Tag Archives: Health care

Dr. Laurie Roth ~ Obamacare Is A Killing Machine And Millions Will Die

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Govt Slaves February 21 2013

This week I gasped in horror when I learned that Obama care had ordered Medicare to cut reimbursement for 4 million diabetic seniors by 66%. It also reduced all the companies that were supplying blood sugar monitoring supplies from 1000 to 15. I also learned via the research of Elizabeth Vliet M.D. that one of her 80 year old patients was told he was not covered anymore by Medicare when he went to the pharmacy so couldn’t get his medication. His choice was to pay cash or die.

Pause for a second and snap out of being mildly annoyed and grow a backbone and a few fangs over this. Just with Diabetic and Heart patients alone you are talking many millions of people, mostly seniors with coverage simply cut off or largely cut back — setting them up to die. That is unless they are millionaires and can afford expensive medication out of pocket. This is called as in the days of Nazi Germany, targeting a group of people for extermination and murdering them.

Millions will suffer and many will die just representing the pull back of coverage with Diabetic and Heart disease patients. Think about all the other diseases and seniors represented with dramatic or total cut backs by Medicare. Just as in Britain’s socialized medicine now, state-of-the-art drugs will be denied for all kinds of common cancer, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and others.

Obama care is nothing more than a padded door to the ovens for the most needy and for our seniors. Obama plays all kinds of games and has lied from the very beginning about this health care assault weapon. He said over and over that people would still have freedom to choose their doctor – that health care freedom and options would continue and there was no such thing as death panels. Liar – liar and liar! IPAB – Independent Payment Advisory Board is nothing but UN elected bureaucrats Obama has put in place to control all health care and order all cuts and limits on people and groups. As with the IRS, the IPAB is Obama’s SS and true Death squad.

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War On Health [Video]

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Life Extension February 8 2013

This new film from award-winning documentary-maker Gary Null delivers irrefutable evidence as to why we have so few cures for killer diseases … and how pharmaceutical companies slaughter tens of thousands of Americans each year with impunity with deadly FDA-approved drugs.

See for yourself why clinical medical practice is advancing at a snail’s pace, while the federal government goes to extraordinary lengths to stamp out those who seek natural and more innovative approaches to disease prevention and treatment.

The war against our health has penetrated government, academia, and the media to such a degree that no sound-bite explanation will expose the magnitude of the problem we face. But this film does!

So do yourself a huge favor. View War on Health* here and now… because you need to know. Then Share it with your friends … because they do, too!

*Funded in part by an educational grant from the Life Extension Foundation®.

Gregory Cummings ~ A Cure For Obamacare: From Canada With Love

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IntelHub | January 4 2013

A new study on Canadian healthcare has been released. In it, the authors examine the deleterious effects of socialized medicineon patient wait times and the delivery of care. It offers Americans a revealing glimpse of the future economic implications of Obamacare.

Released by the Fraser Institute, the December 2012 survey of specialists reveals that Canadians are now waiting 17.7 weeks between the referral to a specialist and the delivery of treatment. This is 91 percent longer than in 1993, when the institute began studying wait times.

In essence, wait times in Canada have doubled in the past twenty years. Sadly, the rationing of care that results in lengthy wait times for patients is a predictable consequence of government interference in the medical system.

Moral Hazard and Overconsumption

Other things the same, consumers (in this case, patients) seek out more medical care as its price decreases. This is simply a reflection of the law of demand. Because patients living under government medical “insurance” pay nothing directly, they seek out medical treatment for increasingly frivolous reasons, squandering valuable resources in the process.

Suddenly, a runny nose during cold and flu season is reason enough to proceed to the hospital. Or an otherwise healthy individual travels to the nearest medical clinic on a weekly basis to have the doctor check his blood pressure. Or an elderly widower visits the emergency room on Christmas Day because he’s lonely. Moral hazard of this sort is all too common in Canada.

No Medicine, No Care

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Paul Craig Roberts ~ Another Phony Employment Report

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Paul Craig Roberts | October 5 2012

October 5 2012 ~ Today’s employment report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows 114,000 new jobs in September and a drop in the rate of unemployment from 8.1% to 7.8%. As 114,000 new jobs are not sufficient to stay even with population growth, the drop in the unemployment rate is the result of not counting discouraged workers who are defined away as “not in the labor force.”

According to the BLS, “In September, 2.5 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force.” These individuals “wanted and were available for work,” but “they were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey.”

In other words, 2.5 million unemployed Americans were not counted as unemployed.

The stock market rose on the phony good news. Bloomberg’s headline: “U.S. Stocks Rise as Unemployment Rate Unexpectedly Drops.”

A truer picture of the dire employment situation is provided by the 600,000 rise over the previous month in involuntary part-time workers. According to the BLS, “These individuals were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job.”

Turning to the 114,000 new jobs, once again the jobs are concentrated in lowly paid domestic service jobs that cannot be offshored. Manufacturing jobs declined by 16,000.

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Michael Tennant ~ After Six Years of RomneyCare, Mass. Imposes Healthcare Price Controls

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The New American | August 8 2012

As surely as night follows day, one government intervention begets another. In Massachusetts, the 2006 healthcare reform law signed by then-Gov. Mitt Romney forced every Bay Stater to buy health insurance and every insurer to cover every applicant regardless of preexisting conditions. Not surprisingly, this created an increase in demand for medical care, driving prices and insurance premiums to the highest levels in the nation.

Now, rather than admit their mistake and repeal Romneycare, elected officials are compounding their errors by imposing cost controls on healthcare. A bill doing just that passed the state House of Representatives overwhelmingly (132-20) and the Senate unanimously. Gov. Deval Patrick signed it into law Monday, saying, “This is a commonwealth that has shown the nation how to extend coverage to everyone, and we’re going to crack the code now on cost control.”

The state’s chosen means of decryption is simply to demand that costs be kept below an arbitrary target. Specifically, for each year through 2017 healthcare spending may not increase faster than Massachusetts’ Gross State Product (GSP) — about half the rate at which it is currently rising. Then from 2018 to 2022 its growth is capped at half a percentage point below the rate of GSP increase. Also, instead of paying providers for each service provided, insurers will be strongly encouraged to pay them on a per-patient basis.

And that’s just the beginning. “Joshua Archambault of the Pioneer Institute finds 941 instances in which the [House version of the] bill mandates that something ‘shall’ be done,” writes Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby. “Among these are more than 25 kinds of penalties, fines, and surcharges, for price control and punishment always go hand in hand.” For instance, a healthcare provider that fails to meet the state’s cost-control targets and does not file or implement a plan to meet them could be fined $500,000.

In addition to setting cost targets, the law mandates electronic health records for all patients, increases state Medicaid payment rates (which will surely prove unhelpful in cutting costs), and imposes a tax on hospitals that charge more than 120 percent of the state median price for a given service.

In charge of implementing all 237 pages of the law is a new Commonwealth Health Care Quality and Finance Authority, whose purpose, according to the legislation, is “to set health care cost containment goals for the commonwealth and to foster innovative health care delivery and payment models that lower health care cost growth while improving the quality of patient care.” What’s more, the authority “shall be an independent public entity not subject to the supervision and control of any other executive office, department, commission, board, bureau, agency or political subdivision of the commonwealth except as specifically provided in any general or special law.” In other words, the authority will essentially have untrammeled power to dictate healthcare costs. And despite the nod to the quality of care, as in all government operations, meeting budgetary targets will take precedence over serving individuals. Price controls, after all, can only lead to shortages and concomitant corner-cutting and rationing.

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Michael McCarty ~ Fair Warning, At The Altar Of The Black Robe

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theintelhub | July 4, 2012

A lawyer I am not, but I do not require the skill of a legal sage to determine that the recent Obamacare decision has rocked the Tree of Liberty in this once great, united, United States of America. The so called “Supreme Court” has delivered a devious blow, and I can feel the treacherous poison of that dastardly deed drill deep in her anchoring roots.

I have long since lost patience with all aspects of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. In fact, I’m angry, and I don’t like that. I’m even angrier because I know that I should not have to be angry. The “Act” was unconstitutional when it was rammed down our throats without our approval. It was unconstitutional when it was sent to the Supreme Court for consideration, and it’s still unconstitutional today, no matter what they say. Even I know that.

Obamacare was put into effect with blunt force trauma, like a doctor performing intricate brain surgery with a long handled shovel. The proceedure cracked the skull and killed the patient with the first big swing, as surely as a surgically placed bullet from the gun of a skilled assassin. In this case the assassin wore a black rope, and his gun was a black ink pen held behind a tall bench in the highest court of the land.

We may never know the true motivations of the man who ultimately decided the fate of Obamacare. That may be between him and whatever god and judgements he may suffer. We do know that it is a complete and utter sham, and not even a good one at that. It is a gift from the dark side, delivered in full sunlight by a new world order as old as time itself, with a mission to create chaos out of the natural order of all good things.

Countries, like men, are the products of countless decisions which impact the makeup of the collective body, and soul. The soul can grow angry, which can make the body very sick. It does not wish to muck about the putrid innards of an angry and rageful man. Nor does it wish to live within the confines of a country so tragically damaged, and fatally diseased.

My level of anger is indescribable. A bucket of cold water in the face of it would not blunt it. It burns as hot as the primordial ember of the first man, who left the trees in search of god and human destiny. That first spark has not gone out. Forever on It waits, to burn out the eternal sickness for once, and for all. It was created just for that. It is part of my soul, and of your’s, and it will burn even brighter long after the body is gone.

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Jonathan Benson ~ Greek Healthcare System Collapses, Hospital Workers Now Working Without Pay

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Natural News | June 22 2012

Natural News ~ The economic situation in Greece is only continuing to worsen, as reports indicate that hospitals and care centers throughout the nation are running completely out of medicines, and many healthcare workers are now voluntarily providing care services without pay.

Strapped with spiraling debt, the Greek healthcare, which is government-run, has had to receive gobs of international financial aid just to keep operating with some semblance of normalcy. There has also been plenty of IOUs issued, and desperate patients quietly forking over cash “gifts” to doctors to receive treatments. All in all, the healthcare situation is in utter chaos, save for those that have sacrificed their own time, often free of charge, just to help those in need.

As we reported here at NaturalNews back in 2010, Big Pharma had already been withholding drugs from Greece because of the country’s inability to pay for them. Greek authorities had tried to negotiate with drug companies to lower the exorbitant costs associated with drugs, and some complied. But many others simply stopped shipping in medicines, leaving thousands of ill patients without any options. (http://www.naturalnews.com/028922_Greece_Big_Pharma.html)

Today, the situation has gotten even worse, particularly because the Greek healthcare system heavily relies on brand-name drugs rather than far-less-expensive alternatives. Since the entire system is clogged because of unpaid bills, many pharmacies, for instance, have had to simply close their doors. Those that still remain and continue to supply drugs on credit — these are few and far between — are being overwhelmed by long lines of desperate patients seeking life-saving medications.

“We’re not talking about painkillers here,” said one Greek woman, a cancer survivor, to Reuters. “We’ve learned to live with physical pain. We need drugs to keep us alive.”

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Paul Craig Roberts ~ No Jobs For Americans

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Paul Craig Roberts | March 10 2012

Today (March 9, 2012) the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced that 227,000 new nonfarm payroll jobs were created by the economy during February. Is the government’s claim true?

No. Statistician John Williams (shadowstats.com) reports that 44,000 of these jobs or 19% consist of an add-on factor derived from the BLS’s estimate that 44,000 more unreported jobs from new business start-ups were created than were lost by unreported business failures. The BLS’s estimate comes from the bureau’s “birth-death model,” which works better during normal times, but delivers erroneous results during troubled times such as the economy has been experiencing during the past four years.

Taking out the 44,000 added-on jobs reduces the February jobs number to 183,000, but does not provide a full correction. In an economy as troubled as the US economy is, most likely the deaths exceeded the births, but we don’t know what the number is. Was it 20,000? 50,000? What number do we deduct from the 183,000? We simply do not know.

Williams reports that seasonal adjustment factors do not work properly during troubled economic times and add their own overstatement to the jobs figure. If anyone could estimate the overestimate of new jobs that results from malfunctioning seasonal adjustments, it is John Williams, but he doesn’t provide an estimate.

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Insurance Industry “Bomb” Buried in Obamacare Explodes – Hallelujah!

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Rick Ungar (Forbes) | Reader Supported News
December 5 2011

The ‘time-bomb’ Ungar refers to actually ‘exploded’ on December 2nd, the day this piece first appeared on Forbes. However, Ungar’s point is not only still relevant, but the ‘bomb’ has been widely ignored by the mainstream media. — JPS/RSN

I have long argued that the impact of the Affordable Care Act is not nearly as big of a deal as opponents would have you believe. At the end of the day, the law is – in the main – little more than a successful effort to put an end to some of the more egregious health insurer abuses while creating an environment that should bring more Americans into programs that will give them at least some of the health care coverage they need.

There is, however, one notable exception – and it’s one that should have a long lasting and powerful impact on the future of health care in our country.

That would be the provision of the law, called the medical loss ratio, that requires health insurance companies to spend 80% of the consumers’ premium dollars they collect – 85% for large group insurers – on actual medical care rather than overhead, marketing expenses and profit. Failure on the part of insurers to meet this requirement will result in the insurers having to send their customers a rebate check representing the amount in which they underspend on actual medical care.

This is the true ‘bomb’ contained in Obamacare and the one item that will have more impact on the future of how medical care is paid for in this country than anything we’ve seen in quite some time. Indeed, it is this aspect of the law that represents the true ‘death panel’ found in Obamacare – but not one that is going to lead to the death of American consumers. Rather, the medical loss ratio will, ultimately, lead to the death of large parts of the private, for-profit health insurance industry.

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Does the U.S. Have the World’s Best Health Care System? Yes, If You’re Talking About the Third World

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Wendell Potter | Common Dreams
November 29 2011

A little more than a year ago, on the day after the GOP regained control of the House of Representatives, Speaker-to-be John Boehner said one of the first orders of business after he took charge would be the repeal of health care reform.

“I believe that the health care bill that was enacted by the current Congress will kill jobs in America, ruin the best health care system in the world, and bankrupt our country,” Boehner said at a press conference. “That means we have to do everything we can to try to repeal this bill and replace it with common sense reforms to bring down the cost of health care.”

Boehner is not the first nor the only Republican to try to make us believe that the U.S. has the world’s best health care system and that we’re bound to lose that distinction because of Obamacare. I’ve heard GOP candidates for president say the same thing in recent months, charging that we need to get rid of a President who clearly is trying to fix something that doesn’t need fixing, something that isn’t broken in the first place.

Well, those guys need to get out more. Out of the country, in fact. They need to travel to at least one of the many countries that are doing a much better job of delivering high quality care at much lower costs than the good old USA.

If they’re not interested in a fact-finding mission abroad, then perhaps they might take a look at two recent reports before they make any other statements about the quality of American health care.

Last week, the 34-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation (OECD) released the results of its most recent study of the health care systems in its member countries, including the U.S., plus six others, for a total of 40. And those results are illuminating.

If Boehner and his fellow Republicans had characterized the U.S. system as the most expensive in the world, they would have been right on target. But they would have been way off base by calling it the best.

The OECD report is just the most recent evidence that Americans are not getting nearly as much bang for the health care buck as citizens of most other developed countries — and even some countries in the developing world.

The OECD found that the United States spends two-and-a-half times more on health care per person than the OECD average. The U.S. even spends more than twice as much as France, which many experts contend has one of the best health care systems on the planet.

The average expenditure per person in the U.S. is $7,960, a third more than in Norway, the second highest. The OECD average, by comparison, is just $3,233. (It is $3,873 in France.)

Here are some reasons why: Hospital spending is 60 percent higher than the average of five other relatively expensive countries (Switzerland, Canada, Germany, France and Japan); spending on pharmaceuticals and medical goods is much higher here than any of the other countries; and administrative costs are more than two-and-a-half times the average of the others.

It was not all bad news for us. We’re number one in the five-year breast cancer survival rate and number two (behind Japan) in the five-year colorectal cancer survival rate. We’re also number one in costly knee replacements and number two (again behind Japan) in the number of MRI units per million people.

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Big Corporation, Tiny Heart

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By Jim Hightower | Nation Of Change
November 14 2011

OP-ED | How small can a giant corporation get? I don’t mean in size, but in spirit.

Once again, America’s biggest commercial empire — Walmart — is displaying its incredibly shriveled ethical center by whacking the already meager health care benefits that hundreds of thousands of its workers count on.

Just a couple of years ago, this $408 billion-a-year retailing colossus tried to hush critics of its Dickensian labor policies by ballyhooing a bare-bones health care plan for its “associates.” The insurance scheme had such high deductibles, however, that barely half of its employees bought into it.

Now, even that benefit is being yanked from the 40 percent of Walmart’s employees who are part-time workers. Also, insurance premiums and deductibles are being dramatically jacked up for thousands of full-time workers. For example, one full-timer who’s paid only $12,000 a year will see her premium more than double to about $3,300 a year — a fourth of her income! “I won’t be able to afford the insurance,” she says, “and I really can’t go without insurance, because I have a heart problem.”

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