SI
SI
discoversearch

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor.  We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community.  If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.
Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: Peter Dierks who wrote (26815)8/1/2013 6:03:36 PM
From: Alastair McIntosh1 Recommendation

Recommended By
Road Walker

  Respond to of 42652
 
Here is another view of the 340B program:

Does 340B hurt patients? Is it Obama’s fault?

Writing in the WSJ, Scott Gottlieb makes it sound like the Affordable Care Act has spawned a monster in the 340B drug pricing program ( “How ObamaCare Hurts Patients”). Gottlieb claims that “ObamaCare is taking a rotten feature of the old system and making it worse.” The core of his complaint is the expansion of the program from about 90 hospitals initially to thousands of covered sites today, blaming the Affordable Care Act. But most of the expansion in the program occurred well before Obama took office or the ACA was signed. From the GAO:



Where did this “rotten feature” come from?

The 340B program was enacted as part of the larger Veterans Heath Care Act of 1992 with bipartisan support. Indeed, Public Law 102-545 passed by a voice vote in both the House and the Senate. Co-sponsors included Newt Gingrich. It was signed by President Bush in November 1992. When the Republican majorities created Medicare Part D a decade later, 340B wasn’t scrapped. This was Republican drug policy.

Here is a description of the 340B program from a recent 8-0 opinion from the Supreme Court, Astra USA, Inc. v. Santa Clara County:

Under §340B, added in 1992, 106 Stat. 4967, as amended, 124 Stat. 823, manufacturers participating in Medicaid must offer discounted drugs to covered entities, dominantly, local facilities that provide medical care for the poor. See §256b(a); §1396r–8(a)(1). The 340B Pro­gram, like the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program, employs a form contract as an opt-in mechanism.

The Medicaid discount program was the price the industry paid to gain coverage for their drugs in Medicaid. One reason changes weren’t made in Part D was that the industry gained greater access to the Medicare market in 2006. These deals have (at least) two sides; Gottlieb conveniently fails to mention the quid pro quo.

In 2011, the GAO described the program in a 54 page report. The main points (from the Executive Summary):

1. “[A]ll covered entities reported using the program in ways consistent with its purpose.” But HHS/HRSA should audit much more effectively.

2. 340b does not generally cause shortages:

According to the 61 340B program stakeholders we interviewed, manufacturers’ distribution of drugs at 340B prices generally did not affect providers’ access to drugs. Specifically, 36 stakeholders, including those representing manufacturers, covered entities, and non-340B providers, did not report any effect on covered entities’ or non-340B providers’ access.

3. Shortages are limited to one particular drug (IVIG) and others only after significant price drops:

The remaining 25, also representing a wide range of perspectives on the 340B program, reported that it affected access primarily in two situations: (1) for intravenous immune globulin (IVIG), a lifesaving drug in inherently limited supply; and (2) when there was a significant drop in the 340B price for a drug resulting in increased 340B demand. In both situations, manufacturers may restrict distribution of drugs at 340B prices because of actual or anticipated shortages. Stakeholders reported that restricted distribution of IVIG resulted in 340B hospitals having to purchase some IVIG at higher, non-340B prices. They also reported that restricted distribution when the 340B price of a drug dropped significantly helped maintain equitable access for all providers.

My take: Gottlieb seems to be recycling a 2011 GAO Report and making it seem like it is mainly Obama’s fault. Gottlieb makes more interesting comments on oncology reimbursement, which I plan to discuss in a future post. HHS just published the 340B orphan drug rules in the Federal Register on July 23, 2013 and I need to read them carefully first.

theincidentaleconomist.com



To: Peter Dierks who wrote (26815)8/18/2013 10:17:27 AM
From: FJB1 Recommendation

Recommended By
Peter Dierks

  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 42652
 
The 'clown controversy' is further evidence that the left is freaking out

Silvio Canto, Jr.

By any political "humor standard," the clown incident was rather lame. It wouldn't make any Top 10 list.

I remember David Frye doing Nixon, Chevy Chase mocking Ford, the SNL bits on Reagan, Bush, Bush & Romney. What about Palin?

Political humor is a good thing. The clown with the Obama mask doesn't come close to any of that humor.

So why is the left so whiny? What's the big deal about "a clown being clownish" by wearing the president's mask?

The answer is this:

1) The left loves to attack but gets whiny when you give them a taste of their own medicine. Michelle Malkin has a post today full of vicious pictures about President GW Bush. She also reminded us of books and movies made about the assassination of the president. Frankly, I don't remember anyone calling out these people who attacked President Bush. It was all treated as 'part of the territory" or the way it is when you are president of the US.

Remember the comedians with Cheney's shooting accident in Texas?

What about the "booing" and name calling of President Bush on his inauguration or when he walked down to turn over the presidency to Barrack Obama?

The "Obama mask" is nothing compared to that.

2) The left is getting it that President Obama is failing and failing big.

The economy is not good, specially for young people, blacks and Hispanics. ObamaCare is off to a bad start and full implementation is in real doubt. "No insurance and a pay cut" is what NBC is calling it now!


The president cannot govern. We are reminded that the only thing that has brought Democrats and Republicans together recently is voting against gun control and ObamaCare's selective waivers. And Senate Democrats just voted to kill "the medical device tax" in ObamaCare.

3) The left knows that 2014 will be very tough. They also know that a lot of Democrats will be running away from the administration. The RCP "job approval" numbers are in the 40s, and Reuters is 40%. Gallup reports that "economic approval" is 35%. You are not going to get a lot of campaign invitations with numbers like that.

4) The Obama foreign policy is a mess, and that's being charitable. The speeches of 2009 did not make us more respected or popular. They projected weakness and you see it with Putin, Egypt and elsewhere.

So that's why the left is beating up on some poor clown in Missouri. The left is freaking out over a clown and that speaks volumes about their fears that "hope and change" is falling apart.

Page Printed from: americanthinker.com at August 18, 2013 - 07:37:07 AM CDT



To: Peter Dierks who wrote (26815)10/4/2013 10:16:46 PM
From: FJB  Respond to of 42652
 
The devastating truth behind Obamacare
Oct3 by Jon Rappoport

I want my Obamacare! I want my Obamacare!

It’s vital to look at the real meaning of this sinister plan. It’s all about the toxic effects of mainstream medicine. That’s what the sold-out press is refusing to examine.

A year ago, I discussed the case of a young Michigan boy, whose parents had been taken to court three times to force them to submit their child to intensely toxic chemo treatments—despite these facts:

The boy’s latest scans revealed no sign of cancer; the drugs that would be forced on him can cause cancer; the drugs have not been approved to treat children.

And I warned: this is what waits for you and your children, up the line.

The “share and care” humanitarian mask will be peeled away. The US Dept. of Health and Human Services will create, as ordered, a complete list of approved treatments for every disease-label under the sun. And everyone in the insurance plan will be forced to take what the doctor tells them to take.

For a bonus, unapproved treatments will be banned. People and practitioners who try to use alternative treatments will find themselves in trouble.

This is the hidden agenda of Obamacare. This is what it will morph into in the future.

I’m not dreaming or fantasizing. I’ve been following and reporting on the medical cartel for 30 years, and I know the mindset of these people, these doctors, these bureaucrats, these pharmaceutical string-pullers behind the scenes. Obamacare is right up their alley. It’s about control, so it’s an answer to their prayers.

So what do we know about their mainstream medicine, the hospital-based drug-addled modern version?
<span style="font-size:1.4em;">
On July 26, 2000, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a landmark paper by Dr. Barbara Starfield (Johns Hopkins School of Public Health), “Is US health really the best in the world?” In it, Starfield revealed what many people inside the medical establishment already knew: every year, like clockwork, the medical system was killing huge numbers of people.

Each year in the US, as Dr. Starfield reported, there are:

12,000 deaths from unnecessary surgeries;

7,000 deaths from medication errors in hospitals;

20,000 deaths from other errors in hospitals;

80,000 deaths from infections acquired in hospitals;

106,000 deaths from FDA-approved correctly prescribed medicines.

The total of medically-caused deaths in the US every year is 225,000. (a conservative estimate)

This makes the medical system the third leading cause of death in America, behind heart disease and cancer.
</span>
In the wake of Starfield’s devastating report, other facts came to light: 2.1 million people in America, every year, are hospitalized as a result of reactions to FDA-approved medicines. Annually, 36 million serious adverse reactions to those drugs occur.

So, inclusive health coverage for many more Americans under the Obama Plan means these horrendous figures will rise.

This is the dirty secret.

Obama and his allies are promoting a medical system that is the third leading cause of death in America.
It’s that stark and it’s that simple.

The Obama Plan involves appointing an “expert panel” to decide what treatments Americans should be given for what diseases, under the new regime.

Only a certified idiot would assume that, over time, alternative non-mainstream therapies would survive such an ongoing vetting. Hope may spring eternal, but common sense makes it easy to grasp the realities on the ground.

In the long run, alternative therapies will be edged out. Those that remain will be permitted for a narrow range of conditions, or as adjuncts to standard drug treatments and surgery.

Chiropractors and acupuncturists, who are temporarily basking in the notion that Obama “really cares,” are in for a very rude awakening. Their careers and practices will be significantly reduced.
Not today, not tomorrow, but it will happen.

Doctors, under the Plan, will be telling patients they may not take nutritional supplements while in treatment.
This will assume the status of an irreversible edict. In many cases, “while in treatment” will mean years.

What happens to a person, conscripted into the mandated Insurance Plan, who is told by his doctor that he should/must receive a vaccine? Suppose this person says no? What are the consequences? Will he then be labeled a defector? What penalties will he suffer?

Does a diagnosis of cancer imply a patient must submit to chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery? Can these treatments be forced upon him?

Perhaps, in the early days of the Plan, nothing untoward will happen. But then, as time passes, and the system assumes tighter and tighter controls, the hand of government will close around the recalcitrant patient’s neck.

“Take this vaccine. Take this chemo drug. If you don’t, you’re in violation of the rules.”

Doctors, who are an integral part of the Plan, will surely be punished if they give unapproved (alternative) treatments to patients.

And in order to make the Plan operate on a day-to-day basis, the records and bookkeeping data of every health-care practitioner in America will eventually be tracked on government computer networks.

Every person in America will have a traceable and trackable medical ID package. Government-issued. There is no way around it. The monitoring apparatus can’t work without it.

Orwellian consequences lie up the road in the field of psychiatric practice. In case you hadn’t noticed, the invention of “disorders” by committee is the preferred method for “discovering” more and more mental illnesses.

Yet, the science is completely fraudulent. For evidence, consult the many works of psychiatrist Peter Breggin, who has done more than any other person to expose the guts of his own profession. (www.breggin.com) Breggin establishes that mental disorders are not authoritatively diagnosed by a chemical or biological test. Conclusive tests do not exist. And worse, in this undefined and arbitrary territory, the drugs that follow diagnoses are killers: for example, 300,000 cases of motor brain damage, as a result of the administration of major tranquilizers.

Under the Obama Plan, you can bet your bottom dollar that psychiatric care will eventually become mandatory. A patient suddenly diagnosed with clinical depression or bipolar disease will be told he must take the drugs—and suffer their adverse effects.

Very young children will be given more and more debilitating and dangerous brain drugs.

Under the Obama Plan, it will be very convenient to declare new pandemics every few seasons, because these phony non-epidemics provide an opportunity to herd the sheep into clinics and remind them who is running the show. Go here, take this vaccine; go there, take that drug; the epidemic is endangering the herd, and you must help your brothers and sisters.

These are the figures on the last several “epidemics.” They are not yearly; they are grand totals, to date; global totals, except in the case of West Nile (US only):

SARS: 774 deaths.

WEST NILE: 1159 deaths.

BIRD FLU: 262 deaths.

SMALLPOX: (terrorist threat): 0 deaths.

SWINE FLU: 18,500 deaths.

To give perspective, globally, 250 thousand to 500 thousand people die of ordinary flu-like illness every year. Yet this higher death rate accrues no interest as an epidemic. It is only the “teaching (brainwashing) moments” of the phony epidemics that are promoted by health agencies (e.g., CDC and WHO) and their pharmaceutical allies, who rake in billions by manufacturing new vaccines.

Yes, under the Obama Plan, there will be more declared health emergencies, and they will serve to cement the citizen to his new role as eternal patient in the medical march along bleak streets of the future.

Can you perceive the loss of individual freedom implicit in this universal system of health control?

The widespread (and false) assumption is that more medical care for more people is a good thing. That’s what the politicians and the press tell us. That’s what the medical bureaucrats and the drug companies tell us. This is the central piece of brainwashing.

It’s a baldfaced lie. It’s a death-dealing lie.

And now the American people are saddled with it.

Unless the current rebellion against Obamacare expands all over the country.

Jon Rappoport