My 25 years as a practicing physician have shown me what happens when government attempts to practice medicine: Doctors respond to government coercion instead of patient cues, and patients die prematurely. Even if the public option is eliminated from the bill, these onerous rationing provisions will remain intact.

For instance, the Reid bill (in sections 3403 and 2021) explicitly empowers Medicare to deny treatment based on cost. An Independent Medicare Advisory Board created by the bill—composed of permanent, unelected and, therefore, unaccountable members—will greatly expand the rationing practices that already occur in the program. Medicare, for example, has limited cancer patients’ access to Epogen, a costly but vital drug that stimulates red blood cell production. It has limited the use of virtual, and safer, colonoscopies due to cost concerns. And Medicare refuses medical claims at twice the rate of the largest private insurers.

Section 6301 of the Reid bill creates new comparative effectiveness research (CER) programs. CER panels have been used as rationing commissions in other countries such as the U.K., where 15,000 cancer patients die prematurely every year according to the National Cancer Intelligence Network. CER panels here could effectively dictate coverage options and ration care for plans that participate in the state insurance exchanges created by the bill.

Additionally, the Reid bill depends on the recommendations of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force in no fewer than 14 places. This task force was responsible for advising women under 50 to not undergo annual mammograms. The administration claims the task force recommendations do not carry the force of law, but the Reid bill itself contradicts them in section 2713. The bill explicitly states, on page 17, that health insurance plans “shall provide coverage for” services approved by the task force. This chilling provision represents the government stepping between doctors and patients. When the government asserts the power to provide care, it also asserts the power to deny care.

There’s much more in Dr. Coburn’s column, go read it all and share it with your family and friends.

I’m not sure what I can add, Dr. Coburn is right, most of us probably will be alright under the Reid bill, but some won’t… The practice of medicine is as much an art as it is a science; patients whose lives hang in the balance rely on the care of doctors who understand the art and science of medicine, and who are free to act in the best interests of their patients without government interference.

Related

• ObamaCare and the Liberal Obsession – Daniel Henninger, Wall Street Journal
• The mother of all unfunded mandates – Paul Mirengoff, Power Line

Sen. Coburn refused to allow unanimous consent on Sen. Bernie Sander’s single payer amendment to the health care reform bill and demanded that they read entire bill be read into the record:

A Republican senator is forcing Senate clerks to read aloud a 767-page amendment to the Democrats’ health care overhaul bill that would establish a single-payer national health care system.

Typically, lawmakers allow the required reading of legislation on the Senate floor to be waived, but not this time.

A spokesman for Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma said Mr. Coburn objected to waiving the reading of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ amendment to educate the public.

“He believes a reading of the amendment would help the American people understand the competing approaches to reform,” said John Hart, a spokesman for Mr. Coburn. He hopes to “highlight the real debate, which is between government-run health care and patient-centered health care.”

Mr. Coburn, a physician who opposes the Democrats’ health bill, plans to require all 767 pages of the amendment to be read, which is expected to take 16 to 24 hours, Mr. Hart said.

Heh, it’s nice to see Republicans finally putting up a fight… Sen. Sanders’ amendment should been a non-event, no one expected it to go anywhere; especially since the public option and Medicare buy-in couldn’t get 60 votes. Instead it’s front page news because Tom Coburn had the courage to follow through on the threat he made last month.

The Democrats were able to convince Sen. Sanders to withdraw his amendment, but not until the Senate had been tied up in knots for about three hours.

Ed Morrissey sums things up pretty over at Hot Air:

What does this do?  It makes a hash out of Harry Reid’s plan to move the bill through the Senate by Christmas.  Twelve hours of floor time for just a single amendment means that no other business can be conducted until at least Friday.  Coburn apparently launched this effort in response to an attempt by Reid to shove the bill to a cloture vote without giving everyone enough time to read the bill or peruse the CBO analysis, due this week.

It’s a reminder that even with a supermajority, Reid needs to work with the minority to keep momentum.  He can’t pull a Nancy Pelosi jamdown in the upper chamber, and any further attempts will mean weeks of bill reading as the legislation effectively filibusters itself.

Bottom line, this bill is a train wreck and nobody likes it, Howard Dean says kill it and start over, the AFL-CIO and SEIU are reportedly calling emergency meetings and may withdraw support for the bill… The best thing for all concerned would be to kill this turd and start over with smaller more commonsense plan that will provide a safety net for the roughly 12 million Americans who want health insurance but can’t get it either because of cost or preexisting conditions.

No one is denying there are problems in our curent health care system, but the reality is the current system works  reasonably well for the majority of Americans… Effectively blowing it up and replacing with system that will increase costs, limit choice and lead to rationing is the wrong way to go about reform.

Update: Did the Democrats break Senate rules in allowing Bernie Sanders to withdraw his amendment? It certainly looks like it:

The Senate Republican leadership believes that the parliamentarian allowed Democrats to violate the rules of the Senate by allowing Sen. Bernie Sanders to cut off the reading of his single-payer proposal.

When an amendment is introduced, it has to be read on the Senate floor unless the rest of the Senate agrees to cut off the reading, and typically, the requirement is waived through “unanimous consent.” Yet today, Sen. Tom Coburn insisted that Sanders’ 767 page bill be read on the Senate floor, which was on pace to take more than 12 hours.

But about three hours into the reading, Sanders withdrew his amendment, and this stopped the reading of the bill — even without unanimous consent.

It looks like Democrats are hell bent committing political suicide.

Related

• The End of HSAs – Wall Street Journal
• Senate Health Care Bill Would Force Some Middle Class Families to Pay $15,200 Yearly Insurance Fee, According to CBO Analysis – CNSNew.com
• CBO confirms ObamaCare is a takeover of the health insurance industry – The Greenroom

Sen. Dodd’s wife Jackie Clegg Dodd sits on the boards of four pharmaceutical companies, Javelin Pharmaceuticals Inc., Cardiome Pharma Corp., Brookdale Senior Living and Pear Tree Pharmaceuticals.

Mrs. Dodd last year was one of the most highly compensated non-employee members of the Javelin Pharmaceuticals Inc. board, on which she has served since 2004. She earned $32,000 in fees and $109,587 in stock option awards last year, according to the company’s SEC filings.

Mrs. Dodd earned $79,063 in fees from Cardiome in its last fiscal year, while Brookdale Senior Living gave her $122,231 in stock awards in 2008, their SEC filings show. She earned no income from her post as a director for Pear Tree Pharmaceuticals but holds up to $15,000 in stock in Pear Tree, which describes itself as a development-stage pharmaceutical company focused on the needs of aging women.

The annual financial disclosure reports for members of Congress are less precise. They only require that assets and liabilities be listed in ranges of values.

Dodd sought a 90-day extension to file his report covering last year, giving him until mid-August to submit his report, but released his report Friday to The Associated Press.

Bryan DeAngelis, Dodd’s spokesman, said, “Jackie Clegg Dodd’s career is her own; absolutely independent of Senator Dodd, as it was when they married 10 years ago. The senator has worked to reform our health care system for decades, and nothing about his wife’s career is relevant at all to his leadership of that effort.”

DeAngelis said that Mrs. Dodd has hired a personal ethics lawyer to avoid any conflicts of interest and is not a lobbyist.

In addition to Sen Dodd. Democrats Jay Rockefeller and Tom Harkin and Republicans Tom Coburn, Judd Gregg, John Kyl and Orrin Hatchn are mentioned in the AP story.

I’m not going not to draw any conclusions, my advice is to read the entire article and draw your own conclusions… I have fundamental problem with Sen Dodd, or any Senator for that matter,  authoring legislation that may directly effect companies on whose boards their spouse sits.

The the bigger story within the story may be the APs passing mention of Sen. Dodd’s magically appreciating Irish Cottage… Michelle Malkin has the deatails on that here.

While President Obama may believe the stars are aligned for major health reform this year it is far from certain whether Congress will pass a bill that works. The groups that are most likely to unravel this effort are not the president’s opponents, but his allies. Nothing will rally ordinary Americans against the president’s plan more than his allies arguing too forcefully for a system run by politicians and bureaucrats in Washington – what we call the “public option” in the Obama plan.

It should come as no surprise that this ideologically rigid position is coming under fire. As the Washington Post recently wrote, “the fixation on a public plan is bizarre and counterproductive … It is entirely possible to imagine effective health-care reform – changes that would expand coverage and help control costs – without a public option.”

We agree. We have introduced a comprehensive health care reform bill, the Patients’ Choice Act that, we believe, will bring us far closer to the goal of universal coverage than the Obama plan. Our bill, in specific legislative language, does the following:

• Puts affordable coverage and choice within reach of all Americans.
• Prevents cherry picking by guaranteeing access to coverage.
• Strengthens the health care safety net.

I’m not going to try and analyze the Republican plan here, Peter Ferrara at the American Spectator and Rick Moran have already done a better job than I could anyway.

Suffices to say there isn’t anything new or revolutionary in the Republican plan… It borrows heavily from the plan offered by John McCain during the campaign and from ideas offered the American Enterprise Institute and Heritage Foundation over the years.

Anyway the plan is pretty comprehensive and unlike the Democrats proposals it puts consumers in change. Regardless of how good or bad the Republican plan is It’ll never get a fair review in congress. Democrats will be just as dismissive of it as they were of the GOP’s alternative budget proposal.

Related

• The GOP’s Health-Care Alternative – Wall Street Journal
• GOP Health Care Plan Aims For Universal Health Care In The Private Market – CBS News
• GOP offers preemptive health plan – Politico

Coburn gets right to the heart of the matter this pork stuffed crap sandwich “will not only fail to stimulate the economy, but could seriously delay economic recovery.”

As the Senate considers a massive $1.1 trillion stimulus bill, it is vital that the American people ask hard questions of their elected officials. When they do, it will become very clear that the bill will not only fail to stimulate the economy, but could seriously delay economic recovery.

As a nation, we got into this mess by spending and investing money that didn’t exist. We won’t get out of it by doing more of the same.

Yet this is precisely what this bill proposes we do. Less than 10% of the bill could be considered true stimulus, if one assumes tax credits and infrastructure spending will jolt the economy. The other 90% of the bill represents one of the most egregious acts of generational theft in our nation’s history, with taxpayer money going to special-interest earmarks, an ill-conceived bailout to states, and permanent spending increases that expand government’s reach in areas like health care and education.

Coburn also highlights a wide array of wasteful and non-stimulus spending and questionable policy provisions on his web site:

Wasteful and Non-Stimulus Spending Provisions

• $2 billion earmark to re-start FutureGen, a near-zero emissions coal power plant in Illinois that the Dept. of Energy defunded last year because the project was inefficient
• A $246 million tax break for Hollywood movie producers to buy motion picture film
• $650 million for the digital television (DTV) converter box coupon program
• $88 million for the Coast Guard to design a new polar icebreaker (arctic ship)
• $448 million for constructing the Dept. of Homeland Security headquarters
• $248 million for furniture at the new Dept. of Homeland Security headquarters
• $600 million to buy hybrid vehicles for federal employees
• $400 million for the CDC to screen and prevent STD’s
• $1.4 billion for a rural waste disposal programs
• $150 million for Smithsonian museum facilities
• $1 billion for the 2010 Census, which has a projected cost overrun of $3 billion
• $75 million for “smoking cessation activities”
• $200 million for public computer centers at community colleges
• $75 million for salaries of employees at the FBI
• $25 million for tribal alcohol and substance abuse reduction
• $10 million to inspect canals in urban areas
• $6 billion to turn federal buildings into “green” buildings
• $500 million for state and local fire stations
• $650 million for wildland fire management on Forest Service lands
• $150 million for Smithsonian museum facilities
• $1.2 billion for “youth activities,” including youth summer job programs
• $88 million for renovating the headquarters of the Public Health Service
• $412 million for CDC buildings and property
• $500 million for building and repairing NIH facilities in Bethesda, MD
• $160 million for “paid volunteers” at the Corporation for National and Community Service
• $5.5 million for “energy efficiency initiatives” at the VA “National Cemetery Administration”
• $850 million for Amtrak
• $100 million for reducing the hazard of lead-based paint
• $75M to construct a new “security training” facility for State Dept Security officers when they can be trained at existing facilities of other agencies.
• $110 million to the Farm Service Agency to upgrade computer systems
• $200 million in funding for the lease of alternative energy vehicles for use on military installations.
• State Medicaid Bailout: $87.7 billion Through 3 different mechanisms, the bill would provide additional federal funds to state Medicaid programs over the next 3 years. This is nearly $70 billion more than the governors asked President Obama for in December, and should be a loan to be repaid by the states.

Questionable Policy

• Eliminates fees on loans from the Small Business Administration, thus pushing private capital toward unproductive businesses and away from productive businesses.
• Increases the definition of “youth” for certain summer job programs from age 21 to age 24.
• $160 million to the Job Corps program at the Dept. of Labor, but not for job programs – rather, to construct, alter or repair buildings.
• Requires a government study on the impact of minimum wage laws on the Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa.
• $79 billion State Fiscal Stabilization (slush) Fund to bailout the States by providing billions of dollars for “education” costs of any kind.
• $47.843 billion is appropriated for a variety of energy programs that are primarily focused on renewable energy development and energy conservation/efficiency. Not one dollar is appropriated to make fossil fuels more affordable in the near future. More than $6 billion of these funds go to environmental clean ups.
• Increases eligibility for “weatherization” assistance to households 200 percent above the poverty level.
• The “Making Work Pay” credit of $500 to every individual making less than $75,000 (or $1000 to couples making $150,000 or less) would pay people whether they are productive or not – akin to welfare.
• The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP – food stamps) would temporarily suspend the 3-month limit for non-working adults to receive SNAP benefits, thus giving incentives not to find a job.
• Installs government as the creator of broadband deployment regardless of whether the specific local/regional market can sustain it.
• Funds new “green jobs” job-training program without eliminating inefficient job-training programs or consolidating duplicative job-training programs.
• $890 million to the Social Security Administration without any provisions to reduce improper payments, or any plan to increase solvency of the trust fund.
• Nothing requires the products that are purchased with these funds be here in America. Lithium ion batteries, for instance, are primarily made in Asia.

I’m not opposed to the government taking steps to jump start the economy, but the bill Democrats are proposing is a pork laden 40 year wish list of democratic spending and policy priorities masquerading as a “stimulus bill”.

We have to face reality… We have never spent our out of a recession and we’re not going to do it this time. The only thing this bill will do is add a trillion dollars to the deficit and saddle our children and grand children with a debts they can’t repay.