Passage of anything remotely resembling this bill's current form will be political suicide for all intents and purposes for the Democratic party. I have to think there are a handful of Senators and House members that are savvy enough to see that.
To put things in perspective, I have my own insurance plan for me and my family thru Oxford (here in NYC region) and our monthly premium is 1300+ with a 2500 deductable which does not include dental. This is on par with other similar plans offered by other companies. True reform to lower costs would have been to allow me to purchase plans from your area or another where I could have actual price competition. That is the true way to lower health costs.
The following was from WSJ. It seems to open doors for massive fraud. Clearly billions will be directed to a dubious part of american public.': While the bill will slash Medicare funding, it will also direct billions of dollars to numerous inner-city social work and diversity programs with vague standards of accountability. ⢠Sec. 399V (p. 1422) provides for grants to community "entities" with no required qualifications except having "documented community activity and experience with community healthcare workers" to "educate, guide, and provide experiential learning opportunities" aimed at drug abuse, poor nutrition, smoking and obesity. "Each community health worker program receiving funds under the grant will provide services in the cultural context most appropriate for the individual served by the program." These programs will "enhance the capacity of individuals to utilize health services and health related social services under Federal, State and local programs by assisting individuals in establishing eligibility . . . and in receiving services and other benefits" including transportation and translation services. ⢠Sec. 222 (p. 617) provides reimbursement for culturally and linguistically appropriate services. This program will train health-care workers to inform Medicare beneficiaries of their "right" to have an interpreter at all times and with no co-pays for language services. ⢠Secs. 2521 and 2533 (pp. 1379 and 1437) establishes racial and ethnic preferences in awarding grants for training nurses and creating secondary-school health science programs. For example, grants for nursing schools should "give preference to programs that provide for improving the diversity of new nurse graduates to reflect changes in the demographics of the patient population." And secondary-school grants should go to schools "graduating students from disadvantaged backgrounds including racial and ethnic minorities." ⢠Sec. 305 (p. 189) Provides for automatic Medicaid enrollment of newborns who do not otherwise have insurance.
In case anyone here is interested in the truth, I suggest you go to the source rather than believing what you read in radical right wing publications such as WSJ or on websites sudsidized by special interest groups. Here is a link to the actual bill. http://candicemiller.house.gov/pdf/hr3200.pdf Also I might add that if any of you are capable of simple arithmetic you will know that the cost per person is less than $30/mo, which includes the government subsidy to those low wage earners that can not fully pay their premiums and the administrative costs. This ought to be more than compensated for by reductions in your private health insurance premiums that results from increased competition among insurers. Yes, indeed, there is much to like about this Bill. Write your senator and tell him you want HR3200 passed unaltered. It is time for the US to join the family of civilized nations by making quality affordable health care available to everyone.
Please tell me this is a fucking joke, even the NHS has the decency to set an appointment up with real doctors. This alone is enough to make me go against such a retardedly big bill. Oh yes! TRUTH!!
There is nothing about this in HR3200 on the pages you cite. There is no Section 1114 in HR3200. We should be making wider use of nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and other auxiliary health care professionals where the higher cost of a physicians time is wasteful and unneeded. That only makes sense.
That's the old bill. Here's the new one. Double the pleasure. Enjoy your read http://docs.house.gov/rules/health/111_ahcaa.pdf
The section and pages you refer to in HR3962 does not replace physicians nor prohibit them from attending to hospice patients, at merely broadens the kinds of healthcare personnel that can provide services to hospice care patients, including ordering post hospital extended care services. I suggest you read it yourself.
Sorry, but I don't care what argument is for this bill. If it was really a politician that wrote this then they need to re-learn correct spelling and punctuation.