Daiwa Daiwa

Our Future Under the Federal JackBoot

Our Future Under the Federal JackBoot

It's Not So Pretty

I'm not a particular fan of the American Medical Association.  In my view, it is too enmeshed with currying favor with the federal government (also known as partnering) to be an effective advocate for either patients or physicians.  But occasionally the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) publishes some worthwhile reading.  The latest issue has a commentary about the collision of scientific principles with interest-group advocacy politics and an editorial about the futility of central or top-down micromanagement, which are very interesting and say a lot about the future of healthcare, in particular our ability (or lack thereof) to make informed decisions for ourselves, in our increasingly federalized system.

I can't republish the articles here but the references (links) for those interested are:

Science, Politics, and Values: The Politicization of Professional Practice Guidelines
Kraemer and Gostin
JAMA. 2009; 301: 665-667.


The Elusive Quest for Quality and Cost Savings in the Medicare Program
John Z. Ayanian, MD, MPP
JAMA. 2009; 301(6): 668-670.

 

EDIT 2-11-14:  Time to update the Title to more appropriately reflect reality.

67,540 views 56 replies
Reply #26 Top

Another (as if more are needed) example of Obamacare's (and Obama's) intent - from the gitgo:

link

Reply #27 Top

But there will be no problem here.  This is America.  /sarc

 

Reply #29 Top

It is NBC - I would be surprised if they had any ethics or competence.

Reply #30 Top

Quoting Daiwa, reply 28

Then there's this tasty little delicacy.

That is actually pretty terrible and I can see why they redacted it. If you are pro Obama-care and paying attention, this overrides one of the key elements that sold you on it, and would make you very angry.

I'd blame it more on the power of lobbyists though.

Reply #31 Top

They are feeling safe enough to be much more overt now.

Insurance companies have been seduced by the prospect of 'mandatory customers' and government contracts in perpetuity.  Much easier than sending bills to individuals or companies each month.

Single payor, if/when it gets adopted, will be fantastic for insurance companies, especially United Healthcare the Big Magilla.  For patients, not so much, since this whole business really has nothing to do with us patients except as a source of fuel.  Just picture Enron or AIG, but in health care.  It's not gonna be pretty.  The Feds, the AMA, and Big Insurance all completely in bed together.

If I'm lucky, I won't be around for the STHTF.

Reply #32 Top

Bit of fortuitous timing that I saw this this morning.

Reply #33 Top

The two articles in the OP, now nearly 5 years old, are worth re-reading.

Reply #34 Top

Watching Dr. Emanuel interviewed by Chris Wallace gave me the creeps. This guy is a Provost at a medical school, no less. Holy crap.

More Mengele than Osler if you ask me. Which is especially bizarre considering his ethnic heritage. But he’s been in the Ivory Tower ever since finishing his training in medicine so I suspect he has little if any understanding of the real world informing his ‘research’ in ‘bioethics’. Hard for me to comprehend how a Jew could embrace a medical philosophy placing the ‘good of the state’ above the needs of the individual.

Reply #35 Top

Some have wondered why the insurance companies have been so quiet during all this Obamacare rollout debacle.  One, they've been warned (ordered?) by the Feds to STFU and two, the aroma of some 30 million new customers (victims) remains in the air; they could still be in the hunt for intermediary contracts.  There is no future in not going along to get along.

Reply #36 Top

Now we know what went down at that White House meeting with all the Dems up for re-election next year.

Reply #37 Top

Finally, a common sense sliver of hope.  Not holding my breath, but cautiously optimistic.  Spreading this word would not hurt.

Reply #38 Top

Obamacare is so good, so desirable for the country, that its customers must be forced to buy it and its administrators indemnified against loss courtesy of (paid by) those same customers.  I've never been fond of insurance companies, but I hate them now, duplicitous bastards.

This is such an unnecessary drain on the treasure of the 50% of us who still bother to work & pay taxes.  Would have been far, far cheaper, and far less disruptive, to give people cash to offset insurance premiums & let them buy what they want.

But the control-freaks have a hard-on that's lasting more than 4 hours and they won't seek help.

 

Reply #39 Top

Quoting Daiwa, reply 38
, to give people cash to offset insurance premiums & let them buy what they want.

They would not have bought insurance, that is for sure.

Reply #40 Top

There are ways to make the cash available only for a designated purpose, either through tax credits or vouchers.  'Cash' was a figure of speech.  Something akin to a Series E savings bond would do the trick.  Wouldn't be able to force people to use it, but it would be otherwise worthless.  For those who don't voluntarily purchase insurance, there could easily be a way for it to be 'redeemed' first time someone presented for care.

Not perfect, but OCare sure as hell ain't.

Reply #41 Top

There will be more of this, sadly.

Reply #42 Top

Lack of access to centers of excellence and tertiary care centers is now being touted as a feature of Obamacare.  Not shedding tears for the big centers, since most of them were suckered into pushing for its passage way back when.  But I shed tears for the patients who might need them.  Obamacare is forcing all the formerly decently-insured middle class into the equivalent of Medicaid.  All must suffer equally under statism.  Except for the members of the state, of course.

Reply #43 Top

Whether intended or not, and that's very debatable, Obamacare will, if left alone, create a permanent underclass of people dependent on government to maintain their status quo, a strong disincentive to 'move up the ladder'.  An American version of a caste system, thanks to the ignorance of 'progressives' who want to 'help'.  This can only widen the 'wealth gap' that Obama pays lip service to fixing.

Reply #44 Top

It already is creating the underclass.  While democrats rail against income inequality, it has grown faster and larger under Obama than under any Republican administration.  When you have an elite with all the money, and everyone else that is "free" from work (as Obama is doing), those with the money are going to have a lot more than those who are earning nothing.

Reply #45 Top

First it was, 'Those were lousy, no good insurance policies you just didn't know you didn't really want; you just thought they were meeting your needs for a reasonable price.  Boy had they fooled you.  We've just helped you realize that.'

Now it's, 'Those are jobs you didn't really want to do anyway and, besides, work is way overrated.  Chasing some crazy 'American Dream' is just a waste of your valuable leisure time; you'd have to work to get ahead and who needs that when you could kick back and toke some legal weed while Daiwa, Dr. Guy, DrJBHL, Frogboy and a few million other suckers pick up the tab?  We've just liberated you from the tyranny of the workplace.'

These f**kers (statists) are not just pond scum, they're batshit insane pond scum.

OK, maybe that's a bit unfair... to pond scum.

Reply #46 Top

Obamacare is a Marxist attack against the Family. Obama and the statists are worse than madmen, he/they are a type of antichrist.

And for sure if we don't wake up and reject State control of our lives, our future in the one world order is not going to be pretty.

 

 

 

 

 

Reply #47 Top

Quoting Daiwa, reply 45
a few million other suckers pick up the tab?

Except those "few million" are getting fewer and fewer.  The slugs will not change.  But Obama will make more slugs.  Until we are Zimbabwe.

Reply #48 Top

"I can do whatever I want." ....Barack Hussein Obama

A Freudian slip?

http://blog.heritage.org/2014/02/11/7-times-obama-whatever-want-presidency/?utm_source=heritagefoundation&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=&utm_content=&utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell

Reply #50 Top

Now BO's IRS is going to require businesses to certify in writing, under penalty of perjury, that if they reduced their work force from some number greater than 99 to 99 or less that they did not do so because of Obamacare (to get into the waivered group).  I don't believe there is any basis in law for this requirement.  Avoiding a tax (remember, that's what it is, not a 'penalty' or 'fee' - just ask John Roberts) 'legally' by reducing your workforce can't be 'illegal', especially when the waiver being taken advantage of is illegal in the first place (there is no authority in law to grant one).  There is absolutely no statute permitting the feds, least of all the IRS, to dictate how many people work for you or to force you to retain employees to thereby enable them to tax you.  It's now so far beyond insane as to be truly Wonderland stuff.  It's even less justifiable (and more pernicious) if its intended purpose is simply to prevent companies from saying publicly that they cut back to 99 or less because of Obamacare.

Not even George III would have had the temerity to pull this bullshit.  The oath of office meant nothing to the POS we elected, twice no less.  Congress may have a lower approval rating than BO, but I'd bet a large part of that is because people are so pissed off that they're doing diddlysquat about his lawless behavior.  He is simply the most anti-American, evil person ever elected President.  I have no choice but to respect the office, but its current occupant isn't worth the spit he deserves hocked in his face.