quote: But the bill goes further. 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.'' According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and ``learn to operate less like solo practitioners.''
Keeping doctors informed of the newest medical findings is important, but enforcing uniformity goes too far.
New Penalties
Hospitals and doctors that are not ``meaningful users'' of the new system will face penalties. ``Meaningful user'' isn't defined in the bill. That will be left to the HHS secretary, who will be empowered to impose ``more stringent measures of meaningful use over time'' (511, 518, 540-541)
What penalties will deter your doctor from going beyond the electronically delivered protocols when your condition is atypical or you need an experimental treatment? The vagueness is intentional. In his book, Daschle proposed an appointed body with vast powers to make the ``tough'' decisions elected politicians won't make.
posted
I tried to tell everyone who voted for Obama that his tactics would not help the health insurance crisis. It would in the end make it worse for someone searching for answers.
I looked for my answer for 20 years, I surely would have been blown off by now.
What is going to happen to us Lymies if they don't change the criteria and get doctors to believe in chronic lyme?
Shalome
Posts: 893 | From Florida | Registered: Dec 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
I get so fired up reading how poorly we are treated by the medical field. We have to fight to have a normal life.
I want so badly to run out screaming and hollering about how unfair this all is and I want so badly to make a change. However, I don't even know where to begin.
The doctors here quickly tell me and my family, You don't have Lyme. Even though we are CDC positive for IGM. I just get so frustrated...
I searched for 20 years to get an answer to why I feel so poorly. Now that I have that answer, the local doctors tell me, you don't have Lyme. Well, I want them to tell me what I do have!!
Shalome
Posts: 893 | From Florida | Registered: Dec 2008
| IP: Logged |
It's all about the guidelines. These docs open up the book, read how to treat, and we of course suffer.
Everyone around me has lyme imo, but they don't know it. Doctors are treating them for years for Other autoimmune system "stuff".
I guess for us lymies, if this gets through we won't even notice! snark
You hang in there, and do what you must to get the right treatment.
Posts: 158 | From PA | Registered: Oct 2006
| IP: Logged |
emla999/Lyme
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 12606
posted
So,under President Obama's plan would a person that doesn't meet the CDC's/government's criteria for having Lyme Disease mean that you can't get treatment in this country even though an LLMD diagnosed that person as having chronic Lyme Disease via that patient's symptoms and a positive Igenex test?
Also, would that LLMD be punished by our government because they are not following the government's protocols?
If that's the way it's going to be then people that have chronic Lyme Disease are probably screwed. Posts: 1223 | From U.S.A | Registered: Jul 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
hmmmm, good question, wonder if this will even go further than needing a CDC passing criteria? Imagine that.
I'm listening and reading all I can on this; funny not too many politicians even knew about this provision that appears to have been slid in. Sen Arlen Spector is one in the dark....and doesn't seem too happy.
geez, I didn't think things could get worse for us, but....
Posts: 158 | From PA | Registered: Oct 2006
| IP: Logged |
bettyg
Unregistered
posted
copying it all here and breaking up for us neuro folks to read/comprehend:
Ruin Your Health With the Obama Stimulus Plan:
Commentary by Betsy McCaughey
Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Republican Senators are questioning whether President Barack Obama's stimulus bill contains the right mix of tax breaks and cash infusions to jump-start the economy.
Tragically, no one from either party is objecting to the health provisions slipped in without discussion. These provisions reflect the handiwork of Tom Daschle, until recently the nominee to head the Health and Human Services Department.
Senators should read these provisions and vote against them because they are dangerous to your health. (Page numbers refer to H.R. 1 EH, pdf version).
The bill's health rules will affect ``every individual in the United States'' (445, 454, 479).
Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system.
Having electronic medical records at your fingertips, easily transferred to a hospital, is beneficial. It will help avoid duplicate tests and errors.
But the bill goes further.
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.'' According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and ``learn to operate less like solo practitioners.''
Keeping doctors informed of the newest medical findings is important, but enforcing uniformity goes too far.
New Penalties ------------
Hospitals and doctors that are not ``meaningful users'' of the new system will face penalties.
``Meaningful user'' isn't defined in the bill.
That will be left to the HHS secretary, who will be empowered to impose ``more stringent measures of meaningful use over time'' (511, 518, 540-541)
What penalties will deter your doctor from going beyond the electronically delivered protocols when your condition is atypical or you need an experimental treatment?
The vagueness is intentional.
In his book, Daschle proposed an appointed body with vast powers to make the ``tough'' decisions elected politicians won't make.
The stimulus bill does that, and calls it the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research (190-192).
The goal, Daschle's book explained, is to slow the development and use of new medications and technologies because they are driving up costs.
He praises Europeans for being more willing to accept ``hopeless diagnoses'' and ``forgo experimental treatments,'' and he chastises Americans for expecting too much from the health-care system.
Elderly Hardest Hit
Daschle says health-care reform ``will not be pain free.''
Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them. That means the elderly will bear the brunt. ***********************************************
Medicare now pays for treatments deemed safe and effective.
The stimulus bill would change that and apply a cost- effectiveness standard set by the Federal Council (464). ************************
The Federal Council is modeled after a U.K. board discussed in Daschle's book.
This board approves or rejects treatments using a formula that divides the cost of the treatment by the number of years the patient is likely to benefit.
Treatments for younger patients are more often approved than treatments for diseases that affect the elderly, such as osteoporosis. *********************************
In 2006, a U.K. health board decreed that elderly patients with MACULAR DEGENERATION had to wait until they went blind in one eye before they could get a costly new drug to save the other eye.
It took almost three years of public protests before the board reversed its decision.
Hidden Provisions
If the Obama administration's economic stimulus bill passes the Senate in its current form, seniors in the U.S. will face similar rationing.
Defenders of the system say that individuals benefit in younger years and sacrifice later.
The stimulus bill will affect every part of health care, from medical and nursing education, to how patients are treated and how much hospitals get paid.
The bill allocates more funding for this bureaucracy than for the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force combined (90-92, 174-177, 181).
Hiding health legislation in a stimulus bill is intentional.
Daschle supported the Clinton administration's health-care overhaul in 1994, and attributed its failure to debate and delay.
A year ago, Daschle wrote that the next president should act quickly before critics mount an opposition.
``If that means attaching a health-care plan to the federal budget, so be it,'' he said. ``The issue is too important to be stalled by Senate protocol.''
More Scrutiny Needed
On Friday, President Obama called it ``inexcusable and irresponsible'' for senators to delay passing the stimulus bill.
In truth, this bill needs more scrutiny.
The health-care industry is the largest employer in the U.S.
It produces almost 17 percent of the nation's gross domestic product.
Yet the bill treats health care the way European governments do: as a cost problem instead of a growth industry.
Imagine limiting growth and innovation in the electronics or auto industry during this downturn.
This stimulus is dangerous to your health and the economy.
(Betsy McCaughey is former lieutenant governor of New York and is an adjunct senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. The opinions expressed are her own.)
To contact the writer of this column:
Betsy McCaughey at [email protected] *************************************
Last Updated: February 9, 2009 00:01 EST ********************************************
wow, what an article! wish i could actually read that part of bill that she refers to in the numbers shown above!!
thanks for finding/posting this!!! xox
IP: Logged |
posted
My health's already ruined, and my insurance doesn't pay. For me there's nowhere to go but up.
Posts: 845 | From Eastern USA | Registered: Jul 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
As I read through this proposal, I don't really see a big difference from what I have experienced in the last two years with the current health system.
At the moment, I have a large bureaucracy dictating which medicines can be purchased, limiting which labs can be used for testing, and denying treatments recommended by my knowledgeable doctors, etc. My employer chooses the plan I can have and I am not rich enough to purchase "the best" plan for me and my family. All of this assumes that I can actually remain employed in this economy.
The bureaucracy that runs my health, and therefore my life, resides in a huge insurance system backed by a ton of lawyers and accountants. The only difference I can see, is that if some of this system receives more government oversight, I will at least have a chance to vote the poor decision makers out of office.
Under the current system, I don't have a way to fire the head of a big insurance company for messing up my health when s/he makes a poor business decision.
By-the-way, there is a third option. Health system does not have to be single-payer/government versus the employer-based system we have now. The basis of how the system can work would be changed by simply changing from employer control to employee/individual control.
The government could still maintain a floor, as it does now, through programs like Medicaid. The costs may be better controlled if the average person actually knows what is being provided and at what cost. True cost is often hidden as the clinic deals directly with the HMO.
I, for one, don't understand why if my kid has an in-hospital EEG study the charge to me is $6k, but the HMO pays them $2K, and the hospital accepts the $2K as full payment.
Based on my own experience and the challenges I have seen people on this board encounter in pursuit of health, I am not ready to dismiss any proposal that may have a chance at providing healthcare that is rational and focuses on the health of my family.
I don't expect the changes to be easy; I'd be surprised if it all worked on the first try. (Living in the world of TBD, I'm learning to deal with two forward and one back.) However, I do expect elected officials to start kicking around theories/proposals, reviewing old ideas and new. The allied health industries, patients, and health care providers must all join in.
Posts: 170 | From New Jersey | Registered: Jun 2008
| IP: Logged |
Vermont_Lymie
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 9780
posted
This is a Republican scare tactic. From the people who presided over more millions of Americans losing their health insurance than at any other time, including millions of children.
The author, Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York and is an adjunct senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. They are ideologically opposed to government helping people get health insurance, and they are misrepresenting the Obama administration's plan here.
Check out the real facts at whitehouse.gov:
HEALTH CARE
On health care reform, the American people are too often offered two extremes -- government-run health care with higher taxes or letting the insurance companies operate without rules.
President Obama and Vice President Biden believe both of these extremes are wrong, and that's why they've proposed a plan that strengthens employer coverage, makes insurance companies accountable and ensures patient choice of doctor and care without government interference.
The Obama-Biden plan provides affordable, accessible health care for all Americans, builds on the existing health care system, and uses existing providers, doctors, and plans.
Under the Obama-Biden plan, patients will be able to make health care decisions with their doctors, instead of being blocked by insurance company bureaucrats.
Under the plan, if you like your current health insurance, nothing changes, except your costs will go down by as much as $2,500 per year. If you don't have health insurance, you will have a choice of new, affordable health insurance options.
Make Health Insurance Work for People and Businesses -- Not Just Insurance and Drug Companies.
Require insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions so all Americans regardless of their health status or history can get comprehensive benefits at fair and stable premiums.
Create a new Small Business Health Tax Credit to help small businesses provide affordable health insurance to their employees.
Lower costs for businesses by covering a portion of the catastrophic health costs they pay in return for lower premiums for employees.
Prevent insurers from overcharging doctors for their malpractice insurance and invest in proven strategies to reduce preventable medical errors.
Make employer contributions more fair by requiring large employers that do not offer coverage or make a meaningful contribution to the cost of quality health coverage for their employees to contribute a percentage of payroll toward the costs of their employees' health care.
Establish a National Health Insurance Exchange with a range of private insurance options as well as a new public plan based on benefits available to members of Congress that will allow individuals and small businesses to buy affordable health coverage.
Ensure everyone who needs it will receive a tax credit for their premiums.
Reduce Costs and Save a Typical American Family up to $2,500 as reforms phase in:
Lower drug costs by allowing the importation of safe medicines from other developed countries, increasing the use of generic drugs in public programs, and taking on drug companies that block cheaper generic medicines from the market.
Require hospitals to collect and report health care cost and quality data.
Reduce the costs of catastrophic illnesses for employers and their employees.
Reform the insurance market to increase competition by taking on anticompetitive activity that drives up prices without improving quality of care.
The Obama-Biden plan will promote public health. It will require coverage of preventive services, including cancer screenings, and increase state and local preparedness for terrorist attacks and natural disasters.
A Commitment to Fiscal Responsibility: Barack Obama will pay for his $50 - $65 billion health care reform effort by rolling back the Bush tax cuts for Americans earning more than $250,000 per year and retaining the estate tax at its 2009 level.
Posts: 2557 | From home | Registered: Aug 2006
| IP: Logged |
emla999/Lyme
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 12606
posted
Obama's stimulus plan from an alternative medicine viewpoint.
quote: "But it gets even more interesting than that: Under the new provisions found in the bill, all U.S. doctors will now be stripped of autonomy and forced to follow the medical treatment guidelines dictated by the government.
This news should rock the medical world (once they truly understand it). It means doctors can no longer make their own decisions about patients' needs or treatment protocols.
From now on, all health care decisions will be centrally planned by a dictatorial, Big Brother health care authority in the federal government."
posted
"From now on, all health care decisions will be centrally planned by a dictatorial, Big Brother health care authority in the federal government."
This could possibly be true, but I tend to doubt it. It does not sound at all like what the president has spoken about. In fact, from what I remember about his campaign, unlike some of the other Democratic candidates, he was not in favor of a single payer system at all.
But maybe it's all a giant trick to fool us into socialism. Wait, we already are in socialism. What we need to do is get rid of all those pesky public schools and libraries and universities and the police and firemen and armed forces and interstates and social security and medicare and ...
Never mind.
Posts: 845 | From Eastern USA | Registered: Jul 2006
| IP: Logged |
All one needs to do is look at socialized medicine in Europe and Cananda. How many Canadians flock to America for medical treatment? I am in Florida and I can tell you LOTS of Canadians travel here to be treated.
I do not like the healthcare system the way it currently is because I already see too many restrictions on healthcare, but we have more options currently available to us versus if we have Socialized medicine.
Yes, I have to drive 17 hours to be treated and pay out of pocket and hope to be reimbursed by my insurance carrier....not fun. But, at least I have that option. I have seen UK folks posting on this site stating that they can't be treated for Lyme and there are no LLMD's there. The only reason there are LLMD's in American is because the doctors have the freedom to treat as they see appropriate.
I don't want someone who has never had LYME determine how we should be treated, when they are being told that there is no such thing as Chronic Lyme.
Posts: 893 | From Florida | Registered: Dec 2008
| IP: Logged |
richedie
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 14689
posted
quote:Originally posted by nomoremuscles: "From now on, all health care decisions will be centrally planned by a dictatorial, Big Brother health care authority in the federal government."
This could possibly be true, but I tend to doubt it. It does not sound at all like what the president has spoken about. In fact, from what I remember about his campaign, unlike some of the other Democratic candidates, he was not in favor of a single payer system at all.
But maybe it's all a giant trick to fool us into socialism. Wait, we already are in socialism. What we need to do is get rid of all those pesky public schools and libraries and universities and the police and firemen and armed forces and interstates and social security and medicare and ...
Never mind.
Ha, yes I agree. People who are afriad of Socialism, crack me up! What if we privatize libraries, universities, schools, fire departments, police, etc......What do you think that is? Socialism! I certainly think we need some form of socialized medicine for the masses while if you and I want, we can still have our current medical plan, etc. I think that was the original intent....but this new piece from Daschle, SUCKS!
How can we help?
-------------------- Mepron/Zith/Ceftin Doxy/Biaxin/Flagyl pulse. Artemisinin with Doxy/Biaxin. Period of Levaquin and Ceftin. Then Levaquin, Bactrim and Biaxin. Bactrim/Augmentin/Rifampin. Mepron/Biaxin/Artemisinin/Cat's Claw Rifampin/Bactrim/Alinia Plaquenil/Biaxin Posts: 1949 | From Pennsylvania | Registered: Feb 2008
| IP: Logged |
The Lyme Disease Network is a non-profit organization funded by individual donations. If you would like to support the Network and the LymeNet system of Web services, please send your donations to:
The
Lyme Disease Network of New Jersey 907 Pebble Creek Court,
Pennington,
NJ08534USA http://www.lymenet.org/
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
![[Mad]](mad.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
xox
![[dizzy]](graemlins/dizzy.gif)
Printer-friendly view of this topic