Healthcare rationing has come to America ...
President Barack Obama’s nominee to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which runs Medicare, is a strong supporter of the government-run health care system in Britain, who said in a 2009 interview about Comparative Effectiveness Research: “The decision is not whether or not we will ration care--the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open.”
The $787-billion stimulus law signed by President Obama created a Federal Coordinating Coucil for Comparative Effectivieness research in health care that some critics argue was a step toward rationing of heatlh care in the United States.
Donald Berwick, a professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and the head of the non-profit Institute for Healthcare Improvement, was nominated by Obama on April 19, 2010.
In choosing Berwick, the Obama administration is implicitly admitting that the health care law passed by the Democrats in March will lead to the rationing of health care, said Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) in a May 19 press release.
In a June 2009 interview in Biotechnology Healthcare, Berwick was asked: "Critics of CER (Comparative Effectiveness Research) have said that it will lead to rationing of health care."
He answered: "We can make a sensible social decision and say, 'Well, at this point, to have access to a particular additional benefit [new drug or medical intervention] is so expensive that our taxpayers have better use for those funds.' We make those decisio all the tim. The decision is not whether or not we will ration care--the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open."
In the same interview, he also said, “The social budget is limited—we have a limited resource pool. It makes terribly good sense to at least know the price of an added benefit, and at some point we might say nationally, regionally, or locally that we wish we could afford it, but we can’t.”
Donald Berwick on Redistributing Wealth
Lastly, in the 2008 report, Berwick wrote, “Any health care funding plan that is just, equitable, civilized, and humane must — must — redistribute wealth from the richer among us to the poorer and less fortunate.” Here is the 2008 speech where Berwick talks about the “darkness of private enterprise” and lauds a politically accountable system. He adds that “excellent health care is, by definition, redistributional.”
Donald Berwick also drops this bomb, Britain’s socialized health care is “one of the astounding human endeavors of modern times.” Good grief, hasn’t he seen the NHS horror stories coming from the UK?…
After 100 years of incremental steps, progressivism has successfully killed the American experiment. The government has inflated our earnings away, enslaved us in debt, thrown the economy hard into reverse, failed to do anything of substance about Islamic terrorism, and now the're going to ration your healthcare to boot.
Still don't think government is the problem? Still think your (neoconservative) Big Government is better than their (progressive) Big Government? Open your frickin' eyes!
I'm tired of government apologists on both sides of the aisle. It's your fault. You let the government grow. So just remember that when you can't get the medicine or life-saving surgery you need.
Congratulations! Your life now belongs to the government.
