Your Health and How has it become a “Crap Shoot”
Politics and health never have been a good mix. The outcome of the evolution of what political game playing and mixing the financing of health with political greed for power is now evident. While Medicare which was put into effect in 1964 has benefited millions of the elder population it too was passed without concern for cost and more important input from physicians (who were largely ignored when they warned it would eventually bankrupt the country. ) Congress was warned by many physician groups that the demand for healthcare can be infinite and by treating medicare as another insurer without restriction would inflate the national debt and fuel medical inflation.
Despite many wars much of our national debt can be attributed to Medicare liabilities current and future. Now the surge in Gen X, Y and Millennial adds to the disaster. Coupled with the national recession and evolution of the global economy it all crystallizes into what we now face.
Today's New York Times:
House Bill Links Health Care Law and Budget Plan
Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the White House budget director, told executive branch officials to begin preparing by updating their contingency plans. This has become so common that we now have what is a several thousand page manual on shutting off our government.
All or none? The Congress is using our health care as a political football. Neither side will not negotiate and it has gradually evolved into the present quagmire. Congress is having it's usual tantrum and is acting out it's negligence. 2010 was the time when this might have been avoided if the law was read and experts were allowed to apply the appropriate fixes to the bill(s).
“House Republicans muscled through a stopgap bill Friday that would fund the government only if all spending for President Obama’s health care law is eliminated. Senate Democrats and President Obama quickly made it clear they had no intention of going along, putting the government on a course toward a shutdown unless one side relents.'
'The 230-to-189 party-line vote in a bitterly divided House set in motion a fiscal confrontation with significant implications — politically and economically — but with an uncertain ending. Without a resolution, large parts of the government could shut down Oct. 1, and a first-ever default on federal debt could follow weeks later.
Each side predicted that the other would be held responsible, but determined House Republicans knew they were taking a risk even as leaders of the party’s establishment warned about the threat of destructive political consequences.'
Mr. Obama called House Speaker John A. Boehner on Friday evening but only to reiterate that he would not negotiate with him on raising the federal debt limit and said it was Congress’s constitutional obligation to pay the nation’s bills. Both sides described the call as brief and fruitless.
Congressional gridlock. It occurs frequently, not just in healthcare. We pay our Presidents and Congressmen well enough to do the 'people's business'. Through a variety of decisions government has forcibly intruded into your physician's and hospitals duties to provide for your health. The football has been intercepted and a one hundred yard game ending run to the goal is now in progress.
The conundrum is that Congress is really not interested in health....it is only interested in a 'victory dance' sponsored by either Elephants or Donkeys. The result will be a stable full of excrement on the floor....needing to be mucked out by the people's assets in the name of taxes and debt to foreign countries.
There must have been a better way to accomplish this goal.
A brilliant physician, Donald Berwick MD, was run out as head of HHS by his choice of words regarding the NHS of the U.K. Berwick is a highly respected former head of the Institute of Medicine, a credible authority on medicine, but a novice in the world of American politics. Our country has an anaphylactic reaction to words such as 'socialism','entitlement',
Berwick holds a position at Harvard Medical School. His N.H.S.remark was poorly worded and timed also a politically unwise statement in public about his wishes for our US health system. Other physicians, including Mike Leavitt and others have been ground up and spit out by politicians. Congress defies expert opinions in many areas of their decision making. Their bad choices overflow into all areas of society, from IT to immigration.
My health is not a Republican vs Democratic issue....to be kicked around for political expediency and headline news. Nor should it be for you either.
The real truth is Obama's statement when speaking to a labor group,
““They’re focused on politics,” Mr. Obama told autoworkers at a Ford plant in Liberty. “They’re focused on trying to mess with me; they’re not focused on you.”
Mr. President, no one is focused on your narcissistic goal of being the President who forced the wrong treatment on our health system. Inaccurate dosing, error in prescribing and malpractice.
(see non-disclaimer and waiver on the right hand banner.)
September 21, 2013
GML
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