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July 25, 2009
Exclusive: There Has Been Real Health Reform – And ObamaCare Threatens It
At a press conference on March 5, 2009 President Obama, who loves to invoke past successful presidencies stated: “Teddy Roosevelt first called for health care reform nearly a century ago.”
He was partially right. He of the soft walk and the big stick did, in fact, run on a platform with a provision for national health care, but he of the smooth talk and olive branch forgot to mention that the chief concerns of that provision were public health issues such as malaria, smallpox, diphtheria and highly communicable diseases which killed so many that the life expectancy was 51.
And, by the way, the recently scuttled Obama plan did not even mention enhanced public health administration, the danger of germ warfare, the development of vaccines for pandemics, strategic storage of antibiotics and anti-toxins, and crisis and national emergency treatment centers.
Since we were spared Hillary Rodham Clinton’s disastrous health care “reform” the first part of the 80 million Americans born as part of the baby boom generation between 1946 and 1964 are set to retire and begin to receive social security and Medicare within a few years. And, I would bet that they have no clue what is in store for them when government gets involved.
At age 65, all retired seniors become enrolled in Medicare with automatic deductions from Social Security payments for the system. Seniors can then choose supplementary plans – ostensibly to cover all charges not paid by the government. In reality, they do no such thing. The government's Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMMS) sets the bar for payments to doctors and hospitals, covers 80 percent of the government's "approved" fees and the supplementary plans pay only the remaining 20 percent. As primary insurer, Medicare has the final say and the approved reimbursement is a fraction of the charge.
If Medicare does not allow a test or procedure that actuaries do not deem necessary, the supplementary plans pay nothing and if the doctor is a participating physician in Medicare he is obliged by law to accept the decision.
In fact, since Medicare insurance premiums are automatically deducted from Social Security payments every month, patients should then be free to pay a non participating doctor and get reimbursed the "allowable" fee from the government. However, they cannot even submit forms or doctors' bills and thus the government violates an ordinary insurance practice.
When Medicare was enacted, some wags called it "welfare for the rich," an apt description since it is a system with absolutely no means testing. In fact, even now when Medicare fees are deducted from Social Security payment, there is no means testing. Thus, a senior whose monthly stipend is $677.40 or one who receives $2,055.00 has the same $96.40 deducted for Medicare insurance.
For several decades, doctors and senior patients profited greatly from Medicare and pharmaceutical companies were constantly researching and developing medications for adult onset disease such as high blood pressure, diabetes, and lipid disorders.
This system grew bloated and clearly required reform, including higher deductibles and co-payments, tax deductions for medical care without an income bar, and insurance for "catastrophic" events above a certain limit.
In 1988, prodded by then Chairman of the House and Ways Committee, Daniel Rostenkowski (D. Illinois), President Ronald Reagan signed the Catastrophic Health Care Act, sweeping Medicare reform legislation meant to respond to the overwhelming demand for and cost of Medicare. The costs to seniors was rather minimal, beginning with only $4 a month and going up to a 15 percent income tax charge on wealthy seniors to be capped at $800 per year. The amounts were to increase until 1993 with a monthly charge of $10.20 per month and with the income tax charge capped at $1,050.
Seniors and the agencies which purport to represent them rebelled and actually rioted and mobbed Congressman Dan Rostenkowski. One enraged senior actually stabbed him with an umbrella. In a rapid reversal, in 1989 Congress repealed the legislation and has never made any effort to renew it or replace it.
The only real reform and patient friendly cost-cutting has come from hospitals, the medical profession, pharmaceutical companies and the health care technology industry. Hundreds of life-saving procedures have been developed which reduce hospital stays and leave patients less prone to hospital borne infections.
Among these "kinder cuts" is the increased use of stents – slender rod-like or thread-like devices made of a variety of materials, used to provide support and maintain patency in blood vessels. They are used to repair abdominal aneurysms, cardiac vessels and obstructed renal arteries. They are part of a revolution in high tech medical treatment developed by interventional radiologists, with non invasive applications for liver, lung and kidney cancer.
There is also increased use of laparoscopic surgery for removal of ovaries, gall bladders, and portions of colon as well as hernia repairs. Once more, hospital stays and the risks of invasive surgery, particularly in seniors, are greatly reduced.
Thanks to the pharmaceutical industry intravenous treatment of infectious and other conditions formerly requiring weeks of hospitalization can now be safely performed at home with self-administered delivery of antibiotics through a catheter inserted into an artery, monitored by visiting nurse service at home.
Dialysis, a crucial treatment for patients in end stage renal failure, has been streamlined for home use by the development of cyclers about the size of a “boom box” which works during the night removing toxic waste. Patients on dialysis can lead normal and active lives.
All of the above save lives enhance the quality of life and greatly reduce the enormous expense and concomitant risks of deadly infections incurred by extended hospitalization.
However, many of the highly skilled physicians who perform these procedures are opting out of Medicare and will soon opt out of all insurance. Instead of encouraging the doctors, the hospitals, the drug companies and the manufacturers of medical technology, the so-called health care reformers continue to promote programs which are all based on the government model.
And that is just a harbinger of the problems to come if we get universal health care.
But seniors are continually misled by the organizations such as AARP that supposedly represent them. In fact, AARP endorsed the President’s plan in which the government will ration health care to seniors and mandate its own “end of life” rules….and this is a form of euthanasia writ large.
Sen. Ted Kennedy made an impassioned plea for ObamaCare. Did he read its provisions? His own mother lived to 104 and his sisters died at the ages of 81 and 86. If he agrees with ObamaCare, one can only wonder at what point would he have driven them off the bridge?
The plan has mercifully been “postponed,” and seniors and health care professionals have time to write their legislators before it rears its ugly head again.
And to all those younger people who are so enthusiastic about the President:
Just remember that thanks to the great American health system you are likely to reach old age….but by the time you get there the system may have been destroyed.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Ruth S. King is a freelance writer who writes a monthly column in OUTPOST, the publication of Americans for a Safe Israel. Feedback: editorialdirector@familysecuritymatters.org.
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