Krugman: You can call em death panels but they’ll save us money

As Ed at HotAir would say, “Nuance”. Fabulously lefty liberal Nobel prize economist Paul Krugman tells the lefty leaning panel on This Week that those “Death Panels” have been mischaracterized to scare people … but in fact in the long run will save us money on ineffective care.

He is of course referring to The Medicare Advisory Panel which has ultimate say in what types of procedures and drugs are covered, and oh by the way, can’t be challenged. Krugman doesn’t see too much wrong with this panel … because, hey, they’ll save us money.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aogCaGv9i78

First notice the qualifiers Krugman uses, willing to accept that the panel is right, and thus by denying ineffective treatment, it will save money.

PAUL KRUGMAN, NEW YORK TIMES: Think about people on the right. They’re simultaneously screaming, they’re going to send all of the old people to death panels and it’s not going to save any money. That’s a contradictory point of view.

TAPPER: Death panels would save money, theoretically.

KRUGMAN: The advisory path has the ability to make more or less binding judgments on saying this particular expensive treatment actually doesn’t do any good medically and so we’re not going to pay for it. That is actually going to save quite a lot of money. We don’t know how much yet. The CBO gives it very little credit. But most of the health care economists I talk to think it’s going to be a really major cost saving. I have to say, I’m wearing an FDR tie in honor of the fact that we have gone from the New Deal to the Big Biden Deal, I guess we’re allowed to say.

TAPPER: Big bleeping deal?

KRUGMAN: Yes.

TAPPER: Peggy?

It seems so benign, does it not? But just who decides the treatment is ineffective? A panel of bureaucrats who will decide what care will be covered and what will be denied. It’s not like Medicare denies much now. Hey, it’s a cost saver.

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Jim Vicevich

Jim is a veteran broadcaster and conservative/libertarian blogger with more than 25 years experience in TV and radio. Jim's was the long-term host of The Jim Vicevich Show on WTIC 1080 in Hartford from 2004 through 2019. Prior to radio, Jim worked as a business and financial reporter for NBC30 - the NBC owned TV station in Hartford - and as business editor at WFSB-TV in Hartford for 14 years while earning six Emmy nominations and three Telly Awards.

16 Comments

  1. donh on March 29, 2010 at 1:50 pm

    This is where we are  in Amerika ….killing people to save money rather than cut government spending. What is  more grotesque is the sinister doublethink of Lies used to sedate people participating in this institutional cannibalism. The effort to detach people  from any moral selfconsciousness . We  call death panels "efficacy and protocol". We call assisted suicide "dignity", and we call abortion "reproductive healthcare". So many  sit by  and gawk like rubberneckers as the government grows more brutal in killing people  and their rights. Many in government business and media  are growing addicted to the  lullaby of LIES, but a growing number are also awakening to the truth. Remember this as we go through easter. What are you doing to hold on to your humanity? Will you stand in the crowd of pagans and cheer the persecution of  the Lord to satisfy your blood lust , or will you help Him carry the cross  to victory?



    • winnifredthewoebegon on March 29, 2010 at 3:29 pm

      Well spoken, donh.  This is one of those days where it hurts my brain and my heart to hear what these health care wackos are saying.  All life is precious…unfortunately, the left just sees this as a cost saving measure.  God help them…we all get sick, we all die…why should those who are blessed with long life be treated like an inconvenient expense, a burden?  It's enough to make you sick to your stomach that this is even being spoken about in out-loud voices.



  2. sammy22 on March 29, 2010 at 3:44 pm

    Oh yea, the infamous "Death Panels". Keep talking about them though "You lie"!



  3. Dimsdale on March 29, 2010 at 3:56 pm

    Soylent Green is people!!  😉

     

    Of course, our "soylent green" will be called "Obiscuits" or maybe "Corpsicles", perhaps in honor of Navy "Corpsemen"?



  4. PatRiot on March 29, 2010 at 4:26 pm

    The premise is sooo false.  Death panels and saving money are not even connected. 

    We can make them connected – The death panels can be eliminated and huge money saved by taking these radical fools and putting them on a global warming ice flow (never let a crisis go to waste) with their hairbrained policies.  They will learn very quickly that they are only as human as the rest of us and not high and mighty.



  5. PatRiot on March 29, 2010 at 4:39 pm

    How dare they devalue life this way !!  Learning from middle eastern extremists perhaps.  I am at least glad this is transparent.  The immoral, unethical nature comes forth. 

    Wake the neighbors – we are gonna need help and this is going to get ugly.



  6. Anne-EH on March 30, 2010 at 3:49 am

    Jim, this blog article, after I had posted it last night, had up to fifty (50) posts posted over at FR. Here it is Jim. :)=^..^=
    http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2482778/



  7. LibsAreCommies on March 30, 2010 at 7:32 am

    Oh, so it turns out the Right was right all along and indeed the draconian ObamaCare Medicare Advisory Panel will act as a “death panel” to save money.

    Waiting for apology from all the shrill Libs in the Media who tried to make marginalizing hay of this accurate Rightie claim…



  8. Dimsdale on March 30, 2010 at 10:26 am

    I bet Krugman will sing a different tune when he is on the business end of the death panel.



  9. clthokie90 on March 30, 2010 at 5:33 pm

    Of course Krugman doesn't see anything wrong with these panels!

    The same government that is supposed to pay out Social Security (which is now in the red) to millions of baby boomers and beyond, will be making life or death decisions about the health care those same people receive or don't receive.  Can you say "CONFLICT OF INTEREST"!

     



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