Ross Sauer -> All wrote:
 RS> Echo chamber: Bloomberg "commentary" health IT falsehood
goes from Limbaugh
 RS> to WSJ's Moore and Fox, back to Limbaugh

 RS> Summary: The Wall Street Journal's Stephen Moore and Fox News anchors Bill
 RS> Hemmer and Megyn Kelly promoted the falsehood -- which first appeared in a
 RS> Bloomberg "commentary" by Betsy McCaughey and was
subsequently promoted by
 RS> Rush Limbaugh and Matt Drudge -- that the economic recovery bill includes a
 RS> provision that would, in Moore's words, "hav[e] the government
essentially
 RS> dictate treatments." Limbaugh later took credit for spreading
this story.

 RS> http://mediamatters.org/items/200902100031?f=h_latest

 RS> Not only this, Fox News' John Scott ran with an RNC talking poiint memo
 RS> yesterday, (one that is false, BTW,) Scott even kept teh same typo from the
 RS> RNC memo!

 RS> "Fair and Balanced" my ass!

Please feel free to point out what part of the following is wrong.


Republican Senators are questioning whether President Barack Obama's
stimulus bill contains the right mix of tax breaks and cash infusions to
jump-start the economy.

Tragically, no one from either party is objecting to the health provisions
slipped in without discussion. These provisions reflect the handiwork of
Tom Daschle, until recently the nominee to head the Health and Human
Services Department.

Senators should read these provisions and vote against them because they
are dangerous to your health. (Page numbers refer to H.R. 1 EH, pdf
version).

The bill's health rules will affect "every individual in the United
States" (445, 454, 479). Your medical treatments will be tracked
electronically by a federal system. Having electronic medical records at
your fingertips, easily transferred to a hospital, is beneficial. It will
help avoid duplicate tests and errors.

But the bill goes further. One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of
Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your
doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost
effective. The goal is to reduce costs and "guide" your doctor's
decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually
identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, "Critical: What
We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis." According to Daschle, doctors
have to give up autonomy and "learn to operate less like solo
practitioners."

Keeping doctors informed of the newest medical findings is important, but
enforcing uniformity goes too far.

New Penalties

Hospitals and doctors that are not "meaningful users" of the new
system will face penalties.  "Meaningful user" isn't defined in
the bill. That will be left to the HHS secretary, who will be empowered to
impose "more stringent measures of meaningful use over time"
(511, 518, 540-541)

What penalties will deter your doctor from going beyond the electronically
delivered protocols when your condition is atypical or you need an
experimental treatment? The vagueness is intentional. In his book, Daschle
proposed an appointed body with vast powers to make the "tough"
decisions elected politicians won't make.

The stimulus bill does that, and calls it the Federal Coordinating Council
for Comparative Effectiveness Research (190-192). The goal, Daschle's book
explained, is to slow the development and use of new medications and
technologies because they are driving up costs. He praises Europeans for
being more willing to accept "hopeless diagnoses" and "forgo
experimental treatments," and he chastises Americans for expecting too
much from the health-care system.

Elderly Hardest Hit

Daschle says health-care reform "will not be pain free." Seniors
should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of
treating them. That means the elderly will bear the brunt.

Medicare now pays for treatments deemed safe and effective. The stimulus
bill would change that and apply a cost- effectiveness standard set by the
Federal Council (464).

The Federal Council is modeled after a U.K. board discussed in Daschle's
book. This board approves or rejects treatments using a formula that
divides the cost of the treatment by the number of years the patient is
likely to benefit. Treatments for younger patients are more often approved
than treatments for diseases that affect the elderly, such as osteoporosis.

In 2006, a U.K. health board decreed that elderly patients with macular
degeneration had to wait until they went blind in one eye before they could
get a costly new drug to save the other eye. It took almost three years of
public protests before the board reversed its decision.

Hidden Provisions

If the Obama administration's economic stimulus bill passes the Senate in
its current form, seniors in the U.S. will face similar rationing.
Defenders of the system say that individuals benefit in younger years and
sacrifice later.

The stimulus bill will affect every part of health care, from medical and
nursing education, to how patients are treated and how much hospitals get
paid. The bill allocates more funding for this bureaucracy than for the
Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force combined (90-92, 174-177, 181).

Hiding health legislation in a stimulus bill is intentional. Daschle
supported the Clinton administration's health-care overhaul in 1994, and
attributed its failure to debate and delay. A year ago, Daschle wrote that
the next president should act quickly before critics mount an opposition.
"If that means attaching a health-care plan to the federal budget, so
be it," he said. "The issue is too important to be stalled by
Senate protocol."

More Scrutiny Needed

On Friday, President Obama called it "inexcusable and
irresponsible" for senators to delay passing the stimulus bill. In
truth, this bill needs more scrutiny.

The health-care industry is the largest employer in the U.S. It produces
almost 17 percent of the nation's gross domestic product. Yet the bill
treats health care the way European governments do: as a cost problem
instead of a growth industry. Imagine limiting growth and innovation in the
electronics or auto industry during this downturn. This stimulus is
dangerous to your health and the economy.

--- Thunderbird 2.0.0.19 (Windows/20081209)