TAXPAYERS FUND TIBERI ATTACK ON HEALTHCARE BILL

Over the holidays, Republican congressman Pat Tiberi (12th) circulated - on the public dime - a glossy, four-page, thinly disguised campaign ad explaining why he opposes the pending healthcare plan.

"Simply put, this bill isn't the kind of healthcare reform we need," he says.  "In fact, it doesn't fix many of the current problems in our healthcare system.  I believe it only makes them worse."

The mailer includes a list of what the bill does - and doesn't do - according to Tiberi.  Fair enough, except the first examples he cites under both categories are dead wrong.

• "What It Does: Rations mammograms for women under 50 as prescribed by the Preventive Services Task Force."

Tiberi is entitled to his opinion but he should know perfectly well that the pending bill never has rationed mammograms, even this was the partisan leap taken by Republicans after the named government task force made its controversial recommendations on use of mammograms.

 “Opponents of the health care reform bills moving through Congress have seized on the new recommendations as evidence that the government is seeking to put bureaucrats between you and your doctor or that it would ration care by denying coverage for some mammograms that are now covered. There is virtually no chance that any insurers, either public or private, will deny coverage to anyone based on these recommendations. Government and industry officials have said that explicitly and, in fact, every state but Utah requires private insurers to pay for mammograms for women starting in their 40s. 

There is nothing in the reform bills that would change the current Medicare laws, which require that annual mammograms be included among the preventive services covered, an important benefit for more than a million women in their 40s who get Medicare coverage because they are disabled or suffering from end-stage kidney disease.

The only part of the reform bills that could affect mammography would only make them more accessible. Under the legislation, the secretary of health and human services might be given authority to waive Medicare co-payments for prevention services that rank highly in the opinion of this task force. Since the task force gave a low grade to screening women in their 40s, the secretary could not waive cost-sharing for them.”  (NY Times, 11/19/2009)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/opinion/20fri1.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=mammograms+Utah&st=nyt

Don't trust the Times?  How about the Wall Street Journal, whose editorial page usually reflects  the GOP line.  In its Nov. 24 editorial, the Journal suspects Democrats have rationing in mind even if it's not stated in the pending legislation.

"In any event, the distinction between cost effectiveness and clinical effectiveness will be moot if ObamaCare passes. The House bill gives the HHS task force the mandate to review "the benefits, effectiveness, appropriateness, and costs of clinical preventive services" in making its de facto insurance coverage rulings. As Mr. Reinhardt notes, "at some point soon the rising cost of American health care actually will force Americans to bring monetary costs into the analysis as well."

What's really going on here is that the left knows its designs will require political rationing of care, but it doesn't want the public to figure this out until ObamaCare passes. Then it will begin the campaign to instruct the rest of us that we must follow the guidance of Princeton professors about what medical care we can receive. Americans will simply have to accept that the price of government-run health care in the name of redistributive justice is that patients and their doctors must bow to the superior wisdom of HHS task forces."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704779704574552320222125990.html

But remember, Tiberi's mailer says mammogram rationing is dictated by the pending bill which is just untrue. The Journal editorial only speculates that's the Democrats' future goal.

• "What It Doesn't Do: Bring Down Healthcare costs."

Wrong again, Pat, at least according to this Congressional Budget Office. December 19 analysis:

"CBO and JCT estimate that the direct spending and revenue effects of enacting the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act incorporating the manager’s amendment would yield a net reduction in federal deficits of $132 billion over the 2010-2019 period. Of that total amount of deficit reduction, the manager’s amendment accounts for about $2 billion, and the act as originally proposed accounts for the remaining $130 billion.

 

The estimate includes a projected net cost of $614 billion over 10 years for the proposed expansions in insurance coverage. That net cost itself reflects a gross total of $871 billion in subsidies provided through the exchanges, increased net outlays for Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and tax credits for small employers; those costs are partly offset by $149 billion in revenues from the excise tax on high-premium insurance plans and $108 billion in net savings from other sources. Over the 2010–2019 period, the net cost of the coverage expansions would be more than offset by the combination of other spending changes that CBO estimates would save $483 billion and other provisions that JCT and CBO estimate would increase federal revenues by $264 billion. In total, the legislation would increase outlays by $366 billion and increase revenues by $498 billion between 2010 and 2019."  http://cboblog.cbo.gov/?p=446

 Again, Tiberi is entitled to his opinion but here we have a clear example of misinformation on a major bill, "prepared, published and mailed at taxpayer expense" under the guise of "official business."

-- David Lore

Comments

[digital gal]

This constant use of smoke and mirrors to make inaccurate points has got to be consistantly called out - by both sides. This is what leads to a disenfranchised voting public -- who throws up their hands in frustration and just blurs everyone together into one big pack of "who'yah goin' to believe"