Ross Sauer -> John Massey wrote:
 RS> "John Massey -> Ross Sauer"  wrote in
 RS> news:13321$POL_DISORDER{at}JamNNTPd:

 RS>>> "Fair and Balanced" my ass!

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

 JM>> New Penalties

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

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

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

 JM>> Elderly Hardest Hit

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

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

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

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

 JM>> Hidden Provisions

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

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

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

 JM>> More Scrutiny Needed

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

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

 RS> Try thinking for yourself, rather than just parroting your racist pig
 RS> guru, the liar Nutso Boor.

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

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