Obamacare will have “death panels”, just like Sarah Palin said.
This according to Ted Nugent:
“It’s built into the plan. It’s not like a guess or like a judgment. That’s going to be part of how costs are controlled,” Halperin told “The Steve Malzberg Show” on Newsmax TV.
Oh, they’re not called “Death Panels” – but, as we discussed in the past, HMOs are built around the idea of “Case Management”, which means “make sure the cost of the care is commensurate with the benefit received”. Don’t don’t transplant the liver of a 21 year old into a 70 year old alcoholic diabetic who’s already past their life expectancy if there’s a 30 year old who’d benefit more, for an extreme example.
And no, it wasn’t Ted Nugent. It was that noted conservative tool Mark Halperin.
Ask a hard question. How about: “Would you support denying cancer treatments that average less than a 3 month extension on life to Medicare patients if that would lower your payroll taxes by 5%?” That’s a practical and honest question I’d like to see the answer to, as that’s the sort of question we need to answer to keep health care spending under control.
Emery, your “hard question” is neither “practical” nor “honest,” because there’s not a chance in hell that we’re going to see our payroll taxes lowered by 5%, ever, regardless of whether or not we have fully functional IPAB death panels. For now, the Lou Reeds of the world get their livers. If they don’t, it won’t change the tax structure one bit.
All insurance has a point where it has to say no that isn’t covered. But, now that all men will have our pregnancies covered and women can get their prostrates checked yearly don’t we feel better paying more?
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We have all at least heard of the numerous stories regarding the “civilized” government healthcare programs of Europe and Canada, denying or significantly delaying procedures for stuff as mundane as improving the quality of life for a person, i.e. a knee replacement. The lefties have made every effort to avoid the reporting about the people that die waiting for life saving procedures, lest the peasants revolt. Anyone that still believes that this isn’t a built in part of Obamacare has their head so far up their ass that they can smell their breath!
The Republicans will use the power if they win in 2014 and 2016 to reduce or eliminate the fines on businesses who do not provide health insurance, and they will deregulate the mandate to only demand catastrophic care coverage. Taxes on health plans will be part of any deficit reduction plan. Businesses will seize on the new exchanges, subsidies, and changes to the tax rules as an excuse to allow them to drop their health care plans, giving their employees 1/2 to 2/3 of the cost as salary, much as they reduced expenditure when switching from defined benefit to defined contribution pension plans. As soon as a few big companies start, there will be a tidal wave following. Contrary to what you might think, Obamacare has opened the doors to American business getting out of providing for their employees’ health care.
” Obamacare has opened the doors to American business getting out of providing for their employees’ health care.”
Even if true, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I don’t know the exact amount that my company spends on my insurance (two people, both 50+). I know that I pay about $160/month, The company kicks in north of $10k, I expect.
Price consciousness by health care consumers may do much more to ‘bend the curve’ of health care costs than government price controls can. In fact I would bet on it.
Health care is a scarce good. It will always be rationed. The question is whether or not market pricing will result in more efficient delivery of health care products and services.
I hate fads, but I’m beginning to appreciate the Swiss health care model. I don’t believe it will be viable in the US, mainly because the feds can’t do it properly, and if it’s done by the states you’ll have problems with people shopping for the best state to live in.
We can only hope that the cluster**** that is the Health Insurance Deform Act will drive our country to separate insurance from employment. That, in turn, would make the “death panel” for a person…..well, that person’s own decision, just as many of us do indeed know someone who declined further treatment for aggressive cancers because they simply had no real hope of getting their life back. No?
It’s either freedom or slavery–I mean socialism, but I repeat myself.
“Even if true,[business getting out of providing for their employees’ health care] that’s not necessarily a bad thing”.
Yes, I agree. Providing health care is a tremendous distraction for business. It gets employers involved in aspects of the employees’ lives where they don’t belong and aren’t comfortable. Much as you don’t want your employer making life or death decisions about coverage for one of your family members, your employer really doesn’t want to be in that position either. Health care insurance from your employer will become rare. Employers in general should get out of the business of providing benefits. All forms of compensation should be in cash.
I think every American should receive a tax credit for purchased health care, paid for with a consumption tax (taxing consumption is better economically than taxing income, and the big bonus is to lose the regressive tax deductions for medical plans and mortgages). I think pricing should depend on age only, not health, sex, or genetic signature. This could have been accomplished in so many different ways, and instead they chose to have a mandate to hide the real costs.