Posted on 02/24/2014 3:00:51 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Buried beneath the avalanche of recent news reports about the latest Obamacare-mandated funding cuts to the Medicare Advantage (MA) program is a related but far more disturbing story — the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has taken a major step toward rationing medications to the elderly. Since passage of the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003, seniors enrolled in the Medicare prescription drug program have been guaranteed access to “all or substantially all” of the drugs in several classes of pharmaceuticals. President Obama’s health care bureaucrats, however, have proposed removing three of these classes from the “protected” list......
[SNIP]
.........Even some left-leaning media outlets are uncomfortable with the Obama administration’s rationing policy. In the Huffington Post, Professor Kenneth Thorpe of Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health, recently pointed out that the CMS rule “will not only fail to rein in Medicare’s long-term spending growth, but will inflict severe and unnecessary harm on our nation's poor and elderly who are suffering from serious physical and behavioral illnesses.” Thorpe makes much the same point as does Feyman: “Restricting access to the medicines patients need to manage depression, avoid organ transplant rejection, and treat psychosis will drive healthcare utilization in far more costly ways.”
It’s a little disorienting to find such an objective view in a publication that normally repeats Obama administration talking points verbatim, but there it is. Presumably, this departure from partisanship is an indication of just how far CMS has over-reached this time. Most Americans regard health care rationing as repugnant and unnecessary, and we look on it with even less favor when it is imposed on the elderly. As Professor Thorpe writes, “That's a betrayal of Medicare’s promise of access to care for our most vulnerable, older Americans.” Well said.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
Hospital records of all NHS patients sold to insurers The medical records of every NHS hospital patient in the country have been sold for insurance purposes, The Telegraph can reveal.
The disclosure comes days after controversial plans to extract patient data from GP files were put on hold, amid concerns over the scheme.
Those in charge of the programme have repeatedly insisted that it will be illegal for information extracted from GP files to be sold to insurers, who might seek to target customers or put up their prices.
However, a report by a major UK insurance society discloses that it was able to obtain 13 years of hospital data – covering 47 million patients – in order to help companies “refine” their premiums.
As a result they recommended an increase in the costs of policies for thousands of customers last year. The report by the Staple Inn Actuarial Society – a major organisation for UK insurers – details how it was able to use NHS data covering all hospital in-patient stays between 1997 and 2010 to track the medical histories of patients, identified by date of birth and postcode."
It boasts that “uniquely” they were able to combine these details with information from credit ratings agencies, such as Experian, which record the lifestyle habits of milllions of consumers.
The calculations were used to advise companies how to refine their premiums, resulting in increased premiums for most customers below the age of 50, according to the report dated last March. .........."
While not really related to the story....I will point this out. German doctors over the past decade....have now become acquainted with giving more and more patients....paceboes. What they’ve come to realize....while patients got smarter and demanded the newest and most advertised drugs....they really didn’t need them. So, rather than waste state funding on unnecessary drugs....they prescribed cheap paceboes (herbal remedies).
Now, I’m not going to say we’ve got a problem here with costly modern medicines. But I suspect that fifty percent of the drug sales going on today...are just wasted money.
Well, why am I not surprised.
What is killing so many of our entitlement programs is the fact that there are so many dependent years between retirement and death. Back when people lived to be 62, Social Security would kick in at 60, and they would get a couple of years in the sun. Now people are living to be 82, and Social Security is going broke having to pay out for 20+ years.
We have to reduce the number of years between retirement and death. The logical way to do this would be to raise the retirement age to something like 75 years old. But that would be politically unacceptable. So, instead, our politicians have decided to work on the death side of the equation. Thus Obamacare.
Class-warrior Obama has decided there are classes of "useless Americans" who are simply not fit to live in his utopian "progressive society" (the society w/ a "tolerant and compassionate" permanent Democratic majority).
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A FRIENDLY REMINDER TO DEMOCRATS: You voted for all of this: (1) throwing Americans off affordable health plans, (2) burdening Americans w/ ruinous deductibles, (3) nationalizing 1/16 of the US economy, (4) abandoning the elderly and the chronically ill, (5) empowering IPAB's (Death Panels),(6) decimating intergenerational transfers of wealth, and, (7) drug rationing.
REMEMBER THIS DEMOCRATS? As far back as 2008, at the Democrat presidential debate in Nashville, Democrat candidate Obama smilingly campaigned on the glories of his signature healthcare plan---ultimately enacted, by an historic straight Democrat party-line vote, into the "Affordable Care Act"
QUOTING 2008 OBAMA: "No. 1, let me just repeat, if you’ve got a health care plan that you like, you can keep it. All I’m going to do is help you to lower the premiums on it. You’ll still have choice of doctor.”
Repeated over and over ---- with the promise that every American family would be saving $2500.00 on healthcare costs.
Significantly, Obamba NEVER corrected lock-stepping Democrats, all reading from the same Democrat talking points, all of them repeating the same Democrat promises---over and over again.
LOCK-STEPPING PARTY LOYALTY NOT SEEN SINCE 1930- 40's ERA EUROPE Obama And The Dems marched in lockstep. The persistent Dumbocrat drumbeat ---- in obeisance to Obama ---- kept ringing reassuringly in our ears: "If you like your plan, you can keep your plan."
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Ominous cogs in the Obamacare meat grinder----the inexorable forcing of Grandma/pa onto Medicaid--(like cattle herded single-file onto the narrow ramp---knowing the bolt is coming---but not able to do a thing about it). Medicaid conveniently groups together the sick and elderly---as Obama's IPAB board of radicals sit in judgment. Boobamba's Orwellian-speak---the progressive way of saying "Obamacare keeps costs down."
The infamous "Death Panels---are alive and well----but they're not called death panels......for obvious reasons. The treacherous Obama euphemistically calls his death panel "I-PAB----Individual Payment Advisory Board." I-PAB decides what to pay and who to pay---thus rationing medical care to sick oldsters. Obamacare "allows" states to expand their Medicaid recipients pool. Under Obamacare, Washington now covers about 1/2 the cost of Medicaid enrollees.
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What is I-PAB?
When you find out about IPAB, you will not believe it - but it’s r-e-a-l.... a new type of government agency. IPAB (Independent Payment Advisory Board) is the first agency of the “fifth branch” of govt.
1) It will make all important health care decisions by authorizing payment or not.
2) It is not funded by Congress and cannot have its budget reviewed or changed.
3) Its membership cannot be changed by future Presidents,
4) It cannot be repealed by Congress, except for a six month window in 2017.
5) Its decisions are not subject to judicial review.
6) It is not authorized by the Constitution, and is therefore immune to Constitutional processes.
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Why is Obamacre herding seniors WITH ASSETS onto Medicaid---a program structured for the poor? Can you say redistribution of wealth? Herding the elderly with assets into Medicaid has ominous consequences that are intriguing to the left. B/c assets, perhaps a home owned free and clear, securities, annuities, investment property, can be seized to pay for govt treatment.
Thus intergenerational transfers of wealth (a longtime progressive bugaboo)----are decimated (grandma/pa's holdings go to the govt---not to you).
“I would suggest, sir, that, again, this is an incredibly agonizing situation where someone lives and someone dies” Kathleen Sebelius
BFL
ping
SURPRISE! SURPRISE! SURPRISE!
We are finding all kind of surprises in the "We have to pass it to find out what is in the Queen Nancy Bill"
I can’t understand people’s surprise at any of this,Ezekiel Emmauel is the Godfather of Obamacare,he received 1 BILLION DOLLARS in funding from the stimulus package to form the Comparative Effectiveness Research Panel,before Obamacare was even passed into law,to set up the Obamcare structure.
Now FOLKS you can read Emmauels ideology on healthcare in his “Complete Lives SYSTEM” paper,google it,you can determine if you have had your quota of quality of life years! Good luck,oh yeah the Comparative panel is disbanded,it has been replaced by the Independent payment advisory panel,better known as IPAB,or the death panel,thank you Obama
Bookmark.
I would rather they put a cap on how long you can collect. For example, they say you have 15 years to collect Social Security. You can start when you want but you will get zero after your 15th year. That is true freedom right there and people make their own decisions. Instead of retiring at 65 perhaps they will stay until 70 to make it to 85 or if someone say heck with it, I will take it at 60 and be done at 75 when my person savings will kick in. We need freedom in this country ASAP!!!!!
First it will be a “few” drugs. Soon it will be asperin cures all. Remember this POS is the one who campaigned on ending the donut hole. Yup, he did.
“President Obama’s”
…this is the most disturbing part of the article for me. Referring to him as “president”.
This is a classic reason why having third parties pay for routine medical expenses like drugs is a really, really, really bad idea.
I can accept that there are a lot of unnecessary meds being prescribed. After all, the doc says that the med may help...and, if your insurance covers it, what do you care how much it costs...and if the cost is justified by the benefit?
If you actually had to pay for the med, rather than just a co-pay, you would actually do the cost-benefit analysis.
When an insurer decides, arbitrarily, that a medication is no longer to be listed on their formulary, they remove the possibility of that choice for you...even if, in your particular circumstance, the med in question may be effective and warrant the price.
When the government makes that kind of decision, there is no appeal...and, in fact, it may be impossible for you to even pay for the med out of your own pocket, particularly if the pharma companies decide that it’s not worthwhile to produce the med or if the pharmacy decides that it’s not worthwhile to purchase a wholesale quantity of that med.
I guess the idea of just having grandma taking a pill no longer applies...unless grandma’s pill is government-approved.
If you like your meds, you can keep your meds....
(CACKLE) GOOD OL' OBAMA SUCKUP VALERIE JARRETT "FORGOT" TO MENTION---those NOT enrolling are the self-same "underserved populations" for whom class-warrior Obama upended our entire healthcare delivery system.....which threw productive Americans w/ affordable plans into eternal healthcare chaos.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has not said how many blacks have enrolled, but California enrollment trends indicate Hispanic enrollment appears to be lagging, stoking fears that minority groups (the underserved) are not getting the message.........
Apparently, the Obo-dum-dums finally figured out that sap-happy pols blanketed so-called "underserved populations" with so many govt freebies, like free medical care in emergency rooms, that these "underserved" types are thumbing their noses at laying out cash for Obamacare.
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AS FREEPER GOPJ INSIGHTFULLY POSTED: “underserved populations” are NOT impressed with Obamacare. Under the old system they were NEVER turned down - and took their medical needs to Hospital Emergency rooms where they received the best medical care for free... And the hospitals got to write the care off their taxes and struggling working class Americans paid for it all.......
With true freedom comes responsibility and ownership of the consequences of your decisions. We can't have little people like you and me making those sorts of decisions. Only our "betters" in Congress can make those sorts of decisions. Our job is to quietly produce tax revenue, their job is to take care of us.
If you like your prescription drugs, you can keep your prescription drugs. Period. Until King Hussein and his merry band of totalitarians change their minds. Cue the death panels. TOTALITARIANCARE: plunder & death.
Above all, if you wish to be strong, begin by rooting out every particle of socialism that may have crept into your legislation. - Bastiat
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