Massachusetts Voters Decided To Make A Stand, But Is It Enough To Save American Healthcare?

It has become clear that health care reform in its present state has nothing to do with delivering quality healthcare to the American people.

The idea of universal coverage, with protection against insurance company wrongs (e.g., denying patients for pre-existing conditions and limiting the insurance company’s ability to deny coverage when you really need it) has been the sheep’s clothing cloaking a bill designed to destroy our healthcare system. In short, the proposed healthcare reform will doom us to a future that has the potential to make us sicker by limiting our access to screening exams such as mammograms, and limiting our access to physicians while making us pay more for the privilege.

The vote in Massachusetts was a stand against those in the government who are bent on telling us that they know what is best for us. I have been astounded by the complete contempt in which those in power hold the American people. A majority of the people in this country think the healthcare reform effort is going in the wrong direction. Although the vote in Massachusetts made it clear that there was major opposition to the current bill, I have doubts that the voices of the majority will be heard and this debacle will be stopped.

We have a chance to stop this and get it right. If The Congressional healthcare reform bill passes we will be saddled with:

• An enormous government bureaucracy run by a universal healthcare Czar that will ultimately decide what will be covered. The Czar will be the arbiter on whether or not you get needed medical care like a hip replacement or gene therapy.
• A commission appointed by the president that will decide what treatments will be allowed for what diseases. (The commission is mandated to have only one physician.)
• A government run committee driven by evidence based medicine that will decide clinical outcomes. If the expected outcome is not achieved then the provider will not be paid.
• A government able to decide whether a hospital will be paid for services rendered For example, if a patient is re-admitted to a hospital in a shorter time than the government deems appropriate, then the hospital will not be paid. It does not take into account how ill the patient may be.

For an excellent synopsis of the most egregious portions of the House bill HR 3200 read the blog by Peter Fleckstein.

Although Scott Brown’s election should be seen as a win for opponents of healthcare reform, we need to watch for actions that may be working against the rhetoric. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time that Congress pushed through an unpopular piece of legislation that people were adamantly against – does TARP ring a bell? Maybe the writing is already on the wall. On the one hand you have some in Congress saying that the healthcare reform bill is dead, but Senator Reid has recently come out with the statement that it would take about 10 days before Senator-elect Brown would be seated in the Senate….plenty of time for more backdoor deals, and arm twisting to happen.