In making doctors answerable in the federal bureaucracy this bill effectively makes them government employees and means that you and your doctor are no longer in charge of your health care decisions. This new law politicizes medicine and in my opinion destroys the sanctity of the doctor-patient relationship that makes the American health care system the best in the world...

During World War II, the government imposed wage and price controls. In an effort to attract and retain workers, companies offered health insurance in lieu of wages. These benefits were not taxable for either the employer or employee. When the war ended and controls lifted (everywhere except in New York City, where rent controls persist to this day), the tax subsidy for employer-sponsored health insurance was retained. This explains why the majority of working Americans buy health insurance at work, at the "company store." This accident of history underlies much of what has gone wrong with health care in America...

Labels: Analysis, OpEd

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Labels: CO, Medicaid, Medicare, States

E-mail Paul Hsieh, MD / PermaLink / Comments

Doctor gives thanks for 63

Thank you for speaking out in favor of the Colorado Health Care Choice Initiative protecting us from mandatory health insurance. This idea forming the core of ObamaCare has already been tried -- and failed -- in Massachusetts, resulting only in skyrocketing health costs, a desperate shortage of doctors, and significantly longer waits for medical care than in the rest of the country. Some Massachusetts patients must now wait almost a year for a routine physical exam.

As a practicing physician, such Massachusetts-style problems are the last thing I want here in Colorado. Colorado voters can avoid the mistakes of Massachusetts by supporting Amendment 63.

Paul Hsieh, MD
Sedalia

Labels: CO, LTE, States

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Among the most hilarious ObamaCare justifications is the claim that it will reduce the federal budget deficit. No less a jokester than Paul Krugman produced this gag in a recent blog post, "the Medicare actuaries believe that the cost-saving provisions in the Obama health reform will make a huge difference to the long-run budget outlook... All the facts we have suggest that health reform was the biggest move toward fiscal responsibility in a long, long time."

The comedy writers from whom Krugman got this quip are the CMS bureaucrats who produced the latest Medicare Trustees Report, which claims "reform" will control Medicare spending enough to keep the program solvent while easing upward pressure on the deficit.

Alas, not everyone appreciates this brand of humor. One such stick-in-the-mud is Richard Foster, Medicare's Chief Actuary...

Labels: OpEd

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This is not a country in which might makes right. It's a country designed to protect minority interests against big government and mob sentiment. Therefore, the massive size of the federal bureaucracy alone does not equal legal authority to impose upon individuals and state governments. Congress has no authority to require individuals to buy private insurance, which is the basis of the lawsuit filed by states. It has no such authority because the Constitution does not grant it, not by any twisting of any phrase. That might not bother a majority in Congress, but it will most certainly matter to federal judges when they determine which rights belong to whom -- based entirely on their interpretation of the Constitution.

Labels: CO, States

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Labels: CO, States

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For years, Cuban hospital patients have needed to provide their own syringes, bed sheets, and towels. Some say they fear getting infections while visiting clinics because of shortages of soap, disinfectants, and sterile equipment.

A preventable form of cancer, cervical carcinoma, now ranks as the fourth leading cause of death for Cuban women. In most of the world, cervical cancer is on the decline thanks to annual gynecological screenings (with the Pap test) and the use of the human papillomavirus vaccine. In Cuba, however, the number of routine Pap tests performed has fallen by more than 30 percent and the number of diagnosed cervical cancer cases has doubled since 1985...

Cuba's doctors are increasingly strained. Physicians return from years abroad because they must, both contractually and to avoid repercussions for their relatives in Cuba. They then must accept whatever assignments the government gives them, including sometimes years of service in a remote village, a Havana slum, or a sparsely populated tobacco-growing area.

Many doctors and nurses leave the health-care system altogether, taking jobs as taxi drivers or in hotels, where they can earn CUCs. In February 2010, seven Cuban doctors sued the Cuban and Venezuelan governments, charging that the mandatory service they had performed in Venezuela in exchange for oil shipments to the Cuban government constituted "modern slavery" and "conditions of servilism for debt."

Labels: Countries, Cuba

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Labels: Analysis, Medicaid

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The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is on the verge of taking the highly unusual step of "decertifying" the cancer drug Avastin that it had previously approved.

In addition to sparking concerns that this is another step towards medical rationing, the FDA's proposal will worsen another important but less-frequently recognized danger of government-run health care -- namely, the politicization of health benefits. Both problems will accelerate under ObamaCare unless our politicians repudiate the principle of government-run health care...

Labels: Insurance, OpEd

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Labels: Insurance

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