Any questions? We'll start with the right side of the aisle, once permission is granted from the lobbyist puppeteers ...

Healthcare system wastes up to $800 billion a year

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor Maggie Fox, Health And Science Editor Mon Oct 26, 10:53 am ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. healthcare system is just as wasteful as President Barack Obama says it is, and proposed reforms could be paid for by fixing some of the most obvious inefficiencies, preventing mistakes and fighting fraud, according to a Thomson Reuters report released on Monday.

The U.S. healthcare system wastes between $505 billion and $850 billion every year, the report from Robert Kelley, vice president of healthcare analytics at Thomson Reuters, found.

"America's healthcare system is indeed hemorrhaging billions of dollars, and the opportunities to slow the fiscal bleeding are substantial," the report reads.

"The bad news is that an estimated $700 billion is wasted annually. That's one-third of the nation's healthcare bill," Kelley said in a statement.

"The good news is that by attacking waste we can reduce healthcare costs without adversely affecting the quality of care or access to care."

One example -- a paper-based system that discourages sharing of medical records accounts for 6 percent of annual overspending.

"It is waste when caregivers duplicate tests because results recorded in a patient's record with one provider are not available to another or when medical staff provides inappropriate treatment because relevant history of previous treatment cannot be accessed," the report reads.

Some other findings in the report from Thomson Reuters, the parent company of Reuters:

* Unnecessary care such as the overuse of antibiotics and lab tests to protect against malpractice exposure makes up 37 percent of healthcare waste or $200 to $300 billion a year.

* Fraud makes up 22 percent of healthcare waste, or up to $200 billion a year in fraudulent Medicare claims, kickbacks for referrals for unnecessary services and other scams.

* Administrative inefficiency and redundant paperwork account for 18 percent of healthcare waste.

* Medical mistakes account for $50 billion to $100 billion in unnecessary spending each year, or 11 percent of the total.

* Preventable conditions such as uncontrolled diabetes cost $30 billion to $50 billion a year.

"The average U.S. hospital spends one-quarter of its budget on billing and administration, nearly twice the average in Canada," reads the report, citing dozens of other research papers.

"American physicians spend nearly eight hours per week on paperwork and employ 1.66 clerical workers per doctor, far more than in Canada," it says, quoting a 2003 New England Journal of Medicine paper by Harvard University researcher Dr. Steffie Woolhandler.

Yet primary care doctors are lacking, forcing wasteful use of emergency rooms, for instance, the report reads.

All this could help explain why Americans spend more per capita and the highest percentage of GDP on healthcare than any other OECD country, yet has an unhealthier population with more diabetes, obesity and heart disease and higher rates of neonatal deaths than other developed nations.

Democratic Senator Charles Schumer said on Sunday that Senate Democratic leaders are close to securing enough votes to pass legislation to start reform of the country's $2.5 trillion healthcare system.

In line with this past week's column, how about this for falling for a hoax?:

Limbaugh falls for Obama thesis hoax - but is in no Rush to apologize

BY Michael Saul
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT

And still no apology.

Even when conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh runs with a fabricated story, he doesn't apologize for the error.

Limbaugh, who seizes on every opportunity to blast (Barack) Obama, ended up with egg on his face when he read an Internet satire piece that claimed President Obama dissed the Constitution in his college thesis at Columbia University.

A transcript of his Friday broadcast remains Sunday at the top of Limbaugh's web page under the headline, "Obama's Disdain for Constitution: We Know He Thinks It, Don't We? When we discover a hoax, we correct it immediately."

But apologize? You betcha there's none.

Limbaugh sounded off Friday on a supposed report that Time magazine reporter Joe Klein had unearthed Obama's college thesis, titled "Aristocracy Reborn," in which he sounded off on the nation's Founding Fathers and the Constitution and the distribution of wealth.

The only problem - the report was pure fiction.

The original post with the fabricated details about Obama's college thesis was written as a satire on a humor blog.
An obscure blogger, Michael Leeden, mistakenly picked it BYup, reporting the satirical post as fact, and then Limbaugh ran with it on his national radio show Friday.

Leeden has since apologized.

Limbaugh? Not so much.

In fact, he says, why the President never said what the hoax claimed, "we know he thinks it."

"So here is who we have as our president of the United States: an anti-constitutionalist man who finds it an obstacle and is finding ways around it on purpose, unconstitutionally," Limbaugh said on his show.

"Much of what he's doing is unconstitutional, and I'm waiting for the lawsuits to be filed by some of these people at some point," Limbaugh added. "How is that hope and change working out for ya, folks?"

Later in the same program, when Limbaugh learned the report was a hoax, he corrected the record, alerting listeners that the quotes from the thesis had been fabricated. But he insisted the fabricated thesis was still in line with what the president thinks.

"So I shout from the mountaintops: 'It was satire!'" Limbaugh said on the program. "But we know he (Obama) thinks it. Good comedy, to be comedy, must contain an element of truth, and we know how he feels about distribution of wealth."

Limbaugh said he has license to go with the fabrication because other members of the media have done this to him.
"So, I can say, "I don't care if these quotes are made up," he said. "I know Obama thinks it.

"You know why I know Obama thinks it? Because I've heard him say it."

The fabricated thesis pokes fun at the president's position on economic freedom.

"The so-called Founders did not allow for economic freedom," the satire on Obama's thesis says.

"While political freedom is supposedly a cornerstone of the document, the distribution of wealth is not even mentioned. While many believed that the new Constitution gave them liberty, it instead fitted them with the shackles of hypocrisy."

In a post Friday, Time's Joe Klein says the report is false.

"A report is circulating among the wingnuts that I had a peek at Barack Obama's senior thesis. It is completely false," he wrote. "I've never seen Obama's thesis. I have no idea where this report comes from--but I can assure you that it's complete nonsense."

Maybe good wins in the end after all ...

AP Poll: Health care overhaul has a pulse

By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR and TREVOR TOMPSON, Associated Press Writers Ricardo Alonso-zaldivar And Trevor Tompson, Associated Press Writers 1 hr 22 mins ago

WASHINGTON – The fever has broken. The patient is out of intensive care. But if you're President Barack Obama, you can't stop pacing the waiting room. Health care overhaul is still in guarded condition.

The latest Associated Press-GfK poll has found that opposition to Obama's health care remake dropped dramatically in just a matter of weeks. Still, Americans remain divided over complex legislation that Democrats are advancing in Congress.

The public is split 40-40 on supporting or opposing the health care legislation, the poll found. An even split is welcome news for Democrats, a sharp improvement from September, when 49 percent of Americans said they opposed the congressional proposals and just 34 percent supported them.

Anger about health care boiled over during August. Lawmakers returning home for town hall meetings faced outcries that the government was trying to take over the system, ushering in higher costs, lower quality — even rationing and euthanasia.

"It's very significant that there's an upturn in support for the plans because after August there was a sense that the whole effort was beginning to decline and would not come back in terms of public support," said Robert Blendon, a Harvard professor who tracks public opinion on health care.

"Even with this," added Blendon, "the country is still divided over whether or not moving ahead is the right thing to do."

Behind the shift seems to be a growing determination among Democrats that going forward would be better. Meanwhile, political independents don't appear as alarmed about the congressional proposals as they were just a few weeks ago. Still, opponents remain more passionate in their convictions than do supporters.

In a significant change, opposition among older Americans dropped 16 percentage points. Seniors have been concerned that Congress would stick them with the bill by cutting Medicare to pay for covering the uninsured. Among the most reliable voters, they were much more wary of the changes than the public as a whole. The gap has narrowed.

The poll found that 68 percent of Democrats support the congressional plans, up from 57 percent in early September. Opposition among independents plunged from 51 percent to 36 percent. However, only 29 percent of independents currently support the plans in Congress.

Among seniors, opposition fell from 59 percent in September to 43 percent now. Almost four in 10, 38 percent, now support it, compared with 31 percent in September.

I'm not sure if the Phillies will get past the Colorado Rockies, who happened to be entering the playoffs on a hot streak, in the first round. But I do know this: It will go the full five games. On what do I base this prognostication? Because Game 5 would be next Tuesday (Oct. 13), in Philadelphia, which happens to be the same night four of us are going to the Bruce Springsteen concert. Even if the Phils play in the afternoon, it's going to be chaos down there.