Obama’s health care proposal is, in effect, the repeal of the Medicare program as we know it. The elderly will go from being the group with the most access to free medical care to the one with the least access. Indeed, the principal impact of the Obama health care program will be to reduce sharply the medical services the elderly can use. No longer will their every medical need be met, their every medication prescribed, their every need to improve their quality of life answered.
It is so ironic that the elderly - who were so vigilant when Bush proposed to change Social Security - are so relaxed about the Obama health care proposals. Bush’s Social Security plan, which did not cut their benefits at all, aroused the strongest opposition among the elderly. But Obama’s plan, which will totally gut Medicare and replace it with government-managed care and rationing, has elicited little more than a yawn from most senior citizens.
It’s time for the elderly to wake up before it is too late!
In our new book, Catastrophe, we explain - in detail and in depth - the consequences the elderly of Canada are feeling from just this kind of program. Limited colonoscopies have led to a 25% higher rate of colon cancer and a ban on the use of the two best chemotherapies are part of the reason why 42% of Canadians with colon cancer die while 31% of Americans, who have access to these two medications, survive the disease.
Overall, the death rate from cancer in Canada is 16% higher than in the United States and the heart disease mortality rate is 6% above ours’.
Under Obama’s program, there will be a government health insurance company that gets huge subsidies of tax money. It will compete with private insurance plans. But the subsidies will let it undercut the private plans and drive them out of business, leaving only the government plan - a single payer - in effect.
Today, 800,000 doctors struggle to treat adequately the 250 million Americans who have insurance. Obama will add 50 million more to their caseload with no expansion in the number of doctors or nurses. Indeed, his plan will likely reduce their number by lowering reimbursement rates and imposing bureaucrats above them who will force medical decisions down their throats. Fewer doctors will have to treat more patients. The inevitable result will be rationing.
And it is the elderly who rationing will most effect. Who should get a knee replacement a 40 year old or a 70 year old? Who should get a new hip, a young person or an old person? Who should have priority in the operating room a seventy year old diabetic who needs bypass surgery or a younger person? Obviously, it is the elderly who will get short shrift under his proposal.
But the interest groups that usually speak up for the elderly, particularly AARP, are in Obama’s pocket, hoping to profit from his program by becoming one of its vendors. Just as they backed Bush’s prescription drug plan because they anticipating profiting from it, so they are now helping Obama gut the medical care of their constituents.
It is high time that the elderly of America realized what the stakes are in this vital fight to preserve Medicare as we know it and keep medical care open, accessible, and free to those over 65. It is truly a battle for their very lives.
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One of the more interesting comments in this article was about AARP. They supported the drug bill to sell the Part D coverage, and now they wouldn’t mind marketing their insurance products to those who might be insured under the Obama health insurance expansion.
AARP masquerades as some advocacy group for those with unheard voices, yet their primary functions appears to be moving products, with a primary emphasis on insurance. AARP’s self interested lobbying is nothing more than a phony front, and operates primarily as an insurance agency.
Their clever marketing ruse seems blatantly obvious, except to elected politicians who accept their financial support, under the guise of representing their members.
Moreover, one of their primary companies they place business with is United Health Care (hardly a company without controversy featured in a unflattering light frequently in the Wall Street Journal). AARP is obnoxious, but the real scandal is the false front this organization operates as.
This whole scenario is frightening. Obama seems to think that people like myself (age 58) should not receive any benefits because we become ill, have diseases or need repairs. He fails to recognize that I(we) have paid into a health care system for our whole life and someone else has received benefits from our payroll taxes. We need to wake up to this wing it and sling it president who seems bent on destroying America. I have sent notes to both my Senator and Congressman indicating no votes for them if they pass the so-called health care bill and cap and trade. I am not a member of AARP because they seem to as Holdster55 indicated a sales organization.
What right gives anyone the privilege to throw money management principles out just because of age or illness? What is the cost of doing so to the future generations of society?
Dick Morris’ article asks, “Who should get a knee replacement a 40 year old or a 70 year old? Who should get a new hip, a young person or an old person? Who should have priority in the operating room a seventy year old diabetic who needs bypass surgery or a younger person?”
Yes, this is the critical issue we all must face as a society! What are our priorities? How much do we spend to keep our elderly hanging on, just because it can technically/medically be done, or when do we let nature take its course? How much do we spend on the elderly and at what cost to the younger generation? Is it our younger population who should be given the benefit of advanced technological care and still provide the elder population the benefit of comfort? How many years do you want to spend sitting in front of the TV or lying in a bed just because you can be kept alive?
Anybody who thinks health care is not already rationed is simply ignorant. The pharmaceutical and medical profession’s job has been to keep anyone alive for as long as possible at any cost as long as there are funds from any source to pay their bills. The pharmaceutical industry’s job is to come up with a new patentable way of doing that. The idea that there is an unlimited well of funds from which to dip is ….
Well, I can support the repeal of the health system as it exists today. The conversation needs to be about what our health system will be and how much of our national resources do we devote to it. I am 54 and an AARP member who has paid my taxes. I also spend a lot of time caring for my parents who are in their 80’s and who take over $6,000.00 per month in medications and over $15,000.00 per month in blood transfusions. It is a good thing they could afford their insurance - I can’t, so I am uninsured. But you know something they can’t afford to pay me for my services.
My mother’s entire viewpoint throughout her life has been; something is wrong with my health so give me a pill or a surgery to fix it. Now she spends her time in front of the TV. What would REALLY happen if she quit taking 25 pills a day to fix it? What would REALLY happen if DAD quit having 2-6 blood and platelet transfusions every month to keep his hemoglobin and platelet levels up. You know something? The body is NOT IMMORTAL. The BODY will eventually die. I will grieve because I do love them.
What would REALLY happen if our health system concentrated on actual health instead of illness? Might my daughter and her children have healthier elder years? Might our society have a robust younger generation propelling it into the future? Or do they simply work to keep me alive?
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I am having a hard time trying to find out how to register my disapproval of this and other issues. I have seen many people testify on TV that their congressmen are totally unresponsive or even rude when contacted. It seems that we have become a nation in which the people exist for the good of the government. How do I protest?
[…] Whether or not you’re a Republican or Democrat, Liberal or Conservative, you should pay attention to the health care reform situation. Whether or not you agree with Dick Morris, you owe it to yourself to read his column, Obama will Repeal Medicare. […]
To Yesunltd:
Health care today is one of the major issues that impact Americans of all walks of life. While quality of care is not the major issue in the Unites States, coverage of Americans certainly is, having declined from approximately 70% in the 1950s to less than 30% today.
Rising costs are one of, if not the primary reason, for the decrease in coverage. Most of the time it takes forever to get the care you need and then the doctor is not allowed to manage the patient without being questioned at every move about costs or procedures from non professionals. We should keep in mind that if the doctor misses something it is the doctor who gets sued not the insurance companies.
If you read Tom Dashcle’s book you come to the conclusion that the elderly are the problem with the health care system and what Yesunltd seems to think. I find that both ethically and morally incorrect. It certainly sounds like someone who has been ‘purchased’ by the big health care lobbyists. Taking his example, then a 21-year old could have an abortion because of their age and it would be for the good of the country, yet my 78-year old father who had a heart attack would not receive any coverage because he should die for the good of the country?!! I would agree that at some point if a person does not have quality of life, then that may pose some serious questions. I would bet Tom Dashcle and others would exclude themselves from these rules.
We already have an example of government run nationalized health care; the VA Hospitals which is a travesty and a tragedy in this country. We should emphasize this to the American public.
I would submit that most of the rising costs are for tests that the doctor has to perform to cover himself from a malpractice lawsuit. Taking my opening statement and in the 1950s if you went to the doctor with a headache, more than likely he would give you some aspirin and send you home. Today, he would order an MRI at a cost of $1,000 to protect himself on the outside chance (1%) that the patient may have a brain tumor. Emergency rooms that exceed capacity are used for minor medical problems and by illegal aliens as their primary health care which currently are a huge cost burden.
Personally I like what my local hospital is doing. They are remodeling existing buildings or abandoned buildings to create health networks scattered across the city run by physicians keeping health care at the local level.
The primary emphasis in these networks is prevention. The network is tied to other specialists at the hospital to provide those services if the primary physician thinks it is warranted.
To make this system even more successful what needs to be done is remove the burdensome oversight which is nothing more than overhead from health care providers such as Blue Cross/Blue Shield and allow them only to manage the office (e.g., making appointments, entering data into computer, billing, etc.). Look at what happened after AT&T was dismantled. We now have tremendous phone service including cellular, high speed internet and video/television capabilities over phone lines.
Using my local hospital model and expanding it would include the Federal government to ensure competition (i.e., construction and health care provider contacts) for resources for modification and/or remodeling of buildings and to maintain and process information and data within the networks.
The Federal government should have a role in making sure there is access to generic drugs and in negotiating costs on non generic drugs.
Physician guidelines (for treatment) should be developed through a medical organization such as the NIH and a doctor following these guidelines should not be sued.
Auditing for compliance can be accomplished through the GAO. This way health care stays at the local level. People would have a choice for a provider.
The Federal government should not have a direct role - that would be a disaster.
[…] Obama will Repeal Medicare – Dick Morris […]
[…] or a younger person? Obviously, it is the elderly who will get short shrift under his proposal.”Dick Morris explicates what has always been implicit. The foolishness of AARP in all this is just horrifying. […]
Says it all
Today, your medical care is between you and your Doc, and sometimes with an insurance company. Either a straight line, or a simple triangle.
Mr. Brady at New Majority plots the organizational chart of the Dem plan. The extent of the proposed b
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LynnMAccording to the Bible, the elderly are to be taken care of, not dismissed.
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