NICE stands for the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. This is a wonderful sounding group (heck, even their acronym sounds comforting), but, in reality, it is the United Kingdom’s version of death panels. And, perhaps NICE is coming to a Medicare recipient near you. Read more
Today President Obama named Donald Berwick to the position of head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. This is not good news for anyone who relies on either Medicare or Medicaid for their health care.
Dr. Berwick, a Harvard medical school professor, was appointed by Obama to this post in April, but no Senate confirmation hearings had even been scheduled, so the president, as is his right, simply appointed the good doctor while Congress was in its Fourth of July recess.
We told you about Dr. Berwick earlier, but some of his “beliefs” are worthy of mentioning again.
Limited resources require decisions about who will have access to care and the extent of their coverage.
Or,
The social budget is limited—we have a limited resource pool. It makes terribly good sense to at least know the price of an added benefit, and at some point we might say nationally, regionally, or locally that we wish we could afford it, but we can’t.
And finally,
We can make a sensible social decision and say, “Well, at this point, to have access to a particular additional benefit [new drug or medical intervention] is so expensive that our taxpayers have better use for those funds.” We make those decisions all the time. The decision is not whether or not we will ration care–the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open.
Why were no Senate confirmation hearings even scheduled? My guess…if hearings were held, Dr. Berwick’s radical views about health “care” would become widely know to the American public, 60% of whom (at least according to one poll) want to see Obamacare repealed. Dr. Berwick’s sworn testimony at any such hearing would have driven the repeal Obamacare numbers even higher.
So, between now and the end of this congressional term in January, when Dr. Berwick’s appointment expires, Dr. Berwick will be charged, among other things, with drafting regulations that will reduce the government’s costs for Medicare and Medicaid by $500 billion, as “promised” by Obamacare.
This will not be a pretty picture.
Update:
And, don’t fall for “the Republicans were blocking the appointment” argument.
Even Max Baucus [D. Mt.], the Senate Finance Chairman, issued a statement critical of this end-around. President Obama claimed Republicans were stalling the appointment “for political purposes,” but Mr. Baucus hadn’t scheduled hearings and the nomination paperwork wasn’t even finished 11 weeks after he was named.
If you are currently on Medicare, by now you have already received the nifty 4 page flyer from the Department of Health and Human Services extolling the virtues of Obamacare for those on Medicare. Unfortunately, much of what is contained in the flyer is untrue. Now, however, you have even more to be concerned about.
President Obama has recently nominated Dr. Donald Berwick to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. You need to know about the good doctor. But first, I give a hat tip to Wyndeward, a frequent author on this blog, who gave me the link to this article.
Here is what Dr. Berwick had to say:
The decision is not whether or not we will ration care–the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open.
And, if that doesn’t scare you what follows certainly will:
We can make a sensible social decision and say, [w]ell, at this point, to have access to a particular additional benefit [new drug or medical intervention] is so expensive that our taxpayers have better use for those funds.
What better use of funds? Regardless of the answer, if you are on Medicare, and need a procedure or drug to survive, you will probably have a different viewpoint.
And then, there is this:
The social budget is limited—we have a limited resource pool. It makes terribly good sense to at least know the price of an added benefit, and at some point we might say nationally, regionally, or locally that we wish we could afford it, but we can’t.
Perhaps someone should explain to Dr. Berwick that our “social budget” for Medicare wouldn’t be “limited” if we hadn’t spent most of people’s Medicare taxes on anything but Medicare.
And finally, the obligatory left wing comment:
Any health care funding plan that is just, equitable, civilized and humane must–must redistribute wealth from the richer among us to the poorer and less fortunate.
Some will, no doubt, say, these are just isolated comments. But, I think they reveal Dr. Berwick’s firm beliefs…beliefs that I, for one, certainly don’t share.