Politicians, Heal Thyselves!

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Jul 252009
 

The government should stay out of health care or they should be forced to swallow the same pill that they force down our throats. They ruin everything they touch! They have already wrecked the Post Office, the Railroads, the Steel Industry, the Tobacco Industry, the US borders, Social Security, Medicare, America’s Energy Independence….and on and on. Now they want to destroy the greatest medical system in the history of human existence.

Don’t let the gangsters in Washington make medical decisions for you and your children.

Health Reform: If Democrats in Washington think their health care reform with a public option is a good thing, why have they exempted themselves from it? Why isn’t what’s good for their constituents good for them?

During ABC’s June 24 infomercial for government-run health care broadcast from the White House, President Obama was asked if he and his family would abide by the restrictions and limitations that came with his proposed reforms.

In what Ed Morrissey at HotAir.com called “Obama’s Michael Dukakis moment,” President Obama refused to make such a pledge and confessed that if “it’s my family member, if it’s my wife, if it’s my children, if it’s my grandmother, I always want them to get the very best care.”

There was no commentary about evil insurance companies making excessive profits or greedy physicians and hospitals doing unnecessary tests and procedures to run up your bill.

There was only a dutiful husband and father wanting the best care for his wife and children, as do we all.

Yet here was the president arguing for the need for 50 million new patients officially in the system while adding no new doctors, a plan that inevitably leads to rationing.

Add to this situation doctors who will retire in droves and doctors who never will be, all to avoid a clone of Britain’s draconian National Health Service.

Dr. Orrin Devinsky, a neurologist and researcher at the New York University Langone Medical Center who asked Obama that question, says elites often propose health care solutions that limit options for the general public, secure in the knowledge that if they or their loves ones get sick, they will be able to afford the best care available, even if it’s not provided by insurance.

Congress is no exception.

As World Net Daily points out, on Page 114 of the Orwellian-titled Affordable Health Care Choices Act authored by Sen. Ted Kennedy’s staff and the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee (HELP), there is a provision that specifically exempts members of Congress from the public plan.

At a news conference June 23, President Obama said people would be able to choose their insurance “the same way that federal employees do, same way that members of Congress do.”

That statement was false.

Rep. John Fleming, R-La., a physician, told Fox News: “All these health care bills that are coming out on the Democrats’ side — the ‘reform’ bills — basically say that Congress is exempt for at least the first five years, and perhaps longer.

“I’ve issued H. Res. 615 that simply says, look, if you vote for this, then you should choose it.”

House Resolution 615, which is nonbinding, says “members who vote in favor of the establishment of a public, federal government run health insurance option are urged to forgo their right to participate in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) and agree to enroll under that public option.”

On July 16, Rep. Dean Heller, R-Nev., went further and offered an amendment to the House version during the Ways and Means Committee markup that would require members of Congress to enroll in its own government-run health care program.

Democrats defeated the amendment, 23 to 18.

The irony here is that under the health reform he is sponsoring, it is unlikely that Sen. Ted Kennedy would have gotten the treatment he needed for his brain tumor if his case had to be reviewed by some cost-effectiveness board.

The likelihood is that if Ted Kennedy were British and subject to the tender mercies of that nation’s National Health System, he’d be dead by now.

As Fleming says, his resolution offers “members of Congress an opportunity to put their money where their mouth is.”

Congressmen, heal thyselves.

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Take Two Aspirin and Call Me When Your Cancer is Stage 4

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Jul 232009
 

More truth from Ann Coulter.

All the problems with the American health care system come from government intervention, so naturally the Democrats’ idea for fixing it is more government intervention. This is like trying to sober up by having another drink.

The reason seeing a doctor is already more like going to the DMV, and less like going to the Apple “Genius Bar,” is that the government decided health care was too important to be left to the free market. Yes — the same free market that has produced such a cornucopia of inexpensive goods and services that, today, even poor people have cell phones and flat-screen TVs.

As a result, it’s easier to get your computer fixed than your health. Thanks, government!

We already have near-universal health coverage in the form of Medicare, Medicaid, veterans’ hospitals, emergency rooms and tax-deductible employer-provided health care — all government creations.

So now, everyone expects doctors to be free. People who pay $200 for a haircut are indignant if it costs more than a $20 co-pay to see a doctor.

The government also “helped” us by mandating that insurance companies cover all sorts of medical services, both ordinary — which you ought to pay for yourself — and exotic, such as shrinks, in vitro fertilization and child-development assessments — which no normal person would voluntarily pay to insure against.

This would be like requiring all car insurance to cover the cost of gasoline, oil and tire changes — as well as professional car detailing, iPod docks, leather seats and those neon chaser lights I have all along the underbody of my chopped, lowrider ’57 Chevy.

But politicians are more interested in pleasing lobbyists for acupuncturists, midwives and marriage counselors than they are in pleasing recent college graduates who only want to insure against the possibility that they’ll be hit by a truck. So politicians at both the state and federal level keep passing boatloads of insurance mandates requiring that all insurance plans cover a raft of non-emergency conditions that are expensive to treat — but whose practitioners have high-priced lobbyists.

As a result, a young, healthy person has a choice of buying artificially expensive health insurance that, by law, covers a smorgasbord of medical services of no interest to him … or going uninsured. People who aren’t planning on giving birth to a slew of children with restless leg syndrome in the near future forgo insurance — and then politicians tell us we have a national emergency because some people don’t have health insurance.

The whole idea of insurance is to insure against catastrophes: You buy insurance in case your house burns down — not so you can force other people in your plan to pay for your maid. You buy car insurance in case you’re in a major accident, not so everyone in the plan shares the cost of gas.

Just as people use vastly different amounts of gasoline, they also use vastly different amounts of medical care — especially when an appointment with a highly trained physician costs less than a manicure.

Insurance plans that force everyone in the plan to pay for everyone else’s Viagra and anti-anxiety pills are already completely unfair to people who rarely go to the doctor. It’s like being forced to share gas bills with a long-haul trucker or a restaurant bill with Michael Moore. On the other hand, it’s a great deal for any lonely hypochondriacs in the plan.

Now the Democrats want to force us all into one gigantic national health insurance plan that will cover every real and mythical ailment that has a powerful lobby. But if you have a rare medical condition without a lobbying arm, you’ll be out of luck.

Even two decades after the collapse of liberals’ beloved Soviet Union, they can’t grasp that it’s easier and cheaper to obtain any service provided by capitalism than any service provided under socialism.

You don’t have to conjure up fantastic visions of how health care would be delivered in this country if we bought it ourselves. Just go to a grocery store or get a manicure. Or think back to when you bought your last muffler, personal trainer, computer and every other product and service available in inexpensive abundance in this capitalist paradise.

Third-party payer schemes are always a disaster — less service for twice the price! If you want good service at a good price, be sure to be the one holding the credit card. Under “universal health care,” no one but government bureaucrats will be allowed to hold the credit card.

Isn’t food important? Why not “universal food coverage”? If politicians and employers had guaranteed us “free” food 50 years ago, today Democrats would be wailing about the “food crisis” in America, and you’d be on the phone with your food care provider arguing about whether or not a Reuben sandwich with fries was covered under your plan.

Instead of making health care more like the DMV, how about we make it more like grocery stores? Give the poor and tough cases health stamps and let the rest of us buy health care — and health insurance — on the free market.

Source…

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