A Goose Ducks below the Affordable Care Act

If you become sick or have an accident, and suddenly find yourself in need of life-saving healthcare, the outcome may be better were you a goose. 

Such a goose lives in the UK.  It was involved in an accident in West Yorkshire.  When its owner saw that it was unable to eat properly as a result of having lost its lower beak, its disability was remedied.

See an account of what happened in this brief video.

The foregoing comparison to the ACA may sound cynical, but is far from it.  Over four million Americans have had their private insurance plans cancelled by the terms and conditions of legislation incorporated into President Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. For an estimated fifteen million Americans who have been covered under private, individual healthcare plans, there will be neither “Protection” nor “Affordability.”

Workshop: Planning for the Inevitable

St. Bernard of Clairvaux Church, Bridgewater, NJ
(Bergeron Image.)

On Monday evening, June 10^th, at 7:30 pm, St. Bernard of Clairvaux Parish will host a workshop dealing with end-of-life considerations. 

This forum is open to all who are interested in expanding their views on the topic.  St. Bernard’s is situated at 500 Route 22 East, in Bridgewater, NJ.

It is opposite the highway from the large, shiny MetLife facility on Route 22 West.  For those coming from the Somerville Circle, there is a convenient  jughandle immediately past the MetLife building which will get you promptly turned back onto Route 22 East.

Attendance is free.  Registration is required:  Call 732-562-1990, extension 1543 or 1629.

Entitled “Death with Dignity, What Does that Really Mean?” the program will feature proficient experts on this topic:   the Rev. Msgr. John N. Fell, STD, Vicar of the Healthcare Apostolate for the Diocese of Metuchen; Jane McElroy, RN, Hospice Nurse;  and Jennifer Ruggiero, Director, Office of Respect for Life in the diocese.

The workshop will include a panel discussion on end-of-life matters, and is expected to address the following topics:

• Advance Directives for Health Care
• Nutrition and Hydration
• Proportionate Care
• Palliative Care
• The Potential for Physician-Assisted Suicide Legislation now Before the New Jersey Assembly

Transparency According to Frank Pallone

Congressman Frank Pallone, Jr. who represents the New Jersey 6th Congressional District doesn’t see any lack of transparency by President Obama, the Senate, or the House of Representatives when it comes to the national debate on healthcare.

In a TV interview yesterday, Pallone said, “It’s inevitable that there be some private discussions, and that’s what you are seeing now.”

Apparently it doesn’t much matter to the congressman that Obama has reneged on his promise to televise the healthcare debate on C-Span; that Reid and Pelosi are excluding Republicans from meetings; or that this president is also having closed-door meetings with congressional leaders while excluding all media and members of the opposing party.

Pallone must be quite confident in his reelection chances and doesn’t seem to care about the integrity of the healthcare process. But then who else in the Democrat-led New Jersey delegation does? Even our two senators Menendez and Lautenberg are sending us the message that what’s good for the White House is good for New Jersey.

Take a look at how gerrymandered the 6th Congressional District is as it snakes along from Plainfield to Asbury Park, and then you will know the real reason why Pallone can be so blasé about the security of his position in the House of Representatives.

Note: After a challenge by C-span, there is now the possibility that the Obama administration will permit a one hour infomercial explaining ex post facto what it is about to do on healthcare.

New Jersey’s Senators and our Governor: AWOL on Healthcare $ for our State

While nearly a dozen Democratic senators were busy keeping the U.S. Senate hostage by withholding their votes on the massive healthcare bill in order to obtain special concessions for their states, our two New Jersey senators Robert Menendez and Frank Lautenberg have been conspicuously absent from the debate.

New Jersey is one of the most populous and heavily taxed states of the country, and it disgorges one of the greatest outflows of cash into the national treasury. Yet, we are represented by two of the meekest dealmakers in the U.S. Congress.

Moreover, our governor, Jon Corzine, made a mid-course correction to support Barack Obama’s presidential campaign by dumping his endorsement of Hillary Clinton. Corzine moved close to Obama and was one of his preferred economic advisors during the campaign.

So where’s the beef for New Jersey? States like Louisiana, Nebraska, Connecticut and others are, through the personal influence of their senators, getting hundreds of millions in special healthcare dollars, concessions, and tax breaks for their states.

Meanwhile Senators Menendez and Lautenberg are busy playing Mr. Nice Guy with Barack Obama and Harry Reid in Washington, D.C., as New Jersey comes out of this legislation empty-handed and more heavily burdened.

Ted Kennedy, Healthcare & Abortion

In the course of reading The Boston Pilot, together with data culled from the Internet, I discovered a one-page letter penned by the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy, dated August 3, 1971. It was addressed to one of his friends and supporters, Mr. Thomas Donnelly of Great Neck, New York. Mr. William Donohue, President of the Catholic League – a Catholic civil rights organization – vouched for the letter’s authenticity.

I found its contents remarkable, because I have always thought Senator Kennedy to have been a staunch abortion supporter. Prior to his recent illness and death, he was not only a pioneer for healthcare reform, but was also a strong advocate of abortion rights.

His letter is very striking though, because it reveals that in 1971 the Senator held a completely different position on the legitimacy of abortion.

Here is an excerpt of his original views as stated in his 1971 letter to Donnelly:

“While the deep concern of a woman bearing an unwanted child merits consideration and sympathy, it is my personal feeling that the legalization of abortion on demand is not in accordance with the value which our civilization places on human life.”

Kennedy added, “Wanted or unwanted, I believe that human life, even at its earliest stages, has certain rights which must be recognized -- the right to be born, the right to love, the right to grow old. When history looks back at this era it should recognize this generation as one which cared about human beings enough to halt the practice of war, to provide a decent living for every family, and to fulfill its responsibility to its children from the very moment of conception.”

Resolving the question of Federal funding for abortion was the decisive factor in the recently successful passage of a healthcare bill in the U.S. House of Representatives. The bill prohibits any type of funding by the U.S. Government for the procedure. That topic will continue to be a major issue as the Senate puts forward its own version of a healthcare bill.

Healthcare and the U.S. Postal Service

The postal service in this country has a problem: According to an article in Parade, volume will drop 14% this year. Rates are on the increase, costs are being cut, and post offices will be closed. There may even be fewer mail deliveries.

The solution: Open it up to competition by letting private industry come in to improve service and to stabilize prices. That is what Professor Michael Crew of Rutgers is quoted as proposing in Parade. Now hold on a minute. This makes sense, but how to resolve the contradiction?

In his healthcare initiatives, President Obama proposes just the opposite: According to him, it’s government that should come into the market and provide competition to insurance companies in the healthcare industry.

So let’s get this straight: The government-run U.S. Postal Service needs competition from private industry to keep it on its toes. On the other hand, according to our president, the private U.S. healthcare industry does not compete well and, therefore, needs competition from the federal government to keep it on its toes!

How, exactly, can the federal government which acknowledges its own inefficiency and a high cost structure in one market claim to have better competitive skills in another market?

Anecdote: Years ago, in Rochester, New York, entrepreneurs had put together a local business that operated only in the downtown area. It picked up and delivered first-class mail from one local business to another. No stamps. This short-lived business was doing remarkably well until the Feds caught up to it. The entrepreneurs were hauled into court and were put out of business by the long reach of U.S. Postal Service attorneys.

A Presidential Vacation

When President Barack Obama vacations on Cape Cod’s island retreat of Martha’s Vineyard, he is expected to pay for part of the $35,000 weekly rental for his family’s sojourn on a private 28-acre estate. The balance will be picked up by the Secret Service and the White House, since he will be accompanied by a large entourage.

I wonder to what extent this will be a time of rest and rejuvenation for the President, or if it will be as much an occasion to withdraw in seclusion outside the reach of all except a few choice guests and policy makers.

There very likely will be a mixture of pleasure and business – no president ever completely escapes his responsibilities while in office. (From ‘The Vineyard’ this morning, Obama – with Ben Bernanke at his side – went before the cameras to announce the re-nomination of Bernanke for another term as Chairman of the Federal Reserve.)

Maybe Obama would be well-served after his vacation to spend some serious time onshore visiting some of Boston’s 23 varied neighborhoods – like Dorchester, Roxbury and the South End – where he could walk and talk among his constituents, getting real feedback about what people think and feel concerning his healthcare ideas.

Yes, I know. I must be dreaming, you say. But remaining isolated with staff and other hand-picked influential guests in a high-priced private enclave on one of the nation’s most exclusive islands is not going to give him the insight he needs about the nation’s healthcare problem.

Healthcare Reform or the Bum's Rush?

When President Barack Obama insisted that his healthcare legislation be enacted into law before the August Congressional recess, I became highly suspicious. But if the nature of town hall meetings now taking place all over the nation is any indication of how Americans feel, I was not alone in that sentiment.

The Congressional healthcare bills seemed like too much too soon. They appeared disconnected and few specifics were explained to the public – yet they were accompanied by grandiose rhetoric. One of them runs to 1000 pages that few legislators have read or fully understand.

President Obama and his key advisors, sensing a rising tide of populist opposition, decided to take their case directly to the people. At his first town hall meeting on this topic in the seacoast town of Portsmouth, NH, Obama was hoping to win converts to the cause. He came prepared to take on some very hard questions.

But he went to the wrong place – it didn’t work: At one point, President Obama felt compelled to reach out to the audience by personally soliciting tough questions. No dice.

People of the Granite State respect the man and were not about to tangle with him in a public forum. Obama’s handlers completely miscalculated the nature of that audience. These voters express their differences in the voting booth, not in the glare of a nationally televised event where they can be set up for personal embarrassment.

There is a crucial reason why Obama wanted so badly to have healthcare legislation enacted before the August Congressional recess: The Administration was very concerned that, should this self-imposed deadline not be achieved, Americans would begin asking questions during the remaining summer weeks and into the fall – not good for the President’s strategy.

Pushing a major untried concept through the Congress without a sufficient public airing of views and alternatives is a classic move. It is a political blitzkrieg designed to establish permanence before anyone can figure out what happened.

The most favorable time to mount opposition to an untested idea is before it becomes cast in stone as the law of the land.

That is why Obama is in such a rush.

Obama Proposes to Change Healthcare Quality & Cost

President Barack Obama made two statements in last night’s press conference that summed up the entire hour. Even before taking the first question, he laid out the two key aspects of his plan which incorporated everything that he said later in the Q&A portion:

The President disclosed that his healthcare plan will mandate a national committee “of doctors and health care experts” which will be empowered under the law to decide methods of treatment and reimbursement rates. Obama also said that Americans should get “the best care, just not the most expensive care.” Decode that last statement, and you have reduced benefits.

Several times throughout the press conference, Obama came back to the same two points, using different language to underscore the same thing: “They (that means you!) will have to give up paying for things that don’t make them healthier.”

And how will we know that? There will, Obama explained, “be a panel of doctors and health care experts advising how to get better results and to reduce costs.” More coded language for reduced benefits: “People will need to be discriminating consumers; we just can’t afford this.”

What about that bureaucratic healthcare committee? Obama says he will, “Create a panel of healthcare experts to make recommendations to Congress.” The Congress, he went on, “Will be required to vote on proposals (of that committee) as a package deal each year on treatment options . . . this will change how benefits are delivered.”

So there you have it. Cutting through the Q&A's in Obama’s statements, you could, if you listened carefully, discern the fact that President Barack Obama wants to 1. Expand medical care by reducing current and future benefits, and 2. Establish a national bureaucratic healthcare committee with power under the law to push quality of care and cost decisions through the Congress.

The Subtle Pullback

In a little noticed Associated Press report, President Barack Obama seems to be pulling back from his previous full court press to enact into law hurried healthcare legislation before the end of the August Congressional recess.

In the report by two AP reporters, Obama is quoted as saying, “Let’s pass reform by the end of this year.” That statement is an acknowledgement by the President that his own party wants him to slow down on this issue, and that his arm-twisting may not be enough to line up all the cats before the August deadline.

Reading from a script during a brief televised appearance early Tuesday afternoon, the President not once mentioned his August deadline. When it was finished, he quickly walked away, permitting no questions from reporters.

The President will now get more airtime on TV to try to get you in his corner. He then goes on the road to sell the program. Keep your thinking cap on. In healthcare, we don’t need the kind of fractured rescue plan that President Bush foisted upon the economy and which President Obama eagerly adopted and expanded.

Yes I Can: This Plan’s for You, Not for Me

Whatever anyone may say about the Obama health plan now being obsessively driven through Congress; whatever you may think about its merits; whether you are for it or against it, or undecided; whether any Washington decision-makers even fully comprehend the contents of this multi-inch thick bill; there is one incontrovertible and largely unknown fact about it:

A select power group of elite Washington officials are ensuring that none of its provisions will personally affect them in any way whatsoever.

They are the President of the United States, Barack Obama, chief proponent of this proposal, together with every single senator and congressperson walking the halls of the Capitol building. Acting in unison, they are assuring that this proposed legislation will completely exempt them from any and all of its provisions.

The President and each legislator on Capitol Hill will continue to enjoy the full benefits of a gold-plated health care plan guaranteed for life.

The President is on the stump solemnly intoning that the cost of medical care in this country must come down. But he is removing himself from any personal sacrifice that his proposed health legislation will require of ordinary Americans. Yet, Republicans and Democrats on The Hill continue to participate in this hypocritical sleight of hand.

What do you think?

Healthcare & You: Not So Perfect Together!

Monday, before a congressional panel, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner commented that “Healthcare costs are crippling the economy and that the U.S. is paying twice what other countries are paying.” He went on to declare that Americans are not being delivered “a quality kind of healthcare in this country,” and that we “need to reduce healthcare costs.”

Let’s get this straight: Healthcare costs are crippling the economy? I thought that the economy was already comatose due to the dastardly deeds of certain slipshod financiers, bankers, Washington politicians, and borrowers who should have known better.

Didn’t you?

For years, the word from D.C. was that it would take billions to provide the same level of quality healthcare to Americans across the board. Just couldn’t be done. Too expensive, they said. It was seen as anathema and, apparently, still is by President Obama who is using Geithner as his proxy to convince Congress that payments to health care providers need to be reduced.

Let me pinch myself again: The Secretary of the Treasury and the President both say it’s OK to dole out billions – soon to be trillions – to heal the self-inflicted wounds of the financial system’s largest participants now feeding at the trough of the U.S. Treasury.

But, according to Geithner and Obama, it’s a transgression – a grave one indeed – to provide excellence in healthcare without cutting payments to the highly talented medical professionals and institutions that provide those services.

One more thing: Why is Congress permitting Geithner to testify alone, without a countervailing, expert voice from the medical profession?