Obamacare Without Intent

Am I reading this right?

TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 63 > § 1347

Health care fraud

Whoever knowingly and willfully executes, or attempts to execute, a scheme or artifice —

(1) to defraud any health care benefit program; or

(2) to obtain, by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, any of the money or property owned by, or under the custody or control of, any health care benefit program,

in connection with the delivery of or payment for health care benefits, items, or services, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both. If the violation results in serious bodily injury (as defined in section 1365 of this title), such person shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both; and if the violation results in death, such person shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both.

Also:

-CITE-
18 USC Sec. 1347 01/05/2009

-EXPCITE-
TITLE 18 - CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE
PART I - CRIMES
CHAPTER 63 - MAIL FRAUD AND OTHER FRAUD OFFENSES

-HEAD-
Sec. 1347. Health care fraud

-STATUTE-
Whoever knowingly and willfully executes, or attempts to execute, a scheme or artifice -

(1) to defraud any health care benefit program; or

(2) to obtain, by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, any of the money or property owned by, or under the custody or control of, any health care benefit program,

in connection with the delivery of or payment for health care benefits, items, or services, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both. If the violation results in serious bodily injury (as defined in section 1365 of this title), such person shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both; and if the violation results in death, such person shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both.

-SOURCE-
(Added Pub. L. 104-191, title II, Sec. 242(a)(1), Aug. 21, 1996,
110 Stat. 2016.)

-End-

This is now amended thusly:

(b) INTENT REQUIREMENT FOR HEALTH CARE FRAUD.—Section
1347 of title 18, United States Code, is amended—
(1) by inserting "a)" before "Whoever knowingly"; and
(2) by adding at the end the following:
"(b) With respect to violations of this section, a person need not have actual knowledge of this section or specific intent to commit a violation of this section.".

Key part: "a person need not have ... specific intent to commit a violation of this section."

In other words, with the advent of Obamacare - a 906-page law - you can now be convicted and sentenced to prison for a violation of this 906 page law even though it is not shown you intended to do so.

Over nine hundred pages... people are going to violate some part of this nine-hundred-page law every day without intending to do so.

How many people have even read it?

How many people have even read the summary?

How many pages of federal laws are on the books? And, how many of those pages have you read? Do you even know when you are violating one of these laws?

They can come after anyone they want to. They have the legal authority; Congress passes these bills, and stupid (sly?) Presidents sign them into law.

You might want to review my previous post and see what this could mean.

Obama/Ayers Plan Being Implemented?

I watch this, and I wonder if it could be true. It sure looks like it could be...



Now, consider Executive Order-- Establishing the National Prevention, Health Promotion, and Public Health Council, dated June 10, 2010:

Sec. 3. Purposes and Duties. The Council shall:

(a) provide coordination and leadership at the Federal level, and among all executive departments and agencies, with respect to prevention, wellness, and health promotion practices, the public health system, and integrative health care in the United States;

(b) develop, after obtaining input from relevant stakeholders, a national prevention, health promotion, public health, and integrative health-care strategy that incorporates the most effective and achievable means of improving the health status of Americans and reducing the incidence of preventable illness and disability in the United States, as further described in section 5 of this order;

[snip]

Sec. 5. National Prevention and Health Promotion Strategy. Not later than March 23, 2011, the Chair, in consultation with the Council, shall develop and make public a national prevention, health promotion, and public health strategy (national strategy), and shall review and revise it periodically. The national strategy shall:

(a) set specific goals and objectives for improving the health of the United States through federally supported prevention, health promotion, and public health programs, consistent with ongoing goal setting efforts conducted by specific agencies;

(b) establish specific and measurable actions and timelines to carry out the strategy, and determine accountability for meeting those timelines, within and across Federal departments and agencies; and

(c) make recommendations to improve Federal efforts relating to prevention, health promotion, public health, and integrative health-care practices to ensure that Federal efforts are consistent with available standards and evidence.

(And don't think Obamacare is unrelated to all this!)

They could make National Health Camps in the Arizona desert, and put in there all those Arizonans who want immigration laws enforced. That would be a good way to begin to destroy the counterrevolutionary forces.

Mr. President, Mr. Ayers: Comrade Lenin, Comrade Stalin and Kim Il Sung would be proud of you!

(Hat tip to Sam Samford and Janis Jaffe Pace.)

The Era of the Living Dead

This is interesting.

At the Berlin Fan Page, there is a message from the lead singer, Terri Nunn, regarding Obamacare:

03.11.10 MESSAGE FROM TERRI


Last Sunday night, I heard one of the Oscar winners say, “My parents taught me that sometimes it’s better to do something that you know may not be popular, but that you know is right.” I’m not usually a political activist, as you know, and taking this stand could lose me popularity, but I have to take one now.

Sunday morning I logged on to the Internet news and read yet another roadblock thrown in front of President Obama and the health care changes he’s trying to pass. I can’t take it anymore. I have to say something. What he says is true: our health care system in America is out-of-control not working. Everybody knows that. I’m a woman who can AFFORD to pay for health insurance for my family, and I know how lousy the insurance I’m paying for really is, and how off-the-charts expensive it is.

Government has to step in to do something to change this, because the health care business isn’t going to do a thing about it. They haven’t for decades. In fact, they’re openly telling us that they fully plan for the downward spiral to continue. I just opened another notice last Friday informing me of my second premium hike in a single year! This is nothing new for any of us.

So now we have a guy TRYING to do something about it, President Obama. Everything I’ve read about his plan makes sense to me. One of his biggest problems is the politicians who have the power to block him ALREADY HAVE THE HEALTH INSURANCE HE’S TRYING TO MAKE AVAILABLE TO THE REST OF US. It’s government-supplied health insurance, available to Congress, and I haven’t heard one of them complaining about it.

What I have heard from these politicians is “GOVERNMENT TAKE-OVER! THE PEOPLE DON’T WANT THAT!” Excuse me, Mr. Loud Politician, but you already have that. YOUR family’s covered great. YOU don’t have to pay the sky-rocketing premiums we all do. Government-assisted health care works great for you, just like it does for millions of people in so many other countries. I have friends all over the globe and I’ve heard only positive things about government-assisted health care from the people who have it. Sure, there are problems with any system, but my foreign friends are a lot happier than we are.

This guy Obama needs help. I’m reaching out to the people who at least care about me enough to check in with this website. Check out whitehouse.gov and click on “health care” if you want the facts about his plan, just the facts. There are also FAQs to click on to answer questions your specific situation may have. You can find it here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/health-care-meeting/reform-means-you If you’re one of those people who think our government only lies to us, so why read it, well, as they said in Avatar, “You can’t fill up someone who’s already full.” You can’t teach someone who doesn’t want to learn anything new.

If you agree that this health care plan is at least better than what we have now (which isn’t that hard), please join me in doing whatever you can to help this man. TAKE A STAND, popular or not, with your friends and family. Thanks to the Internet, I can easily find out who my legislators are and send this to them. I need THEM to be helping me. Helping US. MY FAMILY. MY FRIENDS’ FAMILIES. NOW. If this hope goes away, maybe it’s not meant to be for us, but we won’t get any more hope for a long, long time. So I hope you’ll take some action now too.

Thank you for reading this.

With love,

TERRI NUNN

Terri, I couldn't disagree with you more.

I believe your heart is in the right place, but I think you're wrong on this issue.

What is at stake with every growth of government is our liberty. Nowhere is this more true than with unconstitutional encroachments of the federal government into areas specifically reserved by the Ninth and Tenth Amendments to the people and to the states.

And without liberty, we are nothing.

And, Terri, it is because of smart, caring people like you that our liberty is at stake.

The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.
-- Louis D. Brandeis

You can't protect society from every evil; it is impossible to remove every obstacle from our path.

And, we wouldn't want to do so if we could.

It is through contending with evil that we learn the value of good. It is by overcoming obstacles that we grow and mature, and develop our own sense of self-worth.

We need the evils and the obstacles in our lives; these things make us who we are. Without these things, we lose our appreciation for what we have, and become bored, spoiled and lazy.

Without evils to face and obstacles to overcome, we lose ourselves; life itself ceases to have meaning, and we become zombies, detached from reality, looking for thrills to demonstrate to ourselves that we are still somehow alive.

Make no mistake about it: the Era of Big Government is the Era of the Living Dead.

Our Creator could have placed us in the Garden of Eden in protective custody, prisoners -- residents of paradise, saved from evil and without obstacles in our lives, but prisoners nevertheless. Though the bars are gold, a cage is still a cage.

Our Creator did not do this. Instead, He gave us the most precious of gifts. First was life. Second was liberty. Third was the pursuit of happiness. He knew we would make mistakes, and, indeed, He gave us advice on what not to do in the Garden of Eden. We, of course, did it anyway, just as He knew we would.

Then, having expelled us from Paradise for our transgression, our Creator gave us more advice, and examples to follow, to try to lead us back to Paradise, and so we would appreciate it and not ruin it once we arrived.

But, most importantly, after life, He gave us liberty!

The founders of this nation understood this, and, having realized the evils they were subjected to should no longer be tolerated, and that the evils would not be remedied peacefully, they risked everything they had to win their liberty through armed conflict. Once they had won, they passed on to us the most precious gift they could give by reaffirming our inalienable rights, foremost among these being those given by our Creator: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

To secure these blessings, they instituted a government, establishing as its foundation a document which limited the powers of government as much as possible, and which gave us freedoms as unlimited as possible, while still having an orderly society in which to live.

The founders of our nation, seeking to follow the wisdom of our Creator, did not give us free healthcare, a guaranteed income, security from pirates or terrorists, or a myriad of other demands for which we now bleat like sheep. They gave us the liberty for which we roared like lions, knowing that a land of the free would be home to those brave enough to acquire not only these things, but much, much more, on their own.

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.
-- Ronald Reagan

Terri, I commend you that you are taking a stand for what you believe in, even though you run the risk of alienating fans. Rest assured that the fact you have taken a stand despite this risk is important.

Now, please, take the next step, and look carefully at these officials in Washington. Do not trust them.

Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel.
-- Patrick Henry

Our nation was born amid a passion for liberty, a passion that burned and set the world on fire. From that fire our freedom was plucked, bought by the sacrifices of others. To us it was passed, but our passion has cooled, and now we sell our freedom for promises which cannot be kept -- promises of comfort and security. We should be vigilant, guarding our liberty from anyone who would approach it, but instead we sleep on duty, dreaming of our comfort and security, but rest assured we will wake to a world on fire.

Or, in haunting lyrics sung by an enchantress...

The freedom bought, changed hands, was sold
The heat of love has turned ice-cold and
We never learn but we know too well
Heaven's died and gone to Hell

Now you watch but you should have run
Like flames that leap from the base of the sun
And you dream you're free but you'll awake
Too much too late, too much too late

May God bless you and yours, Terri! :)

The Burden on Society, Part 2

We ended Part 1 having established with a quote that "All that is required of the experts is that they should tell us how to ration health care fairly and effectively", and my comment that "Rationing healthcare fairly and effectively means deciding who lives, and who dies."

Currently, the insurance companies essentially decide, for many of us in the US, who lives and who dies -- though with enough money, you can decide these questions yourself.

But with their new "healthcare" program, the Obamanistas and their Clintonite retreads will need to appoint experts to do that now.

Ah, but don't take my word for it. From Health-Care Rationing Is Inevitable, by Knight Kiplinger, Editor in Chief, Kiplinger publications, February, 2010:

Rationing remains the ultimate taboo in the health-care debate. Nobody -- including me -- likes to be told by a health-care funder, whether private or public, that it won't pay for treatment. But I believe that formal rationing will someday take hold in the U.S., regardless of whether pending health-care legislation is enacted. It's a matter of simple affordability. The high cost of wonderful new medical treatments will far exceed our nation's ability to pay for them.

The Congressional Budget Office projects that, at its recent rate of annual growth, the cost of Medicare and Medicaid -- not including privately funded health care in the U.S. -- will triple from 4% of the nation's gross domestic product in 2007 to 12% in 2050, then surge again by half to 19% of GDP in 2082. That 19% would be about the same share of our economy that Washington spends today on all functions of government -- pensions, defense, education and so on.

More ominously, the biggest factor in this crisis won't be the increasing number of Americans on the Medicare and Medicaid rolls. It will be the ever-higher per capita consumption of health care -- people seeking more miracle drugs, more replacement of joints and organs, more of everything. Curbing wasteful medical practices, squeezing doctors and hospitals, and controlling drug prices won't save nearly enough. If unchecked, this situation portends higher taxes and premiums for private insurance, plus the starvation of other societal needs.

Someday, the parties that pay for health care in the U.S. -- rarely the individual patient, most often an employer, its insurer or the government -- will have to create carefully considered cost-benefit analyses for every kind of medical care that might be sought by patients at every stage of life, from prenatal to old age.

These analyses will be crafted by knowledgeable experts -- doctors, economists, bioethicists and actuaries

So, a patient and a doctor will not be making life-or-death decisions, with the patient having the freedom to go to another doctor if she or he does not like the answers of the current doctor. Instead, the government-assigned doctor will consult with economists and other experts as to what is best for society.

Who should live and who should die? What is best for society? Isn't this how the Holocaust really got started?

Ah, but pardon me for interrupting:

These analyses will be crafted by knowledgeable experts -- doctors, economists, bioethicists and actuaries -- with all of us looking over their shoulders and kibitzing. They will decide which therapies are effective or ineffective. They will decide whether society's limited resources should be concentrated -- as now -- on the last stages of long lives or focused on improving the health of children and young adults, who have many more years ahead of them.

The very way that polemic is phrased kind of gives you an idea what answer has already been decided, doesn't it?

(Sorry, Grandpa & Grandma!)

The process will be contentious, but from it will emerge standardized, rational policies for approving or denying payment for a wide variety of medical procedures and drugs, based on the patient's prognosis and age. That's rationing, and most other nations do it now. Patients who want to undergo a procedure that has not been approved will be free to do so in an open, global health-care market -- and pay for it themselves, if they can.

"That's rationing, and most other nations do it now."

So now, instead of trying to be the greatest nation on earth (which every country should seek to do!), we're going to run with the herd, aiming to be no better than Castro's Cuba.

They do (with a note of hope) point out that patients can go to the "global health-care market", and pay for it themselves.

But, they already explained how most other countries ration healthcare, so where can you go? Oh, I forgot -- Cuba.

And, in any case, how can they pay for it on the "open" (socialized) world market, if the government is taking even more of their wealth to pay for an economist to tell them that it is not economical for the government doctor to try to cure them?

Yes, some of our perceived medical needs -- and many of our wants -- won't be met under rationing. Knowing that in advance, perhaps more of us will change the way we live now to reduce our future demand for scarce resources.

Change the way you live now to reduce your future demand for scarce resources.

That's what this is really about!

Smokers, heavy drinkers, the obese and the elderly should be barred from receiving some operations, according to doctors, with most saying the health service cannot afford to provide free care to everyone.

And if you choose to smoke, drink, etc., then your demand for scarce resources will go unaddressed.

For the record, I am pro-life, anti-abortion, and undeterred.

However, to those of you who want abortion on demand, consider the following:

Fertility treatment and "social" abortions are also on the list of procedures that many doctors say should not be funded by the state.

Through socialized healthcare, Obama will stab you "pro-choice" people in the back on the abortion issue -- again!

(By the way -- why should we be "pro-choice" when deciding whether a child is born, but not "pro-choice" when deciding what doctor we want to go to?)

It is not medical care that is immediately at stake here. First to go will be your freedom, as they start dictating what doctor you go to, and what lifestyles are unacceptable for those who receive mandatory government medical care.

Next the quality of medical care will go, as medical staff have their salaries cut by the government which employs them, to keep costs down, and as the government decides what treatments you can receive, and what treatments are too costly.

As all this happens, the yearly deficit will skyrocket, and the federal debt will skyrocket (even more so than now) as much of the economy which currently pays taxes will instead be supported by taxes: fewer tax dollars in, and greater expenditures out. This program will be an enormous burden on our society, far greater than any war we've ever fought, far greater than the current welfare state... but wait, there's more!

These skyrocketing costs will lead us to Step Three, when government experts decide who should receive healthcare, and who should just be euthanized -- ah, excuse me, "allowed to commit assisted suicide".

The first victims of the Holocaust were the incurably insane, people suffering from dementias, and so on; they were never going to get better, and they were deemed a "burden on society": why should resources be devoted to them, which could be used to feed healthy Nazi supermen?

And that is what Obamacare will really lead us to: deciding who is a "burden on society", and getting rid of those people. And they have already set the stage for the elderly to line up among the first victims.

America's Holocaust has begun this week -- and it began on our watch.

And that history will be the burden on American society.

The Burden on Society, Part 1

The healthcare system in the US sucks.

To understand why, let us review excerpts from The paradox of US healthcare by Andrew Kennis, found in Al Jazeera from November 9, 2009, interspersed with my comments.

For nearly two decades, Wendell Potter led a very comfortable life as a public relations health insurance executive.

However, while flying on a corporate jet and being served lunch on gold-rimmed china with gold-plated cutlery, Potter had an epiphany of sorts.

He realised that the reason why millions of Americans were without health insurance or under-insured was because: "Our Wall Street-driven healthcare system has created one of the most inequitable healthcare systems on the planet."

This June, Potter left his well-paid and secure job at CIGMA, one of the US's largest health insurance companies, and has spoken out in favour of healthcare reform.

'Killing thousands'

With almost 50 million people living without any health insurance and another 25 million people under-insured during a recession, the debate about how to reform the US healthcare system has been underway for many months in Washington and is expected to continue through to the end of the year.

Since leaving CIGMA Potter become a whistleblower and is now speaking out against industry abuses on national television news shows.

He does not mince words when telling Al Jazeera that if a strong "public option" is not passed by Congress, healthcare executives would be effectively allowed to continue policies that "literally kill thousands of Americans every year, through denied coverage, as a result of relentless pressure coming from Wall Street".

Americans are not dying from lack of healthcare insurance.

Americans are dying from lack of adequate medical care (among other things).

There is a difference between paying an insurance company, and getting adequate medical care when needed. However, Americans seem to have forgotten this.

It used to be that Americans had more buying power, which came from higher-paying jobs, for example, in manufacturing. These jobs have been globalized, and sent overseas. Why pay an American worker dollars an hour, when you can pay de facto slave laborers in a foreign country cents an hour? Also, as the tax system has become more and more oppressive, Americans keep less and less of the fruits of their labor.

Oh, some people might say that they actually get back everything from the IRS, or that they don't pay taxes, but this misses the point. There would be more jobs, and the jobs there are would pay more, if the government weren't sucking the life blood out of the business sector. People who don't have a job and who get a government check for not working pay the ultimate income tax, as they are denied the self-esteem (not to mention the chance to build a better tomorrow) by being locked into a government program which will never allow them to get ahead. So, they take the narcotic of a government check, and wait for their next fix.

Back in the day, if, in a family, there were two jobs being worked, it was so the family could get ahead -- maybe buy a vacation home, or send a kid to college. Now, it is not uncommon for both a husband and a wife to be working, just to keep the family's collective head above water. A situation where the two people work three jobs between them is hardly rare. And, difficult indeed is the situation for a family with only one adult working -- say, a working mom supporting a child.

When people had more money, they paid doctors, nurses and some receptionists/administrators directly -- low overhead. Now, though, there are big buildings full of insurance company bureaucrats and administrators, all of whom need a cubicle to sit at, a computer to work on -- oh, and health care insurance! -- which gets paid for by our healthcare dollars. On top of that, the government has other such buildings, and dollars that could go to pay for medical care has to pay for all these guys, too.

That is why Americans are...

Paying more, getting less

About 50 million Americans are without health insurance. In the meantime, the US continues to be the country with the highest proportion of uninsured people in the developed world. It also has the distinction of spending a greater portion of its total economic output on healthcare than any other developed country - just over 17 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP) last year.

On average, the US spends twice as much as other developed countries on healthcare.

But even though US citizens pay more for healthcare, they get less of it, resulting in a lowly 37th place ranking among healthcare systems in the world, according to a study by the World Health Organization based on quality and fairness.

What the socialists in Washington are giving us is more of the problem: more bureaucrats, more administrators, more insurance... most emphatically not more doctors and nurses.

The Al Jazeera article goes on to extol the benefits of socialized medicine.

The fact of the matter is that this is everything that was wrong with the Soviet Union, this is everything that is still wrong with Cuba....

Wait until the problem gets worse, and they begin to....

But wait, wait! I cannot divulge what the future holds.

Let us instead consider the past:

The NHS cannot, and never has been able to, offer every treatment to everyone who needs it.

The NHS is funded from taxes, and it spends more than £42bn every year - £779 for every person in the UK. But it is not a bottomless pit of funds and some treatments have to be restricted.

Raising taxes to pay for every possible need is politically unthinkable, as it would require a massive increase in income tax to raise enough revenue to make a significant difference to spending.

This means some treatments have to be restricted, or rationed.

Rationed healthcare?

But of course!

The healthcare climate in the United Kingdom is insular. It lives in a storm zone of its own creation: the National Health Service. Everything revolves around the myth of the NHS. In politics, openly expressed doubts about its absolute and eternal validity will cast a politician into outer darkness. Even the Thatcher government—the most radical in the UK since the Attlee government of 1945-50 which set up the NHS—had to struggle desperately to prove to an incredulous electorate in the 1980s that 'The NHS is safe in our hands'. Belief in a myth will permit the faithful to discount reality. That is not being flippant. The rationing climate in the UK is tied to the myth of the NHS, its inviolability, and its ultimate sanctity in the eyes of the people and of health experts alike. The myth dictates that rationing is worth enduring if it will help to keep the NHS virginally 'intact'. Of course, everybody knows that the NHS is underfunded and that rationing is therefore inevitable. All that is required of the experts is that they should tell us how to ration health care fairly and effectively.

Rationing healthcare fairly and effectively means deciding who lives, and who dies.