Radio America Online News Bureau

Healthcare

High Tech Help for Veterans’ Health

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Listen to “High Tech Help for Veterans” on Spreaker.

Veterans are still facing long wait times to see doctors at some VA facilities. Those long wait times can mean worse illnesses and injuries.

Of particular concern are veterans who live hundreds of miles or more away from VA facilities and have a difficult time ever seeing a physician.

Now the VA, American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars are teaming up with Philips North America for a pilot program to allow veterans to engage doctors through telehealth technologies and also benefit from artificial intelligence in the medical community.

In this podcast, Philips North America CEO Vitor Rocha explains how this partnership began and how it will work. He also explains the benefits of telehealth and what data will be reviewed from the pilot program to see if it will be expanded.

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Dems Launch ‘Medicare for All’ Push

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Listen to “Dems Launch ‘Medicare for All’ Push” on Spreaker.

House Democrats are launching a serious effort to create a single-payer health care system branded as ‘Medicare for All,’ but a leading health care policy expert says the idea is a Utopian fantasy that is unaffordable and will lead to far worse care.

Galen Institute President Grace-Marie Turner joined experts from multiple perspectives testifying Tuesday before the House Rules Committee.  Chairman James McGovern is an enthusiastic supporter of eliminating private health insurance and tasking the federal government with running health care on the U.S.

“People aren’t going to lose their healthcare with Medicare for All.  You would actually get to keep your doctors and go to the hospitals you currently have.  The only difference is you wouldn’t have to deal with insurance companies,” said McGovern.

Turner told McGovern we’ve heard promises before about keeping doctors that were not true.

But while three House committees are pushing forward on Medicare for All, Turner says House Speaker Nancy Pelosi seems less convinced it is a good idea.

“Even Speaker Pelosi has been reluctant to get behind Medicare for All, I think because she sees how incredibly disruptive this would be to our health sector.  Everybody, except people in the VA and Indian Health Service, everybody else would lose their coverage.

“That means 173 million Americans with coverage through the workplace would lose their coverage.  People on Medicare would lose Medicare because this will be a new program replacing it.  People on Obamacare, people on the Children’s Health Insurance Plan; all of that would be wiped out,” said Turner.

In addition to imploring lawmakers to have less government involvement in the health care sector, Turner says a single payer program is impossible, with estimates suggesting a $32-38 trillion price tag over ten years.  She says Democrats are promising excellent care, quick access, and low costs and Medicare for All simply won’t achieve those goals.

“That’s not the way the world works.  Resources are limited.  Doctors will leave.  We can’t afford the Medicare program we have now.  In other countries, we see the vulnerable, people who are the sickest are the ones who are put at the back of the list for care.  That’s not the kind of system we want,” said Turner.

Listen to the full podcast to hear what Turner detail what life is like for patients in single payer systems and what approach she thinks would bring us quality, affordable, accessible care.

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Medicare for All = End of Health Care Choice

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Listen to “Medicare for All = End of Health Care Choice” on Spreaker.

House Democrats are now formally pushing the “Medicare for All Act of 2019,” which would put an end to private health insurance, but a leading health policy expert is warning that government-run health care is more of a nightmare than a dream come true when it comes to your health care options and access to prompt care.

Galen Institute President Grace-Marie Turner says this is the Democrats’ version of repeal and replace, noting they are not trying to shore up the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, but are instead blowing it up in favor of a government-run health system.  She says eliminating private health insurance only weakens the consumer.

“You wind up eliminating choice.  Your only choice is the plan that the government offers,” said Turner.

The plan Democrats say they all want is put all Americans into the Medicare program, which currently provides care for Americans 65-years-old and older.  But Turner says Medicare won’t look the same when you throw more than 300 million people into it.

“If you have all Americans on Medicare at rates that are often below the cost of physicians providing that care, you’re also going to change the program for 60 million Americans on Medicare, who are going to have a much harder time finding a physician to see them,” said Turner.

Turner says the program will essentially become Medicaid for All, meaning the poor reimbursement rates for physicians will lead to fewer doctors staying on the job and seeing fewer and fewer patients.  She says some doctors now only get a few cents for treating Medicaid patients.

If government-run care were to become law, Turner says lobbyists would be flooding Washington to make sure their particular treatment is covered.

“We think we have lobbyists here now.  Wait until everyone being paid in the health care system has to argue to have their service included in this one government-run plan,” said Turner.

Listen to the full podcast to hear Turner explain why hospitals could close for months at a time each year if the U.S. adopts a single-payer system and why cancer patients and other people with major health problems would suffer the most.

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Health Care: NYC to Pay for Care, House Dems Pursue Single Payer

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Listen to “Health Care: NYC to Pay for Care, House Dems Pursue Single Payer” on Spreaker.

Just days into 2019, Democrats are already making a their push for much more government involvement in health care.

In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio says his city will spend $100 million to cover the medical costs of 600,000 uninsured residents to primary care physicians and specialists.

De Blasio says his program is not insurance, so what is it? How much will it really cost, since even Democrats admit $100 million, won’t be enough? And what will the impact be a few years down the road?

Galen Institute President Grace-Marie Turner says New York City residents will encounter a very complicated system that will use a person’s income to determine what gets paid for by the city and what residents must take care of themselves.

Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, House Budget Committee Chairman John Yarmuth (D-Kent.) is asking the Congressional Budget Office to report on the impact of moving all healthcare costs onto the federal government.

Turner also says this move is proof that Obamacare, also known as the Affordable Care Act, is a failure and would add massive costs to taxpayers.

Listen to the full podcast to hear Turner’s full assessment of both endeavors and why more people are not really covered under Obamacare than had health insurance before that legislation took effect.

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Low Energy Trumps ‘American Gothic’, Radical Dem Agenda, Immigration Insanity

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Listen to “Low Energy Trumps ‘American Gothic’, Radical Dem Agenda, Immigration Insanity” on Spreaker.

Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America think President Trump did alright in his speech and agree that his presentation was better than the stiff stares of Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi.  They also shake their heads in wonder as more Democrats embrace huge tax increases and government-run health care and Jim breaks down the truly radical ideas contained in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal.  And speaking of the new congresswoman, Jim unleashes a fantastic rant after Ocasio-Cortez suggests on national television that the people trying to enter the U.S. illegally are more American than people who want a border wall.

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Martini Awards Part 4: Best Idea, Worst Idea, Boldest Tactic

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Listen to “Martini Awards Part 4: Best Idea, Worst Idea, Boldest Tactic” on Spreaker.

Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America embark on the second half of their six-episode saga known as the 2018 Three Martini Lunch Awards. Today, Jim and Greg offer up their selections for the best political idea, worst political idea, and boldest political tactics for 2018.

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‘It’s Whack Job Economics’

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Five Senate Democrats are now publicly endorsing a government-run, single-payer health care system in a sign the party is quickly rallying to that goal, however the idea promises to be a financial and regulatory nightmare that should compel Republicans to revisit the issue and get it right before the 2018 elections.

On Tuesday, Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, announced he would support the “Medicare for All” legislation sponsored by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont.

“It’s time to simplify health care and lower patients’ costs, and embrace Medicare for All,” said Merkley, who is now the fifth Senate Democrat to join the cause publicly.  In addition to Sanders, Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Cory Booker, D-N.J., are all co-sponsoring the bill.

In addition, roughly half the House Democrats are on board with the idea.

Heritage Foundation Senior Fellow Robert Moffit says the Democrats are making their moves now because Republicans failed to get their health care reforms passed in the Senate.

“The immediate reason is the abject failure of Senate Republicans – and it’s the Senate’s fault here – to enact a health care reform bill to repeal and at least partially replace Obamacare,” said Moffit.

“It has created a major health policy vacuum, so the liberals in Congress and elsewhere are ready to fill it, and they’re preparing now for a total government takeover of health care, which is a single-payer system,” said Moffit.

But while touting “Medicare for All” and health care as a right, Moffit says Americans should not miss what is really at stake here.

“What they are proposing is nothing short of a government monopoly over the financing and the delivery of health care,” said Moffit.  “Ultimately what this means is that politicians will be in direct charge of health policy.”

He says Democrats in 2017 are making the exact opposite promise that President Obama made in 2009 and 2010, only this time they would actually keep it.

“When Obama promised he would not take away your plan, that turned out to be false, especially if you were in the individual market.  Here the Democrats in the Senate – Warren, Sanders, Sen. Merkley, John Conyers in the House – they are telling you they are going to take away your health plan,” said Moffit.

With Medicare already in deep debt and staring at $33-44 trillion dollars in unfunded liabilities, Moffit says adding the rest of the nation to the program would require a major wallop to the wallets of taxpayers.

He says California is an important test case.  The state senate there has approved a single-payer plan that would result in a a spending hike of anywhere from 53-110 percent.

“Frankly, it’s whack job economics.  The Senate legislative analysts themselves say that this will require a 15 percent payroll tax,” said Moffit.

Moffit also took aim at Merkley’s assertion that having Medicare for everyone would somehow simplify the health care system.  He says the story of Medicare shows exactly the opposite.

“I think that Merkley is living in an alternative universe.  Anyone who has had to deal with Medicare, members of the medical profession are very familiar with it.  Medicare today is governed by tens of thousands of pages of rules, regulations, and guidelines and medical paperwork is eating up more and more of the time and energy and effort of physicians,” said Moffit.

“If you think that Medicare is a model of administrative efficiency or that Medicare is somehow simple, you’ve got to have rocks in your head.  you’re living on another planet.  Medicare is the Godzilla of government regulation,” said Moffit.

“It imposes enormous administrative costs on doctors, hospitals, clinics, and home health agencies, who have to bear the real costs of complying with Medicare’s regulatory systems,” said Moffit.

Moffit says this is also another clear signal of how far Democrats have moved to the left.

“They’re consumed by identity politics.  They’re eager to impose political correctness as part of an aggressive, counter-cultural agenda.  Now their economic agenda boils down to heavier taxation, higher spending, larger government programs, and even greater government control over our personal lives.  Frankly, if they want to have that debate, I’m ready to go,” said Moffit.

He says the key to foiling a complete government takeover of health care is for Republicans to roll up their sleeves and do health care legislation right this time.  He says failure is not an option.

“This is not an optional matter.  The individual market in the United States is in crisis.  They have no options here.  It’s not a question of what the hell they want to do, pardon me.  They have got to do their job.  If they don’t do their job, millions of Americans get hurt, especially the millions of middle class Americans who today do not get any subsidies whatsoever,” said Moffit.

“Congress has got to get its act together.  They have no choice,” he added.

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Sessions Supporters Rally, Healthcare Hypocrisy, Will Spicer Dance With Stars?

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America applaud Republicans for backing Attorney General Jeff Session even in the midst of President’s Trumps invective against him, including the warning from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley that there is no time left in 2017 to consider another person as attorney general. They express their continuing disgust as six Senate Republicans who voted to repeal Obamacare in 2015 refused to do so now. And they fume as former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor admits Republicans never believed they could repeal Obamacare if they took back control of Congress but used voter anger and expectations to win elections. Finally, rumors are swirling that former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer might join the cast of the ABC reality show, Dancing With the Stars.

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DC Gun Policy Shot Down, McCain’s Return, Hammers & DNC Hard Drives

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America applaud a federal appeals court for striking down the District of Columbia’s policy of requiring a “good reason” for allowing resident to conceal carry their guns.  They also welcome back John McCain and the start of the health care debate but lament how tough it will be to pass a good bill and McCain’s castigation of everyone for the Senate gridlock.  And they marvel at the lack of media coverage as a top IT expert for former DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and several other Democratic lawmakers is arrested for bank fraud while trying to leave the country and the FBI looks into hard drives demolished by hammers.

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GOP’s Healthcare Failure, Iran Deal Angst, Sessions Sanctions More Seizures

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America endure three bad martinis today as two more GOP Senators bail on the plan to overhaul Obamacare and a new effort to vote on a clean repeal is already in grave danger of failing.  They criticize President Trump for keeping Obama’s infamous Iran Nuclear Deal without giving his advisers enough time to develop a new policy.  Attorney General Jeff Sessions is another source of disappointment today as he declares his intention to increase the use of civil asset forfeiture, which allows the federal government to seize the property of suspected criminals — without charging them with a crime.

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