Martin Feldstein, former chairman of the Council of Economic
Advisers under President Ronald Reagan, wrote in the
Wall Street Journal that, “ObamaCare is all about
rationing.”
He says,
“The White House Council of Economic Advisers
issued a report in June explaining the Obama administration's
goal of reducing projected health spending by 30% over the next
two decades. That reduction would be achieved by eliminating
"high cost, low-value treatments," by "implementing a set of
performance measures that all providers would adopt," and by
"directly targeting individual providers . . . (and other)
high-end outliers." In other words, using a British-style NICE
board to determine what services are cost effective, and disallow
those that are not.
Now, you can be for this or against this, but it is disingenuous
to argue that Palin was completely wrong in warning about this
cost-based rationing. What kind of democratic process is it that
asks the American people to accept this approach, while
pretending this is not what the administration is trying to do?
Americans may decide that such rationing is worthwhile, but they
should not be fooled into thinking it is the only way to control
costs. Mr. Feldstein points out one alternative. He writes, “The
rising cost of medical treatments would not be such a large
burden on future budgets if the government reduced its share in
the financing of health services. Raising the existing Medicare
and Medicaid deductibles and coinsurance would slow the growth of
these programs without resorting to rationing. Physicians and
their patients would continue to decide which tests and other
services they believe are worth the cost.”
If the people were allowed to vote on which approach they would
prefer, I wonder which would win?
