This checklist helps doctors assess health risks that influence the longevity of older adults, and according to the authors, could be an opportunity for seniors to really engage with their primary care provider in having informed discussions about their health care maintenance. You know, that ‘how do you want to die talk’ required by ObamaCare.
Not all doctors agree with the government agenda. Dr. Manny Alvarez says that he “did not go into medicine to decide who lives and who dies. I went into health care because I wanted to heal, to comfort, to educate and to study the illnesses that afflict my patients. And I don’t need a crystal ball to know when a patient is extremely safe or when he or she is going to die. So I am somewhat confused as to the purpose of this new ‘mortality index.’ Ultimately, using a score card makes us less human and disrespects the sanctity of life.” You can watch two of Dr. Alvarez’s interviews at Fox at this link.
Under ObamaCare, like other socialist health care systems, medical care comes down to nothing more than dollars and cents.
Medicare has set up an “Accountable Care Organization” (ACO), which according to their website “is to make sure that patients, especially the chronically ill, get the right care at the right time, while ‘avoiding’ unnecessary duplication of services and preventing medical errors.”
Under the ACO, Medicare plans to start sharing certain health information with your doctors about your care such as visits to doctors or hospitals, medical conditions and past prescriptions you may have taken. If you are a senior and have received notification from your doctor that they are participating in the ACO, know that you have the right to refuse Medicare permission, at least for the moment, to reveal your past medical records. Of course doing so may risk your relationship with your doctor.
Since your doctor should already have all this information on file I have to ask myself what is the need for the ACO?
The answer is obvious – Obama plans on cutting Medicare to pay for ObamaCare and in order to reduce Medicare costs, he has to make certain that patients are only receiving, or not receiving depending on your age and health, government sanctioned healthcare. And let’s not forget that he has also proposed cutting Medicaid and Social Security benefits.
ObamaCare removes over half a trillion dollars in future funding from Medicare over the next decade. The new law: slashes what doctors, hospitals, homecare agencies, hospice care, and dialysis centers are paid to care for the elderly; penalizes hospitals for providing generous care; and cuts support from Medicare Advantage plans. Data from the Obama administration’s own actuaries indicate that Medicare will spend less per senior in 2019 than if the law hadn’t passed.
The Obama administration’s own Chief Actuary of Medicare, Richard S. Foster, bravely warned Congress that the cuts would reduce seniors’ ability to get the care they need. Foster warned that unless these cuts are repealed, about 15 percent of hospitals could stop accepting Medicare. Where will seniors go if their local hospital stops taking Medicare? Other hospitals will be forced to operate in an environment of scarcity, with as many as 40 percent in the red, according to Foster. That will mean fewer nurses on the floor, fewer cleaners, and longer waits for high-tech diagnostic tests.
Obamacare’s defenders say that cutting Medicare payments to hospitals will knock out waste and excessive profits. Untrue. Medicare already pays hospitals less than the actual cost of caring for a senior, on average 91 cents for every dollar of care. No profit there. Pushing down the reimbursement rate further, as ObamaCare does, will force hospitals to spread nurses thinner. And, lets face it, Medicare will never operate without waste as long as the federal government runs it.
Remember the words of Michelle Obama: “The truth is, in order to get things like universal health care and a reamped education system, then someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more.”
The most insidious part of ObamaCare is that all medical expenditures will become nothing more than government budget items – Individuals will no longer exist. Your parents and your grandparents will have to give up their life, under Michelle’s assessment, in order for you to have health care. Can you live with that?
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