What ACTUALLY happens when you go Obamacare

**Big Train** · 10-12-2009, 06:17 PM

Hot Air » Blog Archive » Massachusetts goes for rationing? Update: Incentivizing profit over care?

Massachusetts goes for rationing? Update: Incentivizing profit over care?

The Massachusetts adventure in health-care reform will take an entirely predictable turn in the near future, say providers within the network. The state panel intends to dictate a narrower network of providers for some insurance plans, which providers insist will result in a reduction of services to patients in hospitals and clinics. Massachusetts wants its citizens to choose second-tier hospitals and clinics to save costs, and plans to eliminate choice as a means to that end (via Instapundit):

The state’s ambitious plan to shake up how providers are paid could have a hidden price for patients: Controlling Massachusetts’ soaring medical costs, many health care leaders believe, may require residents to give up their nearly unlimited freedom to go to any hospital and specialist they want.
Efforts to keep patients in a defined provider network, or direct them to lower-cost hospitals could be unpopular, especially in a state where more than 40 percent of hospital care is provided in expensive academic medical centers and where many insurance policies allow patients access to large numbers of providers.

But a growing number of hospital officials and physician leaders warn that the new payment system proposed by a state commission would not work without restrictions on where patients receive care - an issue some providers say the commission and the Patrick administration have glossed over.

“You can’t reap these savings without limiting patients’ choices in some way,’’ said Paul Levy, chief executive of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. “It’s a huge issue, it’s huge.’’ Dr. James Mongan, president of Partners HealthCare, a Beth Israel Deaconess competitor, agreed that it wouldn’t “work without some restriction on choice.’’

Remember this every time Barack Obama and Democrats insist that we can keep our doctors and our hospitals if we like them, or that ObamaCare will not limit patient choice. The end result of state intervention and price fixing is always higher costs, followed by rationing. Insurance companies at least have competitive pressures keeping them efficient, but when prices get fixed by the state, that efficiency goes out the window. As costs escalate, the state intervenes in other ways to keep subsidies from skyrocketing, and this is the inevitable result.

The other option is to cut payments to the premier hospitals, which will force them to take fewer patients. The result of that approach will be very easy to predict. The best hospitals will take primarily those patients who can afford to pay their premium prices, leaving the poor and middle-class patients to get treated elsewhere. It will stratify health care much more than before Massachusetts enacted its “reforms”, giving the rich almost exclusive access to the best care. And thanks to lousy compensation rates, fewer new providers will be around to meet the new demand in second-tier care, meaning much longer wait times for the poor and middle-class patients.
This is a microcosm of what we can expect on a national basis if ObamaCare gets enacted. Will the media start reporting this in that context?
Update: Paul Hsieh, a physician himself, notes the curious incentive being applied by Massachusetts:

What the supporters don’t mention is that it also creates a tremendous incentive for physicians and hospitals to render as little care as possible. Under the Massachusetts proposal, if your care costs less than the annual allotment, then they keep the unused portion. If your care costs more, then the difference comes out of the providers’ pockets. Such a system thus pits your doctor’s interests against your own.

For the sake of argument, suppose your annual allotment is $5000 and you’ve already spent $4500 for that year. Now you go to your doctor’s office complaining of a severe headache. He examines you and says, “No, Bill, you don’t need a $1000 MRI scan of your brain. Just take two Tylenol and call me in the morning”.

Will you be 100% sure that he’s giving you unbiased medical advice?
And even if your doctor consistently and conscientiously acts for his patients’ best interests, he will inevitably find himself at odds with hospital administrators questioning whether this or that expenditure is appropriate[.]

**FORD** · 10-12-2009, 06:22 PM

There will be no national forced corporate insurance mandate! The minute they tried that shit, there would be revolution in the streets, and it wouldn't be the fucking teabaggers who started it.

**Nickdfresh** · 10-12-2009, 06:23 PM

Dude, what's with the constant stream of op-ed blogspam filled with the bullshit facts?

This isn't a mirror for Hotair/Townhall.com, etc.

**Big Train** · 10-12-2009, 06:59 PM

Sorry Dude...I'll make sure I get everything approved by you in advance from now on. Or just respond to your threads...whatever will keep you happy.

And just for my clarification (so I can see your point of view and then get relevant articles on current issues from your preapproved sources), what bullshit facts were in this "spam" exactly and specifically?

**FORD** · 10-12-2009, 07:02 PM

Well, the idea that Romneycare has anything to do with the bill Obama will sign, that's certainly BULLSHIT.

**Nickdfresh** · 10-12-2009, 07:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Big Train

Sorry Dude...I'll make sure I get everything approved by you in advance from now on. Or just respond to your threads...whatever will keep you happy.
...

Thank you in advance...

**Big Train** · 10-12-2009, 07:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FORD

Well, the idea that Romneycare has anything to do with the bill Obama will sign, that's certainly BULLSHIT.

I don't expect you to get the satire of the title...it's the overarching THEME of what happens when government gets overly involved in healthcare.

**Big Train** · 10-12-2009, 07:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nickdfresh

Thank you in advance...

Kindly in return, please provide all of us a list that won't enrage the mod gods...

An exact and specific list of approved news sources that are considered "legit" in your educated eyes, would be most appreciated.

**Guitar Shark** · 10-12-2009, 07:08 PM

Blogs are the answer for stupid people who want to seem smart.

**FORD** · 10-12-2009, 07:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Big Train

I don't expect you to get the satire of the title...it's the overarching THEME of what happens when government gets overly involved in healthcare.

What happens when government gets involved in healthcare?

I'll let one of our foreign correspondents handle that one. Or one of our veterans, who can tell you about the "socialized" VA system.

I've seen what happens when insurance corporations get involved in health care, and THAT is the problem we have in this country.

**Big Train** · 10-12-2009, 07:11 PM

The ins. companies wouldn't have this level of involvement in MA if the GOVERNMENT hadn't mandated it so.

**letsrock** · 10-12-2009, 07:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FORD

What happens when government gets involved in healthcare?

I'll let one of our foreign correspondents handle that one. Or one of our veterans, who can tell you about the "socialized" VA system.

I've seen what happens when insurance corporations get involved in health care, and THAT is the problem we have in this country.

Right if your a Vet in Ohio and the VA see's that you have kidney stones they will use a lazer on them. But if you have a bunch like me that havent come loose yet, they will do the water shock thing to crush them. But the problem is that the nearest VA facility is in Wisconsin, that has the machine.

Do the math.

**standin** · 10-13-2009, 12:52 AM

Letsrock,
I am not sure what math you mean, the mileage to Wisconsin? But going to where the medicine is SOP. Even St Jude and Ronald McDonald House asks people to go to where the medicine is.

I was asked to go to the mayo clinic in Jacksonville. And I am just miles from MCG. I choose to tough it out here. It was my choice to go to the Mayo or not. Did my doctor throw a pouting secession? Yea, he did. Would my care had gone faster at the Mayo? Maybe. But, I didn't want to move or travel regularly to the Mayo. I might not have gotten Mayo level care, but we worked it out here OK enough. Presently, I drive an hour and a half to my blood doctor.
You got to go where the doctors and machines are. They don't come to you.

**letsrock** · 10-13-2009, 12:01 PM

Why doesnt the VA contract with the Cleveland Clinic or or health care centers.
Or someone in another city that has the same problem needing a machine. If you do the math of a roundtrip airfare and all the costs to fly vets around its a ridiculous waste of money.

It is your taxes after all.

**chan_bkny** · 10-13-2009, 01:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Guitar Shark

Blogs are the answer for stupid people who want to seem smart.

Excuse me?

**Nickdfresh** · 10-13-2009, 02:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Big Train

Kindly in return, please provide all of us a list that won't enrage the mod gods...

I'm not "enraged," nor have I ever said you can or can't post something. And capitalize "God" when you refer to me as it.

Quote:

An exact and specific list of approved news sources that are considered "legit" in your educated eyes, would be most appreciated.

Nothing is infallible and anything is open to question. But, the very tone of your question shows how fucked up the internet has made things and possibly retarded society.

My only point is to acknowledge the difference between news and partisan propaganda editorials...

**Guitar Shark** · 10-13-2009, 04:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chan_bkny

Excuse me?

There are exceptions to every rule, of course...

My comment was inspired by the first post in this thread, which is a blog post from some wacko at "Hot Air," which describes itself as "the world’s first full-service conservative Internet broadcast network."

Any author who derisively refers to the current health care proposal as "ObamaCare" exposes his or her lack of journalistic integrity, in my opinion.

My ultimate point is that the rise of blogs in America has led to an unfortunate situation where serious journalistic ethics (vetting sources, providing balanced viewpoints, etc) has fallen by the wayside. Instead, there is now a blog to represent every particular ideology, yet they are often espoused as "fact" or "news" when really they are nothing of the sort. It's sensationalism in the worst sense.

Just my $.02.

**Jesus Christ** · 10-13-2009, 05:10 PM

If there had been an internet when I was upon the Earth, My apostles might hath had blogs where they wrote about Me.

Or I might hath had a blog that criticized the Pharisee hypocrites.

**letsrock** · 10-13-2009, 05:38 PM

Basically everyone will be on the VA plan.

Enjoy.

**WACF** · 10-13-2009, 06:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Guitar Shark

There are exceptions to every rule, of course...

My comment was inspired by the first post in this thread, which is a blog post from some wacko at "Hot Air," which describes itself as "the world’s first full-service conservative Internet broadcast network."

Any author who derisively refers to the current health care proposal as "ObamaCare" exposes his or her lack of journalistic integrity, in my opinion.

My ultimate point is that the rise of blogs in America has led to an unfortunate situation where serious journalistic ethics (vetting sources, providing balanced viewpoints, etc) has fallen by the wayside. Instead, there is now a blog to represent every particular ideology, yet they are often espoused as "fact" or "news" when really they are nothing of the sort. It's sensationalism in the worst sense.

Just my $.02.

Up North...I have seen blogs change our main stream media.

The CBC was busted a few times for making up stories about PM Stephan Harper...or changing the slant...creative editing to ask one question and give a horrible answer that belonged to another.

Quite frankly...blogs have made Canadian media more accountable.

**Guitar Shark** · 10-13-2009, 06:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WACF

Up North...I have seen blogs change our main stream media.

The CBC was busted a few times for making up stories about PM Stephan Harper...or changing the slant...creative editing to ask one question and give a horrible answer that belonged to another.

Quite frankly...blogs have made Canadian media more accountable.

There have been instances of that in the States, too. I may have painted with too broad a brush, but there is definitely a flip side to the "accountability" issue. Mainstream journalists have a system of checks and balances in place, at least superficially, to ensure a certain degree of accuracy and reliability. But to whom is a random blogger accountable?

**Hardrock69** · 10-14-2009, 11:09 AM

Quote:

What ACTUALLY happens when you go Obamacare

Nobody knows what ACTUALLY happens because there is no such thing as "Obamacare".

All that exists right now is a bunch of draft legislation and a lot of yelling and screaming from idiot sheeple who think we are going to descend somehow into "Communism", and a lot of frightened insurance executives who may see their obscene profit margins go up in smoke.

10-12-2009, 06:17 PM	#1 (permalink)
Big Train Full Member Status Join Date: Apr 2004 Member Number: 3741 Location: Los Angeles Posts: 4,011 Thanks: 63 Thanked 92 Times in 76 Posts Groans: 28 Groaned at 53 Times in 43 Posts Rep Power: 10 Last Online: 11-24-2009 10:21 PM	What ACTUALLY happens when you go Obamacare Hot Air » Blog Archive » Massachusetts goes for rationing? Update: Incentivizing profit over care? Massachusetts goes for rationing? Update: Incentivizing profit over care? The Massachusetts adventure in health-care reform will take an entirely predictable turn in the near future, say providers within the network. The state panel intends to dictate a narrower network of providers for some insurance plans, which providers insist will result in a reduction of services to patients in hospitals and clinics. Massachusetts wants its citizens to choose second-tier hospitals and clinics to save costs, and plans to eliminate choice as a means to that end (via Instapundit): The state’s ambitious plan to shake up how providers are paid could have a hidden price for patients: Controlling Massachusetts’ soaring medical costs, many health care leaders believe, may require residents to give up their nearly unlimited freedom to go to any hospital and specialist they want. Efforts to keep patients in a defined provider network, or direct them to lower-cost hospitals could be unpopular, especially in a state where more than 40 percent of hospital care is provided in expensive academic medical centers and where many insurance policies allow patients access to large numbers of providers. But a growing number of hospital officials and physician leaders warn that the new payment system proposed by a state commission would not work without restrictions on where patients receive care - an issue some providers say the commission and the Patrick administration have glossed over. “You can’t reap these savings without limiting patients’ choices in some way,’’ said Paul Levy, chief executive of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. “It’s a huge issue, it’s huge.’’ Dr. James Mongan, president of Partners HealthCare, a Beth Israel Deaconess competitor, agreed that it wouldn’t “work without some restriction on choice.’’ Remember this every time Barack Obama and Democrats insist that we can keep our doctors and our hospitals if we like them, or that ObamaCare will not limit patient choice. The end result of state intervention and price fixing is always higher costs, followed by rationing. Insurance companies at least have competitive pressures keeping them efficient, but when prices get fixed by the state, that efficiency goes out the window. As costs escalate, the state intervenes in other ways to keep subsidies from skyrocketing, and this is the inevitable result. The other option is to cut payments to the premier hospitals, which will force them to take fewer patients. The result of that approach will be very easy to predict. The best hospitals will take primarily those patients who can afford to pay their premium prices, leaving the poor and middle-class patients to get treated elsewhere. It will stratify health care much more than before Massachusetts enacted its “reforms”, giving the rich almost exclusive access to the best care. And thanks to lousy compensation rates, fewer new providers will be around to meet the new demand in second-tier care, meaning much longer wait times for the poor and middle-class patients. This is a microcosm of what we can expect on a national basis if ObamaCare gets enacted. Will the media start reporting this in that context? Update: Paul Hsieh, a physician himself, notes the curious incentive being applied by Massachusetts: What the supporters don’t mention is that it also creates a tremendous incentive for physicians and hospitals to render as little care as possible. Under the Massachusetts proposal, if your care costs less than the annual allotment, then they keep the unused portion. If your care costs more, then the difference comes out of the providers’ pockets. Such a system thus pits your doctor’s interests against your own. For the sake of argument, suppose your annual allotment is $5000 and you’ve already spent $4500 for that year. Now you go to your doctor’s office complaining of a severe headache. He examines you and says, “No, Bill, you don’t need a $1000 MRI scan of your brain. Just take two Tylenol and call me in the morning”. Will you be 100% sure that he’s giving you unbiased medical advice? And even if your doctor consistently and conscientiously acts for his patients’ best interests, he will inevitably find himself at odds with hospital administrators questioning whether this or that expenditure is appropriate[.]

10-12-2009, 06:22 PM	#2 (permalink)
FORD YEEEEAAAARRRRGGGGHHHH! ROTH ARMY MODERATOR Join Date: Jan 2004 Member Number: 32 Location: Cascadia Posts: 30,194 Thanks: 787 Thanked 1,181 Times in 870 Posts Groans: 404 Groaned at 164 Times in 156 Posts Rep Power: 49 Last Online: Today 07:32 AM	There will be no national forced corporate insurance mandate! The minute they tried that shit, there would be revolution in the streets, and it wouldn't be the fucking teabaggers who started it. __________________ Eat Us And Smile Listen to the Mike Malloy show, and hear the truth. 6: 00 PM Pacific/9: 00 Eastern "If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them, will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." ~Thomas Jefferson

10-12-2009, 06:23 PM	#3 (permalink)
Nickdfresh Can't get this no mo' ROTH ARMY MODERATOR Join Date: Oct 2004 Member Number: 8719 Location: Buffalo, NY Age: 39 Posts: 31,406 Blog Entries: 1 Thanks: 290 Thanked 843 Times in 653 Posts Groans: 20 Groaned at 153 Times in 139 Posts Images: 1 Rep Power: 46 Last Online: Yesterday 09:06 PM	Dude, what's with the constant stream of op-ed blogspam filled with the bullshit facts? This isn't a mirror for Hotair/Townhall.com, etc. __________________ "They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security." --Ben Franklin

10-12-2009, 06:59 PM	#4 (permalink)
Big Train Full Member Status Join Date: Apr 2004 Member Number: 3741 Location: Los Angeles Posts: 4,011 Thanks: 63 Thanked 92 Times in 76 Posts Groans: 28 Groaned at 53 Times in 43 Posts Rep Power: 10 Last Online: 11-24-2009 10:21 PM	Sorry Dude...I'll make sure I get everything approved by you in advance from now on. Or just respond to your threads...whatever will keep you happy. And just for my clarification (so I can see your point of view and then get relevant articles on current issues from your preapproved sources), what bullshit facts were in this "spam" exactly and specifically? Last edited by Big Train; 10-12-2009 at 07:01 PM.

10-12-2009, 07:02 PM	#5 (permalink)
FORD YEEEEAAAARRRRGGGGHHHH! ROTH ARMY MODERATOR Join Date: Jan 2004 Member Number: 32 Location: Cascadia Posts: 30,194 Thanks: 787 Thanked 1,181 Times in 870 Posts Groans: 404 Groaned at 164 Times in 156 Posts Rep Power: 49 Last Online: Today 07:32 AM	Well, the idea that Romneycare has anything to do with the bill Obama will sign, that's certainly BULLSHIT. __________________ Eat Us And Smile Listen to the Mike Malloy show, and hear the truth. 6: 00 PM Pacific/9: 00 Eastern "If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them, will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." ~Thomas Jefferson

10-12-2009, 07:11 PM	#11 (permalink)
Big Train Full Member Status Join Date: Apr 2004 Member Number: 3741 Location: Los Angeles Posts: 4,011 Thanks: 63 Thanked 92 Times in 76 Posts Groans: 28 Groaned at 53 Times in 43 Posts Rep Power: 10 Last Online: 11-24-2009 10:21 PM	The ins. companies wouldn't have this level of involvement in MA if the GOVERNMENT hadn't mandated it so.

10-13-2009, 12:01 PM	#14 (permalink)
letsrock Veteran Join Date: Mar 2007 Member Number: 23133 Location: Ohio Age: 40 Posts: 1,595 Thanks: 130 Thanked 41 Times in 41 Posts Groans: 92 Groaned at 107 Times in 76 Posts Rep Power: 4 Last Online: 03-06-2010 01:48 PM	Why doesnt the VA contract with the Cleveland Clinic or or health care centers. Or someone in another city that has the same problem needing a machine. If you do the math of a roundtrip airfare and all the costs to fly vets around its a ridiculous waste of money. It is your taxes after all.

10-13-2009, 05:10 PM	#18 (permalink)
Jesus Christ Messiah Veteran Join Date: Jan 2004 Member Number: 34 Location: Heaven Posts: 1,518 Thanks: 20 Thanked 36 Times in 32 Posts Groans: 32 Groaned at 14 Times in 13 Posts Rep Power: 8 Last Online: 02-23-2010 04:23 PM	If there had been an internet when I was upon the Earth, My apostles might hath had blogs where they wrote about Me. Or I might hath had a blog that criticized the Pharisee hypocrites.

10-13-2009, 05:38 PM	#19 (permalink)
letsrock Veteran Join Date: Mar 2007 Member Number: 23133 Location: Ohio Age: 40 Posts: 1,595 Thanks: 130 Thanked 41 Times in 41 Posts Groans: 92 Groaned at 107 Times in 76 Posts Rep Power: 4 Last Online: 03-06-2010 01:48 PM	Basically everyone will be on the VA plan. Enjoy.

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