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GaYellowDawg Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-31-09 10:43 PM
Original message
Sorry if this has already been posted: healthscare misinformation email making the rounds
Edited on Fri Jul-31-09 10:46 PM by GaYellowDawg
Here's the email:

ONE WORD TO DESCRIBE OBAMACARE!

| Thursday, 23 July 2009 | Dr. Dave Janda

As a physician who has authored books on preventative health care, I was given the opportunity to be the keynote speaker at a Congressional Dinner at The Capitol Building in Washington last Friday (7/17).

The presentation was entitled Health Care Reform, The Power & Profit of Prevention, and I was gratified that it was well received.

In preparation for the presentation, I read the latest version of "reform" as authored by The Obama Administration and supported by Speaker Pelosi and Senator Reid. Here is the link to the 1,018 page document: http://edlabor.house.gov/documents/111/pdf/publications/AAHCA-BillText-071409.pdf

Let me summarize just a few salient points of the above plan. First, however, it should be clear that the same warning notice must be placed on The ObamaCare Plan as on a pack of cigarettes: Consuming this product will be hazardous to your health.

The underlying method of cutting costs throughout the plan is based on rationing and denying care. There is no focus on preventing health care need whatever. The plan's method is the most inhumane and unethical approach to cutting costs I can imagine as a physician.

The rationing of care is implemented through The National Health Care Board, according to the plan. This illustrious Board "will approve or reject treatment for patients based on the cost per treatment divided by the number of years the patient will benefit from the treatment."

Translation.....if you are over 65 or have been recently diagnosed as having an advanced form of cardiac disease or aggressive cancer.....dream on if you think you will get treated.....pick out your coffin.

Oh, you say this could never happen? Sorry.... this is the same model they use in Britain.

The plan mandates that there will be little or no advanced treatments to be available in the future. It creates The Federal Coordinating Council For Comparative Effectiveness Research, the purpose of which is "to slow the development of new medications and technologies in order to reduce costs." Yes, this is to be the law.

The plan also outlines that doctors and hospitals will be overseen and reviewed by The National Coordinator For Health Information and Technology.

This " coordinator" will "monitor treatments being delivered to make sure doctors and hospitals are strictly following government guidelines that are deemed appropriate." It goes on to say....."Doctors and hospitals not adhering to guidelines will face penalties."

According to those in Congress, penalties could include large six figure financial fines and possible imprisonment.

So according to The ObamaCare Plan....if your doctor saves your life you might have to go to the prison to see your doctor for follow -up appointments. I believe this is the same model Stalin used in the former Soviet Union.

Section 102 has the Orwellian title, "Protecting the Choice to Keep Current Coverage." What this section really mandates is that it is illegal to keep your private insurance if your status changes - e.g., if you lose or change your job, retire from your job and become a senior, graduate from college and get your first job. Yes, illegal.

When Mr. Obama hosted a conference call with bloggers urging them to pressure Congress to pass his health plan as soon as possible, a blogger from Maine referenced an Investors Business Daily article that claimed Section 102 of the House health legislation would outlaw private insurance.

He asked: "Is this true? Will people be able to keep their insurance and will insurers be able to write new policies even though H.R. 3200 is passed?" Mr. Obama replied: "You know, I have to say that I am not familiar with the provision you are talking about."

Then there is Section 1233 of The ObamaCare Plan, devoted to "Advanced Care Planning." After each American turns 65 years of age they have to go to a mandated counseling program that is designed to end life sooner.

This session is to occur every 5 years unless the person has developed a chronic illness then it must be done every year. The topics in this session will include, "how to decline hydration, nutrition and how to initiate hospice care." It is no wonder The Obama Administration does not like my emphasis on Prevention. For Mr. Obama, prevention is the "enemy" as people would live longer.

I rest my case. The ObamaCare Plan is hazardous to the health of every American.

After I finished my Capitol Hill presentation, I was asked by a Congressman in the question-answer session: "I'll be doing a number of network interviews on the Obama Health Care Plan. If I am asked what is the one word to describe the plan what should I answer."

The answer is simple, honest, direct, analytical, sad but truthful. I told him that one word is FASCIST.

Then I added, "I hope you'll have the courage to use that word, Congressman. No other word is more appropriate."


Dr. Dave Janda, MD, is an orthopedic surgeon, and a world-recognized expert on the prevention of sports injuries, particularly in children. His website is noinjury.com.


I thought I would share my rebuttal to this email - and if any of you feel like checking the accuracy of my rebuttal, that'd be OK. :hi:

The rationing of care is implemented through The National Health Care Board, according to the plan. This illustrious Board "will approve or reject treatment for patients based on the cost per treatment divided by the number of years the patient will benefit from the treatment."

I downloaded the bill as a pdf, and used a search function. I copied and pasted "National Health Care Board" into the search and got nothing. I tried the same thing for "National Healthcare Board" and "Health Care Board" and "Healthcare Board" and got nothing. There is simply no "National Health Care Board" mentioned in the bill at all. I did find a Health Benefits Advisory Committee, described in Section 123 of the bill. There's nothing resembling the quote above in terms of approval or denial of treatment. I was going to paste Section 123 here, but it's really long and y'all can read it from the bill if you care.

Then I tried searching for the quoted section specifically. Nothing. That quote is apparently not in the bill.

The plan mandates that there will be little or no advanced treatments to be available in the future. It creates The Federal Coordinating Council For Comparative Effectiveness Research, the purpose of which is "to slow the development of new medications and technologies in order to reduce costs." Yes, this is to be the law.

There is no "Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness" anywhere in the bill. The quote "to slow the development of new medications and technologies in order to reduce costs" does not exist anywhere in the bill.

The plan also outlines that doctors and hospitals will be overseen and reviewed by The National Coordinator For Health Information and Technology.

This " coordinator" will "monitor treatments being delivered to make sure doctors and hospitals are strictly following government guidelines that are deemed appropriate." It goes on to say....."Doctors and hospitals not adhering to guidelines will face penalties."


There is no National Coordinator For Health Information and Technology mentioned anywhere in the bill. Neither quote appears anywhere in the bill.

Section 102 has the Orwellian title, "Protecting the Choice to Keep Current Coverage." What this section really mandates is that it is illegal to keep your private insurance if your status changes - e.g., if you lose or change your job, retire from your job and become a senior, graduate from college and get your first job. Yes, illegal.

The title is correct, but the description is completely inaccurate. Read the section for yourself, and you will see that this section absolutely does not make keeping your private insurance illegal. It defines what a grandfathered policy is, and sets restrictions on premium increases, among other things, but absolutely does not make keeping private insurance illegal. Again, read it for yourself if you doubt me.

Then there is Section 1233 of The ObamaCare Plan, devoted to "Advanced Care Planning." After each American turns 65 years of age they have to go to a mandated counseling program that is designed to end life sooner.

This session is to occur every 5 years unless the person has developed a chronic illness then it must be done every year. The topics in this session will include, "how to decline hydration, nutrition and how to initiate hospice care." It is no wonder The Obama Administration does not like my emphasis on Prevention. For Mr. Obama, prevention is the "enemy" as people would live longer.


This is another complete mischaracterization. The Advanced Care Planning mandated in Section 1233 involves the doctor informing his/her patients about options concerning the kinds of things covered in living wills. Remember Terry Schiavo? If you have this kind of talk with your doctor, you can establish a living will and prevent your family going through that kind of turmoil. There's nothing sinister at all about it. It's not designed to end life sooner. That is absolutely ridiculous. Again, though: read it for yourself if you don't believe me.

So here, we have scary bureaucracy purported to be in the bill that don't exist, scary quotes purported to be in the bill that don't exist, scary regulations purported to be in the bill that don't exist, lies about what's in particular sections, and mischaracterization of the intent of sections. In other words, it's a typical conservative lie-mail.
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csziggy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-31-09 10:50 PM
Response to Original message
1. Great work! You should send your research into Snopes and the other debunking sites
So that anyone who wants to check the validity of this email crap can easily find it.

I love how all the Republicans Congressmen and their scared followers are willing to spend so much time spreading this kind of misinformation but still whine about not having time to read the bills in question. I wish the next time they use that excuse, the interviewer would ask if the dog ate their printout of it.
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Kittycat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-31-09 10:55 PM
Response to Original message
2. See posts in this link below for more debunking:
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GaYellowDawg Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-01-09 12:04 PM
Response to Original message
3. Kick for the daytime people... nt
nt
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usregimechange Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-01-09 12:11 PM
Response to Original message
4. My state rep sent it to me as well, so I did what you did, my response to him:
Ed, Thanks for sending.

I used the link provided in the article to pull up the pdf of the bill. I searched for "will approve or reject treatment for patients" which is quoted in the article and came up with no results. I searched for "National Health Care Board" and no results. I searched for "health board" and found no results.

In quoting the following: National Health Care Board will "will approve or reject treatment for patients based on the cost per treatment divided by the number of years the patient will benefit from the treatment." What is the source? It isn't in the bill and he doesn't include a citation.

Thanks,

sj

ps, if this is based on misinformation, and seems to be, I trust you will correct the record if you have circulated it without checking into its accuracy.
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justwanttopost Donating Member (1 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-02-09 09:37 PM
Response to Reply #4
5. On searching the bill
Thanks to the original poster.

I received this email earlier this week and was formulating my response and didn't think of searching for the quotes.

One thing. Since the pdf includes the line numbers on each page, if you search on a phrase that wraps to the next line, you won't find the phrase, even if it exists.

To get around that, I searched for representative words in the quotes.

"approve or reject treatment for patients" - the word "reject" doesn't appear in the bill at all
"The Federal Coordinating Council For Comparative Effectiveness Research" - "coordinating" appears 5 times in the bill, but not in relation to a Federal Council.
"to slow the development of new medications and technologies in order to reduce costs" - the word "slow" doesn't appear in the bill at all
"Doctors and hospitals not adhering to guidelines will face penalties" - the word "adhering" doesn't appear in the bill at all
"how to decline hydration, nutrition and how to initiate hospice care" - the word "initiate" doesn't appear in the bill at all

Hope this helps
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