What is healthcare rationing? You are not simply waiting in line for hours at the DMV, another finally run government agency. Health care rationing is a bit more dangerous than simply updating your registration.
The Obamacare death panel, the (IPAB) will decide to withhold care based on stats from "likelihood of survival" analysis
When people wait for necessary healthcare, they may die. They may experience incredible pain, while they are waiting on drugs. For chronic, incurable conditions, they may live in pain until death. I have spinal arthritis. Every morning, or every time it gets cold, I experience agony. Under Obamacare, I may wait one for a Dr. to prescribe the drugs.
As in Canadian and British healthcare, you may wait on test, and experiences stress of not knowing what's wrong with you. Once they do find out what the test say, it could take many months to actually secure a procedure. A government employee may decide your procedure is too expensive or exploratory in order to cut costs. So there's no guarantee even once you know what's wrong and how to fix it, that you will be fixed. That's why health care rationing equals real human misery.
Obamacare tries to fix a supply problem (not enough doctors nurses, insurers = competition) by creating a demand problem. Adding millions of people that may not want or need health insurance does not ease demand. In fact, since nearly everyone may use the healthcare at some point in their lives, demand will be literally unlimited.
British Healthcare Rationing:
The British system has been criticized for running amuck with rationing. Ask Ellen Westwood, the 88 year old woman who was denied food and water and then given morphine since "she was now dying."
If you are old and British (Bad combo for healthcare), inform your relatives before you go in about the NHS Survival Guide. It includes great tips for fighting the rationing of your health, like withdrawing life supporting medical care like food & water.
Canadian Healthcare Rationing:
The Canada Health Act allows for all “medically necessary” services – a definition that is intentionally vague. This imprecise wording means that the number of services that are provided can expand and contract based on need and resource availability. If you have a specific medical need that is not listed – for example, you have a rare disease or want a type of drug that is not covered – then you will have to pay out-of-pocket for it.
A joint survey by Statistics Canada and the National Center for Health Statistics revealed long wait times, physician shortages, & poor health outcomes.33% of Canadians have an untreated health issue.
As in Canada and Britain, recently, we are already experiencing rationing here in the United States. Now life-saving cancer drugs are in short supply.
Check the multibillion dollar penalty on "innovator drug companies." which is about the dumbest thing I've ever heard of, because it will stop investment in new, life-saving drugs. That's about as smart as penalizing companies on a per employee basis to promote hiring. The new drug tax will kill innovation. The economist in the Obama administration never got the memo that drug companies must invest over a decade of time and $1 billion bringing a brand name drug to market.
Like the Democrats parallel universe view, where money just flows from the ill-gotten profits of evil corporations, and Obamacare is an attack on medicine.
Since the "Unaffordable care act" begins a new tax on medical equipment, who will ultimately pay that? The doctors and consumers that buy the equipment will pay more.
Where will the 4,000-12,000 new doctors come from to treat the 16 million that are about to join Medicaid? Already most doctors do not accept or want Medicaid patients. That's why people that get dumped into the "Medicaid ghetto" cannot get a doctor's appointment, and still end up in ERs. Since they know if they wait long enough, they will eventually get seen. The "affordable" care act expands Medicaid, so emergency rooms will be swamped. This is not a speculation, in hospitals in Canada, patient's wait up to 48 hours in the hallway.
Obama appointed Donald Berwick as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Mr. Berwick was installed during the congressional recess with no Senate hearing and no Senate confirmation vote. He said:
"The decision is not whether or not we will ration care, the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open."
So Obamacares only answer after giving all Americans "access to healthcare" is government rationing. Nameless government officials (with great health plans) decide how much you are allowed to cost the government. As in Canada and Britain, humans will wait many weeks for life-saving procedures, like chemotherapy and surgery.
What about the millions more newly insured, that don't qualify for Medicaid, and are mandated to buy their own health insurance? Whether partially subsidized by the government, or required to pay 100% of the full cost, those people are going to want to use their health insurance. How many more doctors and nurses, administrative staff, medical equipment, hospital beds, etc. which it take to treat those people?
The good news is in Canada or Britain, the family pet can be seen almost immediately. Health insurance is allowed for animals. In Canada it's actually a crime to sell health insurance to an individual. What does that say about the value of a human life?
If you don't have the needed doctors, nurses, hospitals, facilities, and drugs to treat the 20 million newly insured, you are creating the health care shortage and rationing. Creating demand problems cannot be considered reform. Until we provide real common sense answers to healthcare inflation (like tort reform, consumer payment, less regulations), costs will continue to exceed inflation.
Under Obamacare 23 million people will still not have health insurance. And like the good old days, most people will still show up in emergency rooms. Putting off life-saving procedures, and living in pain.
Obamacare is a terminal illness, and congrats to all Ohioans that gave the unaffordable care act big thumbs down last night on issue #3.
*1 Canada's Wait Times Exceed Benchmarks, Professor Mark J. Perry's Blog for Economics and Finance
*2 Elderly Woman Rescued by Family from NHS Dehydration Order, LifeSiteNews, Hilary White
Recommended Obamacare / PPACA / Affordable Care Act Links:
Craig Casey is an Writer, Coach, Blogger, Husband, and Former Health Insurance Agent helping people on the web since 1999 with their health insurance problems.
