Thursday, August 20, 2009

CATO health policy expert: Sarah Palin has a point

CATO Institute health policy studies director Michael F. Cannon, in a Detroit Free Press opinion piece, says that Sarah Palin was at least partially correct when she warned of death panels which could grow out of ObamaCare.

The only one of Palin's arguments made in her series of Facebook posts that Cannon takes issue  with is her point about a separate proposal to have Medicare cover advance care planning:
Paying doctors to help seniors sort out their preferences for end-of-life care is consumer-directed rationing, not bureaucratic rationing.
But despite her explosive "death panel" rhetoric, Cannon says the former governor of Alaska's larger point was entirely correct:
Yet that error hardly excuses the media’s mishandling of Palin’s "death panel" claim, particularly since Obama himself corroborates it.
What about her critics' claims that Sarah Palin was needlessly scaring people with her Facebook posts? CATO's health policy expert gives us good reason to be afraid... very afraid:
Lest you think this too Orwellian to become reality, consider that this type of government rationing already happens in the United Kingdom. Britain’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (or "NICE") generally refuses to cover medical treatments that cost more than $35,000 per year of life saved.
Cannon's bottom line:
Whatever one thinks of Sarah Palin should not distract from this truth: President Obama proposes to let government bureaucrats decide who gets medical care and who does not.
Will the Left and its trained media dogs listen to Michael Cannon's voice of reason? They're to busy holding their hands over their ears and shouting, "I can't hear you."

- JP

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