RNC Chair Attacks Obama on Health Care

Michael Steele Says the President is Conducting "Risky Experimentation" With Proposals

(AP)  The chairman of the opposition Republican party is accusing President Barack Obama of conducting "risky experimentation" with his health care proposals, saying they will hurt the economy and force millions to drop their current coverage.

Michael Steele, in remarks prepared for delivery at the National Press Club, also said the president, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and key congressional committee chairmen are part of a "cabal" that wants to implement government-run health care.

"Obama-Pelosi want to start building a colossal, closed health care system where Washington decides. Republicans want and support an open health care system where patients and doctors make the decisions," Steele said in excerpts of his speech made available in advance.

The Republican chairman is making his speech at a time when Obama is struggling to advance his trademark health care proposal after a period of evident progress. Two of three House committees have approved their portions of the bill, while one of two Senate panels have acted.

But conservative Democrats have raised objections to some elements of the legislation, and efforts in the Senate to reach a bipartisan agreement have yet to bear fruit. Obama's attempt to impose an early August deadline on both the House and Senate for passage of legislation is in jeopardy.

Obama has repeatedly said he does not favor a government-run health care system. Legislation taking shape in the House envisions private insurance companies selling coverage in competition with the government.

Even so, numerous Republicans in Congress continue to level the accusation at Obama and congressional Democrats, and Steele did so in sharply critical terms.

"Many Democrats outside of the Obama-Pelosi-Reid-Waxman cabal know that voters won't stand for these kinds of foolish prescriptions for our health care. We do too. That's why Republicans will stop at nothing to remind voters about the risky experimentation going on in Washington," the party chairman said in advance excerpts. Harry Reid is Senate majority leader; Rep. Henry Waxman is chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Both are Democrats.

The United States is the only developed nation that does not have a comprehensive national health care plan for all its citizens, and Obama campaigned on a promise of offering affordable health care to all Americans.

About 50 million of America's 300 million people are without health insurance. The government provides coverage for the poor and elderly, but most Americans rely on private insurance, usually received through their employers.

Republican officials said they were supplementing Steele's speech with a round of television advertising designed to oppose government-run health care. No details were immediately available on the areas where the commercials would run or their cost.

In his speech, Steele broadened his attack beyond health care to question Obama's truthfulness.

The president "tells us he doesn't want to spend more than we have, he doesn't want the deficit to go up, he doesn't want to live off borrowed money. But he also told us he didn't want to run an auto company. President Obama justifies this spending by saying the devil made him do it. He doesn't want to spend trillions we can't afford, but he says he just can't help it," Steele said in the prepared excerpts.

[zaga_zaa]

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[Joe_NY_15]

WOW - these libs are desperate to get everyone on the public plan....every last American will be forced to be on the plan....eventually....that's their goal, to make EVERYONE become a welfare recipient.

Right there on Page 16 is a provision making individual private medical insurance illegal. Under "Limitation On New Enrollment" section

[erasmus111]

It's you that is going to be the welfare recipient, after the insurances companies are finished sucking your dry.

[noloyalisti]

It's time to stand up to these greedy, uncaring big corporations who are standing between you and your doctor. And time to stop the middle class and poor paying for the rich to have good health care while we don't. America, the land of corruption and corporate welfare.

[noloyalisti]

This guy Steele is just a slimy, ugly and ignorant individual. How else would you explain a black man spewing right wing propaganda and lies on a daily basis. He supports rich, racist corporate CEOs. Wow.

[Joe_NY_15]

How dare you disrespect the 2012 President Elect....how racist you are, if you don't vote for Steele in 2012

[cydygitt1]

Debunking Canadian health care myths

By Rhonda Hackett

As America comes to grips with the reality that changes are desperately needed within its health care infrastructure, it might prove useful to first debunk some myths about the Canadian system.

Myth: Taxes in Canada are extremely high, mostly because of national health care.

In actuality, taxes are nearly equal on both sides of the border. Overall, Canada's taxes are slightly higher than those in the U.S. However, Canadians are afforded many benefits for their tax dollars, even beyond health care (e.g., tax credits, family allowance, cheaper higher education), so the end result is a wash. At the end of the day, the average after-tax income of Canadian workers is equal to about 82 percent of their gross pay. In the U.S., that average is 81.9 percent.

Myth: Canada's health care system is a cumbersome bureaucracy.

The U.S. has the most bureaucratic health care system in the world. More than 31 percent of every dollar spent on health care in the U.S. goes to paperwork, overhead, CEO salaries, profits, etc. The provincial single-payer system in Canada operates with just a 1 percent overhead. Think about it. It is not necessary to spend a huge amount of money to decide who gets care and who doesn't when everybody is covered.

Myth: The Canadian system is significantly more expensive than that of the U.S.Ten percent of Canada's GDP is spent on health care for 100 percent of the population. The U.S. spends 17 percent of its GDP but 15 percent of its population has no coverage whatsoever and millions of others have inadequate coverage. In essence, the U.S. system is considerably more expensive than Canada's. Part of the reason for this is uninsured and underinsured people in the U.S. still get sick and eventually seek care. People who cannot afford care wait until advanced stages of an illness to see a doctor and then do so through emergency rooms, which cost considerably more than primary care services.

What the American taxpayer may not realize is that such care costs about $45 billion per year, and someone has to pay it. This is why insurance premiums increase every year for insured patients while co-pays and deductibles also rise rapidly.

Myth: Canada's government decides who gets health care and when they get it.While HMOs and other private medical insurers in the U.S. do indeed make such decisions, the only people in Canada to do so are physicians. In Canada, the government has absolutely no say in who gets care or how they get it. Medical decisions are left entirely up to doctors, as they should be.

There are no requirements for pre-authorization whatsoever. If your family doctor says you need an MRI, you get one. In the U.S., if an insurance administrator says you are not getting an MRI, you don't get one no matter what your doctor thinks ? unless, of course, you have the money to cover the cost.

Myth: There are long waits for care, which compromise access to care.There are no waits for urgent or primary care in Canada. There are reasonable waits for most specialists' care, and much longer waits for elective surgery. Yes, there are those instances where a patient can wait up to a month for radiation therapy for breast cancer or prostate cancer, for example. However, the wait has nothing to do with money per se, but everything to do with the lack of radiation therapists. Despite such waits, however, it is noteworthy that Canada boasts lower incident and mortality rates than the U.S. for all cancers combined, according to the U.S. Cancer Statistics Working Group and the Canadian Cancer Society. Moreover, fewer Canadians (11.3 percent) than Americans (14.4 percent) admit unmet health care needs.

Myth: Canadians are paying out of pocket to come to the U.S. for medical care.Most patients who come from Canada to the U.S. for health care are those whose costs are covered by the Canadian governments. If a Canadian goes outside of the country to get services that are deemed medically necessary, not experimental, and are not available at home for whatever reason (e.g., shortage or absence of high tech medical equipment; a longer wait for service than is medically prudent; or lack of physician expertise), the provincial government where you live fully funds your care. Those patients who do come to the U.S. for care and pay out of pocket are those who perceive their care to be more urgent than it likely is.

www.denverpost.com

[cydygitt1]

Myth: Canada is a socialized health care system in which the government runs hospitals and where doctors work for the government.Princeton University health economist Uwe Reinhardt says single-payer systems are not "socialized medicine" but "social insurance" systems because doctors work in the private sector while their pay comes from a public source. Most physicians in Canada are self-employed. They are not employees of the government nor are they accountable to the government. Doctors are accountable to their patients only. More than 90 percent of physicians in Canada are paid on a fee-for-service basis. Claims are submitted to a single provincial health care plan for reimbursement, whereas in the U.S., claims are submitted to a multitude of insurance providers. Moreover, Canadian hospitals are controlled by private boards and/or regional health authorities rather than being part of or run by the government.

Myth: There aren't enough doctors in Canada.

From a purely statistical standpoint, there are enough physicians in Canada to meet the health care needs of its people. But most doctors practice in large urban areas, leaving rural areas with bona fide shortages. This situation is no different than that being experienced in the U.S. Simply training and employing more doctors is not likely to have any significant impact on this specific problem. Whatever issues there are with having an adequate number of doctors in any one geographical area, they have nothing to do with the single-payer system.

And these are just some of the myths about the Canadian health care system. While emulating the Canadian system will likely not fix U.S. health care, it probably isn't the big bad "socialist" bogeyman it has been made out to be.

It is not a perfect system, but it has its merits. For people like my 55-year-old Aunt Betty, who has been waiting for 14 months for knee-replacement surgery due to a long history of arthritis, it is the superior system. Her $35,000-plus surgery is finally scheduled for next month. She has been in pain, and her quality of life has been compromised. However, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Aunt Betty ? who lives on a fixed income and could never afford private health insurance, much less the cost of the surgery and requisite follow-up care ? will soon sport a new, high-tech knee. Waiting 14 months for the procedure is easy when the alternative is living in pain for the rest of your life.

www.denverpost.com/recommended/ci_12523427

[cydygitt1]

10. This all sounds great ? but the taxes to cover it are just unaffordable. And besides, isn?t the system in bad financial shape?
False. On one hand, our annual Canadian tax bite runs about 10% higher than our U.S. taxes did. On the other, we?re not paying out the equivalent of two new car payments every month to keep the family insured here. When you balance out the difference, we?re actually money ahead. When you factor in the greatly increased social stability that follows when everybody?s getting their necessary health care, the impact on our quality of life becomes even more signficant.

And True ? but only because this is a universal truth that we need to make our peace with. Yes, the provincial plans are always struggling. So is every single publicly-funded health care system in the world, including the VA and Medicare. There?s always tension between what the users of the system want, and what the taxpayers are willing to pay. The balance of power ebbs and flows between them; but no matter where it lies at any given moment, at least one of the pair is always going to be at least somewhat unhappy.

But, as many of us know all too well, there?s also constant tension between what patients want and what private insurers are willing to pay. At least when it?s in government hands, we can demand some accountability. And my experience in Canada has convinced me that this accountability is what makes all the difference between the two systems.

It is true that Canada?s system is not the same as the U.S. system. It?s designed to deliver a somewhat different product, to a population that has somewhat different expectations. But the end result is that the vast majority of Canadians get the vast majority of what they need the vast majority of the time. It?ll be a good day when when Americans can hold their heads high and proudly make that same declaration.

[cydygitt1]

9. People won?t be responsible for their own health if they?re not being forced to pay for the consequences.
False. The philosophical basis of America?s privatized health care system might best be characterized as medical Calvinism. It?s fascinating to watch well-educated secularists who recoil at the Protestant obsession with personal virtue, prosperity as a cardinal sign of election by God, and total responsibility for one?s own salvation turn into fire-eyed, moralizing True Believers when it comes to the subject of Taking Responsibility For One?s Own Health.

They?ll insist that health, like salvation, is entirely in our own hands. If you just have the character and self-discipline to stick to an abstemious regime of careful diet, clean living, and frequent sweat offerings to the Great Treadmill God, you?ll never get sick. (Like all good theologies, there?s even an unspoken promise of immortality: f you do it really really right, they imply, you might even live forever.) The virtuous Elect can be discerned by their svelte figures and low cholesterol numbers. From here, it?s a short leap to the conviction that those who suffer from chronic conditions are victims of their own weaknesses, and simply getting what they deserve. Part of their punishment is being forced to pay for the expensive, heavily marketed pharmaceuticals needed to alleviate these avoidable illnesses. They can?t complain. It was their own damned fault; and it?s not our responsibility to pay for their sins. In fact, it?s recently been suggested that they be shunned, lest they lead the virtuous into sin.

Of course, this is bad theology whether you?re applying it to the state of one?s soul or one?s arteries. The fact is that bad genes, bad luck, and the ravages of age eventually take their toll on all of us ? even the most careful of us. The economics of the Canadian system reflect this very different philosophy: it?s built on the belief that maintaining health is not an individual responsibility, but a collective one. Since none of us controls fate, the least we can do is be there for each other as our numbers come up.

This difference is expressed in a few different ways. First: Canadians tend to think of tending to one?s health as one of your duties as a citizen. You do what?s right because you don?t want to take up space in the system, or put that burden on your fellow taxpayers. Second, ?taking care of yourself? has a slightly expanded definition here, which includes a greater emphasis on public health. Canadians are serious about not coming to work if you?re contagious, and seeing a doctor ASAP if you need to. Staying healthy includes not only diet and exercise; but also taking care to keep your germs to yourself, avoiding stress, and getting things treated while they?re still small and cheap to fix.

Third, there?s a somewhat larger awareness that stress leads to big-ticket illnesses ? and a somewhat lower cultural tolerance for employers who put people in high-stress situations. Nobody wants to pick up the tab for their greed. And finally, there?s a generally greater acceptance on the part of both the elderly and their families that end-of-life heroics may be drawing resources away from people who might put them to better use. You can have them if you want them; but reasonable and compassionate people should be able to take the larger view.

The bottom line: When it comes to getting people to make healthy choices, appealing to their sense of the common good seems to work at least as well as Calvinist moralizing.

[cydygitt1]

8. Publicly-funded programs will inevitably lead to rationed health care, particularly for the elderly.
False. And bogglingly so. The papers would have a field day if there was the barest hint that this might be true.

One of the things that constantly amazes me here is how well-cared-for the elderly and disabled you see on the streets here are. No, these people are not being thrown out on the curb. In fact, they live longer, healthier, and more productive lives because they?re getting a constant level of care that ensures small things get treated before they become big problems.

The health care system also makes it easier on their caregiving adult children, who have more time to look in on Mom and take her on outings because they aren?t working 60-hour weeks trying to hold onto a job that gives them insurance.

[cydygitt1]

7. Canadian drugs are not the same.
More preposterious bogosity. They are exactly the same drugs, made by the same pharmaceutical companies, often in the same factories. The Canadian drug distribution system, however, has much tighter oversight; and pharmacies and pharmacists are more closely regulated. If there is a difference in Canadian drugs at all, they?re actually likely to be safer.

Also: pharmacists here dispense what the doctors tell them to dispense, the first time, without moralizing. I know. It?s amazing.

[cydygitt1]

6. Canada?s care plan only covers the basics. You?re still on your own for any extras, including prescription drugs. And you still have to pay for it.
True ? but not as big an issue as you might think. The province does charge a small monthly premium (ours is $108/month for a family of four) for the basic coverage. However, most people never even have to write that check: almost all employers pick up the tab for their employees? premiums as part of the standard benefits package; and the province covers it for people on public assistance or disability.

?The basics? covered by this plan include 100% of all doctor?s fees, ambulance fares, tests, and everything that happens in a hospital ? in other words, the really big-ticket items that routinely drive American families into bankruptcy. In BC, it doesn?t include ?extras? like medical equipment, prescriptions, physical therapy or chiropractic care, dental, vision, and so on; and if you want a private or semi-private room with TV and phone, that costs extra (about what you?d pay for a room in a middling hotel). That other stuff does add up; but it?s far easier to afford if you?re not having to cover the big expenses, too. Furthermore: you can deduct any out-of-pocket health expenses you do have to pay off your income taxes. And, as every American knows by now, drugs aren?t nearly as expensive here, either.

Filling the gap between the basics and the extras is the job of the country?s remaining private health insurers. Since they?re off the hook for the ruinously expensive big-ticket items that can put their own profits at risk, the insurance companies make a tidy business out of offering inexpensive policies that cover all those smaller, more predictable expenses. Top-quality add-on policies typically run in the ballpark of $75 per person in a family per month ? about $300 for a family of four ? if you?re stuck buying an individual plan. Group plans are cheap enough that even small employers can afford to offer them as a routine benefit. An average working Canadian with employer-paid basic care and supplemental insurance gets free coverage equal to the best policies now only offered at a few of America?s largest corporations. And that employer is probably only paying a couple hundred dollars a month to provide that benefit.

[cydygitt1]

5. You don?t get to choose your own doctor.
Scurrilously False. Somebody, somewhere, is getting paid a lot of money to make this kind of stuff up. The cons love to scare the kids with stories about the government picking your doctor for you, and you don?t get a choice. Be afraid! Be very afraid!

For the record: Canadians pick their own doctors, just like Americans do. And not only that: since it all pays the same, poor Canadians have exactly the same access to the country?s top specialists that rich ones do.

[cydygitt1]

4. You have to wait forever to get a family doctor.
False for the vast majority of Canadians, but True for a few. Again, it all depends on where you live. I live in suburban Vancouver, and there are any number of first-rate GPs in my neighborhood who are taking new patients. If you don?t have a working relationship with one, but need to see a doctor now, there are 24-hour urgent care clinics in most neighborhoods that will usually get you in and out on the minor stuff in under an hour.

It is, absolutely, harder to get to a doctor if you live out in a small town, or up in the territories. But that?s just as true in the U.S. ? and in America, the government won?t cover the airfare for rural folk to come down to the city for needed treatment, which all the provincial plans do.

[cydygitt1]

3. Wait times in Canada are horrendous.
True and False again ? it depends on which province you live in, and what?s wrong with you. Canada?s health care system runs on federal guidelines that ensure uniform standards of care, but each territory and province administers its own program. Some provinces don?t plan their facilities well enough; in those, you can have waits. Some do better. As a general rule, the farther north you live, the harder it is to get to care, simply because the doctors and hospitals are concentrated in the south. But that?s just as true in any rural county in the U.S.

You can hear the ******** about it no matter where you live, though. The percentage of Canadians who?d consider giving up their beloved system consistently languishes in the single digits. A few years ago, a TV show asked Canadians to name the Greatest Canadian in history; and in a broad national consensus, they gave the honor to Tommy Douglas, the Saskatchewan premier who is considered the father of the country?s health care system. (And no, it had nothing to do with the fact that he was also Kiefer Sutherland?s grandfather.). In spite of that, though, grousing about health care is still unofficially Canada?s third national sport after curling and hockey.

And for the country?s newspapers, it?s a prime watchdogging opportunity. Any little thing goes sideways at the local hospital, and it?s on the front pages the next day. Those kinds of stories sell papers, because everyone is invested in that system and has a personal stake in how well it functions. The American system might benefit from this kind of constant scrutiny, because it?s certainly one of the things that keeps the quality high. But it also makes people think it?s far worse than it is.

Critics should be reminded that the American system is not exactly instant-on, either. When I lived in California, I had excellent insurance, and got my care through one of the best university-based systems in the nation. Yet I routinely had to wait anywhere from six to twelve weeks to get in to see a specialist. Non-emergency surgical waits could be anywhere from four weeks to four months. After two years in the BC system, I?m finding the experience to be pretty much comparable, and often better. The notable exception is MRIs, which were easy in California, but can take many months to get here. (It?s the number one thing people go over the border for.) Other than that, urban Canadians get care about as fast as urban Americans do.

[cydygitt1]

2. Doctors are hurt financially by single-payer health care.
True and False. Doctors in Canada do make less than their US counterparts. But they also have lower overhead, and usually much better working conditions. A few reasons for this:

First, as noted, they don?t have to charge higher fees to cover the salary of a full-time staffer to deal with over a hundred different insurers, all of whom are bent on denying care whenever possible. In fact, most Canadian doctors get by quite nicely with just one assistant, who cheerfully handles the phones, mail, scheduling, patient reception, stocking, filing, and billing all by herself in the course of a standard workday.

Second, they don?t have to spend several hours every day on the phone cajoling insurance company bean counters into doing the right thing by their patients. My doctor in California worked a 70-hour week: 35 hours seeing patients, and another 35 hours on the phone arguing with insurance companies. My Canadian doctor, on the other hand, works a 35-hour week, period. She files her invoices online, and the vast majority are simply paid ? quietly, quickly, and without hassle. There is no runaround. There are no fights. Appointments aren?t interrupted by vexing phone calls. Care is seldom denied (because everybody knows the rules). She gets her checks on time, sees her patients on schedule, takes Thursdays off, and gets home in time for dinner.

One unsurprising side effect of all this is that the doctors I see here are, to a person, more focused, more relaxed, more generous with their time, more up-to-date in their specialties, and overall much less distracted from the real work of doctoring. You don?t realize how much stress the American doctor-insurer fights put on the day-to-day quality of care until you see doctors who don?t operate under that stress, because they never have to fight those battles at all. Amazingly: they seem to enjoy their jobs.

Third: The average American medical student graduates $140,000 in hock. The average Canadian doctor?s debt is roughly half that.

Finally, Canadian doctors pay lower malpractice insurance fees. When paying for health care constitutes a one of a family?s major expenses, expectations tend to run very high. A doctor?s mistake not only damages the body; it may very well throw a middle-class family permanently into the ranks of the working poor, and render the victim uninsurable for life. With so much at stake, it?s no wonder people are quick to rush to court for redress.

Canadians are far less likely to sue in the first place, since they?re not having to absorb devastating financial losses in addition to any physical losses when something goes awry. The cost of the damaging treatment will be covered. So will the cost of fixing it. And, no matter what happens, the victim will remain insured for life. When lawsuits do occur, the awards don?t have to include coverage for future medical costs, which reduces the insurance company?s liability.

[cydygitt1]

10 Myths About Canadian Health Care, Busted

1. Canada?s health care system is ?socialized medicine.?
False. In socialized medical systems, the doctors work directly for the state. In Canada (and many other countries with universal care), doctors run their own private practices, just like they do in the US. The only difference is that every doctor deals with one insurer, instead of 150. And that insurer is the provincial government, which is accountable to the legislature and the voters if the quality of coverage is allowed to slide.

The proper term for this is ?single-payer insurance.? In talking to Americans about it, the better phrase is ?Medicare for all.?

[smoknmirrors]

Democratic cabal or Republican babble?? Choices, choices, choices.

[smoknmirrors]

"Republicans want and support an open health care system where patients and doctors make the decisions."
***********
When are these Republicans going to start that program? It doesn't exist right now. They really need to get specific on how they propose eliminating insurance companies and hmos from the decision making process.

[cydygitt1]

Exactly! This lying statement by RNC steele, only proves how our congresscritters continue to reap the benefits of the $1.4 Million spent per day now on lobbying against health care reform, since the current cesspool of waste and abuse called American 'health care,' has lawyers posing as insurance claim's supervisors making the decisions that should be reserved for physicians and patients!

[erasmus111]

by Mortarman29 July 20, 2009 6:38 PM EDT
Who paid for her insurance ? It wasn't free. The "rich" paid for it thru taxes.


You're pretty stupid, aren't ya? You better brush up on your reading skills.

EVERYBODY pays it through taxes. Not just the rich. Everyone pays the same.

[hungry1968-16]

by Mortarman29 July 20, 2009 9:31 PM EDT
Their greed? Are you really that dense?

They went to school for a ton of years, put up with internships etc in order to have a life for them and their families that they wanted and expected. Which means, they deserve what they get.

Just like the pro baseball player that gets $50 million...he deserves what he gets because that is what society is willing to pay for his services.

You know, when I left the Army, I went for a career that would pay me what I believed I deserved and that would give my family the life I wanted for them. In the meantime, I started my own business on the side to further my family's goals and our well being. And you call that greed? How stupid!!!

And a knee replacement for my mother in law took a few weeks from diagnosis to surgery. She is now walking around pain free. If we had it your way, she would still be using a walker and in pain.

Liberals love spreading misery!







Greed - just like any other capitalist.

98% of America's health care problems, stem from the insurance industry, but the doctors are just as much to blame.

They could live very, very comfortably on HALF of what they milk the insurance companies for, but they choose to go for more.

Then there's the lawyers - a malpractice suit spells MILLIONS, so they go for the jugular.

It's ALL ABOUT greed. And ALL of them believe that GREED trumps the health of the human being they are supposed to be caring for.

The ONLY word for it is: disgusting.

[erasmus111]

Actually, years ago, doctors did leave Canada to go to the states, but most returned because they didn't like being controlled by the insurance companies. They care of their patients was more important than the money. The ones that remained were the corrupt ones.