The Rationing Commission Meet the unelected body that will dictate future medical decisions.

The Wall Street Journal ^ | NOVEMBER 15, 2009

[Delacon]

As usual, the most dangerous parts of ObamaCare aren't receiving the scrutiny they deserve—and one of the least examined is a new commission to tell Congress how to control health spending. Democrats are quietly attempting to impose a "global budget" on Medicare, with radical implications for U.S. medicine.

Like most of Europe, the various health bills stipulate that Congress will arbitrarily decide how much to spend on health care for seniors every year—and then invest an unelected board with extraordinary powers to dictate what is covered and how it will be paid for. White House budget director Peter Orszag calls this Medicare commission "critical to our fiscal future" and "one of the most potent reforms."

AP

On that last score, he's right. Prominent health economist Alain Enthoven has likened a global budget to "bombing from 35,000 feet, where you don't see the faces of the people you kill."

As envisioned by the Senate Finance Committee, the commission—all 15 members appointed by the President—would have to meet certain budget targets each year. Starting in 2015, Medicare could not grow more rapidly on a per capita basis than by a measure of inflation. After 2019, it could only grow at the same rate as GDP, plus one percentage point.

The theory is to let technocrats set Medicare payments free from political pressure, as with the military base closing commissions. But that process presented recommendations to Congress for an up-or-down vote. Here, the commission's decisions would go into effect automatically if Congress couldn't agree within six months on different cuts that met the same target...

[goodnesswins]

yes, you are correct

[cripplecreek]

I have a Russian doctor friend who is an American now. She’s told me about the old soviet system that has very much infected modern Russia and state run hospitals. Its a horror story. Private hospitals are very much prefered as a place to be treated or to work.

She said they would get new death certificates with the cause of death already filled in and they had to assign them to patients no matter what the real cause of death was. One month it would be lung cancer caused by smoking, the next it would be kidney disease or heart failure. She said it lead to money being doled out to various areas of research. She even had some 30 pediatric patients die of “lung cancer” in a two month period once.

[Mack the knife]

This sounds suspiciously like the Oregon plan.

We have Medicare codes for every procedure, and a cost for each. We have data on how many of these procedures were paid for, and can project that forward to estimate the number of these procedures that are expected to be performed this coming year.

Now have this panel rank order these procedures by cost and efficacy, and estimate total cumulative cost for each procedure added to the list. Now decide how much you would like to spend, find the amount, and draw a line. Procedures above the line will be funded this year, procedures below this line will not.

Since Medicare is the only source of medical insurance available to the public (except for unions), non-union retired people will pay the price in pain and death in order to keep the over all cost of Medicare down.

On the other hand, Union medical plans for retirees will be subsidized.