Obamacare Is For the Peons… Congress to Keep Their Gold-Plated Health Care Plans

Monday, October 19, 2009, 5:51 AM

Jim Hoft

Obamacare is for the peons and knaves.

Our moral superiors have more important things to worry about.

Congress will keep their gold-plated insurance plans as they force the rest of the country into a rationed health care government plan.
Townhall reported, via Free Republic:

Personal doctors on call 24/7. Coverage that knows no caps. No exemptions for pre-existing conditions.

Those are the sorts of benefits members of Congress currently enjoy on the taxpayer’s dime, and the kinds of benefits Americans on a government-run public health care plan will never see if Obamacare passes.

“One thing is certain: Congress will exempt itself from whatever lousy health care system it forces on we little people,” said Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute. “Congress will get better insurance than you do because politicians always get a better deal under government-run health care.”

While it’s not news that Congressional health insurance plans are posh, CBS News recently uncovered the details of plans – right as the details of the Baucus health care bill are being hashed out.

Members of Congress can choose from five different plans, and have access to both the VIP Bethesda Naval Hospital and a reserved spot Ward 72 at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, an elite division usually reserved for military members. Their everyday medical concerns can be taken care of at a doctors office located inside of Congress.

Their premiums are the same as those of insurance plans with half the benefits, and the plans last a lifetime; not until Medicare kicks in do ex-Members or loose their Congressional health benefits. Congress has repeatedly voted down any provision that would switch their insurance plans to the lower-grade public option if Obamacare goes through.

Helen Evans, the director of Nurses for Reform, a campaign for more consumer-led, sustainable healthcare systems in Britain, said that this sort of elite care for the bureaucracy – and low-brow care for the plebes – is the same thing that happens in the government-run British health care system.

UK Healthcare Horror Story

Original Link

Government-run healthcare, anyone? May sound good on the surface, but when you dig a little deeper, you find some disturbing medical cases. One such case comes from the UK Daily Mail:

Plumber with shattered arm left horrifically bent out of shape has operation ‘cancelled four times’

“A plumber whose arm was left twisted grotesquely out of shape in an accident ten months ago has had an operation to correct it ‘cancelled four times‘.

Torron Eeles, 50, has been left unable to work since falling down the stairs and now fears he may lose his home after being denied incapacity benefit.

The father-of-three today hit out at the NHS for the ‘unacceptable delays’, but East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust said Mr Eeles had his operation cancelled on ‘only’ two occasions on clinical safety grounds.

His left arm has hung limply by his side since he fractured the humerus bone in December 2008.

Mr Eeles, from Welham Green, Hertfordshire, applied for employment and support allowance but a doctor ruled he is ineligible for both because he can turn on a tap.

‘Unacceptable’: Torron Eeles has been left unable to work since falling down the stairs and now fears he may lose his home after being denied incapacity benefit

He said: ‘This whole situation is absolutely disgusting. I have never heard of anyone else having a broken arm for ten months.

‘It’s been so long the bones have knitted back together. Sleeping is really uncomfortable because whenever I roll over my arm gets in the way.

‘I’m a kitchen fitter and plumber by trade but I can’t even slice a loaf of bread let alone work.

‘This has been going on and on and it’s a complete nightmare.’
Mr Eeles fractured his arm on December 3 and was rushed straight to casualty where doctors put his arm in plaster.

But within a few weeks a specialist said the bones were too far apart and that surgeons would have to insert a metal plate because there was too much movement in the arm.

Mr Eeles claims his first two operations at the Queen Elizabeth II hospital in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, were cancelled due to a lack of beds and operating time respectively.

His third operation in February was postponed after he was found to have high blood pressure, while the fourth, scheduled for May, was abandoned because of concerns about his smoking.

The plaster was removed from Mr Eeles’ arm after three months and he was given a wrist sling, which he branded ‘totally useless’.

But within a few weeks a specialist said the bones were too far apart and that surgeons would have to insert a metal plate because there was too much movement in the arm.

Canadians Don’t Like Their Socialized Health Care

Link

Posted by Erick Erickson (Profile)

Jessica Peck Corry has the top story at Human Events today.

Sometimes, patriotism can be awkward. Especially when it means admitting to an international TV audience that your nation’s broken health care system forced you onto welfare, into adult diapers, and hobbling with a walker. And all before the age of 30.

Embarrassing perhaps, but for Canadian Lin Gilbert, the time had come to share her story publicly this week. Especially after her 15-year-old son was recently diagnosed with the same health condition leading to her suffering. “As a parent, I will do anything to help him. I will borrow the money, I will do whatever it takes,” she said. “If the Canadian system can’t take care of him, I’ll find a way.”

Specifically, Gilbert wants to prevent her son from enduring the agony of government waiting lists she has known all too well. After first encountering excruciating back pain in 2001, she was forced to wait six months for an MRI. Nearly three more years passed before she made it to the top of a waiting list for spinal fusion surgery. Even then, she recalls, one surgeon refused to operate because she “hadn’t suffered enough.” Another, however, saw things differently, lobbying for Gilbert to get the procedure and successfully performing it himself.

Michelle Obama Joins Husband… Misrepresents American Health Care System

Original Article

“You lie.”
Michelle Obama joined her husband today and misrepresented American health care system to the nation.
Bloomberg reported:

First lady Michelle Obama sought support for the administration’s health-care plans from family advocacy groups and health-care professionals, saying the treatment of women under the current system is “unacceptable.”

As President Barack Obama campaigns to generate backing from voters for his health-care overhaul proposal, the first lady joined the effort today with a more focused pitch.

Michelle Obama said women are being “crushed by the current structure of our health care” because they often are responsible for taking care of family illnesses, arranging checkups and monitoring follow-up care.

“Women are the ones to do it,” she said to an audience of 140 people, including representatives from groups such as the Women’s Chamber of Commerce and the National Council of Negro Women. “Mothers are the ones that do it. And many women find themselves doing the same thing for their spouses.”

Michelle forgot to mention that women actually have a better survival rate under our current system.
You’d think that might be worth mentioning?

The breast cancer survival rate is much greater here in the United States than in countries with socialized medicine.

In fact, women with breast cancer have a 14 percent higher survival rate in the United States than in Europe. Breast cancer mortality is 52 percent higher in Germany than in the United States, and 88 percent higher in the United Kingdom. Breast cancer mortality is also 9 percent higher in Canada than in the US. Less than 25 percent of U.S. women die from breast cancer. In Britain, it’s 46 percent; France, 35 percent; Germany, 31 percent; Canada, 28 percent; Australia, 28 percent, and New Zealand, 46 percent.