Tuesday, October 16, 2012

FW: Excerpts from a note to President Obama in 2009...


Steven Rattner - An adviser to President Barack Obama

 

"The big savings in the future cost to the government in Medicare will be found in reducing the cost

 of treating people in the last years of their life, an expense to Medicare which currently consumes

more than a quarter of the program's budget.

 

Unless Medicare starts allocating health care resources, or more prudently rationing by its proper

name, the exploding cost of Medicare will swamp the Federal Budget.

 

It is natural for doctors, patients and their families to try every treatment, regardless of expense or

efficacy, and that imposes an enormous societal cost that few other nations have been willing to bear.

 

The Federal government needs to create a Medicare panel in Washington D.C. to make decisions

regarding the future value of a Medicare patient to society before authorizing high cost lifesaving

procedures for the very elderly.

 

Expect nearly every health industry lobbying group to strongly object to a Medicare rationing panel,

as will some consumer advocates when it becomes a part of your new Affordable Health Care Act.

GOP lawmakers will cry that thousands of seniors will die prematurely from a rationing panel's

decision.

 

Of course, there would be no need or any measureable savings to Medicare unless many of the

rationing panel's decisions resulted in a no. Therefore, expect opponents to a Medicare rationing

panel to rename it a death panel.

 

Obviously, many no decisions by the panel will mean the imminent death to a large number of

Medicare patients, due to the panel's denying doctors and hospitals reimbursement for the cost of

lifesaving procedures. Medical procedures thousands of Medicare patients otherwise could not

afford."

 

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