Posted on 07/08/2009 1:51:04 AM PDT by Grumpybutt
The question came from a Colorado neurologist. "Mr. President," he said at a recent forum, "what can you do to convince the American public that there actually are limits to what we can pay for with our American health-care system? And if there are going to be limits, who . . . is going to enforce the rules for a system like that?"
President Obama called it the "right question" -- then failed to answer it. This was not surprising: The query is emerging as the ultimate challenge in reining in health-care costs that now consume $2.5 trillion per year, or 16 percent of the economy. How will tough decisions be made about what to spend money on? In a country where "rationing" is a dirty word, who will say no?
The question permeates all levels of medicine: the use of tests that many argue are unnecessary (U.S. doctors order five times as many MRIs as doctors do in Germany); how early to intervene with common conditions such as heart disease and prostate cancer; how aggressively to treat patients nearing their life's end.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Modern, fully-staffed hospitals and cheap, cutting-edge drugs for the elites versus filthy old clinics, endless waiting, aspirin & herbal remedies and so-called “doctors” from third-world sh!tholes for the rest of us. That’s what my crystal ball tells me.
Got it in one. Just about everybody who supports socialized medicine imagines themselves sitting in the waiting room next to Bill Gates and Sting. They would have different phone numbers, different clinic addresses, and in all aspects, a different level of socialized care.
Who says no? The schedule. Everything goes by the schedule, using referrals to triage by productivity.
Wealthy? Young? Productive? Your referrals for specialized treatments happen quickly. The treatments are cutting edge.
Older? Retired? One of the masses (not wealthy, and not a politician or celebrity)? Your first doctor's visit is crunched into a time slot dictated by a productivity schedule. Your referrals are somewhere further in the future. The clinics are older. The treatments are more, shall we say -- traditional. If you die before your treatment is available, the government has saved money -- that's how rationing will work.
This has held true for both personal observation, and from anecdotal information from people I consider reliable observers.
Who will be making the decision?? Some affirmative action beureaucrat. Thats who.
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