Obama's Daschle Plan for Health Insurance "Reform" in the Stimulus Bill The Result of Bribes Paid To Daschle by Health Care Industry

Following up on my previous post, this just in from POLITICO. Dems who won't do an ostrich routine need to slap themselves and read this ... NOW:

Daschle made nearly $5.3 million in the last two years, records released Friday show, including $220,000 he received for giving speeches, many of them to outfits that stand to gain or lose millions of dollars from the work he would do once confirmed as secretary of Health and Human Services.

For instance, the Health Industry Distributors Association plunked down $14,000 to land the former Senate Democratic leader in March 2008. The association, which represents medical products distributors, boasts on its website that Daschle met with it after he was nominated to discuss “the impact an Obama administration will have on the industry.”

This week, the group began openly lobbying him, sending him a letter urging him to rescind a rule requiring competitive bidding of Medicare contracts.

Another organization, America’s Health Insurance Plans, paid $20,000 for a Daschle speaking appearance in February 2007. It represents health insurance companies, which under Obama’s plan would be barred from denying coverage on the basis of health or age.

There was a $12,000 talk to GE Healthcare in August, a $20,000 lecture in January to Premier, Inc., a health care consulting firm, and a pair of $18,000 speeches this year to different hospital systems, among other paid appearances before health care groups.

The speaking fees were detailed in a financial disclosure statement released Friday, which showed that Daschle pulled down a total of more than $500,000 from the speaking circuit in the last two years, and $5.3 million in overall income.

And furthermore, from nextGov:

Daschle received speaking fees in 2008 from Premier Inc., which collects and analyzes clinical and financial data for hospitals, and America's Health Insurance Plans, an association that represents 1,300 health insurers, according to The Los Angeles Times.

Premier and America's Health Insurance Plans belong to the Confidentiality Coalition, which sent a letter in December to Senate and House leadership opposing plans to include in the economic stimulus bill provisions that would protect the privacy of patients. The bill includes $20 billion for promoting transforming American's paper health records to electronic form to reduce costs and improve health care.

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Daschle and Obama Create the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology to Curtail Costs by Depriving Americans of Needed Care

Excuse me, my Dem dears, but why isn't our camera-loving, speechy Obama crowing about this as one of his triumphs? Read on and find out.

How best to control the absurd costs of health care in America? According to the disgraced Daschle and our new Messiah, President Obama, you penalize the consumers while doing little or nothing to prevent the medical mega-corps from continuing to pad the nation's indefensible medical bills with never-ending demands for more profit.

Listen up, you Dems who support the Messiah, this is all in black and white. The government will function like a corrupt HMO, using bureaucrats to make rules that will deny specific treatments not only for specific age groups, but potentially everyone, and thus relieve medical professionals from the need to use their experience and brains. Medicare will also take a big hit as the elderly will suffer terribly from this. Medications will suddenly not be covered. Important innovations in Alzheimer's disease, e.g., will be denied. You think I'm joking?

We will all suffer from this. Yes, CHANGE is coming, and Obama will make sure of it.

Also, more windfall profits for insurance companies. Why? Because they won't have to pay off on billions worth of treatments suddenly deemed inappropriate or unsuitable by the Washington bureaucracy, they will get access to a uniform medical database that will make it easier for them to deny claims and coverage based on "pre-existing" conditions, and as a bonus, they won't have to lower their rates or make it easier for the uninsured to acquire needed insurance.

Health care costs to the consumer will remain the same and we are assured the enshrinement of a well-defined two tier health care system: one for the rich, and the Daschle-Obama plan for everyone else. The "change" helps only the corporate supporters of Obama and Congress.

According to Betsy at Bloomberg.com:

One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.”

There was zero national debate on this. It was cleverly included with the stimulus package, disguised and kept quiet by Obama at the advice of Daschle.

True? Yes, it's true!

As a friend of mine would say, Shine Perishing Democracy!

A PROFILE IN GREED - Air Evac Lifeteam Charges College Student $17,000 For a Ride in a Helicopter

This isn't just David vs. Goliath, this is Erin vs. Air Evac Lifeteam, an American college student returning home from a mission of mercy vs. a mercenary helicopter service that charges insanely outrageous fees for the privilege of ferrying helpless accident victims to a hospital, and later, to a lifeteam of crushing debt.

THIS IS AN UPDATE TO THIS BLOG POST MADE SEVERAL YEARS AGO. THE AVERAGE COST FOR A 30 MINUTE TO 60 MINUTE MEDICAL HELICOPTER RIDE, REGARDLESS OF INJURY OR NON-INJURY, HAS RISEN TO $39,0000 - $50,000+ PER TRIP, AND THE RISE IN COST SHOWS NO SIGNS OF SLOWING. THIS IS A LUCRATIVE BUSINESS FOR RUTHLESS SOCIOPATHS WHO KNOW THAT INSURANCE WILL NOT PAY EVEN HALF OF THIS BILL IN MOST CASES. 

Now, I support capitalism, but what Air Evac Lifeteam does to unfortunate people unable to compete in a fair marketplace for air ambulance services is unconscionable unless one is a confirmed corporate sociopath, the Enron likes of which intentionally cut the electricity in California to drive up prices.

Now comes the victim, Erin Neff (daughter to the editor of Web del Sol)--returning home from a long trip, organized by her school to help Katrina casualties. Her van spun out of control and Erin was thrown from the vehicle and onto the highway. Miraculously, she did not break anything, but authorities on the scene thought it best to evac her to the nearest hospital for tests. And guess who arrives? AIR EVAC LIFETEAM with a transport price tag that would make even millionaires pause--I mean, who in their right mind would pay $17,000+ for a 30 minute helicopter ride? No one, of course.

Erin didn't mind getting picked up and flown to the hospital. It was fun, in a way. Little did she know that this angel-of-mercy company was going to send her a bill that would potentially burden her with bills at high interest rates for years to come (on top of her student loans!). A copy of that bill can be found here. Note they charged her a whopping ten grand just to step on the copter! The rest of it is a per mile fee that adds up to close to seven more thousand.

Erin Neff cannot pay this bill. She is working with her college to pay some of it. Insurance is covering zip. But even as around-the-block as I am, this kind of story floors me!
Okay, so what is really responsible for the dizzying rise of health care costs in America? One word ... GREED.

Just pure f**king GREED!
Thank you, Air Evac Lifeteam.
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