[TimeVirus]

Mmmm gubment healthcare...

VA hospital may have infected 1,800 veterans with HIV
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/06/30/va.hospital.hiv/index.html

(CNN) -- A Missouri VA hospital is under fire because it may have exposed more than 1,800 veterans to life-threatening diseases such as hepatitis and HIV.

John Cochran VA Medical Center in St. Louis has recently mailed letters to 1,812 veterans telling them they could contract hepatitis B, hepatitis C and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) after visiting the medical center for dental work, said Rep. Russ Carnahan.

Carnahan said Tuesday he is calling for a investigation into the issue and has sent a letter to President Obama about it.

more...

[TimeVirus]

Health law risks turning away sick
http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/106887-health-law-risks-turning-away-sick

The Obama administration has not ruled out turning sick people away from an insurance program created by the new healthcare law to provide coverage for the uninsured.

Critics of the $5 billion high-risk pool program insist it will run out of money before Jan. 1, 2014. That’s when the program sunsets and health plans can no longer discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions.

Administration officials insist they can make changes to the program to ensure it lasts until 2014, and that it may not have to turn away sick people. Officials said the administration could also consider reducing benefits under the program, or redistributing funds between state pools. But they acknowledged turning some people away was also a possibility.

more...

[TimeVirus]

New Rules by Czar Berwick, Chief Denier and Redistributor of Medical Care
http://www.aapsonline.org/newsoftheday/001136

Dr. Donald Berwick is not a newcomer; he’s been hovering with the academic elite “reformers,” biding his time, for more than a decade. His book New Rules, with coauthor Troyen Brennan, was published in 1996.

The Old Rule, in the Oath of Hippocrates, is that each physician should prescribe for the good of each patient, according to his own best judgment. The New Rule is that medicine is an industry, doctors are assembly-line workers, and patients are interchangeable widgets.

On an assembly line, individual craftsmen do not trim individual wheels and axles to fit. Any wheel taken off the shelf must fit any axle. Allowing individual workers to solve problems at the point of production would cause variation and waste. Hence, the workers’ behavior must be standardized, Berwick writes.

To his dream of using the industrial model of Total Quality Management to standardize medical care, the biggest impediment is the old-fashioned doctor. Such a doctor wants to tailor the treatment to the patient, for the maximum benefit of the patient, not jam the patient into a protocol, for the good of the collective. The decision making of independent physicians, Berwick says, is the “critical element in health care inflation.” In other words, caring about patients costs too much.

more...

[TimeVirus]

Health care law's massive, hidden tax change
http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/05/smallbusiness/1099_health_care_tax_change/

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- An all-but-overlooked provision of the health reform law is threatening to swamp U.S. businesses with a flood of new tax paperwork.

Section 9006 of the health care bill -- just a few lines buried in the 2,409-page document -- mandates that beginning in 2012 all companies will have to issue 1099 tax forms not just to contract workers but to any individual or corporation from which they buy more than $600 in goods or services in a tax year.

The stealth change radically alters the nature of 1099s and means businesses will have to issue millions of new tax documents each year.

Right now, the IRS Form 1099 is used to document income for individual workers other than wages and salaries. Freelancers receive them each year from their clients, and businesses issue them to the independent contractors they hire.

But under the new rules, if a freelance designer buys a new iMac from the Apple Store, they'll have to send Apple a 1099. A laundromat that buys soap each week from a local distributor will have to send the supplier a 1099 at the end of the year tallying up their purchases.

The bill makes two key changes to how 1099s are used. First, it expands their scope by using them to track payments not only for services but also for tangible goods. Plus, it requires that 1099s be issued not just to individuals, but also to corporations.

Taken together, the two seemingly small changes will require millions of additional forms to be sent out.

more...

[AcneVulgaris]

Oh, this is going to be fun... especially since a lot of the people I pay are overseas. I guess I don't have to file for them, as they don't have numbers. One more strike against American labor.

[<FLY>Red Dragon]

Blah blah blah, as one who works in surgery.....ill tell you something this healthcare bill is bad.....you haven't seen anything yet.

Bye bye small businesses....

Hell they even stopped surgeons from creating private surgery centers...

Hope everyone has their communist flags ready.....

[appel]

Always trust in government... to ruin everything.

[<FLY>Red Dragon]

Yea i never do understand why people put into power usually know nothing about.

[TimeVirus]

The Democrats' Gordian Knot: Obamacare Org Chart Unveiled
http://www.redcounty.com/content/democrats-gordian-knot-obamcare-org-chart-unveiled

This story really needs no narrative -- the chart painstakingly put together by House Republicans on the Joint Economic Committee speaks for itself. Resembling a bowl of undercooked spaghetti noodles in which healthcare providers, private insurers, and consumers are challenged to find the beginning and end of any given strand along a process chain, the byzantine maze of bureaucratic gateways promises to fluster Americans trying to make everyday healthcare decisions for themselves and their family members.

If you dare, you can also click on the image to download the PDF file and view the chart in greater detail.

http://jec.senate.gov/republicans/public/?a=Files.Serve&File_id=5ee16e0f-6ee6-4643-980e-b4d5f1d7759a

more...

[TimeVirus]

Did Judge Tauro Kill Obamacare?
http://www.nationalreview.com/critical-condition/242188/did-judge-tauro-kill-obamacare-john-r-graham

On July 8, a federal judge in Boston, Joseph Tauro, took it upon himself to find the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) unconstitutional. His decisions in two cases might have unwittingly facilitated the legal challenges to Obamacare.

The decisions have been summarized and criticized in National Review Online (here, here, and here). The constitutional competence of the federal government with respect to homosexual marriage is well beyond my expertise, but having read Mr. Whelan’s commentary and Judge Tauro’s decisions, I think that those who seek to overturn Obamacare in the courts might have just received a couple of rounds of ammunition in their arsenal.

Judge Tauro found that state law trumps federal law even in cases of benefits to federal employees or federal funding of state benefits.

more...

[TimeVirus]

Health reform's bureaucratic spawn
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0810/40561.html

Don’t bother trying to count up the number of agencies, boards and commissions created under the new health care law. Estimating the number is “impossible,” a recent Congressional Research Service report says, and a true count “unknowable.”

The reasons for the uncertainty are many, according to CRS’s Curtis W. Copeland, the author of the report “New Entities Created Pursuant to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.”

The provisions of the law that create the new entities vary dramatically in specificity.

The law says a lot about some of them and a little about many, and merely mentions a few. Some have been authorized without any instructions on who is to appoint whom, when that might happen and who will pay.

Those agencies created without specific appointment or appropriations procedures will have to wait indefinitely for staff and funding before they can function, according to Copeland’s report.

And others could be just the opposite: One entity might not be enough and could spawn others, resulting in an “indeterminate number of new organizations.”

more...

[TimeVirus]

Liberty Wins First Skirmish in the Obamacare Legal Battle
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2010/08/03/liberty-wins-first-skirmish-in-the-obamacare-legal-battle/

As Michael already noted, Judge Henry Hudson of the Eastern District of Virginia denied the government’s motion to dismiss Virginia’s legal challenge to Obamacare. Notably, Judge Hudson agreed with Cato senior fellow Randy Barnett (see here, here, and here) that the government’s assertion of Commerce Clause authority for the individual mandate is unprecedented:

The guiding precedent is informative, but inconclusive. Never before has the Commerce Clause and Necessary and Proper Clause been extended this far. At this juncture, the court is not persuaded that the Secretary has demonstrated a failure to state a cause of action with respect to the Commerce Clause element.

In other words, at this first, early stage of litigation, Virginia’s lawsuit survives and the government has a real fight on its hands.

more...

[TimeVirus]

Prop C passes overwhelmingly
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/article_c847dc7c-564c-5c70-8d90-dfd25ae6de56.html

ST. LOUIS • Missouri voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected a federal mandate to purchase health insurance, rebuking President Barack Obama's administration and giving Republicans their first political victory in a national campaign to overturn the controversial health care law passed by Congress in March.

"The citizens of the Show-Me State don't want Washington involved in their health care decisions," said Sen. Jane Cunningham, R-Chesterfield, one of the sponsors of the legislation that put Proposition C on the August ballot. She credited a grass-roots campaign involving Tea Party and patriot groups with building support for the anti-Washington proposition.

With most of the vote counted, Proposition C was winning by a ratio of nearly 3 to 1. The measure, which seeks to exempt Missouri from the insurance mandate in the new health care law, includes a provision that would change how insurance companies that go out of business in Missouri liquidate their assets.

"I've never seen anything like it," Cunningham said at a campaign gathering at a private home in Town and Country. "Citizens wanted their voices to be heard."

more...

[TimeVirus]

Well, looks like the health care takeover bill was needed after all...


Uninsured Slow To Sign Up For Coverage
http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/local_news/new_jersey/uninsured-slow-to-sign-up-for-coverage-20100823-apx

HACKENSACK, N.J. - Just two people in New Jersey will begin receiving coverage Monday under new plans created by federal health care reforms.

NJ Protect plans are available to those who have been without insurance for at least six months and submit evidence of pre-existing health conditions.

The state will receive $141 million in federal subsidies to cover claims that exceed the premiums paid by the beneficiaries.

more...