White House appears ready to drop 'public option'

[JohnnyD]

Originally Posted by Cool Beans

I have been reading the section and no it does not actually say "death panel" but could easily be interpreted that way

I thought you were going to supply us with the section that states a panel will choose if my grandfather with cancer will be able to get treatment or not?

[scottw]

it's already happening JD, from Oregon to New Zealand

Agency to rule on new cures
By TRACY WATKINS - The Dominion Post Last updated 05:00

A powerful agency will decide which treatments to provide at public hospitals under a major revamp of the health system.

The Government yesterday made public a long-awaited report on the health system after details of a Ministerial Review Group's recommendations were leaked to The Dominion Post last week.

The report recommends gutting the Health Ministry by shifting many of its functions to a new National Health Board. It also recommends extending the powers of the national drug-buying agency, Pharmac, to decide which medical equipment should be bought and significantly boosting the powers of the existing National Health Committee to decide what new diagnostic procedures and treatment should be provided by the public health system.

The report was written against the backdrop of warnings that New Zealand's ability to pay for world-class health treatment is increasingly under threat.

It recommends putting the National Health Committee in charge of determining what new treatments should be eligible for public funding "and the conditions under which they should be applied".

"As part of its reprioritisation process, the National Health Committee should also be asked to identify and assess a number of existing interventions annually that ... appear to be low priority."

The group appears to be using a Pharmac-like model for the plan. Pharmac determines what drugs should be subsidised on the basis of cost and effectiveness, but it has courted controversy for refusing to fund some drugs. The most recent example was the breast cancer drug Herceptin, which the Government eventually agreed to fund.

Labour MP Ruth Dyson said the recommendations "dangerously point to a rationing of frontline health services". "Mothers, the elderly and others not in paid employment should be extremely worried by any suggestion of rationing healthcare to those in paid work."

Green MP Kevin Hague said the idea that healthcare should be rationed on the basis of an ability "to contribute to economic growth" was "obnoxious in the extreme".

But the Ministerial Review Group, which was headed by former Treasury secretary Murray Horn, said it was only proposing "service prioritisation at the margin", acknowledging that experience in New Zealand and overseas showed that any attempt to identify which core services should be publicly funded was "unlikely to succeed in the current environment".

Ad Feedback Association of Salaried Medical Specialists executive director Ian Powell said the proposals were radical and destabilising. "It has the feel of a Stalinist monolith about it."It was "bananas" to suggest that "creating more bureaucracy reduces bureaucracy".


FINGER ON THE PULSE:

New Zealand on average spends less per person on health than other developed countries.

Spending on health has been growing much faster in New Zealand than overseas up 30 per cent since 1995, compared with an OECD average of 18 per cent.


GPs are working fewer hours, not more, since the Government put a cap on GP fees.

Medical error is estimated to harm 44,000 people a year at a cost of $570 million.

[JohnnyD]

Originally Posted by scottw

it's already happening JD, from Oregon to New Zealand

I have no idea what is already happening as I only read the bold text.

[spence]

Originally Posted by JohnnyD

I have no idea what is already happening as I only read the bold text.

Isn't New Zeland where they filmed Lord of the Rings???

-spence

[JohnnyD]

Originally Posted by spence

Isn't New Zeland where they filmed Lord of the Rings???

-spence

Ohhhhh. But I already knew that

[Cool Beans]

it amazes me how people can honestly believe, that making something bigger and giving more people benefits will be cheaper....

it's seems a lot like spending your way out of debt....

JUST DOESN'T WORK

[JohnnyD]

Originally Posted by Cool Beans

it amazes me how people can honestly believe, that making something bigger and giving more people benefits will be cheaper....

it's seems a lot like spending your way out of debt....

JUST DOESN'T WORK

Agreed. That's exactly what I'm saying. Don't give the lowlifes any health care and let time take its course. Not only will we save money, but after some of the meth heads die, fewer people will be breaking into cars at the canal to steal change for their next fix.

Don't spend your way out of the health care issue, let nature take its course.

[spence]

Originally Posted by Cool Beans

it amazes me how people can honestly believe, that making something bigger and giving more people benefits will be cheaper....

it's seems a lot like spending your way out of debt....

JUST DOESN'T WORK

I don't think that's the argument.

It's that a public option will force the private insurance companies to compete, when now, they really have no competition.

Hell, even the GOP couldn't negotiate a bill for Medicare coverage of prescription drugs with free market principals.

Your sound bite sure sounds good, but it's pretty meaningless...

-spence

[scottw]

Originally Posted by JohnnyD

I have no idea what is already happening as I only read the bold text.

you can look at any socialized system around the world, they're all struggling and unsustainable.....and implementing rationing of one kind or another, it's inevitable...if " 77% of Medicare costs are for recipients in their last year of life"...I think Obama said 80%.... and you need to begin rationing, where do you think those savings are going to come from? "a panel will choose if my grandfather with cancer will be able to get treatment or not? " yes...exactly...and if you are fat or smoke or have some other afflction that would make you less worthy of treatment, what do you do then...
in Oregon you can be refused cancer treatment but offered assisted suicide and the cheaper option...that's not a fabrication...


reported on September 19, 2008:

In an interview, Baroness Mary Helen Warnock has said that people suffering dementia have a duty to commit suicide.

Baroness Warnock, called the "philosopher queen", is regarded as Britain's leading moral philosopher. She said that she hopes people will soon be "licensed to put others down" who have become a burden on the health care system.

She told the Church of Scotland's Life and Work magazine, "If you're demented, you're wasting people's lives - your family's lives - and you're wasting the resources of the National Health Service."

In another article for a Norwegian periodical, titled "A Duty to Die?" she suggests, "There's nothing wrong with feeling you ought to do so [commit suicide] for the sake of others as well as yourself."

"In other contexts, sacrificing oneself for one's family would be considered good. I don't see what is so horrible about the motive of not wanting to be an increasing nuisance."

Baroness Warnock's comments come as prominent voices in Britain's House of Lords continue to advocate for legalised euthanasia and assisted suicide.