What has made this sort of control possible is the advent of electronic medical records (EMR). With most EMR systems it is possible to data mine and extract patient non-compliance/compliance and monitor physician adherence to best-practice protocols for many conditions and preventative measures. For example, it is possible for these systems to monitor what percentage of a physician’s patients are getting colonoscopies, flu vaccines, mammograms, etc. and with the percentage comes a list of compliant and non-compliant individuals. It is with these lists that non-compliant individuals are beginning to be hounded on a never-ending basis to comply or else. This is because physicians fear economic and even possible professional retribution from state medical boards and the government if their numbers aren’t high enough.
We ain’t there yet, but this could be down the road a piece.
I had to take a child to the doctor for some vision issues, and when he had to do a digital retinal scan for diagnosis, I realized this stored info could be used to identify her later on…creepy.
Just a Communist form of control without the name. I think that’s what the whole business is about…taking over the auto industry, socialized medicine, we already have forced school integration, abortion rights, gay rights and women’s rights - except, women are finding out they are not going to have unlimited rights in the health care department. Denying us mammograms once a year will be drastic for women who may have breast cancer, but must wait a year to get screened.
Having been in the military and experienced total government-managed medicine, I am very much against socialized medicine, not to mention the Constitutional problems with it. That said, it is a sad twist that we women are being manipulated into protesting this monster by the fear of less mammograms. A woman’s chance of breast cancer goes UP 2% for every mammogram she receives. It is not a detection issue. The radiating and trauma to the breast are now known to cause more problems than they detect. Further, there IS a harmless screening that truly DOES detect very early breast cancer that has been largely unavailable to women in the US: thermography, which does not radiate the breast at all.
Granted, the alternative health industry may be the next area to be co-opted by the global beast - all beneficial movements are or will be - but for now we can still usually search out better treatment methods than the AMA/“elected” officials in the pharmaceutical pocket (many congressmen own stock in drug manufacturing and war industries) want to allow as legal AND be covered by insurance. Sometimes the powers-that-be pretend to forbid the very thing they’d like to shove down our throats.
[ Edited: 27 November 2009 10:21 AM by kinswoman ]
Change Nobody Believes In
A bill so reckless that it has to be rammed through on a partisan vote on Christmas eve.
The rushed, secretive way that a bill this destructive and unpopular is being forced on the country shows that “reform” has devolved into the raw exercise of political power for the single purpose of permanently expanding the American entitlement state. An increasing roll of leaders in health care and business are looking on aghast at a bill that is so large and convoluted that no one can truly understand it, as Finance Chairman Max Baucus admitted on the floor last week. The only goal is to ram it into law while the political window is still open, and clean up the mess later.
Unnoticed by the press corps, the Congressional Budget Office argued recently that the Senate bill would so “substantially reduce flexibility in terms of the types, prices, and number of private sellers of health insurance” that companies like WellPoint might need to “be considered part of the federal budget.”
My personal emotional reaction is to a) become somewhat depressed, and b) try to figure out ways around this. But then again, my personal responses have never been indicative of the responses of red-blooded men…
Yes,... some have used the tactic of pretended willingness to comply where possible (to some meaningless bureaucratic red tape), while dragging things on and on and on, with usually satisfying results.
The Amish, as well as some other religious sects, are covered by a “religious conscience” exemption, which allows people with religious objections to insurance to opt out of the mandate. It is in both the House and Senate versions of the bill, making its appearance in the final version routine unless there are last-minute objections.
