By Sharon Sebastian —— Bio and Archives October 18, 2012
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“In October 2012, the Obama administration starts awarding ‘bonus points’ to the hospitals that spend the least per senior…And it whacks the higher spending hospitals with demerits, not only for what they spend on a patient while the patient is in the hospital, but also what is spent on that patient for the three months after hospitalization. So hospitals also get hit with demerits for recommending physical therapy after the patient leaves the hospital, or even recommending a doctor’s visit; it’s all counted. These regulations are not going to wring out the fraud, waste, and abuse. No, they are going to force these hospitals to provide a lower standard of care.”Suzanne Monaghan of Philadelphia (CBS) writes that according to Priscilla Koutsouradis with Delaware Valley Health Care Council: “The hospital community is being asked to drive these changes …to do it with less payment,” she says. “And at the same time, many of the conditions that determine whether a patient needs to be readmitted are out of the hospitals control.” AIM further reports that, “McCaughey cited a study in the Annals of Internal Medicine, which shows that over a four year period, in California, nearly 14,000 seniors with common conditions—stroke, pneumonia, heart attack, congestive heart failure, hip fractures, and others, died in low-spending hospitals—bottom quintile—but would have survived and recovered and gone home had they received the care available at a higher spending hospital.” She said, “…in disregard of this evidence—the Obama administration is pushing hospitals in all 50 states to imitate the low-spending hospitals where the death rates are higher!” McCaughey concluded that “It is reasonable to predict, based on this evidence, that the regulations and cuts in this law will cost at least 35,000 elderly patients their lives every year. That’s 35,000 patients in hospitals, dying, who could have recovered had they received the care available at a higher spending institution.” It is the liberal Democrats sending seniors over the cliff. Welcome to Obamacare. What is your legal redress if your loved one suffers medical mistreatment or dies due to neglect under Obamacare? Do you seek restitution from the government, or a state-run facility that is protected under the law? Not likely. You have lost before you’ve started that legal battle. The article, Obama's Death Knell for the Elderly (LINK), states:
“What younger Americans cannot see coming is that under Obamacare, reduced medical care with limited access to fewer doctors will force parents and grandparents to rely heavily on younger generations for their physical needs and financial support. Doctors are already turning away older patients because of Obamacare. In National Review Online, James C. Capretta writes about Obamacare’s deep cuts in Medicare payments to hospitals and care providers: “Actuaries who oversee Medicare’s spending projections have warned repeatedly that these cuts will compromise access to care for seniors because many facilities will be forced to stop admitting Medicare patients. What will seniors do then to get care they need? That is where Obama’s bureaucrat-laden Independent Payment Advisory Board comes into play. Whether young or old, care to prolong your life has a price on it. Obama’s plan supports rationing as a cost cutting mechanism. Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, brother to Obama’s former Chief of Staff and current Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, designed a life chart with a “priority curve” that conceptualizes population control by age groups. Americans under age 15 and over age 45 are designated as being less productive to the government. Senior Americans and the very young are relegated as being less valuable and expendable. According to Emanuel, there should be limits on how much should be paid to lengthen a life.”For a college student, construction worker, senior or a child injured on the playground, downgraded medical care and devices can impact health and recovery for the rest of one’s life.
“Obamacare undermines and weakens the doctor–patient relationship by linking payment not to patient [care] outcomes but to adherence to government protocol.” Americans for Tax Reform sees further attacks through Obamacare’s 2013 medical device excise taxes on medical device manufacturers. “These companies will surely build the cost of this new tax into the price of what they sell. Who buys medical devices? Who buys pacemakers, wheelchairs, and other costly medical devices? Seniors do.” As do people of all ages that have injuries, accidents or birth defects. Under Obamacare, medical device companies expect to go bankrupt or out of business, leaving the hip, knee and surgical devices to be manufactured in China by cheap labor. Forbes’s John Graham writes: “The medical-device tax is much more than a job-killing tax. It’s a patient-killing tax, too.”Slashed doctors’ pay, reduced services to patients of all ages and medical devices and testing equipment made by cheap overseas labor are cutting-block initiatives by the Obama government. Already targeted are our most defenseless -- our mentally and physically disabled in institutionalized care who require the most medical assistance at a higher cost? Obamacare is not about care. It is not about using America’s advanced medical skills and technology, the finest in the world, to save lives of Americans regardless of race, age or class. It is about control. It is a power play that takes over one eighth of the U.S. economy. If not repealed, it is the unveiling of how a once great medical system became an ugly and deadly government-run “business” in America. Vote wisely.
Sharon Sebastian, AGING: WARNING – Navigating Life’s Medical, Mental & Financial Minefields,” is a columnist, commentator, and contributor in print and on nationwide broadcasts on topics ranging from healthcare, culture, religion, and politics to domestic and global policy. Sebastian’s political and cultural analyses are published nationally and internationally. Website: AgingWarning.com