Tag Archives: Medicaid

Commentary

What can we learn from Europe about big government?

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From Ace of Spades. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

We see our future playing out in England and France right now. Only our upheavals are going to be much larger and more violent than theirs. Our population is larger, more diverse, and more polarized; our politics more fraught; our debts and obligations massively larger. Our passions are harder to rouse, but once aflame, take a long time to burn out.

As in France, we have let an enormous segment of our population — perhaps as much as half — fall into a state where they depend on government largesse for a substantial part of their income. This is not money they earned themselves, not wages or savings, but rather money squeezed from the more productive half of the country. Half of our citizens pay no income taxes at all. An increasing number will draw public-sector pensions, Social Security, and medical insurance (Medicare/Medicaid) in amounts that far exceed what they contributed to those plans. Half of the US population, in short, lives not by the fruits of their own toil but by the (coerced) charity of others, as filtered and distilled through the hand of the government. This can not — it can not, by the laws of economics and simple physics — continue. The mathematics of the problem trump even philosophical issues of fairness, of governance, of ethics or law. The mathematics simply will not allow it.

Consider the French. They are rioting over a proposal to raise the national age of retirement from 60 to 62. Germany’s is 65 (going to 67) — how happy will German workers be to subsidize the early retirements of their French neighbors? The French labor unions are on a rampage, denouncing the move as a violation of a “promise” the country made to the workers. (If this reminds you of California, New Jersey, New York, and Michigan — well, the situations are closely analogous.) The word “promise” is illuminating: people have stopped thinking of social welfare as a “benefit” or a “perquisite”, and have begun instead to think of it as a “right” or a “promise”. A legally-binding promise which cannot be broken, though the heavens fall. Well, the heavens are falling, and the sovereigns will discover a universal truth: a government “promise” is not a suicide pact. Reality will assert itself, one way or another.

Governments the world over are discovering that the river of money is not endless. That seemingly-inexhaustable mountain of wealth has been turned into an ocean of debt that will take decades to pay off. The spendthrift habits of the Western nations will put burdens on our children, and other generations not yet born, that should outrage us as a people. We are investing in the old rather than the young, and are punishing risk-taking and entrepreneurship rather than rewarding it. Our tax regimes seem to be deliberately crafted to kill innovation and long-term thinking. (What does “legacy” mean if the wealth I have accumulated in my life cannot be passed on to my children or heirs, but is instead eaten by the all-consuming government?) Young people — young families — are the foundation upon which Western Civilization is built. Neglect them, overburden them, cheat them, and you are committing societal suicide.

This is what the House Republicans have to stop Obama from doing. This is what is at stake.

Commentary

First oil rig leaves USA for Egypt following Obama’s talk of drilling ban

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From the Houston Chronicle. (H/T Michelle Malkin)

Excerpt:

Diamond Offshore announced Friday that its Ocean Endeavor drilling rig will leave the Gulf of Mexico and move to Egyptian waters immediately — making it the first to abandon the United States in the wake of the BP oil spill and a ban on deep-water drilling.

And the Ocean Endeavor’s exodus probably won’t be the last, according to oil industry officials and Gulf Coast leaders who warn that other companies eager to find work for the now-idled rigs are considering moving them outside the U.S.

Devon Energy Corp. had been leasing the Endeavor to drill in the same region of the Gulf as BP’s leaking Macondo well, which has been gushing crude since a lethal blowout April 20.

But Diamond announced Friday it will lease the rig through June 30, 2011, to Cairo-based Burullus Gas Co., which plans to send the Endeavor to Egyptian waters immediately.

Devon is one of three companies that has cited the deep-water drilling ban in trying to ease out of contracts to lease Diamond rigs. Diamond, a drilling company, said it expects to make about $100 million from the deal, including a $31 million early termination fee it recovered from Devon.

Larry Dickerson, CEO of Houston-based Diamond, signaled that other of his company’s rigs could be relocated, too.

“As a result of the uncertainties surrounding the offshore drilling moratorium, we are actively seeking international opportunities to keep our rigs fully employed,” Dickerson said. “We greatly regret the loss of U.S. jobs that will result from this rig relocation.”

I went to sleep in the USA and I woke up in communist Venezuela.

You bash corporations, you lose jobs. Do you know what causes outsourcing of jobs? Attacking businesses with tariffs, regulations, lawsuits, and taxes. Environmental regulations, labor regulations, etc. That’s what causes outsourcing of jobs. If you want businesses to start here, to stay here and to move here from abroad, you create a business climate with low taxes, minimal regulations, and no unions. We should be drilling in ANWAR and building nuclear power plants, not kicking out oil rigs. We needed those jobs.

What about Obamacare?

From Investors Business Daily.

Excerpt:

“Independent experts have found that the new health law will increase the cost of health insurance and health care services,” the two doctor-senators say, noting the Congressional Budget Office concludes that “premiums for millions of American families in 2016 will be 10%-13% higher than they otherwise would be. This represents a $2,100 increase per family, compared with the status quo.”

Two thousand dollars more? Did something hidden in the 3,000 pages of the ObamaCare bill, which the White House and leading congressional Democrats moved heaven and earth to get passed, make those evil health insurers even greedier?

Or is it greedy Uncle Sam? As the senators point out, “According to an April 2010 memo from the Actuary of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the medical device and pharmaceutical drug fees and the health insurance excise tax will generally be passed through to health consumers in the form of higher drug and device prices and higher insurance premiums, with an associated increase in overall national health expenditures.”

Add to that the fact that according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, much of ObamaCare’s new taxes will trickle down and end up being paid for by health care consumers. These include “the $60 billion tax on health plans, the $20 billion tax on medical devices and the $27 billion tax on prescription drugs.” Makes you wonder which party is on the side of the little guy.

Perhaps Obama was hoping that the businesses he is taxing would take the blame for the increases in premiums. That might have flown in the days before the Internet, but it doesn’t fly today. But it gets worse – much worse.

What about deficit-spending?

More from Investors Business Daily.

Excerpt:

Based on current estimates, today’s total federal debt of just over $13 trillion will hit $20 trillion by 2020. Beyond that, the coming retirement tidal wave of 65 million baby boomers will push Social Security and Medicare spending to stratospheric levels. America’s debts will become crippling.

By some estimates, total U.S. commitments for entitlements total $107 trillion over the next 75 years or so. That’s an unpaid tax bill of $912,000 per household, or $351,000 for each child born today.

[…]Today, the federal government alone is spending around 25% of GDP, compared with its long-term average of 18%. If expected massive deficits are closed with taxes rather than spending cuts, it will require a 25%-plus increase in the real size of government.

That won’t be the end of it. Absent serious spending cuts, spending will rise to 32% of GDP by 2030, Congressional Budget Office data show. At current levels, taxes on Americans would have to rise 78% to pay for all that spending. Ready for that?

By the way, when state and local spending are added in, government in a few short years will take up more than half of all U.S. GDP. In short, the U.S. is essentially on the road to becoming just another stagnant, state-run welfare economy.

Suppose you were a young man with a decent salary. Should you make the decision to get married and have children? Children who will owe hundreds of thousands of dollars because Obama had to buy votes using taxpayer money? I guess Democrats don’t want to be bothered with love, marriage and parenting. I guess Democrats just want a check from the government.

News

MUST-READ: How Obama reduces the supply of medical care

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I had written about the so-called doc-fix before, which is the problem of doctors being underpaid by the government for things like Medicare and Medicaid when they provide services to patients. Obama chose not to “fix” these low reimbursements in his health care bill, in order to hide the true costs of socializing medicine. But he has a plan now to fix the problem of government-run medicine not reimbursing doctors adequately.

And it isn’t what you might think.

From Laura at Pursuing Holiness. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

Conservatives were outraged by the chicanery of separating physician payment increases from the health care reform (that’s three lies for the price of one) bill Congress recently rammed through.  The “doc fix” was separate legislation so that physician payments could be increased without adding to the total cost of the main bill, so that Democrats could dishonestly claim the bill reduced the deficit.  Now, however, we are seeing the real “doc fix.”

Some Idaho orthopedists grew weary of the low reimbursement rates the government gave them for caring for worker’s comp patients.  So they got together and agreed not to treat those patients anymore.  They hoped that their boycott would force the Idaho Industrial Commission to increase the fee schedule – their payments.  While they were at it, they decided to stop working with Blue Cross of Idaho – also a notorious underpayer – until a better deal could be negotiated.  Unions behave this way all the time, and it’s often very effective.

In a similar case in Colorado last February, the Federal Trade Commission stepped in and charged the doctors with price-fixing.

Those doctors lost, and if they want to continue to work as physicians, they will do so at the prices set by the government.

Now the Obama administration has stepped it up a notch. The FTC only deals with civil complaints. In order to deal with the Idaho orthopedists, Obama sent in Eric Holder and the Justice Department, which is at liberty to file criminal charges.  You see, those Idaho orthopedists collectively agreeing that they had enough and weren’t going to take it anymore, were actually engaged in two antitrust conspiracies.

Read the rest. This is another first class post by Laura, and a great find by ECM. (Laura also sides with me on women taking responsibility for their own actions, which is why men like her)

So, it sounds like the Obama administration is heading towards Canada’s system where the private practice of medicine is a criminal offense. Doctors will not be able to set prices for their services. A patient giving money directly to a doctor, without government approval of the price (price controls), will become illegal. That’s the way that socialists roll.They love to fix prices.

And do you know what happens when doctors make less money than government clerks but have to work 80 hour weeks? That’s right – you have a shortage of doctors! Just like in Canada! And do you know what happens when there is a shortage of doctors? That’s right – you pay for the privilege of dying on a waiting list. (Unless you want an abortion, IVF or a sex change, I guess – because that’s politically correct in Canada)

This is why there are waiting lists in every country that has tried socialized medicine. Fewer doctors means fewer claims to the government – rationing. It’s the real way that government cuts costs. Well, that and euthanasia. Once government starts to regulate the practice of medicine, and to fix prices, you choke off the supply. And then you have to start killing people to avoid bankrupting the system, without or without their consent.