Death panels? What death panels?

Oh, those death panels. No, no, no … ignore that. That’s just prostate cancer … nothing to see here. Move along. As I always say, turn your college, retirement or health care over to the government and they will tell you, where you can go to college, when you will retire, and apparently if they will pay for your care. This is what change looks like.

From Doug Ross via Gateway Pundit and Anne Althouse:

Just days after the recess appointment of Donald Berwick, the controversial new head of Medicare and Medicaid, the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance posted the following grim news: for the first time in history, an FDA-approved anti-cancer therapy may not be covered by Medicare.

” … The CMS statute states that Medicare must cover therapies that are reasonable and necessary, while the FDA is instructed to approve drugs that are safe and effective. Because of the conflicting Federal coverage and approval requirements, there are some non-FDA approved drugs (called off-label drugs) that are paid for by CMS. However, with respect to Provenge, it appears that CMS is arguing that while the treatment is safe and effective, it may not be reasonable and necessary. For the first time, an FDA approved anti-cancer therapy may not be covered by Medicare.”

As Jim Hoft writes:

A life-saving cancer treatment “may not be reasonable and necessary”? Gee, that kind of decision-making by an unelected federal bureaucracy certainly sounds like a death panel to me.

I’m not sure if this is the work of Dr. Berwick. How could he possibly be behind this decission after being on the job one day. Still, Dr Berwick, the now famous Dr Death Panel himself, is most famous for these comments.

Limited resources require decisions about who will have access to care and the extent of their coverage.

This is what change looks like.

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.

5 Comments

  1. Dimsdale on August 16, 2010 at 6:46 am

    The Democrat sponsors of this legislation argue from the point that there is no specific "death panel" in the bill, but de facto decisions that are made that will affect you life for the worse because it is not cost effective is the same thing.

     

    A rose by any other name…



  2. winnie888 on August 16, 2010 at 6:59 am

    Oh, cancer schmancer…what are ya worried about?  The government death panels know best…



  3. TomL on August 16, 2010 at 7:54 am

    The only thing I can hope for is that the people who made the decision, get Prostate Cancer and Provenge is the only cure. I can say that because I've had prostate cancer.



  4. Tim-in-Alabama on August 16, 2010 at 2:28 pm

    You hate filled right wingers take the cake. We have to reduce the treatments available to cancer patients to keep paying for all these heart surgeries your beloved Dick Cheney keeps racking up on the taxpayers' tab.



  5. JollyRoger on August 16, 2010 at 4:30 pm

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    Cheney's cheap compared to $2.6 Mils to teach prostitutes in China to drink responsibly!  What's the cost to teach our prostitutes in Congress to spend responsibly?



Obama WWE

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