Recently in Medicine Category

One of the many claims made in favor of ObamaCare is that it would mean a decrease in the workload at hospital emergency rooms as people seeking treatment would go to a regular doctor once they had health insurance. But if the situation in Massachusetts is any indication, that claim cannot be justified.

Just as Massachusetts' health care system has been the prototype for ObamaCare, it has also shown that many of the features included in ObamaCare won't work. The ER claim is but one of them.

A year ago at a town hall meeting on health care reform, he said, "We know that when somebody doesn't have health insurance, they're forced to get treatment at the ER, and all of us end up paying for it. ... You'd be better off subsidizing to make sure they were getting regular checkups." In late May, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote in Roll Call that "the uninsured will get coverage, no longer left to the emergency room for medical care."

Now we know better.

It's not terribly surprising that real data from Massachusetts, which has had universal health coverage since 2006, show otherwise. From 2004 to 2008, ER visits in the Bay State rose by 9%, with no discernable improvement after 2006. Why? At least part of the reason has been the inability of patients to find primary care physicians for last-minute visits. Let's face it: The ER won't turn you away, but individual and overburdened doctors can and will. The Massachusetts Medical Society has reported that new patients wait for a primary care doctor visit up to two months.

Under ObamaCare we can expect exactly the same results nationwide because exactly the same problems exist in the rest of the nation as well. ObamaCare doesn't increase the number of hospitals, physicians, nurses, and other medical care staff. All it does is place an even greater burden upon them than doing nothing. That is no way to 'reform' health care.

What is occurring in California, where a quarter of the children HAVE NEVER BEEN TO THE DENTIST, notwithstanding the availability of free or subsidized health care indicates that the Russian proverb is true.


The racial differences are noteworthy. Whites and Asian parents seem to realize that going to the dentist is something that shouldn't be avoided. Hispanics and esp. blacks? Not so much.

Offering a panoply of health services at public expense to parents of below-normal intelligence means you need an army of social workers guiding them through the process, which can be cumbersome and confusing even to an MIT-trained engineer. All very expense and Rube Goldbergesque, too. I want to say un-American.

And the thing is self-defeating. As taxes go up while crime rates and educational performance deteriorate, middle class flight is accelerated as community organizers call for the whole thing to be ratcheted up.

It reminds me that infant mortality is not so much a function of income level but of the mother's intelligence, which helps guide her behavior. I think I learned from the great Thomas Sowell (or Walter Williams) that blacks have a higher infant mortality in California than recent Mexican immigrants, who are lower on the economic ladder.

It's largely behavior-based. And in a republic the gubmit isn't supposed to be paternalistic like Cass Sunstein, an Obama friend and official advisor, wants it. We're supposed to take care of ourselves.  But people are running away from freedom into security, which is a false fire.

At least when one looks at the results.

Last Monday going to a well check-up for my nine-year-old son I encountered a lengthy checklist since he hadn't been in for several years.

Most were what one would expect.

But the last question--this is not the first time I've encountered it before--drove me nuts. It asked Yes or No. Do you have a gun-free home? The implication was clear: Having firearms in the home is an unnecessary and dangerous condition for the health and well being of the children. "It's for the children!"

Since many more children die by drowning, and no question was asked whether I've taught or had the child taught how to swim, I simply crossed off the offending question and inserted one about this.

According the Centers for Disease Control twenty children were killed in 2004 while playing with guns of family or friends while 900 were killed by that dangerous element, water.

Bathtubs kill more children than accidental discharge of firearms!

I almost had my oldest in fact drown when someone irresponsibly used our private beach to launch a large boat and the keel created a nearly three-foot furrow in the sand. Hard to see under the water.

I was geared to have push back, but I received none. These forms are created by others, and it seemed as if the medical staff was relieved or understanding of my concern.

But when the herd and unprincipled soccer moms who are far more concerned about safety than liberty see this, you can kiss the Second Amendment good bye.

That's an inalienable right, the last time I read the Bill of Rights in the light of the Declaration of Independence. Please excuse me for being an alarmist, since the so-called right to health care would have been laughed at as recently as the early 1980s.

I didn't for my three sons, even though I am. I felt as though I didn't have the right to genitally mutilate them, severing up to fifty percent of their nerve endings.

Except for Jews and Muslims, the practice seems to be diminishing in the United States. Thank goodness for that. Even if I were a Jew, I'd still be against the practice even though it occupies a central tenet of that faith.

But with some Muslim groups female circumcision, which rightly makes normal people aghast, is sometimes practiced, esp. in northern Africa. But for both sexes the procedure is remarkably analogous...and should be considered equally repugnant. This was first explained to me by a medical doctor and doesn't, of course, include the especially disgusting removal of the clitoris. That's in a league by itself for cruelty.

Here's a recent Huffington Post entry on the subject.

I know Nancy Pelosi doesn't think much of the Constitution, seeing it as an obstruction to creating a truly socialist state much like that of the old Soviet Union, but even she must realize that certain portions of the ObamaCare/PelosiCare bill she rammed down the throats of the House are unconstitutional. Not that she'll let that stop her. After all "the people" must be coerced into doing things she and her fellow socialists have decided is for the good of all, even if it will have just the opposite effect.

Democrats' health bills depend on forcing individuals to buy insurance or face severe fines or imprisonment. In 1994, the Congressional Budget Office said forcing individuals to buy insurance would be "an unprecedented form of federal action," adding: "The government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States."

This year, the Congressional Research Service delicately said "it is a novel issue whether Congress may use the (Commerce) Clause to require an individual to purchase a good or service." Congress has the constitutional power to "regulate commerce ... among the several states." But a Federalist Society study by Peter Urbanowicz and Dennis Smith judges it perverse to exercise coercion under the Commerce Clause "on an individual who chooses not to undertake a commercial transaction." As Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, says, there is "a fundamental difference between regulating activities in which individuals choose to engage" -- e.g, drivers can be required to buy auto insurance -- "and requiring such activities" just because an individual exists.

When asked whether any compulsory insurance purchases are constitutional, Speaker Nancy Pelosi was genuinely astonished: "Are you serious? Are you serious?" In 1803, in Marbury v. Madison, Chief Justice John Marshall wrote, "The powers of the legislature are defined and limited; and that those limits may not be mistaken, or forgotten, the Constitution is written." He was serious.

Nancy's reaction to the question illustrates either her ignorance of what the Constitution actually says or her willful choice to ignore it in favor of her own agenda and the American people's rights be damned.

Should the awful and onerous ObamaCare/PelosiCare bill become law I hope it will be challenged on constitutional grounds and struck down for being overreaching and in violation of the Constitution. But we can't count on such a thing happening. Therefore we must strive to let our Senators know how displeased we are with this legislation because we know its a disingenuous attempt to do an end run around the people's wishes, a flagrant attempt to violate the Constitution, and a blueprint for medical and financial disaster.

Here's yet another story about how great ObamaCare/PelosiCare will be for the average American:


Some may say that this example and the one I posted yesterday are atypical of what occurs under Canada's socialized medical care system. But I know far too many friends north of the border that tell me it is all too typical. I've heard the same thing from friends in the UK about the NHS as well.

(H/T Instapundit)

If you want a preview of what ObamaCare/PelosiCare is going to be like, take a look at this:


The only problem we'll have is that we'll have no place to go to get the care we want, unlike our Canadian brethren do now. Hmm, maybe some of the more enterprising physicians in the US will move their practices offshore to one of the Caribbean islands in order to give the care we Americans will soon be deprived of by the oh-so-caring US Government.

(H/T Instapundit)

They are going the way of the Walkman. So what are the feds going to do after they expand coverage and stiff doctors on pay even more broadly than they have with Medicare?

The shortage is likely to only get worse as pay goes down and paperwork is stacked higher. I have no confidence in Washington. I wish the Ninth and Tenth Amendments to the Bill of Rights still had some force.  As this commentator over at Lucianne's writes:

Under what Constitutional authority do these people act? Where is it written that some bureaucrat can tell you when and where you may obtain medical care, and refuse to allow you to purchase what you wish, even WITH your own money?

When asked (rarely), they just stare like a deer in the headlights.

I hope we don't mind waiting in long lines--and that even if we have an unscheduled emergency. I feel as though the FedEx medical delivery system we have--warts and all--is going to be ruined, turned into the medical equivalent of the DMV/Postal Service. Greater costs with less service. Fewer innovations. What a shame.

I find it interesting that with all the noise I've been hearing from the Democrats and the rest of the Left about health care reform, not once have I heard any of them mention that we should see about raising the level and quality of medical care, not pulling it down to the lowest common denominator. They like to point to Europe as an example of how it should be done, but all I ever see (and read in a number of publications and medical journals), is how the quality and quantity of care has gone down. But shouldn't we be seeing them trying to catch up to us rather than we trying to pull ourselves down to their level?

The next time you see one of these oh, so morally concerned politicians, academics or book-hustling authors preaching on TV that we really ought to catch up with the rest of the advanced world on health care, talk back to the to the set, shout out that it's mostly lies, and make the opposite case.

The rest of the world ought to catch up with us.

Despite what almost seems a conscious effort to keep the facts properly subdued and tucked out of sight, the truth has been worming its way to the sunshine. Now it's clear, as one example, that longevity is only partially connected to health care in the first place and that when you subtract homicides and accidents, we in America live longer than anyone, despite President Obama's constant reiteration of the reform-encouraging and utterly deceptive thesis that we do not.

We know that our treatments of serious disease produce better outcomes than elsewhere in the world, that everyone can get treatment at least in emergency rooms, that most Americans are satisfied with their care, that insurance net profits are a relatively low 3.3 percent and that the actual number of citizens without access to insurance is closer to 10 million than the 46 million number so often heard. We also know that Medicare and Medicaid have accumulated trillions of dollars in obligations to future recipients that we have no way of paying.

But let us not confuse the issue with anything as mundane as facts. Instead, let us cast all caution into the wind and base the destruction of the American health care system on feelings, something which the Left is very good at doing. They feel it's unfair that not everyone can get the same level of health care, therefore something must be done to ensure egalitarian treatment, even if it means tearing down an effective, though flawed system, and replacing it with something that will come to resemble those like the UK's National Health System, which provides poor care at best. Let us make sure that the incentives to treat ill health will be destroyed and replaced with an "I don't give a s**t, where's my paycheck?" attitude. Let's make sure that all the truly dedicated and effective physicians, nurses, and other health care professionals are driven out of their careers by an ineffective, heartless, compassionless bureaucracy, and let them be replaced with people we wouldn't care to have take care of our pets, let alone our loved ones. (You think it won't happen? Then take a look in countries where many of the truly gifted health care professions went after their governments 'saved' health care. Or better yet, look at how many medical practices no longer take Medicare or Medicaid because of the exorbitant costs of providing care versus what they are paid for said care. It's a losing proposition.)

Health care 'reform' is something that must be handled carefully, with logic, reason, and in the end, an eye on the economics of reform. It must not be based on emotion or some fantasy egalitarian 'ideal' that can never be achieved unless countless millions are made to suffer because the government says they must, all in the name of equality.

While there is agreement amongst most parties that health care reform is something needed, it is the difference in approach that divides the nation (and more specifically, Congress).

Being the frugal Yankee that I am, I am all for making sure any reforms are sustainable, actually save money, and require no use of tax dollars to support. Is such a thing possible? I believe so, and I'm not the only one. Unfortunately far too many members of Congress and their 'supporters' believe the only answer is government control (and funding) of any and all reform. The only problem with that viewpoint is that it entirely overlooks the economics of such a system, to the peril of us all (and our wallets).

Peter Angerhofer in the September 6th Sunday Citizen (Laconia, NH) reminds us, again, that health care reform can't defy economics. (Sorry, no link available)

[I]f the current governmental health care reforms attempt to subvert basic economic laws, they are, at best, bound for failure; at worst, they could destroy the quality of care that most Americans enjoy.

While the problems of rising costs should be obvious for all to see, the president and his allies have proposed solutions that ignore the fundamental economic laws of supply and demand. I f we are to provide better access to health care, we need to recognize these basic laws and reduce prices by either reducing demand, increasing supply, or both.

The President and the leftists in Congress are basing their health care reform on the mistaken premise that the supply of health care is finite, that it is static and that it won't change. And because of that false premise, they'll try to force a drop in demand for health care as the means of reducing the costs. The only means of reducing demand is to ration care, to deny care, to decide who will and who won't be treated, who will live and who will die.

But the supply is not finite except at the present moment. Tomorrow there could be more. The day after there could be less. It is fluid. But should the government 'take over' health care, the finite supply will not expand. It will not be static. Instead, it will shrink.

How do I know that? History.

All one needs to do is look at every country that has instituted government provided/controlled health care. In every single case the quantity and quality of health care declined. In a few there were minor changes, mostly because the quality of health care wasn't all that great to begin with. In most others the decline was dramatic. Is that what we, the American people, really want to do here?

Of course not. But the Obama Administration and the leftists in Congress do. That desire has nothing to do with actually providing health care. Instead it's about control. They truly believe they know what's good for you better than you do. They believe they are the only ones that can possibly make the right decisions for you because you are incapable of making them for yourselves, that you're not smart enough. Only the government is wise enough to make those decisions. Of course we've seen the dystopian results of that before and we know we don't want to go down that path.

Should Congressional leftists ignore the economics of their health care reform bills, reform won't work. The burden placed upon the economy and the taxpayers will be too great. It will require the infusion of billions, if not trillions to ensure mediocre health care, increased morbidity, and increased suffering. A once great, though imperfect, health care system will have been reduced to a shadow of its former self. And the leftists will congratulate themselves for succeeding in pulling of the greatest swindle since Bernie Madoff.

One thing far too many people promoting national health care reform have overlooked has been the actual economics of the main proposal (HR3200). In their minds the numbers will come into alignment if we all just wish hard enough and keep our fingers crossed. But taking a look at the economics with a (hopefully) dispassionate eye reveals some disturbing issues that have been ignored, either by design or through ignorance. (I, being the kind of guy I am, am willing to give the proponents the benefit of doubt and assume it's from ignorance.)

Whenever government gets involved, and particularly the federal government, costs go up. It is inevitable. Our own history has shown again and again that is the case. Why does anyone doubt that it will happen again if government takes a broader role in health care? All anyone needs to do is look at what's been happening in Massachusetts, where their preview of nationwide health care reform has done nothing but increased costs and wait times. Can anyone say that won't happen across the board if Obama gets his way?

So before there's any progress on such reform, proponents cannot defy the economics of that reform and what it really means. Too many parts of the most well known health care reform bill - the aforementioned HR3200 - ignore the economic impacts, which in turn will lead to the failure of the reform measure while at the same time damaging or destroying the existing medical care infrastructure. That's no way to 'fix' the problem.

A few 'lowlights' of what we can look forward to if HR3200 should pass:

Massachusetts reduced its uninsured population by two-thirds -- yet the cost would be considered staggering, had state officials not done such a good job of hiding it. Finally, Massachusetts shows where "ObamaCare" would ultimately lead: Officials are already laying the groundwork for government rationing.

The most sweeping provision in the Massachusetts reforms -- and the legislation before Congress -- is an "individual mandate" that makes health insurance compulsory. Massachusetts shows that such a mandate would oust millions from their low-cost health plans and force them to pay higher premiums.

The necessity of specifying what satisfies the mandate gives politicians enormous power to dictate the content of every American's health plan -- a power that health care providers inevitably capture and use to increase the required level of insurance.

--snip--

Those requirements can increase premiums by 14 percent or more. Officials further increased premiums by imposing new limits on cost-sharing.

Over time, as mandates eliminate low-cost options and price controls eliminate comprehensive options, both the Massachusetts and Obama reforms will march consumers into a narrow range of health plans.

As goes choice, so goes quality. Statistics on waiting times for specialist care in Massachusetts read like a dispatch from Canada. In 2004, Boston already had the longest waits among metropolitan areas. By 2009, waits had generally shortened in other metro areas (average wait: less than three weeks) but lengthened in Boston (average wait: seven weeks), according to the Merritt Hawkins survey.

Some may argue that the national version of this program won't suffer from the problems seen in Massachusetts, but anyone with even a little knowledge of history will understand that the problems with a national program will be far worse. In the end it will benefit no one but the government. Disincentives for health care workers will make sure the quality and quantity of health care available will fall, particularly after the more gifted and dedicated workers are finally driven out by frustration and stress. It's already started in Massachusetts and has been an ongoing problem in the UK.

One does not promote better health care by penalizing those giving exceptional care. But that's exactly what this latest version of socialized medicine will do.

I always thought the way to ensure more 'equality' when it came to any issue, be it economic, political, or medical, was to raise everyone up to a higher level, not pull everyone down to the lowest common denominator. That's what health care reform as proposed will do, making sure no one but the most wealthy (and members of the ruling elite) will receive exceptional care. The rest of us will be left with an ever declining quality and quantity of health care because reform made it inevitable that it would be so.

If nothing else such a move should be considered criminal because it looks like just what it is: racketeering. And we must remember racketeering has a long, fruitful history in Chicago.

Another problem with health care reform is that viable, workable plans are being ignored. It could be because the plans are being proposed by people other than those belonging to the 'right' party. Never mind that they might actually work as compared to ObamaCare.

One would thing the Democrats would pay attention to some of those plans, particularly those put forth by knowledgeable health care professionals, like Dr. Arthur M. Feldman:

As a cardiologist and the administrator of a large practice that includes general internists and specialists, I spend much of my time trying to figure out how to provide care for a growing number of uninsured or underinsured patients. I also have to battle billion-dollar private insurance companies that don't adequately cover patients with preexisting illnesses and often deny coverage for necessary treatments.

On a basic level, I'm with the president: Our health-care system needs to be changed so that all of my patients, and all citizens, have access to the care they need. But I don't agree with how he wants to fix things. Most of my colleagues and I strongly oppose the health-care reform bills that Congress will take up again this week. The proposals leave enormous gaps unfilled.

Before President Obama addresses a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, I hope he will consider these 10 major reasons why I -- and doctors like me -- worry that the legislation on the table will leave us worse off.

1.Private insurance companies escape real regulation.
2.We urgently need tort reform, but it's nowhere to be seen.
3."Prevention" won't magically make costs go down.
4.Reform efforts don't address our critical shortage of health-care workers.
5.We need more primary-care physicians -- but we also need specialists.
6.We have to streamline drug development and shake up the Food and Drug Administration.
7.We can't fund health-care reform by cutting payments to doctors.
8.We can't forget about research.
9.Cutting reimbursements could shut some hospitals down.
10.We need to improve the quality of care.

Each of Dr. Feldman's points bear looking into. (In his article linked above, each of his ten points are explained in detail.) Failure to address these issues will cause health care reform to be a dismal failure, creating both medical and economic chaos. Of course, I always thought health care reform was supposed to make things better, not worse. But if Congress does not abandon its ill-advised course of action in this regard, we will all be worse off for no other reason than they made it be that way.

More to follow in Part II.....

As if we need yet another example of a failed "public option" plan, there comes this one from Maine.

Want a preview of ObamaCare in action? Sneak a look at what has happened in Maine. In 2003, the state to great fanfare enacted its own version of universal health care. Democratic Governor John Baldacci signed the plan into law with a bevy of familiar promises. By 2009, it would cover all of Maine's approximately 128,000 uninsured citizens. System-wide controls on hospital and physician costs would hold down insurance premiums. There would be no tax increases. The program was going to provide insurance for everyone and save businesses and patients money at the same time.

After five years, fiscal realities as brutal as the waves that crash along Maine's famous coastline have hit the insurance plan. The system that was supposed to save money has cost taxpayers $155 million and is still rising.

It only took five years to show taxpayers the public option doesn't work, costs far more than governor and the Democrat majority legislature promised, and is in deep trouble, requiring an increasing amount of scarce tax dollars to support.

Many of the same arguments used to promote Maine's DirigoCare are being used to promote ObamaCare. As far as I can tell the differences in the economics of the programs are small other than the size of the programs, which means the shortfalls experienced by ObamaCare will likely be proportionately larger than the deficit being experienced by Maine. The Congressional Budget Office has already come right out and said Congress and President have seriously underestimated the cost of implementing and running ObamaCare. That members of Congress haven't learned the lessons of TennCare, MassCare, and DirigoCare is disturbing. What's insane is that these same members of Congress want to do the same thing on a national scale, ignoring that they are likely to end up with exactly the same result as the other programs - less care, higher costs, scarce medical resources, and an ever increasing amount of taxpayer dollars to fix the problem of their own making.

One thing I hear again and again during the health care reform debate is how Obamacare will ration health care. Proponents of Obamacare counter that opinion with a claim health care is already rationed by the insurance companies. I think it's time to clear up that canard.

First, government-provided and controlled health care is always rationed. That's how they save money on health care costs.

Second, insurance companies do not provide health care, they merely pay for their policy holder's medical claims. Coverage depends upon the health insurance policy. They are not obligated to pay for treatments or procedures not covered by the policy. But the patient still has the option to undergo the treatment or procedure on their own dime. They are not denied care by the insurance company.

Another misdirection used by the Obamacare proponents is that the free market has failed in regards to health care costs. The only problem with that claim is that the free market has little to do with health care costs because for the most part it hasn't been a free market for over 40 years. Both the states and the federal government skew free market signals with regulations and mandates, which makes them totally useless for setting the market value of various medical services. The prices are, in effect, set by the government, state and/or federal and not by the medical practices or the insurance companies.

The only exceptions to this are those medical practices that do not take insurance. They are the only free market health care practices operating in the US, be they small single physician family practices or certain medical specialties (like plastic surgery and LASIK). Their costs are known, under their control, and their costs are far smaller than the health care industry in general.

That ought to tell us something.

One of the charges one hears made most often about the uprising of angry Americans against Obamacare is that it is funded and coordinated by the GOP or health insurance lobbyists. You see it in the various blogs, forums, newspapers, and so on. And it is, if course, the Democrats making such charges. But why is it something that they do on a pretty regular basis entirely off limits for those on the Right?

In Denver it became quite evident the "bought and paid for" protesters weren't from the Right, but from the Left.

The anti-Obamacare protesters arrived by car, public transit, or shank's mare. The counter-protesters arrived by chartered bus.

The anti-Obamacare protesters made their own signs.


The counter-protesters carried professionally designed and printed signs and banners.


The anti-Obamacare protesters were there because they had a stake in health care reform and showed up on their own time. Some even took time off from their jobs to be there. The counter-protesters were there because they were paid to be there.

The anti-Obamacare protesters understood what they were protesting against and what they were for. Some of the counter-protesters didn't even know what the signs and banners they carried said because they didn't speak a word of English.

This clinic [outside which the protest was taking place] is adjacent to Denver's day laborer pickup street, Park Avenue. Being fluent in Spanish, El Marco asked these guys "¿hablan ingles?" "casi nada" was the reply from our amigo on the left. I asked him if he could tell me what the signs said. "¿Quien sabe?" (who knows?) was all he said to me, with a big grin. I'm kicking myself for not asking them how much they were getting paid to support the grassroots.

The irony of their lack of comprehension of the signs they were holding was heightened by the fact that they were the most elaborate and detailed signs of either group.

This is yet another example of the double-standard being applied to moderates and conservatives.

Continuing on the same subject of health care reform and the resistance by the public to it that's been building, let's look at more reports on activities around the nation. This is a compilation of links from Instapundit and other sources, making them a little easier to find.

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In Simsbury, Connecticut a crowd confronted Representative Chris Murphy (D-CT) during one of his 'supermarket town hall meetings', making known their displeasure with Obama's health care reform and their current Senator, Chris Dodd.

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In Raleigh, North Carolina Congressman Brad Miller had a number of protestors across the street from his office. The protesters had to resort to the across-from-the-office location because Miller had decided he wasn't going to hold any town hall meetings to discuss and shill for Obamacare.

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In Atlanta, Georgia the questioning must have gotten to Representative David Scott (D-GA) when he lost his temper after a constituent asked him a question about health care reform during general purpose town hall meeting.

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John Dingell's (D-MI) Health Care Reform town hall meeting didn't go all that well, with attendees deriding his claims that the bill as written would solve health care problems across the board. Anyone that's taken the time to read the bill would know that isn't even close to the truth. As one of the authors of the bill he should know that.

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Even the Washington Post is having questions about the health care reform bill, particularly Section 1233, which deals with so-called "end of life" counseling.

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Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) has been avoiding her own constituents, being a no-show at one of her own events.

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In Memphis, Tennessee a town hall meeting hosted by Representative Steve Cohen (D-TN) was less than cordial as approximately 500 attendees loudly debated the health care reform bill with Cohen and each other.

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More to follow.

A big tip of the hat to Instapundit for the links I've consolidated here.

If you want to see one view of the financial side of health care reform as being pushed by the Democrats, Arthur Laffer has a breakdown of the costs and why the reform measure won't save a dime. Instead it will cost the American public trillions of dollars and won't provide the health care promised.

Consumers are receiving quality medical care at little direct cost to themselves. This creates runaway costs that have to be addressed. But ill-advised reforms can make things much worse.

An effective cure begins with an accurate diagnosis, which is sorely lacking in most policy circles. The proposals currently on offer fail to address the fundamental driver of health-care costs: the health-care wedge.

The health-care wedge is an economic term that reflects the difference between what health-care costs the specific provider and what the patient actually pays. When health care is subsidized, no one should be surprised that people demand more of it and that the costs to produce it increase. Mr. Obama's health-care plan does nothing to address the gap between the price paid and the price received. Instead, it's like a negative tax: Costs rise and people demand more than they need.

That's been a problem with health insurance from day one. Once it started covering even routine care it drove the price of providing that care through the roof. Even an office visit for a cold, sore throat, or the flu cost many times the actual price of providing the service because of the added paperwork needed for the insurance company and patients started making more frequent visits to their doctors because it wasn't like they believed they were really paying for them. From that point on costs rose many times faster than the rate of inflation. An example from one commenter to Laffer's op-ed piece:

In 1968 an Admiral 23 inch Color TV cost $349 and the Average Hourly Wage in the US was $3.02. A Good TV cost 115 hours of work. In 2009 a Sony 26 inch LCD TV cost $449 and the Average Hourly Wage in the US is $18.41. A Good TV (A vastly superior TV) cost 24 Hours of Work.

A private patient hospital room was typically $72.00/day in 1968 or 23 hours work (average worker). A private patient hospital room today (Per diem expenses) is typically $5,180/day (MEPS) or 281 hours of work.

Has the quality of care increased during that time frame? For the most part, yes. But has the quality increased by a factor of 12 in that time? No way. While the technology available today is far superior to that of 1968, for the most part it costs less than it did back then. And while some of today's technology didn't exist 40-some years ago, it does make care and diagnostics far quicker and less expensive on an actual cost-per-patient basis. Monitoring equipment keeps tabs on a patient without the need to have a nurse or doctor to check the patient, saving the costs of manpower. But once other costs are figured in, those primarily being paperwork for the insurance companies, carrying costs over for the uninsured or under-insured, and CYA approaches to diagnostics by physicians to procure evidence in case they are sued by a patient, it's no surprise health care costs have risen many times the rate of inflation.

While Obama and the Democrats are right that health care must be reformed, their means of doing so will merely make things worse. Instead they should look at what Laffer has suggested and ask their constituents what they think about it. I think they'd be surprised at the response they get.

I couldn't listen to the Obamessiah's plea to the American people tonight because I didn't want to listen to the BS I knew would be coming out of his mouth. All it would have done is make me angry. Can you blame me?

He's cranking up the rhetoric to sell a very bad piece of legislation that will do nothing more than destroy one of the best medical systems in the world and burden the American taxpayer with over a trillion dollars of more debt and increasingly heavy taxes.

This isn't so much an effort to do good in his eyes as to make sure his presidency is seen as something akin to that of JFK's. He won't let anything stand in his way, even his fellow Democrats. He sees their reluctance to push through this bloated, wasteful, and damaging piece of legislation as an attempt to destroy his presidency. But the only one that can do that is Obama himself.

Over the past few month sit has become apparent to anyone really paying attention to the machinations of Congress and the Obama Administration that one of two scenarios are playing themselves out.

The first one - Congress and Obama really haven't a clue about how an economy really works, where the money comes from, and who it is that creates real jobs, meaning jobs that actually add to the Gross Domestic Product. (There are a few exceptions to this, such as police, fire, and other vital municipal services that keep our towns and cities running). To the Dems running the show, the money just appears as if by magic, or they take it away from the wealthy.

The second one - Congress and Obama really do understand all of the above, but they don't care because they have socialist agenda they're going to push even if they have to destroy the greatest nation on Earth to in order to achieve it.

A philosopher (which one, I don't recall at present) once said something along the lines of "Do not ascribe to malice that which can be explained by stupidity." Therefore, I am leaning more towards the first scenario rather than the second, though the roots of the second could easily be the cause of the first.

A perfect example of this is the so-called health reform legislation being pushed by the White House and slavishly written by the Democrats in Congress. As the WSJ called it, it is reckless of Congress to do it.

Say this about the 1,018-page health-care bill that House Democrats unveiled this week and that President Obama heartily endorsed: It finally reveals at least some of the price of the reckless ambitions of our current government. With huge majorities and a President in a rush to outrun the declining popularity of his agenda, Democrats are bidding to impose an unrepealable European-style welfare state in a matter of weeks.

They are setting us down a path that Europe has followed, one that hasn't worked, is still a drag on the EU economy and they are doing it as quickly as they can they know that there will be a backlash by the American people once they see what all of these programs will cost and how it will negatively affect their lives. The Democrats have forgotten that one does not create prosperity by impoverishing the people, particularly those who actually create the jobs. (Of course I am assuming they knew it to begin with, a bad assumption, I admit.)

Opposition to the spending spree and destruction of the health care system is growing, even among Democrats. While wholesale defections haven't happened, with a little more time to digest what the health care reform bill really says and what it will cost, more than a few Congressional Democrats may balk at supporting something that will more than likely get them voted out of office.

Even staunch liberals are horrified at what they see and are blanching at the costs of Obamacare.

It's pretty bad for the Democrats hoping to cram through a massive reform of the entire health insurance industry in just a few weeks when they lose a die-hard Democrat like Susan Estrich. But she's extremely skeptical of this whole health care fantasy that her pals in Washington are trying to peddle to the country.

The idea that somehow you're going to tax the "rich" enough to pay for quality health care for every American who doesn't have it, can't afford it or stands to lose it, not to mention for all of the undocumented aliens who receive it for free now and presumably will continue to in Obama health land, is almost laughable. It's one of those things candidates say in campaigns, ignoring the fact that it doesn't add up. But in a bill that might pass? Add a 5 percent surtax on every small business in the country that makes $250,000 or more? This is going to create jobs? What am I missing?

We're being promised pie in the sky - health care that won't change for all those who like their plans and low-cost health care for everyone, including those who are uninsured now. And no taxes on anyone except for those despicable rich people who should pony up as their patriotic duty. It's a fairy tale and one that won't end with everyone living happily every after.

It's obvious no one bothered looking at the real numbers for what all of this will really cost, ignoring the other tax hikes to pay for all of the other Hopey-Changey programs and cash giveaways Obama's been trying to sell to the American people since before he took office. Neither he or the Democrats in Congress seem to understand that the piggy bank is empty and that the rest of us aren't going to bankrupt ourselves in order to pour even more of our hard earned money into that bottomless pit. There's no way they'll be able to spin this as being good for anyone but them.

I recall that at one point it was estimated that if the government took all of the income from the rich to pay for all of these wonderful 'free' programs the IRS would collect about $400 billion. As compared to what Obama wants to spend that's a drop in the bucket. (We could also count on the amount the IRS collected the second year from the rich would come to, oh, let's see...umm...carry the 1...to about $0. The rich would either be poor and have no more money to take or they would have fled with their wealth and taken their businesses to friendlier tax climes. I certainly wouldn't blame them.)

Never mind that health care reform will neither reform nor provide adequate health care unless one defines such reform as "destruction of a very good health care system that is by no means perfect, and replacing it with system that is very poor at providing health care and cuts costs by denying care to those most needing it." I guess we should also ignore another side effect of such reform : stifling medical innovation and research. That has certainly happened in every other nation that has imposed this kind of health care system upon its populace. Most of the medical advances now come heavily from the US. It is moribund in the UK, Canada, France, and most other nations in the EU.

That is the fate of the American health care system if Obama and his Democrat lemmings in Congress get their way.

Want yet another preview of the hell that is government run health care will be like? Then take a look at this, a view of socialized medicine though the eyes of a recipient.

One point made again and again during the interview was that uninsured patients in the US receive far better medical care than "insured" patients in Canada and the UK receiving "free" care as part of their respective national health services.

I still fail to understand how destroying good health care as presently received by 260 million Americans in an effort to cover the purported 50 million uninsured in America is such a good thing. That's one thing Obama and Congress have failed to explain. While they do keep using the word fair they haven't explained how making medical care ineffective and almost barbarous in nature is supposed to help anyone.

I always thought it was in the best interests of everyone to raise everyone up, not reduce everyone to the lowest common denominator. But then, the Dems have never been able to see past their false assumption that by doing so everyone else will be better off. But then it never was about that. It's all about taking control of the American people's lives because they are so much wiser than the rest of us.

Yeah. Right.

I watched a portion of ABC's Obama love-fest, Prescription For America.

Can you say "Handpicked, softball questions?" Sure you can.

The dead give away was the question asked by one young woman that started with an outright and verifiable falsehood: "Knowing that the health care systems in European nations are much better and less costly...."

Ask anyone in Europe if their health care is better than that available in the US and the likely answer is "no", and that's because access to a waiting list in order to be treated for what ails you is not the same as actually being treated.

The contention that US health is somehow inferior is a convenient lie being used by those wishing to make sure we end up with an inferior and ineffective single payer system, i.e. socialized medicine. It is the inefficiency of providing treatment that is the problem, not the level of care or quality of treatment that is the problem.

The American health care system is in need of reform. It's inefficient, its costs are rising at unsustainable rates and it leaves too many people uninsured. But for all of that, most Americans do get something for the fortune they pour into health care -- pretty good treatment, at least compared to the rest of the world.

Some will try to point out that the 'free market' system isn't working when it comes to medical care, but their assumption is false. For the most part health care is in no way a free market system. The various medical facilities and practices are not charging what the market will bear nor setting the prices for their services. Instead the costs of various treatments and medical procedures are being determined by insurance company or the government care program (Medicare and Medicaid) bureaucracies. Such a set up can in no way be called a free market system.

The only 'free market' medical care is concentrated in two specialties: plastic surgery and ophthalmology (specifically LASIK). Their costs have continuously gone down because health insurance doesn't pay for such surgery unless it is reconstructive, such as after traumatic injury or cancer surgery.

Another free market medical practice making inroads: walk-in medical clinics that provide basic primary medical care. They are usually located in pharmacies, large retail operations (like Walmart), or store front locations. Their costs are low because they don't take insurance. It's cash or credit card. There are also a few medical practices, mostly family medicine, that also do not take insurance. Like the walk-in clinics, they post their prices right in the waiting room. They provide basic primary medical care at low costs because they don't have the excessive costs associated with handling and filing insurance claims. (John Stossel has covered this topic a number of times.)

If Obama really wanted to reform health care, he would move to do away with health insurance except for that covering catastrophic or chronic care. But we know he won't do that because it means the government will not be able to take over the health care system.