Keith D. Milby :: blog

The health care reform bill passed by the Senate on Christmas Eve appears to be dead on arrival in the House, as seven anti-abortion Democrats intend to join the ranks of lawmakers who plan to vote against the legislation, Fox News has confirmed.

Seven new no votes would be enough to kill the Senate bill, and several more fence-sitting lawmakers are under pressure from both sides of the aisle.

Fingers crossed.

via FOXNews.com - Senate Health Care Bill Dead on Arrival, Pro-Life House Democrats Say.

YouTube - Durbin Admits Premiums Will Go Up If Health Care Bill Is Passed.

Those who do not wish to have their details on the £11 billion computer system are supposed to be able to opt out by informing health authorities.

But doctors have accused the Government of rushing the project through, meaning that patients have had their details uploaded to the database before they have had a chance to object.

via Patients’ medical records go online without consent - Telegraph.

According to the 2008 Health Insurance Report Card (PDF) released by the American Medical Association, the “carrier” with the highest percentage of denials is . . . Medicare.

via Which Insurer Denies the Most Claims? | www.statehousecall.org.

A man of 22 died in agony of dehydration after three days in a leading teaching hospital.

Kane Gorny was so desperate for a drink that he rang police to beg for their help.

They arrived on the ward only to be told by doctors that everything was under control.

The next day his mother Rita Cronin found him delirious and he died within hours.

She said nurses had failed to give him vital drugs which controlled fluid levels in his body. ‘He was totally dependent on the nurses to help him and they totally betrayed him.’

via Neglected by ‘lazy’ nurses, Kane Gorny, 22, dying of thirst rang the police to beg for water | Mail Online.

A dozen House of Representatives Democrats opposed to abortion are willing to kill President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform plan unless it satisfies their demand for language barring the procedure, Representative Bart Stupak said on Thursday.

“Yes. We’re prepared to take responsibility,” Stupak said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” when asked if he and his 11 Democratic allies were willing to accept the consequences for bringing down healthcare reform over abortion.

Let’s hope so…

via UPDATE 2-US Democrats would kill healthcare over abortion | Reuters.

That this inexperienced travesty of a chief executive, Obama, more a byproduct of timing and media collaboration, than his own worth, or accomplishment, is personally advocating for the so-called nuclear option is the final straw.

…

Only a fool with no clear appreciation of, or for, America past and present, would dare undertake what this pustule in the White House is attempting to do. It is contingent upon the Republican Party to undertake every step, every maneuver it can to bring this government to a halt.

This guy is pissed and if I could write a coherent thought, it would have hopefully been written a lot like this.

via Riehl World View: When In The Course Of Human Events.

Democrats are pretending that their ideas are similar to the Republicans’. They said it over and over last week. This provides the political cover they need to ram this legislation through via reconciliation. But the Democrats have no idea the sleeping giant they will awaken if they do this: the giant that is the American people.

via Health Care Made Like Foie Gras - Erik Dahl - Critical Condition on National Review Online.

As Democrats in Congress prepare to shut Republicans out of the health care debate by triggering the “nuclear option” to pass legislation, the GOP is turning to a familiar tactic in a last-ditch effort to stall the bill: make some noise.

The strategy worked during last summer’s congressional recess, when rowdy town hall meetings disrupted health care reform’s momentum. It was thrown off track again in January, when Massachusetts voters sent Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate, breaking the Democrats’ 60-vote, filibuster-proof supermajority.

via FOXNews.com - Republicans Plan Anti-Health Care Reform Bill ‘Blitz’ as Democrats Regain Footing.

Nothing’s certain but one of them looks solid and, given Pelosi’s margin, even one is potentially disastrous. Let’s start with the solid. Blue Dog Michael Arcuri, come on down!

via Hot Air » Blog Archive » Oh my: Two House yes votes on ObamaCare may flip to no.

White House officials tell ABC News that in his remarks tomorrow President Obama will indicate a willingness to work with Republicans on some issue to get a health care reform bill passed but will suggest that if it is necessary, Democrats will use the controversial “reconciliation” rules requiring only 51 Senate votes to pass the “fix” to the Senate bill, as opposed to the 60 votes to stop a filibuster and proceed to a vote on a bill.

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have been awaiting the president’s remarks direction on how health care reform will proceed.

via President Obama to Say Democrats Will Use Reconciliation to Pass Senate Health Care Reform Fix, If Not Given Up or Down Vote - Political Punch.

The Democrats haven’t been shy about giving their opinions on whether it would be appropriate to use “budget reconciliation” to circumvent the filibuster and pass major legislation such as their proposed health-care overhaul. Here are some of the comments they’ve made within the past year:

“I was one of the authors of the legislation that created the budget ‘reconciliation’ process in 1974, and I am certain that putting health-care reform and climate-change legislation on a freight train through Congress is an outrage that must be resisted” (Sen. Robert Byrd, W.Va., the Washington Post, 3/22/09).

…

via The Democrats on Reconciliation - Jeffrey H. Anderson - Critical Condition on National Review Online.

In Indiana’s HSA, the state deposits $2,750 per year into an account controlled by the employee, out of which he pays all his health bills. Indiana covers the premium for the plan. The intent is that participants will become more cost-conscious and careful about overpayment or overutilization.

Unused funds in the account—to date some $30 million or about $2,000 per employee and growing fast—are the worker’s permanent property. For the very small number of employees (about 6% last year) who use their entire account balance, the state shares further health costs up to an out-of-pocket maximum of $8,000, after which the employee is completely protected.

The HSA option has proven highly popular. This year, over 70% of our 30,000 Indiana state workers chose it, by far the highest in public-sector America. Due to the rejection of these plans by government unions, the average use of HSAs in the public sector across the country is just 2%.

via Mitch Daniels: Hoosiers and Health Savings Accounts - WSJ.com.

Essentially, we all want to live forever. This makes health care a very desirable good. At the same time, the normal restraints imposed by price are frequently lacking. Today, of every dollar spent on health care in this country, just 13 cents is paid for by the person actually consuming the goods or services. Roughly half is paid for by government, and the remainder is covered by private insurance. And, as long as someone else is paying, consumers have every reason to consume as much health care as is available.

On the other, when consumers share in the cost of their health care purchasing decisions, they are more likely to make those decisions based on price and value. Take just one example. If everyone were to receive a CT brain scan every year as part of their annual physical, we would undoubtedly discover a small number of brain cancers much earlier than we otherwise would, perhaps early enough to save the patient’s life.

via RealClearPolitics - The Case for High-Deductible Health Insurance.

YouTube - Paul Ryan: Hiding Spending Doesn’t Reduce Spending.

Warning: watching American politicians argue about healthcare can be seriously damaging to your health. Symptoms may include migraines, extreme fatigue and sudden violent urges. In the event of exposure to competing statistics — regarding “donut holes”, “HMO deductibles”, “reconciliation devices” or suchlike — seek immediate medical help.

via Try to stay awake: the President has a healthcare Bill to pass - Times Online.

YouTube - Treat Me Like a Dog: What Human Health Care Can Learn from Pet Care.

The Democrats have a much, much tougher job today: They have to win over skeptics. The Republicans just have to keep pointing out all the flaws and ways it won’t work — cost, limitation of choice, overblown promises of cost containment, tax hikes, the likelihood of higher premiums, etc.; they haven’t even gotten to abortion or illegal immigrant coverage yet — and give the skeptics enough reason to say, “yeah, this just isn’t going to work; big, expensive government programs never live up to their promises.”

via All the GOP Has to Do Is Reinforce Public Skepticism, and I Think They’re Doing That - Jim Geraghty.

If President Barack Obama really wanted to show he’s serious about winning over Republicans on health care reform, he could offer up some key concessions at Thursday’s summit, like caps on malpractice awards or allowing insurers to sell across state lines.

And if Republicans wanted to reciprocate, they could at least acknowledge the congressional scorekeepers are right – the Democratic plans cut the deficit in the long term and rein in health care costs.

But that would assume either side is willing to do this.

Put me in the column that the dems health debacle will not decrease the deficit.

via The big bipartisan lie - Carrie Budoff Brown - POLITICO.com.

The American people have rebelled against Obamacare because they know our health sector is too big, too complex, and too important to try to change in any one bill written by a few political leaders who don’t know the needs of 300 million individual Americans.

The Senate’s 2,500-page bill will lead to tens of thousands of pages of regulation that will paralyze progress in our health-care system for a generation.

via Summit or Political Suicide? - Grace-Marie Turner - Critical Condition on National Review Online.

Not a single official has been disciplined over the worst-ever NHS hospital scandal, it emerged last night.

Up to 1,200 people lost their lives needlessly because Mid-Staffordshire NHS Trust put government targets and cost-cutting ahead of patient care.

But none of the doctors, nurses and managers who failed them has suffered any formal sanction.

via Mid Staffordshire NHS hospital ‘routinely neglected’ patients | Mail Online.

Patients were routinely neglected or left “sobbing and humiliated” by staff at an NHS trust where at least 400 deaths have been linked to appalling care.

An independent inquiry found that managers at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust stopped providing safe care because they were preoccupied with government targets and cutting costs.

The inquiry report, published yesterday by Robert Francis, QC, included proposals for tough new regulations that could lead to managers at failing NHS trusts being struck off.

via Stafford Hospital caused ‘unimaginable suffering’ - Times Online.

At Thursday’s health summit, President Barack Obama is almost certain to highlight the importance of reining in skyrocketing health care costs.

But in his own health care bill, it’s a different story.

Obama has put off a tax on high-cost health plans until 2018 — long after he’s out of office, even if he’s a two-termer.

via White House punts on containing health costs - Chris Frates - POLITICO.com.

… After a year of debate, Democratic leaders — given every communications advantage and decisive control of every elected branch of government — have not only lost legislative momentum, they have lost a national argument. Americans have taken every opportunity — the town hall revolt, increasingly lopsided polling, a series of upset elections culminating in Massachusetts — to shout their second thoughts. At this point, for Democratic leaders to insist on their current approach is to insist that Americans are not only misinformed but also dimwitted.

And the proposed form of this insistence — enacting health reform through the quick, dirty shove of the reconciliation process — would add coercion to arrogance. Majority Leader Harry Reid has declared that “everything is on the table” — as though Senate Republicans and Democratic moderates were the domestic equivalents of Iran. This is the political context that Democratic leaders have set for their historically “transparent” health summit — a threat as transparent as a horse’s head in a senator’s bed.

via Michael Gerson - Obama’s health reform gamble raises questions of judgment - washingtonpost.com.

True insurance comprises two things. The first one is a goal: to protect against very large losses. The second one is a method: the proper assessment and pricing of risk.

Our system, and the bills passed separately by the Senate and House, centers on the provision of all health services, including routine and minor care, not just coverage for unaffordable surprise costs. In addition, the reform bills say insurers must no longer discriminate on the basis of pre- existing conditions. Even some Republicans agree with this idea, making it one of the few that might be called bipartisan.

Nevertheless, these move us further away from insurance and are a bad idea. What we need is real insurance, yet our current system and proposals look nothing like it.

via ‘Don’t Ask’ Is No Way to Run Health Care: Clifford S. Asness - Bloomberg.com.

With President Obama hoping this week’s “bipartisan summit” will move his health-care bill out of the ICU, it’s worth taking a look at a recent high-profile operation — the heart work done on former President Bill Clinton.

Clinton, of course, got the best of care — a cardiac stent (a tiny metal cylinder) coated with a drug to help keep his artery open. Recent studies in the New England Journal of Medicine and elsewhere have shown that these drug-eluting stents are more effective than bare metal ones.

But they cost two-to-four times more — and the technology is relatively new. That combination has left government-run health-care systems slow to adopt them. The disparity between the US and Canada is striking.

via Bill loves American health care - NYPOST.com.

President Barack Obama released a $950 billion health care reform proposal Monday aimed at pleasing the warring wings of his own party and bringing along skeptical voters, in part by including a provision to put off an unpopular tax on high-cost health insurance plans until 2018.

One notable absence in Obama’s plan – a public health insurance option, a favorite of liberals, but a provision that became the most controversial part of the congressional debate on reform. Obama has long said he would sign a bill without it, and his own legislation confirms that.

via President Obama releases health reform proposal - Carrie Budoff Brown - POLITICO.com.

Confused and in pain, 80-year-old Doris McKeown is kept in a hospital cupboard while she awaits emergency surgery.

The pensioner was stored away for 48 hours in a tiny windowless room, with only shelves of hospital supplies for company.

On the door outside was a sign saying ‘Dignity in Care’.

But inside the store cupboard - called a ‘treatment room’ by management but a ‘broom cupboard’ by Mrs McKeown - she suffered the indignity of being overlooked for medication and meals.

via Elderly patient abandoned for two days in hospital store cupboard | Mail Online.