Democrats destroying democracy

David Limbaugh has an scathing article up today on Townhall.com entitled The
Big D Democrats Thwart Small d Democracy which cites a number of out and out lies, prevarications, dissembling and sneaky practices being used by Democrats to get the Health Care reform bill passed. A quote to get a feel for the article:

As much as Obama pretends to be a man of the people, he is a man for himself -- a man who will get his way, the will of the people be damned. The same is true of many of his congressional lieutenants, including Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, who recently said that Congress will pass Obamacare despite the public's objections, because it is so important. Important to whom? To Democrats -- that's who.

It may be important to "Democrats," but I also wonder who else stands to gain. It will certainly socialize one third of our economy, and give them a lot of power, but I have to ask who will gain in the private sector. We have seen that American citizens don't want it with the huge TEA Party crowds. Doctors certainly don't seem inclined to see more of their income slip away. You really should read the last if you want to see the potential problems Obamacare will set in motion. Insurance companies are unlikely to desire being sent to bankruptcy court by their own Government. In any case, I will be pondering the answer to that question while you go and read David Limbaugh's piece.

Meanwhile, over at the American Thinker, we learn that the bill before the Senate is even more hideous than we had imagined in Doctors: Damned If They Do, More Damned If They Don't by Gene Schwimmer. A quote:

Americans worried that Obamacare will lead to de facto rationing of health care to senior citizens can stop worrying. It's already here. Obviously, the fewer doctors willing to treat Medicare patients, the fewer the opportunities to get treated and with each passing year, the number of such doctors decreases.


Early this year, Barbara Plumb, a freelance editor and writer in New York who is on Medicare, received a disturbing letter. Her gynecologist informed her that she was opting out of Medicare. When Ms. Plumb asked her primary-care doctor to recommend another gynecologist who took Medicare, the doctor responded that she didn't know any -- and that if Ms. Plumb found one she liked, could she call and tell her the name?


Physician Medicare opt-out rates across the country tell us that there are a lot of Barbara Plumbs out there, with many more to come. For example (quoting from the above-linked article), "of the 93 internists affiliated with New York-Presbyterian Hospital,... only 37 accept Medicare." In Texas, "a 2008 survey by the Texas Medical Association found that while 58 percent of the state's doctors took new Medicare patients, only 38 percent of primary care doctors did." Nationwide, "the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, an independent federal panel that advises Congress on Medicare, said that 29 percent of the Medicare beneficiaries it surveyed who were looking for a primary care doctor had a problem finding one to treat them, up from 24 percent the year before." Not only, then, is the number of doctors refusing new Medicare patients increasing, but the rate of refusals is increasing, too.


And now, courtesy of Max Baucus and his fellow Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee, comes a provision that portends to make an already-bad situation even worse.

It seems that the Democrats have included a provision that would cut any physicians pay by 5% if that physician's aggregate resource use is at or above the 90th percentile of national utilization. Of course, a doctor will not know if his resource utilization is at or above 90% until the year end. So there will be pressure on doctors not to recommend expensive treatments or tests. At the same time, the Democrats have voted not to limit trial lawyers from seeking compensation from doctors for pretty much anything that might go wrong. These two provisions mean that physicians are damned if they do, and damned if they don't.

Frankly, I will be surprised that they can get any intelligent young person to choose medicine as a vocation, if this bill passes and becomes law