The Right Prescription
The AMA's Quisling Strategy
Collaborating with the enemy on health care reform.
When Norwegian politician Vidkun Quisling was tried and shot for abetting the Nazi occupation of his country during WWII, his name entered the vernacular as a synonym for "collaborator." It is difficult to think of a more appropriate adjective to describe the health care "stakeholders" who have been genuflecting at the altar of "reform" since the Obama administration marched into Washington last January. While actual patients have protested at town hall meetings and organized demonstrations against Obamacare, the American Medical Association, the American Hospital Association, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, America's Health Insurance Plans and a variety of other industry groups have been hard at work currying favor with their new masters.
The most transparently self-serving of these stakeholders has been the AMA. The waning but still influential physician association was among the first to join with the new administration in its effort to take over U.S. health care. The President of the AMA, J. James Rohack, began parroting the empty platitudes of reform shortly after the election and jostled with his fellow quislings for a conspicuous place at the May press conference at which Obama announced his "historic" cost-cutting deal with industry players. As Rohack put it at the popular medical blog, Kevin, MD: "In an unprecedented endeavor aimed at achieving health-care reform this year, the American Medical Association stood with President Obama and other key health-care stakeholders Monday to announce efforts to 'bend the spending curve' on health care."
But Dr. Rohack wasn't there to bend the spending curve or to promote genuine health care reform. He was there to protect his paycheck. Specifically, he wants to stop an imminent and deep reduction in the amount of money the government pays doctors. Medicare's physician payment scheme, the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula, mandates a 21% cut -- and it is due to be implemented next January. It is this "curve" that the American Medical Association is truly seeking to "bend." As it is phrased at the AMA website: "Permanent reform of the archaic Medicare physician payment system is among the core principles the AMA is urging Congress to include as part of comprehensive health system reform this year." Dr. Rohack is obviously hoping that collaboration on the Democrat reform charade will earn the AMA a presidential pardon from SGR-mandated cuts.
The American Medical Association was not always so ready to collude with the enemy. Motivated by well-founded fears that government-run health care would inevitably lead to bureaucratic interference in the practice of medicine, the AMA actively opposed Harry Truman's post-WWII attempt to impose nationalized health care on the country. Likewise, the organization vigorously opposed the enactment of Medicare during the early 1960s. It even launched what is often cited as the first viral marketing campaign, "Operation Coffee Cup," featuring an LP of Ronald Reagan describing the dangers of socialized medicine. During the early 1990s, after some early flirtations with the Clinton health care "reforms," the AMA eventually joined the coalition of health industry organizations that provided Hillarycare with its much-needed end-of-life counseling.
The once-feared organization has become far more pliant in recent years, however. Since the Sustainable Growth Rate formula was imposed in the 1990s, the AMA has repeatedly been forced to go hat-in-hand to its Beltway masters for stays of execution. Each time, Congress has issued a reluctant reprieve from payment cuts -- but not without a price. In exchange for its 2008 reprieve, the AMA was forced to cooperate with congressional Democrats in their disgraceful move to gut Medicare Advantage (MA), a program that has greatly benefited poor and minority seniors. In that tawdry episode, the Dems attached an SGR waiver to a bill that cut funding for Medicare Advantage, whereupon the AMA cravenly began parroting DNC talking points about insurance company profits. This collusion helped the Democrats push through the first of several cuts in MA funding.
This year, the price of the AMA's reprieve is support of whatever health care legislation emerges from Congress. And, so long as the final bill does away with SGR, the organization is obviously prepared to be a willing accomplice in whatever fraud the Democrats perpetrate. Thus Dr. Rohack rhapsodized about HR 3200, the widely-panned House version of Obamacare: "This legislation includes a broad range of provisions that are key to effective, comprehensive health system reform." HR 3200 includes nothing of the sort, but it does contain a provision that would repeal SGR. Meanwhile, the absence of such a provision in the Senate Finance Committee bill produced a noticeably tepid response from the good doctor, despite a $250 billion sop to Cerberus that purports to solve the SGR problem.
There are, of course, legitimate reasons to oppose the SGR. This payment formula, like the PPS methodology to which the federal government subjects most hospitals, is nothing more or less than a Soviet-style price control system. And, as with all price control schemes, the SGR has failed to control costs and created distortions in the market. One of its most conspicuous effects has been a shortage of primary care physicians willing to treat Medicare patients. Unfortunately, the current AMA leadership has decided not to seek any real change in this perverse and counterproductive system. Instead of using the association's leverage to force genuine free market reforms, Dr. Rohack has settled on a strategy designed to produce a special dispensation for his members, regardless of the damage it does to our health care system.
The tragic irony of this cynical strategy is that it will not work. As Vidkun Quisling discovered in October of 1945, the advantages of collaboration are always short-lived. A temporary reprieve from Medicare payment cuts is all Dr. Rohack will have gained by delivering his patients and colleagues into the hands of Washington's health care bureaucrats. Because socialized health care systems are explicitly designed to circumvent the market mechanisms that actually control costs, they must always revert to the only remaining alternatives: rationing services to patients and cutting payments to providers. All government-run systems do both, and Obamacare will be no different. Once the President has finished using them for political cover, the AMA and the rest of the "stakeholders" will be abandoned to the depredations of bureaucrats and the revenge of an angry public. This is the inevitable fate of all quislings.
About the Author
David Catron is a health care revenue cycle expert who has spent more than twenty years working for and consulting with hospitals and medical practices. He has an MBA from the University of Georgia and blogs at Health Care BS.
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Timothy L. Pennell| 10.22.09 @ 7:54AM
A very apt comparrison. Quislings. Perfect, I'ld say. But that's because they're LIBERALS. It's genetic with them. Remember you Cold War History. These are the same people who carried the "BETTER RED THAN DEAD" signs. They tried to tell us that we could 'CO-EXIST' with a GODLESS ENEMY, Armed to the teeth with NUCLEAR WEAPONS, and a total disregard for LIFE. They're doing it NOW. Same ENEMY, different NAME.
The AMA is just sidling up to the DICTAOR. They're 'Looking Out' for #1. The AARP. GENERAL ELECTRIC. GM. CHRYSLER. SEIG HEIL! SEIG HEIL! SEIG HEIL!
History Repeats. As it always has. WE THE PEOPLE, will not be cowed. THESE ARE THE DAYS that the SECOND AMENMENT was written for. THIS, is the ENEMY WITHIN, that every SERVICE MEMBER swears to DEFEAT, in his or hers' OATH to DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION. "The Tree of Liberty is kept alive with the BLOOD of PATRIOTS".
I guess we'll find out.
Pingback| 10.22.09 @ 8:55AM
Quisling kids | Worth Reading links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Robert Rosencrans| 10.22.09 @ 9:14AM
The doctors have been reduced to storming the castle like serfs, demanding bread and cheese. When they get the bread and cheese it will most likely be wormy. When the elite in society are reduced to beggars for government hand outs what does that portend for the untrained and politically disconnected masses?
Michael Warner MD| 10.22.09 @ 9:24AM
I have not been as member of the AMA for 15 years, as have 82% of the rest of the Drs., because of the AMAs overt liberal democratic politcal stances. The AMA adherents and the Trial Lawyers are the Democrats best friends...Strange bedfellows...
Pingback| 10.22.09 @ 9:36AM
Twitter Trackbacks for The American Spectator : The AMA's Quisling Strategy [spectat links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
cmhmd| 10.22.09 @ 10:17AM
I know this doesn't go along with what you all think, but 8 of the 10 largets physician membership organizations back HR 3200:
http://cmhmd.blogspot.com/2009.....voted.html
And 73 % of physicians, in a study from the NEJM, favor with public/private expansion or single payer, and, in a companion study, "a large majority of respondents (78%) agreed that physicians have a professional obligation to address societal health policy issues. Majorities also agreed that every physician is professionally obligated to care for the uninsured or underinsured (73%), and most were willing to accept limits on reimbursement for expensive drugs and procedures for the sake of expanding access to basic health care (67%). "
And nobody but you guys think we have the best healthcare in the world:
http://pewresearch.org/databan.....mberID=825
So, fine, we're "Quislings," but we are the overwhelming majority now. Try to get on the right side of history once in a while, eh?
Don| 10.22.09 @ 11:08AM
Of course, the most interesting part of your Pew Research link above is that 61% of liberal democrats think our current system is average or above, as do fully 70% of all Americans.
So we throw out our current system, which your "overwhelming majority" of even liberal democrats thinks is average or above compared to other industrialized nations ... for what?
martin j smith| 10.22.09 @ 11:34AM
If Obama care is sooooooooooooo good then how come the lack of transparency ? How come members of congress and indeed our Dear Leader do not sign on--or for that matter AMA members as well ? How come when people oppose the bill instead of being open about its contents people who are rightfully scared are demeaned and called "un-American". How come Republicans are shut out of committees ? scared of criticism are we ? When people started getting wind of HR3200 there were things in that bill that spooked people out. Seniors such as myself fear marginalization and loss of the benefit of treatment options. How about the true cost of the program and how exactly will it be paid for ? Health care is very personal and the American people ( those of us who do not worship at thye alter of Obama) want straight answers. If this administration were more transparent and open at it claimed and were willing to break the political divide as promised during the so called campaign things might be different. But, this episode around health care has instead brought
conflict and doubt about the true nature of the Obama and the Democratic Party led governmentFinally I thin yourpole numbers of lets just say full of boloney. If Obama was so secure about his support of Health Care Overhall he would not be threatening the Insurance Companies,Fox News, and on and on. No this is a guy who sees enemies around him--those who disagree --and does bribery and armstwisting to get his way. So you can keep your numbers !!.
cmhmd| 10.22.09 @ 11:55AM
There was a legitimate question in there somwhere.. Oh, how to pay for it!
No problem. First and best answer: REPEAL THE BUSH TAX CUTS!
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/jo.....e-tax.html
I'd advise listening to the two "This American Life" episodes on HC reform:
http://cmhmd.blogspot.com/2009.....art-2.html
Follow the links, download the MP3's and you can make audio CDs for the car.
...
martin j smith| 10.22.09 @ 12:46PM
And tell me what question(s ) are not legitimate ?
How do you determine that ?
And how about You ? Is it OK to cut services for seniors by inflating medicare numbers ?
Will you be among the millions in the new Health Care Overhaul treated like all the peasants or--which I suspect is more likely you will get special care. And one more thing: The ecponomy as a whole continues its spiral DOWNWARD. Finally. you have chosen to ignore many issues I have raised. Not surprising.
SoCon| 10.22.09 @ 5:56PM
cmhmd, If you're the 'majority' as you claim, why are your fellow communist hucksters in government hiding behind locked doors in order to carry out your abominable and hugely UNPOPULAR legislation? Huh?
Why all the secrecy??
You lie!
Terry| 10.22.09 @ 8:03PM
So happy to understand that being a "Quisling" is acceptable to you liberal doctors. The 'overwhelming majority' you're with does not include the public. I find it interesting that 78% and 73% are willing to accept limits on reimbursement all the while graciously allowing that you have a professional responsibility to serve uninsured and/or underinsured patients. Maybe it's just me, but it sounds like if you can be guaranteed some payment for observing that 'professional responsibility,' you'll gladly accept it. Sad to say, but you just don't sound all that much different than anyone else that wants to be paid for their labors. The difference being that you couch your plea in meaningless words of altruism.
Kent Lyon MD| 10.22.09 @ 10:43AM
Mr. Catron misunderstands the financial incentives of the AMA. In the 1950's, the AMA was a member-funded organization, as was also true when the AMA opposed Medicare. Since the advent of Medicare, the AMA has become a government-financed entity, deriving most of its funding from multi-million dollar contracts with Medicare to produce ICD-9 and CPT code books. The AMA copyrights these and sells them to physicians and other healthcare providers, for additional millions. This arrangement was foisted on medicine when the AMA decided to make lemonade out of lemons for itself (never mind doctors or patients) and sold the idea to physicians that it was best for the AMA to produce these code books rather than to have the government produce them directly. That way, supposedly, the "House of Medicine" would be in charge of its own fate. Instead, the AMA has cashiered doctors for its own financial interests, and has become the ultimate rent-seeker, although rent-seeking is perhaps not the accurate term. Collaborator or Quisling is more accurate. But this is not limited to the current healthcare reform process. This has been going on for decades. The AMA was not a prominent critic of Hillarycare. The AMA has repeatedly advanced government objectives, advocating breathlessly for "Pay for Performance", actually cutting a deal with Congress without telling its member organizations what it was doing, for example. The AMA famously signed off on extreme documentation requirements for Evaluation and Management CPT codes, again without telling its members. On that one, the membership actually stood up and refused to abide by the requirements that the AMA negotiated with Medicare, and that effort collapsed. The AMA has long paid lip service to Medical Savings Accounts, but never actually pursued this option (in the early 1990's, when Hillarycare was being debated, I was censored when I tried to give a presentation to the TMA on a universal system of medical savings accounts, with Kim Ross, the lobbyist for the TMA, running down the hall and into the conference room and commandeering the meeting, forcing me to stop my presentation just as it became clear what I was advocating). And as is pointed out, the AMA has been particularly egregious and disgusting on Medicare Advantage in exchange for limited SGR concessions. Quisling doesn't quite capture the perfidy of the AMA entirely. Perhaps a more accurate analogy, though extreme or course, would be to the Jewish Special Commandantes in the Hitler death camps, who were allowed to live themselves in exchange for their services in crowd control of their fellow inmates. The Special Commandantes were tasked with the job of reassuring the incoming inmates that they really were just going to the showers. That picture pretty much describes what Dr. Rohack (whose name seems to bring a sense of alliteration with two words, whore and hack, that seem to fit perfectly) and the AMA are doing to doctors and patients.
Robert Rosencrans| 10.22.09 @ 12:31PM
Excellent!
Terry| 10.22.09 @ 9:05PM
Thank God there are doctors in this country that really do have ideas for improvement. It's a shame, though, that their lobbying organizations wish to tune them out. Maybe we're not dead yet.
Pingback| 10.22.09 @ 10:59AM
Health Care BS - AMA COLLABORATION ON OBAMACARE links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
cmhmd| 10.22.09 @ 12:14PM
No, the overwhelming majority is of PHYSICIANS supporting HC reform, not liberal Democrats.
And we do provide excellent care if you have excellent insurance. Unfortunatley, we don't all have that. Once you reach the finish line, and get to Medicare, the best insurance, you're golden. But until then you can count on your insurer fighting your doctor tooth and nail to avoid paying for your care.
I'm an intensive care doctor, and we take care of everybody regardless of ability to pay. But what I constantly see in my practice are patients in my ICU because they delayed seeking help until they were so ill they needed an ICU, and other patietns with serious illnesses who leave the hospital with inadequate insurance that come back (or die)because they couldn't afford their medicines or couldn't affford to follow up with the doctor.
SO, we have great "rescue care" for disasters, but we do a poor job of making sure everyone gets the health care they need for chronic diseases or for preventive care.
Indiana Alex| 10.22.09 @ 3:00PM
I understand common sense is not so much a strenght of the liberal as "feelings" are, but perhaps you can suggest why, since entitlements are doomed to usurp the entire Federal budget, as the predictions of their cost is consistently underestimated due to the liberal's lack of understanding of what happens when the government gives away free things, would adding additional entitlements make any sense at all?
SoCon| 10.22.09 @ 6:12PM
Then fix the 15% of our medical system system that is broken and leave the other successful 85% the hell alone.
To do otherwise just proves you are a power-mongering Marxist.
Ken (Old Texican)| 10.22.09 @ 12:36PM
Quisling...
is the precisely perfect title for what is happening.
cmhmd is a perfect example of same. If he/she truly is a medical doctor, then he/she is already on the take.
I run a medical provider company. Half the truth IS that the insurance companies do fight tooth and nail to avoid and delay paying claims.
Pure and above board competition would solve that in a new york minute. I would love to be the marketing VP of an insurance company that treats their customers properly. I would own the business until the competition caught up.
...THE OTHER HALF OF THE TRUTH IS...these liars play pretend that the gubmint can solve the problem by nationalizing the system. They cannot and will not.
This is all about the power of life or death for youall and me. ie: obey, shut up...or die.
It truly is that simple, folks.
cmhmd| 10.22.09 @ 12:58PM
"If he/she truly is a medical doctor, then he/she is already on the take."
It's funny, you presume I don't represent mainstream physicians. Or maybe you do, and becasue we worry about the uninsured, we're suckers or something. In the other New England Journal publication earlier this month was this:
"a large majority of respondents (78%) agreed that physicians have a professional obligation to address societal health policy issues. Majorities also agreed that every physician is professionally obligated to care for the uninsured or underinsured (73%), and most were willing to accept limits on reimbursement for expensive drugs and procedures for the sake of expanding access to basic health care (67%). By contrast, physicians were divided almost equally about cost-effectiveness analysis; just over half (54%) reported having a moral objection to using such data "to determine which treatments will be offered to patients."
and,
"...the 28% of physicians who consider themselves conservative were consistently less enthusiastic about professional responsibilities pertaining to health care reform."
...
Yeah, screw all that medical professionalism stuff. Why should we give a rat's behind about the undeserving sick. Screw them!
http://cmhmd.blogspot.com/2008.....n-new.html
SoCon| 10.22.09 @ 6:09PM
Like you give a damn about the sick with your DEATH PANELS and all. You just want power.
You don't care about your fellow Americans; Communists like you hate your fellow man.
cmhmd| 10.22.09 @ 1:05PM
I almost forgot this:
"THE OTHER HALF OF THE TRUTH IS...these liars play pretend that the gubmint can solve the problem by nationalizing the system. They cannot and will not."
Yes, because it has clearly provided Germany and France and virtually every other nation on earth with systems that are cheaper AND BETTER than our own. So, yes, feel free to tell me I am wrong, because you heard horror stories about Canada on Fox and because wealthy foreigners occasionally come here to jump the lines for specialty care.
http://cmhmd.blogspot.com/search/label/"Anecdote-Off"
We doctors see far worse than you've seen about Canada or Britain (two of the LOWER PERFORMING systems, along with us) every day right here in the good old US of A.
jd| 10.22.09 @ 1:36PM
With all due respect, sir, you don't know what the hell you are talking about. I have family members born, raised and currently living in Europe. They DO NOT HAVE THE BEST HEALTHCARE AND RATIONING EXISTS. Get your head out of your utopian toilet bowl and into the REAL world of what actually works versus what YOU WANT TO THINK works. Affordable healthcare can exist only when market driven reforms are allowed to work and not government-mandated ones.
cmhmd| 10.22.09 @ 4:53PM
Actually, I do know what I'm talking about:
http://cmhmd.blogspot.com/search/label/Waiting Times
Cheers,
Juno| 10.22.09 @ 5:58PM
Just another commie liar, what's new? Spouts lies and runs off--typical Marxist liberal.
Terry| 10.22.09 @ 9:13PM
Gee doc, I can call you doc, can't I? Doc, how do you figure that a link to your own twisted blog is somehow an argument? If writing a blog makes you knowledgable, why do you and the other liberals denigrate all the conservative and libertarian blogs? Doc, if you think France and Germany have such great health care systems and ours is so harsh and poor, why do you practice here? My guess is you're the type of doctor that inflames us when we see you because you're so enthralled by your own damned self.
Bozena | 10.23.09 @ 7:27AM
You have no idea about European health care systems. My father who passed away last year, was denied basic care under old/communist healthcare system in Poland at age 63. When I requested MRI I was told that it is to expensive to do MRI for sombody who is 63 years old, when I asked if I could pay for it I was told it was not possible. The doctors where on strike when he was in the hospital, they had just marginal staffing (2 nurses for 30 bed bound patients). I had to bribe nurses to get even basic care. We had to bring our own food for my father, otherwise he would be fed only with waterdown soup. My aunt's cousin, who had hart attack was turn away from the local hospital because they were understaffed and send to hospital 50km away. Do I need to go more......?
The European countries which have socialized medicine as a post communist remnants are trying to repeal it and all well educated people there are trying reform the system to become privatized. Oh, and did I mentioned that he had been paying to their healthcare/retirement system for 30 years at the rate of 43-47% of his salary!
ET| 10.22.09 @ 1:29PM
I'm no expert on the matter, but it's less about being Quislings and more about naked self interest. I suspect the AMA and big pharma (which have likely been linked at the hip from the beginning) figure the cost of allopathic treatment is unaffordable and unsustainable for more and more Americans. So why not ensure a government guaranteed annuity stream for themselves in perpetuity instead? Make the federal government the bill collector with its taxing power. The truth is likely that the AMA, with a revolving door at the FDA, has been crowding out alternative, more effective but lower costs (and lower profit) treatments, both by regulation and by massive marketing and disinformation. All the while, the costs keep getting more and more bloated as profits go into the pockets of big pharma and related industries (and less money for individual doctors) and we're at a tipping point now. The only way to keep the allopathic healthcare ponzi scheme going is to get the government (i.e., the taxpayer) to pay for it. The AMA doesn't care about the consumer or even the doctors who make up it's membership rolls (they're all just cannon fodder for profits). REAL health care reform would include more intelligent and unbiased treatment of alternative medicines, which can actually help sick people.
Ken (Old Texican)| 10.22.09 @ 1:37PM
My comment below was aimed at cmhmd.
LIAR!| 10.22.09 @ 1:32PM
Old Texican here.
You are a paid liar quisling!
Please send the following letter from www.myteamusa.org to your boss, Obama/Mao.
We Dare You To Silence Our Voices
President Obama and Czars, We DARE you to try to silence our voices. You guys do that and it is in quaint Texas lingo..."Katy, bar the door, there is gonna' be an arse whipping in here."
If we are not already on your list, then your gangsta boys are not on the ball. If we are on your list to silence...fool...you waited too long!
First of all, Rush Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, American Spectator, et al are our cheerleaders.
A football game is not won, or lost, due to cheerleaders, though, but to the TEAM you are playing against. We are suited up now and ready to play...and win. Silence Rush or any of the other voices of dissent with any ole' remedy you can think of, and you just killed the canary in the coal mine. Did you comprehend what I just told you? Do you comprehend those consequences?
You may not take the internet off line, or censor it, or you have just killed another canary.
Half the country will take note, and your half are a bunch of grasshoppers and ghetto squatters, living off of our sweat. Many of us out here in fly-over land, (uh, the ones who feed you, and provide you fuel to fly and party), will not accept it. If you are old enough to remember "Watergate" first hand, then you know what utter disgrace looks like. Mr. Nixon will not be remembered as a wart on your hiney in that regard. You will be the
modern Admiral Tojo who said "...we have awakened a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve."
OOPS!
Go ahead! Throw your best punch! I understand my life is forfeit if you are that stupid.
Do you and your so-called "Czars" understand that if you do manage to silence our voices, then Americans have no options left? Do you understand that your thug friends over seas cannot beat us? Do you recall that there are twenty times more veterans than there are active duty armed forces? Do you understand that many active duty troops, sailors, and officers of same, trust and admire their former comrades more than they trust you? Do you understand that most of them took their oaths seriously?
Who Ya Gonna' Call? .............Gangsta busters? Lots of luck with that!
(Ladies and gentlemen, if I am silenced, go to http://judgeroy.wordpress.com ...and as we tweeted...go to the mattresses. I shall try to drop in here every day or two just to let you know I am still a free American.)
cmhmd| 10.22.09 @ 1:36PM
I hope this isn't too harsh, but shouldn't you be seceding to Texahoma and going Galt by now?
Nope, Liar Quisling!| 10.22.09 @ 1:47PM
You might wish, quisling.
Nope, I am with T.E.A.M. AMERICA
http://judgeroy.wordpress.com
We are going to give you cowardly quislings an arse whipping, or die in the effort!
God bless your ashes.
SoCon| 10.22.09 @ 6:00PM
Another Axelrod Astroturf troll. Traitorous whore.
SoCon| 10.22.09 @ 6:06PM
Grasshoppers, COCKROACHES and ghetto squatters. Sounds about right to me.
Jim O'Brien| 10.22.09 @ 1:36PM
Summary of ObamaCare legislation pending in Congress, also known as Medabortion:
1) By mandating coverage, co-pays and deductibles, increases insurance premiums for everyone, reduces customer choice, and furthers the goal of killing private insurance
2) Increases public demand for government medicine
3) Drastically cuts Medicare payments to hospitals, doctors and nursing homes, thereby killing seniors
4) Imposes new taxes on employer-sponsored medical insurance plans, thereby causing employers to drop coverage, driving employees toward government medicine
5) Increases Medicare insurance premiums paid by seniors, so they will pay more for less care
6) Adds new taxes for medical providers, thereby increasing the cost of medical care, and increasing insurance premiums
7) Provides more government medicine for working-age citizens and "undocumented" persons with incomes below the poverty level
8) Provides government subsidized abortions for people with incomes below the poverty level
9) Exempts members of Congress from any cuts to their medical plans
What to Expect:
1) Rapid increase in death rate among seniors
2) Rapid increase in number of people "needing" government medicine, and skyrocketing, unsustainable national debt
3) Pressure to raise taxes even more on businesses and "the rich"
4) Rapid reduction in number of hospitals, nursing homes, doctors, and medical insurance companies
5) Rapid exodus of the most productive and talented citizens, and employers from the U.S., as they move to countries which allow capitalism and freedom
6) Decline of the United States to a second or third rate nation
Martin j smith| 10.22.09 @ 1:44PM
emhmd is in the tank for Dear leader so I will not waiste much time except to say : If you do a deal with the devil you will have a devil of a deal. And--for those who don't it--aint good
Biwlick| 10.22.09 @ 2:00PM
Perhaps not so much Quislings, as the James Taggarts and Orren Boyles on the health-care industry.
Indiana Alex| 10.22.09 @ 3:02PM
I can't believe i replied to that lib. Imagine an ACORN blogger trying to pass itself off as an MD?
Serge from Wellington| 10.22.09 @ 5:28PM
cmhmd| 10.22.09 @ 10:17AM wrote:
So, fine, we're "Quislings," but we are the overwhelming majority now. Try to get on the right side of history once in a while, eh?
You logic is totally absurd. Quislings, even when they're the overwhelming majority, can be just overwhelmingly wrong.
And since when the questions of Good and Evil, Right and Wrong are decided by a majority vote? You are not at your Commie party meeting, pal.
SoCon| 10.22.09 @ 6:02PM
He's not in a majority; he's lying.
Bydand76| 10.22.09 @ 9:29PM
cmhmd,
You said "So, fine, we're "Quislings," but we are the overwhelming majority now. Try to get on the right side of history once in a while, eh?
You need to go back and study history Cmhmd.
History has shown your political philosophy AND your position in this matter to be flawed and convoluted.
Your logic and statistics are suspect as well, sir.
If socialized health care ( and thats what it is) is the so called answer, then how can you explain that the majority of states already carry some type of assisted health care coverage,
States like Wisconsin and its Badger care program have existed for years already. They Suck! Do some research on it maybe?
If you take those models, and add in the fact that every single one of them operates in the red, how can you expect Americans to sign off on supporting a Federal health care option. One that I might add will only get more and more bloated as the years go by until it is a "big goverment" nightmare. Think Medicare and Medicaid here.
Why is it so hard to see for liberals to see that creating a new govt program never solves anything. Are you telling me that you would like to see everyone have the same type of health care that the MAJORITY of Europe already subscribes to? The numbers don't lie sir. European as well as Canadian socialized health care is a disaster! You cannot explain that away no matter how hard you try.
I am sorry sir but you are misguided and you seem to have a mighty big agenda that you are pushing. I dont fault you for trying to advocate a position of reform, I would agree with you on that, but I disagree strongly with your ways and means.
I cannot, nor will I ever be convinced that goverment solves anything other than by means of force. Which is exactly what you purpose.
Here is what you are essentially proposing. The forced abdication of free will by the minority to a system of lesser quality! If you are a doctor as you claim to be, then remember your Oath sir!
The suprising thing is your indignation at the anger and response of Americans who OBVIOUSLY do not want anything to do with a goverment run health care system. Who are you to get pissed off about my health care? You are not my doctor not do you speak for my doctor! Do not condescend yourself to my level and speak with a forked tongue on what you think is good for me and my family with your fake psuedo intellectual superiority!
You are not the Majority in this matter now matter how many times you might try to delude yourself otherwise.
Do Not Tread On Me! Remember those words sir!
My health care is between me and my Doctor. You have nothing to do with it and if I have anything to say about it. You never will!
Maybe you should take into consideration that if the left continues to push its socialized agenda down the American peoples throat there will be consequences! Wake Up, sir, before it is too late.
Pro Libertate!
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Richard Baker| 10.24.09 @ 8:13AM
Sounds like the "Leadership" at the AMA believes, as Dr. God, that they know best, eh? A discredited collection of fools.
ATLmedia| 10.26.09 @ 8:49PM
What do doctors know about medicine?!
Crazy.
Next we'll be using engineers to design bridges.
Sheesh!
John Connor| 10.27.09 @ 2:42PM
Always good to see two groups that don't have our best interests in mind butting heads.
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As a medical student I can assure you that the AMA is hard at work making sure those stats which CMHMD described remain true. He had a point where he said physicians are for improving our system and caring for people regardless of their socioeconomic status. However, just because we want to see and treat all patients does not mean we all endorse government healthcare. No one above mentioned Massachusetts I believe. Why isnt government healthcare there working? Now imagine a system so broke from overtaxing (which actually kills government revenue in the long --Wilson and his tax hikes) that the other states can no longer support progressive havens like California and Massachusetts.How much worse would that be? One of the founding principles of our country is to limit the role of government in our lives. Lets figure out how to improve the American system. Thats the right side of history. Im done hearing about the great things the Europeans are doing (grades 1-12, 4 years of undergrad, 2 years of graduate studies and medical school). Simply put, we have and can continue to do better.
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Getting Hercules to Help You
Hercules won’t help you until you have all five items from Zeus’ quest. Once you have the five items, bring them to Athena. Zeus will appear and steal them. The big jerk! Once this happens, talk to Athena and she will tell you that Hercules will help you. You’ll need to have the magic mirror from Aphrodite because Hercules doesn’t want to have to walk. He’s so lazy!
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Getting Hercules to Help You
Hercules won’t help you until you have all five items from Zeus’ quest. Once you have the five items, bring them to Athena. Zeus will appear and steal them. The big jerk! Once this happens, talk to Athena and she will tell you that Hercules will help you. You’ll need to have the magic mirror from Aphrodite because Hercules doesn’t want to have to walk. He’s so lazy!
Getting the Hydra Scale
You can see how to do this in the videos, but basically you need to jump up when the Hydra is about to strike. He will rear one of his heads back to attack and his eyes will bulge out. When this happens, jump up in the air and then try to land on top of his head. That head will get knocked out. When all five heads get knocked out, the Hydra will be asleep and you can click on him to get one of the scales. Poptropica
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