Don’t you dare call these new financial incentives to speed up ‘end of life care’ Death Panels!
posted at 11:35 am on December 27, 2010 by directorblue
[ Healthcare ]
More great news for seniors: the all-powerful Department of Health and Human Services will create monetary incentives for medical professionals to accelerate “end of life care”.
…the White House will create incentives for doctors to discuss “options” for end of life care through regulation, after Congress removed the incentives from ObamaCare…
Under the new policy, outlined in a Medicare regulation, the government will pay doctors who advise patients on options for end-of-life care, which may include advance directives to forgo aggressive life-sustaining treatment.
There is, however, something at least vaguely disturbing about a government incentivizing doctors to do so as part of an expansive regulatory program that has, as one of its primary goals, cost reduction. The process used by Obama and Kathleen Sebelius to get this into ObamaCare is more disturbing, and in a very specific way. Congress made it clear that it didn’t want this incentive as part of the new law. However, thanks to the miles and miles of ambiguity in the final version of ObamaCare, with its repetitive the Secretary shall determine language, Congress has more or less passed a blank check for regulatory growth to Obama and Sebelius.
The implication is extremely easy to understand: “Patients will lose the ability to control treatments at the end of life.”
“While we are very happy with the result, we won’t be shouting it from the rooftops because we aren’t out of the woods yet,” Mr. Blumenauer’s office said in an e-mail in early November to people working with him on the issue. “This regulation could be modified or reversed, especially if Republican leaders try to use this small provision to perpetuate the ‘death panel’ myth.”
Moreover, the e-mail said: “We would ask that you not broadcast this accomplishment out to any of your lists, even if they are ‘supporters’ — e-mails can too easily be forwarded.”
The e-mail continued: “Thus far, it seems that no press or blogs have discovered it, but we will be keeping a close watch and may be calling on you if we need a rapid, targeted response. The longer this goes unnoticed, the better our chances of keeping it.”
Education is the enemy of the Statist.
Unchecked power in the hands of unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats is precisely what our nation’s founders intended to counter with a carefully constructed Constitution.
This disastrous excuse for a health care “reform” bill must be defunded, starved and repealed.
Hat tip: Memeorandum. Cross-posted at: Doug Ross @ Journal.
Blowback
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Call it what you will. The UK has had this in place in their national health for years. Just another example of the govt usurping the authority of GOD. Sarah was right.
Kissmygrits on December 27, 2010 at 11:57 AM
Two truths guaranteed to send our National Socialists into “frothing-at-the-mouth, teeth-knashing” hysterics.
oldleprechaun on December 27, 2010 at 12:45 PM
In a stopped-clock sort of way, Sarah was indeed correct. This kind of shenanigans has been pulled in the private sector for decades…it just hasn’t been made the law of the land and dictated from our government, and therefore excused from such fearmongering bullcr@p terms like ‘death panels’.
The feds didn’t invent this kind of Orwellian nonsense, but you can bet your booties they will take it to a whole new level.
Dark-Star on December 27, 2010 at 6:13 PM
href=”http://nation.foxnews.com/paul-krugman/2010/11/15/nyts-krugman-suggests-death-panels-balance-budget”>
Yeah fear mongering bullcrap, yeah right! The great lib genius using Sarah the loons terminology to explain what libs really have in mind.
Africanus on December 27, 2010 at 11:13 PM
why shouldn’t we ask peoples wishes before they are so sick they can’t make up their minds?
tomas on December 28, 2010 at 9:30 AM
Umm, not exactly. The govt has the full weight of the law behind it – a loaded gun if you will – to enforce its death panel decisions. For instance, if the panel, behind a cloak of rules, deems that you get no treatment, they also have the power to stop you from seeking it elsewhere, i.e. medical tourism.
I have no problem with free market “death panels” because they are in business to provide a service to a pool. When an individual exceeds their risk calculations, they should be able to pull the plug. And likewise, you’re free to find alternatives.
Bottomline, before all the advances in healthcare got going, natural law was simply to survive whatever ails you and if you didn’t, too bad, too sad, but that’s life & death. Thanks to modern tech, we have found ways to extend life and/or mitigate ailments, but that doesn’t mean we have the right to force the producers of these miracles to us when we need it gratis. This is a property-takings.
If you want the best care possible, then you pay for it. If you can’t afford it, then get the best care that you can afford, but know that when you max out, then you’ve reached the end of the line and prepare accordingly.
the way we’re going, especially with Obamacare, research & investments in health will shrivel up because there is no profit. Yes discoveries will continue to happen, but nowhere near the pace we have seen in the last hundred years.
The world depended on America’s free market to lead and provide the majority of the advances. Europe and the rest of the world only nibbled at the margins. Yes it is true that they made some discoveries, but most of that came where their respective Govts funded the research — is that not a death panel in of itself, where the govt decided what research it would sponsor and what it wouldn’t?
Some will point out that they also made discoveries independent of Govt sponsorship, ie Glaxo etc. But these companies did their research betting that they would get a slice of American market, thereby recovering their ROI. Absent a large free marketplace where they could participate, they would not venture their capital. Period.
That’s why this whole to-do about re-importing cheap meds is nonsense. The US is simply the largest consumer of advanced healthcare. This is where ROI lies. Take it away as Obamacare will surely do in order to “bend down the cost curve” and all that will evaporate. We will all become equally “healthy” to a point. But 1st we will have to run the guantlet of long lines, rude governmentized service providers.
Think of it, when the best and brightest forego a career in healthcare, what do you get? 2nd class and later 3rd class providors. Is that what we really want? Meanwhile, the rich will always find a way to get the best, simply because they have resources and the best and brightest will have moved offshore or else provide non-healthcare medical services. But you can be sure that if the Govt later deems cosmetics to be a right, i.e. braces or plastic surgery, the quality will go down as well.
AH_C on December 28, 2010 at 10:21 AM