Are you kidding? Hospital based practice, ie. anesthesiology, radiology and pathology primarily, have been dealing with hospital system extortion practices for at least 10 or more years now. This is not new, just new to you. It is clear that the hospitals (and other facilities) are branching out their control arms now to other specialties, as you point out. Fortunately, you have an ability to practice outside of a facility, whereas the vast majority of anesthesiologists, etc., do not. It won’t be long before enough docs filter in from other countries who will be fully willing to become employed by the facilities, and all private practice in the USA will go down. That is the ultimate goal.

Hospitals have been slowly taking control of the physicians on staff for many years using such agrements as ‘PPO’s’ and such. With the threats of reduced reimbursement do to government control, it will only get worse. Hospitals are already showing signs of eating each other.

I have to maintain privileges at at least one hospital due to insurance company mandates. However, I haven’t had an inpatient in at least two years. My patients would show up in the ER, and if they needed admitted the ER doc would call the hospitalists. I would not even be notified. I’ve even had that happen with people I sent to the ER from my office and told the ER they were coming.

It’s ironic that the inscos insist I have hospital privileges while the hospitalists have taken over my inpatients whether I like it or not.

Now please tell me how Boehner is different from Marx 

BOSTON (MarketWatch) — The time has come for the nation to face some facts according to Republican Rep. John Boehner House minority leader.

Boehner wants to;

1)  increase the retirement age to 70

2) plus tie cost-of-living increases to wages rather than the consumer price index

3) limit payments so they only go to people who need them

“We need to look at the American people and explain to them that we’re broke,” Boehner was quoted as saying in The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. “If you have substantial non-Social Security income while you’re retired, why are we paying you ….” 

Spoken like a true believer in Marxism

Comment #1   Rabbi Phil Ander 7-9-10

Shirts & Skins ….Republicans & Democrats.
Both on the same team……they just switch positions

Now you know why nothing changes when the party in power changes

Comment #2 Pete Zah (Armenia)      I lived under the promises and threats of Socilaism/Marxism in Armenia.  You Americans must study history because you do not know what you are in for.   Why do you think the people rose up, even with the threat of torture and death, to overthrow the Socialists controling Armenia?

July 1, 2010 Unemployment benefits are creating jobs faster than practically any other program, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday.   Talking to reporters, the House speaker was defending a jobless benefits extension against those who say it gives recipients little incentive to work. By her reasoning, those checks are helping give somebody a job.  

“It injects demand into the economy,” Pelosi said, arguing that when families have money to spend it keeps the economy churning. “It creates jobs faster than almost any other initiative you can name.”  Pelosi said the aid has the “double benefit” of helping those who lost their jobs and acting as a “job creator” on the side.  “It’s impossible to think of a situation where we would have a country that would say we’re not going to have unemployment benefits,” Pelosi said.  

Democrats have been trying for more than a month to pass a bill extending jobless benefits to more than 1 million people. Currently, jobless benefits last nearly two years — up to 26 weeks paid by state treasuries with federal help for up to an additional 73 weeks.  Of course, those workers could be sending a lot more money into the economy if they had jobs since unemployment benefits generally do not cover the entire cost of lost wages.   The counterintuitive statement drew jeers from Republicans, who claim Democrats can’t figure out any way to tackle the economic slump that doesn’t involve spending massive amounts of taxpayer money.  

“No plan to create jobs — just more stimulus spending,” House Republican Leader John Boehner said at a dueling press conference.  Despite the wave of unemployment aid and stimulus spending dating back to the end of the Bush administration, the jobless rate is still hovering close to 10 percent. New figures out Thursday showed new jobless benefits claims rising for the second time in three weeks. Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., on Thursday called the newest extension plan “fiscal insanity” because it is not paid for and will only create future problems.  

“I support, and Republicans have supported, extending unemployment benefits, but we must not do so at a cost to the deficit, to the economy and to future generations. Our inability to get our fiscal house in order isn’t just damaging future generations; it is wreaking havoc on jobs today,” he said in a statement.   

Pelosi criticized Republicans Thursday, saying she’s still optimistic the bill will pass though it failed again in the Senate Wednesday night.

 Comment #1  Remember she is 3rd in line for the Presidency of the United States.  Keep up the great articles they make one think.

John Profumo (United Kingdom)  

“Over the 10-year period between March 2000 and March 2010, the private sector lost over three million jobs, while the public sector gained nearly two million jobs,” the analysis concludes.   Among the changes were California’s loss of 665,800 jobs in the private sector. But government in the Golden State added 163,800 jobs.   Also, Michigan lost 791,700 private-sector jobs, a “staggering” 20 percent. Government bureaucracies, however, kept all but 7 percent of their positions.    

Jim MacDougald, president and CEO of The Free Enterprise Nation, recently appeared on the Fox News Channel to talk about a new campaign called “I own you.”   Further:

• North Carolina showed a 10-year loss of 138,200 private-sector jobs, or 4 percent of its private-sector workforce, while adding 127,100 government jobs, a 20 percent increase.
• Colorado’s population increased by 17 percent in the past decade while losing 3 percent of its private-sector jobs. Government employment increased by more than 17 percent during the same time frame.
• Tennessee lost 157,300 private-sector jobs while adding 13,900 in government agencies.
• While Texas added 616,000 private-sector jobs, it also added 295,200 government jobs, almost one bureaucratic position for every two positions in private enterprise.
• Florida also added private-sector jobs overall – 39,600. But it also added 127,100 government positions.
• Massachusetts lost 168,700 private-sector jobs but still found the need to add 7,500 government jobs.
• Wisconsin lost 149,400 private-sector jobs; added 22,300 to government payrolls.

“The consequence of this employment shift is that a smaller number of private-sector employers and workers are saddled with the tax burden of financially supporting a growing government workforce,” said MacDougald.  “Since public-sector workers are paid more on average in compensation and benefits than private-sector workers, it is financially unsustainable for the government to continue to grow while the private-sector workforce shrinks,” he said.   He explained to WND that while the problem is massive, there is the potential for a solution.  

“There are 89,000 taxpayer-supported entities that make up the ‘public sector,’ and no one is in charge of their collective efforts. About one-half of the 22 million public-sector workers are in public education. (And only about one-half of the people employed in public education are teachers!)” he said.   ”It is possible that the federal government thinks it can solve the unemployment problem by hiring more people, but, if so, it would be another indication of just how far removed from reality the federal government’s economic policies are,” he said.   ”Our population grew by 25 million from 2000 to 2010. We needed to create at least 20 million new jobs. Instead, we lost 3 million in the private sector. The ’shortfall’ of 23 million jobs could not possibly be made up by government hiring, as they would have to double in size in order to do so,” he said.  

The real problem is not necessarily with the number of government jobs but the cost of their “huge pensions, early retirement and health-insurance benefits.”  ”That is where the real ‘cost of government’ is,” he continued. “As numbers of workers in the private sector decrease, and public-sector hiring increases, it places an impossible burden on those individuals and businesses left who actually pay taxes.   ”Unfortunately, the current approach is to charge more taxes to those who actually pay federal income taxes (one-half of tax filers), and businesses. Businesses (employers) have no choice but to reduce overhead, which means fewer domestic workers. A death spiral,” he warned.   The solution would be a hard pill to swallow for many, he warned.  

Among the moves that would help would be to terminate all government pension plans, “vesting everyone 100 percent in benefits accrued to date.” Pensions could be replaced with a type of 401(k) retirement plan that is funded by employer contributions.   Then there would be need for a hard look at what government actually does.   ”Do we NEED government to do that for us? If not, stop doing it,” he said.   Next would be to ignore – or better yet banish – public-sector unions.   A “zero-based” staffing and budget plan would require officials to review what work is required and how many workers are needed to do it.  ”Public policy-makers must ask: How many people do we NEED to do what we are hired to do? Do we really NEED one administrative/management employee for every teacher? Once those questions have been asked and answered, we must rebuild each public-sector entity from scratch,” he said.  

“We have to ‘reinvent’ the public sector, based on a fundamental requirement that it serves the taxpayer, not the other way around. It is a huge job to do, and it will take years. There is no silver bullet. But it can be done,” he said.   WND columnist Dan Mangru also has criticized the government’s “fuzzy math”.   And longtime top-rated radio talk-show host Roger Hedgecock said more and more federal spending just depresses the economy.  

“Three professors at the Harvard Business School, in a study titled ‘Do Powerful Politicians Cause Corporate Downsizing?’ have concluded, based on 40 years of data, that federal government spending does not stimulate local business spending. In fact, the opposite occurred. The more federal spending, the less corporate spending,” he reported.  ”And the same results show up whether the state is large or small, whether the firms are large or small over a period of 40 years. In fact, the study shows the results ‘most pronounced in geographically concentrated firms and within the industries that are the target of the spending.’ In plain speech, federal ‘bacon’ is toxic to economic growth in the private sector,” he wrote.  

By John W. Whitehead 6/30/2010

Let me tell you about 56 men who risked everything—their fortunes and their lives—to take a stand for truth. These men laid everything on the line, pledged it all—”our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor”—because they believed in a radical idea: that all people are created to be free. They believed that freedom is a spiritual concept in that the rights we possess are, in their words, given to us by the Creator. Let me emphasize: at the heart of these rights is a radical freedom—the freedom to speak, to dissent, to protest and to seek relief, if necessary, against an unjust government—that is, one that won’t listen to the people.

Labeled traitors, these men were charged with treason, a crime punishable by death. For some, their acts of rebellion would cost them their homes and their fortunes. For others, it would be the ultimate price—their lives. Yet even knowing the heavy price they might have to pay, these men dared to speak up when silence could not be tolerated.

Their signatures, famously scribbled on a piece of parchment, expressed their unfettered willingness to speak out against the most powerful empire in the world. These 56 men were the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

Some we remember for their later accomplishments—such as Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, both of whom went on to serve as American presidents. But there were others—such as Lewis Morris, Carter Braxton, Thomas Nelson and Richard Stockton—who do not often get mentioned, who sought not glory but rather a cause. They knew that sacrifice was necessary to secure freedom, and they were willing to make the sacrifice.

Lewis Morris lost his entire estate. The British ravaged and destroyed it, sending his family fleeing in desperation with nowhere to go.

Carter Braxton’s entire career and way of life were decimated. Losing his ships to the British Navy, his shipping company was forever lost and he was never able to revive it.

Thomas Nelson’s price for liberty was to the tune of $2 million—and that was in 1776. He ran up the $2 million credit debt for the “Patriots’ Cause.” In the end, repaying the debt cost him his entire estate. He died bankrupt and was buried in an unmarked grave.

Richard Stockton paid dearly also. Once a prominent judge, he gave up his cherished seat on the bench to fight for liberty. For his decision, he was dragged from his bed and tortured by British soldiers.

All in all, of those 56 signers, 9 died during the Revolution, 5 were captured by British soldiers, 18 had their homes looted and burned by the Red Coats, 2 were wounded in battle and 2 lost their sons during the war. Remarkably, these men—who were community leaders, business owners, judges, lawyers and inventors—sacrificed their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor so that you and I could live freely in a nation where we have the right to stand up and speak out.

There are many more stories of heroic patriots throughout American history who have risked it all to preserve the freedoms we possess. Most of them have come from radically different walks of life—different upbringings, different educations, different ideas. But the one thing that unites them is their love of and commitment to freedom and their willingness to stand up and speak out, no matter the cost. Although many of them lost everything, they were willing to sacrifice in order to raise their voices in truth. They put freedom before their own interests. Because of their bravery in speaking truth to power and their commitment to unwavering principles, history has judged them to be extraordinary.

Thus, it is only right that we should still honor them every Fourth of July. Yet how do we do so? We go through the motions, spouting patriotic sentiments and putting on displays of national pomp and circumstance that at the end of the day mean nothing. Sadly, as a nation, we have become jaded and apathetic, content to celebrate our independence with cookouts and fireworks but little else.

America, we must remember, is a concept. We must earn our right to be American. What does that mean? First of all, it means learning the core principles of citizenship that are laid out in the Constitution. Any person in this country who cannot list from memory the rights enshrined in those 462 words that make up the Bill of Rights is not a true American. Unfortunately, this applies to the great majority of the populace. Second, it means taking a stand on those principles and fighting to keep the freedoms that are being stripped from us on a daily basis. This may well mean grabbing a picket sign and taking to the streets.

The bottom line is that we owe it to those who have put their lives on the line for our freedoms to make our citizenship count for something. We need to take responsibility for what’s going on around us. And we need to stand up and support those who refuse to remain silent when they see an injustice and who, like those 56 brave men, dare to put it all on the line in order to speak truth to power.

http://www.rutherford.org/articles_db/commentary.asp?record_id=660

Please visit this site and view the video for an excellent presentation.

2) What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.   

3) The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.   

4) When half of the people do not work because the 2^nd half takes care of them, then the 2^nd half decides not to work so hard because they support others, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.     

5) You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.  

Author:  Every American Citizen

There are howls of outrage coming from the liberal community in Alberta, Canada.  It seems that some doctors, desperate to protect their patients from the overcrowded and failing socialized medical system in their country, have set up private clinics to treat them.  To circumvent Canadian laws, which prohibit charging for medical care, they have set up private, membership clinics where, for $2,000 a year, patients can access well staffed and equipped clinics and avoid the long waits and compromised care of the public system.
   

The leading Canadian newspaper, the Globe and Mail, reports that “critics say that the clinics are taking physicians away from the public system making it even harder…to find a family doctor.”  David Eggen, executive director of a group that supports the Canadian socialized system, Friends of Medicare, said that it’s already hard to find a family physician in Canada and that clinics like these, springing up in several Canadian cities, could make it even harder. 

It does not seem to have occurred to defenders of socialized medicine that the system itself is causing the doctor shortage.  Cuts in medical fees, overcrowding of facilities, shortages of equipment and space, and bureaucratic oversight have all combined to drive men and women out of family medical practice.  Now, with a critical shortage looming, those who can afford to pay for adequate care are opting out of the public system and, literally, taking their lives into their own hands.
    

But it is illegal to make patients “have to pay a fee to gain access to health services” that are provided free by the government system.  So patients and doctors are forming membership-only groups to avoid the legal penalties that could potential stop them from getting or giving the care that they need.  This is where the United States is headed.  Socialism dries up the supply of medical care and forces ever stricter rationing of the available resources.  As Margaret Thatcher famously said, “Eventually socialism runs out of other peoples’ money.”
   

With the full implementation of Obamacare and its likely cuts in physician reimbursement, more and more doctors will choose to opt out of Medicare and charge their patients for their care.  The elderly who need specialized care will have no choice but to take out insurance, not to fill gaps in Medicare coverage, but to overlay the system with private coverage so they can get the care Medicare now provides to all seniors.   If you want to see a family doctor, it will be rough unless you are paying for the care privately.   And to see a specialist, at the low reimbursement rates afforded by the program in the future, will be well nigh impossible.  Medical care for the elderly will become like public housing or public education in the inner city.  Those who can afford to go elsewhere will.  Those who can’t will be left to fend for themselves in overcrowded public facilities that will be, at least, free.   And then, as in Canada, liberal critics will rail, not against the system that dried up the resources in the first place or against the socialist rules that drove doctors out of medicine, but against the private clinics for resources from the public sector.
   

By plunging our excellent medical care system into this new world of regulation, fee cuts, and care rationing, the U.S. is going down the disastrous road Canada has taken.  Unless we can elect a Republican majority in November and a GOP president in 2012, this is our future. 

Truth is in short supply in Washington. That is why recent statements made by Donald Berwick, President Obama’s nominee to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, are both refreshing and chilling. Here’s what Dr. Berwick had to say in a 2009 interview with Biotechnology Healthcare: “The decision is not whether or not we will ration care – the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open.” Berwick made that statement while discussing the council for Comparative Effectiveness Research, which was tasked with researching and evaluating the cost of medical treatments and their outcomes. It was part of the $787 billion stimulus package and one of the building blocks Obama wanted in place before the health-care takeover bill was passed. This statement is refreshingly candid, to be sure, but chilling when you consider that, if Obama has his way, this man will directly control the health care of a third of this nation’s citizens and indirectly control the health care of our entire population.  

The president’s selection of Berwick to oversee Medicare and Medicaid is not a surprise. The surprise is that the White House is no longer trying to hide the fact that rationing is, indeed, one of the ways he plans to control cost. In the run-up to Berwick’s confirmation hearing, the Obama administration put out this statement: “No one is surprised that Republicans plan to use this confirmation process to trot out the same arguments and scare tactics they hoped would block health insurance reform. Don Berwick wants to see a system in which those decisions are transparent – and the people who make them are held accountable.” Oh, I feel so much better now that this rationing thing will be “transparent.” “Yes, Marie Antoinette, you are, in fact, going to the guillotine, not the hairdresser.” That would have made the end result a lot more bearable! Did the French queen have a say in the matter? No, and as long as the health-care takeover bill stands, neither will we. This is one of the happy little surprises we were promised by Nancy Pelosi who said, “But we have to pass the (health-care) bill so that you can find out what is in it.” During the debate on the health-care takeover bill, Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., and others tried to warn us that there were four rationing bodies embedded in the bill: the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute, the Independent Medicare Advisory board, the CMS Innovation Center and the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force. What kind of rationing can we expect?

Fortunately for us, Dr. Berwick has a plethora of speeches, books and articles that give us a heads up. Sen. Roberts made two speeches on the Senate floor this month in which he detailed some of Berwick’s remarks. Anyone paying attention? Dr. Berwick: “If I could wave a magic wand (soon he’ll have a big stick) … health care (would be) a common good – single-payer … health care (would be) a human right – universality is a nonnegotiable starting place … justice (would be) a prerequisite to health – equity is a primary quality goal.” When left-wingers like Berwick start throwing words like “justice” and “equity” around with health care, you know he is talking about suppressing the rights of some and elevating the rights of others. Dr. Berwick: “(A)ny health care funding plan that is just, equitable, civilized and humane must – must – redistribute wealth from the richer among us to the poorer and less fortunate.” Berwick is enamored with the British system where age rationing is practiced and cancer survival rates are dismal. Dr. Berwick: “I am a romantic about the (British) National Health Service. I love it!”

Don’t take comfort in the fact that you are years away from Medicare. The building blocks are in place for the CMS director to set the standards for the insurance industry and to define and limit the treatments that are available to specific groups of patients. The British system, praised by Dr. Berwick, uses end-of-life death pathways, which withhold expensive treatment in favor of morphine and hand-holding. Physicians have charged that this leads to premature death for many British citizens. During the debate on the health-care takeover bill, Obama ridiculed those like Roberts who tried to warn us about rationing and Sarah Palin who used the term “death panels.” Now that his administration has admitted that rationing is part of the plan, at the very least, he owes these folks an apology. 

TORONTO (Reuters) – Pressured by an aging population and the need to rein in budget deficits, Canada’s provinces are taking tough measures to curb healthcare costs, a trend that could erode the principles of the popular state-funded system.  Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, kicked off a fierce battle with drug companies and pharmacies when it said earlier this year it would halve generic drug prices and eliminate “incentive fees” to generic drug manufacturers.  British Columbia is replacing block grants to hospitals with fee-for-procedure payments and Quebec has a new flat health tax and a proposal for payments on each medical visit — an idea that critics say is an illegal user fee.  And a few provinces are also experimenting with private funding for procedures such as hip, knee and cataract surgery. 

It’s likely just a start as the provinces, responsible for delivering healthcare, cope with the demands of a retiring baby-boom generation. Official figures show that senior citizens will make up 25 percent of the population by 2036.  “There’s got to be some change to the status quo whether it happens in three years or 10 years,” said Derek Burleton, senior economist at Toronto-Dominion Bank.  “We can’t continually see health spending growing above and beyond the growth rate in the economy because, at some point, it means crowding out of all the other government services.  “At some stage we’re going to hit a breaking point.” 

MIRROR IMAGE DEBATE 

In some ways the Canadian debate is the mirror image of discussions going on in the United States.  Canada, fretting over budget strains, wants to prune its system, while the United States, worrying about an army of uninsured, aims to create a state-backed safety net.  Healthcare in Canada is delivered through a publicly funded system, which covers all “medically necessary” hospital and physician care and curbs the role of private medicine. It ate up about 40 percent of provincial budgets, or some C$183 billion ($174 billion) last year.  Spending has been rising 6 percent a year under a deal that added C$41.3 billion of federal funding over 10 years.  But that deal ends in 2013, and the federal government is unlikely to be as generous in future, especially for one-off projects.  “As Ottawa looks to repair its budget balance … one could see these one-time allocations to specific health projects might be curtailed,” said Mary Webb, senior economist at Scotia Capital. 

Brian Golden, a professor at University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Business, said provinces are weighing new sources of funding, including “means-testing” and moving toward evidence-based and pay-for-performance models.  “Why are we paying more or the same for cataract surgery when it costs substantially less today than it did 10 years ago? There’s going to be a finer look at what we’re paying for and, more importantly, what we’re getting for it,” he said.  Other problems include trying to control independently set salaries for top hospital executives and doctors and rein in spiraling costs for new medical technologies and drugs.   Ontario says healthcare could eat up 70 percent of its budget in 12 years, if all these costs are left unchecked.   ”Our objective is to preserve the quality healthcare system we have and indeed to enhance it. But there are difficult decisions ahead and we will continue to make them,” Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan told Reuters. The province has introduced legislation that ties hospital chief executive pay with the quality of patient care and says it wants to put more physicians on salary to save money.   In a report released last week, TD Bank said Ontario should consider other proposals to help cut costs, including scaling back drug coverage for affluent seniors and paying doctors according to quality and efficiency of care.  

WINNERS AND LOSERS  

The losers could be drug companies and pharmacies, both of which are getting increasingly nervous.   ”Many of the advances in healthcare and life expectancy are due to the pharmaceutical industry so we should never demonize them,” said U of T’s Golden. “We need to ensure that they maintain a profitable business but our ability to make it very very profitable is constrained right now.”   Scotia Capital’s Webb said one cost-saving idea may be to make patients aware of how much it costs each time they visit a healthcare professional. “(The public) will use the services more wisely if they know how much it’s costing,” she said.   ”If it’s absolutely free with no information on the cost and the information of an alternative that would be have been more practical, then how can we expect the public to wisely use the service?”   But change may come slowly. Universal healthcare is central to Canada’s national identity, and decisions are made as much on politics as economics.   ”It’s an area that Canadians don’t want to see touched,” said TD’s Burleton. “Essentially it boils down the wishes of the population. But I think, from an economist’s standpoint, we point to the fact that sometimes Canadians in the short term may not realize the cost.