Exclusive to The Schilling Show Blog and News, following is advance copy of an ad placed by local physicians and health care professionals, to appear in this weekend’s Daily Progress:
WARNING: Obamacare may be detrimental to your health!
This 2,562 page Bill is not what it appears to be. Before you vote on Nov. 2, you should know what to expect from Obamacare:
- 20 million children destined to lose individual insurance policies due to federal mandates on pre-existing conditions . . .
- A shortage of doctors and services for the elderly and the disabled . . .
Obamacare will cut $575 billion from Medicare and Medicare Advantage over 10 years. Medicare reimbursements to hospitals that serve low-income patients will be reduced by $22 billion; payments for home care will be slashed by $40 billion, and inpatient and outpatient hospital services cut by $157 billion.
- Health care rationing in the form of long waiting lists for specialist doctors, surgery, treatments, and critical diagnostic testing . . .
In Massachusetts’ Obamacare-style health plan passed in 2006, droves of doctors have retired or left the state. One clinic in western Massachusetts had a waiting list of 1,600 patients.
Prominent Canadians on their country’s health care waiting lists, such as the premier of Newfoundland, Danny Williams, and Belinda Stronach, former MP who opposed privatization in Canada, have traveled to the U.S. for health care – along with thousands of others.
- Overcrowded hospitals . . .
In one year, 4,000 women in the U.K. had babies in hospital hallways, bathrooms and elevators – not in maternity wards. By 2019, Medicaid will serve 16 million more people in the U.S., and many of these will wind up in emergency rooms for non-emergency visits due to a shortage of doctors accepting Medicaid.
- Higher death rates from cancer, and other serious but treatable diseases . . .
The British health care system assigns a numerical value to the pro- jected quality of a patient’s life in order to determine if treatment is economical. Obamacare has such an agency in place – the Patient- Centered-Outcome Research Institute; it is ready to go, with the mere stroke of a pen.
Recently a federal panel ruled – based on a calculation of deaths per number of mammograms – that these tests were now necessary only for women between the ages of 50 and 75, and only every other year.
- A decline in the development of life-saving technologies . . .
The pharmaceutical industry will be spending $2.8 billion yearly on new taxes that would otherwise be spent on developing new drugs. Firms that develop medical devices such as insulin pumps and pacemakers will be spending $2 billion a year on taxes – which is $2 billion less than will be spent on developing new medical technologies.
- An eventual government takeover of our entire health care system . . .
Large insurers will be forced to raise premiums substantially to comply with government mandates under the new law. Smaller insurance companies will be driven out of business due to federally mandated “minimum medical loss ratios.”
Large corporations will find it more economical to pay federal fines than to sponsor employee health plans – the largest source of health insurance for Americans. An estimated 35 to 43 million Americans will lose their employee health benefits and move into government programs.
The new Bill (Section 1334, pages 97-100) will create two new government insurance programs that will compete with private insurance companies. Over time, the government’s programs – funded by taxpayers – will drive private insurers out of business.
On March 24, 2007, Obama told the SEIU Healthcare Forum: “… I don’t think we will be able to eliminate employer coverage immediately. There’s going to be potentially some transition process. I can envision a decade out or 15 years out or 20 years out…”
- A national debt equal to our entire GDP in five years — and half of that debt owed to foreign governments . . .
Consider: $38 trillion currently in unfunded obligations to Medicare. Add 16 million more Medicaid recipients. Add to that 35 million moving from employer-sponsored plans to government plans. Add 68 grant programs, 47 bureaucratic entities, 29 pilot programs, six regulatory systems, six compliance standards and two new entitlements.
Is this the legacy you want to leave your children and grandchildren?
Vote to STOP the ravages of Obamacare Vote for Robert Hurt on Nov. 2!
This ad is paid for by a coalition of local physicians and health care professionals committed to preserving the right of patients to choose their own health care.
Robert Cantrell, MD; John Jane Jr, MD; Robert Grover, MD; Robert Selden, MD; John Staige Davis IV, MD; Brett Stadler, MD; Byron Osborne, MD; Charles Gross, MD; Cynthia Schoeffel, MD; Dan Sawyer, MD; Frazier Fortenberry, MD; Gail Macik, MD; Gary Helmbrecht, MD; Julian Fagerli, MD; Julie Blommel, MD; Kline Bolton, MD; Kurt Elward, MD; Lori Conklin, MD; Mark Schoeffel, MD; Michael Arnold, MD; Clara Belle Wheeler, MD; Ray Marotta, MD; Thu Le, MD; Nancy Bolton, MSN ANP; Michael Johnson, PhD; Rosella Bull, RN; Lynne S. Simpson, RN; Frederic Berry, MD
Download the .PDF version of this ad.
As one of the co-signers, I have had a few people mention the screening issues for women’s health care. Some data suggest that Paps and Mammography can be done less frequently with no increased risk, so they have concern that insurers and government may reduce coverage for these tests. The major issue is, will patients be able to decide if they want more frequent screening in areas of critical importance. We used to think that we needed colon exams more frequently – fortunately, we have had many improvements in care that have helped stretch this out. I did not intend that any information would be misleading, because the dialogue in this area is far too important.
As we seek to restrain health care costs, I think it is wise to look at how our new and improved screening techniques may indeed lessen the frequency with which we need to screen, but we should not use health care reform to reduce preventive care. Using better technology wisely is both prudent and allows us to focus resources on other areas (like access to care for the poor).
However I am concerned about the lack of clarity and poorly design of the “reform.” As the process moves forward, there may well be far fewer doctors for Medicare and Medicaid. Will nurse practitioners help? Perhaps, but my good friend in SW Virginia still cannot get one to practice in his underserved area. Will we create a two tier system where the poor get one type of provider, and the wealthy get a full fledged physician? No matter who takes care of you, federal programs are paying less and less. One very efficient family practice in Virginia calculated that if they took all Medicaid patients, they would lose so much money, each of the doctors (already some of the lowest paid of all physicians) would be in debt $67,000 EACH, in just one year, because Medicaid doesn’t pay enough to keep their exam rooms open, pay for the medicine they give, nor support pay for good nurses.
The current Medicare patients can probably expect their physicians to keep taking the loss and being unable to pay their hardworking staff as they try to maintain their commitment.
The new Medicare enrollees will, however, find themselves without a physician, or in a “mill” where they will get to talk about one problem, no more, to a nurse or assistant, and have to schedule multiple visits for what can be done now in a single visit. I used to think that claim was just fear mongering, but that is just what my grandmother was faced with recently as a response to the proposed cuts in Medicare. She has actually had her doctor walk out on her in the middle of a sentence, to see a different patient. He can only “afford” to give her 8 minutes. She doesn’t want an electronic medical record. She doesn’t care about email from her physician – or his designee. She wants to see her doctor and ask more than a single question. She doesn’t want to be viewed as a liability and a “risk”.
I greatly endorse the need for real reform that is sustainable. But the legislation in effect now, despite its many promises, continues the poor access to primary care and replaces an expensive, high tech system with an financially unsustainable and poorly designed patchwork of bandaids, and a focus on getting the lowest paid people possible to take care of us. With the amount we are paying, why are we only getting about 13 more years of Medicare? It seems like Novocaine for a broken leg – it only postpones the pain, and you can’t move forward in any good fashion. I know it is not at all a good system now, but when I see patients already getting their coverage dropped and being told they will need to go on government programs that are as unsustainable as Medicare, can this be the right answer?