Weekly Newsletter: June 15, 2009
Senior Obama Administration Official Admits: Government-Run Health Plan Will Ration Care
As President Obama travels to Chicago to address the annual convention of the American Medical Association, the writings of one of his senior policy advisors confirm that the government-run health plan he supports will result in doctors being unable to treat their patients. President Obama recently nominated Sherry Glied to the post of Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation within the Department of Health and Human Services to serve as the chief policy advisor to Secretary Sebelius and the President regarding implementation of health reform. Dr. Glied has previously stated that government-directed efforts to reduce costs will be ineffective, and that a government-run system will lead to under-funding and a two-tiered health system. Dr. Glied has also written in support of waiting lines for health care treatments as an acceptable trade-off to save costs, admitting that waiting lines “will in some cases lead to worse health for patients,” but this harm is an acceptable outcome because “on average” most patients won’t suffer.
Coupled with one of President Obama’s recent proposals, to allow a board of federal bureaucrats to make “recommendations on cost reductions” that would have the force of law, some Members may be concerned that Dr. Glied’s position on waiting lines and rationing of health care could lead to exactly the type of approach Tom Daschle proposed—“getting into the nitty-gritty of which treatments are the most…cost-effective.” While supporting health reform that lowers the growth of health care costs, some Members may believe that the American people want a board of unelected bureaucrats making health decisions for American patients based upon what will cost least “on average”—they should make health decisions based on the advice they receive from their doctors about what works best for them.
A new Policy Brief on this issue can be found here.
Shooting the Messenger
This past week saw the introduction of the first major Democrat health reform bill—albeit one not paid for—and reports that Democrats do not want to achieve the savings necessary to finance their expansion of government-run health care. The major bill, introduced by Senate HELP Committee Chairman Kennedy, could cost as much as $2 trillion over ten years, according to press reports, but the bill’s only proposal to finance this new government spending is a tax on individuals who do not purchase health insurance that meets federal bureaucrats’ standards.
The effort to avoid paying the full cost of health reform legislation comes from other press reports indicating many Democrats want to rely on scores from the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB), rather than the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), as the arbiter of whether reform legislation is fully paid for over ten years. The Democrat hope—and expectation—is that White House political officials leading OMB will direct the agency to produce a more favorable score for a health reform bill than the non-partisan CBO.
Many Members may be concerned by this transparent budgetary gimmick, as well as the longer-term implications of subverting CBO’s independence—because the agency’s apolitical appointees dare to speak inconvenient truths—to enact an expansion of government-run health insurance. However, if Democrats insist on looking to other entities for information about their bill’s implications, some Members may point them to a study by independent actuaries at the Lewin Group, which found that Democrat proposals to create a government-run health plan would cause as many as 120 million Americans to lose their current coverage.
Of Fish and Bureaucrats
Even as some Democrats were advocating budgetary gimmicks to avoid financing the full cost of health reform, others were proposing massive new tax increases to finance government-run care. House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee Chairman Pete Stark (D-CA) on Thursday called for a two percent income tax surcharge to finance health reform. Stark also endorsed Congress’ swift timetable to enact a government takeover of health insurance, noting that reform legislation “is like fish without a refrigerator.” Also on Thursday, Stark commented on the implementation timeline for any legislation that may be enacted—“How quickly can a bureaucracy get going?”
Some Members may view Chairman Stark’s second comment—indicating the bureaucratic, mandate-driven approach to government-run health care—as prompting the need for his seafood-related quip. Members may agree that, like a fish left out of the refrigerator, the more the American people become exposed to the true implications of Democrat health reform plans—higher taxes, government-run health care, delays for care, and outright denials of life-saving treatment at the hands of government bureaucrats—the more the attractiveness of the legislation will disintegrate and decay.
Dean Screams for Government-Run Health Care
This past week saw a verbal altercation involving former Vermont Governor Howard Dean that demonstrated the problems associated with government-run health care. Appearing on C-SPAN, Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA) pointed out that while Governor Dean is organizing an online petition demanding a government-run health plan be incorporated into any health reform legislation, his family’s own record on government-run health care is mixed—the Governor’s own wife, Dr. Judith Steinberg, dropped out of Vermont’s largest Medicaid managed care program while Dean himself was Governor. On Wednesday, Dean angrily responded that his wife does accept Medicaid patients, but did not directly answer as to whether she dropped Medicaid patients while Dean was Governor—perhaps because an article from the May 17, 1998 Rutland Herald entitled “Governor’s Wife Cuts Ties with HMO” provides all the evidence necessary to confirm Dr. Gingrey’s allegation.
While not blaming Dr. Steinberg for dropping out of Medicaid managed care due to the many bureaucratic hassles and low reimbursement, Members may note that these very same problems are likely to plague any government-run health care system. Some Members may therefore agree with Dr. Gingrey’s rebuttal to Governor Dean:
Under socialized medicine, patients will suffer … they’re going to suffer in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Oklahoma and Arizona and North Dakota and New Mexico, and they’re going to suffer in California and Texas and New York. And they’ll suffer in South Dakota and Oregon and Washington and Michigan … and then they’ll suffer in Washington D.C.