Howard Dean, This Week, 8/8/2009
“There’s no rationing in any of these bills.”
The White House Blog, 11/20/2009
Reality Check: The “Rationing” Smear… Again?
When people use arguments they know are bogus, it’s probably because they know they don’t have any valid arguments at their disposal. So it would seem with opponents of reform in the Senate spending today obsessed with arguments about “rationing” that were debunked months ago.
Their attacks are focused on the fact that the legislation supports research into what treatments work best for patients. Before we go any further, let’s just say this as plainly as possible:
Under health insurance reform, this research cannot be used to dictate coverage
From “Frequently asked questions about health care reform”
Health Insurance Reform will end current forms of rationing, not expand it.
We were assured there would be no rationing. We were told that the rationing implication is a smear.
Meet Donald Berwick, the man most likely to prematurely end the life of one of your relatives, if not your own life:
“I am romantic about the National Health Service. I love it,”
~~~“It’s not a question of whether we will ration care,” he said in a magazine interview for Biotechnology Healthcare, “It is whether we will ration with our eyes open.”
This is the one you really want to remember:
“The hallmarks of proper financial management in a system,” he wrote, “are government policies, purchasing contracts, or market mechanisms that lead to a cap on total spending, with strictly limited year-on-year growth targets.” That way “rational collective action overrid[es] individual self-interest.”
What that means in particular is that the need to save money is more important than saving Mom.
Or you.
At the forefront of this cost-based rationing is NICE. It acts as a comparative-effectiveness tool for NHS, comparing various treatments and determining whether the benefits the patient receives, such as prolonged life, are cost-efficient for the government.
NICE, however, is not simply a government agency that helps bureaucrats decide if one treatment is better than another. With the creation of NICE, the U.K. government has effectively put a dollar amount to how much a citizen’s life is worth. To be exact, each year of added life is worth approximately $44,305 (£30,000). Of course, this is a general rule and, as NICE chairman Michael Rawlins points out, the agency has sometimes approved treatments costing as much as $70,887 (£48,000) per year of extended life.
To Dr. Berwick , this is exactly how it should be. “NICE is not just a national treasure,” he says, “it is a global treasure.”
So why does what Berwick thinks matter? David Catron tells us why:
If you’re like most Americans, you had probably never heard of Donald Berwick before July 7, when President Obama installed him as Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). And, unless you’re a health policy wonk, the news that Obama circumvented the normal Senate confirmation process with a recess appointment probably elicited no response beyond a briefly raised eyebrow and a stifled yawn. But this CMS decision deserves another look. Dr. Berwick has been granted the power to reach out and touch you in ways undreamed of by higher profile appointees like Elena Kagan. Whether you’re paying attention or not, he will have a profound impact on the quality of your life.
But Berwick is a liberal, and most liberals are flaming hypocrites. Berwick does not disappoint:
Unlike his boss in the White House, Dr. Berwick has made no secret of his views on this issue, and has never avoided the “R” word. In a 2009 interview for Biotechnology Healthcare, for example, Berwick praised the heavy-handed rationing methods of Britain’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) and said, “The decision is not whether or not we will ration care; the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open.” Unfortunately, the interviewer failed to ask the obvious follow-up question: “Who’s we?” It turns out that what the good doctor really means when he says “we” is “you.” For himself and his wife, he has arranged to opt out of the health care system he plans to impose on the hoi polloi.
~~~Which brings us back to the good doctor’s personal coverage. Before Obama picked him to be our new Medicare czar, Berwick was the chief executive officer of an outfit he founded called the Institute for Health Care Improvement (IHI). IHI bills itself as a nonprofit charity, but it seems to do an awful lot of work on behalf of for-profit entities. As CEO of this enterprise, Dr. Berwick earned a cool $2.3 million in 2008. But, more to the point, IHI will provide him with private health care coverage during his declining years: “The Institute created a postretirement health benefit plan for its chief executive officer (CEO). It provides the CEO and his spouse medical insurance from retirement until death.”
In other words, Dr. Berwick has made sure that he and his wife will never be subjected to the tender mercies of Medicare, the health care program for seniors over which he now has control. Thus, even after he has implemented rationing programs modeled after those of NICE, he won’t have to worry about his wife suffering for lack of drugs deemed too pricey by some obscure comparative effectiveness calculation. You and I, on the other hand, won’t be so lucky once we’re on Medicare. If we contract deadly diseases requiring treatment that costs more than our lives are “worth,” we’re toast. This is why the Berwick appointment matters — even more than the nomination of a mere Supreme Court justice.
Congress typically exempts itself from the burdens they force upon us, including health care rationing. The man who will withhold lifesaving treatment from your spouse, child or parent for reasons of cost does not find the rationing Sword of Damocles hanging over him or his wife. Berwick is a bastar son of a fu hypocrite of the worst kind, worthy of language Curt would not publish here.
And that makes Berwick a perfect fit with the most dishonest man ever to be President of the United States.
DrJohn has been a health care professional for more than 30 years. In addition to clinical practice he has done extensive research and has published widely with over 70 original articles and abstracts in the peer-reviewed literature. DrJohn is well known in his field and has lectured on every continent except for Antarctica. He has been married to the same wonderful lady for over 30 years and has three kids- two sons, both of whom are attorneys and one daughter on her way into the field of education.
DrJohn was brought up with the concept that one can do well if one is prepared to work hard but nothing in life is guaranteed.
Except for liberals being foolish.
Dr John, it has been obvious from the beginning that we would be stuck with some kind of medical dystopia with a group of elites controlling the means to prolong life for themselves at the expense of the hoi polloi or us, the common people, without Elite political connections or union membership; for me, the question has been why, why does this skinny little man of dubious merit, intelligence, and accomplishment want to destroy the greatest medical system in the world and why does he hate the middle class, to whom the United States owes so much for its success, to the point that the economic and social fabric of this country is compromised to the point of catastrophe.
I doubt if you or anyone else, who reads these pages objectively, expected anything other than a diluted form of Socialist Medicine that Obama and his cronies are incapable of understanding or implementing. In other words, we will soon have the Charley Foxtrot system of medicine that imposes incompetent patches to an incompetent and unworkable system.
IT seems that this will end THE FREEDOM for all STATUE, for ALL AMERICANS:
AS DICTATED IN THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA;
LET no one ever forget it always start that way, and end in MiSERY for everyone,
NONE WILL BE EXCLUDED.
Just wait, soon journo-list leftist facists will be deciding whether republicans get health care of any kind at all
This is the eye-opener that many people need, unfortunately, there will still be many of the leftist/statist crowd who will cheer this man on. Those people will not see that when he talks in a collective sense, he doesn’t really include himself in that group. More plainly, to him, what is good for the goose is not good for the gander, and he isn’t the only ‘elite’ who believes that either.
The people who voted in Obama, at least 99.99% of them, are in the group that will be subject to the whims and ideals of a very small, select group of individuals who see themselves above the fray of normal life. This is exactly the situation as it was in the USSR and people, including some blind sheep who post here, deny that Obama is a communist/statist. Poor fools. When your beloved mother or father urgently needs medical care but is deemed too unfit to add to society and dies, do not come running to those of us who have seen this scam Obamacare clearly from day one.
johngalt: hi, I totally agree with your views; and the worse thing they are doing, is
Take on the most VULNERABLES of this SOCIETY; THOSE who need mostly our support and
our voice to strongly accuse injustice publicly,so the people know what is going on
underneat the restrictions and new laws they put on a multiples pages presented to be accepted,
as final bills. bye
@bees
That is the dirty little secret the leftist/progs/statists want washed over, or, better for them, hidden so deep that the people couldn’t ever hope to see it.
Their ideology is dependent upon power. Power over life, wealth, and the futures of everyone under their control. This power they receive then becomes a monster, acting on it’s own volition, continually feeding to gain more power through their approved legislation. The sad part is, most people do not see it, whether they are agnostic towards government in general, or blinded by their own ideology.
Their idea of Utopia is, in fact, nothing of the kind since it relies entirely on the power of a select individual, or group of individuals who do not subject themselves to the same standard of living as the general population, hence, we get Obama vacationing with two planes and throwing weekly parties at the WH and lecturing the masses on ‘shared sacrifice’. The blind do not see that a passage of Obamacare for the people, for the under- and uninsured does not apply to the very people who not only passed it, but the future ruling bodies who will administer it. They get to keep their ‘lobster and steak’ health plans that cost them nothing personally while the masses are subjected to the ‘spam and canned beans’ health plans approved by the elites that cost the masses in not only more cost, whether via taxation or health insurer bills, but also the reduced quality of services inherent in any government rationing exercise.
‘What is good for thee, is not for me’ is their motto, and the mass of the people pay for it dearly in poor quality of life, liberty and any pursuance of happiness.
johngalt: YES, WE will need LEADERSHIP who will be able to express as well, verbaly to the people,
WHEN the time come, LEADER who will be taking the difficult TASK to strongly deny their attacks with a beleif that will have the people follow and see someone saying the TRUTH hidden behind all their lies, being supported by thoses corrupt MEDIA also. I am confident in the future,which is coming slowly but surely because that LEADER will count on all of us to support him toward that GOAL. bye thank you
@bees
A true leader is one who leads by example and exercises power judiciously and equitably based on strong convictions and inherent sense of moral right and wrong.
Obama has none of that going for him.
johngalt: YES, Exactly what the AMERICANS want, EXactly what is missing bye
The MSM is as big a culprit in the injustices of the Obama presidency as there is. From the newly discovered Journolist excerpts and emails, especially the most recent detailing the collusion among the liberal journalists to avoid Obama’s actual relationship with the Rev. Wright and the racist tendencies of his church, and down the line to Obama’s rhetoric on the legislation pushed down America’s throat, the MSM has been in bed with Obama and his favored friends. They have perpetrated a crime on the American public, of which, the actual effects will be worse and worse as the days go by.
Forget about being the voice of the people. Forget about being the watchdog of the government. Forget about journalistic integrity and independence. The MSM has ignored important stories, overlooked verifiable facts and outright lied to the American public about the actions of this President and the individuals and groups who carry his water.
In a way, the First Amendment is dying everyday these imbeciles are allowed to feast like carrion on the carcass of liberty.
How, you ask? Roughly, by spitting in the face of one of the most important amendments by using a freedom purchased in blood and sweat to allow dishonest influence of opinion to reign supreme. By sitting idly by while important actual facts are denied or swept under the rug by politicians whose primary purpose is power for the sake of power. Not one bone of integrity and honesty have been displayed by the press(MSM) while the leftists have run roughshod over the Constitution and the people’s individual liberties. Sadly, over half the country is either agnostic to the injustice, or cheers it on, blind to the dereliction of a once proud institution.
johngalt: I think they THE MEDIA, get some kind of very interesthing benefits, in order to hide so much mistakes and lies from the government as a whole unit and leader bad decisions on so many fronts: I doubt, they work for free . bye