The American Spectator : Affordable You

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Affordable You

By Robert M. Goldberg on 7.17.09 @ 6:06AM

Just kidding, of course, along with congressional comedians behind America's Affordable Health Choice Act of 2009.

Here's two good bits of news about America's Affordable Health Choice's Act of 2009: First, after you download the over 1,000-page bill and read it, you can cut the pages in two and have enough paper to reduce your bathroom's carbon footprint for 30 years. Second, it spares you the trouble of reading the Senate's more dishonest version.

I'm kidding of course. But so are the Democrats who produced this legislation. How do we know? Because on page 116 of the bill, the public "option" is introduced as something that will "create a low-cost plan without comprimising quality or access to care." Get it? Comprimise. Not compromise. Of course by creating a public plan that is low-cost we won't compromise care and destroy the private market. See? But we're not serious about that either.

AAHCA really isn't about creating a low-cost plan that promotes quality and access to care. Most of all it's just a way to take care of the interest groups that got the Dems elected. Secondarily it's about establishing a single payer health plan.

Right off the bat, in both plans the unions get their health care benefits completely protected and subsidized. And their retirees get (at least) a $10 billion government fund to pay for all their health care benefits up to $90,000 per person, per year.

AARP -- the travel and drug benefits company that uses its membership to pretend it is a real interest group representing the elderly -- gets price controls and additional rebates that will fatten its bottom line in exchange for staying quiet in the face of nearly $600 billion in Medicare cuts of unknown impact on quality (see below).

If you think that all this bargaining buys America affordable health choices, the joke's on you again!

For the first two years you get to choose only among the basic, El Cheapo private health plan, Medicaid of some form, and the "public option" (PU for short). Then there are more conditions. El Cheapo has to spend a certain percentage of its dollars for health care services under the watchful eye of something called the Health Choices Administration. Who determines that percentage? A new Health Choices Czar. The Choice Czar chooses the medical services the plan should provide, how much, how often. And at what price doctors should do it. Oh, your use of credits can be audited to make sure you don't spend it on something other than the Czar's choice.

Meanwhile, the public plan is created to "compete" alongside private plans. Except that as a government entity it does not take orders from any stinking Czar. The public plan reports directly to the Secretary of Health and Human Services. This is called "a level playing field. "

Now you might be wonder, how the government plan recruits doctors and providers to this exciting new enterprise? Actually, it forces any provider getting paid by Medicare to join the plan.

Do doctors have a "choice"? Of course! They can "opt out in a process established by the Secretary." Translation: No public option patients, no Medicare patients. (The Senate version hedges on such coercion, but it basically limits who can enroll in private plans and the amount of subsidies to the point that the government plan will be the default setting. It does this mostly by expanding Medicaid and barring people from ever leaving. So much for eliminating health disparities. )

A lot's been written about how government health care will be paid for by raising taxes. In fact, both bills cover the cost by making people wait for needed tests and treatments and forcing doctors to skimp on care to meet a government standard of "quality."

AAHCA uses price controls. And there is no room for discussion: The bill states: "There shall be no administrative or judicial review of a payment rate or methodology established under this section or any other section."

Both bills presume that Medicare rates already 25-30 percent cheaper than private plans will be the starting point for government plan fees. And these will be cut for Medicare using estimates of savings "productivity gains" used at Taco Bell in order to get patients "served" as cheaply as possible. (In both bills, a quality Czar, along with a Comparative Effectiveness Commission, decides what quality is and whether paying for more is worth it.)

There is one exception to this approach to defining healthcare down in the House bill. And it reveals both a dark sense of humor and glimpse of how much damage government regulation does to medicine. While rationing restricts what doctors do in the rest of America, the House bill creates a special zone where the government actually pays providers more, not less. And where might that zone be located? I will give you a clue. It is in a really big state, with a governor who is a former movie star and home of the congressman who chairs the committee that wrote AAHCA. His first name is Henry.

If you want access to affordable health care of reasonable quality, don't go to Congress or President Obama. Go West. There is only one place left where health care will flow like milk and honey. And that is in the new medical Republic of Waxmania. That might be funny if it weren't true.

topics:
Health Care, Henry Waxman

About the Author

Robert M. Goldberg is vice president of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest and founder of Hands Off My H ealth, a grass roots health care empowerment network. His is new book, Tabloid Medicine: How the Internet is Being Used To Hijack Medical Science For Fear and Profit, was published last month by Kaplan.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (18) | Leave a comment

Tim| 7.17.09 @ 8:25AM

In Soviet Union, donkey rides you.

Appleby| 7.17.09 @ 8:53AM

It's what we have in Kanukistan. Come up here and check it out. I recommend any weekend in Summertime.

Robert Rosencrans| 7.17.09 @ 9:23AM

According to the House version of the bill, once the law is enacted they ensure the destruction of private health care by outlawing it outright. Here's the relevant section.

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=332548165656854
It turns out we were right: The provision would indeed outlaw individual private coverage. Under the Orwellian header of "Protecting The Choice To Keep Current Coverage," the "Limitation On New Enrollment" section of the bill clearly states:

"Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day" of the year the legislation becomes law.

So we can all keep our coverage, just as promised — with, of course, exceptions: Those who currently have private individual coverage won't be able to change it. Nor will those who leave a company to work for themselves be free to buy individual plans from private carriers.

From the beginning, opponents of the public option plan have warned that if the government gets into the business of offering subsidized health insurance coverage, the private insurance market will wither. Drawn by a public option that will be 30% to 40% cheaper than their current premiums because taxpayers will be funding it, employers will gladly scrap their private plans and go with Washington's coverage.

Louis Jenkins| 7.17.09 @ 9:23AM

Seems all the american taxpayers are in for a prostrate exam: "just bend over and grab the ankles." Hopefully KY will be approved as cost effective. And don't forget to say, "Thank you sir, may I have another?"

By the time this is law there will be a religious awakening in this country. We will all be down on our knees praying for a quick and painless death.

Tim| 7.17.09 @ 12:12PM

At the Copa (Co!) Coba Obama
The hottest spot north of Havanna.
At the Copa (Co!) Coba Obama
Karl Marx and taxes are just what the facts is
at the Co pa Obama.

Marcell| 7.17.09 @ 3:37PM

What would you, or your parents do, if you or they lost the health insurance that you / they had?

Would you do as my step dad, who voted for both Bush's ( GW once), did, & change Parties after he had a stroke, lost his job & no longer had health insurance?

He is still recovering from the stroke; his right arm is parolllized.

With that said, I haven't mustered up enough strength to support the Dems bill, but I want them to keep pushing forward until they have a breakthrough, & the bill makes sense.

I am in perfect health today, but there will be a time when I may need health insurance, or there may be a day that I could lose the health insurance that I have, then what?

Conservatives are great at undermining their own prosperity by buying into the no spin... all spin, spin doctors propaganda, but health care is a life or death issue, so I am asking you to seriously think about it.

Universal healthcare might not make sense today, but the healthcare that we have today is not guaranteed.

Don't play the same game on yourselves that my dad did when he allowed the propaganda spinners to convince him to see very little value in liberal ideals, because God could humble you in a heart beat.

Please help them get the health care bill right. Even if it means finding ways to make private health insurance affordable.

Jeff| 7.17.09 @ 7:35PM

I'm afraid that Democrats long since abandoned the idea of ever having affordable health care for anyone. They did it when they made the choice to lay in bed with trial lawyers. The minute that they gave these immoral and unconscionable people a voice, all hope of ever having an affordable and easy to access system of health care went right out the window. As flawed as it is right now, a health care system run and administered by the detached and unresponsive government that we find ourselves under would be far worse than even the most hopeful of us can possibly imagine.

Had Enough| 7.17.09 @ 8:34PM

If Obummer health care gets Piglosi a face transplant, Boxer some thumb extentions and Henry ( the rat faced ) Waxman the sex change he has been saving up for I may be able to suopport it.

دردشه| 7.18.09 @ 7:34AM

Please help them get the health care bill right. Even if it means finding ways to make private health insurance affordable

Gill O’Teen ✝✡| 7.18.09 @ 9:47AM

The Health Care Reform Bill currently under consideration by the House of Representatives is the greatest threat ever to Democracy in the United States of America. The very fact that Congress intends to exempt itself from the consequences of this piece of legislative garbage proves my point. If it’s such a good plan, surely our elected officials would be clamoring to lead the way in signing up for it. But they are not. Instead they have once again weaseled out on their fiduciary responsibilities to this country. By exempting themselves they intend to establish a permanent ruling class of elite Americans which flies in the face of every Constitutional principle which is the birthright of every American. By establishing themselves as an elite class of Americans in violation of our Constitution, Congress will be committing Treason. Treason is an impeachable offense. Ironically, the very elite class which would be guilty of this treason would be the very judges and juries of any impeachment. This kangaroo court would deny all other Americans due process under the law and would constitute an act of tyranny. A man whose intelligence and dedication to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness alone exceeds that of all those currently working in Washington DC, wrote back in 1776 “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” A vote in favor of this bill is not reform, it is a death blow to the Nation which was born when it was signed in Congress 233 years ago.

Marc Jeric| 7.18.09 @ 2:27PM

The main and perhaps the only problem with health care is the trial lawyers. In US we have 1,100,000 lawyers; in Germany, Japan, and Great Britain together there are only 35,000. Why? Well, in every civilized country in the world when you sue somebody and lose you automatically must pay the costs of the defendant; here you just walk away. This sick legal sustem has permitted fishing expeditions by trial lawyers, eco-nazis, and racists to drive up everybody's costs. Tort reform is needed more than anything else - make the losers pay!

Jules| 7.19.09 @ 5:57PM

I don't understand why Republican senators or congresman do not hold a press conference highlighting some of this language in the House bill and keep hammering it home. No one who hears about this can possibly want to be subject to this kinf of legislation.

JeffT| 7.20.09 @ 10:00PM

You'd think with the great health plan, Waxman could at least get a face transplant. Is there anyone uglier, inside or out, than Waxman?

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