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The Right Prescription
Repeal Is Not Enough
Republicans will need to shape serious healthcare reform of their own.
Republicans and assorted conservative policy organizations are beginning to consider how to address Obamacare in the wake of large Republican gains in Congress. In doing so they are careful not to confuse beating a discredited majority with actually governing. This should be particular concern with regard to healthcare. For many pundits and policy wonks, healthcare policy is all about repeal. The results of the Missouri ballot initiative about health reflected opposition not only to the federal mandate to buy coverage. It was an expression of concern that Obamacare is a massive shift of control over every aspect of medicine from individuals to government.
Yet can Republicans be said to truly be governing by, in effect, adding an exclamation point to their opposition to Obamacare? As Michael Barone recently observed: “if they’re not in the business in order to shape public policy, why are they there at all?”
Repeal should take the form of believable changes in healthcare. First, Medicare reform should go beyond the accounting gimmickry pursued by past administrations and addresses. A starting point would be changes in financing that encourages less illness, more individual investment in long-term well-being, as well as a phased in increase in the age and income for Medicare eligibility. The last issue will be hotly debated. Meanwhile, Republicans should propose expanding health savings accounts, the popular Medicare Advantage program, and allow people to stay on health plans when they switch to Medicare.
More broadly, Medicare policies should and can sustain what Dan Perry, the CEO of the Alliance for Aging Research, calls, “the longevity dividend,” encouraging the use of innovations that slow aging to extend healthy life. Duke University’s Ken Manton points out the decline in disability and increase in life expectancy from such innovations could “through increased productivity and labor force participation generate an additional $500 billion in wealth and $100 billion in tax revenues per year between 2018 and 2028.” We should encourage work and wealth creation and discourage early reliance on Medicare subsidies. Once on Medicare, we should reward people for getting and staying healthy and not ration the use of such technologies.
Second, repeal should be rightly framed as a bipartisan effort to stop the explosion of unfunded state mandates under Medicaid and the resulting exodus of physicians from the practice of medicine. As Newt Gingrich has observed, it’s time to channel Medicaid dollars directly to consumers, promote more preventive approaches to long-term and mental health services and eliminate the welfare stigma associated with the program. Health plans, states and employers should be given more flexibility to link healthy behavior to rewards, as Mitch Daniels has done through his Healthy Indiana Plan. Consumer choice is great. But personal responsibility must be a condition for receiving support for health coverage.
Third, Republicans should replace a mandate to purchase insurance with many more affordable choices for continuous health care coverage. A better way to make health insurance affordable, even as exclusions for pre-existing conditions are eliminated, is to allow people to buy cheaper coverage and purchase riders for pre-existing conditions. This “health status insurance,” as University of Chicago’s John Cochrane calls it, “would combine coverage for this year’s expenses with the right to buy insurance in the future at a set price. A ‘guaranteed renewable’ individual insurance contract is the simplest way to deliver both. Once you sign up, you can keep insurance for life, and your premiums do not rise if you get sicker.”
Critics would claim the absence of a large risk pool will drive up insurance premiums. But as Cochrane notes: “If you got sick but had something like a health-savings account to pay high premiums, you could always get new insurance. Insurers would then compete for sick people too.” In turn, the demand for wellness and disease management programs would flourish.
Finally, Republican should eliminate the billion or so dollars that the conflicted Donald Berwick will help spend on comparative effectiveness. Such research will be used to slow down and ration the biomedical innovation essential to longevity and better health. Instead, one quarter of that amount should be invested in accelerating the development and selection of treatments based on personalized medicine. Such insights are allowing doctors to control illnesses such as diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, stroke and cancer earlier and more effectively.
Such innovations are critical to the growth in wealth and income that is possible over the next 15 years. They will allow us, in Dan Perry’s words, “to take 80 years to get to be 60.” Repeal removes a major obstacle to this goal. But reform is necessary for its realization. Republicans would be remiss if they did not seize the moment to address our nation’s health care problems with maturity, vision, and compassion.
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 (43) | Leave a comment
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Jim O'Brien| 8.13.10 @ 7:04AM
The key to good medical care is to remove the layers of legislation and let the free market rule the day. Free enterprise, not the government, gave us the great medical care we already have, and everything else that's great about the United States.
vtwin| 8.13.10 @ 9:46AM
“In the wake of large Republican gains in Congress.” When did that happen?
Stephanie| 8.13.10 @ 12:49PM
Oh Lord, are you back?
Tom| 8.13.10 @ 1:45PM
I cannot say I often agree with VTWIN but he has a point. I just assumed the author slipped up but it could be a case of counting your chickens before they hatch.
JmsA| 8.13.10 @ 2:18PM
Tom,
Do you also agree with vitwin that statistics apply just to polling, not Medicare and Social Security projections, though the very government links he used in a feeble attempt to buttress his argument were titled "Actuarial Publications"?
JmsA| 8.13.10 @ 2:15PM
Stephanie,
He's/She's not only back, but probably still unaware that Medicare/Social Security projections are arrived at through actuarial analysis; that is, STATISTICS. Moreover, creatures like vitwin only pay attention to the establishment media propaganda, not real news. Hence, their inability to read the writing on the wall.
Nancy| 8.16.10 @ 4:14PM
"Republicans and assorted conservative policy organizations are beginning to consider how to address Obamacare in the wake of large Republican gains in Congress."
Not yet sweetheart but soon!
Frank Toto | 11.7.10 @ 9:45AM
The current health care system is like a burning building with people inside. Obamacare takes that burning building, throws gasoline on it and then orders more people into it. A travesty doomed to failure! Here's why: http://RightMovesProject.com
John G.| 8.13.10 @ 7:22AM
Rep Paul Ryan's Roadmap is a good start.
Paul Milenkovic| 8.13.10 @ 8:45AM
You don't go out and say "Repeal Health Care Reform" -- who wants to be against Health Care?
You show clips and play sound bites of Candidate Obama opposing an "individual mandate to purchase health insurance" and then intone "send me to Washington to support the President and repeal the Individual Mandate, passed by an out-of-control Congress."
Clinton nee Publius | 8.13.10 @ 9:16AM
The reality is that we need two components to provide the fix for health care that we are seeking to sustain. First, we have to remove the cost barriers that prevent more kids from entering the health care industry education portal. Becoming a doctor is becoming a losing proposition: it takes so long and costs so much that we are losing the health care battle simply because we don't have enough troops.
As luck would have it, the fix for the education cost issue provides the structure by which the cost of providing health care can be made affordable for all Americans. The solution is in how we go about financing it and paying for it. The current insurance industry approach is not quite good enough to get us there - it can only play a role at the low-end of the spectrum due to the lack of financial investment leverage it provides. I know this all too well - my wife has been in and out of the hospital this year and we have racked up over $100,000 in hospital and medical costs our health insurance isn't going to pay - it just can't get there.
The solution comes in the form of a new kind of finance system that is part of "The Fix For Health Care" (the "Universal Health Care Benefit Program" - or "Health Plus" approach that is part of Lovellian economics - google it) that uses a more efficient form of banking and finance that is based upon paying all costs for the system (both for education and health care) on a current basis using 30-year zero-coupon bonds (like Treasury Bonds) and then using an organized system of defeasance to retire these bonds on a much higher-yielding basis.
In the end, this will give us the cost controls we are looking for and make both education and health care affordable as the solution for poor health care is always going to be access to more health care and that is the only prescription the doctor can order for our sick politicians.
Ryan| 8.13.10 @ 2:05PM
99% of the links on Lovellian economics are your posts on a ton of message boards and one book for sale.
Hardly complementary.
FTM| 8.14.10 @ 3:44PM
The first step in ccontrolling out of control health care costs starts in the emergency room. I was recently in an emergency room with a mother-in-law with a suspected broken hip. The first step in the emergency room process is Triage. In the triage step somebody looks you over and decides what it wrong with you, if you're too far along to help, you can wait or you need attention right now. Based on what I saw in the emergency room there needs to be an additional step making the process a quadradge,that being "GO HOME!" There was a crowd gathered around the TV watching Country Music (God Help US ALL) Television. Dee Freekin' Snyder is singing country music? Did I miss something? There was a lady that got her foot wound up in some saw briers. I could have fixed that with a tub of hot water and a wash rag. There was a kid sitting there, he fell down and hit his widdle arm. He was playing like hell all over the floor getting into stuff. There was about a four year old boy that attacked me. I was sitting there reading Euclid and minding my won business when all of a sudden this tyke was all over my back. I turned around and looked at this woman and "is this your kid?" She said, "is he bothering you?" I said "yeah, are you going to take charge of this kid?"
Now honestly, do these people sound like they needed emergency room services to you? Seems to me that "GO HOME" is a required step in the Triage process.
Nancy| 8.16.10 @ 4:20PM
The first step to controlling out of control healthcare costs is getting rid of illegal aliens.
Oldefarte| 8.13.10 @ 11:01AM
Concerning MEDICAL CARE and the HEALTH INSURANCE needed to pay for same, there are two groups-----[1] those who can afford to pay for the latter themselves and [2] those cannot. For [1], health insurance needs to be simply made affordable through such measures as tort reform, universal states access [competition by insurance companies], insurance saving accounts, increased deductibles for high risk coverages, etc. For [2] the current situation needs to be revised to government run hospitals/clinics for financial indigents. The initial step has to begin with replacing Democratic politicians with those professionally/politically capable of managing/administering the above two elements successfully. It all begins in November [and forward] as to whether the taxpayer-voters of this country have truly awakened to what is now staring them in the face [as a result of their stupidity of 11/4/08] and the willingness to correct their humongous mistake!!!!!
George S| 8.13.10 @ 11:07AM
Republicans will not be able to do squat in the next two years unless they get an override majority in both Houses. That will be two more years in which the HHS Secretary has to time complete the bureaucracy and start enacting the regulations of ObamaCare. In the meantime, a Republican congress will be right in the middle of the firestorm as the effects of ObamaCare kick in next January. On one end will be rising premiums and dropped coverage and on the other, a President claiming that it is the fault of the do-nothing Republicans.
Then comes 2012... a Republican president will need at least 60 non-RINO senators to thwart the guaranteed filibuster of any ObamaCare repeal. By then, there will be other political fires that have to be put out and ObamaCare will fade into history. A lot of people will benefit in one way or another and once they receive those benefits come 2016 and 2018, congress in both parties are not going to be anxious to pick a "third rail issue" fight. The time to repeal was now. I fear the ship has sailed, regardless of how we vote. Kagan, remember?
Tom| 8.13.10 @ 1:47PM
They can refuse to fund. If they have the guts. No money, no Obamacare.
George S| 8.13.10 @ 7:54PM
With a trillion-plus deficit, we have no money now. What's keeping the doors to the federal government open? In other words, how do you hold back negative dollars?
Petronius| 8.13.10 @ 11:11AM
Has anyone thought of going back to what worked well 50 years ago? Before the AMA and the casualty companies turned medicine into a money mill the tacit agreements between doctors, hospitals, insurers, and the public wasn't a bad deal. Lets retreat.
1 Most physicians worked public health 1 or 2 days a month and received direct federal and state tax credits for indigent care. The poor could see a doctor for $1 if they had it, and gratis if they didn't.
2 Most state or municipal general hospitals are now gone. State governments should contract with all hospitals to subsidize units for those who cannot pay and every institution shares the load.
Strategically located hospitals should establish walk in clinics where charges are levied based on ability to pay. Test facilities and labs should get tax credits.
This arrangement worked well then. And government stayed out of the mix. There's the VA, but that is a closed system.
Tort reform must be addressed and resolved.
Above all, patients must forget about first dollar coverage of normal expenses and pay for regular office visits, physicals, well baby care, and immunizations out of pocket. It costs less in the end when you write the check. And if it comes to a choice between seeing the GP or paying the cable or wireless bill, give up pay per view and texting. People only gripe about the price of things they don't want to spend money for.
ShortNSweet| 8.13.10 @ 4:17PM
Everything you said makes for a masterpiece!
In addition, (1) $500,000 to fund an education for an MD. (my brother is one) should be cut in half at least, or forgiven for those who would enter into such programs as you mentioned. (2) The cost of the plastic instrument used by nurses to remove surgical staples...$20 for a piece of plastic that is 4x1 inches and can be mass produced for $.02....an auto accident to land someone in an emergency room for 4 hours can cost $20,000. These atrocities happens every single day. The cost of operating the hosptials and the supplies they use should be somehow brought to some rational level.
FTM| 8.14.10 @ 4:49PM
Until somebody gets sued because the $0.02/$20.00 staple remover was suspected of being the cause of something godawful. Tort reform sounds like a good idea until you are the victim of some kind of malpractice. Did you hear about the doctor in Florida that amputated the wrong leg of a diabetic patient? Everybody screws up, right? Except for this guy it was his third time around. Seems that he took the adnoids out of a kid one time instead of the tonsils. Something like that anyway.
A doctor killed my farher-in-law slicker than anything. A kindly old gentleman, delivered my wife and brother-in-law. Prescribed two medicines that the spouse, an RN, looked up in the PDA, Physician's Desk Reference, that had bold faced warning not to administer the one medication in the presence of the other. Two doses did the trick, killed father-in-law deader than a hammer. I guess that one could argue that the pharmacy screwed up too but in this case what difference does it make?
Gill O’Teen ✝✡$| 8.13.10 @ 11:35AM
I disagree that the respubly-kons must come up with a plan on a course of action to implement if they manage to find themselves unwittingly in a position to stop the madness now rampant in the halls, offices and chambers of what used to be OUR gum’mint. If my car is careening dangerously out-of-control down a steep slippery slope to utter destruction, my first and only priority is to bring it to a complete and safe stop. Only after accomplishing this would I worry about which brake shop gets my business. On the 6th I commented on Am Spec that the word “NO” is a fine response in many situations. The obummer kommie agenda is one such. That single word applied to this particular rape and pillage of OUR Country would get my vote. Before worrying about 2012, we must first survive 2010 (and I’m not talking elections) - a task getting more and more difficult with each passing second.
Gill O’Teen ✝✡$
Don’t Tread on Me.
gill.Oteen07041776@gmail.com
“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” - Winston Churchill
Only 891 days to go
hunter| 8.13.10 @ 11:52AM
The only thing Obomba care does is to take money form those that have to pay for 'his' health care dream care. The problems with health care still exists, only now made worse by his stirring the kettle, meddling. There are several fronts to be attacked on health care, From Insurance, tort reform, illegal users, (illegal aliens) under achiveing med schools, greedy pharma's, ill planned hospitals, all out to maximize profits, to all Doctors wanting a 9-5, with wed, Sat.-Sun off. Geeze if the GOP can't find someway for better healthcare with a lower price, we have a congress that are truly stooges for the above lobbyists.
David| 8.13.10 @ 1:17PM
As to the 71% in Missouri who voted against the mandate that individuals purchase insurance under Obamacare, I would not read too much into that. My guess is that if they voted on the part of Obamacare that says "insurance companies cannot deny coverage for pre-existing conditions", that a similar number or even larger number of people would vote to agree with that provision. Same would probably be true for any number of the provisions in the bill.
I don't support it and it needs to be repealed, but when dems start pointing-out that repubs are trying to deny coverage to college student until age 26, or that they are removing the prohibition against insurance companies denying pre-existing conditions, that may be a hard sell. You know, the repubs are always trying to starve kids, pollute the water, and take things away from the poor or less fortunate.
Impeach Don't Wait| 8.14.10 @ 12:04AM
The Missouri vote was encouraging, but to be honest, a judge can render the people irrelevant just like in Arizona, California or anywhere else. Shame.
David| 8.13.10 @ 1:31PM
Oh, and the (I like the new term) "ruling class media" will repeat the dems' lines early and often.
Gill O’Teen ✝✡$| 8.13.10 @ 2:30PM
I am one of those 71% of the Show-me Staters who voted in favor of Proposition C, and I oppose the entire obummercare bill. I don’t give a frog’s feather about any loonie lefty lemming’s tears for all those poor 26 year old college students or helping those with pre-existing conditions. I care about my freedom. If the cost of medical care for those folks is that I live in perpetual servitude to a marxist utopian dream, I want no part of it.
And hunter, as to your 11:52AM comment: the problem with obummercare is not just that the incompetent won is stealing money from people who actually earned it to pay for those who haven’t earned it. The bigger problem is that he’s stealing it by the force of law. There may be some problems with current medical insurance, most - if not all - of which could be alleviated by promoting more competition and less gum’mint interference. And there will never be tort reform as long as the legal class is a major contributor to the kommie agenda and the leftie libs in gum’mint are lawyers such as obummer, kurrie and the klintons. This is the first time I have heard that there is a problem with “under achiveing (sic) med schools. “ To my knowledge, OUR Country is still graduating the finest doctors on the planet, and we need to insure that they will continue to do so. As far as “greedy pharma’s” (sic), all pharmaceutical manufacturers are businesses. The fundamental purpose of every business, other than gum’mint, is to earn a profit. And no profit is excessive, as long as people are freely willing to pay the price for their product. Businesses use these profits to perform such reprehensible tasks as pay salaries, invest in growth and research, and reward their investors. If you have a complaint against any profitable enterprise, I suggest that instead of grousing about it, you add that company’s stock to your portfolio and use their dividends to help fund your retirement as do thousands of folks. I recently had surgery and I’m personally thrilled that my highly trained medical school graduate was well-rested for my early morning operation as were all those assisting him. Many doctors are in self-employed businesses and are responsible for providing gainful employment to a substantial number of skilled professionals. As is true for almost all the self-employed, if a doctor is not working, he or she is not earning. So if mine wants to take a day off, it’s none of my concern. If it’s not my concern, it’s no one else’s either.
Gill O’Teen ✝✡$
Don’t Tread on Me.
gill.Oteen07041776@gmail.com
“It is interesting to note that criminals have multiplied of late, and lawyers have also; but I repeat myself.”
- Mark Twain, courtesy of [ http://www.swapmeetdave.com/Humor/Lawyer.htm ]
Only 891 days to go.
ShortNSweet| 8.13.10 @ 4:35PM
"As far as “greedy pharma’s” (sic), all pharmaceutical manufacturers are businesses. The fundamental purpose of every business, other than gum’mint, is to earn a profit. And no profit is excessive, as long as people are freely willing to pay the price for their product."
Tax credits for companies who produce medical supplies, and pharmaceuticals, maybe, but $20 for a $.02 product is more than profit, that's robbery. Find another way to rob people. We are ALL paying for every single person that has insurance.
My family (5) may spend $2000 per year on medical expenses, and that includes vision and dental. But I pay over $5200 for health insurance alone in one year. All employees pay that price for a family health plan where I am employed, yet some people go to the doctor every time they get a hang nail, and my $5200 helps pay for what their $5200 doesn't cover. So I say find somewhere else to make a killing, I mean profit!!!!
Gill O’Teen ✝✡$| 8.13.10 @ 8:13PM
Please read dw @ 6:42PM’s comment below. There is much wisdom in those few words. Currently, thanks to gum’mint interference, there is neither true free market competition nor consumer incentive to shop around for the best price. The healthcare market is currently overwhelmed with gum’mint regulation compliance. Therein lies the solution to all your complaints.
And David, thanks for your clarification below. But please don’t hold your breath waiting for the respoobly-kons to grow a set. At least, in my own neck-of-the-woods, the only positive that party has going for it this November is that they are not the other guys. I will need to take either an industrial strength nose clip or wear a haz-mat suit when I vote.
Gill O’Teen ✝✡$
Don’t Tread on Me.
gill.Oteen07041776@gmail.com
“Raw chicken. When our HAZMAT people came here, they noticed the raw chicken smell. And that could be attributed to garbage being left out.” - James Perkins courtesy of [ http://www.quotesea.com/quotes/with/HAZMAT ]
Only 891 days to go.
FTM| 8.14.10 @ 5:42PM
Killing, I mean profit...
Firstly, I work in the automotive sector. Every component that is built into a car has a liability insurance policy on it. Everything from the paint to the lug nuts. Everything.
Automobile companies, like doctors, don't buy liability insurance, customers do. Every time that you buy a new car, part of the price of the new car is a sum total of all of the liability insurance. Last that I heard the sum total cost of liability insurance on automotive components on average per car is $6,000.00. I would presume that every time that you go see the doctor a part of the price that you pay to see the doctor is the cost of the doctor's liability insurance.
The Toyota brake fiasco didn't cost Toyota a dime up front, it cost them on the back end in lost sales and the like. It cost Toyota's insurance provider a bunch. Actually it ddidn't cost Toyota's insurance provider a dime. Toyota's insurance provider rolled the expense over into all of it's insurance products, life, health, auto, liability and so on.
The other side of the coin is that insurance companies don't pay claims, customers do. Do you have homeowner's insurance? Guess what, you're still paying for hurricane Katrina. You're probably still paying for hurricane Andrew, truth be told. Every time that you buy a car sold in the United States you're paying for the $50 million dollar settlement made in the case of the exploding Ford Pinto fiasco. Long story, maybe another time.
Consider this, if you run a business, if at the end of the year you have one dollar in your hand then your customers paid all of your operating expenses, building and grounds, utilities, labor, TAXES, raw materials, transportation, everything. Dividends paid to your stockholders.
Do you have a bank account, checking or savings? Chances are that via your bank you're one of the stockholders getting fat from those greedy big pharma companies. Banks make investments everywhere in practically every sector of the economy. Why izzat you may ask? Because if they don't you, the customer will take your money elsewhere. Someplace that has a higher rate of return. Folks have to get over this liberal Marxist/socialist idea of class envy and greed.
Businesses don't pay for jack-diddly, customers do.
You really want to hang your head and cry consider this, remember back when gas went up to $4.00 per gallon? I did some research on the topic and if memory serves the cost of production with gas at $4.00 per gallon is something like $0.45 according to the government's Department of Energy website. What's the difference one might ask? From the hole in the ground to the pump, every time that a commodity from crude oil to gasoline is taxed. At every transaction, every time a commodity changes hands, from one owner to the next, taxes are paid. At every change of hands a profit is made. How is this? The tax burden is one way or the other, either consciously or unconsciously rolled over into the price of the commodity. Who pays the cumulative tax burden? The customer, the end user does.
I shake my head every time I hear some idiot cheer when the government decides to make those greedy, fat-cat business people pay their fair share, President Obama and company included. What people are actually doing is voting themselves even more expensive commodities. Congratulations.
Thing is that President Obama knows damned well what he's doing, playing to the greed and class hatred of barely literate masses. You ought to know better.
David| 8.13.10 @ 3:26PM
Gill O Teen, you and I are on the same page. The point I am making is that too many people, even some on the right, do not want to give up something once they get it; and certain provisions of Obamacare are attractive to a great number of people.
The repubs just need to have the cajones to do it. I don't have any confidence that they will can make the case with a replacement plan.
Just take this story for instance. Since the Bell, California issue broke about 10 days ago (where the city manager, ass't manager, police chief, etc.) are all making more money than the president of the U.S. for working part-time in a city of 30,000, and the average income in Bell is below $30,000. I have not heard one single news report anywhere, not on Fox, this site, National Review, or anyone else mention the party affiliation of all of those Bell city officials who have been ripping of their citizens.
I learned for the first time yesterday, from Ann Coulter's column, that ALL of those officials are DEMOCRATS. Now, if they were repubs, don't you know the dems and the ruling class media would be howling about it all day every day from now through November?
If the repubs can't make the public aware that they were all democrats, I don't have much confidence that they can sell the voters on repealing popular provisions of Obamacare.
dw| 8.13.10 @ 6:42PM
True FREE market competition will provide the proper incentives to lower price and raise quality.
It's that simple. Get the gov. out of the way and the industry. through the economic choices made by private citizens, will be forced to find the proper price to quality ratios.
MoeBlotz| 8.13.10 @ 8:28PM
Depends on what the meaning of repeal is.
Frank Toto | 8.13.10 @ 8:53PM
This message comes from a private, proprietary 27-year R&D program that has been for healthcare insiders the foremost credible source of industry intelligence for three decades. Early on, it completely debunked the myth of the dominance of managed care and demonstrated how it would fail, and collapse in Souther California, which happened, 1986-89. There is now incontrovertible scientific and historical evidence that the mainspring $469 billion US Physician Services Industry will suffer the second catastrophic event, become extremely unstable, enter an irreversible state of criticality and collapse. This claim is not a prediction because it is based on a mathematical law. Millions of organizations will suddenly fail, millions of worker, including doctors, out of work, and people put at the dread risk. Healthcare reform, from a strictly management position will exacerbate the predicament and worsen this man-made disaster. All of these claims are easily and graphically demonstrated.The disaster is like a ticking time bomb, based on a legitimate time line. Groupthink is epidemic and is always antecedent to disasters going back to 659 BCE. The situation is desperate because heroic measures are required to stop the plunge and reverse the coming big crash. This website demonstrates the mechanics of the disaster and draws from the work of eminent business scholars and management scientists during the past five decades. Visit http://www.rightmovesproject.com. People are surprised to learn that there is a law of evolution just like there is a law of gravity: what goes up must go down. The law of evolution says that what is born must die. The American investment in the healthcare establishment is facing sudden, violent ruin while politicians are bickering about what amounts to a trivial issue given the real predicament. Because of years of whitewashing, downplaying, and Pollyanna, the people are totally unprepared and totally unaware of what is rapidly approaching. It is hard to determine whether this looming predicament will bring down the entire economy, but it certainly cannot help. Best Regards, Francis A. Toto,a 40 year healthcare insider and Director, The Right Moves Project established 1982.
Gill O’Teen ✝✡$| 8.14.10 @ 10:39AM
Thanks for this link. I am in the process of checking it out, and have bookmarked it for future access. But how dare they! Basing an argument on history is so outdated since we all know that history did not begin until January 20, 2009. Nothing before then matters unless it can be blamed on THE EVIL BUSH.
Gill O’Teen ✝✡$
Don’t Tread on Me.
gill.Oteen07041776@gmail.com
“And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.” Genesis 3: 12-13
Only 890 days to go.
...winter| 8.13.10 @ 11:32PM
I know, lets make middle men Health Insurers
richer at the expense of the raises employees might get. You're all just crooks siphoning off working people's incomes.
Gill O’Teen ✝✡$| 8.14.10 @ 10:23AM
Even if I understood your poorly made premise which, as I am currently sober, is highly unlikely, I suppose you are completely satisfied with making gum’mint boob-ocrats ‘Health Insurers’. Essentially that is exactly what obummercare does. It’s intention is to destroy free market competition, forcing us all to buy a universal version of medicaid from tax-cheat timmie. But don’t worry, I’m certain that our lives will be so much better when we are forced to buy our healthcare, not from people motivated by providing a decent product at a decent price, but from a disinterested political hack whose only concern is the reelection of his chain of command. A private entrepreneur must sell a product in order to buy his dinner. A gum’mint stooge has guaranteed life-long income for as long as his bosses remain in power. He is not bound by the rules of the marketplace since in order to buy his dinner he simply takes it off our table. I am constantly amazed that the critics of each facet of Big Business, which must pay its own way, seek to replace it with Big gum’mint which only must keep us in chains. Who are the real crooks?
Gill O’Teen ✝✡$
Don’t Tread on Me.
gill.Oteen07041776@gmail.com
“The evils of the body are, murder, theft, and adultery; of the tongue, lying, slander, abuse, and idle talk; of the mind, covetousness, hatred, and error.” - Buddha
Only 890 days to go.
mndasher| 8.14.10 @ 12:34AM
If Congress had followed the constitution for the last one hundred years, there would be no Social Security or Medicare. And then there would be no health care crisis. Because the crisis is with government over reach, not with with health care in general which is the best in the world. As usual the problem is caused by government.
martin j smith| 8.15.10 @ 7:58AM
The first issue for me is this: A government which responds to the voters and that is wise enough to know what is or is not possible. Thus, being reasobly trasparent.
The Obama Care bill meets none of these issues.
I suspect the big issues are: The cost and availability. They want reasonable services, not a card which says they have health care alone. And,the right to chose including none at all to the Delux model.
But, they key is not to imitate the Socialist Democrat Party's approach including not making rediculous promises.
Vandervecken| 8.16.10 @ 3:53PM
Couldn't disagree more. One political party--Democrats-- implemented a tremendously unpopular wealth redistribution and fascist populace control scheme masquerading as "health care," and there's no reason not to repeal it in toto. If, AFTER THAT, Republicans want to address certain healthcare issues, fine, but first repeal this terrible harm that has been foisted on an unwilling country.
Saying there has to be more than repeal is like saying if a man is pinned under a large piece of furniture that some people have tipped over on to him, preventing his movement, some greater agenda is needed by those who would help him beyond lifting the piece of furniture off of him. Nonsense. Just lift the piece of furniture and let the man go on his way.
'Course, nothing will happen as long as Obama is President; he'll veto any attempt at repeal, naturally. But if Republicans gain control of Congress, they SHOULD force him to wield that veto pen, the better to keep this issue (and the fact that he is an open enemy of the American people, and cares not a fig for their consent on any issue) front and center for 2012.
Frank Toto | 11.7.10 @ 9:37AM
It's taken 27 years of research but for the first time the real story behind the failure of healthcare is available. Rock solid and irrefutable. Once you really understand the truth then the solutions are obvious. http://RightMovesProject.com
Frank Toto | 11.7.10 @ 9:37AM
It's taken 27 years of research but for the first time the real story behind the failure of healthcare is available. Rock solid and irrefutable. Once you really understand the truth then the solutions are obvious. http://RightMovesProject.com