Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Another Viral E-mail

(Two days after I wrote the following, the Washington Post published its own critique of this e-mail at the following link:  http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2011/01/judges_letter_on_health_care.html.)

My wife received the following e-mail from a well-meaning friend today:

YOU ARE NOT GOING TO LIKE THIS:

ObamaCare Highlighted by Page Number

THE CARE BILL HB3200

THIS IS THE 2ND OFFICIAL WHO HAS OUTLINED THESE PARTS OF THE CARE BILL

Judge Kithil of Marble Falls,TX - HB3200 highlighted pages most egregious.

Please read this........ especially the reference to pages 58 & 59.

JUDGE KITHIL wrote:
  • Page 50/section 152: The bill will provide insurance to all non-U.S. residents, even if they are here illegally.  
  • Page 58 and 59: The government will have real-time access to an individual's bank account and will have the authority to make electronic fund transfers from those accounts.  
  • Page 65/section 164: The plan will be subsidized (by the government) for all union members, union retirees and for community organizations (such as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now - ACORN).  
  • Page 203/line 14-15: The tax imposed under this section will not be treated as a tax. (How could anybody in their right mind come up with that?)  
  • Page 241 and 253: Doctors will all be paid the same regardless of specialty, and the government will set all doctors' fees.  
  • Page 272. section 1145: Cancer hospital will ration care according to the patient's age.  
  • Page 317 and 321: The government will impose a prohibition on hospital expansion; however, communities may petition for an exception.  
  • Page 425, line 4-12: The government mandates advance-care planning consultations. Those on Social Security will be required to attend an "end-of-life planning" seminar every five years. (Death counseling..)  
  • Page 429, line 13-25: The government will specify which doctors can write an end-of-life order.

HAD ENOUGH???? Judge Kithil then goes on:

"Finally, it is specifically stated that this bill will not apply to members of Congress. Members of Congress are already exempt from the Social Security system, and have a well-funded private plan that covers their retirement needs. If they were on our Social Security plan, I believe they would find a very quick 'fix' to make the plan financially sound for their future."

Honorable David Kithil
Marble Falls, Texas

All of the above should give you the point blank ammo you need to support your opposition to Obamacare. Please send this information on to all of your email contacts.

*************************************************

This arrived with multi-colored highlighting, and I reluctantly decided to draw up a response for my wife's friend -- but I bet she doesn't send it to the person who sent her the e-mail in the first place.

* * *

First of all, this e-mail is nearly a year old. It refers to a bill, more properly designated as H.R. 3200 that was not passed. The bill that was passed is H.R. 3962 or H.R. 4872, as finally amended and sent to the President for signature. Many of the sections cited below, which misinterpret H.R. 3200 anyway, are not in the final law: The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

You can see how misleading this e-mail is, even about H.R. 3200, if you’ll check what the non-partisan PolitiFacts website said about H.R. 3200. The link is: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2009/jul/30/e-mail-analysis-health-bill-needs-check-/. Or check FactCheck.org (from the Annenberg Public Policy Center): http://www.factcheck.org/2009/08/twenty-six-lies-about-hr-3200/.

As for the existing law, The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-111publ148/pdf/PLAW-111publ148.pdf):

  • - Illegal immigrants are excluded from the rights and protections of the new law: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/22/us-healthcare-bill-illegal-immigrants.
  • - A search of the actual text of the law (see above link to the Government Printing Office) shows no mention of individual bank accounts or electronic funds transfers from individual bank accounts.
  • - The new health care law subsidizes the cost of health care for small employers (business and non-profit): http://money.cnn.com/2010/09/22/smallbusiness/health_reform_small_business/index.htm. There are no special provisions in the law that apply only to labor unions or their retirees. ACORN no longer exists.
  • - The suggestion that “Doctors will all be paid the same regardless of specialty, and the government will set all doctors' fees,” could not apply to the new health care law because it includes no public option (in which the federal government pays for services). Under the new law, it is the insurance companies, not the government, who decide what physicians are paid, and they are paid, not according to their specialty, but according to the services they provide. If this comment is aimed at the new law’s changes in Medicare (where the government does pay physicians), those reimbursement rates have been established and updated for 45 years, and are based, again, on specific services performed. And they don’t affect all doctors – only those who take Medicare patients. And although doctors, like all Americans, have different views about the new health care law, the American Medical Assn. supported the law, and you can get a realistic view of the law’s impact on doctors from the AMA’s booklet, “What Health Reform Means to Physicians and Patients”: http://www.ama-assn.org/ama1/pub/upload/mm/399/hsr-booklet.pdf.
  • - Sec. 3138 of the Act says that costs of cancer hospitals can be compared to those of other hospitals treating cancer patients, and their reimbursements reduced if there is a discrepancy. The intent is to treat hospitals fairly. And there is nothing to say that any reduction in reimbursements to cancer hospitals should be based on the age of patients or that cancer hospitals are required to ration their care in any way.
  • - Sec. 6001 of the Act limits hospital expansion, but only for hospitals owned (or invested in) by physicians who are referring so many of their Medicare patients as to require expansion of the hospital beyond its existing capacity. It’s a way of limiting certain physicians’ ability to make money by referring patients to their own hospitals. The section does not apply to all hospitals across the board.
  • - No version of health care reform ever mandated advance care (end-of-life) planning or advance directives. Early on, there was a provision to allow reimbursement to physicians when patients chose to have end-of-life discussions with their doctor, but that was removed from the bill. H.R. 3962 had this wording: “Sec. 240. Nothing in this section shall be construed (1) to require an individual to complete an advance directive or a physician’s order for life sustaining treatment or other end-of-life planning document; (2) to require an individual to consent to restrictions on the amount, duration, or scope of medical benefits otherwise covered under a qualified health benefits plan; or (3) to promote suicide, assisted suicide, euthanasia, or mercy killing.” The final text of The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act contains no wording at all about advance care (end-of-life) planning or advance directives.

So in the final analysis, there is little in this breathless e-mail that was true at the time it was sent, and virtually nothing in it is true now (1/19/11). But did any of the hundreds or thousands of people who forwarded it care? It fit their prejudiced opinions, and that was enough.

Health insurance reform may be found to be unconstitutional in the courts, and Congress may change it or even repeal it. But this critique, for all that it was attributed to a judge, does not point any real weaknesses that may presently exist in the law. It is just lies and inadvertent or intentional misunderstanding. And gullible people will unfortunately continue to be duped by it.