Obamacare and Rationing

The structure and substance of Obamacare inevitably lead to the conclusion that rationing will eventually occur if Obamacare becomes law. Here are components which substantiate that conclusion:

• The enormous cost of Obamacare alone without a revenue stream to cover the expenses will lead to health care rationing.
• Obamacare does not prevent government use of concepts such as comparative effectiveness research using QALY (quality adjusted life years) to force or encourage the denial of lifesaving medical treatment based on the patient’s age, disability or “quality of life.”
• The now-infamous end-of-life counseling provision, still a part of the House versions of Obamacare, could be used to pressure patients into rejecting lifesaving medical treatments to save money. As reported in a previous blog, the nation’s leading proponent of assisted suicide, Compassion and Choices, has taken responsibility for inclusion of this provision.
• The Senate version of Obamacare gives the Secretary of Health and Human Services broad authority to issue regulations governing doctors, hospitals and other health care providers which could be used to require them to deny “ineffective” treatment to their patients.
• The House version of Obamacare gives the Exchange Commissioner the ability to terminate health care plans. This authority could be used to facilitate the denial of treatment because a plan is providing treatment deemed “ineffective” by the Commissioner.
• The Exchange Commissioner is given broad authority to determine what can be charged for health care. Eventually this leads to limiting what people are allowed to pay for medical treatment. Health insurance companies will ration lifesaving medical treatment as they are squeezed more and more tightly by the declining value of the premiums they take in.
• Every country that has undertaken government-run health care eventually rations that care.

Older Americans and people with disabilities have good reason to fear Obamacare.

Barbara Lyons