Enter Your Email Address to Receive a
Copy of MedicExhange Member Demograhpics

American health care is at a risk with Baucus plan, Forbes.com says

A Commentary by Scott W. Atlas appeared in the Forbes.com provides an insight in to the widely discussed Baucus Health Plan. Scott W. Atlas M.D., is a professor and chief of neuroradiology at the Stanford University Medical Center. Scott in this article says that despite the repeated refrain by President Obama that "no one will lose their current insurance" and that benefits will not be cut, the fact is that the Baucus plan does precisely that, and more.

Scott posts the questions of Why would most Americans, the more than 90% of citizens who are already insured, especially the most vulnerable seniors, lose access to the medical care they currently receive? And how could Americans already insured lose insurance when the whole plan is based on increasing the number of insured?

He says that, first of all, the plan recovers its cost from two major changes to the current system: 1) massive penalizing taxes on existing health insurance plans that meet our government's self-proclaimed arbitrary definition of "excessively good coverage"; and 2) significant cuts to Medicare. Scott argues that "If you enjoy the benefit of what you personally choose to prioritize, broad health insurance coverage for you and your family--our government is determined to punish you. According to the CBO, "beginning in 2013, insurance policies with relatively high total premiums would be subject to a 40% excise tax on the amount by which the premiums exceeded a specified threshold." I concede that President Obama may have been truthful, in a Clintonian sort of way, when he proclaimed that "No one will be forced to give up their insurance under our plan" because government bureaucrats will not "force" anyone to do so. Yet, a 40% tax will likely be effective in swaying your opinion. And for those millions of Americans who exercise their freedom of choice to select lower cost, high deductible plans, the Democrat plans eliminate that option.

Reducing payments for medical care directly limits the availability of those services--this has already been proved all over the world including right here in the U.S., where in some states more than half of doctors already refuse new Medicaid patients because of similar below-cost rates arbitrarily set by government bureaucrats. Are Americans ready and willing to die sooner from cancer, to give up access to specialty doctors, to be refused safer, more accurate diagnostic imaging and to lose their own chosen doctor, all in the name of giving government the unprecedented authority like Western European nations whose populations suffer far worse outcomes from virtually all serious diseases? Scott throws these questions on the plan.

Scott analyzes that the plan's Federal Health Exchange is overtly designed to aggressively and intentionally tilt the playing field by subsidizing--directly and indirectly--insurance plans that meet new government definitions of appropriateness, and by penalizing existing plans, plans already in place for Americans insured by employer-provided insurance. We already know, proved the world over and here in our own state-run experiments, that existing, employer-provided private insurance options will disappear in such constraints. Why would existing employment-based plans be more expensive than the plans available in the government exchange? The CBO states "because health care services in those exchange plans would be more tightly managed," meaning access to medical care will be more limited than in the plans people already hold through their employers. And given that 90% of those employers who do offer health insurance only offer one single option as it is, it would be ludicrous to assume that these employers will endure financial penalties to maintain those benefits rather than shift everyone to government-approved plans on the exchange.

Another issue Scott points out is that Baucus plan will penalize the very industries responsible for medical innovation with new annual fees imposed on manufacturers and importers of brand-name drugs and medical devices. While bureaucrats and economists wring their hands about costs, the facts show that Americans enjoy unrivalled access to the latest advanced medical technologies for diagnosis and treatment. All metrics, whether based on patents, clinical trials, Nobel Prizes or number of new drugs approved, show that America is by far the leading source of medical innovation.

Studies demonstrate that 80% of Americans say that being able to get the most advanced tests, drugs, and medical procedures and equipment is "very important" or "absolutely essential"; a full 67% say that technologies will improve patient care and/or reduce medical costs, while only 10% think these advances cost more than they are worth. Moreover, an overwhelming majority of our leading physicians themselves recently listed the poster child for expensive technology, imaging with CT and MRI , as the No. 1 most important medical innovation in improving patient care in the previous decade. It should be no surprise that Americans have the best survival rates from cancer, acute heart attacks and most other serious diseases, despite being hindered with the health consequences of severe obesity and the largest burden of smokers over 50 than any Western nation. Yet the Baucus plan will impose new and significant business taxes that threaten to suffocate, rather than facilitate, these sorts of innovations vital to successful medical care.

Scott comments that American health care, which is treated to be one of the best in the world is at a risk with Baucus plan. Americans, who enjoy the world's best surviving rates from cancer, the world's best access to technologies for cancer screening, the world's best access to the most accurate and safest diagnostic procedures, the world's best access to important drugs that treat chronic diseases, the world's quickest access to specialty doctors all are going to be reduced, restricted and limited by government, Scott concluded his thoughts.

Source: Forbes.com

You can discuss more about Baucus plan in our Healthcare Reform Group