Oh, THOSE Death Panels!

The New York Times explains the thinking behind Obamacare:

The federal government is now starting to build the institutions that will try to reduce the soaring growth of health care costs. There will be a group to compare the effectiveness of different treatments, a so-called Medicare innovation center and a Medicare oversight board that can set payment rates.
But all these groups will face the same basic problem. Deep down, Americans tend to believe that more care is better care. We recoil from efforts to restrict care. …
From an economic perspective, health reform will fail if we can’t sometimes push back against the try-anything instinct. The new agencies will be hounded by accusations of rationing, and Medicare’s long-term budget deficit will grow.
So figuring out how we can say no may be the single toughest and most important task facing the people who will be in charge of carrying out reform. “Being able to say no,” Dr. Alan Garber of Stanford says, “is the heart of the issue.” …
None of these steps will allow us to avoid the wrenching debates that are an inevitable part of health policy. Eventually, we may well have to decide against paying for expensive treatments with only modest benefits.

A reader comments:

…So there WILL be rationing?….doctors controlled by a monopoly payer in all but name?….private medicine outlawed as in Canada?…
So does this mean that Sarah Palin was actually right?….about the death panels…er, Medicare Practice Advisory Commission?
When do the liars apologize to her?

Don’t hold your breath on that one. James Taranto adds:

Having taken on, over the objections of the public, the responsibility for everyone’s medical care, the federal government may not be able to keep its promise: “Eventually, we may well have to decide against paying for expensive treatments with only modest benefits.”
Oops, sorry about that, Gramps!
It seems as though this is a pretty strong argument against ObamaCare. But we need to encapsulate it in a pithy phrase. What would you call governmental institutions that empower bureaucrats to decide when to deny medical treatment–panels, as it were, that have the authority to determine when a patient’s death is necessary for the health of the fisc?

Why are the Democrats determined to ration health care? Because, having sold endless health care at someone else’s expense as an “entitlement,” government at all levels is going broke. The Democrats need rationing to free up government funds for the social programs they yearn to implement, but can’t afford. Your mother’s hip replacement is standing in their way, so she has to go. That, in a nutshell, is what Obamacare is all about.

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