I guess there are NO Senior Citizens On Here, so DON"T READ THIS!

[Warph]

Obama's Nominee to Run (Ruin) Medicare: 'The Decision is Not Whether or Not We Will Ration Care--
The Decision is Whether We Will Ration Care With Our Eyes Open'
Monday, May 24, 2010
By Fred Lucas, Staff Writer
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/66465

(CNSNews.com) – President Barack Obama's nominee to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which runs Medicare, is a strong supporter of the government-run health care system in Britain, who said in a 2009 interview about Comparative Effectiveness Research: "The decision is not whether or not we will ration care--the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open."  

The $787-billion stimulus law signed by President Obama created a Federal Coordinating Coucil for Comparative Effectivieness research in health care that some critics argue was a step toward rationing of heatlh care in the United States.

Donald Berwick, a professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and the head of the non-profit Institute for Healthcare Improvement, was nominated by Obama on April 19, 2010.

In choosing Berwick, the Obama administration is implicitly admitting that the health care law passed by the Democrats in March will lead to the rationing of health care, said Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) in a May 19 press release.


Concerning Berwick's 2009 comment about the rationing of health care, the White House released a statement to several news organizations in which spokesman Reid Cherlin said the following:

"No one is surprised that Republicans plan to use this confirmation process to trot out the same arguments and scare tactics they hoped would block health insurance reform. The fact is, rationing is rampant in the system today, as insurers make arbitrary decisions about who can get the care they need. Don Berwick wants to see a system in which those decisions are transparent– and that the people who make them are held accountable."

The White House statement, according to Roberts, seemed to acknowledge that the new health care law would simply ration care in a transparent way. "This is really a fascinating response. Instead of flat out denials of government rationing we have excuses," Roberts said on the Senate floor on May 19. "And if you read between the lines you will notice that for the first time ever in this debate the Obama White House is admitting that their health care plan will ration health care," the senator said.

Roberts made it clear that he does not accept health care rationing "transparent or otherwise."

"I am opposed to rationing whether it is done by the government or by an insurance company," said Roberts. "I am not defending any of the practices of insurance companies who have unjustly denied claims. But the Obama Administration's response does nothing to address my concerns that our government will ration care. Instead, we finally have an admission from the White House that this is what they plan to do."

In a June 2009 interview in Biotechnology Healthcare, Berwick was asked: "Critics of CER (Comparative Effectiveness Research) have said that it will lead to rationing of health care."

He answered: "We can make a sensible social decision and say, 'Well, at this point, to have access to a particular additional benefit [new drug or medical intervention] is so expensive that our taxpayers have better use for those funds.' We make those decisions all the time. The decision is not whether or not we will ration care--the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open."
In the same interview, he also said, "The social budget is limited—we have a limited resource pool. It makes terribly good sense to at least know the price of an added benefit, and at some point we might say nationally, regionally, or locally that we wish we could afford it, but we can't."

Berwick also talked about his romantic view of Britain's socialized health care system on page 213 of a report he wrote entitled, "A Transatlantic Review of the NHS at 60," published on July 26, 2008.  

"Cynics beware: I am romantic about the National Health Service; I love it," Berwick wrote. "All I need to do to rediscover the romance is to look at health care in my own country."

In the same article, he wrote, "The NHS is one of the astounding human endeavors of modern times. ... It's easier in the United States because we do not promise health care as a human right."

He further wrote, "Any health care funding plan that is just, equitable, civilized, and humane must – must – redistribute wealth from the richer among us to the poorer and less fortunate."

Roberts said he personally did not understand this romantic view of socialized medicine.

"With cancer survival rates for women 10 percentage points higher in the U.S. than in England, and over 20 points higher for men, why does he think that their government-run system is superior to our system?" said Roberts.  



A few comments on this:

"Just received a brochure in my mail: "What the New Health Care Law means to you." Right off the bat it states: "Community health teams will provide patient- centered care so you won't have to see multiple doctors who don't work together." Teams? Maybe panels? Maybe selecting my doctor for me?. Lawyers belong in firms, not doctors. I just happen to like using more than one doctor. Having a second opinion, maybe? Just how do I get this through a team? What if my doctor isn't on the team? Then, I guess, my only alternative will be to find a doctor who'll be privately paid. Welcome to Obamacare, folks."


"RATIONING? That's not what Obama, Pelosi, and Reid told us? Boy, are a lot of senior citizens going to be mad when they hear that!"


"The Reich wing fruit bats are spinning and lying. Concerning the 2009 interview, Berwick's answer was cut short. Berwick's full reply was: "The decision is not whether or not we will ration care. The decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open. AND RIGHT NOW WE ARE DOING IT BLINDLY." What Berwick was saying is; insurance companies already use cost-benefit analyses to ration coverage. On NPR, July 15, 2009, Wellpoint CMO Dr. Sam Nussbaum told Steve Inskeep that "where the private sector has been far more effective than govt. programs is in limiting clinical services to those that are best meeting the needs of patients." In Senate testimony, Wendell Potter, former senior executive at CIGNA, explained how the insurance industry makes cost-based decisions, including how "insurers routinely dump policyholders who are less profitable or who get sick" and "also dump small businesses whose employees' medical claims exceed what insurance underwriters expected."


"Anytime Obama says there will be no rationing, he is LYING again! I live with socialized medicene, in Austria, and lost my brother-in-law, in 2009, because they refused to give him a liver transplant because they thought he was too old, 65 years old. He died two months later. There will be rationing and a lot of people will die so that Obama can have his way. The man is nothing but a LIAR and cannot even prove he is an American. To Trust anything Obama says is to Trust the Devil!"


Now this one... maybe all the liberals and Obama lovers on this forum had better not read this comment, might make them sick and give them nightmares:


Quote "This Obama regime is the modern Boss Tweed Tammany Hall. The depraved nature of the Democrat party and its hidden progressive-marxist agenda has been a cancer on America for 100 years now, and today, the main stream media is controlled by the progressives so we don't Thomas Nast drawings exposing what this rat vermin Obama is doing.
He has outspent all previous presidents in one year. He is big brother, he is a traitor and he is a little man child moron figurehead empty suit that acts childish and thin skinned because he is uneducated. Sure he was indoctrinated with progressive trash, but given what he says and thinks he is a stupid uneducated failure of a man that could not hunt, grow food for himself, even change his tire. He knows nothing of math, history, physics or chemistry, his ideas are idiot Alinsky eructations, his speech capabilities without a teleprompter is pathetic and he is one of the stupidest people to ever grace the Office of the President. And this moron man child Otraitor looks like the thin skinned loser. He is a disgusting man and a communist rat that will rot in hell.
Rat vermin corrupted Boss Tweed-Obama and his corrupted Tammany Hall regime exposed. Otraitor is a man child emperor with no clothes. He is a rat vermin traitor with a plummeting popularity rating because he hates America, hates freedom and hates liberty. He works for Goldman Sachs along with Dodd and Frank. He supports expanded wars - but is Soros funded Code Pink and media matters are silent for this baby-dictator Obama, he is weak and the world is destabilizing, he is an oligarchical colloquists and rules our population with an iron fist in a police state with a velvet glove, but he coddles terrorists, Iran, MS13, Mexican Narco-State Drug Czars. He cracks down on the middle class - the law abiding tax paying whom he considers subjects in his regime. His IRS has audited at a rate 300% above normal. His census is a ****-like info-gathering attempt." Unquote  

Whew... that last one was a mouthful.  I get the idea he doesn't care for Obama too much....

[Warph]

Several news outlets are reporting that Republicans are preparing to re-litigate the health care reform debate by blocking the nomination of Donald Berwick, Harvard University professor, to head the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). As the Washington Post notes, "Democrats in the Senate said that, given Berwick's national stature and broad-based support, he would be easily confirmed under ordinary circumstances," but "Berwick must first clear the Senate Finance Committee, where ranking Republican Charles E. Grassley (Iowa) said that he plans to vigorously 'explore the nominee's preparedness for the enormous challenges that face the agency.'"

The Republican Policy Committee has already prepared a memo that links Berwick to the British health care system and presents him as someone who supports rationing and a government takeover of health care: 

Donald Berwick, President Obama's nominee to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), has a history of support for government rationing of health care resources on cost grounds. He has spoken favorably about Britain's National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), which denies patients access to life-saving treatments the National Health Service (NHS) deems too expensive. The American people should have their eyes open to the ramifications of NICE-style rationing in the United States as part of Democrats' brave new health care world....They may see a Medicare Administrator who explicitly advocates for rationing as indicative of Democrats' government takeover of health care...

Rest of Story at:
http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/042010_Rationing-Eyes-Wide-Open.pdf

[Diane Amberg]

Since our insurance companies already ration health care by refusing to pay for some tests, many meds, procedures and treatments and fight to the death if a patient's PCP or specialist wants them....what's the point?

[jerry wagner]

Since our insurance companies already ration health care by refusing to pay for some tests, many meds, procedures and treatments and fight to the death if a patient's PCP or specialist wants them....what's the point?

Yep... pretty much a good summary of the existing system, so what is the difference?

[Roma Jean Turner]

Agree.  I think a lot of the people who feel they will just get whatever health care they think they need will be in for a disappointment.  As you said on another thread Diane, the Devil will most assuredly be in the details whatever they may end up being.