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 Thursday, September 2, 2010
Quick Links: Scherz and Amerling
By Paul Hsieh, MD @ 5:05 AM PermaLink

Dr. Hal Scherz of Docs4PatientCare has piece in the September 1, 2010 Wall Street Journal entitled "Dear Patients: Vote to Repeal ObamaCare".

One critical passage:
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...
(Read the full text of "Dear Patients: Vote to Repeal ObamaCare".)

Dr. Richard Amerling of AAPS warns of "Enslavement by Health Insurance".

He likens our current system of tax-preferred employer-based health insurance to working in an oppressive "company store":
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...
(Read the full text of "Enslavement by Health Insurance".)

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 Wednesday, September 1, 2010
University of Colorado Clinics Turn Away Medicare/Medicaid
By Paul Hsieh, MD @ 5:05 AM PermaLink

The August 27, 2010 Denver Post reports that "Two University Hospital clinics balk at government insurance".

Specifically, they are turning away patients covered by Medicare and Medicaid -- because they lose money on each one. These patients all have theoretical "coverage", but that's not the same as getting actual medical care.

Medicare and Medicaid are the government-run "universal coverage" programs for the elderly and the indigent, respectively. We can expect to hear about more such problems as the entire country moves towards a system of government "coverage".

(Via @MatthewBowdish.)

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 Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Hsieh LTE in Gazette on A63
By Paul Hsieh, MD @ 1:05 PM PermaLink

The August 30, 2010 Colorado Springs Gazette has published my LTE supporting their position on Amendment 63 (the second one down):
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
The original Gazette OpEd can be found at: "Amendment 63 protects our freedom".

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Catron: The Laugher Curve
By Paul Hsieh, MD @ 5:05 AM PermaLink

David Catron illustrates the unintentional comedy stylings of the advocates of ObamaCare in his latest piece, "The Laugher Curve".

Here's an excerpt:
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...
(Read the full text of "The Laugher Curve".)

Fortunately, we have a chance in November to send a message to our elected officials that we want ObamaCare repealed.

Let's make sure the last laugh is on the ObamaCare supporters, rather than on us.

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 Monday, August 30, 2010
Laugesen Defends A63
By Paul Hsieh, MD @ 5:05 AM PermaLink

In the August 27, 2010 Colorado Springs Gazette, editor Wayne Laugesen defends the Right to Health Care Choice Initiative in their editorial "Amendment 63 protects our freedom".

In particular, Laugesen notes:
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.
(Read the full text of "Amendment 63 protects our freedom".)

I'm glad to see newspapers like the Colorado Springs Gazette and editors like Laugesen speaking out for limited government and individual rights!

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 Friday, August 27, 2010
CO A63 and Risk Pools
By Paul Hsieh, MD @ 1:50 PM PermaLink

Brian Schwartz discusses "Colorado Amendment 63, risk pools, & health care costs" at PatientPower.

Go check it out!

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CastroCare In Crisis
By Paul Hsieh @ 5:05 AM PermaLink

So how's that universal Cuban health care working out?

Laurie Garrett discusses the current state of health care in Cuba in "Castrocare in Crisis". Here's an excerpt:
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."
(Read the full text of "Castrocare in Crisis".)

Michael Moore must not have gotten the memo...

Via NCPA.

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 Thursday, August 26, 2010
CO Health Care Choice Qualifies For Ballot
By Paul Hsieh, MD @ 2:30 PM PermaLink

Today's Denver Post reports that the "Right to Health Care Choice" amendment has qualified for the November 2010 ballot, as Amendment 63.

There's also an official website for Amendment 63, where you can read the text of the Amendment.

I'm glad to see CO joining the list of states where voters are able to express their desire for genuine health care choice!

(Via @AriArmstrong.)

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Quick Links: Innovation, Medicaid, Braking ObamaCare
By Paul Hsieh, MD @ 7:05 AM PermaLink

Cleveland Clinic CEO Toby Cosgrove warns that "health-care reform could stifle medical innovation". (Cleveland Plain Dealer, 8/19/2010)

John Goodman points out how government-run Medicaid arbitrarily withdraws benefits from patients ("recissions") in far more arbitrary and abusive fashion that private insurance. (Kaiser Health News, 8/12/2010)

Grace-Marie Turner discusses 6 ways to slow down ObamaCare until its eventual repeal. (WSJ, 8/25/2010)

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 Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Hsieh PJM OpEd: "Avastin and Your Life"
By Paul Hsieh, MD @ 6:45 AM PermaLink

PajamasMedia has just published my latest OpEd, "Avastin and Your Life".

Here is the introduction:
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...
(Read the full text of "Avastin and Your Life".)

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 Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Fast Track To Government Health Care
By Paul Hsieh, MD @ 5:05 AM PermaLink

Grace-Marie Turner explain how regulators' interpretation of the seemingly arcane "medical loss ratio" could determine whether private insurance survives as an industry, or whether it becomes a back-door path to a government-run "single payer" system.

Her piece in the August 20, 2010 Investors Business Daily is entitled, "Fast Track To Government Health Care".

Here's more political wrangling over the same issue: "Debate Heats Up Over Medical Loss Ratios".

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