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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (79748)	5/14/2010 1:14:24 AM
From: Sully-	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90947

Obama’s Medicare appointee praised Britain’s National Health Service By: John McCormack Weekly Standard 05/13/10 3:56 PM EDT The Hill reports that Republican senators are highlighting Donald Berwick, Obama’s nominee to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. <<< “Dr. Berwick is a huge fan of … the NHS, a system that relies on rationing health care to hold down costs,” Roberts said. “Dr. Berwick has said, ‘I am a romantic about the NHS; I love it,’ and ‘the NHS is not just a national treasure, it is a global treasure.’” >>> “The decision is not whether or not we will ration care — the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open,” Berwick said last June. You can find that quote and much more on Berwick’s love of rationing in this piece by Jeffrey H. Anderson: <<< In an interview last June, Dr. Berwick said, “NICE is extremely effective and a conscientious, valuable, and — importantly — knowledge-building system.” He added that NICE has “developed very good and very disciplined, scientifically grounded, policy-connected models for the evaluation of medical treatments from which we ought to learn.” Moments later, the interviewer asked, “So you are saying that the federal CER [Comparative Effectiveness Research] agency should get involved in cost determinations?” (The new Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research was created by last year’s “economic stimulus” package.) Berwick replied, “You can say, ‘Well, we shouldn’t even look.’ But that would be irrational. The social budget is limited.” The social budget? Can you even imagine an American Founder using that phrase? The interviewer then stated, “Critics of CER have said that it will lead to the rationing of health care.” Berwick replied, “The decision is not whether or not we will ration care — the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open.” >>> Read the whole thing. Read more at the Washington Examiner: washingtonexaminer.com