Let the Rationing Begin - Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services

[chanel]

It all starts with the sweeping power that the Senate bill gives to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The agency will be given the authority to unilaterally write new rules on when medical devices and drugs can be used, and how they should be priced. In particular, the Obama team wants to give the agency the power to decide when a cheaper medical option will suffice for a given problem and, in turn, when Medicare only has to pay for the least costly alternative.

The Senate health-care bill also exempts Medicare's actions from judicial review, taking away the right of patients to sue the government. Unlike existing Medicare coverage laws, patients won't have the ability to appeal any of the decisions of this new Medicare Commission.Thus Medicare will have the power to control which medical devices surgeons use

Ironically, private health insurers must comply with new patient appeals rights under the Senate bill. The government has exempted itself from the same sort of protections.

Primary-care doctors who refer patients to specialists will face financial penalties under the plan. Doctors will see 5% of their Medicare pay cut when their "aggregated" use of resources is "at or above the 90th percentile of national utilization

The regulation of medical devices and their pricing will also have consequences for patients by discouraging innovation.

______________________________________________

Scott Gottlieb: What Doctors and Patients Have to Lose Under ObamaCare - WSJ.com

 

[editec]

Like there hasn't been HC rationing going on all along?

You don't actually believe this mindless political pablum you're spewing do you?

Of course there will medical triage decisions to be made.

There always was, and there probably always will be, too.

 

[chanel]

This is the part that really bothers me editec.

Unlike existing Medicare coverage laws, patients won't have the ability to appeal any of the decisions of this new Medicare Commission

 

[Sodafin]

What do you mean with 'let rationing begin'?

You have had rationed health care for a century.

Given the new system increases the number of people who have access to health care, ergo it reduces rationing.

I live in a country with full and complete universal healthcare - dental included. Triage decisions are made every day, of course, but there is no rationing, and no one complains about there being rationing.

 

[chanel]

Shall I change the title to "Let the death panels begin"...?

 

[RetiredGySgt]

What do you mean with 'let rationing begin'?

You have had rationed health care for a century.

Given the new system increases the number of people who have access to health care, ergo it reduces rationing.

I live in a country with full and complete universal healthcare - dental included. Triage decisions are made every day, of course, but there is no rationing, and no one complains about there being rationing.

I guess missing the part where the Government now gets to do as they please and the patient has NO RIGHTS slipped right by the apologists head.

 

[Sodafin]

Shall I change the title to "Let the death panels begin"...?

Only if you think a patient being turned away from a hospital because they do not have health insurance, or a client being refused coverage for a pre-existing condition does not constitute a death panel.

Perhaps your best option would be to try and forget some of the propaganda, take a look at a system like Finland, Sweden, France or Germany offer, and ask ourself why their systems produce better outcomes (longer life span, lower infant mortality etc) and at a lower cost per capita than the US system does.

Until you can address that point, you don't have a case.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Shall I change the title to "Let the death panels begin"...?

Only if you think a patient being turned away from a hospital because they do not have health insurance, or a client being refused coverage for a pre-existing condition does not constitute a death panel.

Perhaps your best option would be to try and forget some of the propaganda, take a look at a system like Finland, Sweden, France or Germany offer, and ask ourself why their systems produce better outcomes (longer life span, lower infant mortality etc) and at a lower cost per capita than the US system does.

Until you can address that point, you don't have a case.

Still ignoring the part here big brother eliminated the ability to appeal and the ability to sue if a problem occurs. The government imposes those restrictions on private insurance and in the same breath removes them from their own services.

 

[chanel]

Don't you just love the argument "well it sucks for some people, so let's make it suck for all"?

 

[Sodafin]

Don't you just love the argument "well it sucks for some people, so let's make it suck for all"?

So you think people who now have gained access to health insurance are worse off than they were last week?

I really don't think that is a very credible argument.

 

[WillowTree]

Don't you just love the argument "well it sucks for some people, so let's make it suck for all"?

So you think people who now have gained access to health insurance are worse off than they were last week?

I really don't think that is a very credible argument.

well an additonal 300 million people without access to health care won't help the 30 million now will it? Everyone gets a card but everyone has to wait for what little there is.. yes that makes a lot of sense donut?

 

[Sodafin]

well an additonal 300 million people without access to health care won't help the 30 million now will it? Everyone gets a card but everyone has to wait for what little there is.. yes that makes a lot of sense donut?

Right. So you don't have access to health care anymore. I'll make a note of that.

 

[Oddball]

Don't you just love the argument "well it sucks for some people, so let's make it suck for all"?

The dirty little secret about socialism: It doesn't spread the wealth, it spreads the lack and poverty.

 

[Sodafin]

The dirty little secret about socialism: It doesn't spread the wealth, it spreads the lack and poverty.

Far from being a dirty little secret I'd say it's universally acknowledged.

However, socialism and universal health care have about as much in common as Indonesia and rabbits.

 

[chanel]

Sodafin - I don't know what the appeals process is in Finland, nor do I care. Right now, Americans can challenge a denial. And in four years they may not.

Oh and no one's healthcare is different today than it was yesterday. The new taxes will start next year and the "rationing" aka death panels will start after these crooks are re-elected. Pay attention.

 

[Navy1960]

Don't you just love the argument "well it sucks for some people, so let's make it suck for all"?

So you think people who now have gained access to health insurance are worse off than they were last week?

I really don't think that is a very credible argument.

Soda, respectfullly, I'd like to point out that in the United States having insurance such as Medicaid is NOT the same as having access to quaility healthcare, not is it the same as having access to quaility Doctors in a timley manner. When you compare a program like the one you live under where you can use your health insurance and it is uniform throughout the entire nation, Medicaid , i.e. our public option in this case cannot be used throughout the entire nation and infact the number of Doctors and hospitals and treatement centers accepting it as a form of payment is decreasing. In fact, the actual rate at which our Govt. pays those Doctors was NOT even addressed in this bill and when it was brought up it failed. So given that fact, if you add an additional 12 to 15 million people to that, you put more stress on an already broken system and lower the quality of healthcare for those already in the system because you have NOT done anything to reform the basic problem and that is cost. You cannot compare Finlands healthcare insurance with this current one here that just passed because it has done little if anything to actually fix the problems that were causing those people to not have healthcare insurance in the first place.

 

[Sodafin]

Soda, respectfullly, I'd like to point out that in the United States having insurance such as Medicaid is NOT the same as having access to quaility healthcare, not is it the same as having access to quaility Doctors in a timley manner. .

I agree with you, and that is an excellent post. One of the better points I've read on this topic.

Clearly Medicaid will need to be reformed as well, and I have to think it will be. I totally agree that you can not add 15 million people to a service without increasing the availability of that service.

 

[Navy1960]

Soda, respectfullly, I'd like to point out that in the United States having insurance such as Medicaid is NOT the same as having access to quaility healthcare, not is it the same as having access to quaility Doctors in a timley manner. .

I agree with you, and that is an excellent post. One of the better points I've read on this topic.

Clearly Medicaid will need to be reformed as well, and I have to think it will be. I totally agree that you can not add 15 million people to a service without increasing the availability of that service.

One of the things thats worth looking at too Soda on the matter is the so called DocFix bill which passed the house and came to a giant HALT in the Senate. What this bill does is raise the rates in which Doctors are paid by Medicare/Medicaid to levels that aare a little more in line with current norms. The current healthcare bill that passed the House and Senate did not include any provisions for this and in fact Doctors will not be , unless a bill is passed paid anywhere near the rates of their peers who accept private insurance. The effect this has is very simple, it lowers the number of Doctors and service providers willing to accept that as a form of payment for thier services. So if you take that into account and add the additional 15 Million people to the mix , thus you have a lowering of healthcare delivery. It has always been my opinion that people given the ability to make the choice on their own and having an array of choices to make both in terms of cost and quality tend to do a much better job of providing for their own healthcare needs than a Dept. in Govt. that has a proven track record of mismanagement. The bottom line here Soda for those to make parallels between our healthcare system and thier own is often times very hard to do because they are generally not the same. A person with Medicaid cannot walk into any Doctor here and expect automatically that they will be treated and that treatment will be covered. Further, in many cases that treatement is not fully paid for, so these are just a few things to keep in mind.