{Disarmed} Assault on Seniors

[Guest guest]

All Congress plus the President need to sign themselves up

for this plan FIRST

so that we can test it on them and see if it works before unleashing it

to the public.

Josephine

 

Clare wrote:

 

 

 

 

Assault on Seniors

OPINION

http://www.defendyourhealthcare.us/assaultonseniors.html

By Betsy

McCaughey

 

 

Since Medicare was

established in 1965, access to care has enabled older Americans to

avoid becoming disabled and languishing in nursing homes. But

legislation now being rushed through Congress -- H.R. 3200 and the

Senate Health Committee Bill -- will reduce access to care, pressure

the elderly to end their lives prematurely, and doom baby boomers to

painful later years.

 

The Congressional

majority wants to pay for its $1 trillion to $1.6 trillion health bills

with new taxes and a $500 billion cut to Medicare. This cut will come

just as baby boomers turn 65 and increase Medicare enrollment by 30%.

Less money and more patients will necessitate rationing. The

Congressional Budget Office estimates that only 1% of Medicare cuts

will come from eliminating fraud, waste and abuse.

 

The assault against

seniors began with the stimulus package in February. Slipped into the

bill was substantial funding for comparative effectiveness research,

which is generally code for limiting care based on the patient's age.

Economists are familiar with the formula, where the cost of a treatment

is divided by the number of years (called QALYs, or quality-adjusted

life years) that the patient is likely to benefit. In Britain,

the formula leads to denying treatments for older patients who have

fewer years to benefit from care than younger patients.

 

When comparative

effectiveness research appeared in the stimulus bill, Rep. Charles

Boustany Jr., (R., La.) a heart surgeon, warned that it would lead to

"denying seniors and the disabled lifesaving care." He and Sen. Jon Kyl

(R., Ariz.) proposed amendments to no avail that would have barred the

federal government from using the research to eliminate treatments for

the elderly or deny care based on age.

 

In a letter this week

to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, White House budget chief Peter Orszag

urged Congress to delegate its authority over Medicare to a newly

created body within the executive branch. This measure is designed to

circumvent the democratic process and avoid accountability to the

public for cuts in benefits.

 

Driving these cuts is

the misconception that preventative care can eliminate sickness. As

President Obama said in a speech to the American Medical Association:

"We have to avoid illness and disease in the first place." That would

make sense if most diseases were preventable. But the two most

prevalent diseases of aging -- cancer and heart disease -- are largely

caused by genetics and their occurrence increases with age. Your risk

of being diagnosed with cancer doubles from age 50 to 60, according to

the National Cancer Institute.

 

The House bill shifts

resources from specialty medicine to primary care based on the

misconception that Americans overuse specialist care and drive up costs

in the process (pp. 660-686). In fact, heart-disease patients treated

by generalists instead of specialists are often misdiagnosed and

treated incorrectly. They are readmitted to the hospital more

frequently, and die sooner.

 

"Study after study

shows that cardiologists adhere to guidelines better than primary care

doctors," according to Jeffrey Moses, a heart specialist at New

York Presbyterian Hospital. Adds

Jeffrey Borer, chairman of medicine at SUNY Downstate

Medical Center: "Seldom do generalists

have the knowledge to identify the symptoms of aortic valve disease,

even though more than 10% of people over 75 have it. After valve

surgery, patients who were too short of breath to walk can resume a

normal life into their 80s or 90s."

 

While the House bill

being pushed by the president reduces access to such cures and

specialists, it ensures that seniors are counseled on end-of-life

options, including refusing nutrition where state law allows it (pp.

425-446). In Oregon, the state is denying some

cancer patients care that could extend their lives and is offering them

physician-assisted suicide instead.

 

The harshest

misconception underlying the legislation is that living longer burdens

society. Medicare data prove this is untrue. A patient who dies at 67

spends three times as much on health care at the end of life as a

patient who lives to 90, according to Dr. Herbert Pardes, CEO of New

York Presbyterian Medical Center.

 

What is costly is when

seniors become disabled. In a 2007 Health Affairs article, researchers

reported that surgeries to unclog arteries and replace worn out hips

and knees have had a major impact on steadily reducing disability

rates. And nondisabled seniors use only one-seventh as much health care

as disabled seniors. As a result, the annual increase in per capita

health spending on the elderly is less than for the rest of the

population.

 

Nevertheless, Medicare

is running out of money. The problem is the number of seniors compared

with the smaller number of workers supporting the system with payroll

taxes. To remedy the problem, the Congressional Budget Office has

suggested inching up the eligibility age one month per year until it

reaches age 70 in 2043, or asking wealthy seniors to pay more.

 

These are reasonable

solutions -- reducing access to treatments and counseling seniors about

cutting life short are not. Medicare has made living to a ripe old age

a good value. ObamaCare will undo that.

 

Dr. McCaughey is chairman of the Committee to

Reduce Infection Deaths and a former lieutenant governor of New

York State. To learn more about the status of

health care legislation, visit www.defendyourhealthcare.us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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