Advocates of Obamacare often point to Great Britain’s National Health Service as an example of a national health care system that works. But all is not rosy across the pond, as England is beginning to ration treatments for “non-urgent” conditions such as hip replacements, cataract surgery and tonsil removal in order to save money for the National Health Service. Unfortunately, under current law, Obamacare could lead to a health care system similarly plagued by long waits and reduced access to services.
When Linda O’Boyle was diagnosed with bowel cancer, her doctors told her she could boost her chances of survival by adding the drug cetuximab to her regimen. But the rationing body for Britain’s National Health Service, the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), had previously ruled that the drug was not cost-effective and therefore would not be paid for by the government. So O’Boyle liquidated her savings and paid for the drug herself. But this is not allowed under NHS rules. When government bureaucrats found out that O’Boyle …
Dr. Donald Berwick may not be a household name yet, but if he is confirmed as the head of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the position for which he was nominated by President Obama, he may soon determine the direction of health care of millions of Americans. So what’s the big deal about that? Earlier this week, a Washington Post editorial attributed the ongoing hold-up in Berwick’s confirmation hearing to “partisan politics”, claiming that, “Republicans are seizing on the Berwick nomination as an opportunity to relitigate the health-care …
Suddenly, the Obama administration and Democratic congressional leaders seem to want health-care news stories to fall off of the front page. This week, House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman abruptly cancelled a high-profile hearing he had called just days earlier to berate corporate CEOs who dared to tell their investors that the health-care bill would raise their costs. It seems to have dawned on Congressman Waxman and his staff that his transparent effort to intimidate anyone who tells the truth about the legislation could actually backfire on him and …
Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) has pointed observers to a problematic section of the health care legislation now before the Senate that proposes (in Section 3403) to create an Independent Medicare Advisory Board. He rightly observes that the bill language makes it virtually impossible to repeal that part of the legislation, thereby attempting to bind future Congresses. DeMint is right about all this, but—having read through the legislation—by my read it is actually much worse than has been suggested, and much more destructive of the rule of law and democratic governance.
The Senate began debate on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (H.R.3590) this week. Senators on both sides of the aisle offered amendments to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s huge, 2074 page health care bill. The first votes to take place concerned preventative services for women. As Senators weigh in on this vital topic, Americans have yet another opportunity to examine their actions rather than just their promises and talking points. Bureaucratic Control over Health Benefits. This week, Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) offered an amendment that would extend the …
Sens. John Barrasso (R-WY) and Tom Coburn (R-OK) recently hosted Center for American Progress blogger Igor Volsky on their Senate Doctors Show. Volsky challenged Sen. Barrasso to identify where in the Senate Health Bill it empowers the federal government to ration mammograms. And Sen. Barrasso does. Watch: Here is how we covered the issue last week:
Last week, the United States Preventive Services Task Force issued new guidelines recommending that women in their 40s no longer have annual mammograms and that women ages 50 to 74 have them only every other year, instead of annually. The recommendations were highly controversial, and by week’s end most health insurers and the federal Medicare program said they would ignore the panel’s recommendation and continue covering annual mammograms. This is as it should be: the federal government collects information and makes recommendations, and Americans are then free to consult their …
The Washington Post reports: Women in their 40s should stop routinely having annual mammograms and older women should cut back to one scheduled exam every other year, an influential federal task force has concluded, challenging the use of one of the most common medical tests. … “We’re not saying women shouldn’t get screened. Screening does saves lives,” said Diana B. Petitti, vice chairman of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which released the recommendations Monday in a paper being published in Tuesday’s Annals of Internal Medicine. “But we are recommending …
The Oregon Health Plan is a government run health insurance option that, like some current health plans being pushed in Washington, is designed to increase access to health care and contain health care costs. The cost of the OHP far outstripped original estimates so new enrollment in the program was closed from mid-2004 until early 2008, when a lottery-based system was introduced to limit new enrollments. As this June 2008 local news story from KATU in Portland shows, the Oregon Health Plan also found other ways to limit costs as …
