That may well be the motto for the “health care rationing commission” that may be coming under Obamacare – as outlined in this Wall Street Journal article:
As usual, the most dangerous parts of ObamaCare aren’t receiving the scrutiny they deserve—and one of the least examined is a new commission to tell Congress how to control health spending. Democrats are quietly attempting to impose a “global budget” on Medicare, with radical implications for U.S. medicine.
Like most of Europe, the various health bills stipulate that Congress will arbitrarily decide how much to spend on health care for seniors every year—and then invest an unelected board with extraordinary powers to dictate what is covered and how it will be paid for. White House budget director Peter Orszag calls this Medicare commission “critical to our fiscal future” and “one of the most potent reforms.”
How will this board seek to contain costs? Deciding for us what is “too expensive” and denying coverage of such treatments.
The hard budget cap means there is only so much money to be divvied up for care, with no account for demographic changes, such as longer life spans, or for the increasing incidence of diabetes, heart disease and other chronic conditions.
Worse, it makes little room for medical innovations. The commission is mandated to go after “sources of excess cost growth,” meaning treatments that are too expensive or whose coverage will boost spending. If researchers find a pricey treatment for Alzheimer’s in 2020, that might be banned because it would add new costs and bust the global budget. Or it might decide that “Maybe you’re better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller,” as President Obama put it in June.
Government can not “cut costs” of anything – they can merely impose price controls or refuse to pay for certain procedures. Setting reimbursement rates for certain procedures (i.e. price controls) does not magically make that procedure cheaper to perform. When the reimbursement rates are set below the actual costs, providers will stop performing that procedure – and if there is enough of these price controls implemented, fewer people will pursue the medical profession because it will not be financially worthwhile.
Fewer doctors, less access to care and outright denial of medical care will be the inevitable results of government’s “cost cutting” measures.
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