When you have a problem after the age of seventy, you need approval from the unit review panel, before the doctor may help you. At seventy you become a unit. Call will replay in the third hour tomorrow night.
In summary (and paraphrasing), Neurosurgeon was at a conference where they reviewed policies coming out of HHS. If you show up in an emergency room with a brain bleed (aneurism) or other such problem, are over 70, and on govt insurance, all they can do is offer "comfort" care. IOW, the "unit" is not worth the expense of surgery. But an "ethics" panel
[Sarah was right, says Levin, it IS a death panel] of administrators
could decide to authorize the care. Surgeon pointed out his 9 years of additional training and that the administrators don't know a thing about what he does.
He also pointed out that many of the tools they use have yet to be approved but they are allowed to use them under as a Humanitarian Use Device - IOW, gee, that's an interesting tool you have there, we'll take a few years to run it through our bureaucracy and see if we'll let you continue to use it. Doc said at least one HUD was yanked away from them.
Mark asked if the regs were public yet, doc said no. I'm not sure if the doc said the regs were in force or just proposed. Hopefully it's the latter as a lot of this carp is backed off once the sunshine hits it.