Obama Wants Your Health Records

By Kerri Toloczko, reposted from biggovernment.com

The federal government, as part of Obamacare implementation, is trying to figure out how to get its hands on everyone’s healthcare records.

It may seem like a small boat in the ocean of bureaucratic incursion that is Obamacare, but given the construction of the new law and the priority its authors and supporters place on “bending the cost curve,” allowing government access to American’s most personal records is a critical step in its effort to control healthcare costs at the expense of care.

The path to achieving this is to use treatment outcomes and other health data as instruments of rationing and denial of care through the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research — created by President Obama — and based on European rationing boards.

There are several ways for the government to access our health records, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is already contemplating options. One would be for the federal government to collect them directly. Another is mandating that the states, as part of Obamacare’s new healthcare exchanges, collect the information and pass it along to the federal government. A third would be to force private insurance companies to make the data available to the feds.

Notwithstanding any discussion of the government’s right to our private records, none of these are good ideas but not as bad as another option that some have floated; let a private contractor bid on the project to collect and maintain the information on behalf of the government.

Allowing a private company to access everyone’s healthcare records is an open invitation to disaster and a gross invasion of personal privacy. And more so as about the only company that could handle the job with any degree of competency appears to be Google.

Google’s business model is tracking and collecting preferred sites and other information from its users. Everything from favorite restaurants to marital status is fair game for the Internet behemoth, which uses sophisticated algorithms to identify who accesses the web in a given home — capturing birthdates, age, gender, imputed income and other information useful to determining what products and services might be of interest to a person when they go online.

Google collects and utilizes this information whether it has permission from the user or not, which is where the issue of private healthcare records comes into play.

Having those records, even if they are walled off and protected under law, does not mean they cannot be swept for information that is useful in other contexts. Everything from medical procedures you have had and their outcomes, medicines you take, your family health history, and details of your health insurance policy will be open to inclusion in Google data collection and marketing efforts through which the world’s largest search engine already generates much of its revenue.

Under a Google-driven collection of personal health data, there would be no “opt-in,” no “opt-out,” just your private records ripe for Internet picking.

The computerized healthcare record itself is helpful and useful. Many private studies have shown that electronic records can lead to enormous cost savings and cut down significantly on medical errors, helping to streamline costs and improve the quality of care available in hospitals today.

The problem is not that the information exists; it is how it can be used or, in this case, potentially abused. Even if no one can see the records, the possibility that they can be “data mined” if left in private hands is so strong that everyone should be concerned.

Medical records should be the property of the patient, and only the patient – an idea Congress and the states should aggressively seek to enshrine in law. Service providers and insurance companies need access to certain health information, but no outside entity should be allowed to touch them without a patient’s direct permission.

Google has turned the collection, analysis and recycling of personal information into an art form, and it shouldn’t be allowed to practice this art as the handmaiden of government with our health information. When it comes to records containing our private health data, a search engine should not be allowed any where near them. Nor, for that matter, should anyone else.

One Year Later…10 Things You Didn’t Know About Obamacare

Remember a year ago when VP Joe Biden was caught telling his boss that the massive Healthcare Reform Bill the President had just signed was (using Biden’s words) a ‘big f**king deal?’



Well folks, I hate to say this, but Joe Biden was right. This is a big deal. A big and expensive deal that still has not earned the support of more than half of America.
The as the bill was passed a year ago, a Gallup poll said:

only 49% of us think that passing healthcare reform was a ‘good thing.’
40% believe it was a bad thing

11% have no opinion

The people at Gallup asked the same question last week and not a whole lot has changed, except that more people DON’T like the idea:

only 46% support the healthcare reform bill
44% think it’s a bad idea
10% have no opinion

Maybe people just don’t know enough about what is in the bill. Remember then-speaker Nancy Pelosi telling us that we needed to pass the bill to find out what was in it?






As you know, they passed the bill, and now we know what is inside it. Bad stuff. Which might explain why even staunch Obamacare supporters like Congressman Anthony Weiner want a waiver for New York City.
But just how bad is it?

The folks at ‘Americans For Tax Reform’ have combed through the bill and found 10 Expensive Things You Did Not Know About Obamacare:

1. Did you know that . . . since Jan. 1 of this year (2011), you cannot use your flex-account at work (FSA) or health savings account (HSA) to purchase over-the-counter medicines?

2. Did you know that . . . since July 1 of last year (2010), Americans have been paying a 10 percent excise tax on all indoor tanning services?

3. Did you know that . . . starting in 2018, if your health insurance is “too good” or considered a “Cadillac” plan, then you will incur a new 40 percent tax on your health plan?

4. Did you know that . . . Obamacare has 21 new or higher taxes in it, totaling over $500 billion in increased taxes going to the government over 10 years?

5. Did you know that . . . beginning in 2014, individuals and families that do not purchase “qualifying” – as defined by federal bureaucrats — health insurance will be forced to pay a yearly tax penalty?

6. Did you know that . . . 7 tax hikes in Obamacare directly break President Obama’s “firm pledge” not to raise any form of taxes on individuals making less than $200,000 per year and families making less than $250,000 per year?

7. Did you know that . . . the capital gains tax rate under Obamacare will rise to 23.8 percent starting in 2012? That is a 59 percent increase from its current rate.

8. Did you know that . . . in 2013, those Americans facing the highest medical bills and the least ability to pay for them will find their ability to deduct medical expenses is further limited (medical expenses must be reduced by 10 percent of income under Obamacare, rather than current law’s 7.5 percent)

9. Did you know that . . . beginning in 2014, businesses with over 50 employees will be forced to offer health coverage for everyone, or pay a hefty tax for each employee?

10. Did you know that . . . in 2013, Obamacare caps the amount individuals and families can put in their flexible savings accounts at $2500? Currently there is no cap and these accounts are used for a myriad of health expenses including paying upwards of $14,000 in tuition to special needs schools for some parents?

I don’t know about you, but I‘m kind of nervous about what we will discover when this bill hits the ’terrible twos.’

(Source: The Blaze)

Wisconsin Doctors Write Fake Sick Notes For Work-Ditching Teachers

We are seeing a wholesale disregard for the common good, the rule of law, and the right to self-government by the Left in the State of Wisconsin. It's very similar to the way those on the Left have tried to impose counterfeit marriage on other states.


1) An elected governor, and a majority in the State Senate, attempt to carry out their mandate.

2) In response the Democratic legislators flee their jobs and their state so that a vote (which they know they will lose) cannot be held.

3) Wisconsin teachers, and their supports, flood the capitol to try and intimidate the remaining Senators. The teachers walk off their jobs to do this, lying about being sick, thus forcing public schools to close.

4) Now, Wisconsin doctors, who support the public sector unions which are bankrupting the state, have been caught on film writing phony excuses for those teachers who pretended to be sick. It's an ever-growing web of corruption. Watch one of the videos:




USA Today reported: "Doctors from numerous hospitals set up a station near the Capitol to provide notes to explain public employees' absences from work. Family physician Lou Sanner, 59, of Madison, said he had given out hundreds (!) of notes. Many of the people he spoke with seemed to be suffering from stress, he said."

Ann Althouse has another video:




You can voice your concern about this to the Medical Examing Board of the Wisconsin Department of Regulation and Licensing. The email address is:  DRLBoards@wisconsin.gov

Are the Airport Scanners Safe?

Are the scanners as safe as TSA claims? My guess is probably not. The fact that they haven't been properly studied, but are being pushed so hard elicits some red flags. TSA and GE have neglected to do the tests that doctors and scientists are demanding. They have disregarded expert questions repeatedly (when these experts have zero to gain and GE has 30 million).

Scientists and doctors (in the fields of biochemistry, biophysics, cancer research, x-ray crystallography and imaging) at UC San Francisco have raised some important concerns that are summarized below.

• There has not been a meeting of an impartial panel of experts, including medical physicists and radiation biologists, where ALL of the available relevant data is reviewed.

• The majority of the energy dose is delivered exclusively to the skin, which is dangerously high because it is not dispersed to the entire volume of the body. This is where TSA lied--see the next point.
  

• TSA and GE misled the public by only getting indirect radiation testing (which shows the diluted dispersion throughout the body) rather than quantifying the Flux (the dose being deposited to the skin). They avoided the independent safety data so they could falsely claim that "It's like being on an airplane flight for 3 minutes".
  

• If determining the Flux data (which is more relevant anyway) would put the whole radiation concern to rest, why hasn't this been done? Why are they avoiding it?

• The danger to susceptible groups (children, elderly, the immunocompromised, pregnant women, those at risk for testicular and breast cancer) has not been studied sufficiently and specific guidelines have not been released regarding their risk.
  

• Any glitch in the hardware or software that stops or slows the scan may cause an intense dose of radiation to a single spot on the skin. Will the TSA agent even notice the glitch? Who oversees it being fixed and ensures it is "safe" to use again?

• What keeps a TSA agent from raising the dose just a bit to get higher resolution on a certain area they need to see clearly? What if the higher resolution is needed at particularly sensitive anatomy? Is this justified?
  

TSA has not been honest with the American people. Until the proper testing is done, why should we have to subject ourselves to these risks? (The solution is not to simply get the pat down instead. Groping of sexual areas by strangers doesn't increase our safety since the the likely location to hide things would require internal manual examination by airport staff).

Death Panels, VAT Tax on Their Way, Nobel Prize-Winning Economist Says

Nobel Prize winning economist (and I'll add, Keynesian disciple) Paul Krugman is recommending "Death Panels" and a VAT tax as needed measures to balance the budget and pay for the government's Medicare/Obamacare obligations.

Anyone surprised? Have they considered getting the government out of the health care business?



http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/checker.aspx?v=hdSUSUaGnz

Via NewsBusters:

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, HOST: But what is going to happen? I mean, are you clear on where a compromise is going to be? It's got to be discussed before the end of the year, no?

KRUGMAN: No. Some years down the pike, we're going to get the real solution, which is going to be a combination of death panels and sales taxes. It's going to be that we're actually going to take Medicare under control, and we're going to have to get some additional revenue, probably from a VAT. But it's not going to happen now.

111 Obamacare Waivers Given Out by Obama Administration

Apparently the Health Care Reform Package was so great for our economy, 111 different companies and organizations (many of them associated with unions that backed Obama's election) have received waivers on the new regulations this year. Is this what Democrats meant when they said everyone needs to sacrifice a bit for the good of all?



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96Uu_tI0hTw&

Against Socialized Medicine: The One Minute Case

From One Minute Cases

There is no right to healthcare

The United States was founded with the declaration that all men have the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The Founders recognized that all men have a moral right to be free from the coercion of others, as long as they allow others the same freedom. They believed that rights do not impose a positive obligation on others, but only the negative obligation to restrain from the initiation of force.

The claim that there is a “right to healthcare” violates the principle of individual rights because it requires that the liberty of doctors and the property of taxpayers be violated to provide for others. When the New Deal and Great Society programs forced doctors and taxpayers to become sacrificial offerings to the “common good”, the current “healthcare crisis” was born.

The myth of “free” healthcare

It is a common belief that when government provides something, it is free or cheap. But politicians cannot create wealth – they can only redistribute it. Money for all government spending comes from business – whether by entrepreneurial investment, the wages of patients, or taxes.

Whether by price controls of outright nationalization, when governments make prices artificially low, demand skyrockets, and shortages result. Politicians respond by passing ever more regulations to control costs. These regulations stifle innovation, drive up costs, and force healthcare providers out of business. The end result is to replace capitalism, the greatest wealth-generating system known to man, with an onerous system of central planning.

Capitalism cannot guarantee that all our medical needs will be provided for – no system can do that. But it does give entrepreneurs the incentive to compete to provide the best possible service they can. Centralized socialized systems have no incentive to improve service or to try bold new techniques. Politicians can force prices to be artificially low, but they cannot lower costs – they can only drive doctors, hospitals, and drug companies out of business.

The victims of “universal” healthcare

The waiting time for treatment in Canada varies from 14 to 30 weeks. Waiting lists for diagnostic procedures range from two to 24 weeks. Some patients die while waiting for treatment. To stop sick people from circumventing the “free” system, the government of British Columbia enacted Bill 82 in 2003, which makes it illegal to pay for private surgery. Patients waiting for critical procedures are now forced to seek procedures in the U.S. and doctors are abandoning Canada in droves. Cleveland, Ohio is now Canada’s hip-replacement center. Ontario is turning nurses into doctors to replace some of the 10,000 doctors who left Canada in the 1990’s. ^{1 2}

What will patients do when it is illegal to seek private medical treatment in the U.S.? Politicians are already working towards that goal. State and federal regulation impose onerous regulations which forbid insurance companies from offering services such as basic coverage for emergencies by requiring coverage of many types of procedures. Medicare forces doctors to follow 130,000 pages of regulations. Critics often attack the “capitalist” nature of American health care system. The reality is that the government now pays for 50% of health care, and closely regulates the rest.

Healthcare is only affordable under capitalism

If a society is not wealthy enough to afford healthcare, health socialism will not make it richer. Cuba, a poster child of socialist healthcare schemes, spends $229 on healthcare per person each year, while the U.S. spends $ 6,096.³ Premium services are available only to paying foreigners, while natives must bribe doctors for timely treatment and bring their own towels, bed sheets, soap, food, and even sutures.⁴

A government can decide to replace individual choice with state-mandated decisions of what goods and services are more important for the “common good.” But it can only spend on one area at the expense of another. If Cubans are not totally deprived of medical treatment, it can only be at the expense of all other goods. A doctor’s salary in Cuba is 1.5 times the median at $15-20 per month. ⁵ A telling sign of their deprivation is the Cuban suicide rate, which is the highest in Latin America and among the highest in world. Cubans in Miami on the other hand, kill themselves less often than other Miamians.⁶ When they risk their lives in leaky boats to escape to the U.S., the right to make their own decisions regarding their health is among the freedoms they hope to gain.

References:

1. “Free Health Care in Canada” by Walter Williams
2. “Do We Want Socialized Medicine?” by Walter Williams
3. Reuters: Health care in Cuba more complicated than on SiCKO
4. BBC: Keeping Cuba Healthy by John Harris
5. “An Evaluation of Four Decades of Cuban Healthcare” by Felipe Eduardo Sixto (PDF)
6. Miami Herald: “Study: Suicide epidemic exists under Castro” by Juan O. Tamayo

Further reading:

• Moral Health Care vs. “Universal Health Care” by Lin Zinser and Dr. Paul Hsieh
• Health Care Is Not a Right by Leonard Peikoff, Ph.D.
• Health Care Is a Business—or Should Be by Richard E. Ralston
• Video: Unisured in America (Free Market Cure Documentary Series)
• Americans for Free Choice in Medicine
• American Health Care: Essential Principles and Common Fallacies
• FIRM: Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine
• The “Cost” of Medical Care by Thomas Sowell
  
• Michael Moore’s Shticko by Michael C. Moynihan
• NY Times: “As Canada’s Slow-Motion Public Health System Falters, Private Medical Care Is Surging“
• Do fat people deserve medical treatment?
• The One Minute Case for Individual Rights