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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (25106)	12/12/2012 10:28:56 AM
From: longnshort	5 Recommendations Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 42652

Assploding Irony: 16 Dem Senators Who Voted For Obamacare Decry “Job-Killing” Obamacare Tax… Via Beltway Confidential: Sixteen Democratic senators who voted for the Affordable Care Act are asking that one of its fundraising mechanisms, a 2.3 percent tax on medical devices scheduled to take effect January 1, be delayed. Echoing arguments made by Republicans against Obamacare, the Democratic senators say the levy will cost jobs — in a statement Monday, Sen. Al Franken called it a “job-killing tax” — and also impair American competitiveness in the medical device field. The senators, who made the request in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, are Franken, Richard Durbin, Charles Schumer, Patty Murray, John Kerry, Kirsten Gillibrand, Amy Klobuchar, Joseph Lieberman, Ben Nelson, Robert Casey, Debbie Stabenow, Barbara Mikulski, Kay Hagan, Herb Kohl, Jeanne Shaheen, and Richard Blumenthal. All voted for Obamacare. Two other Democrats, senators-elect Joe Donnelly and Elizabeth Warren, also signed the letter. Donnelly voted for Obamacare as a member of the House. Warren was not in Congress at the time. Keep reading…

To: Lane3 who wrote (25106)

12/14/2012 10:37:06 AM

From: longnshort

4 Recommendations Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 42652

A HORRIFYING PREVIEW OF OBAMACARE: 6 in 10 Veterans Administration claim denials are in error

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So reports Army Times in a sobering report on the state of a typical, government-run health care system:

A new report on an old problem contains some sad statistics about veterans’ benefits claims:

• Thirty-one percent of claims filed with the Veterans Affairs Department are likely to be denied — and60 percent of those denials will be erroneous.

• Sixty percent of claims will take longer than 125 days to be processed, more than 7 percent of claims will be misplaced, and 4 percent will be completely lost.

• A veteran calling VA’s benefits hotline has just a 49 percent chance of being connected to someone and receiving a correct answer.

...Based on a review of the 870,000 benefits claims pending before VA in 2011 — a number that has climbed to about 900,000 pending claims today... Even faster claims processing might be possible by contracting out administrative services or transferring claims processing from the federal government to states, the report says. It recommends expanded pilot programs to test those ideas.

The nonpartisan National Center for Policy Analysis, which specializes in retirement and health care programs, is skeptical about VA’s stated goal of eliminating the claims backlog by the end of 2015.

VA “is barely able to process current claims,” the report says, “and has exhibited little to no progress toward their stated goal of 125 days and 98 percent accuracy for processed claims by 2015.”

The federal government, in general, does a poor job of administering disability benefits and services, the report says, “as evidenced by the state of Social Security Disability.”

“But the Veterans Benefits Administration appears to be far worse.”
When Nancy Pelosi famously opined -- vis a vis Obamacare -- that we had to pass it to find out what's in it, she was wrong.

We know what's in government-run health care: a nice, juicy crap sandwich for everyone involved.

Picture our entire medical system administered by the BMV, the Post Office and the SEIU, combined.