http://cnsnews.com/news/article/64663

The effort, loosely called e-Health or e-Care, combines health-care technology with 21st-century Internet connectivity. It will allow doctors to interact with their patients through innovations such as video chats, telephone health checkups, and home-health monitoring devices that relay data over wireless Internet connections.

“The development of the broadband network and health information technologies has the potential to truly transform health care and simultaneously enable better outcomes and lowering costs,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine).

One of the new health technologies on display last Thursday was an automatic drug dispenser that can monitor and adjust medication dosages wirelessly, allowing doctors* to tailor dosages of drugs such as insulin without having to schedule in-person visits with patients.

“What we’re talking about, folks, is using a device like this one,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said, as he displayed the small device. “It attaches to the patient’s skin and is loaded with drugs that are administered in the exact way that the doctor* prescribes – wirelessly.

“That means that a doctor* can vary the doses based on the information the doctor is receiving [from the monitor]. The patient doesn’t have to go in to the doctor and then the pharmacy to change his or her prescription,” he said.

The data recorded by such devices would be automatically uploaded to a patient’s electronic health record, which could then be reviewed by a doctor* from a computer or smart phone, allowing the doctor* to monitor a sick patient in almost real time.

* or Government Death Panel. Ahem.

From the No Shit Department

The new federal health-care law has raised the stakes for hospitals and schools already scrambling to train more doctors.

Experts warn there won’t be enough doctors to treat the millions of people newly insured under the law. At current graduation and training rates, the nation could face a shortage of as many as 150,000 doctors in the next 15 years, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.

That shortfall is predicted despite a push by teaching hospitals and medical schools to boost the number of U.S. doctors, which now totals about 954,000.

The greatest demand will be for primary-care physicians. These general practitioners, internists, family physicians and pediatricians will have a larger role under the new law, coordinating care for each patient.

The U.S. has 352,908 primary-care doctors now, and the college association estimates that 45,000 more will be needed by 2020. But the number of medical-school students entering family medicine fell more than a quarter between 2002 and 2007.

A shortage of primary-care and other physicians could mean more-limited access to health care and longer wait times for patients.

I don’t know where to start.

You can’t add tens of millions of people to our health care system without causing shortages. Any private system dealing with a huge increase in demand would struggle meeting that demand. As a result, prices MUST go up, and resources will become more scarce. The situation is even worse when the government controls the system because the government is the most inefficient organization on Earth.

If resources are scarce and prices start to skyrocket, the government will set price controls on what doctors and hospitals can charge. That will drive more doctors and hospitals out of business, increasing the shortage. In response to the emergency, the feds will start rationing. And thus: Death Panels.

“Health” “Care” “Reform” (to quote Mark Steyn) wasn’t about health or care. It was about establishing fascist, authoritarian control, fundamentally altering the relationship between citizens and their government, establishing more dependency and undermining individual liberty, and destroying any remnant of free-market economics in the health care system.

It should have been friggin obvious.

Nobody should be surprised

WASHINGTON – Better beat the crowd and find a doctor.

Primary care physicians already are in short supply in parts of the country, and the landmark health overhaul that will bring them millions more newly insured patients in the next few years promises extra strain.

The new law goes beyond offering coverage to the uninsured, with steps to improve the quality of care for the average person and help keep us well instead of today’s seek-care-after-you’re-sick culture. To benefit, you’ll need a regular health provider.

Yet recently published reports predict a shortfall of roughly 40,000 primary care doctors over the next decade, a field losing out to the better pay, better hours and higher profile of many other specialties.

You can’t add tens of millions of people to an already-shrinking pool of doctors and expect your health care system to improve. Welcome to waiting lists and rationing. Welcome to more sick people and more death. Welcome to Obamacare.

AT&T takes a billion dollar hit from health care

NEW YORK – AT&T Inc. will take a $1 billion non-cash accounting charge in the first quarter because of the health care overhaul and may cut benefits it offers to current and retired workers.

The charge is the largest disclosed so far. Earlier this week, AK Steel Corp., Caterpillar Inc., Deere & Co. and Valero Energy announced similar accounting charges, saying the health care law that President Barack Obama signed Tuesday will raise their expenses. On Friday, 3M Co. said it will also take a charge of $85 million to $90 million.

All five are smaller than AT&T, and their combined charges are less than half of the $1 billion that AT&T is planning. The $1 billion is a third of AT&T’s most recent quarterly earnings. In the fourth quarter of 2009, the company earned $3 billion on revenue of $30.9 billion.

AT&T said Friday that the charge reflects changes to how Medicare subsidies are taxed. Companies say the health care overhaul will require them to start paying taxes next year on a subsidy they receive for retiree drug coverage.

You might think this is one of those unintended consequences you hear about from massive government debacles. I submit that driving up the cost of providing health care, which in turn causes private organizations to reduce benefits, is exactly what Obama wants.

See, the stage has been set here. The whole plan all along was to set up a real-life single-payer, government-run universal health care system. Obama and his bootlickers weren’t able to sell that one, so they implemented the worst health care bill possible in order to make private-sector-provided health care so unwieldy and expensive (not to mention make it so expensive for the states) that people would eventually beg for the feds to step in and provide a nationwide universal system.

That’s the next step.

AT&T also said Friday that it is looking into changing the health care benefits it offers because of the new law. Analysts say retirees could lose the prescription drug coverage provided by their former employers as a result of the overhaul.

AT&T rival Verizon Communications Inc. was among 10 companies that sent a letter to congressional leaders in December warning that their costs would increase with the health care changes. Verizon spokesman Peter Thonis said the company had no comment.

Drive up prices, drive people out. When retirees and employees have their benefits cut or dropped, they’re going to turn to the federal government because Americans are suckers for a free lunch. It’s all part of the plan. However…

Also on Friday, Reps. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Bart Stupak, D-Mich., said they are asking the CEOs of Caterpillar, Verizon, Deere and others to testify at an April 21 House subcommittee hearing on claims that the health care law could hurt their ability to provide health insurance to workers.

This would appear that they’re trying to close the barn door after the horses escaped. It’s all about image, though, and the attention whore Waxman and the hopeless abortion sellout Stupak won’t pass up an opportunity to drag some hapless corporate weenies in and yell at them from their raised platforms and drag their names and their companies through the mud in order to make them look like heartless, greedy bastards for trying to make a profit.

It’s all so transparently cynical. Why there are still people who think the government is on their side is beyond understanding. We’re completely hosed.

It is not possible for a Democrat to be honest. If they were honest and answered questions directly, they would never win another election in this country.