Health Care Bill Restrictions Kill 60 Hospital Projects

The recent so-called "health care reform" bill, which in reality didn't so much reform "health care" as to addressing the high cost of care but in reality was a big government shuffling of the health care "insurance" and "pre-paid care" business is already working to limit the supply of hospitals.

Here are some excerpts from an article at CNSNEWS.com today whose site was most unavailable after The Drudge Report posted a link:

The new health care overhaul law, which promised increased access and efficiency in health care, will prevent doctor-owned hospitals from adding more rooms and more beds, says a group that advocates physician involvement in every aspect of health care delivery.

Physician-owned hospitals are advertised as less bureaucratic and more focused on doctor-patient decision making. However, larger corporate hospitals say doctor-owned facilities discriminate in favor of high-income patients and refer business to themselves.

The new health care rules single out such hospitals, making new physician-owned projects ineligible to receive payments for Medicare and Medicaid patients.

Existing doctor-owned hospitals will be grandfathered in to get government funds for patients but must seek permission from the Department of Health and Human Services to expand.

To get the department’s permission, a doctor-owned hospital must be in a county where population growth is 150 percent of the population growth of the state in the last five years; inpatient admissions must be equal to all hospitals located in the county; the bed-occupancy rate must not be greater than the state average, and the hospital must be located in a state where hospital bed capacity is less than the national average.

The rules fall under Title VI, Section 6001 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The provision is titled “Physician Ownership and Other Transparency – Limitations on Medicare Exceptions to the Prohibition on Certain Physician Referral for Hospitals.”

More than 60 doctor-owned hospitals across the country that were in the development stage will be canceled, said Molly Sandvig, executive director of Physician Hospitals of America (PHA).

The article goes on to talk about nurse to patient ratios, the employment impact of doctor-owned hospitals and how corporatist interests have been working to limit the suppy of them:

The organization says physician-owned hospitals have higher patient satisfaction, greater control over medical decisions for patients and doctor, better quality care and lower costs. Further, physician-owned hospitals have an average 4-1 patient-to-nurse ratio, compared to the national average of 8-1 for general hospitals.

Further, these 260 doctor-owned hospitals in 38 states provide 55,000 jobs, $2.4 billion in payroll and pay $509 million in federal taxes, according to the PHA.

In one ironic aspect, President Barack Obama’s two largest legislative achievements clashed. The Hammond Community Hospital in North Hammond, Ind., got $7 million in bond money from the federal stimulus act in 2009. It will likely be scrapped because of the new rules on physician-owned hospitals, according to the Post-Tribune newspaper in Merrillville, Ind.

Doctor-owned hospitals have long been a target of the American Hospital Association, which represents corporate-owned hospitals as well as non-profit hospitals.

This is the kind of action on the part of government that limits competition and innovation rather than encouraging it. At the same time, if patients took more control of their health care dollars and decisions they might be more apt to shop around. Historically, people have just submitted themselves to the doctor's directions rather than asking if there are any less expensive options. We also have an issue where doctors are limited in which hospitals they may provide services at, this further limits patient choices in ways that may or may not be appropriate but might be understandable from a hospital administration perspective. The problem is that often the doctors can't tell you what the full price will be for any kind of procedure ... hardly anyone ever asks apparently.

In short, the whole health care delivery system needs to overhauled; but, massive government regulation and red tape stand in the way. Instead of getting less red tape, Congress just gave us a bunch more. Once again, taking the country in the wrong direction.

This gentlemen, is my profound conviction: I believe we are at this moment sleeping on a volcano.

The political dialogue in America is starting to get riotous. But to highlight the justness of those opposing ever larger government, consider the following:

You must first understand that people have a natural right to their life, property and freedom and that this is regardless of the protection of any formal legal framework ... these are inherent rights that you have as a human being. And that no action or inaction on the part of one person should create a liability on the part of any other unless they have voluntarily contracted to be responsible. For example, if my neighbor falls off the roof of his house and breaks his arm, what part of his medical bill should I be forced to pay for? If I am in a car accident and in a wheelchair for life, what part of my lifetime care should YOU be now FORCED to pay for? Would it be okay if I came to your house with a gun and forcibly demanded or took the money? Is it okay if I get someone else to do it on my behalf? Is it okay if they have a badge when they do it?

In any group of ten people, not even six (a majority) or nine has the right to take away any other's life, property or freedom except as just compensation for damages created by someone first violating one's rights. (ie: you can't take somebody's property away except as compensation for some harm they have first done to you and even then only with due process of law). So, even if you mean to do great things with someone else's money, it gives you no right to forcibly extract it from them (taxes, for example, are government force: threat of confiscation of your property, threat of violence, threat of destruction of your life, career, reputation, family or revocation of your freedom.)

The Health Care debate is bringing thousands of people out of the wood work to fight back against ever encroaching government control of our lives and our economy. Most people don't know the difference between Health Insurance or "prepaid Healthcare". Health insurance is typically intended for those things that might happen just like auto insurance is in case you have an accident. Auto insurance doesn't cover keeping the car operating well, replacing the tires or changing the oil. Nor can you get auto insurance to cover an accident AFTER you've had the accident (that is a pre-existing condition).

Prepaid healthcare is just that. You're prepaying ahead of time (generally as part of a collective group who have volunteered to participate in a plan) for your doctor visits, shots, prescriptions, eye glasses or whatever else. A third party typically administers the program and that third party has their own needs to pay staff, have computer systems and offices and earn a profit. Thus, you're paying somebody else to 'take the bet' that you'll, on average, spend less in health care than you are paying them to cover on your behalf.

Very few know the tax preferences to employers, that Democrats regularly and routinely have voted down giving tax incentives for medical savings accounts to citizens or that Congress actually mandated HMOs in the 1970s. Few know that Democrats have blocked attempts for years to increase competition for health insurance which would have lowered costs. Few consider the employer provided health coverage was at one time a "benefit" used to lure the best talent to such employer and the practice generally spread, via the free market competition for labor resources, to the point where now everyone expects somebody else to pick up and cover their medical bills.

Few understand that government provided healthcare currently doesn't pay market rates and this transfers the shortfall and additional administrative expense to the rest of us. Or that when there is less money to be made as a doctor or in inventing some new life saving drug, there will, indeed, be fewer of them to help us. Senator Jim Demint recently commented that this cost transfer increases everyone's health care costs by as much as 33%.

This issue is very complex and demands an understanding of history, technological advance, the regulatory environment, economics and human nature. I trust very few of our elected popularity contest winners, who are constantly besieged by lobbyists, special interests or the "rationally greedy" (as my friend Matt Nettleton recently pointed out) to be educated and principled enough to properly put all of these things in perspective. This is not because they are unintelligent; but, perhaps more so because a main reason for keeping government small and unobtrusive is that the free market always works better at absorbing and responding to these things than any one individual could ever possibly orchestrate from on high. Central planning doesn't work, just ask the U.S.S.R ... oh, you can't now. It is unfair to expect our politicians to be 'omniscient experts in everything' and able to foresee and correct for all unintended consequences.

The two things that have skyrocketed in cost over the past few decades are education and health care. Both things that government is deeply involved in not only via policy, but via subsidy. Do you really think a college education could cost what it does today if the government didn't subsidize people mortgaging their future with low interest, guaranteed loans? Do we really think government complexity, regulation and massive reliance on third-party payers has lowered the cost?

My initial thought in going down this path was this. Those who do not wish their rights taken away by out of control government and its elected, appointed or 'hired bureaucrat' representatives are starting to stir, and I am reminded of this great excerpt from a speech given by Alexis De Tocqueville in 1848.

...I am told that there is no danger because there are no riots; I am told that, because there is no visible disorder on the surface of society, there is no revolution at hand.

Gentlemen, permit me to say that I believe you are deceiving yourselves. True, there is no actual disorder; but it has entered deeply into men's minds. See what is passing in the breast of the working classes, who, I grant are at present quiet. No doubt they are not disturbed by political passion, properly so-called, to the same extent that they have been; but can you not see that their passions, instead of political, have become social? Do you not see that there are gradually forming in their breasts opinions and ideas which are destined not only to upset society itself, until it totters upon the foundations on which it rests to-day? Do you not listen to what they say to themselves each day? Do you not hear them repeating unceasingly that all that is above them is incapable and unworthy of governing them ... And do you not realize that when such opinions take root, when they spread in an almost universal manner, when they sink deeply into the masses, they are bound to bring with them sooner or later, I know not when nor how, a most formidable revolution?

This, gentlemen, is my profound conviction: I believe that we are at this moment sleeping on a volcano. I am profoundly convinced of it.

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as an addendum - please see the following link to see an example of the increasing tensions:

http://hoosieraccess.com/blog/2009/08/07/seiu-thugs-attack-black-conservative/