We have written about several of the concerns of HR 3962 in the past days and we depict them above. Albeit that these are but a few, they are typical of what we have seen. Let me go over them one more time and I suggest that you can review them in prior entries.
1. Government Control: There is generated a massive new infrastructure of centralized Government control of all aspects of medicine. It takes away autonomy and reduce this to an erstwhile government agency. The model for this is in Galbraith's book on American Capitalism written in the early 1950s where he is prescribing how the Government is the only benign and loving care giver to control the evil large corporations. One should remember that the physicians are in many ways just small business people in the market.
2. Defining Quality: We have written extensively on this issue but the last entity one would want to define what quality is would be the Federal Government. Just look at they job they did with H1N1, Katrina, and the like. This is not a party sensitive issue, they just cannot do it.
3. CCE: The Comparative Clinical Effectiveness issue is one where the Government controlled entity would define the research, fund the research, analyze the research and then dictate medical care. This is just insane.
4. Defined Benefits: The Government is insisting that the basic plan include everything and the kitchen sink for all insurance carriers as well as itself. It has taken universal coverage to the extreme. The basic package should have some catastrophic coverage, no one should go to their death bed broken, yet there is no reason to insist on everything.
5. The IRS as Enforcer: This is a real problem. First the IRS is not prepared for this and second it opens the window for criminal attacks on individuals.
6. Delimits Autonomy of Physician: Every patient is different and every physician cares for their patients differently. The matching up of a good physician and an involved patient is essential for humane care. This law will break that bond and set the parties adrift if not at each others throat.
Perhaps the Countervailing Power of the people will do something to reduce the negative effects of this legislation. We need health care reform, we need universal care, yet we do not need such massive Government involvement with the most critical parts of our lives. It will destroy freedom.
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