The House And Senate Bills Are Terrible Bills For Medical Care And The Economy. Part 5
Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE
I have asked readers to write to the President and their representatives. I have had several requests asking for an outline of the note. Below is a letter outlining the points to make if you oppose the bills in congress. The note should be sent to the President and your Senators and Representatives. The political party they belong too does not matter. If Congress receives 100,000 letters it might understand the sentiment of the people it is suppose to represent.
All you have to do is copy the text and paste it into an email to the President and your representatives. The email address can be found at;
http://www.whitehouse.gov/CONTACT/
https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
Dear Representative, Senator, or President Obama
I am asking Congress and the administration to use common sense to repair the healthcare system. Enough is enough. The Democratic dominated Senate and House have constructed bills that will increase spending, increase the deficit, increase bureaucracy, increase government power over our lives and decrease our freedom of choice.
The Democratic controlled Congress continues to use creative bookkeeping to present bills it claims are budget neutral. The claim is fooling no one. Despite all the protests, Congress is ignoring the will of the people.
The universal healthcare strategy in Massachusetts has failed. President Obama’s healthcare strategy (with similar defects as the Massachusetts plan) with fail and cost the nation dearly.
The healthcare policies in both bills will not achieve the goals of universal care, affordable care and increasing the quality of care. It will commoditized medical care and destroyed the patient physician relationship. I am afraid the President and congress are about to compound past errors in healthcare policy at a very high cost to taxpayers and our economy.
Our present problems in the healthcare system are the result faulty regulations piled upon faulty regulations in an attempt to correct the previous defects. Stakeholders have been driven to adjust to these faulty regulations to protect their vested interests. These actions have lead to ever increasing costs and more defects in healthcare policy.
Willie Sutton (bank robber) told us to go where the money is. In healthcare the biggest waste of money is in:
- Healthcare insurance industry administrative services waste and healthcare insurance industry abuse; The wastes amounts to $200 billion dollars per year. Appropriate rules and regulations could eliminate the problem of administrative services waste. The public option will not eliminate the administrative services waste. It will add to it. http://www.lijit.com/search/stanleyfeld?type=blog&q=administrative+cost+and+the+healthcare+insurance+industry&x=0&y=0
- Ineffective chronic disease management: 80% of the healthcare dollars spent ($1.6 trillion dollars per year) is spent on treating the complications of chronic disease. These diseases include hypertension, diabetes mellitus, asthma, osteoporosis, and obesity. CMS estimated that the cost is even higher at 90% of the healthcare dollar spent for chronic disease complications. The obesity epidemic across all age groups. It is going to bankrupt us all. There is in the bills to combat the obesity epidemic. http://www.lijit.com/search?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lijit.com%2Fusers%2Fstanleyfeld&start_time=&p=g&view_id=tT5oCgpkPEUAABEzQ0UAAAAh&q=chronic+disease+management&x=0&y=0
- Defensive medicine: As a result of the malpractice systems in many states the cost of defensive medicine is somewhere between $460 billion and $750 billion dollars a year. Putting a cap on malpractice awards and appropriate education of physicians and consumers could eliminate the $750 billion dollars of unnecessary expense. The is nothing in the bills that addresses the malpractice reform issue. http://www.lijit.com/search?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lijit.com%2Fusers%2Fstanleyfeld&type=blog&q=defensive+medicine+and+malpractice+reform&x=0&y=0
- A universal electronic medical record is essential to reducing healthcare costs. Lack of a universal EMR costs the healthcare system at least 100 billion dollars a year in medical errors and duplication of testing.
The $30 billion dollar subsidy in the economic subsidy package will not solve the problem. The average physician’s cost for a universal record is $60,000 dollars. A $20,000 dollar subsidy does not help many primary care physicians afford an EMR.
A universal electronic medical record could be distributed by the government free of charge. Physicians would be charged by the click for its use. EMR software and maintenance service fees would be included. Presently less than 10% of physicians and hospital systems have fully functional EMR’s. http://www.lijit.com/search?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lijit.com%2Fusers%2Fstanleyfeld&type=blog&q=ideal+electronic+medical+records&x=21&y=8
The administration should be going to where the money is rather than developing a more complex bureaucracy with increased potential for waste and abuse. Repair of the healthcare system should be consumer directed with the help of the government and not government directed.
Instead the President and Democrats controlled congress will increase taxes and out of pocket expenses for everyone. The taxes will be imposed four years before the benefits are instituted in order to decrease the real deficit spending. During a recession penalties imposed on employers will decrease employment. The only job growth in this recession so far has been government related or government created jobs. The tax increases will lengthen the recession and inhibit job creation and innovation.
The bill will decrease freedom of choice, result in an increase in rationing of care and intensify the doctor shortage.
Please listen to the people who elected you.
Please do everything in your power to fix what is broken and not destroy our innovative spirit and inhibit our freedoms.
Sincerely
Please write to the President, your Representatives, and Senators before it is too late. The Democratic controlled government has decided to ram this bill through without bipartisan participation. You can stop them one vote at a time.
The opinions expressed in the b
log “Repairing The Healthcare System” are, mine and mine alone.
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