CANADA'S HEALTHCARE DISASTER By DICK MORRIS ... November 3, 2009 "After more than a decade of public healthcare with mandatory coverage, so many Canadian doctors have left the practice and so many young people have entered other fields that Canada ranks 26th of 28 developed nations in its ratio of physicians to population. Once, Canada ranked among the leaders in the number of physicians, but that was before government healthcare drove doctors out of the practice in droves. The fundamental fact is that we cannot cover 36 million new patients without more doctors and nurses, much less with the declining census of medical professionals the Canadian experience points to. A recent survey of doctors by the Pew Institute found that 45 percent of all practicing doctors would consider retiring or closing their practices if the Obama healthcare bill passes. This scarcity of medical personnel heightens the likelihood of draconian rationing, lengthy waiting lists and lower-quality medical care for all of us, particularly for the elderly. This physician shortage leads to massive and never-ending waiting lists. In 1993, for example, there was an average wait of 9.3 weeks from the time a patient got a referral from a general practitioner to the time he could see a specialist. By 1997, the wait was up to 11.7 weeks. Now it's 17.3 weeks -- over four months just to see a specialist! In Canada, unions control the entire healthcare process. In Manitoba, for example, there is an eight-month wait for colonoscopies, yet the unions do not permit weekend or evening procedures, thereby extending the waiting lists. The unions are doing to healthcare in Canada what they have done to education in America: stifling creativity, reinforcing bureaucracy and extending waiting times. Because of these long waits for colonoscopies, there is now a 25 percent higher incidence of colon cancer in Canada than in the United States. And because the leading drugs that we routinely use to treat the malady in the U.S. are banned in Canada because of their high cost, 41 percent of Canadians who get the cancer die of it, compared with only 32 percent in the United States. Overall, the cancer death rate in Canada runs 16 percent higher than in the United States. Cancer does not wait for waiting lists to clear. The potential of healthcare changes to shrink the doctor population, exacerbating scarcity and extending waits, is even worse now that it is apparent we have overestimated the number of doctors in the U.S. Where we once thought there were 840,000 doctors, the total is now estimated to be only 760,000. The proposed $400 billion cut in Medicare raises the probability that more and more of those doctors who do practice will refuse to accept Medicare patients, aggravating the doctor shortage among the elderly, the population that needs them the most. As Obama's program moves through Congress, despite the fierce opposition of a majority of American voters in virtually all the polls, it becomes clear that those moderates who vote for it will face harsh retribution at the polls from their outraged constituents. A kind of suicide-pact mentality is gripping the Democratic majorities in Congress, akin to that which came over it when Congress passed President Bill Clinton's tax package in 1993. This disregard for the will of the marginal voter may make sense for those who come from safe districts, but it makes none for those who come from swing districts. For them, suicidal conduct leads to political demise."
DEFEAT OBAMACARE IN DETAIL By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN - November 13, 2009 Harry Reid can pass a bill in the Senate that has no public option or an easy opt-out, shallow subsidies for the uninsured, a low total cost, weak penalties for not having insurance, no coverage for abortion and no general tax increase (except for the premium and medical device taxes). And Nancy Pelosi can pass a bill in the House (on final passage) that has a public option with no opt-out, steep subsidies for the uninsured, harsh penalties if they don't buy insurance, a higher cost, full abortion coverage and a surcharge income-tax increase. The question is: Can either one's bill pass the other's chamber? Probably not. So here's how all this is likely to unfold: Pelosi's bill is dead on arrival in the Senate. Reid is going to have to give up his insistence on the public option and pass a bill in the Senate very much like the Baucus bill that came out of the Senate Finance Committee. After extensive negotiations with his liberal wing on the one side and the moderates in the Senate on the other (led by Joe Lieberman) he will eventually strike a deal. He'll let the bill pass with no public option or with a generous opt-out provision. Meanwhile, he will placate his liberals by telling them that the final version that the Conference Committee will report back to the Senate will have a robust public option, not to worry. (Just as Pelosi told her liberals that the final bill would not ban payments for abortions, not to worry.) After weeks of negotiations, the Senate will probably pass its version of the bill as a Christmas present to America. But...in the course of all these negotiations, Obama and the Democrats are going to look worse and worse, more divided and less focused on the ultimate objective. Public antipathy to the bills will mount and the worst-case scenario of each possible variation in the legislation will spark its own storm of opposition. By the time the Senate acts, the feminists will be angry, the uninsured will be angry, the senior citizens will be angry and the fiscal conservatives will be angry. Support for the bill will drop week after week during November and December. By the time Congress reconvenes in January to wrestle with the two competing versions, support for the bill will have dwindled to a perilous point. This reduced level of support will just serve to make senators and congressmen more intransigent in the negotiations. Since the bill will need 60 votes in the Senate after the conference report, Lieberman, Maine's Snowe and Collins and a handful of other moderates will each have a veto. And, collectively, the liberals in each chamber will have one as well. Weeks and months of wrangling will ensue. The result could be the defeat of the bill or its amendment in positive ways (for those opposed to it). Our task is to reduce public support for the bill by publicizing its provisions, notably: 1. The $400 billion cut in Medicare 2. The inevitable scarcity that will result from the addition of 35 million new patients with no new doctors or nurses 3. The fine on the uninsured of 2.5 percent of their income if they don't buy insurance 4. The high cost of these mandatory insurance policies ($15,000 per family) 5. The low level of subsidy available for the uninsured (only after they pay 8-12 percent of their incomes) 6. The likelihood of a $1,700 increase in the average family's premiums 7. The possibility of up to five years in prison for failing to buy insurance or pay the fine 8. The taxation of medical devices like pacemakers, wheelchairs, prosthetic limbs, hearing aids, etc. 9. The tax on sick people (increasing the threshold for deducting medical expenses from 7.5 percent to 10 percent of income 10. The additional fiscal burden on the states of the increase in Medicaid eligibility 11. The 40 percent tax on health insurance premiums that will affect households earning more than $75,000 by the fifth year of the plan. Please circulate this information widely -- to friends, relatives, associates, etc.
Pfft. If you need faster care, fly to where the doctors are. Costa Rica has good doctors. Lol, many of them are US ex-pats.
So what have we learned in 2,064 years? "The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance." -- Cicero ~55 BC Evidently, nothing... yet!
THE YOUNG TURN AGAINST OBAMACARE By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN ... November 24, 2009 Previously, we reported to you that our national polling showed that the under-30 voters were the strongest supporters of the Obama healthcare initiative. While seniors opposed it by almost 2-to-1 and voters 30-64 opposed it by five- to 10-point margins, the under-30 voters backed his program by 58-30. So with the funds you have donated, we ran television advertisments and an Internet campaign aimed at young people focused in Arkansas, North Dakota and Maine. The results are incredible! Now under-30 voters are the strongest opponents of the plan. In the table below, we show you the vote on the Obama plan broken down by age. (We aggregated all three states so we would have enough interviews to make the age subsets statistically meaningful.) Support/Oppose Obama plan, combined data for Arkansas, North Dakota and Maine Age Support/Oppose Obama Plan Under 30 25-65 30-49 28-60 50-64 41-50 Over 65 32-55 The polling had predicted that the young would swing sharply and dramatically against the Obama program once they got the key information about it, but we are blown away by these results. These data are from polls the League of American Voters commissioned John Zogby to conduct. Commenting on the results, John said, "These results among 18- to 29-year-olds are striking. It puts in jeopardy the whole theory of the new Democratic majority, because young people are essential to that base." Boy, is he ever correct! At the same time that we are seeing this big shift, the national data on ObamaCare continues to show slippage. Rasmussen shows support down to 38 percent (56 percent opposed) from 45-52 right after the House vote. Will the Senate listen to public opinion? Damn right they will! At this rate, they would have to face the loss of their entire political base to pass this legislation. Politicians don't work that way! These early procedural votes don't mean much. As George W. Bush said in the war on terror, "We have to be right all the time. The enemy just has to get it right once." Now it is the opposite. We just need to win one vote to kill the plan. They need to win them all. And at this rate, the plan is in deep, deep trouble..."
Gubmint and How Gubmint Works Once upon a time the government had a vast scrap yard in the middle of a desert. Congress said, "Someone may steal from it at night." So they created a night watchman position and hired a person for the job. Then Congress said, "How does the watchman do his job without instruction?" So they created a planning department and hired two people, one person to write the instructions, and one person to do time studies. Then Congress said, "How will we know the night watchman is doing the tasks correctly?" So they created a Quality Control department and hired two people. One to do the studies and one to write the reports. Then Congress said, "How are these people going to get paid?" So They created the following positions, a time keeper, and a payroll officer, Then hired two people. Then Congress said, "Who will be accountable for all of these people?" So they created an administrative section and hired three people, an Administrative Officer, Assistant Administrative Officer, and a Legal Secretary. Then Congress said, "We have had this command in operation for one Year and we are $18,000 over budget, we must cutback overall cost." So they laid off the night watchman... NOW slowly, let it sink in. Quietly, we go like sheep to slaughter. Does anybody remember the reason given for the establishment of the DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY.... during the Carter Administration? Anybody? Anything? No? Didn't think so! Bottom line. We've spent several hundred billion dollars in support of an agency...the reason for which not one person who reads this can remember! Ready?? It was very simple...and at the time, everybody thought it very appropriate. The Department of Energy was instituted on 8-04-1977. TO LESSEN OUR DEPENDENCE ON FOREIGN OIL. Hey, pretty efficient, huh??? AND NOW IT'S 2009 -- 32 YEARS LATER -- AND THE BUDGET FOR THIS "NECESSARY" DEPARTMENT IS AT $24.2 BILLION A YEAR. THEY HAVE 16,000 FEDERAL EMPLOYEES AND APPROXIMATELY 100,000 CONTRACT EMPLOYEES; AND LOOK AT THE JOB THEY HAVE DONE! THIS IS WHERE YOU SLAP YOUR FOREHEAD AND SAY, "WHAT WAS I THINKING?" Ah, yes -- good ole bureaucracy. AND, NOW, WE ARE GOING TO TURN THE BANKING SYSTEM, HEALTH CARE, AND THE AUTO INDUSTRY OVER TO THE SAME GOVERNMENT? HELLOOO! Anybody Home?
HARDEST HIT BY OBAMACARE By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN The "health-care reform" bills in Congress would hit 39 states hard with new expenses, by raising Medicaid eligibility above the cur rent income cutoffs. The only states that won't have to raise eligibility because of the Senate bill are Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont and Wisconsin (plus the District of Columbia). And the House bill would force even Massachusetts and Vermont to pay more. Hardest hit would be Texas ($2,750 million a year in extra state spending under the Senate bill), Pennsylvania ($1,450 million), California ($1,428 million) and Florida ($909 million). Who knows if Florida could avoid imposing an income tax if it has to meet so high an unfunded mandate? The required increases in state spending are likely to be quite high in some states whose senators are swing votes on ObamaCare: * In Arkansas, home to swing Sens. Mark Pryor and Blanche Lincoln, the annual increased state spending would come to $402 million (not counting the federal share) -- about a 10 percent increase in the state budget, which is now $4 billion a year. * In Louisiana, whose Sen. Marie Landrieu sold her vote on a key procedural motion in return for more Medicaid funding, the increase would come to $432 million (a 5 percent hike in state spending) -- more than wiping out the extra funds she got in return for her vote. * In Sen. Evan Bayh's Indiana, spending would go up by $586 million a year, a rise of 4 percent. * In Sen. Ben Nelson's Nebraska, the added state spending would be $81 million a year, a 2 percent increase. The Sebate ObamaCare bill would cost North Dakota, home of Sens. Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan, $14 million. South Dakota, represented by Sen. Tim Johnson, would have to boost Medicaid spending by $33 million. The Medicaid-expansion provisions of the Senate bill are complex. In the first year of the program (2013), states must enroll anyone who earns less than 133 percent of the poverty level in their programs. For a family of four, the national average poverty level in 2009 is $22,000 a year. So any family that size that makes less than $29,000 would be eligible for Medicaid. Many states, particularly in the South, actually have Medicaid cutoffs below the poverty level. Arkansas, for example, cuts off its Medicaid eligibility at only 17 percent of poverty level, and in Louisiana it goes up to only 26 percent. For these states, the spending increase required by the new bill is huge. For the first three years of the program (2013-15) the federal government would pay for all of the costs of the Medicaid expansion. But, starting in the fourth year of operation -- 2016 -- the average state would be obliged to pay 10 percent of the extra cost. For Democratic governors, this provision means sudden death. Particularly in states with limited Medicaid coverage, it would require huge tax increases."