Ga.’s wild and crazy Rep. Paul Broun strikes again
As TPM notes, the good doctor (sarc) wrote a letter for a mailing by the American Conservative Union warning that if health care reform passes, “your doctor may be banned from giving you or your loved ones the life-saving care they need!”
“Obama has created a new $2 billion federal bureaucracy — a national health care rationing board — that will decide if the medical care you need is “cost efficient.”
And if these federal bureaucrats decide that your treatment is not “Government Approved,” then your doctor will be ordered to deny you treatment… or risk facing stiff penalties!
Sadly, it’s senior citizens who will be hit hardest by Obama’s new plan.
Obama and his advisors are modeling this rationing board after European systems that use age and life-expectancy as key factors in deciding the “cost efficiency” of a procedure.
In other words: When mama falls and breaks her hip, she’ll just lie in her bed in pain until she dies with pneumonia because her needed surgery is not cost efficient.
That last paragraph just makes it all so special….
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294 comments Add your comment
Emory Eagle
August 15th, 2009
10:37 am
Jay,
I think the extreme views are pretty well documented
NRB
August 15th, 2009
10:38 am
Stop whining Jay,
You’re not getting your commie-care.
Emory Eagle
August 15th, 2009
10:39 am
Whoops, hit “submit” too early…but what about the cost of this bill? I’d like to see a couple posts about how to pay for it, because it sure as heck is going to cost more than expected.
I Report/ I Am The Mob :-) You Whine :-(
August 15th, 2009
10:43 am
Obozo lies about 46 million uninsured, he lies about life expectancy, he lies about high costs, he lies about the trial lawyers and ambulance chasers and bookman thinks Broun is “extreme?”
TGT
August 15th, 2009
10:49 am
For those who missed it: What I learned from my wife’s month in the British medical system.
ByteMe
August 15th, 2009
10:49 am
Eagle: you must have missed yesterday’s Town Hall, since Obama covered it very clearly then.
The shortfall is about $80-$90 billion per year (according to CBO estimates). About half to 2/3 is going to come from savings (CBO estimate says that as well) via changes in the rules and what’s allowed to be charged. The rest is coming from the promised Obama small tax increase on people making above $250K (about $30-$50 billion per year, which is pretty much small change in a $3 trillion budget).
Hey, Jay, when is the AJC going to get around to getting a real conservative to blog so that the wingnut whiners can all have their own “happy place” to hang out?
ByteMe
August 15th, 2009
10:51 am
TGT: you want foreigners to be treated as well as locals for our “free” healthcare? Is that the point of the article? If so, who pays for it?
I Report/ I Am The Mob :-) You Whine :-(
August 15th, 2009
10:51 am
Defensive medicine — the practice of ordering tests and procedures that aren’t needed to protect a doctor from the remote possibility of a lawsuit — is ubiquitous. A 2005 survey in the Journal of the American Medical Association related that 93 percent of high-risk specialists in Pennsylvania admitted to the practice, and 83 percent of Massachusetts physicians did the same in a 2008 survey. The same Massachusetts survey showed that 25 percent of all imaging tests were ordered for defensive purposes, and 28 percent and 38 percent, respectively, of those surveyed admitted reducing the number of high-risk patients they saw and limiting the number of high-risk procedures or services they performed.
Defensive medicine is notoriously hard to quantify, but some estimates place the annual cost at $100 billion to $200 billion or more.-Washington Post
When will Obozo be addressing this?
When the trial lawyers quit voting for the democrats?
What does it say of a “president” who regularly spews easily disputed lies about his agenda, other than he thinks you and I are too stupid or helpless to fact check him?
Do you enjoy being considered an idiot?
Say yeesssss! democrats.
RW-(the original)
August 15th, 2009
10:52 am
I think the Congressman has it wrong. Obama did say it was OK to give Mama a painkiller.
And now that Peter Singer is one of Obama’s advisers I wouldn’t rule out any extreme.
RW-(the original)
August 15th, 2009
10:56 am
the good doctor (sarc)
That sounds unnecessarily libelous without some detail about how Broun is a bad doctor.
I Report/ I Am The Mob :-) You Whine :-(
August 15th, 2009
11:04 am
Well, well, no wonder the British health system is so “great-”
Greater responsibility or the lack of it, rather than negligence is implicated by the word “malpractice”. In the US a specific medical malpractice law is in force to bring justice to the patients. In UK, a doctor will be liable only when proved to have not acted in accordance with the medical body’s opinion. In a lengthy and complicated battle, patients who feel that they are treated wrongly or given misinformation about illness can approach the law for compensation.
Ambulance chasers are illegal, hahahahahaha.
No John Edwards allowed.
booger
August 15th, 2009
11:09 am
RW, I noticed the same thing about Jay,s opening. He just called Dr. Paul Broun a “BAD” Doctor. He didn’t say bad legslator, or even call him an evil republican. He just told all Dr. Broun’s patients they go to a “BAD” Doctor.
That’s cutting edge stuff for a journalist.
Question
August 15th, 2009
11:16 am
Take a look at the following two items –
1) Asked whether he would have handled his verbal confrontation in Douglasville differently, [David] Scott is quick to answer. “Absolutely not,” he said.
2) the video of Sheila Jackson-Lee’s interview with Greta Van Susternen.
Both support the public’s view of the dems as arrogant and pompous. Who do these people think they work for????
Michael H. Smith
August 15th, 2009
11:16 am
Debating the President’s Portsmouth pitch
http://keithhennessey.com/2009/08/14/debating-the-presidents-portsmouth-pitch/
AmVet
August 15th, 2009
11:16 am
Broun is just another dupe for the Republican idiots and Georgia liars.
Predictable…
Woodstock weekend is here.
I often chuckle at the handful of the comical conned here who suck at the teat of the very music and ideas that represent the total antithesis of what they have sadly become. Or in some cases, what they always were.
Do these McCarthy (not McCartney) lovers just pretend that when they play that rock music that they too are believers in the forces for liberalism, progress and anti-authoritarianism in the world that are so clearly enunciated in that music?
And that they are NOT socially, philosophically and politically stuck in the past and have long been passed by?
Simply put, do they have some great self-loathing for idolizing the artists and songs that are synonymous with everything they are not – the counter-culture and the anti-war movements?
Or are they still just blind, conflicted and constipated forty years on?
Either way it is just one more indication of how laughably messed up they really are…
I Report/ I Am The Mob :-) You Whine :-(
August 15th, 2009
11:16 am
Let’s take the high number of $200 billion, that’s less than 10% of overall spending on health care. If you can “treat” it with drugs or cut it out, we’re number one.
TN- That^^ is just one tiny component of the tort/ malpractice/ ambulance chasing fiasco, try adding up the costs of John Edwards frivolously suing some poor doctor, extracting 66% of the damages for himself and all of the women that get butchered with unnecessary cesareans every year.
booger
August 15th, 2009
11:17 am
Byteme,
The CBO number of $80 to $90 million shortfall per year is only if Obama’s assumptions on savings are correct. The CBO does not believe these to be correct and says the cost will be much higher. This is after intense pressure from the White House to “get with the program”.
TGT
August 15th, 2009
11:19 am
ByteMe: You need to read it again.
One of the many points would be: “And compared with virtually any hospital ward in the U.S., Queen’s Square would fall short by a mile.
The equipment wasn’t ancient, but it was often quite old. On occasion my wife and I would giggle at heart and blood-pressure monitors that were literally taped together and would come apart as they were being moved into place. The nurses and hospital technicians had become expert at jerry-rigging temporary fixes for a lot of the damaged equipment. I pitched in as best as I could with simple things, like fixing the wiring for the one TV in the ward. And I’d make frequent trips to the local pharmacies to buy extra tissues and cleaning wipes, which were always in short supply.”
Finn McCool
August 15th, 2009
11:21 am
The Republicans did the same type of stuff in the 60’s when Johnson was trying to pass Medicare. Ronald Reagan even did radio spots against it.
They will learn to like it. If not, they can move to another country.
jm
August 15th, 2009
11:22 am
I wonder how many of those “unnecessary” defensive medical tests that we keep hearing about are performed in testing facilities that (surprise !) are also owned by the doctor’s office (no conflict of interest there).
TGT
August 15th, 2009
11:23 am
Also, as far as “foreigners” being “treated (health care-wise) as well as locals” or getting “free” healthcare–that has been a dream of the Democrat party for years.
Michael H. Smith
August 15th, 2009
11:25 am
Internal Memo Confirms Big Giveaways In White House Deal With Big Pharma
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/13/internal-memo-confirms-bi_n_258285.html
Oh liberals… If as your dear leader Obumer says the Public Option is about keeping the insurance companies honest, then why isn’t he and his Public Option keeping BIG PHARMA honest?
Finn McCool
August 15th, 2009
11:27 am
TGT, get a clue, dude. No human created system is perfect. Your going to find someone with a bad story about every system. Not only do you have people complaining about legitimate wrongs, you also have folks who just like to complain cause their soup was cold or whatever, and then you have folks who like to just hear themselves talk so they are constantly complaining or whatever gets them the most attention.
Heck, I even have a bad story about a library visit where the librarian busted my chops for talking on a cell phone in the stacks.
Bosch
August 15th, 2009
11:27 am
I wonder what’ll happen to Mamma who isn’t on Medicare yet and doesn’t have insurance if she falls and breaks a hip NOW.
Well, she’ll either not afford to get treatment, or have a few thousand dollars worth of medical bills.
Bosch
August 15th, 2009
11:29 am
Sorry, haven’t had required caffeine intake yet:
Well, she’ll either won’t get treatment because she can’t afford it, or get treatment which will cost a few thousand dollars.
Is that better?
I Report/ I Am The Mob :-) You Whine :-(
August 15th, 2009
11:29 am
Finn McFool- Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Medicare, eh?
Reagan was right, it only survives due to the forcible taking of money from other people and even with that, it still can’t pay for itself.
Nice example of a government debacle, though.
Is that what you libs consider a success?
Bosch
August 15th, 2009
11:32 am
Andy,
Forcible taking of money? It’s called taxes. We have to pay taxes. Why do you hate our country?
TGT
August 15th, 2009
11:34 am
Finn: Just thought I give the other side of the coin after all of the “outpouring of ilovetheNHS.”
ByteMe
August 15th, 2009
11:40 am
booger: you should go back to the CBO report. It was pretty clear that the number “$1 trillion” that freaked out so many people for some reason was over 10 years and before savings that the CBO estimated at least $500 billion (again, over 10 years). In general, we’re talking pocket change found between the cushions in the Senate/Lobbyist lounge.
I Report/ I Am The Mob :-) You Whine :-(
August 15th, 2009
11:40 am
Bosch- This great survived 180 some years before you socialists started forcibly taking money from other people to fund your human dependency programs, since then our educational standings have plummeted, inner city pathologies have sky rocketed, single parent children, abortion, murder, drug use, diseases, corruption are all byproducts of your bright ideas.
You’re proud of this legacy?
I myself think it needs to stop, right now.
I love my country and I hate what it has become.
Bosch
August 15th, 2009
11:41 am
Finn,
Well, it’s obvious then that we need to purge the Earth of libraries if that’s how we’re treated.
I Report/ I Am The Mob :-) You Whine :-(
August 15th, 2009
11:41 am
dammit- This great country survived…
Bosch
August 15th, 2009
11:43 am
Andy,
Oh my God! Are dogs and cats living together now too?
Give me a break Andy.
I Report/ I Am The Mob :-) You Whine :-(
August 15th, 2009
11:47 am
And Bosch, not only do I pay my taxes, I cheerfully give 10% of my income to the good work’s of the Lord.
I seriously doubt very many of you liberals can say that.
GEORGE AMERICAN
August 15th, 2009
11:49 am
THE GOVERNMENT CAN’T DO NOTHING RIGHT. NOTHING AT ALL!!!
I SURE AS HELL AM NOT GOING TO LET THEM RATION MY RIGHT TO HEALTH CARE!!!
JohnD
August 15th, 2009
11:51 am
Limiting medical malpractice lawsuits has zero effect on health care costs or even medical malpractice premiums. The Georgia Legislature passed med-mal tort reform 5 years ago. One of the strictest laws limiting the ability of patients to sue doctors and hospitals in the US.
What happened? Rates went up here and everywhere else in the country.
Why? The insurance industry is all about profit, stupid. Kind of like drug companies and the rest. They charge more because they can. What could be more old-school than that?
Tort reform worked great last time. Let’s do it again and see how little effect it has on health care costs again and call that ‘reform.’
Brilliant.
getalife
August 15th, 2009
11:55 am
Andy,
Writing gop hack comments on a blog does not qualify as a job troll.
Looks like Dick Army cut and ran like Palin after staging the astroturfing.
I Report/ I Am The Mob :-) You Whine :-(
August 15th, 2009
11:58 am
It’s kinda obvious that liberals don’t care about our embarrassing educational rankings, the abandonment of the core family, children living in fatherless despair, black on black capital crime, debilitating drug use, nope, they just want to grow their little government power fiefdom upon the foundation of your suffering.
Nice.
AmVet
August 15th, 2009
11:59 am
It strikes me that George W. Bush has a legacy eerily similar to OJ’s.
Both got away with murder.
OJ said he find the “real killer” and Bushie said he catch Osama Bin Laden “Dead of alive”…
I Report/ I Am The Mob :-) You Whine :-(
August 15th, 2009
12:00 pm
al-Gitmo: And what would you call this?-
Looks like Dick Army cut and ran like Palin after staging the astroturfing.
Kamchak
August 15th, 2009
12:02 pm
I sure as hell am not going to let them ration my right to health care.
Didn’t you get the memo? Health care is not a “right” guaranteed in the Constitution. Learn to stay on message.
Geez.
Bosch
The EPL started today. Chelsea 2 Hull City 1.
AmVet
August 15th, 2009
12:05 pm
JohnD, in a handful of cases your sage and terse analysis will fall on intentionally dead ears and willfully closed minds here…
But I find it a very compelling argument.
And the conned wanna ensure that the American people can’t even sue the murderous monoliths or seek any kind of justice from the white collar criminals.
(And certainly no organizing. No grass roots measures to change the failed status quo. Unless they are tea bagging it I guess.)
What the hell is wrong with them?
“Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power.” ~Benito Mussolini
I Report/ I Am The Mob :-) You Whine :-(
August 15th, 2009
12:05 pm
Anybody with half of a brain can go see the brutal statistics on how far we’ve fallen as a nation since the “great society” boondoggle, same as they can see the improvements made when Republicans enacted welfare reform in the 1990’s, well, except for the common liberal, that is, who apparently doesn’t have half of a brain.
GEORGE AMERICAN
August 15th, 2009
12:06 pm
GOVERNMENT IS A “WRONG” NOT A “RIGHT” GUARANTEED BY STYUPID LIBERALS.
booger
August 15th, 2009
12:06 pm
ByteMe,
These numbers are if the savings assumptions are correct. The chief budjet analyst for the CBO, Douglas Elmendorf’s assessment of the assumptions is that they are flawed.
getalife
August 15th, 2009
12:07 pm
Andy,
I call it the truth and blow back is coming.
Why are you bashing America:
“our embarrassing educational rankings, the abandonment of the core family, children living in fatherless despair, black on black capital crime, debilitating drug use, nope, they just want to grow their little government power fiefdom upon the foundation of your suffering.”
8 long years of your hero w did not fix it?
Taxpayer
August 15th, 2009
12:12 pm
Well, maybe this ignorant war mongering Republican doctor should support eliminating a few more F-22s and using that money to pay for some less cost efficient surgery, no doubt to be performed by him. God save us all from the likes of the Brouns of the world. What an idiot.
Taxpayer
August 15th, 2009
12:14 pm
Anyone with half a brain would certainly be expected to see the world in a different light — the color of trickle down yellow comes to mind. I suspect these people are also obsessed with Urinals.
joe matarotz
August 15th, 2009
12:18 pm
When you get past the hyperbole, the question is “Does the proposed healthcare program have provisions for limiting care based on cost effectiveness?” If the answer is “Yes”, the next question is ” What procedures will be subject to review for cost effectiveness?” And finally, “What are the parameters for judging whether a procedure is cost effective? If I need a procedure that is deemed to be not cost effective, what are my options?”
Instead of relying on the ramblings of the media, with their mandatory slant to either side, maybe we should be asking our elected officials to answer these questions. Better yet, I think we should be demanding full disclosure in language we can all understand. Just a thought…
Taxpayer
August 15th, 2009
12:20 pm
Y’all need to ease up on the whiner. He’s been reduced to a form of blathering that does not even live up to the definition of gibberish any more. The poor thing.