We've Moved Way Past "Hammock"

James Pethokoukis has six charts that ought to scare you to death.

I heard Allen West say the other day that welfare was meant to be a safety net, not a hammock.  According to these charts, it's not only become a hammock but a TempurPedic mattress.

This chart shows the explosion of the entitlement state:

Look at the other charts and keep in mind, this is BEFORE Obamacare hits.

(H/T:  Memeorandum)

Seniors Out of Luck Under Obamacare

This is the kind of thing that makes my blood boil; it's the kind of thing that makes me double over with dry heaves when the libs paint themselves as the party of compassion:

In his analysis accompanying the recently released Annual Report of the Medicare Board of Trustees, Richard Foster, Medicare's chief actuary, noted that Medicare payment rates for doctors and hospitals serving seniors will be cut by 30% over the next three years. Under the policies of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, by 2019 Medicare payment rates will be lower than under Medicaid. Mr. Foster notes that by the end of the 75-year projection period in the Annual Medicare Trustees Report, Medicare payment rates will be one-third of what will be paid by private insurance, and only half of what is paid by Medicaid.

Altogether, ObamaCare cuts $818 billion from Medicare Part A (hospital insurance) from 2014-2023, the first 10 years of its full implementation, and $3.2 trillion over the first 20 years, 2014-2033. Adding in ObamaCare cuts for Medicare Part B (physicians fees and other services) brings the total cut to $1.05 trillion over the first 10 years and $4.95 trillion over the first 20 years. 

That's via Peter Ferrara and Larry Hunter at WSJ.  There's more and it's worse.  Read the whole thing.
 
And don't expect the Medicare Czar to get all up in arms about this.  It's exactly what Dr. Death Panel would want.  And let's not forget, AARP endorsed this garbage for their members, too.

Oh and if that doesn't rock your boat, you might take note of the fact that private insurance is going up too.

Yeah.  All that crap about "if you like your health care plan, you can keep it!"  was exactly that.  Crap.  

The party of compassion doesn't care much about your mother.  Or your grandmother.  Or you, for that matter. 

Joe Wilson was right.

Dr. Death Panel Gets a Recess Appointment

Dr. Death Panel gets a recess appointment - who is surprised?

The most transparent administration ever has decided to circumvent Senate confirmation hearings on Dr. Donald Berwick, Medicare Czar, and "deem" him confirmed, at least through next year.

Yes, it's true that presidents on both sides of the aisle have used recess appointments and by definition they are controversial.  However this country has never been faced with such a massive power grab as Obamacare and now the American people aren't going to hear Dr. Berwick answer questions about he'll administer his part of it.

Transparency!

Team Obama is concerned that confirmation hearings would reopen the health care debate right before the fall elections, as if we've forgotten, so we'll just skip that part until after the elections.  I have not forgotten.  I'll  be lots of Americans haven't forgotten.  In fact, according to Rasmussen, 60% of Americans polled favor repeal of Obamacare.

You will remember that Berwick said,

"The more I have studied it, the more I believe that less discretion for doctors would improve patient safety." He then looks down. "Doctors will hate me for saying that."

Less discretion for doctors implies MORE discretion for bureaucrats.  This is not good when you're referring to health care.

Berwick also said that

"any health care funding plan that is just, equitable, civilized and humane must, must redistribute wealth from the richer among us to the poorer and the less fortunate.  Excellent health care is by definition redistributional."

He's a known advocate for rationing and gets starry eyed when talking about the British NHS, a system fraught with rationing, overcrowding, inferior care, and horror stories.

Berwick speaks out against private enterprise.  In fact, he criticizes "the darkness of private enterprise instead of accepting that a politically accountable system must act in the harsh and admittedly sometimes very unfair daylight of the press, public debate and political campaigning."

I guess that "politically accountable system" that "must act in the harsh and admittedly sometimes very unfair daylight of the press" and "public debate" doesn't apply to his appointment or to the Obama administration.

Obama's Medicare Czar: It's Worse than You Thought

(Thanks Michelle Malkin for the link! )

(See also:  Dr. Death Panel Gets a Recess Appointment)

Here is Obama's pick for Medicare czar, Dr. Donald Berwick, explaining how the ideal medical system should act.  He is speaking to a British audience in 2008 about how wonderful their national health care system is.  He applauds them for choosing their system over a "simpler, less ambitious, less troubled plan than the NHS; you could have had the American plan.  You could have been spending 17% of your GDP to make health care unaffordable as a human right instead of spending 9% and guaranteeing it as a human right."

Yes, Berwick loves the NHS.  In fact, he criticizes "the darkness of private enterprise instead of accepting that a politically accountable system must act in the harsh and admittedly sometimes very unfair daylight of the press, public debate and political campaigning."

Berwick says you should use "your tax base to provide a single route of finance" instead of a "monstrous insurance industry of claims and rules and paper pushing."

He says the NHS recognizes that "sick people tend to be poorer and that poor people tend to be sicker."

And the kicker:

Berwick says that "any health care funding plan that is just, equitable, civilized and humane must, must redistribute wealth from the richer among us to the poorer and the less fortunate.  Excellent health care is by definition redistributional."

Hear it for yourself:



The buzz is building against this guy.

Red State had a detailed article about him yesterday.

Here are my earlier posts on Berwick here and here and here.

American Spectator also has some informative posts on Berwick by Robert Goldberg and Philip Klein. 

Mark Levin is all over this guy and I'm sure Glenn Beck must be too, although I don't watch him.

Naturally The New York Times does not report any of his controversial opinions; in fact, they conclude:

Dr. Berwick could help shield the White House from Republican charges that Mr. Obama’s policies would lead to the rationing of care or even a government takeover.

Their piece on his selection is here.

Berwick must be confirmed by the Senate.  Start making your phone calls now!

"Less discretion for doctors would improve patient safety" Says Obama's Pick for CMS

I posted earlier in the week on Robert Goldberg's American Spectator piece about Dr. Donald Berwick.  Since then I've been doing some research on Berwick, which is to say that I've been reading articles he has written.  It's quite an eye opener, as Goldberg suggested in his piece.

Berwick was recently appointed by Obama to be administrator for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, formerly known as Health Care Financing Institution.  The CMS is, of course, a federal agency and comes under the Department of Health and Human Services.  The agency also oversees HIPAA and quality standards in nursing homes.

According to Wikipedia (a source I'm always dubious of but is sometimes reliable), CMS employs around 4,100 with most of those at its headquarters in Maryland.  As Goldberg explained, it's a huge job with much power.

So, what does Berwick actually stand for, or believe?

Goldberg's focus was primarily on Berwick's admiration for and obsession with Britain's National Health Service.  We've all read the horror stories over Britain's health care system, as well as the abbreviated life expectancies for patients with serious illness such as cancer.

 Berwick has made other observations and suggestions about revolutionizing the American health care system which we should make note of.

By all accounts Berwick is a personable man and delivers a powerful speech.  As Alex Gibney wrote in The Atlantic, "He is not an ideologue. He is a pragmatist, armed with data, real-life experiences and a determination to make things better. Even more important for this job, he is a great communicator who does not harangue; he persuades."

He apparently has a "folksy" good humor and  can spin a good yarn.  He hails from Connecticut and is a Harvard grad.  He practiced pediatrics and later founded the Institute for Healthcare Improvement.

What is troublesome is his affinity for the British NHS and its methods.

In 2004, in an article for Quality and Safety in Health Care, Berwick compared the British health care system to its American counterpart.  He explained that "Equity and excessive cost are far more urgent problems in the U.S., which timeliness ranks at the top of the NHS improvement agenda."

Timeliness indeed.  The stories of inferior care, refusal to fund certain drugs and long waits for care or appointments are rampant.  Yet our new CMS administrator is enamored with this system.

In the QSHC article, Berwick also said that one advantage of the UK system is that "the UK has people in charge of its health care -- people with the clear duty and much of the authority to take on the challenge of changing the system as a whole.  The US does not.  When it comes to health care as a nation, the US is leaderless."  He went on to say that the most important resource for the UK system "has been the consistent focus of government, emanating from the Prime Minister personally on raising the bar for NHS performance."

This is what we now have in America with Obamacare.  The government in charge of health care decisions. 

Not one to shy away from dissing those in the medical profession, Berwick explained that one problem in our current health care system is the inadequate training of our health care professionals.  These people are emerging from school

"...ill prepared to help.  The education of health professionals generally lacks focus on the skills in systems thinking, statistical thinking, measurement, cooperation, group process,teamwork, and pragmatic ‘‘real time science,’’ to name but a few disciplines that provide the foundation for effective citizenship in improvement."

Honestly, I'd rather have my doctor trained and experienced in say biology, cardiac care, internal medicine, pulmonary care, orthopedics, or whatever the case may be, rather than "systems thinking" or "group process teamwork."   Maybe that's just me.

In an article at The Boston Globe, Berwick is quoted as saying,

"The more I have studied it, the more I believe that less discretion for doctors would improve patient safety." He then looks down. "Doctors will hate me for saying that."

Less discretion for doctors?  And more for government, I presume?  Scientific protocols?  Death panels,anyone?

Another aspect of American health care that Berwick criticizes is what he calls "quantity over quality."  This basically seems to mean that doctors perform lots of unnecessary tests because they get paid for them.  Didn't I hear this before?  Hmmmm.  Anyway,  listen to Berwick explain this:


Don Berwick #1: "Is American Healthcare the Best in the World?" from Century Foundation on Vimeo.

 I've not yet found anything where Berwick addresses tort reform or frivolous lawsuits which might bring down the need for some of those unnecessary tests.

Berwick will undergo a confirmation hearing, but Maggie Mahar at Health Beat isn't worried.  "kcan handle himself," she said.  That may be so, but it may also be time for the rest of us to take a look at what he really stands for and how drastically he wants to revolutionize American health care.

McCaskill Says Cut Scooters and CAT Scans!

Senator Claire McCaskill steps in it once again, this time on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace. Wallace asked the Senator if it was really possible to take hundreds of billions of dollars out of Medicare without cutting services. The good Senator's response? Cut scooters and CAT scans!

"Well, I don't know how many ads you've seen for scooters on cable TV, but I see a lot of them. Those are scooters paid for by the American people, and a lot of them are going to folks who don't need scooters.

"It's one example of many examples where we are paying for services or things instead of outcomes. And I think it's very important that we start focusing on the patient and what's good for the patient rather than five or 10 or eight CAT scans in one week so docs and hospitals are trying to pay for those machines. "

Well of course doctors are only ordering CAT scans to pay for those darned expensive machines. While it's quite possible that fraud or misuse occurs in the scooter program, I doubt that it's enough to fund ObamaCare. The requirements for obtaining a scooter funded through Medicare are fairly explicit; to support McCaskill's thesis, one would have to assume that most doctors writing orders for scooters are corrupt.

Sounds like McCaskill is watching too much late night cable.