Just after 1 a.m. this morning, the United States Senate voted to end debate on the health care reform bill that will create $2.5 trillion in new spending, will burden states with hundreds of millions of dollars in unfunded Medicaid mandates, and generates myriad new taxes for you and your employer.

While Hoosiers were sleeping and he thought no one was paying attention, Sen. Evan Bayh was the 60th vote that Democrats needed to move the bill forward. Had he opposed it, the process would be slowed down so Democrats could explain what they are doing with their legislation. Instead, his vote helped speed up the process. A vote for final passage has already been set for Christmas Eve.

What a Christmas gift: the Democrats handing out your tax dollars!

Democrats continue to push this bill as quickly as possible so that Americans have no chance to learn about the consequences until it is too late. And even though he complained to reporters last week about out-of-control federal spending, Evan Bayh has now voted twice to move this massive spending bill forward.

Time is ticking away, but Evan Bayh can still stand with Hoosiers and oppose this bill. Please call or e-mail Sen. Bayh before Christmas Eve and tell him to oppose this bill that will greatly damage our economy and our health care.

Bayh is a Hypocrite

Just last week, Bayh sent a mass email to voters saying he was “Fed Up With Spending.” In it, he even praised Ronald Reagan!

Bayh is a hypocrite masquerading as a fiscal conservative Republican by supporting Democratic health care reform that collects taxes from you starting in 2010. Not until 2014 will Uncle Sam start handling out health care entitlements. Ironically, now that Democrat-style health care reform is closer to reality, Bayh’s position as a “debt-fighter” precedes Democrats’ one-track mind of raising your taxes.

Democrats say Republicans offer no solutions, however, the Dems argue taxes and nanny-state government is the solution. The trouble is, bigger government brings more corruption — and events like an extremely rare Christmas Eve vote.

Sen. Evan Bayh
Washington – (202) 224-5623
Indianapolis – (317) 554-0750
Hammond – (219) 852-2763
South Bend – (574) 236-8302
Ft. Wayne – (260) 426-3151
Evansville – (812) 465-6500
Jeffersonville – (812) 218-2317

Or click here to send Sen. Bayh an e-mail.

The Democrats are fighting hard for robbing from the rich and enslaving the poor with a welfare state for everyone. When are you going to speak up and against the Democrats?

Check out excerpts from this mass email from the Democratic National Committee:

Democratic senators are currently fighting hard alongside the President to pass reform. They deserve our appreciation. Republicans are still trying to score partisan points rather than stand up for American families.

If we don’t pass health reform, millions of Americans will be trapped in a broken status quo. … There’s too much at stake not to get this done. That’s why Obama For America supporters have made 849,856 calls to Congress in support of health reform since August.

As a Republican, it is your duty to make the call, to speak out, and to share your disgust for the Democrats strong-arming you, your prosperity, and your well-being.

It appears that the U.S. Senate will vote to close debate on its version of federal health care reform as early as this weekend. Whether or not you have contacted your senators previously, now is the time for you to consider contacting both of your senators  and encourage them to continue debate and to improve the legislation.

It is difficult to overstate the negative implications of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) proposal. According to the Congressional Budget Office, this legislation – if enacted – will have a significant, negative impact on the cost and nature of coverage. The administration’s chief actuary for Medicare and Medicaid Services has determined that if the Senate health care bill became law, it would increase national health care spending more than if we did nothing (which is simply not an option). Additional analysis concurs with these assessments and further indicates that Sen. Reid’s proposal will likely lead to higher premiums without reducing the growth in underlying health care costs.

A new Washington Post-ABC News poll indicates that 53% of Americans understand that their personal costs will increase under this proposal and only 37% believe that their personal health care will improve under this legislation. The Senate needs to set aside this version of health care reform and construct a proposal that has broad and deep public support.

The current legislation does not meet the goals of responsible, sustainable reform that lowers costs and increases access and Congress needs to hear from individuals who are concerned about the consequences of well-intended but flawed reforms.

While I continue to support health care reform, I cannot support reform that fails to address the cost and quality issues in our health care delivery system and undermines the bipartisan consensus for responsible and sustainable reform.

The holiday season is a busy time for all.

Now is the time to get involved today.

The Senate needs to hear from you and time is short. (faxing is a great option)

 Senator Richard Lugar

http://lugar.senate.gov/contact/

senator_lugar@lugar.senate.gov

306 Hart Senate Office Building

Washington, D.C.  20510-1401

(202) 224-4814

(202) 228-0360 fax

Senator Evan Bayh

http://bayh.senate.gov/contact/

131 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
(202) 224-5623
(202) 228-1377 fax

Today, Congressman Mike Pence released a video statement urging Americans to “Let Your Voice Be Heard” in speaking out against the Pelosi health care plan — an amalgam of three different House plans — that the Speaker of the House unveiled last week.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CT7xfoSiH5Q

The chart to the right, courtesy of CBS News, shows where we are on the crooked, winding path down the road to a socialist nanny state. And if you thought your elected officials were looking out for you, think again. Health care reform will swallow one-sixth of the U.S. economy and likely result in higher taxes for 46 million middle-class Americans.

Have a look yourself at the 1,990-page piece of legislation.

Also, we have posted a link to Contact My Congressman with all the info you need to tell your Senators and Congressman that government-run health care is a bad deal for America. Our children and grandchildren simply can’t afford it.

Links

• Transcript of Mike Pence’s Video Statement
• CBS News: Health Care Progress Report: November 2
• Pelosi House Bill, Oct. 29, 2009. 1,990 pp. (PDF)

With experience in both the healthcare delivery industry and in the healthcare finance industry, Dr. Brian Jacobs shares with the Madison County GOP his insight on Obamacare, also known as HR3200.

Like most Americans, I have spent this August reading and thinking about healthcare. However, unlike most Americans, this is what I have been doing for most of my adult life.

Not surprisingly, however, the rhetoric doesn’t match the reality, the “talking points” too often miss the real point, and ultimately, HR3200 doesn’t address the fundamental defects in American healthcare finance.

So just what are those defects?

There are three basic structural problems in our healthcare non-system. Any “reform” that fails to address them won’t improve matters, and might make things worse.

1. Americans want the best healthcare someone else’s money will buy

MORAL HAZARD is a term economists use to describe the phenomenon that it is easier to spend someone else’s money than your own. I think of it as “free pizza syndrome.” Most people would eat a different amount of pizza when it is “free” than when it costs $5 per slice, and healthcare too often approximates free pizza as far as the eye can see. This causes overconsumption, because at the margin while the utility of consuming additional or higher-tech units of healthcare may be small, the costs to the user are smaller still, and in some cases, $0. If consumers have more “skin in the game” they will be more prudent with their consumption.

For an example, let us consider Smith and Jones. Smith has a health plan with a small deductible of $100 a co-pay of $10 for office visits and prescriptions. Jones has a $5000 deductible, and is responsible for the full cost below that deductible (naturally, Jones’ health plan is FAR less expensive than Smith’s).

Let’s say that one day both Smith and Jones wake up with a cough and a sniffle…symptoms that often resolve on their own in 3 or 4 days if left untreated. It only costs Smith $10 to run to the doctor, but it might cost Jones $100. Who is more likely to consume healthcare of marginal utility?

To continue the example, assume that 4 days have passed, and both Smith and Jones go to see Doc Williams who tells each one that he has sinusitis, and would benefit from an antibiotic. Doc Williams explains that Drug A works 50% of the time and costs $10 and drug B works 90% of the time and costs $90. Jones, who will have to pay the full cost of the drug unless he has already met his deductible, might well try drug A. Smith, whose co-pay is the same for each drug would be foolish not to choose drug B.

Further, let’s say that each goes on to develop a fever, and Doc Williams suggests a test to rule out pneumonia. Again, let’s say Doc Williams presents two options: a chest x-ray that detects pneumonia 90% of the time and costs $100, and a chest CT scan that detects pneumonia 99% of the time and costs $500. Jones might well prefer the cheaper plain x-ray. It would be rational for Smith, however, since his co-pay is $10 either way, to prefer the CT scan.

Granted, there are medical services like major surgeries and chemotherapy, which are relatively demand inelastic to price. But in the USA, there are thousands of choices every day like the ones faced by Smith and Jones, and the aggregate cost of our incentive to over-consume is staggering.

Any reform that does not, through proper incentives, put some brakes on the bus will not control costs and is doomed to fail.

2. PERVERSE INCENTIVES

Most healthcare expenses are now paid for by third parties to the transaction like Medicare or private insurance companies. The prices in healthcare are often set by those third parties and they are FIXED. That means that the payment is the same regardless of the quality, service, convenience, experience, or value offered. What is the effect of this policy? Basically, it means that the only financial incentive for those who sell healthcare is volume. And if we create a financial engine that rewards only volume, what is it we expect the machine will produce?

Think of it this way. Let’s say that cars were paid for by third party payers, and just like in healthcare, the payment was fixed regardless of the car or its condition, miles, or features. According to the third party payers, a car is a car is a car. Well, if you sell cars in such a world, are you going to sell rusty ’93 Yugos or shiny new Cadillacs? Or might you just stop selling cars and sell tractors instead?

Clearly, we want more from healthcare than just price. We also want good quality, good service, better convenience, and more innovation. And experience tells us that if we want those things, then the appropriate incentives must be in place.

Any reform that does not repair this basic defect will not decrease utilization and will not improve quality.

3. ADMINISTRATIVE COSTS

Remember those third party payers? How do those who sell healthcare get paid by those payers? They must file claims, either electronically, or on paper. There are two complex sets of codes with which doctors and hospitals try to describe each service provided and condition treated. The healthcare event must be translated into these codes, entered into the proper communication media, and sent to the payer. The payer has to decipher the codes, re-translate them, make a payment determination, send an Explanation of Benefits (EOB) form to the insured and an EOB and usually a check to the vendor. The vendor then must, often 60 or more days after the original episode of care, send the patient a bill for any amount for which the patient is still responsible according to his benefits. Whew.

Oh, and about 20% of claims are rejected, challenged, lost, or delayed. Then the whole process starts over.

Obviously, this is a slow, frustrating, tedious, labor-intensive, and expensive process. And it doesn’t much matter whether the claim is filed with Medicare or Anthem, the process is about the same.

Imagine if we bought oranges in the same way we buy healthcare. First, the consumer wouldn’t know the price of the orange before he would buy it, because neither the consumer nor the grocer knows the price as determined by the orange insurance company or Orangicare. And if the grocer had to have a staff of people to correctly code the orange sold, file claims, send out bills, and so forth, do you think that oranges would be more or less expensive than they are now?

The AMA estimates that the costs of claims filing to be in excess of $210 BILLION annually. To update Sen. Everett Dirksen for the age of TARP, “A hundred billion here, a hundred billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money.”

Any reform that doesn’t at least attempt to deal with this problem is like just resigning ourselves as a nation to toss $200 Billion a year into a blast furnace.

Unfortunately, nobody is really talking about these big problems, and certainly none of them are fixed by HR3200.

So how could healthcare be fixed? There is more than one way to skin a cat, but here is one idea:

We must unleash the power of the most potent economic force the world has ever known: the American consumer. We must first put the consumer’s skin in the game to encourage prudent consumption. But that alone is insufficient. We must empower the consumer to comparison shop like she does for everything else she buys. Prices must be 100% transparent, and known to buyer and seller before the transaction just like every other industry. Consumers should have tools to help them gauge healthcare quality…tools like consumer feedback ratings and expert reviews and statistics. We must engage consumers in their health and in their healthcare purchases.

And as a side benefit, a system in which buyers and sellers both know the price ahead of the transaction, and in which most routine transactions would occur under the deductible and would be paid for by the consumer with a debit card linked to an HSA, we could dramatically decrease transaction and administrative costs by eliminating the need for most claims.

Such reform wouldn’t cost the taxpayer $1 Trillion. It would expand, not reduce, healthcare freedom for most Americans. It would improve quality. It would decrease administrative costs. And all without adding a single new government office or bureaucrat.

The uninsured, you ask? In point of fact, that problem isn’t one of the biggest three facing American healthcare. But it is the subject of my next column.

– Dr. Brian Jacobs

Republicans are listening carefully to America’s needs and responding with a workable solution for health care reform that works for all Americans.

What Republicans Want

• Reform that controls health care costs, preserves quality, and allows families and their doctors to make the ultimate decisions
• Access for all Americans to affordable treatment and let those who prefer their current coverage keep it
• Affordable and accessible health care for all Americans, regardless of pre-existing conditions
• Propose letting small businesses join together to purchase benefits packages for their employees at more affordable prices — just as unions are allowed to do
• Open up interstate commerce that would make hundreds of insurance companies compete for your business
• Tort reform that ends frivolous lawsuits that drive up health care costs and clog the judicial system

What Obama & Democrats Want

• Federal bureaucrats (including czars?) in charge of health care decisions that affect you
• A system exceeding $1 trillion in cost and still leaving 36 million Americans without health insurance, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates
• Millions of Americans driven from private plans to public plans where they would receive less coverage, effectively “spreading the health around” to the uninsured, including illegal aliens

And to pay for it …

• A sin tax on soft drinks and salty foods and a surtax on small business
• New taxes on health care benefits that Americans receive
• Higher taxes on the middle class — absolutely necessary for socialized medicine

Why do Americans cling to their outdated and inefficient system?

• We spend more per capita and get worse results than most of the industrialized world.
• The growth in expenditure each year is greater than the rate of inflation.
• And we keep spending more even though we get poor results.

We don’t pay for quality, but for quantity. Why do we reward failure?

The entrenched interests that oppose reform are the villains in this story, and do a great disservice to the nation. Yes, it is time to reform our educational system.

And this, by Penn and Teller …

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqhB8kY_E8o

Of the three House bills and the one Senate version of Obama’s health care reform, all mandate that a government public health insurance plan compete against private insurers, which would effectively run them out of business. Instead, we need consumer choice based on patients’ rights and with the competition of free markets. At the very least, we need a bipartisan solution instead of socialized medicine.

Call your Senators and Congressman to let them know your stance on Pres. Obama’s version of health care reform.

U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh (D)

Bayh’s position: Fiscally responsible health care reform that will not increase the federal deficit or raise taxes.

Let Sen. Bayh know he must take a firmer stance against the current House and Senate plans that are void of any bipartisan input or support.

Contact

• Send Sen. Bayh an Email
• Indianapolis Office
  Call (317) 554-0750
• Washington, D.C. Office
  Call (202) 224-5623

Suggested Statement

Please let Senator Bayh know that as a Hoosier I want my Senator to vote NO against President Obama’s Health Care Plan. The President’s plan is too costly, and I do not want the Government in control of my health care. Any of my personal health decisions need to be between my doctor, my family, and me.

U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar (R)

Lugar’s position: An ailing economy is the wrong time for costly health care remedies.

Let’s support Sen. Lugar in taking the right position against the Democrats’ health care cure-all.

Contact

• Send Sen. Lugar an Email
• Indianapolis Office
  Call (317) 226-5555
• Washington, D.C. Office
  Call (202) 224-4814

Suggested Statement

Please let Senator Lugar know that as a Hoosier I support my Senator’s stand against President Obama’s Health Care Plan. The President’s plan is too costly, and I do not want the Government in control of my health care. Any of my personal health decisions need to be between my doctor, my family, and me.

U.S. Rep. Mike Pence, Indiana 6th District (R)

Pence’s position: A government option that competes with private sector insurance could lead to socialized medicine.

Let’s support Congressman Pence in his position that health care reform is important, but the nation’s focus should be on jobs and the economy.

Contact

• Send Congressman Pence an Email
• Anderson Office
  Call (765) 640-2919
• Washington, D.C. Office
  Call (202) 225-3021

Suggested Statement

Please let Congressman Pence know that as a constituent of his district I support him in opposing President Obama’s Health Care Plan. The President’s plan is too costly, and I do not want the Government in control of my health care. Any of my personal health decisions need to be between my doctor, my family, and me.

Email for the Fastest Response

For the quickest response, please correspond with your Senators and Congressmen using email. Note that postal mail can take approximately 3-4 weeks for delivery, due to security procedures. Mail sent via Fed Ex, UPS or overnight delivery also requires security procedures and takes about five days to arrive.

When Ronald Reagan was a private citizen, he spoke out against socialized medicine in this compelling 1961 recording from a campaign conducted by the American Medical Association (AMA).

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRdLpem-AAs

Reagan and the Operation Coffee Cup Campaign