Posted on 06/08/2009 9:22:01 AM PDT by InvisibleChurch
In becoming the first government health care program in the world to draw up a formal procedure for rationing care to consumers, the Oregon Health Plan has significantly shifted priorities away from lifesaving measures, instead favoring politically popular ones, says Linda Gorman, a senior fellow with the Independence Institute.
After comment from interested parties, the state health program for low-income people ranked treatments for various diseases and conditions in order of priority. The health care dollars available determine which priorities are met, and as program costs have grown, the list of covered procedures has become shorter, says Gorman:
In 2009 the state will pay for only the first 503 procedures; it won't pay to remove ear wax, treat vocal cord paralysis or repair deformities of one's upper body and limbs. It will fund therapy for conduct disorder, selective mutism in childhood (a prolonged refusal to talk in social situations where talking is normal), pathological gambling and mild depression and other mood disorders. The list emphasizes preventive care and chronic disease management because these services are less expensive and often more effective than treatment later in the course of a disease. However, there is no evidence preventive care will reduce expenditures; good evidence for the cost-effectiveness of disease management programs beyond those currently offered by physicians, individuals, insurers, and patient groups also remains elusive. So what is driving the move away from procedures to save lives in immediate danger? Oregon's list increases expenditures for politically popular care, meaning preventive care for the healthy and treatment of diseases with active political constituencies, says Gorman. This drift in rationing appears to be unavoidable when political processes are given control over medical decision making.
The decisions in Oregon show the results of ceding health care rationing to political bodies, concludes Gorman.
Source: Linda Gorman, "Oregon Plan Shows Dangers of Political Priorities," Health Care News (Heartland Institute), June 2009.
For text:
http://www.heartland.org/publications/health%20care/article/25288/Oregon_Becomes_First_State_to_Officially_Ration_Health_Care.html
For more on Health Issues:
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_Category=16
RATIONING.... but I thought the libs has been saying that we wouldn’t see that. The reality - no public health program can exist without rationing. Period.
Sorry grandma - you are now 70 years old, no more cardiac procedures for you - you have effectively used up your “usable life”.
Oregon FR Ping
ping
I hope everyone in the AARP is watching this!
"Do you love Dear Leader? Front of the line, best care available."
"Everyone else, back of the line. And try to die quietly while you're waiting indefinitely. And don't inconvenience us, or we'll tax your surviving family members to death."
In any case, I'm staying near an ocean, so I can sail out to the hopsital ships that the free market will create. Outside the three-mile limit or the twelve-mile limit, those with money will still be able to purchase real medical care that is not an obamanation.
Won’t matter. The retired sheep that the Democrats seem to have in the bag by repeatedly saying it is the Republicans who want to/are going to take away their Social Security and Medicare are too lazy or too brainwashed to think for themselves and look at the truth.
I confronted one such person when the Porkulus bill passed. I tried to tell them that the spending bill included language to restrict access to care for Medicare patients, and specifically outlined rationing based on what the government considered “worthy”. He refused to believe me, even after I showed it to him in black and white directly from the bill’s text (you know - the bill that none of our representatives or Senators who voted for it actually read).
Is is just like the died-in-the-wool Democrat voters. You can give them the actual official platform of each party with party ID covered and then ask them which one most closely matches their beliefs. Then when you reveal which one they chose, they will argue that you made it up...
We don’t want it!
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