California Medicine: Cyanide From India

California’s government would set prices for hospital stays, doctor visits and other health care services under legislation introduced Monday, vastly remaking the industry in a bid to lower health care costs. …

Uh-oh. Only the most delusional of CommuNazis can believe that the secret to lower costs is dictating them. This is going to be bad…

The proposal in California would affect private health plans, including those offered by employers and purchased by individuals. A nine-member commission appointed by the governor and legislative leaders would set prices for everything from a physical exam to an allergy test to heart bypass surgery. No other state has such a requirement.

Well… fuck. FUCK, this is bad. Didn’t the Soviet Union do exactly this and millions died as a direct result? Wasn’t this sort of thing the reason we considered them the Bad Guys? How can these atheist assholes believe they’ll succeed if they try Stupid just one more time?

“If we do not act now, I’m concerned that health care prices will become unsustainable,” Assemblyman Ash Kalra, a freshman Democrat from San Jose who wrote the legislation, said in a news conference in Sacramento.

Ash Kalra is an American-born Indian who on 1.29.2018 forced the state Assembly to recognize one of India’s national holidays. Magic Dirt Fail. Go home, Kalra, you Communist. You don’t belong in America. This loathsome legislation you offered is indisputable proof that you hate everything America ever stood for. You are not a citizen. You are not one of us.

The measure faces an uphill battle in the Legislature, where lawmakers are generally cautious about making drastic changes to the health care system and are already juggling a wide range of ambitious proposals.

The proposal is backed by influential unions including the Service Employees International Union, Unite Here and the Teamsters. The unions are frustrated that health care costs are gobbling an increasing share of employee compensation. …

The usual Gimme Yo’ Money suspects.

Health care providers say price controls would encourage doctors to move out of state or retire, making it harder for people to see a physician when they’re sick, and force hospitals to lay off staff or, in some cases, close their doors.

Recorded history agrees unanimously.

The California Medical Association, which represents physicians, called the proposal “radical” and warned that it would reduce choices for consumers.

“No state in America has ever attempted such an unproven policy of inflexible, government-managed price caps across every health care service,” Dr. Theodore Mazer, the CMA president, said in a statement.

Under Kalra’s bill, prices would be tied to Medicare’s rate for a particular service or procedure, with that price as a floor. There would be a process for doctors or hospitals to argue that their unique circumstances warrant payments higher than the state’s standard rate.

You know the welfare state is cancer because it only grows, never shrinks.

Paying hospitals 125 percent of Medicare’s rate would cut $18 billion in revenue and force them to trim nurses and other support staff, said Dietmar Grellman, senior vice president of the California Hospital Association. Private insurers make up for the low payments from government-funded health care, which doesn’t cover the full cost of care, he said.

“That’s why their bill is such an empty promise,” Grellman said. “They take money out of the system with rate regulation, but then they don’t address the huge gaping hole that’s created by Medicare and Medicaid.”

In recent decades health care spending has risen faster than inflation and wages while employers and health plans have shifted more of the costs onto consumers through higher premiums, deductibles and copays. Americans spend more per capita on health care than other developed countries.

That’s because ‘other developed countries’ steal our R&D successes and hide their state-subsidized medical costs under waiting lists and other rationing measures.

Also, the Baby Boomers are getting old & sick now, aren’t they? They will go to their graves without ever once having spent enough of other peoples’ money.

Meanwhile, a wave of consolidation by hospitals, physician groups and insurance companies has given industry players more power to demand higher rates.

It’s a showdown between Big Pharma and Big Welfare. Hmm. Should the White Male Christian California taxpayer grab his ankles for the ass-raping now or wait for the waiting list for the ass-raping waiting list sign-up?

God, I wish there was a sane State I could move to.