Final 2 Minutes of the Obamacare Game

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.

Vote on Obamacare

  • Obamacare will Pass

    Votes: 37 43.0%

  • Obamacare will Fail

    Votes: 49 57.0%
  • Total voters
    86
  • Poll closed .
BLADEMDA

BLADEMDA

Full Member
Lifetime Donor
Verified Member
15+ Year Member
Platinum Member
Joined
Apr 22, 2007
Messages
22,315
Reaction score
8,964
1. Obamacare Passes- The House will pass the Senate Health care bill.

2. Obamacare Fails- The House doesn't pass the bill.
Members don't see this ad.
 
If the bill passes (as I expect it will) by "buying" those last 5 House votes then what will it mean to this specialty and the house of medicine?

Will there be a specialty left after this bill by 2020?
 
When first introduced and considered by the Senate in December of 2009, H.R. 3590 was the subject of concern by virtually every major national surgical association. In fact, ASA joined 18 surgical groups in the surgical coalition to raise specific and commonly-held concerns about provisions of the bill (link below). A number of those organizations, including ASA, ultimately urged a "no" vote during Senate floor consideration.
While the Senate bill includes many laudatory provisions, it was also fundamentally flawed with regard to the financing of the expansion of health coverage for the under- and uninsured. Simply put, unlike the House companion reform bill, H.R. 3962, the Senate bill finances its reform largely on the backs of the physician community. Among other provisions, the bill includes the establishment of an Independent Payment Advisory Board or IPAB (Sec. 3403 and 10320). If enacted into law, the IPAB would be tasked with reducing Medicare per capita expenditures principally by targeting Medicare spending for physician services. Recommended payment cuts would move expeditiously through Congress with Congress itself and the medical community having little opportunity to modify the Board’s recommendations. Perhaps even more disconcerting, the IPAB would also have unprecedented authority to make recommendations regarding spending in the private health care marketplace.
Other provisions of the Senate bill similarly target physician payments. One provision (Sec. 3002) would modify the still unproven Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI) through the addition of Medicare payment reductions for non-compliant physicians. Another provision (Sec. 3134) creates a new entity within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services directed to develop even more payment changes for so-called "misvalued" physician services. The Senate bill also seeks to push forward with untested bundling initiatives (Sec. 3023). For whatever political or policy reason, funding for physician services is a significant target of the Senate's reform proposal. These provisions could adversely impact anesthesiology’s already low Medicare payment levels, i.e. “the 33% problem.”
Beyond payment provisions, the Senate bill also includes gratuitous so-called “non-discrimination" language (Sec. 2706). The intentionally vague language, inserted by supporters of paraprofessionals, seeks to prevent health insurers from "discriminating" against non-physician providers in deciding who may participate in their plans. Its practical implications are to open the doors to various disruptive tactics within the insurance marketplace by paraprofessionals, putting Federal law on a collision course with each state’s scope of practice law.
ASA also has raised concerns about the Senate bill's expansion of Medicaid eligibility without a corresponding recognition of the longstanding physician payment problems inherent to the program.
 
Members don't see this ad :)
Pelosi confident House will pass health care bill


AP – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., speaks during a news conference Saturday March 13, 2010, in San …



By SUDHIN THANAWALA, Associated Press Writer Sudhin Thanawala, Associated Press Writer – Sat Mar 13, 9:38 pm ET
SAN FRANCISCO – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Saturday she's confident the House will pass health care legislation and dismissed Republican criticism that she did not have enough votes for the measure.
"We're very excited about where we are and will not be deterred by estimates that have no basis in fact," she said during a dedication of the renamed Lim P. Lee Post Office in San Francisco. The post office was renamed after the nation's first Chinese-American postmaster.
Pelosi declined to say when House members would vote on a health care bill, or how many votes that she had secured. Although she added that lawmakers were "on the verge of making history."
She also dismissed criticism by House GOP leader John Boehner of Ohio that she did not have sufficient votes.
"I'm never dependent on Congressman Boehner's count. I never have," she said to a smattering of laughter from the crowd.
House Democratic leaders are pressing for a vote on their bill as early as this coming week.
The legislation would provide health care to tens of millions who currently lack it. It would require almost everyone to obtain coverage and subsidize the cost of premiums for poor and middle-income Americans.
It would also ban insurance companies from denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing conditions.
The health care bill appeared to be on the verge of passing in early January before Democrats lost a special election in Massachusetts to fill the seat of the late Edward M. Kennedy and with it, their filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.
In the weeks since, the White House and Democrats have embarked on a rescue strategy that would require the House to pass legislation that cleared the Senate in December before both houses approve a second bill that makes changes to the first.
But some anti-abortion Democrats in the House have balked at the bill, and it's not clear they will vote for final passage. The bill needs 216 votes to clear the House.
 
BLADEMDA said:
Will there be a specialty left after this bill by 2020?
Click to expand...

The bigger question is what will be left of the U.S. by 2020 with one more massive entitlement program and unsustainable trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see.
 
Just my opinion, but I think the sh.t is going to hit the fan soon (within 10 years). I mean can anyone seriously see the government getting serious about addressing (CUTTING) entitlement benefits and out of control spending? The economic situation in this country is hugely ominous and it appears to me that NO ONE, not Republican, and certainly not Democratic is telling people the truth.

I am buying physical gold. Dont have that much but at least more than most.
 
when you sell that gold, don't you get taxed again. I agree with you. Its time to look for another avenue to make a living.

Maybe the govt will forgive my student loans! yeah right!!!
 
I think it's time for

thunderdome.jpg


:smuggrin:
 
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iV3CEwzxwpKS2GT4lE_b3QjuD_Bg

Last year Obama held a press conferences to brag about his call for 100 million dollars to be trimmed from the budget. 100 millions dollars off of a 10 trillion+ dollar debt is equal to finding a savings of... drumroll... ONE dollar off of a 100,000 dollar debt.

Can you imagine how silly someone would look bragging that they are serious about fiscal responsibility because they MIGHT find a one dollar savings on a 100,000 debt (that is still growing exponentially). That's how silly our President looks with this patronizing condescending type of stuff.
 
Last edited:
Members don't see this ad :)
Obama got owned in that interview. What a chump. You can't make lemonade out of rocks.
 
BIDEN: Well, I yes. Some of them I say they say, well, Joe, look, man, I mean, you know, you guys haven't massaged this very well. And, you know, this thing has gone on so long, I don't know. And my response is, hey, man, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. I'm telling you, you know, pre-existing, they're going to be covered. You know we're going to control the insurance companies. You know people aren't going to lose their health care with their employer like is being advertised. So you've got to if you really want to make sure that you get the benefit of what you've already done, vote for the bill.
And I look, Jake, I really, truly believe that the worst place to be, as a legislator, is being in the position where your side is being pummeled for an idea and there's misrepresentations about all the bad
things the idea is going to generate. And then the idea fails and then they go, see, I told you Jake was for it. And had I not stopped, Jake, there would have been death panels.
 
Obamacare Would Prompt Devastating Medicare Cuts


Thursday, 18 Mar 2010 07:50 AM
Article Font Size


By: Dick Morris & Eileen McGann
If the House Democratic majority passes Obama's healthcare proposals, one of two things will happen by Election Day, 2010 — and neither one will be healthy for the Democrats seeking re-election.

Either the Medicare cuts will take effect or they will be postponed by a terrified Congress.

If they take effect, physicians' fees will be slashed 21 percent and hospital reimbursements for Medicare patients will be cut by $1.3 billion. Tens of thousands of doctors and thousands of healthcare institutions — hospitals, hospices, outpatient clinics and such — will refuse to treat Medicare patients.

Entire cities could be without one doctor in important specialties who will take care of the elderly on Medicare. Particularly in fields like arthritic and joint pain, doctors will simply refuse to accept the low reimbursement rates they are being offered and hospitals will refuse all but emergency care to Medicare patients.

In effect, the elderly could experience a doctors' strike against Medicare patients.

Congress, faced with this massive revolt coming right on the verge of the election, may back down and postpone the cuts.

Originally, doctor reimbursement rates were scheduled to drop on March 1 of this year, but Congress postponed it until the fall. Now the Democrats in Congress will face not only cuts in doctors' fees but in all forms of Medicare reimbursement — the so-called "market basket" of cuts programmed into Obamacare.

Congress, being Congress, will probably seek to postpone the cuts until after Election Day. But in doing so, they would expose the deficit reduction and cost containment features of Obama's bill for the fraud that they are.

The news media headlines would blare that Congress just voted to add tens or hundreds of billions to the deficit and the big spending, high borrowing image of Congress will worsen.

All pretense that Obamacare is not a reckless spending bill will be stripped away and we will be face to face with the reality that it will add hugely to the deficit.

All this will come at precisely the time that House and Senate Democrats are scrambling to rebut the attacks of their Republican challengers over these very issues. If Congress votes to postpone the Medicare cuts, as a former Secretary of HHS predicted to me, they will have to answer for their fiscal irresponsibility right before the election.

Either poison — the cuts or the deficit — will be enough to eradicate an entire generation of House and Senate Democrats.

And these cuts will take place against a backdrop of continuing increases in health insurance premiums, no expansion of coverage (it doesn't kick in until 2013), and no tangible benefit from the Obama bill.

This is the prospect the House and Senate Democrats who vote for Obamacare will face in the fall of 2010. This is the record they will have to defend.

Or, they could save their political lives and vote no.

Help them to make the decision!
 
Dems sweeten health bill, set showdown Sunday vote


Play Video AP – House leaders face off on health care


AFP/Getty Images/File – Clinic workers hold signs and chant during a rally in support of US President Barack Obama's health …


By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent David Espo, Ap Special Correspondent – Thu Mar 18, 7:37 pm ET
WASHINGTON – Historic health care change in the balance, Democrats plowed fresh billions into insurance subsidies for consumers on Thursday and added a $250 rebate for seniors facing high prescription drugs, last-minute sweeteners to sweeping $940 billion legislation headed for a climactic weekend vote.
President Barack Obama scuttled an Asian trip in favor of last-minute lobbying at the White House on his signature issue, playing host to a procession of wavering Democrats seeking favors.
"It will make history and we will make progress by passing this legislation," predicted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as Democrats unveiled final alterations to a bill — 16 tumultuous months in the making — meant to expand health care to 32 million uninsured, bar the insurance industry from denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions, and trim federal deficits by an estimated $138 billion over the next decade.
The health care portions of the bill would affect early every American and remake one-sixth of the national economy.
Beginning in 2014, most Americans would be required for the first time to purchase insurance, and face penalties if they refused. Millions of families with incomes up to $88,000 a year would receive government help to defray their costs. Large businesses would face fines if they did not offer good-quality coverage to their workers.
As Democrats trumpeted their bill, particularly its potential impact on the deficit, Republicans attacked it relentlessly as a government takeover of the health care industry financed by ever higher Medicare cuts and tax increases, including a new Medicare payroll tax on upper income wage earners.
"The American people are saying, 'Stop' and they're screaming at the top of their lungs," said House GOP Leader John Boehner of Ohio. Citing reports that Obama had told members of the Hispanic caucus that his presidency depends on the bill's passage, he added, "I'm sorry, Mr. President, this isn't about you."
It was, though, at least in part, and has been ever since last summer, when Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., predicted the bill's defeat would mark Obama's Waterloo.
Democrats set a Sunday showdown in the House, and while Pelosi and others expressed confidence about the outcome, Obama's decision to put off a scheduled Asian trip until later in the year was a confession that the votes were not yet secured.
Support for the legislation appeared to be growing.
Rep. Bart Gordon of Tennessee, a moderate Democrat who is retiring at the end of the year, announced he would vote in favor of the bill after opposing an earlier version. He did so as Democratic leaders included in their revisions a provision worth an estimated $99 million over two years in higher Medicaid payments to Tennessee hospitals that treat large numbers of uninsured.
Rep. Betsy Markey, a first-termer from Colorado, quickly followed, citing improved deficit cuts.
That made three conversions in recent days, following liberal Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, with the White House and congressional leaders in search of more.
In Washington's time-honored tradition, the conversations with the president ranged widely. Rep. Luis Gutierrez of Illinois said he agreed to vote for the health care overhaul on the understanding that Obama and congressional Democrats would begin attempts quickly to pass comprehensive immigration legislation. Within hours, Senate Democrats unveiled a bill, and the president praised it in a written statement.
Obama and Democratic leaders focused their lobbying on two groups of Democrats, 37 who voted against an earlier bill in the House and 40 who voted for it only after first making sure it would include strict abortion limits that now have been modified.
After weeks of secrecy-shrouded meetings, Democrats unveiled 153 pages of last-minute changes that included another of Obama's top priorities. Federally guaranteed student loans would now be made only by the government, ending a role for banks and other for-profit lenders who charge fees.
The savings, an estimated $60 billion over a decade, would increase the maximum Pell grants for needy college students as well as support for programs such as aid to historically black colleges, a priority of the Congressional Black Caucus.

As for health care, the additions fell generally into three categories.
• To address concerns of House Democrats, subsidies were raised by an estimated $25 billion over a decade for consumers who would face a first-ever requirement to purchase coverage.
• To ease concerns among governors, about $8 billion was added for 11 states and the District of Columbia, which already provide the level of Medicaid coverage that is required under the bill.
• Seniors who experience a gap in coverage in the Medicare prescription drug program would receive a $250 rebate this year — an election-year bragging point for Democrats as they look toward the fall campaign with control of Congress at stake.
Beginning in 2011, pharmaceutical industry discounts would cover 50 percent of the costs of drugs that seniors buy once they enter the gap in coverage. That share would rise to 75 percent over a decade. That would bring it into line with the program's basic benefit, in which Medicare recipients generally pay 25 percent of their costs and the program picks up the rest.
To help pay the cost of increased benefits, the legislation would increase Medicare payroll tax 0.9 percentage point, to 2.35 percent, on wages above $200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for married couples filing jointly. In a change sought by the White House, beginning in 2013, a new 3.8 percent tax would be imposed on interest, dividends, capital gains and other investment income for individuals making more $200,000 and couples making more than $250,000.
The measure also erased a Senate-passed provision to give Nebraska a greater share of Medicaid funds than other states would receive under an expansion mandated under the bill. Republicans had made that politically radioactive, calling it a Cornhusker Kickback, and it was one of the reasons most often cited by in recent weeks by rank-and-file House Democrats unhappy they were being asked to approve a Senate-passed bill they disdained.
In a gesture to public sentiment as well as the sensitivities of moderate members of the rank and file, Democrats and Obama sought to focus public attention on the deficit reduction they said would result from the revised legislation. The Congressional Budget office put the 10-year savings at $138 billion, but Democratic leaders said that would be dwarfed by a projected $1.2 trillion in the following decade.
But Republicans countered quickly, pointing out that the revisions raised the levels of planned Medicare cuts and would mean higher taxes, as well.
"The Senate bill that Speaker Pelosi said Democrats are so afraid to take a vote on cut Medicare by $465 billion. This latest bill increases those cuts by about $60 billion more.," said the Senate Republican leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
"How about taxes? The Senate bill that Democrats are so afraid to take a vote on raises taxes by $494 billion. This bill increases those tax hikes by at least $150 billion."
The package of changes released during the day involves the second of two bills that Obama hopes lawmakers will send him in coming days.
The first, at more than 2,700 pages, cleared the Senate late last year but went no further because House Democrats demanded significant changes — the very types of revisions now incorporated into the fix-it measure.
Sparking outrage by Republicans, Pelosi and other House Democratic leaders are likely to try and pass both bills with a single vote in hopes of avoiding a stand-alone roll call on the unpopular Senate measure.
Passage in the House would send the first bill to the president for his signature, and the other measure to the Senate for a final vote expected by the end of next week. Over GOP objections, it will take place under rules that bar a filibuster, meaning Democrats will not be required to post a 60-vote majority.
Republicans said during the day they would challenge select provisions of the measure by claiming they were not eligible to be included in a measure considered under non-filibuster rules. ___
 
Up until this morning, I thought that there was a chance that this bill would not pass. However, the news coming out of Washington this morning is that the negotiations in Pelosi's office have changed from trying to force yes votes to figuring out who will be allowed to vote no. If this is true, then Pelosi has her 216 in hand and she is strategizing for the fall.


Another good reason to do a fellowship, you are qualified to sit for Canadian licensure exams when the US system implodes. Or before implosion if you are so inclined.

- pod
 
I should change my vote. This thing is going through, IMO.
 
Even if it does pass, it will be held up in court as it is not constitutional. The government can't force us to purchase a product.
 
Last edited:
I envision the job market being tight for the next several years until this garbage goes into effect, as anesthesiologists just won't retire until then. After things go into effect, there will be a LOT of job openings.
 
Lonestar said:
when you sell that gold, don't you get taxed again. I agree with you. Its time to look for another avenue to make a living.

Maybe the govt will forgive my student loans! yeah right!!!
Click to expand...

The government cannot keep track of physical gold. If they think you have gold, well then you sold it years ago. If you have alot of gold, you can live off it in retirement (selling small amounts as needed) and claim zero income, and join the government gravy train as a low-income entitlement rider. If you can't beat um, join um; and when the country implodes, you still have your gold.
 
As the vote nears on Healthcare reform, I hear that Congressman Stupak is still working with the Whitehouse on a possible executive order from the President on Anti-abortion funding in the pending legislation.

Since Congressman Stupak is among a group of perhaps 9 congressman who say they will vote "NO" on the healthcare reform if it is not altered to prevent federal funding of abortions, I can only imagine how such an agreement would double-cross the many more democratic congressmen that want federal funding of abortions.

What a circus.
 
badgas said:
Even if it does pass, it will be held up in court as it is not constitutional. The government can't force us to purchase a product.
Click to expand...

I've heard this too. My question is why then are you forced to buy auto and home insurance? I am honestly asking - aren't we required to buy those?
 
Here in Oklahoma you don't have to have car insurance. You can choose to deposit an outrageous amount (I can't remember the exact figure - ?20K-100K) with the state and then carry a voucher. This is used to cover any liability in an accident. Held interest-free of course. :mad:
 
Hockeyguy said:
I've heard this too. My question is why then are you forced to buy auto and home insurance? I am honestly asking - aren't we required to buy those?
Click to expand...

Yes in some states, however you are not forced to own a car or drive. Health care is different as we are forced to live.
 
Hockeyguy said:
I've heard this too. My question is why then are you forced to buy auto and home insurance? I am honestly asking - aren't we required to buy those?
Click to expand...

You don't have to own a car. There will be nothing you can do to avoid the health insurance mandate.
 
Obamacare will become LAW next week. Now, start reading what this bill means to your career. This LAW is a game changer and the genie is NEVER going back into the bottle.

Our drift to Universal Health Care has begun and per Obama it should take 10-15 years to complete the transformation.
 
​
I would hope that we could set up a system that allows those who can go through their employer to access a federal system or a state pool of some sort. But I don't think we're going to be able to eliminate employer coverage immediately. There's going to be potentially some transition process.
​
In 2003, Obama stated at an AFL-CIO Civil, Human and Women's Rights Conference:
I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal healthcare plan...That's what I'd like to see.
​
Later in the video, viewers are treated to Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) saying on July 27 of this year:
I think that if we get a good public option, it could lead to single payer, and that's the best way to reach single payer.
​

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/08/02/obama-2007-said-he-wanted-eliminate-private-health-insurance#ixzz0irOyhkfL
 
so should we expect big slary cut in anesthesioloy ??????? :(
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Next unread thread

Similar threads

Mehd School
Am I crazy for considering a job with a 90 minute commute one way?
2
Replies
81
Views
6K
D P356
D
YGK
MOCA minute questions
Replies
48
Views
5K
Ashers
Ashers
A
MOCA minute
Replies
29
Views
4K
IlDestriero
IlDestriero
O
MOCA minute exam irregularities
Replies
12
Views
1K
DocVapor
DocVapor
C
Does MOCA Minutes = CMEs for state licensing?
Replies
3
Views
1K
OB1🤙
OB1🤙
Top