Disparities

I wish every preacher, politician, prophet and prognosticator could read (or re-read) THE UNPRECEDENTED EXPANSION OF THE GLOBAL MIDDLE CLASS: AN UPDATE (2017) by the Brookings Institution,   non-profit organization devoted to independent research and policy solutions.  https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/global_20170228_global-middle-class.pdf   Just as an aside, some conservatives consider Brookings part of the “deep state,” i.e. certainly not a Trump supporter.

I commented on that document at my blog in May 2017. I’d forgotten the eye opening research and conclusions and re-read it today.  In light of the current pandemic and the self-flagellation I hear from educated, comfortably middle-class Christian Americans about health disparities, systemic racism, income gaps, struggling inner cities, and failures to thrive of various populations this report is truly stunning.

Here it is:   About TWO-THIRDS of the WORLD are now middle class.  Think on that a moment.  When my great grandfather (b. 1828) set out as a young man to “go west” about 95% of the world existed in overwhelming poverty and the government provided none of the social services we expect today. All that charity was left to the churches and local communities—taking care of the sick and poor and providing children (who often worked in factories or as farm labor) with an education.

In 1990, more than a third of people on Earth lived on less than $1.90 a day, adjusted for local prices (this is the line the World Bank uses as its main metric). By 2013, barely 10 percent of people did; the rate had been cut by more than two-thirds. And most of the recent growth of the last 2 decades has not been among white people (aka Europe and North America) but among Asians and Africans. Even in the U.S. the riches ethnic groups are Asians—Indians and Filipinos. https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-biggest-asian-origin-communities-in-the-united-states.html

Of course, the obligatory reporting on global climate change and the percent of rich households (not middle class) consumption being in the U.S. is reported in the Brookings document.  But then, think on this: “India today (2015) is already richer than Germany was when it introduced social insurance for all workers in the late 1880s. Indonesia is richer than the U.S. was in 1935, when the Social Security Act was passed. And China is richer than Britain was in 1948, when the National Health Service was introduced.”  Social programs did not building the middle class—capitalism did.  Brookings, being left of center didn’t say that, but it’s there, in print, and on-line.

Destroying the Trump economy (which actually came after this amazing report) and attempting to make us more dependent on government rather than the values that built our country and those of the countries rising today are critical for those who want global power. Whether you think that means Soros or a global cabal of capitalists, or “woke” international corporations, we seem to be in the battle for our lives.

We need to get back to work and to stop listening to those who are trying to defeat us.

Sometimes things aren't as they seem

Have you been wondering about the more than usual chaos in the vaccine supply this year? First they hype the H1N1 flu; then tell everyone to get the seasonal flu vaccine; then waffle on who should get H1N1; leak stories about health providers not wanting it; then show long lines of people waiting.

So, is this 1) intended to induce panic so you'll feel out of control and turn even more to the government or 2) it's a preview of how the socialized medicine system will work.

Here's today's item from OSUToday, which every day sends me something different

". . . only faculty and staff who have previously registered for an appointment will receive their seasonal influenza vaccination. Walk-ins can no longer be accommodated due to the remaining supply of vaccine dedicated for campus use. Keep in mind, the university's supply is running very low, as stated yesterday."

There's two more click throughs to find out about swine flu, which will also require prior registration and supplies will arrive on a weekly basis.

Our church (UALC) has cancelled its two seasonal flu shot Sundays (with Kroger Pharmacy), something it does each year. Wasn't a problem last year. I got mine at Walgreens before they ran out, and my husband found a dr. office that had 2 left and he went there directly.

We, Those People, Need to be Informed

Heritage Foundation assessment of HR 3200

Liberty Counsel assessment of HR 3200

Family Research Council Fellow Ken Blackwell Commentary

Cato Institute Analysis of Massachusetts’ Universal Health Care

Will the real Obama please stand up?

No, I'm not referring to his birth place, Kenya or Hawaii, to a teen-age mother. Birthers are wasting their time. Now this on the other hand--Single payer health insurance.

Obama in 2003: ‘I Happen to be a Proponent of a Single-Payer Universal Health Care Plan;' Obama in 2009: ‘I Have Not Said That I Was a Single-Payer Supporter’.

Dodge. Word games.

In 2003, Illinois state Sen. Barack Obama received a big round of applause for telling a gathering of the AFL-CIO, “I happen to be a proponent of single-payer, universal health care plan.”

This week, speaking at a town hall gathering in Portsmouth, N.H., President Obama said, “I have not said that I was a single-payer supporter because, frankly, we historically have had a employer-based system in this country with private insurers, and for us to transition to a system like that I believe would be too disruptive. CNSNews.com

And then in a Philadelphia Town Hall, the goons didn't get the President's latest lie.

"WHAT DO WE WANT?"
"SINGLE-PAYER!!"
"WHEN DO WE WANT IT?"
"NOW!!"
“Toward the front of the line, that's where I saw the most venom and vitriol. That's where the hardcore socialists were, the people who would gladly destroy the ingenuity and innovation inherent in our health care system for the sake of "social justice." Many, it seemed, were college students. Most, it was apparent, came in groups. I counted two people in ACORN shirts, one of which was getting an earful from an event attendee who came to protest the health care reform legislation.” Stranger in a strange land

Yes, that group was in Columbus, Ohio, in October and November--the “college students” and ACORN, innocently registering to vote, and our Secretary of State, an old softy, and a Democrat, did nothing. I think she said there wasn't time.

Obamacare--doesn't save, doesn't stretch, doesn't strengthen

Check out the FactCheck.org analysis and number crunching of Obama's prime time address on health care on July 22. Summary:

"Obama promised once again that a health care overhaul “will be paid for.” But congressional budget experts say the bills they've seen so far would add hundreds of billions of dollars to the deficit over the next decade.

He said the plan "that I put forward" would cover at least 97 percent of all Americans. Actually, the plan he campaigned on would cover far less than that, and only one of the bills now being considered in Congress would do that.

He said the "average American family is paying thousands" as part of their premiums to cover uncompensated care for the uninsured, implying that expanded coverage will slash insurance costs. But the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation puts the cost per family figure at $200.

Obama claimed his budget "reduced federal spending over the next 10 years by $2.2 trillion" compared with where it was headed before. Not true. Even figures from his own budget experts don't support that. The Congressional Budget Office projects a $2.7 trillion increase, not a $2.2 trillion cut

The president said that the United States spends $6,000 more on average than other countries on health care. Actually, U.S. per capita spending is about $2,500 more than the next highest-spending country. Obama's figure was a White House-calculated per-family estimate."

It's too bad we can't get a REAL figure on the REALLY uninsured American--the one who either doesn't want insurance, or who doesn't sign up for the aid that is available. I've heard reports of 10% or less. Why can't he go to work on that group? Rhetorical, of course. If he did only that, then he couldn't take over another segment of the economy! When Congress went to work on S-CHIP (after welfare reform they wanted their dependants back), the minimum family income incrementally was raised to around $80,000 to qualify, and that was under Bush (Congress does it, not the President).

FactCheck broke down the 46 million uninsured figure this way in 2007 (would be higher now due to higher unemployment, which Obama is exacerbating):

Twenty-six percent of the uninsured are eligible for some form of public coverage but do not make use of it, according to The National Institute for Health Care Management Foundation. This is sometimes, but not always, a matter of choice.

Twenty-one percent of the uninsured are immigrants, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. But that figure includes both those who are here legally and those who are not. The number of illegal immigrants who are included in the official statistics is unknown.

Twenty percent of the uninsured have family incomes of greater than $75,000 per year, according to the Census Bureau. But this does not necessarily mean they have access to insurance. Even higher-income jobs don't always offer employer-sponsored insurance, and not everyone who wants private insurance is able to get it.

Forty percent of the uninsured are young, according to KFF. But speculation that they pass up insurance because of their good health is unjustified. KFF reports that many young people lack insurance because it's not available to them, and people who turn down available insurance tend to be in worse health, not better, according to the Institute of Medicine.

Occasionally I talk to a young man (40) who has been on either unemployment or disability for the last 3 years or so. He is college educated, owns a house which he partially rents to people with similar problems, has sold all his investments, and is scrambling to cobble together insurance for his multiple medications and his bills. Believe me, when the government takes care of you, it's no easy life! Fortunately, he has a mother and father (divorced, living in different states, but well employed) who can help him. When I listen to his tale of woe (often and repeated because it's his obsession), I realize that government programs, even those that are essential for the very needy, keep a person in perpetual poverty and tied up in red tape.

Obama hasn't read the bill?

Is that why he doesn't know that private insurance will be regulated or driven out of business under this plan he's trying to railroad through? I doubt it. He truly believes that too much knowledge killed Hillarycare, so he's trying to see that as much of this remains in the dark as possible. It's easier to lie or say he doesn't know than to allow an open, honest discussion. When asked about Section 102 of the House legislation, he said he wasn't familiar with it, but he keeps telling us Americans we will be able to keep our own plan if we like it. Not so, and here's why, according to Heritage Foundation Morning Bell, July 21

Approximately 103 million people would be covered under the new public plan and as a consequence about 83.4 million people would lose their private insurance. This would represent a 48.4 percent reduction in the number of people with private coverage.

About 88.1 million workers would see their current private, employer-sponsored health plan go away and would be shifted to the public plan.

Yearly premiums for the typical American with private coverage could go up by as much as $460 per privately insured person, as a result of increased cost-shifting stemming from a public plan modeled on Medicare.

It is truly frightening that the President of the United States is pressuring Congress in an all out media blitz to pass legislation that he flatly admits he has not read and is not familiar with. President Obama owes it to the Americans people to stop making promises about what his health plan will and will not do until he has read it, and can properly defend it in public, to his own supporters.

A very small percentage of American citizens do not have health insurance, and most of the misuse and outrageous spending on health that we do have is in government programs. So what's the big rush? It's not like he's got a bottom line or anything.

And in another act of transparency, Obama has decided not to release the mid-July economic forecasts. Wouldn't want the Congress making decisions on health care based on anything but his obombastic promises.

Health care myths, pt. 1

Let me count the ways we're lied to by politicians. There has been a bunch of lies in Obama's recent lectures, but just let me point out the biggie--reduced costs if we go to universal, government owned health insurance. Name one thing the government does more cheaply or which hasn't mushroomed in costs beyond what was promised/predicted, whether it's a war, education, or social program. It is not in politicians' nature to ever, ever cut back--they only know how to spend more because it isn't their money. Also, it's what keeps them in power. Medicare, a government program originally intended to insure retired people formerly insured by employers (a bad private system from the get-go right after WWII) has incrimentally become the biggest boondoggle in government, with no one to blame but Congress and past and present presidents. I wonder if anyone has ever checked Congressional districts by higher-costs per-capita for Medicare or Medicare based on number of repeat terms in Congress by their representatives?

The June 24 JAMA reports that Medicare is expected to operate at a deficit this year and is projected to exhaust its reserve funds in 2017--2 years earlier than previously predicted (http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TRSUM/index.html). That doesn't sound like news to me, but maybe the years are different. All I know is that after I retired from the University, my health insurance costs soared under my pension plan (state), and then when I went on Medicare (federal) I needed to buy a pricey supplement with a high deductible to control costs, plus I really couldn't find out the real cost of anything because the bills are so confusing. (I think that's intentional so you just stop looking at them and think it's "free.")

Essentially, Obama is saying we haven't been able to control costs or tests or lawyers or end of life care or expansion of coverage with a plan for a limited population, so give us a larger group and more bundles of money, and then we'll show you what we can REALLY do. Republicans, even the non-RINOS--just nibble around the edges--they don't really have much of a contribution and are no help at all.

A private system not tied to employers with incentives and competition is the only way to truly bring down costs, with a government safety net for that 10% who will never be able to manage on their own, and requirements to be covered, just like car insurance or house insurance. Yes, some 19-year-old might have to give up his pizza, tobacco and beer to have money for insurance. Unfortunately, that window of opportunity closed a long time ago when I was a young woman not paying attention, pushing a baby stroller with a trundle seat and washing cloth diapers, owning one TV, one car and one phone with a mortgage that fit our income. I'm older than dirt.

Of course you can choose to keep your insurance

But. . . here's how it will really work. "Of course, no sane 23-year-old will "choose" a $400-plus per month insurance premium over whatever subsidized plan the government offers. And as younger people leave the private risk pool, older, sicker people will remain—driving up premiums more and more for those riskier folks who're left. Eventually, a steady stream of people will "choose" to abandon private health insurance altogether. And where will they go? Obamacare. All according to plan."

See how easy it is? Socializing medicine in 3 easy steps.

Electronic Health records and GPS Census Records

[Disturbing side-bar: my spell check in Microsoft Works still tries to change Obama to Osama]

Not too many years ago my liberal/progressive colleagues in the library profession (223:1 liberal to conservative--several of whom post here as "anonymous") were screaming about the dangers of RFID on Wal-Mart pallets, which the marketing giant uses to reduce inventory costs and speed delivery from warehouse to outlets. Of course then, it was a right wing, Nazi conspiracy caused by Karl Rove because President Bush was in office. And they were definitely right to worry. Look what Oba-Mart is settling for now. Electronic surveillance of everything in our lives.

When President Obama won approval for his $787 billion stimulus package in February, large sections of the 407-page bill focused on a push for new technology that would not stimulate the economy for years.

The inclusion of as much as $36.5 billion in spending to create a nationwide network of electronic health records fulfilled one of Obama's key campaign promises -- to launch the reform of America's costly health-care system. WaPo

One can only hope that these billions for a “network” of health records doesn’t work any better than what we’re all experiencing locally at our own doctor’s office. If this is any evidence, not one dollar will ever be saved. It's just a coup for the industry.

I stopped by to pick up a prescription at my doctor’s office because the “electronic transfer” of information between that office and the pharmacy I used hadn’t been able to manage the job in 3.5 days, and I was out (old methods of fax and phone aren't used anymore). Normally, I would have just told the receptionist what I needed, and my file (paper) would have been retrieved (human). No. I waited about 10 minutes as she struggled getting the right screens up, then worked from screen to screen, asking me questions I didn’t know, like date of my last appointment and address of the pharmacy. A line was forming behind me. When she finally found it, she said there was no record from the pharmacy requesting permission for a refill, but the doctor would decide.

That night we got a call from the doctor’s office that “it was ready,” i.e. the prescription script. My husband went to pick it up and waited about 15 minutes in line as the receptionist struggled with the screens of 2 or 3 people ahead of him. Fortunately, it was in a paper envelope with my name hand written on the outside. We can only hope and pray that the national “network” that Obama is forcing thousands of small offices to buy into (causing many to close their doors), doesn’t work any better than what you’ve all experienced at the local level as your doctor or clinic transitions.

Obama's war on health care

Or War on America, I'm beginning to think. One more sector of the economy falling into the trenches without a fight. I hope to have a doctor write from his perspective as a guest blogger. (Note: JB--hurry!) But just on a personal note, I learned today that a friend is now battling his fourth type of cancer--not a metastasis, but all four different. Obamacare, or to-the-bone care, will never help those dear people. It will be triage, wait and ration care. There will be no debate; it will be flown through Congress, past Fancy Nancy faster than you can say botox, much faster than Air Force One flying past the Statue of Liberty. You just have to hope that he doesn't decide that each American can only have one cancer and that no one over 70 should get anything so there is enough rationed care to go around. Good luck, Democrat Baby Boomers who voted for this mess! Think of it this way, with only 2% of our fuel needs currently met by alternatives like wind and solar, you would have frozen to death anyway. The heating up green movement can dovetail nicely with the healthcare meltdown.

"A recent study by the Lewin Group estimates that almost 120 million Americans could be forced from employer-based coverage into government-run insurance by the kind of two-step strategy the Democrats envision. Americans with stable job-based insurance do not know this is what Democrats have in store for them, and they will not be happy about it. Last year the Kaiser Family Foundation found that well over 80 percent of insured Americans rated their health insurance as excellent or good." Stop ObamaCare.

How ObamaCare will Affect Your Doctor

Friday Family Photo--the cost of having a baby

An article in the WSJ health section really caught my attention--Anna writing about the cost of her newborn--$36,625. I dug around in my file for the medical costs of our oldest son's birth in 1961 (see photo), but could find every tax return except 1961, which means I've looked at it before and misfiled it. So I looked at 1964, for Patrick, and found the total medical costs for all of 1964 were $459, and it looks like $315 of that was for the clinic, so the doctor's bill was probably included in that. Our hospital insurance was $114, which paid $45 of that bill. However you slice and dice it, I was able to itemize the entire event in about 7 short lines for our taxes even though there were many complications, follow up visits, and I was high risk. I recall that I paid cash at the business office of the Carle with each prenatal visit, and I think the doctor's invoice was folded into the clinic because I had no separate item for him. Anna writes:

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles provided excellent care and thoughtful treatment during my uncomplicated traditional delivery in December. Then the invoices started coming. The hospital sent one for me, and another for my baby. The doctors billed separately. The total charge for three days: $36,625.

People lucky enough to have good health insurance, including me, don't have to come up with such sums. Insurers typically pay a lower, negotiated price for hospital care, and patients pay a portion of that amount. Even people without insurance often get sharp discounts from list prices on their hospital bills.

She then attempts to decipher that $36,625. She’s on a preferred provider plan and her employers negotiated with the insurance company.

“For hospital and surgery services from these providers, I am on the hook for 15% of Aetna's negotiated price. [She later found out, probably researching this article, that Aetna’s price was about $17,300 (much higher than average) and her percentage was based on that.] I also have a $400 annual deductible. Fortunately, there is a $2,000 cap on how much I might have to spend out of pocket each year for my in-network care. I owed a total of $2,118.90, a sum I arrived at only after adding figures from five separate documents.” [Her son had his own deductible when born.]

She decided to check the itemized invoices, 34 items for her and 14 for the baby, not including doctors' fees. “Those charges I could decipher seemed stunningly high. A "Tray, Anes Epidural" cost $530.29. (After inquiring, I learned this was the tray of sterile equipment used to give me an epidural anesthetic injection.) An "Anes-cat 1-basic Outlying Area" was billed at $2,152.55. (I was told this was the cost of the hospital's resources related to the epidural.) These items were in addition to the separate anesthesiologist's charge of $1,530 for giving the epidural. Even though the pain-killing epidural shot felt priceless during my 20 hours of labor, I was amazed that its total cost could run so high.” Then there was $2,382.92 for her recovery, when there had been no Caesarean section. It turned out the charge was for the 90 minutes in the birthing room after delivery.

In the end, patient reader, there is no way to know what the real cost of this newborn was--and she was told it was a mistake that Cedars didn't give her the estimate she had asked for before the baby was born.

There's also no way to know what 1964 dollars are worth in 2008--there are perhaps 6 different ways to figure it (on-line). But using purchasing power figures (we're buying a baby here), $315 (my costs after insurance payout) in 1964 would buy $2,186 in 2008, or higher than what Anna said were her out of pocket costs of $2,119 at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles.

Insurance, both private and government, is what caused health care costs to sky rocket (keeping in mind she didn't pay anything near $36,625 or even the negotiated cost). Notice Anna's comment on how good her insurance is? Well, her "costs" are high because her insurance company is also paying for those people who don't have insurance--they don't put them on the street to have those babies when they show up in ER--they get the same excellent care Anna does, maybe better, because they don't have to negotiate with anyone!

In the 1960s, we purchased our own hospital insurance--our employers didn't. My own parents had no insurance at all--Dad bought "polio insurance" in 1949 because there was an epidemic (a real one, not like the Swine flu scare), but that's all. My parents paid cash for their babies, and I think Mom had a hospital stay of 10 days to 2 weeks. That had shortened to about 5 days in the early 60s, and now--do you even get to stay 48 hours?

When we have Obamacare, and it is definitely coming, it will be even more costly and more limited and more difficult to find out what it really costs. Just go back to the early 90s scare of Hillary and Magaziner and see what happened to health insurance costs when everyone feared a government take over. That nice epidural Anna was so grateful for (as was I)? I'm guessing that will have to be negotiated or rationed several months in advance, and only politicians' daughters will make the cut (no pun intended).

Our health care system

And I use the term loosely, since it really isn't a system in any sense that we understand that word.

"In 2009 Medicare expenditures will exceed $400 billion, representing 13% of the federal budget and about one-fifth of all US expensitures on health care." JAMA, Feb. 11, 2009 citing Medicare: A Primer 2009,

and remember please, it isn't "free" for those of us who use it. Also, the early boomers hit 64 this year. Someone didn't do the math back in 1965. All the years I worked, I paid into Medicare (because I wasn't on Social Security), and now I pay quarterly to use it, plus I have to buy Supplemental to a private company if I really want any coverage that's meaningful. Of course, this can't be sustained, but we also have Medicaid and SCHIP, so don't kid yourself, Obamacare will cost even more. Also keep in mind, that the more successful our Nanny State is at getting people to stop smoking, eat more vegetables and fruits, lose weight, exercise more, and not visit bathhouses to have sex with infected men, the longer people are going to live, which is just going to add to the health costs as 90 and 100 year olds eventually wear out from all that healthy living.

Swine flu--Mexico and the U.S.

In Mexico, they are dying. In the U.S. they are getting sick, being treated, and going home.

Besser CDC update today, Apr. 28:"The CDC today raised the number of confirmed cases in the U.S. to 64, with 45 of them in New York. No deaths have been confirmed in the U.S. That will change, Besser said."

In Mexico, no one really knows how many are sick, or how many have died. I doubt that the government has reported it accurately. The government is in charge of their health care and their media may have about the same independence (none) as ours. So that may be the head scratcher answer for our journalists who can't seem to figure out why Mexicans are dying and Americans aren't.

The Mexican government for years has been dependent on money sent home by its illegal immigrants in the U.S., instead of developing its own infrastructure. Mexico is a country rich in natural resources, but entire cities and families have been descimated by emigration (who are probably now returning home). So far, their health care system hasn't even been able to get help to family members of those who have died, and this is spread person to person. I saw this from a blogger in Mexico (Medical News Today)

I live in Cancun, on the Caribbean coast of Mexico, about 1hour and 30 minutes by plane from Mexico City. Mexico City is the Swine Flu ground zero. A few days ago most of the Cancun population watched news coming from Mexico City with detachment. "This is over 1000 kilometers away," I heard one person say "we are fine." Gradually, local attitudes have changed.

Yesterday we all watched the national news and heard that restaurants, nightclubs, schools, theatres, sports stadia, and anywhere that might hold large groups of people had not only been closed in Mexico City, but along the vacation resorts of the Pacific coast - Acapulco, Puerto Vallarta, Zihuatanejo. Can you imagine the economic consequences of closing restaurants, bars and nightclubs in tourist resorts?

Friends in Mexico City phone me and describe empty streets. The few who do venture out wear masks and go about their business as swiftly as they can.

The whole of Mexico is scared. "Will I get this? If I do what will happen to me? Am I hearing the truth? They say it is not so bad and easily treatable, but they would say that, wouldn't they?"

I heard a young mother say today that she was told not to bring her daughter to preschool because she had a temp (teething), but she had the little girl at the senior center where I was volunteering. Doesn't seem to be much alarm here--although I think that was poor planning on her part, considering many elders are immune compromised. Probably because Americans know they don't have government health care. YET. However, a pandemic will be a good excuse for the government to take over, just like Obama took over the auto industry, to share it with the unions, who supported him and the banks. If we already had Obama-care, I think there would be a different story--a much larger, faster spread and many already dead. The government handled the last swine flu outbreak (1976) badly, with more people dying from the vaccine than from the flu.

Another thing journalists are asking is why young, healthy adults are dying. My parents' generation didn't die in the last flu pandemic in 1918. They were young children. It was young healthy adults that died--like our soldiers called to fight in Europe, but dying before they got there. That's how it spread--lots of young, healthy people crowded together. We lost more soliders to the flu than we did to the war, a war in which it wasn't unusual to lose more men in one campaign than the 6years we've been in Iraq. Most of that generation is gone now. The immunity is over. It died with my parents' generation.

We know now how to treat the effects of the flu, but it will be interesting to see if Obama uses this as a crisis to take over health care with out a vote or objection.

If we already had Obama-care, we'd be holed up in our homes like the Mexicans, whimpering, wondering why the people ever voted for the man who nationalized our industries, destroyed our military, created a constitutional crisis by attacking the former president, and groveled and pandered before foreign leaders. Oh well.

Update: In Wednesday's WSJ article about the swine flu, you had to get all the way to the end to find, "the sorry state of Mexico's public and private health system. . . patients often wait hours to days to see the doctor." Just the kind of Obama-care we need north of the border.

Update 2: On the way to the grocery store Wednesday I heard a young child had died in the U.S. of swine flu. On the way home, I learned the child was a Mexican brought to the U.S. for better treatment. It's a tragedy for the family, but a plus for Obama's team which is looking for opportunities to nationalize health care, so maybe it's not as good as an American death, but it's close.

What does Health Care Obamanation mean to you?

We've seen the ads. Is there anything in them that actually tell us what the state of health in the U.S. is? What do we really know about the uninsured, and if we knew, would it make any difference to the politicians or to the voters?

The percent of uninsured rose a bit in the U.S. during the Clinton years, dipped slightly in early 2000s (probably from SCHIP, a new program of the late 90s) and now rests at about 14-16% of the population (virtually unchanged in 20 years), depending on which source you use, the U.S. Census CPS and SIPP reports being the most accurate with the longest record. The actual numbers are up because the population has increased, so that's what will be cited in political ads and speeches. No politician will stand at a podium and say, "Despite all our promises and all the taxes you've paid, we're no further along on this than we were 30 years ago because we're inefficient, pork-fed pols who need poor people in order to get elected." However, only about half of that small group are uninsured for a whole year, and the Congressional Budget Office estimates about 16% of the uninsured go for 24 months without insurance. If it’s your family and you’re paying out $1000 a month to COBRA to your new plan, even one month is too long. It’s a bit like rejoicing that military deaths are far lower today than 20 years ago when there was no war. If it’s your son or daughter who died in Iraq, that’s not much comfort.

Who is uninsured? Actually, it’s the youngest (19-24, who also tend to be the people with “it will never happen to me” attitude), better educated, married, and higher income people who are more likely to go without insurance. Some people who claim to be uninsured on surveys actually have it through a government program (Medicaid or SCHIP), and some people who are eligible, don’t apply, and some who could have it through their employment, don’t choose it because they don’t want the co-payment.

Also, being uninsured does NOT mean a person gets no health care. If you've ever been to the ER, you know that. We all wait together. The uninsured may not seek care as early as they should, however, and that might cause problems down the road. Most of the political ads I’ve seen about health care actually involved people who had insurance (like Obama’s mother, or Hillary’s examples), but they were brought up as examples of the need for it to be “universal,” lessening what you and I have, and increasing what others have.

Still, with a new hurricane approaching New Orleans and all the reminders of stranded people, drowning buses, a racist mayor wanting a chocolate town, and a woman governor who didn’t know when to say “help,” I really can’t imagine that we want to FEMA-tize our health care.

It's not brain surgery

why Ted Kennedy didn't go to Canada or Cuba to have his tumor removed--or even to a Boston hospital or a European hospital. No, he went to Dr. Allan Friedman at Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina. In 2000 and 2004 NC was solidly behind Bush; the Democrats are working hard to get her into the caretaker mindset right now. I don't know why Dr. Friedman is at Duke and not at some famous northeastern hospital in a Democratic state, or even Chicago where he was born and went to medical school, but let me guess; lower real estate taxes, lower state income taxes, lower luxury housing costs, lower crime rates, stronger ethical and moral values among the populace and the ability to lure the best talent there to assist him, despite the liberal administration and faculty at Duke. And who knows, there might even be some evil capitalist money (tobacco?) funding that tumor center. The 3.5 hour surgery has been declared a success and it will be followed up by chemo and radiation, which will probably be done closer to home.

The irony is that under socialized medicine only a wealthy government official, son and grandson of inherited, ill-gotten wealth would be able to afford such care. Even at the height of the power of Stalin and Mao, the party officials always had the best.* But more importantly, with socialized medicine, a doctor of Friedman's skill and talent, wouldn't even have been trained in the United States.

Democrats want their families to benefit from our health system (and "system" is not a good word for it), but they don't want you and me to have those benefits. They want us to wait in line for our turn, to have our health needs decided by a committee, and then be assigned to whatever hospital needs the work whether they've done 10 surgeries or 1000. It would make no difference if you elect Binky Obama or Hillary Rottie Clinton, all competition and excellence must be eradicated; everything must be dumbed down to be fair to the newest, non-citizen who doesn't speak English and the homeless guy who couldn't give up the bottle, and the exotic dancer who cried rape. Rev. Wright and Father Pfleger have already explained to you that if you're white you're a piece of trash. And let's hope that the equipment that will save your life doesn't have a petroleum base because then. . . well, sorry, that's been capped along with your life span by Lieberman-Warner.

*One of the ways I put food on the table as a grad student was translating a Russian medical newspaper, Medisinskii Rabotnik. The ordinary folks got a fel'dsher, usually female and poorly trained, not a doctor.

Deja Vu all over again

"How good is government medical care?" asks Osler L. Peterson. Has a familiar ring, doesn't it? You really think you're reading today's arguments about healthcare--the fact that European countries already have it and their citizens are doing fine, that many elderly are suffering under high costs, and that there are already programs for the poor. But it was published in The Atlantic Monthly in September 1960 (the month I got married). This wakes you up.

"The Health Insurance Institute estimates that “getting sick and getting well” will cost the average American $105 in 1960. This sum will be distributed about as follows: $34 for the hospital, $26 for the doctor, $28 for medicines, $11.50 for the dentist, and $5.50 for other costs. The average United States family in 1957-1958 spent a little over $300 for medical care. These averages are influenced by many factors. Those with hospital insurance received more care than those without, and families with higher incomes spent more than those with smaller ones."

Using Measuring Worth (which only goes through 2006) we can look at several ways to see $105, the CPI probably being the most familiar.

In 2006, $105.00 from 1960 is worth:

$714.65 using the Consumer Price Index
$581.70 using the GDP deflator
using the value of consumer bundle *
$849.03 using the unskilled wage
$1,586.70 using the nominal GDP per capita
$2,631.92 using the relative share of GDP

I don't know if there is an accurate figure on health care costs--it depends on what think tank and which lobbyist are beholden to which party. I know ours is terribly high and we have "government health care," i.e. Medicare. This site says it is over $6,000 per person a year--not the best, just the most expensive.

What's probably changed since 1960 is indigent care. The son of a friend recently had an appendectomy--was hospitalized four or five days. He is unemployed and uninsured. It cost him nothing at the hospital down the road where it is $5,000+ a day to have a room in which to recover, and that doesn't cover the doctor and lab costs. If he'd been insured, he would have had a deductible and a co-pay, and the hospital might have had strict insurance guidelines on how long he could stay, or his employer might have lost its coverage. Under managed care, doctors and hospitals are no longer allowed to do what's best for the patient, only what's best for the bottom line. Imagine how much worse it will be with a committee of bureaucrats. The Katrina Care Plan, I like to call it.

But another thing that has changed since 1960 is heroic measures for people with a very limited life expectancy. An 85 year old dear man we know has several systems failing at once. Any one of them could kill him, but he had surgery this week for the most serious--he was given only 2 months to live if this wasn't repaired. I truly don't know what I would do if it were me, or my parent or husband, and none of us do until it happens to us. My mother had surgery for colon cancer in her 80s and had another wonderful five years with her family and husband, celebrating 65 years of marriage, dying of something totally unrelated. My father had a heart by-pass when he was 70 and lived another 19 years, needing to replace a few pacemakers and outliving some of his doctors.

Do you have the answers to how much is too much? Because you know well, without private supplemental policies, none of the above examples would be covered under Katrina Care.

Tossing the chips

Those of you raised in rural areas who may have had the opportunity in your youth to walk barefoot through a cow pasture, know what a chip is--when thrown it can have the feel of a hockey puck. Keep that in mind has you listen to the howls that Bush hates children because of his veto of increases in the S-CHIP program. Here's a summary from Congressman Jeff Miller about the expansion of services (poor children are already covered--this moves up to the next quintile and above),

Under the SCHIP expansion, an estimated 1 million to 1.2 million children would gain SCHIP coverage, but between 467,000 and 611,000 children would lose private coverage.

The annual cost to taxpayers of covering an uninsured child under the Senate's expansion plan would increase from $1,418 to between $2,508 and $2,859. This is 1.8 to 2 times the cost of SCHIP coverage for a child in a family at this income level or almost 2.5 times the average cost of private insurance.

The bill increases the age of "children" eligible for benefits to 25 years and permits States to continue to enroll childless adults.

The expansion would be financed by increased tobacco taxes, including a 61-cent increase in the cigarette tax, to $1 per pack. The bill assumes that there will be 22 million new smokers a year to ensure budget neutrality.

Expanding SCHIP to cover children in higher income families is not an efficient or cost-effective way to reduce the ranks of uninsured children.

The proposal put forward by Democrats would render the current income eligibility requirement for SCHIP meaningless and create an open-ended government entitlement for families, many of whom already have private insurance coverage.

And let's not forget, that this isn't about insuring poor children (no one 25 is a child and people without children aren't parents), it's about universal health care. If you've been hearing the horror stories about boomers and medicare, imagine that for everyone, but with personal health insurance destroyed.

Copied from an op ed in NewsBlaze.