have NO real solutions because of the debt they have created or will create with ObamaCare.

    Obviously, “spreading the wealth around” which Obama instructed Joe the Plumber has been a failure. But, then again, it had failed before in America, Europe and the Soviet Union.

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  • Day By Day,  Obamacare

    Day By Day April 14, 2010 – Butt Out

    Day By Day by Chris Muir

    Anyone want to bet what provisions of Obamacare will stand the test of time – meaning will actually be implemented as promised by the President, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid?

    Members of Congress will reinstate their own priveleges and the quicker the better. Do you REALLY think a Member of Congress will want to wait in a Medicaid type rationing line when the member or members of his family are sick?

    And, when the taxes go up, they will simply raise their own salaries concomitantly with raising our taxes even more.

    PLUS CA CHANGE

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  • Day By Day,  Obamacare

    Day By Day March 29, 2010 – Behavior



    Day By Day by Chris Muir

    The Obamacare health care reform legislation will cost American business and American taxpayers close to a trillion dollars when all is said and done. The burdens on business will lead to continued historically high unemployment.

    So, some Americans may have a cheap Medicaid type of  health insurance coverage (subsidized by working taxpayers) with rationing and lines with NO money to pay for any type of private care since they won’t have a job.

    Some solution – Democrats and President Obama.

    PLUS CA CHANGE

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