But can it be prevented?
We know health care rationing is coming. We’ve had plenty of warnings.
Some, like Bob Moffitt and others at the Heritage Foundation, have provided plenty of detailed information about the architects and blueprints for it, under the ‘reform’ umbrella. They have well-reasoned suggestions and thorough plans for health care reform that wouldn’t force private insurers out, wouldn’t set up a federal board some call the ‘Supreme Court of Health’ to determine who is or isn’t worthy of resources, and wouldn’t remove physicians’ conscience protections. And they’re working hard on Capitol Hill to convince Congress of the merits of those plans, versus the Obama administration’s blueprint.
Others, like Charles Krauthammer, have also calculated how this administration is going to roll out health care rationing by cost analysis. Same conclusions….
What is obviously required is entitlement reform, meaning Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. That’s where the real money is.
Except that Obama has offered no real entitlement reform. His universal health care proposal would increase costs by perhaps $1 trillion.
Pause and let that sink in a moment. A trillion here, a trillion there.
Obama’s own budget projections show staggering budget deficits going out to 2019. If he knows his social agenda is going to drown us in debt, what’s he up to?
Good question. Evasive answers.
He has only hinted about “additional adjustments†in future budgets.
Krauthammer guesses what that means.
“Additional adjustments†equals major cuts in Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid.
Social Security is easy. A bipartisan commission’s proposal goes to Congress for a no-amendment up-or-down vote. Done.
The hard part is Medicare and Medicaid. In an aging population, how do you keep them from blowing up the budget? There is only one answer: rationing.
Tom Daschle may not be at HHS after all, but his elaborate designs are there.
Why do you think the stimulus package pours $1.1 billion into medical “comparative effectiveness research�
As Moffitt explained, that’s what may lead to the federal health board, the ‘Supreme Court of Health’. And he, like Krauthammer, emphasizes how critical it is that the council for “comparative effectiveness research” be regulated and watched closely. Because…
Once you establish what is best practice for expensive operations, medical tests and aggressive therapies, you’ve laid the premise for funding some and denying others.
And denying them on calculations about a patient’s ‘quality of life’, according to some board that never saw the patient. The elderly and the impaired will be most at risk.
It is estimated that a third to a half of one’s lifetime health costs are consumed in the last six months of life. Accordingly, Britain’s National Health Service can deny treatments it deems not cost-effective – and if you’re old and infirm, the cost-effectiveness of treating you plummets. In Canada, they ration by queuing. You can wait forever for so-called elective procedures.
Don’t take for granted that somehow, this won’t happen.
Social Security used to be the third rail of American politics. Not anymore. Health care rationing is taking its place – which is why Obama, the consummate politician, knows to offer the candy (universality) today before serving the spinach (rationing) tomorrow.
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Why wait until tomorrow? We have rationing today!! When your health plan refuses to cover a medical treatment because they say you do not need what the doctor tells you you need, that’s rationing. When your health plan says that they will only pay what the average cost is for the operation you are about to have, take it or leave it, that is a form of rationing. Oh, yes, you can very well go ahead and pay for any treatment you wish, and you will get it… and you will pay for it as well as the monthly premium for the health plan you thought would cover everything… We have a gigantic beauracracy already… It is called private sector health insurance. This beauracracy makes decisions for us and we have to live with them. We also have national health care for everyone today!! It’s called the emeergency room. Hospital emergency rooms will treat just about anyone, and if you can’t pay, you won’t. But the private sector health plans will pick up the tab through higher cost of the proceedures that they cover. That means you and I who have health care cover the child whose mother ends up bringing him into the emergency room because she could not afford a doctor. Does that make sense? It is complicated, but we all pay when someoe has no health care.
But there is one more problem. Since health care is administered through companies, the private sector ends up footing the bill for everyone whether they like it or not. And that price is rising at a rapid rate. Companies who make airplanes and books and food for our tables have been forced to become health care experts to keep costs under control… And they are losing the battle. The past 15 years has seen tremendous gains in the productivity of the American workforce. Through the use of computers and automation, we now produce more each week than we ever have. But the profits from that increase are being eaten up by the increases in covering the worker’s healthcare by the company, and the workers are having to bear the burden of higher health care costs themselves. This means that companies who make stuff in the USA can’t compete with Canada because health care costs in Canada are not a problem companies face there. American companies are fighting a battle with the world with our hands tied behind our backs. This is why there has been a steady move by corporations to fund Democratic campaigns at the expense of Republican one’s. They don’t love Obama, but they sure do love profits!! They sure do love competing with the world on a level playing field.
I know this is long, but it is a complicated story…One final point. People against health care love to talk about how government cannot handle healthcare. The fact is Medicare for seniors is one of the most popular and successful programs in our country’s history. It is administered efficiently and provides very adequate care, helping seniors live comfortably with the kids not having to worry about Mom or Dad and whose gonna pay the hospital bill, or even the doctor bill when the doctor has to make a house call ’cause Mom or Dad can’t get to the doctor. And who has not seen the compassion and caring of hospice staff when their parents are in the final stages of life. Hospice doesn’t just happen, it is paid for by Medicare. The problem with Medicare is that it is national health insurance for people we know are in the last years of their life, kind of like Allstate only insuring folks who are gonna have accidents every three years. What if you could have the Medicare system
provide health care to all who do not have health care??? We could have a base of healthy people, insured against that unplanned energency room visit. We could get small businesses out of health care and the unplanned year to year increases it provides. That mother who uses the emergency room instead of a family doctor would now have a family doctor… And finally, Medicare would be stable since healthy folks would be in the mix.
I do not know if this is the way we end. But as far as health care, national coverage is inevitable. We can either look at the solution today or scramble to fix it tomorrow. But yesterday’s answers are no longer enough for today’s problems.
What Chuck said.
The U.S. health care system is already overrun by rationing. Ask anyone who is on Medicaid or is uninsured. Your choices of health care providrs is extremely limited and your option of getting the BEST and most UP-TO-DATE health care is basically nonexistent if you aren’t covered by Medicare or private insurance, AND have some money left over to pat out-of-pocket the noncovered costs.