HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was part of a troika of Obama officials discussing the prez’s health care plan with Diane Sawyer. Sebelius of course depicted the rationing not as a reduction in health care services, but as the provision of smarter, better services. You can believe it if you want.
KATHLEEN SEBELIUS: Nobody’s going to tell your doctor he or she can’t do a procedure. But there’ll be a set of protocols that we know at the end of the day actually produce a better result for you, and are less intrusive. I don’t know a single patient who if they thought they could have one MRI instead of three, if they thought a drug regime would work as well surgery wouldn’t say, well, don’t cut me open.
Just as disturbing as the prospect of rationing is the word on who will make the decisions. In response to a question from Sawyer as to who will decide what treatment is necessary, chief Obama health care adviser Nancy-Ann De Parle stated that “clinicians” will make the decisions. Not doctors, “clinicians,” a flexible term that for all we know means someone on Henry Waxman’s staff.
Be afraid.
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As a Canadian I feel I must warn my friends to the south. DON’T LET SOCIALIZED MEDICINE HAPPEN. Here we queue up for whatever procedures the gov’t decides it will pay for and even if an individual can afford to pay for services here, he/she is not given the choice; many travel to the U.S. for treatment. People die waiting to see a specialist in Canada. Many don’t even have a family doctor as there are not enough doctors. People with elderly parents in hospitals must advocate for them or they will be ignored by under-staffed nurses. And that is in a country of about 32 million. It would be a worse nightmare trying to serve your 300+ million.
Mark, anything associated with Waxman is just spooky. I think he might be the least talented of them all, and that takes quite a lack of accomplishment.