Yet scaremongers have morphed effectiveness research into cost-benefit analysis, warning that Grandma will be denied a knee replacement because some bureaucrat decides it isn't worth spending $35,000 so a 93-year-old can walk without pain (how many years will she live, you know?).
This isn't scaremongering.
Until the regulations are written we cannot know whether the government will interpret "effectiveness" as "medical effectiveness", or as "cost-effectiveness". Based on the big-government socialism that has characterized the first weeks of the Obama administration, it is crystal clear where this is heading.
He is NOT going to be able to generate the savings he has promised by IT. That is abundantly clear to anyone who is remotely familiar with the subject. So, where is it coming from?
To date, the plan has been all about taking money from the upper-middle class and giving it to the poor. Why would health care be any different? The plan is to bring down the overall quality of health care so that the poor can receive free health care, even if it is of a substandard quality. That is, after all, what socialized medicine is about.
Cost-effectiveness is an entirely different thing and does raise the specter of government making the call.
There is precedent. We've seen it before, and in fact, see it every day -- when patients are rolled out of hospitals prematurely because Medicare won't pay for another day. Happens all the time. Patients cannot possibly afford to stay on their own, because they're expectations are that Medicare will pay for their hospital stays. So, they're sent home.
Those of us who appreciate the best health care system in the world really don't want to see this happen. Many of us (myself included) would be fine with some changes to provide coverage for the poor, the establishment of some clinics to treat these people on the public dime, etc., gutting the best system in the world to do it is a serious mistake. |
