Taking What You Don't Have

[Bgno64]

http://lancasteronline.com/blogs/smartremarks/2011/04/22/taking-what-you-dont-have/">Smart Remarks:

There’s just no winning this argument, I suppose. Via a friend’s Facebook feed, http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/we-call-it-%E2%80%98rationing%E2%80%99-obama-calls-it-%E2%80%98medicare-independent-payment-advisory-board%E2%80%99/">a bit about those nasty bureaucrats who want to restrict your medical choices! Death panels! No mammograms!

Ain’t that bad, but close:

Suppose Congress asked Americans: which government officials should decide what foods you would be allowed to eat and what prices you had to pay at the grocery store – Congress, or an unelected board of nutritional experts appointed by the president?

Most Americans would immediately reply, “Neither!” But that’s precisely the debate between Congress and the White House regarding President Obama’s proposed Medicare Independent Payment Advisory Board.

One of President Obama’s key proposals to reduce skyrocketing Medicare costs is a so-called Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB). The IPAB would consist of 15 members appointed by the president (and confirmed by the Senate), empowered to decide what medical tests and procedures Medicare would cover and how much it would pay providers. …

<snip>

However, giving this power to the IPAB would put tremendous medical decision-making in the hands of unelected officials with minimal accountability. We’ve already seen a foretaste of this when a federal government medical panel attempted to save money by restricting screening mammography to women over age 50, even though decades of medical research has shown clear benefits to starting annual mammograms at age 40. Although the Obama administration stated that the IPAB would not ration medical care, its power to set payments to doctors and hospitals would give it de facto rationing power.

Can you spot the core dishonesty here? I bet you can!

The IPAB is an attempt to keep the rate of medical inflation down – something, by the way, that went completely unaddressed in the vaunted Ryan plan. Ryan, as is the case with so many deluded Randians, trusts the market to somehow keep a lid on prices because citizens will become smart health care consumers because they…

Will have to ration their own care.

And there’s your core dishonesty.

If the IPAB sets the reimbursement rate for services below the cost of providing it, then hospitals and doctors could no longer afford to offer such services — even if the services are medically best for their patients. Life-saving medical procedures we currently take for granted, such as PET scans to detect early cancers or minimally invasive methods to safely open up blocked vital blood vessels without risky surgery, might no longer be available.

But they might not be available to you now if your insurance won’t pay for it. Or, they’d be available if you agree to foot the bill yourself, if you can afford it, or it drives you into bankruptcy.

What we’re getting here – and what we so often get in this debate – is a rhetorical sleight of hand. Your choices are going to be taken away!

Meanwhile, the alternative proffered will mean that you will have less choices, or the choices available to you will not be affordable.

This is government tyranny!

Versus, you’re just screwed individually.

We get it. Americans don’t like TEH BUREAUCRATS! But here again, when you consider that Ryan’s plan would exempt current seniors, you see just how far this crowd is willing to go in order to perpetrate its core dishonesty. The insinuation is that you have something the government is going to take away from you! But no – you won’t have that.

And if we scuttle government attempts to keep the rate of medical inflation down – and trust in “the market” – we’ll have even less.

[JuniperLea]

1. The Health Insurance Industry

Does this same exact thing, but using an ax instead of a scalpel.

[yurbud]

4. the government may sometimes err by incompetence but the private sector will err for profit every

time.

[Demeter]

2. I Want My Doctor And Me to Do the Deciding

since we are the only interested parties whose personal well-being depends on the outcome...

[txlibdem]

3. So you are a proponent of Single Payer Health Care - good for you

Single Payer is the only way to control costs and ensure that only your doctor and yourself are the decision makers.

There was a story in the newspapers just this week about insurance companies denying life-saving treatments. They have no humanity, no shame.
... http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20110419/NEWS02/104190358/Legislator-trying-learn-fate-three-heart-patients?odyssey=nav|head