John Goodman of the National Center for Policy Analysis warns in the latest National Review that we shouldn?t read any 1,000-page bill to seek answers about how health-care rationing would work under Obamacare:
What form will government rationing take? You won?t find the answer by reading any bill before Congress. You won?t find it by reading any act of parliament in Canada or Britain, either. Governments ration health care all over the world, but rarely do they admit it.
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Here?s how it will work. The administration is seeking authority for an independent commission to make decisions on reimbursing providers of services through the Medicare program. Currently, a similar commission recommends reimbursement rates, but Congress approves them. This will allow the federal government to use the power of the purse to force doctors to change the way they practice medicine. There will be fewer CAT scans, fewer MRI scans, fewer blood tests, and fewer operations, for the simple reason that Medicare will quit paying for the procedures it considers questionable. Those who trust the government to make such determinations should remember: The rule-makers in Washington ? far removed from doctors and patients ? will be under constant pressure to keep spending down.
All health care is rationed. That fact will be true as long as we have a limited number of medicines, medical equipment, hospital and clinic beds, people capable of performing medical procedures, and any other scarce resource connected to health care.
Once you realize that health care is rationed, the question is to resolve is: Who should do the rationing?
