Stupidity? Or Arrogance?

While trying to pass a complete revision of everything we have ever thought of as healthcare and emphatically denying that care would ever be rationed, and despite decades of pushing routine test,our imperial Federal Government's U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (a panel, not called a death panel even though some people will die because of their decision) has revised downward standards of recommended care for early detection of breast cancer. Not content yesterday's demeaning our healthcare, today they did the same thing with cervical cancer and pap smears. Forgetting for a moment the very real human cost of these changes, are they politically stupid? Their goal is to change our healthcare system to one of equality. Where no ones care is allowed to be any better than anyone else's (save politicians and their families). A world where all care is equally mediocre. Lowest common denominator.

Shouldn't the least they do be hide their intentions? One has to wonder, did these panels anticipate the outcue*? Did they release this information earlier than they were supposed to?

Or maybe the current climate in Washington is absolute confidence that they will have their way with us no matter what we try to do about it.

*An announcer who steps on (talks over or cuts off) the last second or two of the preceding show or commercial is said to anticipate the outcue.

There Are No Death Panels - There Don't Need To Be

Those people who for what ever reason are pushing for the Government to take over the healthcare system of the United states typically emphatically state that "there are no death panels in the bill". As if only explicitly declared and named decisions will limit your care.
Some of the withholding of treatment will come by economic rationing - "We have run out of money".
And some will come by physical rationing - "We don't have a doctor available (in your area or not) until April next".
And some will come by treatment review - "Prostate Cancer is a slow mover, something else will get you first".
The bill isn't even finalized yet and treatment review is already starting. The new guidelines were issued by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force and push raising the starting age for routine mammograms from 40 to 50; and additionally, they question the effectiveness and need for digital self-examination. Most of the women I have known with breast cancer have been under 50. Anecdotal, I know, but that is just the way it is.

The proponents of the Government takeover of the US medical system retort with "these decisions are already made by insurance companies". Yes, BUT, at this, I can still (and do) change insurance companies to find a better one. That is a little more difficult with governments.

Randi Rhodes Disingenuous? Say It Ain't So

On my way home this afternoon, my XM radio was tuned to the channel where her show comes on. (4pm either Talk Radio or Americas. Sorry, not sure which)

She started out by attacking the anti healthcare-takeover people with a cute little jingle as being disingenuous . The gist was that conservatives saying "that guns and cars made our number of deaths look worse than they are" was statistical misrepresentation. Well, it is. Misrepresentation on the part of her straw man argument. It does not make the number of deaths look worse. It make the average life expectancy look worse. It actually does. The deaths to murder (by the way, murder, not accidental gun deaths as she said on her show) and auto fatalities primarily affect the young. The statistical distortion that causes does occur does force the average life expectancy in this country to the down side. There is no honest way of avoiding that. Public health care will not cure either of those problems.

The real problem is that 50% of our population is of below average intelligence.

Trust

When I indicate my dislike of the changes to our country President Obama is ramrodding through our Congress, there is a standard answer I get - "Well, your boy Bush did {this or that}" with the implication that I like whatever Bush did. As a libertarian, I find little difference in the strong-central-government policies of either man save for the speed and enormity of President Obama's changes. There is another implication - it is that the questioner does find a difference between the two and prefers the strong-central-government of President Obama.

What I do not understand is the trust they have that his accumulation of power in the Oval Office is benign even though the lesser accumulation of President Bush was malignant. Despite decades of every interaction with the federal government being incompetent at best. And despite being those interactions always being uncaring, impersonal, disinterested, aloof and arrogant; somehow they anticipate that this time will be different.

And further, since my interactions with Obama supporters are with the working class, those who get up in the morning and earn a paycheck and not those who professionally rely on the beneficence of others, the only conclusions I can reach are that somehow they expect that:
1) They will increase their condition when they receive the redistribution of someone else's labor;
or,
2) They believe that the government is better able to see to their needs than they themselves are.

As an example, consider health care. With number one, they are expecting the Government to steal the labor of Doctors, nurses, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and ,oh yes,the evil rich i.e. the people with higher incomes than you, and give it to them. Folks that ain't gonna happen, not long anyway. And even if it does for a while, when you strip away the smoke and mirrors you are looking at nothing more than common theft and slavery with only someone else doing the dirty work for you.

With number two? I have no simple answer other than - go stare into a mirror a while.

Trust that his time it is going to be different? Yeah, right.

The End of the World ... And Where was the AARP?

I have been predicting this for a long time, but frankly, I thought that there would be discussion first and outrage. But they swept it in with the "Economic Stimulus" Bill and no one looked any further than the title. We have just killed our medical system off in the United States, and with it our Senior Citizens en mass. Keeping them alive is just too expensive. Why should I care? I won't be one for a few years yet.

Maybe we actually ought to read this evil, evil law. H.R. 1 EH, (pdf version)

But I being lazy and pressed for time (my flight leaves for Atlanta from Denver in a mere Four hours) have to get this out any way I can. So I will excerpt the very best article on this subject by Betsy McCaughey in Bloomberg.

There are three main problems:
1) The national treatment registry, which in addition to keeping records approves treatment.
One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (pgs. 442, 446).
2) Eliminating experimental treatments as uneconomical. (Where do they think new treatments come from? The Government?
The stimulus bill does that, and calls it the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research (190-192). The goal, Daschle’s book explained, is to slow the development and use of new medications and technologies because they are driving up costs. He praises Europeans for being more willing to accept “hopeless diagnoses” and “forgo experimental treatments,” and he chastises Americans for expecting too much from the health-care system.
3) Limiting care for elders as uneconomical.Daschle says health-care reform “will not be pain free.” Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them. That means the elderly will bear the brunt.
Medicare now pays for treatments deemed safe and effective. The stimulus bill would change that and apply a cost- effectiveness standard set by the Federal Council (464).

More from Atlanta.

If you like the Unemployment Office,

For some reason, the American public is hell bent on leather not to have to write their own checks to pay for their medical care. Do they really think that they don't have to pay for their medical care if it comes from the U. S. Government? Or do they all think that they can get more than they pay for? Apparently, the state of our education system is that, YES, they all think they can get something for nothing.

There are a number of serious problems with the idea of putting the Government in charge of our health care, and none of them seem to matter in our headlong rush to commit medical suicide. It seems inevitable at this point that we will let the Government Bureaucrats have this potentially fatal control of our lives. I am not saying that there are not flaws nor need for improvement in our current system; but handing control of your life to someone further removed from you in never the solution to your problems.

First - think of every contact you have ever had with the Government -- The Post Office, the Driver's License office, jury duty, the military, taxes, the Veteran's Administration, your school board, the Unemployment Office -- Is there any of them where you or your opinion mattered? Was there any of them that ran efficiently? Was there any of them that had the latest equipment? Was there any of them where you were even remotely comfortable during your wait? Were there any of them where you felt the employees cared the least bit about you? WHAT MAKES YOU THINK THIS ONE WILL BE DIFFERENT?

Second - Do you think you will see you Congressmen, Senators, or other big-wigs at the same clinic you will be at? Dream on. their plans are for you, not for themselves.

Who are these people without healthcare? And to what extent are they without healthcare. In the United States anyone who comes to a hospital, private as well as public, will be treated. Ostensibly for "life threatening conditions", but we all have experience with people using the emergency rooms for non-emergency conditions. Why don't they have treatment at a regular doctor's office? Because they don't have insurance. Why don't they have insurance? Because they have chosen to spend their income on lifestyle -- color TVs, spinner wheels, and other "bling". And because they don't have to. The system enables, even prefers, foolish behavior. Also, the poor have Medicaid and the elderly Medicare.
In addition to the non-working poor, they are also young adults who have again consciously gambled and chosen a more advanced lifestyle than they would otherwise have banking on the statistical health of a young person. Why are we expected to insure someone who will not insure himself?

Is it even possible for the Government to allocate resources to the people without favoring one group over another? By this I do not mean just the political favorites groups that the Liberal Democratic proponents of Nation Health Care normally take care of. I mean the rationing of resources that will, of necessity, come with a government budget.
It has been said that the bulk of medical expenses come at the end of your life. This is not a coincidence. It comes because as we get older our bodies fail. But it also comes because as we get sicker our bodies fail. What better place for the Government to begin trimming expenses than to deny "Heroic care" to the old and terminally ill. After all there are irresponsible (friendly) voters to reward.
You think this will never happen? Ask a British senior citizen. Ask a Canadian cancer patient waiting 4 months for a sonogram that my 85-year-old mother got the same evening.

And what of the doctors? I know, they do it for the love of humanity. NOT! It is eleven or twelve years of hard work to become a doctor. They delay the gratification of a good salary for a better one later on. What incentive is there if they have only a uniform Government pay grade, however good, waiting for them? They would do better becoming lawyers. (Just what we need more hungry lawyers). Do you think you can enslave doctors to serve? Ultimately, we will, like Great Britain, have a shortage of physicians.

I could rant on and on about this (and probably will), but this blog is much too long to read.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!