The Heritage Foundation - Leadership for America

July 10, 2009 Roxanne, Colorado writes:

I would like to see congress and the White House try all this out first before we commit any more money.

July 10, 2009 » Financial News Update - 07/10/09 NoisyRoom.net: “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the face of tyranny is no virtue.” Barry Goldwater writes:

[...] Senate Committee Blocks Anti-Rationing Amendments [...]

July 12, 2009 Ange Lobue, MD, MPH, BSPharm writes:

CALL FOR CONGRESSIONAL WARRIOR ANGELS

I am a 71 year-old American citizen, a psychiatric physician, a pharmacist, a small business owner, a tax payer and a voter. I was a medical director for a multinational pharmaceutical corporation, who sometimes accompanied lobbyists colleagues on visits to the offices of your predecessors and colleagues in State Legislatures and Congress some decades ago. In addition I served as an assistant in governmental health care administration, one step removed from the White House, and as a visiting scholar studying the health systems of other countries. I served on the faculties of a leading medical school and a leading university cinema/tv school.

Moreover, as a practicing senior psychiatrist, I sometimes had occasion to counsel and treat members of your profession when they found the stress of the conflicting impulses created by the demands in their lives overwhelming.

So, in addition to a broad and deep life history, I have some understanding of your position when it come to the kind of major war that is currently underway between the American people and the insurance and pharmaceutical industries.

Although almost 70% of American are shocked and perplexed by the aggressive resistance to their voices recently exhibited, for example, by your Blue Dog Congressional colleagues, I know that you are unable to tell them the real story because it contradicts so dramatically the fantasy narrative upon which they have so desperately come to depend.

And of course, you and your colleagues are seriously concerned about what effect knowing the real truth about Congress and its relationship with corporate power might have on national morale and consequently national security.

So, I am hoping that, unlike with most letters, faxes and calls you are receiving, which demand, challenge and even berate you, you will find in this one a sense of empathy, perhaps even sympathy.

What I want you to know, is that I understand why you CAN’T want a single payer, Medicare for All, national health care system for America, in spite of the overwhelming support such a plan has from its citizens.

I understand that it is not your choice but the choice of your political, financial, marketing, public relations and emotional support sources, something you may have been receiving, in the past, from your family, friends and the American voter. But because of the way Congress has devolved, you have had to make the supreme sacrifice of shifting your source of sustenance from family, friends and individual constituent voters to the big corporate families who are now responsible for your sense of satisfaction with your life.

I know that before you entered politics, unless you were born into it, you probably had little understanding of how beholden to big money you would eventually become during your career.

I know that you thought you would be different, more courageous, more resistant to temptation and the power of the subtle and not-so-subtle threats and bribes of lobbyists.

But over the years you learned that it is not the American people who put you in office, it is big corporate money which put you in and keeps you in office.

You are a smart person. You know that before you can help your country you must first feed, clothe, educate and maintain the health and welfare of your own family. And in order to do that, you must do what is “necessary” to stay in office.

Of course, you vowed you would do as much as you could for your constituents, after you had ensured the safety of your tenure. But you soon came to realize that your real constituents are big corporate money, constituents upon whom you can depend. Not the average, fickle American who offers you mainly complaints, demands, very little financial support and even less emotional and political support. There is a distinct difference between the relative ineffectiveness of the loud and voluminous few letter-writing, faxing or calling individual voters, and that of the quiet-spoken, casual and amiable, but enormously powerful lobbyist.

Your doctor knows that Congress should be ashamed of the way it has permitted predatory profiteers to destroy American medicine. If s/he hasn’t told you, there may be some protocol obstacles in the way of an honest relationship that keep the subject from coming up. Try talking to a rural doctor who sees average and uninsured people.

You also know that putting “the PURSUIT of happiness,” on a list of civil rights that does not contain the right to health implies that health is a privilege, rather than a right. I know you cannot be proud of that oversight in our Constitution.

You also must know that some of your colleagues have become more afraid lately and while some are reacting with typical fight or flight reactions, some are reacting with the alternative freeze reaction.

And here is something that many of you may not know: the decisions facing you now are of Biblical proportions.

For as you do know, nothing will change until you become courageous enough to call your colleagues aside, begin to meet quietly, and create a group of Congressional states-people, whose mascot name should be closer to “Warrior Angels,” than “Blue Dogs,” with the mission of major changes to the lobbying laws: THE REMOVAL OF THE MONEY TABLES FROM THE HALLS OF CONGRESS.

It appears to me that you don’t have much time left on this issue, becauseof a number of rapidly developing factors: the level of awareness among middle-class Americans, their developing cohesiveness because of the internet, their determination resulting from an increased sense of empowerment of like-minded individuals and the increasing tension produced by the arrogance of the Blue Dogs. All of this appears to be ripening toward an explosive eruption of feelings from Americans who, although they may disagree about many other things, seem to agree that the time has come to make health an American Civil Right.

You shouldn’t be surprised when you see us on the streets, again.

I know many of you are waiting patiently for the development of sufficient citizen momentum that will permit you to feel more comfortable when you begin to prepare to confront the insurance industry. I know that without the strength on the streets, you will have difficulty mustering appropriate courage in the halls of Congress.

However, I wonder if you have yet begun to imagine the pleasure of being among the first line to be hailed by the citizenry as a Congressional Hero of the American Civil Health Rights Movement of the 21st Century?

I’d certainly be willing to send you money and praise for that.

And if the millions of Americans who currently are raising their voices, now are joined by the millions of angry others we intend to mobilize, your perception of your own personal political risk may be reduced to the comfortable levels you require to speak out and take action.

So, as a good strategic planner, you might want to begin to consider a contingency plan as you keep you eye on the numbers and your ear to the ground.

Read this one right, and you’ll be a hero.

Read it wrong, and choose to stay behind the money tables in the halls of Congress, and I can assure you we will not forget you when we start turning them over.

Respectfully for now,

Ange Lobue, MD, MPH, BSPharm
American Board of Psychiatry & Neurology
Academy of Television Arts & Sciences
trinidadca@gmail.com

July 13, 2009 What You Don’t Know Will Hurt You « Justbkuz writes:

[...] July 13, 2009 in Who Killed John Galt | Tags: Congress, health care rationing, health care reform, Obamacare Senate Committee Blocks Anti-Rationing Amendments [...]

July 17, 2009 Fix Health Care Policy | The Senate Health Bill: Chock Full of Bad Health Policy writes:

[...] Blocking Anti-Rationing Amendments. (Roberts Amendment #1 , Coburn Amendment #9, Enzi Amendment #7) The Committee bill calls for an increased role of comparative effectiveness research (CER). A number of Senators fear that federal officials could use the data to determine payment, treatment, and coverage decisions, subordinating professional medical judgment in the treatment of patients to regulatory or budgetary considerations. These three amendments would have prohibited the use of CER to mandate coverage, deny care, or ration. CER, if used as a rationing tool, would obviously interfere with the traditional doctor-patient relationship. All three amendments failed on straight party-line votes. You can learn more here. [...]

July 18, 2009 Govt Health Care Plan Full of Poison writes:

[...] -It leaves the door open to health care rationing [...]

July 19, 2009 Michael Friedman, M.D. Berkeley, CA writes:

As a physician in practice for forty years, I would like to express my agreement with the reasoning and conclusions of Dr. Ange Lobue, posted above.

I would also like to point out that the rationing of medical care is already taking place through the denial of coverage to people with “preexisting” conditions, the inability of so many people to pay for health insurance and the various limitations of coverage that are included in the policies of people who have health insurance.This rationing is based on the financial advantage of health insurance companies. A rationing based on comparative effectiveness research would be more patient-centered.

Michael Friedman, M.D.
Berkeley, California

July 19, 2009 Chantal Lobue BSN, FNP, PAC California writes:

I am disappointed that Congress is trying to distract the American people with the absurd non-issue of “rationing.”

As a family nurse practitioner and physician assistant with over 39 years of health care experience, currently working in a rural area where I see many patients with and without insurance, I am quite familiar with rationing of care. I and my medical colleagues see it every day as 1200 profit-driven health insurance companies fight with us to maintain their expectations of an ever-increasing bottom line.

However, we also see many Medicare patients whose care is funded by a single payer, the United States government.

Just ask me and my patients who, before qualifying for Medicare received payment for their care via the predatory health insurance industry, which “system” we think works better for them, The answer is an unqualified, “Medicare works better!”

So while Congress, with its obligations to the industry which insures its members with luxury policies and keeps them in office with corporate contributions and campaign support, betrays the American people with distractions like threats of rationing, business continues as usual here in the hinterland.

Are there no courageous Congresspeople who are willing to take the risk of representing the will of the American people for a change?

Over 70% of Americans want a single payer health care system.

Only the insurance industry and Congress want the status quo.

What’s wrong with this equation?

Sincerely,

A Very Disapointed Health Care Provider and Voter,

Chantal Madeleine Lobue, BSN, FNP, PAC
McKinleyville Family Practice
Stanford School of Medicine Primary Care Associate Program
chantalobue@gmail.com

July 20, 2009 AGAPE Movement writes:

[...] Blocking Anti-Rationing Amendments. (Roberts Amendment #1 , Coburn Amendment #9, Enzi Amendment #7) The Committee bill calls for an increased role of comparative effectiveness research (CER). A number of Senators fear that federal officials could use the data to determine payment, treatment, and coverage decisions, subordinating professional medical judgment in the treatment of patients to regulatory or budgetary considerations. These three amendments would have prohibited the use of CER to mandate coverage, deny care, or ration. CER, if used as a rationing tool, would obviously interfere with the traditional doctor-patient relationship. All three amendments failed on straight party-line votes. You can learn more here. [...]

July 21, 2009 Fix Health Care Policy | Should Government Determine the Value of Human Life? writes:

[...] avoid using the word “rationing,” choosing to focus exclusively on the supposed benefits. But amendments to prohibit rationing in the health care reform bills have been voted down thus far. As abhorrent [...]

July 26, 2009 Dirty Democrats » The Human Cost of Rationing Healthcare writes:

[...] currently being rushed through congress to meet deadlines and criteria set by President Obama, is rationing health care using Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER) methodology where government bureaucrats would set [...]

July 28, 2009 Fix Health Care Policy | Obamacare’s Effect on Seniors writes:

[...] have given Obamacare supporters every opportunity to disavow government rationed health care, but Obamacare supporters have voted down every anti-rationing amendment proposed. Make no mistake, Obama plans to pay for expanded coverage for the young and healthy by denying [...]

July 28, 2009 AntiObamaBlog.com » Obamacare’s New Goal & Effect On Seniors writes:

[...] have given Obamacare supporters every opportunity to disavow government-rationed health care, but Obamacare supporters have voted down every anti-rationing amendment proposed. Make no mistake, Obama plans to pay for expanded coverage for the young and healthy by denying [...]

July 31, 2009 Washoe County Republican Party » Obamacare’s Effect on Seniors writes:

[...] have given Obamacare supporters every opportunity to disavow government-rationed health care, but Obamacare supporters have voted down every anti-rationing amendment proposed. Make no mistake, Obama plans to pay for expanded coverage for the young and healthy by denying [...]

August 1, 2009 Healthcare Headlines « NWI Patriots Blog writes:

[...] Senate Committee Blocks Anti-Rationing Amendments [...]

August 5, 2009 Liberally Conservative » Blog Archive » Obamacare Promises and Healthcare Lies writes:

[...] Barack Hussein Obama promised on July 22 that health care reform would keep the government out of health care decisions, but both the House and Senate bills call for an increased role of comparative effectiveness research (CER). More information on health care effectiveness is good as long as doctor’s and patients are the ones empowered to use that information. Conservatives in both the House and Senate offered amendments prohibiting the use of CER by government to mandate, deny, or ration care. These anti-rationing amendments were defeated in both the House and Senate. [...]

August 10, 2009 Ken, AL writes:

Please, no more government control. Tne government has gotten control of the Banks, The Auto Industry and now they want control of the Health Care Industry. More government control erodes freedom. Do you really trust a bunch of partisan idealogues to take care of you?

August 10, 2009 Eight (NINE) Questions to Ask at a Townhall Meeting About ObamaCare « The IUSB Vision Weblog writes:

[...] Can you promise that government bureaucrats will not ration health care for patients on the public plan? President Obama promised on July 22 that health care reform would keep the government out of health care decisions, but both the House and Senate bills call for an increased role of comparative effectiveness research (CER). More information on health care effectiveness is good, as long as doctors and patients are the ones empowered to use that information. Conservatives in both the House and Senate offered amendments prohibiting the use of CER by government to mandate, deny, or ration care. These anti-rationing amendments were defeated in both the House and Senate. [...]

August 22, 2009 Fox News viewers overwhelmingly misinformed about health care reform proposals. - Page 4 writes:

[...] those FOX viewers really are incredibly stupid for thinking these things! Rationing care: Senate Committee Blocks Anti-Rationing Amendments The Foundry Amendments designed to prevent this were rejected. Nearly every country with government run [...]

September 10, 2009 DF, Orlando writes:

Ange Lobue and Chantal Madeleine Lobue are completely wrong. Rasmussen Reports August 10, 2009 that only 32% of Americans Support a Single-Payer System. 57% are completely against such system.

November 2, 2009 Ange Lobue, MD, MPH, BSPharm, California writes:

National Security and Compassion

Anyone who knows anything about statistics, especially public opinion polls knows that there are many factors, visible and hidden, which affect the results, not the least of which is their intended use. Just compare Rasmussen Reports with those produced by pollsters affiliated with MoveOn.com.

We would like to avoid the usual distracting focus on the popularity of the measures which is, either overtly or subtly, based upon a cost/benefit analysis in the mind of the observer, an analysis not unlike that which is applied to the costs of maintaining national security.

The maintenance of each citizen’s right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is the reason for the maintenance of our national security. And the omission of the right to HEALTH in the Constitution, implies that health is a privilege, rather than a right, and has permitted an every-man-for-himself, profit-driven approach to health care that has been responsible for much unnecessary suffering and death in this country.

We believe America can and should do better than that and should demonstrate its concern for the health of its citizens as the honorable and necessary thing to do, just as maintaining its national security is the honorable and necessary thing to do.

We hope you will agree with us on this so that a meaningful conversation can begin about what really is important.

Respectfully submitted,

Ange Lobue, MD, MPH, BSPharm
American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology
Academy of Television Arts and Sciences
Chantal Lobue, FNP, PAC, RN, BSN
Academy of Family Nurse Practitioners
Stanford University School of Medicine
Primary Care Associate Program
McKinleyville Family Practice

trinidadca@gmail.com