The Democrats snuck in a little item involving health care into the stimulus bill.
They've added provisions to electronically track every patient's health care, supposedly to eliminate errors, duplication, etc. While that all sounds good, the bill goes too far.
Over at Bloomberg.com, Betsy McCaughey, writes:
But the bill goes further. One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.” According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and “learn to operate less like solo practitioners.”
Keeping doctors informed of the newest medical findings is important, but enforcing uniformity goes too far.
Hospitals and doctors that are not “meaningful users” of the new system will face penalties. “Meaningful user” isn’t defined in the bill. That will be left to the HHS secretary, who will be empowered to impose “more stringent measures of meaningful use over time” (511, 518, 540-541)
What penalties will deter your doctor from going beyond the electronically delivered protocols when your condition is atypical or you need an experimental treatment? The vagueness is intentional. In his book, Daschle proposed an appointed body with vast powers to make the “tough” decisions elected politicians won’t make.
If you are in your 60s or 70s, and if it is statistically shown that saving your life is not "cost-effective," they'll deny your doctor-recommended treatment and expect you to just suck it up and die.
If people have a problem with insurance companies dictating their treatment already, just think how much they'll like some Washington bureaucrat dictating their treatment on top of that!
Rush Limbaugh discussed this yesterday on his show.
Useful idiots like Arlen Specter, Olympia Snow and Susan Collins are willing to vote for this legislation, which is the first step into socialized medicine.
To see the full article, go here.
2 comments:
This made a lot of sense until Specter, Snow, and Collins were referred to as useful idiots. They are not useful at all.
You're right, they're not useful to the GOP, but they are useful to the Democrats.
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