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ObamaCare = TennCare

July 18th 2009 23:55
In the early 90's politicians loved to sing the praises of Tennessee's "public option" health plan called TennCare. The plan was setup to help the state's poor and uninsured acquire health care for free or at reduced costs. The Medicaid waiver allowed the state to competitively accept bids from private insurers.

How did the idea work?

Because of fraud and patient advocacy groups the amount of participants swelled to 25% of the population and costs consumed 38% of the total budget of the state. During this time Tennessee also became the number one state in prescription sales.

I saw many lives destroyed because of addictions to controlled substances. I would see many of our patients in pharmacy seeing two or three different doctors and getting covered narcotics from each one.

There were also thousands of dead people receiving benefits with many more out of state residents using PO boxes to illegally acquire coverage.

Because the plan was overseen by the government, there were tons of "equal access" lawsuits. Expensive treatments and medications that were excluded were forced upon the plan by activist judges.

Today's program is a much scaled down program that pretty much treats only the state's children and the poorest adults.

You would think that Washington would have learned a lesson from this debacle but earlier this year Obama appointed Nancy-Ann Min DeParle to the post of "health czar." DeParle was Tennessee's director of human services when the program was started in 1994. No wonder that many see similarities in the two programs.

It didn't work here and it will fail even worse on a national scale. You are not entitled to cradle to grave health insurance in the constitution, especially at the expense of other's hard earned money.

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Comment by Howard

July 19th 2009 02:16
Interesting. As interesting is the fate of the "universal health care bill in Massachusetts. There the state government is moving to health care rationing, where the state only pays a standard cost per diagnosis, not for what a patient actually needs. That is-- back to the Nazis-- lives not worthy to be lived. Same thing or worse with the Obama plan, and its new version of the British dictatorial agency NICE (how Orwellian) --National Institute Centers for Excellence, something like that.

Comment by sirron10

July 19th 2009 23:40
We already have a heath safety net in California. Its the County Hospital system. They treat for free if you don't have money or insurance. Improving the county system would be much cheaper than a Federal plan. The County Hospital isn't great, but if you choose to spend on smokes, boose and drugs instead of health insurance, you may have to wait in line for treatment when you get sick or injured. There also is workers comp if injured on the job.
Minnesota has clinics in the super market for minor treatment at very low cost. There are a lot of working ideas out there short of a Federal take over of my insurance plan.

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