{"id":55,"date":"2009-08-31T15:51:31","date_gmt":"2009-08-31T22:51:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/?p=55"},"modified":"2009-12-23T11:30:36","modified_gmt":"2009-12-23T18:30:36","slug":"where-does-white-house-health-overhaul-policy-go-now-hughhewitt-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/2009\/08\/31\/where-does-white-house-health-overhaul-policy-go-now-hughhewitt-com\/","title":{"rendered":"Where Does White House Health Overhaul Policy Go Now? | HughHewitt.com | 08.31.09"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Sunday the Rasmussen organization reported that 42 percent of likely voters had told them they strong disapprove of the president\u2019s job performance. \u00a0At this rate it is not out of the question that the new year could see this number break the 50 percent mark.<\/p>\n

The record strong disapproval \u2013 which also must set a record for how quickly an administration has turned the public against its policies \u2013 came in the middle of several days of wall-to-wall media coverage of the passing of Senator Edward Kennedy. We won\u2019t know for sure until midweek polls come out, but if the White House was hoping for a bump, either for it or its policies, from the outpouring of affection for the liberal senator, it appears at this moment it will be disappointed.<\/p>\n

This week\u2019s announcement that the Justice Department will investigate and prosecute CIA officers for their interrogation of senior al Qaeda officers undoubtedly hurt the president, what with the television news outlets playing over and over his indication in February that he would not pursue this course.<\/p>\n

But the anchor tied to Mr. Obama\u2019s feet, dragging down his approval rating, remains the health overhaul and all that has become associated with it \u2013 a string of trillion dollar charges against the national credit card; White House dissembling about everything from rationing to run away expenses; the president\u2019s easy embrace of confiscatory tax rates.<\/p>\n

Thursday brought yet another expert in yet another Wall Street Journal<\/em> article confirming that the social democratic health overhaul model that the administration and Democratic leadership in Congress have embraced is a road to rationing. \u00a0Health policy expert Betsy McCaughey detailed (here: http:\/\/tiny.cc\/D8a90<\/a> ) the candidly expressed policy thinking of Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, White House advisor and, as brother of the President\u2019s chief of staff, widely assumed to be a central shaping force behind Administration policy.<\/p>\n

\u201cDr. Emanuel,\u201d she reports, \u201cis part of a school of thought that redefines a physician\u2019s duty, insisting that it includes working for the greater good of society instead of focusing only on a patient\u2019s needs.\u201d \u00a0She quotes a February 2008 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, where Dr. Emanuel writes, “Vague promises of savings from cutting waste, enhancing prevention and wellness, installing electronic medical records and improving quality of care are merely ‘lipstick’ cost control, more for show and public relations than for true change.”<\/p>\n

Instead, in a June 2008 JAMA article he wrote that (as McCaughey summarizes) \u201cdoctors should serve two masters, the patient and society, and that medical students should be trained to provide socially sustainable, cost-effective care.” McCaughey continues, \u201cOne sign of progress he sees: \u2018the progression in end-of-life care mentality from ‘do everything’ to more palliative care shows that change in physician norms and practices is possible.\u2019”<\/p>\n

In January in the medical journal Lancet Dr. Emanuel advocated a \u201ccomplete lives system\u201d to guide health policy. As he explained (McCaughey quoting him), “When implemented, the complete lives system produces a priority curve on which individuals aged roughly 15 and 40 years get the most substantial chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get changes that are attenuated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite denials from the White House and its backup singers in Congress and the media, no one should be surprised that rationing is the magic cost bullet in the President\u2019s policy gun. \u00a0Ludicrous waiting lists for what in the United States would be regarded as urgent procedures are the norm wherever the social democratic health model is in force.<\/p>\n

There are two ways to control health inflation: more rationing (in Medicare and Medicaid we already have some) or more productivity.<\/p>\n

The true heart of the U.S. health cost inflation problem is captured in one set of statistics. As Harvard professor Regina Herzlinger, one of the nation\u2019s most respected health policy experts, reported in 2004, \u201c[F]rom 1978 to 2001, the defined benefit, third-party-driven health sector demonstrated productivity losses<\/em> of 24 percent compared to the nonfarm productivity gain of 42 percent.\u201d \u00a0She added that, \u201cPhysicians\u2019 output per employee decreased a hefty 29 percent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like many others, Herzlinger advocates what is called \u201cconsumer-driven\u201d health reform. Indeed, the passages quoted above come from her book \u201cConsumer-Driven Health Care: Implications for Providers, Payers and Policymakers\u201d (a title that could only come out of academia). Specifics of consumer-driven reform include giving individuals the same tax breaks for health spending that companies receive, so buying insurance yourself rather than through your employer isn\u2019t prohibitive; health savings accounts, so you can pay directly for regular health expenses, making your own decisions about value, not depending on someone else\u2019s; creating a national insurance market, not the Articles of the Confederation state-by-state markets we have now, by allowing insurance approved for sale in one state to be sold in all. \u00a0Herzlinger also calls for public reporting of health costs and outcomes and creation of a Securities and Exchange Commission-type entity to ensure that the data are timely, comprehensive and accurate.<\/p>\n

More consumer control will do what it has done in every other sector of the economy, create irresistible pressures to produce more for less, in other words to increase productivity. \u00a0If we had seen the same productivity increases in health care as we have witnessed in other sectors, we would not be giving serious consideration to Dr. Emanuel\u2019s rationing by demography as a guide to policy today.<\/p>\n

With Washington looking forward to September and the return of Congress, the White House\u2019s health policy dilemma comes down to this: the social democratic model of health overhaul that they have embraced will only make the health cost inflation worse and limit access to care. \u00a0But the consumer-driven model is unacceptable to the president\u2019s ideological base. \u00a0How they resolve this dilemma will be the major domestic policy story of the months ahead \u2013 and will determine whether the president\u2019s job approval ratings proves capable of recovery.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Sunday the Rasmussen organization reported that 42 percent of likely voters had told them they strong disapprove of the president\u2019s job performance. \u00a0At this rate it is not out of the question that the new year could see this number break the 50 percent mark. The record strong disapproval \u2013 which also must set […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[12],"class_list":["post-55","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economic-policy-health-care","tag-hugh-hewitt"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":460,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55\/revisions\/460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}