Death Panels? What death panels?
Rationing? Never. “Death panels?” No such thing! When government runs your health care they won’t act like those evil insurance companies that deny you treatment. Wasn’t that the promise?
A controversial new policy by the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System depriving hepatitis C patients coverage for liver transplants is effectively a death sentence that, left unchecked, could have far-reaching consequences for millions of Americans afflicted with chronic viral hepatitis, the National Viral Hepatitis Roundtable (NVHR) said today.
The new coverage exclusion governing liver transplants took effect Friday as part of broader Medicaid coverage changes made by the state of Arizona in response to budgetary pressures.
I’m not here to call for unlimited spending or every procedure to be okayed. I understand budget constraints.
However, critics have said that the sort of rationing and denial of care that is demonstrated above was an inevitable outcome of government taking over health care. Those that referred to this type rationing as “death panels” were denigrated and demonized.
Now I understand that while Medicaid is a government run program, it is a state run program that is subsidized by the Federal government to some extent.
But ObamaCare has pushed new mandates down on the states by expanding coverage and the states are faced with making literal life and death decisions concerning the affordability of care for those in their system. This is only one of many “death panel” decisions that are going to eventually effect the lives of millions.
All foretold and inevitable.
In other ObamaCare news more of the foretold and inevitable:
3M Co., citing new federal health laws, said Monday it won’t cover retirees with its corporate health-insurance plan starting in 2013.
Instead, the company will direct retirees to Medicare-backed insurance programs, and will provide reimbursement for that coverage. It’ll also reimburse retirees who are too young for Medicare; the company didn’t provide further details.
Apparently after reviewing the law 3M concluded that even with a subsidy offered in the legislation, it was more costly to keep the coverage than abandon it:
Maplewood-based 3M (NYSE: MMM) is one of the first large companies to indicate that it won’t tap a large federal-government reimbursement program created by Congress as part of the health insurance reform package, The Wall Street Journal reported. The rebate program was meant to encourage employers to keep in place their health-insurance plans for retirees.
Obviously, by 3M’s reading of the law, the “federal-government reimbursement program” didn’t offset the cost of keeping retirees in the system. As you see more and more of these stories pop up – and you will – you have to begin to wonder if this isn’t a deficiency by ignorance or design – a bug or a feature.
As this goes on, you can’t help but feel it is more the latter than the former as such actions by companies move us closer and closer to a single payer system. And when that inevitably happens, it will be characterized as the fault of greedy corporations and, of course, “market failure”.
Fair warning.
(HT: Rod F)
~McQ