Obama to Back Federal Insurance Office, Not Federal Regulator

HW Bush was a progressive republican, which isn’t really any different from a progressive democrat. They are both big Gov’t, tax and spend politicians. They all need to take a permanent vacation.

Or maybe they can do nothing and keep the status quo. That has been working pretty well so far, hasn’t it? I was not aware that Barney Frank put together that unit of AIG responsible for the Credit Default Swaps that contributed to the financial meltdown. Thanks Mark for a really thoughtful and well researched post. More reactionary BS concerning an issue that affects us all. I hope they are not paying you too much where you work.

Well, Wiz Bang…No, Barney Frank didn’t have anything to do w/ AIG; but he most certainly did contribute to the loosened policy of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae; so I suggest you understand his background and so-called leadership in pushing lending practices which by far brought the housing industry to a screaching halt.

I do not disagree our industry needs some reform; but it should be handled on the state-level, not our federal government. If I didn’t know otherwise, you must reside in Barney Frank’s home state and likely voted for the moron!!!! If you can’t tell, I am Republican!!

good job Mark…Facts usually shut them up pretty fast don’t they

“Congress and international industry groups have complained in the past about the absence of a central source for insurance market information.”

They stripped away ISO and then complained that the industry lacks a central source for insurance market information?

Gee, makes one wonder why? Oh, oh, I get it. Dumb me. The Feds are better at running and overseeing the various interests of the country. Look at the auto industry, medicare & medicaid, social security, mortgage industry, and who can forget their oversight of the financial sector? Yep, the change is in.

Maybe by next year the Feds can service my customers for me through some Charter Insurance program. Then I can get Socialized medicine, Food stamps, and Unemployement! Let our Big Government think for us and take care of us! I love more government in my life! This is change that we all deserve..America owes us!

We will pay for it with hyperinflated interest rates (the Fed will need to pull back in all of the money they have been printing), a ruined economy and the end of this wonderful experiment we call the USA.
An investment tip:

Hangzhou Calenda Machinery Manufacturing Co., Ltd.

No country has ever survivied the consequences of the level of spending we are witnessing here. Not one.

They manufacture wheel borrows. We’ll be needing one to haul our money to the bread store!

Well thnk you for enlightening me on the role of the president. I thought the number one job was to enforce the constitution of the United States of America. You may have forgotten about the tenth amendment to our constitution that grants to the State all rights not granted to the Federal goverment in the constitution. Last time I checked the supervision of insurance had not been granted to the fed.

I just hate it when the law get’s in the way of liberal ideas for improving us all via big federal government.

No, Contrary to what you may believe……the government is NOT the only avenue that Obama has. He could not take as much of our tax money and let the people work out a solution…….which is what most hard working Americans are fully capable of doing…..THANK YOU :)

The problem is when Gov’t fixes problems, it creates many more problems somewhere else. You missed the point that every politician or party has an Agenda they follow, and do whatever it takes to advance the Agenda, to get re-elected, etc. No one says what they mean anymore, we are too sensitive or too politically correct. We don’t take sides anymore, or have firm positions. We say things that appease others that will ultimately benefit ourselves.

I promise to vote for you if you ever run for office. Unfortunately, I don’t believe the vast majority of Americans are capable of solving this country’s biggest issues. That’s why we have the ‘dreaded’ government everyone seems to hate these days…elected “by the people, for the people”.

NC Agent – I don’t disagree that there are greedy, mis-guided politicians out there. But constant mistrust of everyone in office does no one good.

The constant TRUST of everyone in office does no one good. And that’s what this administration wants! Shouldn’t we mistrust rather than trust these people in office?

Call me crazy, but I’d rather trust someone – whether in the government or not – until they give me a reason to not trust them. There are plenty of people in the government I don’t trust. There are millions of shady, self-centered people out there, regardless of what business they are in. That’s human nature. But I’m trying to avoid an early-life stroke or heart attack by sterotyping all politicians, which is more than I can say for many of the distrusting, anger and hate-filled people who post on IJ.

It’s interesting that so many of you are alarmed by the Obama position that is supported by state regulators, independent agent groups and most insurers, except life and some large p/c insurers that want federal regulation. Obama’s position is in FAVOR of continued state regualtion. The Bush Administration’s Treasury, by the way, supported federal regulation of insurance.

It is obvious this freeking idiot can not solve a problem of any type ie; Korea Iran Gitmo The economy all he can do is come up with policies that have no real
relevance as our country self destructs
The worst part ios ignorant Americans elected him.

As Oh MY Posted:

Posted By: Oh My
Comment:
I can picture you all now…holed up in your compounds, armed to the teeth, waiting for the revolution to start. Maybe you’re forgetting that the President’s job is to fix this country’s problems – and the only avenue he has to do that with is through the government. State-level regulators aren’t equipped for the type of oversight his plan is proposing. Frankly, I don’t think a little extra vigilence in our current situation is a bad thing. It has nothing to do with Socialism, Communism, Kool-aid drinking, or any of the other catchy phrases you conservatives love to throw out.

He states tht it is the presidents job to fix this country, Tell me where in the Constitution does it say this, I will like to know where, since I have never seen this in the Constitution.

Remeber the oath of office that he will protect and defend the US Consitition, not tear it apart to create a Socialist/Fascist regime. By creating an Insurance Department, placing the Federal Reserve in charge of all Financial Insitituions, places to much power under one branch of Government. Although the Fed is not part of the Government but is a separate entity, in which is also un-constitutional, since On;ly Congree has the power to coin money.

I agree with you George,

The Bush Treasury did support having one single regulator (Federal reserve) to be in charge of all Financial Institutions, what is also kind of interesting is that Paulson approached the Congress in April of last year, well before the meltdown, it was sort of like he was expectng it to happen.

I for one fall into Independent Thought an call myself a Constitutional Conservative, Because Bush was not a true Conservative and he endorse many socialistic policies, and Obama is also the same as Bush, but wants to spend more than Bush. If we do not stop the Government, we will not have the free country that our parents, and forefathers gave us.

Amen, couldn’t agree more with you.

When Eisenhower warned against the military-industrial complex, he named big gov’t, big labor, and big business. So, these CEOs had the support of Clinton, Bush, Obama, Kerry, et.al. They’re all of the same cut of cloth.

Google Obama’s contributions and you’ll find yet another lie by him. The overwhelming amount of his political contributions came from big business and big labor.

But his supporters keep drinking the kool aid, even though none of them can answer this simple econ question in less than 30 seconds:

What, if any, is the impact on the US and world’s money supply everytime there is a credit transaction (e.g., credit card purchase, loan from a bank, sale of property by contract for deed, & etc.) between parties?

So I guess now they will make state run insurance like Citizens in Florida follow the same rules as private companies.

It’s interesting that so many of you are alarmed by the Obama position that is supported by state regulators, independent agent groups and most insurers, except life and some large p/c insurers that want federal regulation. Obama’s position is in FAVOR of continued state regualtion. The Bush Administration’s Treasury, by the way, supported federal regulation of insurance.

Somebody needs to tell this idiot that he is running around naked no matter what the Whitehouse tailor told him.

Joe, your last paragraph is the biggest question of all. Next MOnday and Tuesday, Russia, China and Iran are meeting regarding the U.S. Dollar and Economy apparently how the dollar will no longer be the monetary standard, nor will they use the Euro. Russia wants to keep the Rubles and China use their currency. Fascinating thing, U.S. asked to be invited, Russia and China said no. These two countries may determine the valuation of the dollar around the world in this meeting next week. We shall wait and see.

The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, and subsequent “improvements” by H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton played a major roll in creating the sub-prime mortgage market, which led to the creation of credit default swaps in an effort to hedge against the rotting sub-prime mortgages that had been securitized by Fannie Mae and Freedie Mac.

So, all of you haters of conservatives and free market economics need to take a look in the mirror, and stop blaming every problematic issue on George W. Bush and the Republicans. The economic issues we face today, were set in motion by the Democrats years ago.

Last time I check Herbert Walker Bush was a Republican. Did I miss something?

Thanks, TAR. Yes, so many people are unaware of what’s going on with the money supply and the monetary system. They’re totally clueless as to how much permanent damage this will do to the US economy.

All they can blog are inanities such as “He’s are president.” The gov’t has to solve the problem.” Followed by the usual leftist name calling.

I don’t bother to get involved in these “discussions” anymore because I only read diatribe, a lot of chicken little stuff…got news for you, that is NOT the way that fly-swatting episode happened. If you can’t get those simple facts right, go back to reading your tea leaves. Somehow, we will live through the Obama Administration just like we live through the “GREAT” Bush years…but you can be sure that the rest of the world heaved a collective sigh of relief when our country voted, not necessarily for a democrat, but for “no more” from guys like Cheyney and Karl (Marx) Rove, you know them, the guys with history on their side? well, they may just end up in court like all crooks should; But as an American, I know we’ll get through this; the republican gave us the great depression, and now the great global meltdown, all in the name of the unfettered captilist market where if you can steal it and get away with it, you get to keep it, no matter what the consequences to MY SAVINGS, MY 401(k)! thanks for making this country safe for the rich!

George Bush was a screw up on this to some degree. Congress was right there with him. However, that doesn’t give President Obama the right to continue. You can’t fix your screwups with more of the same.
His economic policy isn’t fixing opur deficit and debt problem, nor is it designed to. We’re headed for hyperinflation and a ruined dollar if we keep it up. On top of that we’re talking about new beauracracies and gov’t programs.
As I’ve said before, you and I can’t live that way. We can’t go print more money like the Gov’t is doing. We’d be in jail real quick.

That’s the thing. If you want socialized this, that, and the other, bigger Gov’t, more regulation, then you vote for that. If we had a balanced budget, it could be done. The taxes would hurt, but it could be done and maintain a balanced budget. The problem now is that our President is going to do it anyway, even though we are long past out of money and a million miles deep in the red.

Joe– Just because people disagree with your “analysis” doesn’t mean they aren’t aware of what’s going on. A lot more people than you think are paying attention and are very aware.
BTW, You have real chutzpah critizing others for name calling. Whether left or rigt, it undermines the credibiltiy of any argument and you are as guilty as the next one.

Okay, then address the facts in my posts. If you’re as knowledgeable, as you suggest, then why can’t you address the facts in the my posts? Is it that you don’t know and don’t care to learn or find out? This is why I believe that you’re a kool-aid drinker.

I don’t buy what’s put out by any party or politician of any stripe. As I’ve posted in previous blogs, Do you know of any poor politicians? Why is it that every politician leave office with a ton of money and great consulting gigs?

Term limits and less gov’t involvement in the economy will increase the wealth of all people of the world. Visit the Ludwig von Mises site (http://mises.org/) and educate yourself instead of spouting the party line, Comrade.

God bless, you.

Mr. Denayer:

I agree with what you wrote, b/c Congress and his soon-to-stacked federal courts don’t seem to have much fight in them to oppose his unconstitutional usurption of power. But, according to today’s WSJ, the American people are getting very concerned about gov’t intervention in the economy.

Just one point of possible disagreement between us: I believe that President Obama will go down in history as the nation’s greatest Chief Executive Fly Swatter. What a skilled individual is he.

Look at what he wants to “give” to the US citizens with his national health care.

All of us need to do much more research. So, here’s some more research:

THE rush to remake the 17 percent of America’s econ omy known as its health- care system is matched only by the muddle of the motivations driving it. Above all else, consider the confusion of health insurance with access to actual health care.

The reality is that having insurance is not the equivalent of having access to care. In America and abroad, people with coverage (government or private) can lack access to timely care — while those without insurance in the United States may in fact receive timely care while paying little for it.

Official counts place uninsured Americans at roughly 46 million, an alarming 15 percent of the population. Yet a closer look paints a less scary picture. Of the 46 million, one in three, or 17 million, live in a household with an income greater than $50,000. Four in 10 are 18 to 34 years old — an age range where health spending averages less than $1,000 a year out of pocket.

As many as 14 million — including many children — are already eligible for taxpayer-funded health insurance via Medicaid or SCHIP, but simply haven’t signed up. One in five, or 9.7 million are noncitizen immigrants, a portion of whom are here illegally. Seven in 10 people are uninsured for a year or less.

Then, too, health insurance often doesn’t make financial sense for people with few assets, good health and limited income. They can pay out of pocket for routine care — and rely on the social safety net for large, unexpected and unlikely events.

In the United States, that safety net includes: federally funded health centers, open-door policies at hospital emergency rooms, extra payments to hospitals that treat large numbers of uninsured, and charity care. Together, these work to insulate Americans from catastrophic medical bills.

In 2008, uninsured Americans consumed an estimated $86 billion in health care, or $1,686 per person. This was (predictably) less than Americans with insurance, yet evidence suggests the system functions as an informal insurer.

The uninsured reached into their pockets for only $536 of the care, less than the $681 that privately insured patients paid out of pocket. The other 65 percent of that care was paid for by either existing government transfers or absorbed by the institutions providing care. In short, anyone living in America — citizen, immigrant, documented or undocumented — has access to health care on multiple levels. The same is not always true under “universal coverage.”

In Canada, the country of my birth, a person needing non- urgent care faces long waits — last year, it averaged 17.3 weeks — between seeing a general practitioner and getting treatment by a specialist, according to the Fraser Institute.

And diagnostic technology is severely controlled. Dr. Brian Day, the immediate past president of the Canadian Medical Association, notes that Canada is a country in which a dog can get a hip replaced in under a week but a human waits two to three years.

In Great Britain, everyone enjoys free health care — in theory. But the rationing is explicit and out in the open. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence denies the latest drugs and biologics to patients if the agency deems them not cost effective — even though they may be medically effective. So while Americans have access to Orencia for rheumatoid arthritis, NICE has denied the care to Britons.

Massachusetts’ ongoing reform experience illustrates that insurance doesn’t equal access. The Bay State’s bipartisan reform imposed an individual mandate, built a quasi-public insurance regulator and greatly expanded taxpayer-subsidized health care — and the result has been a warning on the quest to achieve universal coverage.

After three years, it has succeeded in cutting the percent of uninsured in half to 2.5 percent, the lowest in the nation. But the taxpayers have paid most of the price: The majority of the formerly uninsured were either added to Medicaid or to heavily subsidized plans. A mere 41,000 — less than 10 percent of the once uninsured — have purchased individual plans. And, 60,000 have been exempted by the government from having to purchase insurance.

Costs are rising and many promised savings aren’t materializing. Bay State residents use emergency rooms at the pre- reform rate of 23 percent. Today, 20 percent of residents are having trouble securing a doctor. The Health Safety Net fund, which pays hospitals to care for the uninsured, still spent $410 million in 2008.

Most startlingly, to control costs, the state is considering “payment reform” that resembles a giant HMO. Price controls and explicit rationing will surely follow.

Americans need to think through Washington’s rush to reform. The last thing we want is what we’ll likely get. Trade a system that provides excellent, responsive care to the fully insured, uses taxpayer money to cover seniors and low-income families and children, and highly subsidized care to those without insurance, for one where everyone pays more for less.

Sally Pipes is president and CEO of the Pacific Research In stitute. Her latest book is “The Top Ten Myths of American Health Care.”

And some more,

Physicians fear that near-mindless efforts to find cost savings . . . will damage our very ability to practice.

WONDERING why the American Medical Association came out against a “public option” in health reform — that is, against government-offered health insurance for every American? For this MD, at least, it’s a simple matter of learning from experience.

As a practicing internist, I’ve been dealing with two government insurance programs, Medicare and Medicaid, for more than two decades. Over the years, I’ve seen the government shrink reimbursements under first Medicaid and then Medicare — to the point that, in 2005, I finally decided that I couldn’t stay in business unless I stopped taking Medicaid patients, and saw no more than a few Medicare patients each day.

It was costing me more to file the Medicaid paperwork than I got back from the government. I now either charge Medicaid patients a few dollars, or just see them for free.

It’s getting tougher to take Medicare patients, too: New drugs and new technologies are wonderful health-care tools — but keeping current, and making sure to choose the right tool, uses up more and more of my time. Yet Medicare’s reimbursement for my efforts keeps on shrinking.

I’m not alone. Each year, I find I have fewer specialists to refer my Medicare patients to. The best mammographer I know no longer accepts Medicare, so I find myself trying to persuade my patients to see her anyway (and pay $300-plus out of pocket) because she’s so good.

Nor is this just my impression. The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission reported that 28 percent of Medicare beneficiaries looking for a primary-care physician last year had trouble finding one, up from 24 percent the year before. And a survey last year by the Texas Medical Association found that only 38 percent of primary-care doctors were taking new Medicare patients. Here in New York, less than half the internists affiliated with New York Presbyterian Hospital accept Medicare.

The problem is even worse with Medicaid — which only half of physicians accept, according to a 2005 Community Tracking Physician survey.

The problem is spreading to private insurers — who often follow the lead of Medicare and Medicaid. HMOs, in particular, have cut reimbursements to doctors; many of my colleagues have dropped out of HMOS as a result (giving me fewer options of who to refer my patients to).

Recent New York state surveys show doctor participation in HMOs is still far better than for public insurance — but the dropout rate is 10 percent a year from the state’s largest HMO, the Health Insurance Plan of New York, and 14 percent from the also-large Health Net of New York.

The bottom line, I think, is that primary-care physicians fear that near-mindless efforts to find cost savings — the kind we’ve seen in existing government programs, and spreading to private plans — will irrevocably damage our very ability to practice, to prevent and treat illness.

We’re told a “public option” will mean insurance for people who now don’t pay — but it seems to me, based on hard experience, that it will mean worse health care for everyone.

Marc K. Siegel is a practicing internist at NYU’s Langone Medical Center and a Fox News medical contributor.

And, yet one more:

President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the legions of liberal political activists trying to ramrod nationalized health care through Congress face an insurmountable obstacle in the Internet. There are mountains of data available today regarding the decades of experience with similar systems in Canada, Great Britain and elsewhere, and the facts about that data are within a few mouse clicks of every American. As the debate in Congress and the nation’s public policy forums heats up, key facts gleaned from that abundance of data are becoming ever more prominent.

Take, for example, the report out last week from the Wait Time Alliance (WTA), a group of 13 Canadian medical groups, including the Canadian Medical Association. For cancer patients, the report found that “the median wait time for radiation therapy was almost seven weeks.” That figure exceeded the recommended maximum wait time of one month. Note, too, that as a median figure, there were just as many patients who waited longer than seven weeks as who waited less than seven weeks. The WTA report also found unacceptably long delays for people seeking emergency room treatment, with an average of nine hours for patients who were treated and released. The average for patients who needed to be treated and admitted to the hospital was 24 hours! And patients needing psychiatric care for major depression are being forced to wait up to six weeks before starting treatment, according to the WTA report.

Long waits for critical treatment are inevitable in government-run health care systems for one simple reason: Making health care “free” creates an infinite demand for medical services. But no country can satisfy an infinite demand, so government bureaucrats always end up rationing health care. Long lines of people waiting for services are the result. It’s the same process that produced long waiting lines for decades in the Soviet Union for basic necessities like bread and housing.

Obamacare advocates can only hope their friends in the mainstream media do a better job of carrying their water for them in the weeks ahead than The New York Times and CBS with their latest poll. Using a sample with exactly twice as many Obama voters as McCain voters, the Times/CBS pollsters got a result in which 57 percent of their respondents said they would pay higher taxes “so that all Americans have health insurance that they can’t lose no matter what.” But, as anybody who has taken a basic statistics course knows, a warped sample and an “apples-to-oranges” comparison has zero credibility.

And more:

http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/medicarehealthinsurance/i/nathealthins.htm

And more:

‘Too Old’ for Hip Surgery
As we inch towards nationalized health care, important lessons from north of the border.
Article Comments more in Opinion »Email Printer
Friendly Share: Yahoo Buzz ↓ More
facebook
MySpace
LinkedIn
Digg
del.icio.us
NewsVine
StumbleUpon
Mixx
Save This ↓ More
Text
By NADEEM ESMAIL
President Obama and Congressional Democrats are inching the U.S. toward government-run health insurance. Last week’s expansion of Schip — the State Children’s Health Insurance Program — is a first step. Before proceeding further, here’s a suggestion: Look at Canada’s experience.

Martin KozlowskiHealth-care resources are not unlimited in any country, even rich ones like Canada and the U.S., and must be rationed either by price or time. When individuals bear no direct responsibility for paying for their care, as in Canada, that care is rationed by waiting.

Canadians often wait months or even years for necessary care. For some, the status quo has become so dire that they have turned to the courts for recourse. Several cases currently before provincial courts provide studies in what Americans could expect from government-run health insurance.

In Ontario, Lindsay McCreith was suffering from headaches and seizures yet faced a four and a half month wait for an MRI scan in January of 2006. Deciding that the wait was untenable, Mr. McCreith did what a lot of Canadians do: He went south, and paid for an MRI scan across the border in Buffalo. The MRI revealed a malignant brain tumor.

Ontario’s government system still refused to provide timely treatment, offering instead a months-long wait for surgery. In the end, Mr. McCreith returned to Buffalo and paid for surgery that may have saved his life. He’s challenging Ontario’s government-run monopoly health-insurance system, claiming it violates the right to life and security of the person guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The Opinion Journal Widget
Download Opinion Journal’s widget and link to the most important editorials and op-eds of the day from your blog or Web page.
Shona Holmes, another Ontario court challenger, endured a similarly harrowing struggle. In March of 2005, Ms. Holmes began losing her vision and experienced headaches, anxiety attacks, extreme fatigue and weight gain. Despite an MRI scan showing a brain tumor, Ms. Holmes was told she would have to wait months to see a specialist. In June, her vision deteriorating rapidly, Ms. Holmes went to the Mayo Clinic in Arizona, where she found that immediate surgery was required to prevent permanent vision loss and potentially death. Again, the government system in Ontario required more appointments and more tests along with more wait times. Ms. Holmes returned to the Mayo Clinic and paid for her surgery.

On the other side of the country in Alberta, Bill Murray waited in pain for more than a year to see a specialist for his arthritic hip. The specialist recommended a “Birmingham” hip resurfacing surgery (a state-of-the-art procedure that gives better results than basic hip replacement) as the best medical option. But government bureaucrats determined that Mr. Murray, who was 57, was “too old” to enjoy the benefits of this procedure and said no. In the end, he was also denied the opportunity to pay for the procedure himself in Alberta. He’s heading to court claiming a violation of Charter rights as well.

These constitutional challenges, along with one launched in British Columbia last month, share a common goal: to win Canadians the freedom to spend their own money to protect themselves from the inadequacies of the government health-insurance system.

The cases find their footing in a landmark ruling on Quebec health insurance in 2005. The Supreme Court of Canada found that Canadians suffer physically and psychologically while waiting for treatment in the public health-care system, and that the government monopoly on essential health services imposes a risk of death and irreparable harm. The Supreme Court ruled that Quebec’s prohibition on private health insurance violates citizen rights as guaranteed by that province’s Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms.

The experiences of these Canadians — along with the untold stories of the 750,794 citizens waiting a median of 17.3 weeks from mandatory general-practitioner referrals to treatment in 2008 — show how miserable things can get when government is put in charge of managing health insurance.

In the wake of the 2005 ruling, Canada’s federal and provincial governments have tried unsuccessfully to fix the long wait times by introducing selective benchmarks and guarantees along with large increases in funding. The benchmarks and the guarantees aren’t ambitious: four to eight weeks for radiation therapy; 16 to 26 weeks for cataract surgery; 26 weeks for hip and knee replacements and lower-urgency cardiac bypass surgery.

Canada’s system comes at the cost of pain and suffering for patients who find themselves stuck on waiting lists with nowhere to go. Americans can only hope that Barack Obama heeds the lessons that can be learned from Canadian hardships.

Mr. Esmail, based in Calgary, is the director of Health System Performance Studies at The Fraser Institute.

And more:

Nationalized Healthcare Would Be a Middle Class Disaster
February 27, 2009 03:09 PM ET | Bonnie Erbe | Permanent Link | Print
By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.

I’m not as thrilled with the O’budget on health care as on education. Nationalized health care has been a disaster for the middle class wherever it exists. Yes it gives access to the deeply impoverished, but at the expense of the middle class. The rich can always buy their way out of any health care system and get the best of care. Here’s what the Obama administration will do:

Obama’s prescription for the nation’s ailing health care system comes with Medicare cuts and tax hikes. Obama is asking Congress: If you’re going to cover 48 million uninsured Americans in the world’s costliest medical system, how do you pay for it? His plan would set aside $634 billion over 10 years in a major effort to cover all Americans – a goal that could cost more than $1 trillion. Half would come from tax increases on upper-income earners, half from cuts to Medicare and Medicaid.

The only reason Canada’s health care system works, for example, is that 90 percent of Canadians live within 100 miles of the U.S. border and they come here for urgent needs. A personal friend whose sister is Canadian brought her sister here for a brain C-T scan. The waiting list in Canada was six months long, due to its wonderful nationalized health care system. Her sister had a brain tumor and needed a scan and surgery immediately. If not for America’s more limber system, her sister would have died waiting for treatment in Canada.

Another friend is Italian by birth. His sister still lives in Italy. She has an illness that requires expensive medication. The Italian healthcare system doles out her pills three days at a time. So every three days she must go to the local health care center and wait for hours for her next three days-worth of medicine. Would Americans stand for that? I don’t think so.

And more:

Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Nationalized Health Care’s Failures

Jillian Bandes cites an interesting new report about Canand’s government-run medical system.

The information was released in an annual report produced by the Wait Time Alliance, comprised of Canadian doctors who are concerned over delayed access to care. The WTA was formed after the Canadian government vowed to reduce wait times in 2005, committing over $4.5 billion between 2005 and 2011.

The title of the WTA report, “Unfinished Business,” highlighted the glacial progress the country has made since that commitment.

“Although there are signs of improvement, the lack of uniform and timely information on wait times is just one symptom of the ‘unfinished business’ relating to wait times in Canada,” the WTA reported.

Psychiatric care averaged 5.7 weeks, nearly two weeks longer than was recommended by the Canadian Psychiatric Association’s maximum recommended wait time of four weeks. Eighteen weeks usually goes by before a patient is seen by a specialist after receiving a referral from his physician, with particularly egregious waits in the areas of ophthalmology, obstetrics and gynecology, gastroenterology, plastic surgery and orthopedics.

“In England, the maximum allowable target time set by the National Health Service for referral by family doctor to the day of treatment is 18 weeks,” said Dr. Lorne Bellan, WTA co-chair, in a release. “Our study shows that for many medical specialties in Canada that we examined, we don’t even come close to that.”

Sixty-two percent of specialists believed wait times would increase over the next five years, according to the WTA. Between 23% and 37% of physicians refused to take referred patients outright.

The report also complained that in more than a few provinces, there was no way to track wait times, meaning that the possibility for decreasing wait times is poor. In Newfoundland and Labrador, no mechanism exists for monitoring wait times

“People can go online and track the progress of a package they shipped from one end of the country to another, yet in many parts of Canada patients still cannot find out how long they can expect to wait for critical medical treatments and procedures,” said Bellan. “We need to do a better job of tracking and reporting on the full wait that patients experience to access necessary medical care.”

Sounds terrific, doesn’t it?

No to ObamaCare.

All of us should be particularly concerned that nationalized health care is the worst option for women with breast cancer, per this article about Canadian and UK national health care:

Nationalized Health Care and Breast Cancer Are a Deadly Mix
By: Jim Hoft
Democrats stepped up efforts this past week to introduce their disastrous socialized health care plan. President Obama already called on his Democratic colleagues to enact this legislation by August. To persuade Americans that this plan is needed Obama has often repeated, “The cost of health care now causes a bankruptcy in America every thirty seconds.” This, of course, is simply unsupportable. If you add up all bankruptcies in a year you barely get one every thirty seconds and not every bankruptcy is due to the cost of health care. Team Obama certainly understands this. You would hope so anyway.

Obama and democrats insist their program will benefit the 46 million Americans who they say are uninsured. This, of course, is not accurate either. According to The American Spectator, 9.7 million of this 46 million are not citizens of the United States. Another 14 million of the uninsured are eligible for Medicaid and SCHIP but have never signed up for the programs. They could be signed up for government insurance if they ever made a visit to the emergency room. Another 17.6 million of the uninsured had annual incomes of more than $50,000. This leaves you with around 5 million Americans without insurance which is a far cry from 46 million. But, why let facts get in the way? Barack Obama and Democrats have a plan to push on America. They want their socialized health care.

Like everything Obama does, this plan will have an enormous cost. That’s why Obama has already announced that he will get the rich to pay for it. And on the flip side, Democrats also plan to penalize those with adequate financial resources who don’t elect to get insurance. This mandate on adults who do not purchase insurance is something Obama said he would not do during the election.

But, not much is being said on how this plan will affect Americans and women in particular. Looking at the nationalized health care systems in Europe Obamacare will likely be a big step backwards for women’s health here in the United States.

Currently the United States leads the world in treating breast cancer. Women with breast cancer have a 14 percent higher survival rate in the United States than in Europe. Breast cancer mortality is 52 percent higher in Germany than in the United States, and 88 percent higher in the United Kingdom. Breast cancer mortality is also 9 percent higher in Canada than in the US. Less than 25 percent of U.S. women die from breast cancer. In Britain, it’s 46 percent; France, 35 percent; Germany, 31 percent; Canada, 28 percent; Australia, 28 percent, and New Zealand, 46 percent. The European Network of Cancer Registries reported:

Breast cancer is also the most common cancer in females in Europe. It is estimated that in the year 2000 there were 350,000 new breast cancer cases in Europe, while the number of deaths from breast cancer was estimated at 130,000. Breast cancer is responsible for 26.5 percent of all new cancer cases among women in Europe, and 17.5 percent of cancer deaths.

In Britain, where they enjoy socialized medicine, breast cancer rates have soared by more than 80 percent in the past 30 years under their system. A big reason for this is early diagnosis. Nine of 10 middle-aged American women (89 percent) have had a mammogram, compared to less than three-fourths of Canadians (72 percent). Women who develop breast cancer in Europe are four times more likely to be diagnosed when the tumor has spread and survival is less likely than are women in the US.

The BBC reported that US women were more likely to survive breast cancer than their European counterparts because they are diagnosed earlier, research finds. The five year survival rate in the US was 89 percent compared to 79 percent in Europe. One reason was that 41 percent of the US cases were diagnosed at an early stage, compared to just 29 percent in Europe and this greatly improved the survival rate.

The failures of nationalized health care have been widely reported. The failures of nationalized health care in treating breast cancer have also been widely reported. Thousands of women will be affected. In fact, it’s hard to imagine anything worse for cancer patients than government-run health care. Nationalized health care and breast cancer are a deadly mix.

Let’s face it, nationalized health care is an idea whose time has not and never will or should come to the US:

Anyway, pleasea read this with an open mind.

(Yellow Male, Italian, So-so socialist, or whatever moniker you’re using today, I know longer respond to mentally challenged bloggers in need of psychiatric care. I note that you’ve literally copied and pasted to your blogs the very comments I’ve made about you on other blogs on the IJ site. Please get help soon before you go postal. Remember, God loves even people with your special mental health needs.)