{"id":1090,"date":"2009-08-14T13:18:11","date_gmt":"2009-08-14T13:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=1090"},"modified":"2009-08-14T13:18:11","modified_gmt":"2009-08-14T13:18:11","slug":"prevention_to_save_healthcare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=1090","title":{"rendered":"Prevention To Save Healthcare Costs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Charles Krauthammer has a post at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.realclearpolitics.com\/articles\/2009\/08\/14\/the_preventive_care_myth_97889.html\">RealClearPolitics<\/a> about the healthcare debate and the idea that better preventative medicine will cut costs.&nbsp; Charles Krauthammer has a stong medical background and is very well informed on healthcare in America.&nbsp; He points out that the original justification for totally redesigning American healthcare was the fact that healthcare costs were bankrupting our economy.&nbsp; When the Congressional Budget Office released a report stating that President Obama&#8217;s healthcare plans would add $ 1.6 trillion dollars to the federal budget&#8211;not reduce costs, that claim became obsolete.&nbsp; So they changed the rationale to the fact the better preventative care provided for in the bill would save us money.&nbsp; Mr. Krauthammer points out:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><i>&#8220;Reform proponents repeat this like a mantra. Because it seems so<br \/>\nintuitive, it has become conventional wisdom. But like most<br \/>\nconventional wisdom, it is wrong. Overall, preventive care <em>increases<\/em> medical costs.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p><i>&#8220;This inconvenient truth comes, once again, from the CBO. In an Aug.<br \/>\n7 letter to Rep. Nathan Deal, CBO Director Doug Elmendorf writes:<br \/>\n&#8220;Researchers who have examined the effects of preventive care generally<br \/>\nfind that the added costs of widespread use of preventive services tend<br \/>\nto exceed the savings from averted illness.&#8221;&#8221;<\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Again, the justification for this bill turns out to be false, as are most of the claims put out by supporters of&nbsp; the bill.&nbsp; <a href=\"http:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/s\/ap\/20090813\/ap_on_go_co\/us_health_care_end_of_life_2\">Yahoo News<\/a> is reporting that the end-of-life counseling program has been dropped from the bill by the Senate Finance Committee.&nbsp; At the same time, the President is claiming that provision was never there.&nbsp; This is not a bill to rush through Congress&#8211;this is a bill that needs to be carefully examined and changed drastically.<\/p>\n<p>Just for the record, the three main causes of the increases in American medical expenses are:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>1.&nbsp; Medicare has negotiated agreements with hospitals to obtain services at a fraction of the hospital cost.&nbsp; The hospital then charges private insurance more to make up the difference.&nbsp; The healthcare bill will not change this&#8211;it will only make it worse, eventually causing hospitals to close or limit their services.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p>2.&nbsp; Preventative medicine is practiced to the extreme as a defense against lawsuits.&nbsp; One lawsuit can bankrupt a practice.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p>3.&nbsp; The cost of medical malpractice insurance has gone totally out of control.&nbsp; This could be addressed by tort reform, which is not in the current healthcare bill.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>It&#8217;s time to scrap the current bill and deal with the actual problems!<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Charles Krauthammer has a post at RealClearPolitics about the healthcare debate and the idea that better preventative medicine will cut costs.&nbsp; Charles Krauthammer has a stong medical background and is very well informed on healthcare in America.&nbsp; He points out &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=1090\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1090\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}