POR” PETE’S SAKE

Socialized medicine – the reality 

One of my clients spent several years in Scotland where socialized medicine is practiced.  I asked him what he observed with regard to health care under this type of system.  He said the main impact was on the elderly.  He described an acquaintance, whom I will name, “Pete.”  Pete, who was 70 years old, was blind because of cataracts.  He just needed a simple operation, which would restore his eye sight.  But, he was on a waiting list for the operation.  He had been waiting for months and had no idea when the operation would be approved.  Sadly, Pete died alone and blind.  For Pete, the waiting list was just too long.  We need to stop this plunge toward socialized medicine because “POR” PETE’S SAKE, are we really willing to trust Pelosi, Obama and Reid?

   

Picture courtesy of Drudgereport.com

What savings?

One of the questions people are asking is what effect health care reform will have on the cost of health care.  According to the Obama administration, everyone’s cost will go down.  The reason for this is that so many more people will be insured, that preventive care will be much more effective.  This will save lots of money.  However, it is far from certain that increasing preventive care will actually save money.  The following link is from an ABC report on the subject.  Remember that ABC is very liberal, and it supported health care reform.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/08/congressional-budget-expert-says-preventive-care-will-raise-not-cut-costs.html

Obviously, while there may be some savings, it will be nowhere near enough to fund the additional costs associated with this program. 

A significant portion of the alleged cost savings comes from cutting payments to doctors and hospitals for Medicare.  The theory is that just by eliminating fraud, waste and duplication of effort, savings will miraculously appear.  Of course, we all realize that there is no fraud and waste in government managed programs.  Just look at how well we have done with regard to rebuilding New Orleans after Katrina.

This also ignores the simple fact that doctors and hospitals are already refusing to accept Medicare patients because they cannot afford to treat them for the inadequate compensation currently paid by the government.  Logic says that if these payments are cut further, more doctors and hospitals will refuse to treat Medicare patients.

The following link from the Sacramento Bee documents the problem.

http://sacramento.bizjournals.com/sacramento/stories/2009/12/21/story3.html

It is difficult to read this type of article and somehow believe government is going to save billions of dollars by cutting payments to doctors and/or hospitals.  The only real way to cut money from Medicare is to stop authorizing treatment.  Think of the example I cited earlier with regard to Scotland.  If the government just passes guidelines that delays treatment, it will look like savings.  Also, if people conveniently die before receiving treatment, that also saves money.  Obama says he will cut Medicare spending.  The only way I personally see that happening is if they develop guidelines to ration care.  Cutting Medicare spending, unfortunately, is one promise I expect Obama to keep.

Since there is likely to be zero real savings, the only other possible source of funds must come from some sort of tax.  The Obama administration says they will only tax people earning more than $250,000 per year.   Really?  This is beyond stupid.  He is already raising taxes on these people.  At some point no one will be making more than $250,000, so there won’t be anyone left to tax.

In order to pay for this, the Obama administration must raise taxes on everyone.  They won’t call it a tax, they will call it a fee, a premium, or some other less offensive word, but, it will be a tax.  This bill allegedly includes $10 billion to hire 16,500 new IRS employees.  I doubt that they will be used to count the savings from Medicare.

TDM