Federal Rationing of Healthcare is Already Happening. Why Would it Stop?

I work for a smallish healthcare system (hospitals).

There has been much talk during the ongoing debate over healthcare reform. Rationing, Death Panels, etc. The administration has downplayed all of this.

Let me point out the fallacies in all of this.

Firstly, I do not play partisan politics. I dislike Obama as Much as I disliked Bush.

The current fed.gov run healthcare is Medicare and Medicaid. This is fed.gov taking care of all the needs of old people right? Wrong...

Let me toss some numbers out for perusal of reality.

Our community benefits totals (care given for free) are at the following rough numbers for the year.

About 115,000 people have received charity care from the hospital this year.

Close to $12 million has been spent on apx. 7500 people in charity care. This is care that would be given anyway at this facility but it is interesting to note that if the hospital refused to give care to these people (many are illegal aliens) then fed.gov would come in with EMTALA laws and hit things with its big stick. As a side note EMTALA is the law that guarantees any healthcare facility in the US provide medical care for free for illegal aliens. So we already have mandated care for illegals.

Now here is the point of the thread. The rest of the over 100,000 people we have provided charity care for are recipients of Medicare or Medicaid. Over $40 MILLION has been spent this year on charity care for these people. You thought their care was covered by fed.gov right? Wrong. Medicare/caid has reimbursed for some services. The $40 MILLION has been spent on tests/surgery/care that these people's doctors felt the patients NEEDED but fed.gov would not pay for.

$40 million dollars spent to make up the shortcomings of fed.gov's medical "care".

Now if fed.gov gets into insuring all of us where will this lead? None of us will get all of what we need as far as care goes because the dollars simply won't be there. Fed.gov is totally broke now as we all know. Where is this money going to come from other than devaluing the fiat dollar further money creation by the "Fed".

There are two outcomes I see if this healthcare reform gets shoved down our necks like the hired help in congress is threatening to do.

Either we will get substandard care or the hospitals in this country will go bankrupt giving away needed care with no reimbursement and require either "takeover" or "bailout" as we all know healthcare is "too big to fail.".

Here is an interesting note. Fed.gov watches healthcare facilities very carefully and they have a formula whereby if financial standings do not meet a level based on fed.gov developed criteria then fed.gov comes in and takes over the facility... totally. They run everything. Is health care reform really a way to get control and ownership of not only of the care/compensation but of the physical infrastructure of healthcare as well? If institutions are forced to give charity care that eventually causes financial distress and fed.gov comes in and owns them then...

Another note I want to make regarding the reality of health care reform. There was an issue a few years ago with docs in the area refusing to take more Medicare/caid patients as they were losing money. The docs argued that they were taking new patients. A show of hands was requested to see who exactly was interested in taking new patients that would be a financial burden on the docs' practices as Medicare/caid reimbursement sucks so bad. Guess what... Zero hands went up.

As the saying goes, the Federal Gov couldn't organize a two care parade. Why does anyone want them in healthcare more than their current dismal failure?