Nikki Phelps, R.I.P.
This is Nikki Phelps.
This is Nikki's family.
Bill Phelps, Nikki's husband, and her two boys -- Harry and Jack -- watched Nikki waste away and die from kidney cancer.
Tragically, Nikki's form of cancer was treatable with a drug called Sutent. But Nikki's health insurer repeatedly denied her the drug, claiming it was too expensive.
Who was this despicable health insurer? Was it Anthem, Blue Cross, Humana? No, it was none of those companies.
Nikki Phelp's insurer was Britain's National Health Service (NHS), the model for Barack Obama and his hand-picked appointment for the head of Medicare, Donald Berwick.
Donald Berwick loves the NHS and has said as much. He thinks it is doing a bang-up job and has praised its practices endlessly.
Berwick was a recess appointment for his powerful post as President Obama knew that he would never have survived Senatorial confirmation because of his infamous, bizarre and blatantly socialist statements.
"I am romantic about the NHS; I love it. All I need to do to rediscover the romance is to look at health care in my own country... [it is] such a seductress... a global treasure."
"[Among] the primary functions [of health regulation is] to constrain decentralized, individual decision making [and] to weigh public welfare against the choices of private consumers."
"Please don’t put your faith in market forces... In the United States... competition is a major reason for our duplicative, supply-driven, fragmented care system."
Berwick has routinely mocked the very free market and private enterprise systems that produce 75% of all medical and pharmaceutical innovations on the planet. The breakthrough devices and drugs aren't coming from the U.K., a simple fact Berwick appears to have conveniently ignored.
Sutent, the very drug that could have saved Nikki Phelps, was manufactured by an American company. As are three-quarters of all pharmaceuticals.
Worse, the UK's cancer survival rates are horrific compared to those of the United States.
• British cancer outcomes don't just trail U.S. results; "they rival those of Eastern European nations." A 2008 study showed that cancer survival rates in the U.K. trail far behind those of the United States. American men, for example, "have an 80 percent better chance of surviving prostate cancer than do their English counterparts... [and there are] similar disparities in comparative survival rates for victims of breast, colon and rectal cancers."
• Breast cancer mortality is 52 percent higher in Germany than in the United States and 88 percent higher in the United Kingdom.
• Some "56 percent of Americans who could benefit from statin drugs, which reduce cholesterol and protect against heart disease, are taking them. By comparison, of those patients who could benefit from these drugs, only 36 percent of the Dutch, 29 percent of the Swiss, 26 percent of Germans, 23 percent of Britons, and 17 percent of Italians receive them."
• "British cancer patients are substantially more likely to die of the disease than those in other western European countries because of poor access to the latest drugs, according to an authoritative report to be published today." (Cancer survival rates worst in western Europe: Telegraph (UK) 2007)
This is the health care system that Barack Obama, Donald Berwick and the Democrat Party intend to emulate. No free market innovation. No competition. No initiative. Only government rationing with a monopolistic, single-payer in charge of all health care delivery.
Like East Germany in the Sixties.
November is our last chance to stop the kind of madness that killed Nikki Phelps.
directorblue.blogspot.com
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[ But the hypocritical Berwick won't put himself and his wife under Obamacare: ]
In special deal, charity gives rationing advocate Berwick health coverage for life
By: Byron York
Chief Political Correspondent
07/14/10 7:57 AM EDT
Donald Berwick, recess-appointed by President Obama to head Medicare and Medicaid, is a well-known advocate of health care rationing and admirer of Britain's National Health Service. Rising health costs and limited resources "require decisions about who will have access to care and the extent of their coverage," Berwick wrote in 1999. Last year, he said, "The decision is not whether or not we will ration care -- the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open." Of the NHS, Berwick says simply, "I love it," adding that it is "one of the great human health care endeavors on earth."
As it turns out, Berwick himself does not have to deal with the anxieties created by limited access to care and the extent of coverage. In a special benefit conferred on him by the board of directors of the Institute for Health Care Improvement, a nonprofit health care charitable organization he created and which he served as chief executive officer, Berwick and his wife will have health coverage "from retirement until death."
The provision is deep inside a 2009 audit report on the nonprofit's finances. On page 17 of that document, there is a paragraph headlined "Post Retirement Health Benefits":
<<< During fiscal year 2003, the Institute created a postretirement health benefit plan for its Chief Executive Officer (CEO). It provides the CEO and his spouse medical insurance from retirement until death. The present value of the estimated cost of this benefit is approximately $120,000, which is being accrued over the CEO's estimated remaining service period. The amount expensed by the Institute for the years ended 2009 and 2008 related to this liability was approximately $12,000 and $17,000, respectively. At 2009 and 2008, approximately $84,000 and $72,000, respectively, was included in accounts payable and accrued expenses. >>>
Berwick was the CEO in question; under the provision, he and his wife will be covered for the rest of their lives -- a benefit that was on top of the $2.3 million in compensation the nonprofit gave Berwick in 2008, the $637,006 in compensation he received in 2007, and the $585,008 he received in 2006.
[What a racket. ]
The Institute describes its work as an effort "to accelerate improvement [in health care] by building the will for change, cultivating promising concepts for improving patient care, and helping health care systems put those ideas into action."
[ What does that mean? ]
It has about 110 employees and net assets of $49.5 million, according to its 2008 filing with the IRS. (2008 is the most recent year for which such filings are publicly available.) A 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization, the Institute reported receiving $12.2 million in contributions and grants in '08, as well as $27.4 million in revenue from its various programs.
Sen. Charles Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, has been asking questions about the Institute's finances. Specifically, Grassley wanted to know more about the millions of dollars in grants and contributions to the organization: where did that money come from? Given the zillions of dollars that changed hands during the debate over Obamacare, it was a reasonable question.
But it was a question the White House did not want to answer. Not long after Grassley inquired about the Institute's donors, the White House decided to bypass Senate confirmation for Berwick. The president's recess appointment means that Berwick will not have to answer Grassley's, or anyone else's, questions.
Now comes word that Berwick enjoys his nonprofit's generosity in the form of health care coverage for life. That undoubtedly would also have been a topic of questioning had Berwick gone through the normal course of Senate confirmation. But the recess appointment avoided all that.
Read more at the Washington Examiner: washingtonexaminer.com |
