Tag Archives: social security

Government Controlled Health Care

Please excuse my mention of politics and our current health care system dilemma. I am a patient, not a political party…disease does not stop at borders but it sure plays a part in medicine…

“It is a common misconception that the free enterprise system is at fault for the current high cost of medical care in the US, a misconception that the current administration has no desire to refute…”

UNEMPLOYMENT RATE HITS 10.2 PERCENT, WORST SINCE 1983; EMPLOYERS CUT 190,000 JOBS ”
http://email.foxnews.com/t?ctl=2163:7A6A4B31296F1CB1EA28BA15CAB80E79&

Now the White House is extending the unemployment insurance – again. Nothing happens overnight, we know…but I would feel more hopeful if our government wasn’t spending money we don’t have… and keeps spending the same invisible money.

President Obama reminds me of a cookie starved kid suddenly turned loose in Ma Kettle’s Cookie Kitchen – he keeps making cookies long after the oven died and the shelves are bare.

The car bonanza helped people buy all electric golf carts at a fraction of the cost or got them free – thanks to the taxpayer and generosity of the White House. (WH)

The Acorn shame was hidden by the mainstream media – Fox opened Pandora’s Box and we began to learn how the WH is manipulating the media and attacking Fox for telling us THE NEWS. Real news, not slanted.

Last night I did my usual click through stations and found one miserable health condition show after another…gee, right when the WH is manipulating for government controlled health care.

Once during the past few months, I joined in on a AARP phone town meeting and listened to one amazing comment after another…until I had a page almost full of comments and questions to ask.
I called the number given for questions and left the message. The impetus to call was when AARP bragged that California had the best system of superb health care in the nation. The California health care system should be the model for the country…no one mentioned that California is BANKRUPT.

Later, the last cookie of remaining respect crumbled when I watched the CEO on a Fox interview state over and over again that AARP did not have a position yet on health care.

I have a special interest in health care, as do most of us … and do not want another government controlled agency doomed to fail…just as government controlled Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are failed.

“Social Security is safe today but will run deficits in just 12 years. That’s not a very long time to fix the world’s biggest government program.”
http://www.socialsecurity.org/reformandyou/faqs.html

“…The current recession is wreaking havoc on the Social Security trust fund. But the real blame lies with irresponsible politicians. Instead of planning for the future—of which they had literally a generation in advance warning—politicians acted as if a severe recession would never come.

Now, instead of a trust fund filled with the accumulated dollars of previous generations to cover distributions to those taxpayers, the government is left with an empty bag of holes.
The trust fund’s annual surplus will all but vanish next year according to the Congressional Budget Office’s (cbo’s) most recent report.
With unemployment rising, there are 5.1 million fewer workers paying into Social Security than when the recession began in December 2007.

The end of the Social Security surplus could have enormous consequences.
For the government, it means not only will it need money to somehow pay those Social Security entitlements, but it will also need to find a new source of off-budget money to “borrow” from for other expenditures that were previously funded by stealing from Social Security. …

“Over the past 25 years, the government has gotten used to the fact that Social Security is providing free money to make the rest of the deficit look smaller,” said Andrew Biggs, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. “Instead of Social Security subsidizing the rest of the budget, the rest of the budget will have to subsidize Social Security.”

That is not good news for the 51 million retirees who depend on Social Security.

Already in massive debt, the government has limited options for financing Social Security.

The first two options—cutting benefits for retirees, and/or raising taxes on current workers—are probably politically impractical, especially since America is only in the early stages of the “Greater Recession.” …
…government with one last-ditch option: to just create more money…. may include discrediting the dollar, destroying America’s purchasing power and severe international consequences.

The Federal Reserve Bank has already announced that it has started down this path. Inflation will almost inevitably result.
America is facing some tough choices, none of them easy: reduced benefits, higher taxes, more borrowing, higher inflation, a damaged dollar. The consequences of big government and even bigger spending are about to slam home with landslide force.

The Social Security debacle is just one more should-have-been-avoidable financial crisis to add to the growing list. … •
http://www.thetrumpet.com/index.php?q=6106.4502.0.0

President Obama is NOT RESPONSIBLE for the SS crisis…he inherited the SS, Medicare and Medicaid disasters.
President Obama IS RESPONSIBLE for his outrageous borrowing and throwing more billions of invisible money into the pit of no return.

Between Fannie, Freddie, Ginnie and the FHA, an astounding near 90 percent of all loans being issued in the United States are now backed by the government. If home prices continue to fall, and defaults continue to grow, these organizations have the potential to destroy government finances. Yet instead of trying to mitigate this unfolding disaster, America is actually plunging in deeper. http://www.thetrumpet.com/index.php?q=6697.5217.0.0

The writing is on the wall–the Social Security system won’t be able to sustain itself much longer. When the Social Security trustees issue their 2010 report next May, the viability of this system will have deteriorated further—a fact trustees cannot hide any longer under the proverbial “political rug.” However, with media attention focused on healthcare and the death of Michael Jackson, most Americans are simply unaware of this coming tempest….”
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/08/why_social_security_will_go_ba.html

“…Not only will Obama ration your health care — especially if you are a senior citizen — and have the government decide what treatment and benefits you get, the proposed plan will also build and expand the government’s surveillance and control grid.

Section 163 of the bill now in Congress allows the government real-time access to a person’s bank records, including direct access to bank accounts for electronic fund transfers. “Even-though the bill mentions privacy aspects, the fact remains that if approved, Obama’s health care plan will allow government access at any time to your personal bank records,” KFYI News reports.
“It’s pretty Orwellian, it certainly gets the government pretty darn deeply involved in private matters in our lives,” Arizona Congressman John Shadegg told the news radio station…. http://www.infowars.com/obama-health-bill-allows-government-real-time-access-to-bank-accounts/

“It is a common misconception that the free enterprise system is at fault for the current high cost of medical care in the US, a misconception that the current administration has no desire to refute. However, the government’s regulatory and control practices are really at fault. Ever increasing and more punitive government and Medicare regulations set the standards for the actions of the private insurance companies. … Government over-regulated and managed health care makes as much sense as government managed flying.
Frank S. Rosenbloom, M.D. “Government Health Care Won’t Fly””
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/06/government_health_care_wont_fl_1.html

More later … Sharon O’Hara

QUALITY LIFE- TOO EXPENSIVE?

QUALITY LIFE- TOO EXPENSIVE?
CHEAP DEATH – IS IT REALLY?
WHO DECIDES?

Since when does living a quality life for the medically or physically challenged mean too costly for taxpayers?

Living a quality life, to me, means seeing and feeling the world around us…seeing the sparkle and sharp colors of new daybreak splash slowly across the horizon and its new dawn promise, the muted and soft streaks of a sunset inch across the sky at day’s end, the happy, funny gurgle and contented baby coo, a bee’s buzz as it flits from flower to flower, the busy chirp and chat of birds, the cheery tug of anticipation at the shout of “STRIKE ONE!” when your child or grandchild is at bat, the intoxicating smell of freshly mowed grass, an unexpected hug from a friend, the excited bark of a welcome home greeting and the warm feel and tangy smell of a horse and the soft nudge of her head for a carrot treat – all blend together.

None have a price tag. One or more of these things and many more, give a quality life without a price tag.

Yes, for seniors, when major disease requiring intensive treatment costly to the body and pocketbook is diagnosed, open and honest dialog between the patient and doctor is a vital step to making the right decision for each patient.

If the patient is already under treatment for life altering medical conditions and treatment, the patient must be fully informed of the new estimated treatment, length and intensity of recovery, adding the cause and effect to the existing medications and prognosis.

Who should make the decision? The patient knows when his/her quality life is over. For me, it is when I can no long feel anything but the pain …when the world around me ceases to matter…before I can no longer take care of my personal needs and can’t recover…its time.

I know, understand and approve age and other limits on lungs and organ transplants. I don’t get mammograms, apps or colon tests simply because should any prove positive, I won’t do anything about it.

My doctor and I have already talked about quality of life and she is incredibly wise and informs, yet accepts my decisions about my own health care. My family knows exactly how I feel and it is not their decision, it is my life and my decisions.

It is not your decision either. I think the patient’s doctor and other medical professionals – NOT including the government – need to present the facts to the patient in a kind, straightforward manner and let the patient and medical team make the decision regarding treatment or no treatment.

IF the facts are presented properly and honestly in each case, very few, if any, senior patients would choose to undergo serious surgery, intensive recovery time, loss of ability to care for their own personal hygiene and waste what remains of their time on earth. Each situation is different and individual.

I was once present when an elderly patient was taken to the emergency room. He clearly had dementia, yet was given – it seemed – a test on every new and old machine in the hospital. One scene stands out in memory…the technician reading aloud the instruction booklet as she hooked the patient to the machine. None of the tests were productive. I’m sure it was an expensive visit.

Keep terminally ill folks comfortable … but all these things should be discussed with the PATIENT long before emergencies and urgency cloud the overall issue.

I doubt my grandmother had much quality of life after she entered the nursing home. Her false teeth were stolen along with other personal items. She fought to get out of bed and walk until she was drugged to keep her compliant and easy to care for. Soon she couldn’t get out of bed by herself and was eventually spoon fed and diapered.
Quality of life? She was over ninety, did not recognize anyone and had forgotten how to speak English. The grandmother I knew was gone.
Why hadn’t she been allowed to walk and maintain a quality of life? Too expensive?

Keep government out of health care and a single pay. Let the free enterprise system flourish and see the health care costs diminish and patient care increase. Let the insurance companies compete for business across the nation. Allow our system to work and use the system we already have in place to correct and make the needed changes. NOT GOVERNMENT.

Remember the $600 toilet seats government bought and regular folks only paid about $50 for the same seat? How about Social Security? How many years before its bankrupt and the people paying into it now will probably never get to use it?

How has the government run Clunkers worked out for our tax dollar and the economy? Well, a lot of folks bought, free, thanks to the Clunkers program, electric golf carts.

Medicare is government run…is it successful?
Please.
The government run Medicare and Medicaid is the reason the medical profession is the only profession I know of in this country that is penalized for being in health care and treating seniors and Medicaid patients.
Patients are cheated, physicians and health care professionals are cheated…and some cheat in return.
Keep government out of the health care business… for your kids’ sake.

No one in this country is denied health care…hospitals have shut their doors before or after the bankruptcy for treating patients without payment. No one is turned away. However, how long can any organization last without revenue?

In addition, ask yourself how long a civilization can last or should last, if their citizens are evaluated and cared for based on dollars not spent?

Frank and open honest discussion with the patient – educate them – will make a difference…not manipulation based on dollars. .

NO to government health care.

More later … Sharon O’Hara
This blog post was an answer to a post on Rob’s blog and tantalizing title: http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2009/oct/16/rob-woutat-a-dying-person-needs-death/