THE OBAMA HEALTH LAW: DANGEROUS TO YOUR HEALTH AND FREEDOM
THE OBAMA HEALTH LAW is a bruising blow to American freedom and medical excellence. But the war is not over. It cannot be. There can be no negotiation between freedom and coercion.
The White House has launched a 50-state public relations campaign to convince the public that the law enacted against their will is to their benefit. We cannot falter now. With the U.S. Constitution on our side and the hearts and minds of the American people with us, freedom will prevail. Please use the information contained in this Broadside to alert your fellow patriots to the dangers of this new law. It will lower your standard of care, put the government in charge of your care, and take away something as precious as life itself: your liberty.
There are better ways to improve health insurance and help the uninsured. Congress should rip up the 2, 700-page Obama health legislation and enact a 20-page law in plain, honest English - a law that members of Congress can actually read before voting on it.
Will the New Obama Health Law Affect Me?
Yes. The law requires almost everyone to enroll in a one-size-fits-all qualified health plan, beginning in 2014. When you file your taxes, you must attach proof that you are enrolled. The law gives the IRS new powers to track you down and penalize you if you dont comply.
The law also empowers the Secretary of Health and Human Services to make the im - portant decisions: what qualified plans cover, how much you will be legally required to pay, and how much leeway your doctor will have.
The Obama health law also transfers decision-making power from your doctor to the federal government. Even if you are insured by Aetna, Cigna, or another private company and pay the premium yourself, the government is still in charge. You are required to be in a qualified plan, and qualified plans can pay only doctors who implement whatever regulations the Secretary of Health and Human Services imposes in the name of improving health care quality. That covers everything in medicine- whether a doctor should use a stent or do a bypass surgery, or when to perform a cesarean section.
SEC. 1311 (h)(1). Beginning on January I, 2015, a qualified health plan may contract with- (B) a health care provider only if such provider implements such mechanisms to improve health care quality as the Secretary may by regulation require.
Under the new law, physicians are required to enter their patients treatments into an electronic database, and that data will be monitored by the government. Doctors will be instructed on what the government deems to be cost-effective and appropriate care. The result is that doctors will be forced to choose between doing what their patient needs and avoiding a government penalty.
This is a huge loss of medical privacy and freedom. Never before has the federal government dictated how doctors treat privately insured patients, except on narrow issues such as drug safety. The Constitution does not permit it.
Welfare Reform in Reverse
The new health law creates $917 billion in entitlements through 2019 and possibly twice that cost in the second decade. It loosens the eligibility rules for Medicaid and adds 18 million people to the rolls, nearly doubling Medicaid enrollment. The law also creates a brand-new entitlement for moderate-income households (earning up to $88, 000 a year) to get taxpayer-funded subsidies for private insurance.
Half of the price tag for these new entitlements is paid for with tax hikes, but the other half comes from slashing future funding for Medicare by $575 billion through 2019. People who have paid into the system their whole working lives and are counting on it will get less care, because the money is being shifted to support a vast expansion of government dependents.
TREATING SENIORS LIKE CLUNKERS
Everyone knows that if you dont pay to maintain and repair your car, you limit its life. The same is true as human beings age. We need medical care to avoid becoming clunkers- disabled, worn out, and parked in nursing homes and wheelchairs. For nearly half a century, Medicare has enabled seniors to get that care.
The Obama health law reduces future funding for Medicare by $575 billion over the next decade, just when 30 percent more people will be entering Medicare as the baby boomers turn 65. Those numbers dont add up. Baby boomers who are counting on Medicare will get less care than seniors currently get.
Most of the Medicare cuts are made by slashing what hospitals, home care services, and other institutions are paid to care for elderly patients. Cuts are even made to hospice care and dialysis care, opening an express lane to the cemetery. Defenders claim the Medicare cuts will eliminate fraud and abuse, not care. If this were true, wouldnt the government have eliminated the fraud and abuse already? In truth, only 1 percent of the cuts will come from fraud and abuse, the Congressional Budget Office estimates.
RICHARD FOSTER, chief actuary for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services:
Thus, providers for whom Medicare constitutes a substantive portion of their business could find it difficult to remain profitable and, absent legislative intervention, might end their participation in the program (possibly jeopardizing access to care for beneficiaries).
Estimated Financial Effects of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, as Amended, CMS, April 22, 2010, 10.
Slashing Medicare payments will force institutions to cut back on care for seniors. Richard Foster, chief actuary for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, warns that cuts will be severe enough to force 15 percent of institutions into the red, and some hospitals may have to stop accepting Medicare. Where will seniors go when their local hospital no longer takes Medicare?
In the past 40 years, hip and knee replacements, bypass surgeries, angioplasties, and cataract operations have transformed the experience of aging. Older people used to be trapped in wheelchairs with crippling arthritis or stuck in nursing homes with clogged arteries. But these procedures have significantly reduced disability among the elderly, as a September/October 2007 Health Affairs study shows. Elderly people are more active - volunteering, shopping, and enjoying their grandchildren. The Obama health law will undo this progress by reducing access to care.
The new law also expressly authorizes the Secretary of Health and Human Services to modify or eliminate preventive services for seniors based on the recommendations of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, the group that recently raised public outrage by saying women ages 40-49 and older than 74 should no longer get routine annual mammograms. A half-page later, the law empowers the secretary to increase preventive services for Medicaid recipients. The agenda couldnt be clearer.
