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Common
Sense Junction…
“George Will: Romney’s trifecta”
Friday, October 5, 2012
George
Will reviews the debate and
highlights three important things Romney accomplished. Here is one of
them:
Late
in the debate, when Romney for
a third time referred to Obamacare’s creation of “an unelected board,
appointed
board, who are going to decide what kind of [medical] treatment you
ought to
have,” Obama said, “No, it isn’t.”
Oh?
The
Independent Payment Advisory
Board perfectly illustrates liberalism’s itch to remove choices from
individuals, and from their elected representatives, and to repose the
power to
choose in supposed experts liberated from democratic accountability.
Beginning
in 2014, IPAB would consist of 15 unelected technocrats whose
recommendations
for reducing Medicare costs must be enacted by Congress by Aug. 15 of
each
year. If Congress does not enact them, or other measures achieving the
same
level of cost containment, IPAB’s proposals automatically are
transformed from
recommendations into law. Without being approved by Congress. Without
being
signed by the president. [That is rationing by a DEATH PANEL. (My
emphasis.)]
These
facts refute Obama’s Denver
assurance that IPAB “can’t make decisions about what treatments are
given.” It
can and will by controlling payments to doctors and hospitals. Hence
the
emptiness of Obamacare’s language that IPAB’s proposals “shall not
include any
recommendation to ration health care.”
Some
ObamaCare (OC) rationing is
already taking shape. OC rules are being circulated that would limit
the number
of mammograms (breast cancer screenings) a women can have. The
“proposed”
number is well below the threshold set by The American Cancer Society.
A
new rule extending the limits of
hospital stays has already gone into effect. Under old rules hospitals
were
limited to a set number of days Medicare would cover based on the
diagnosis
code used for admission. Now they have dropped the other foot. New
rules just
went into effect that hospitals will be fined $125,000 per occurrence
if the
patient is re-admitted within thirty days for the same diagnosis. That
means an
elderly person admitted for pneumonia or congestive heart failure (CHF:
a
misnomer that describes an excessive collection of fluid in the
thoracic cavity
outside the lungs) had damn well better not have either condition
within 30
days of discharge. It also means a lot of old people will languish in
ERs or
sent back home from ERS with pneumonia or CHF. I’ve personally known
elderly
that had to be re-admitted 2 or 3 times for pneumonia or CHF because
the
initial stay didn’t allow enough time for doctors to clear up the
underlying
problems. The new rules will certainly impact patients during
chemotherapy when
the patient is most susceptible to CHF and pneumonia.
Read
this and other articles at
Common Sense Junction
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