Democrat health bill signed, sealed and delivering surprises, Part 2

Pt. 2 of 3

Aside from gouging the middle class, will the government’s plan divert dollars from and decrease quality of care for  immigrants and families on federal programs?

Spend a little time reading HR 4872 or HR 3590, the healthcare bills that constitute the blueprint for Democrats’ takeover of the healthcare sector (the bastardized offspring of HR 3200), and you’ll realize you really don’t have to be very smart to run for Congress. The bill raises serious questions about who actually wrote this legislation. Big Labor has publicly declared they worked on the bill; media has said Big Pharma did the same. We’ve already looked at claims by the president and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) that don’t reflect what’s really in these bills. There are more surprises in these bills.

Within the legislation there is a provision for communities “with high percentages of children and adolescents who are uninsured, underinsured or eligible for medical assistance under Federal or State health benefits programs…” or where access to care is a problem. These communities can qualify for school based health clinic programs and those programs will be integrated into the school environment.

What’s wrong with that?

For starters, it’s hard to fathom an American child who is eligible for medical assistance not getting it. Of course, the parent has to complete the application, usually with help from a social services agency. While we do want to see children receive necessary medical care, we believe such clinics are a responsibility of the state if the state believes them necessary.

In addition, school-based clinics remove the child from direct supervision of the parent whose job it is to ensure a child receive medical services when needed. Case in point—the Seattle mother whose 15-year-old daughter got an abortion facilitated by the health center on her high school campus. The mother wasn’t informed and the county health dept. told Mom why: “At any age in the state of Washington, an individual can consent to a termination of pregnancy.”

That is a state model we can look to. Here’s what the mom told KOMO News. “We had no idea this was being facilitated on campus…They just told her that if she concealed it from her family, that it would be free of charge and no financial responsibility.”

Aside from issues about breaching the parent-child relationship, it is an expensive enterprise to erect and maintain such clinics. Regardless of the mathematical wizardry of the Congressional Budget Office, costs for such facilities will rise over time and those costs will exceed estimates every time. After all, we’re talking about healthcare being run by the same party who swore Medicare and Medicaid wouldn’t break the bank.

There is also language in the bill directing the secretary of Health and Human Services to “enter into an arrangement with the Institute of Medicine under which the Institute will prepare and publish, not later than 3 years after the date of the enactment of this Act, a report on the impact of language access services on the health and health care of limited English proficient populations.” The report is to include recommendations on the development and implementation of policies and practices by healthcare organizations and providers for limited English proficient patient populations. And there’s a requirement to append a cost and description of costs related to that.

Will that provision apply to immigrants, rather than to those who break the law to come here for whatever reasons they may have?  Should we guarantee those federal dollars go to immigrants coming here seeking citizenship and to families in need rather than to gang members coming here illegally to deal drugs? At present there is no way to tell the difference. 

The feds are failing that responsibility. One out of every seven Medicare dollars gets burned by fraud.
(--by Kay B. Day)

In Pt. 3, we look at financials—the taxes, the entitlements and a bureau that should make your skin crawl.

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