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Mortality Studies Suggest Obamacare’s Death Panels May Be Moving Forward

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Photo Credit: LifeNews

Researchers are busy creating computer models and testing hypotheses to see if they can predict mortality accurately–as a way, I suspect, of justifying health care rationing.

My concern was heightened by a study just published as a letter in the March 6 Journal of the American Medical Association, in which the authors claim that they were able to predict likely mortality 10-years out. From “Predicting 10-Year Mortality for Older Adults”:

Extending the index from 4 to 10 years did not diminish the model discrimination (validation cohort,C statistics 0.817 vs 0.834; P= .35), suggesting that the risk factors important for 4-year mortality prediction are also important for 10-year mortality prediction. The model compares favorably with other mortality indexes that predict mortality beyond 7 years…Patients identified by this index as having a high risk of 10-year mortality may be more likely to be harmed by preventive interventions with long lag times to benefit, whereas patients identified as having a low risk of 10-year mortality may be good candidates for such interventions.

Thus, (say) if a colonoscopy is identified as not having a positive cost benefit for seven or more years (as the article indicates), such screening for those whom the computers predict are likely to die within ten years might not be covered.

Read more from this story HERE.

Our Future Death Panels: British Hospitals Being Paid to Hasten Death of Terminally Ill Patients

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Almost two thirds of NHS trusts using the Liverpool Care Pathway [a program where doctors withdraw treatments or tests from patients] have received payouts totalling millions of pounds for hitting targets related to its use, research for The Daily Telegraph shows.

The figures, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, reveal the full scale of financial inducements for the first time.

They suggest that about 85 per cent of trusts [NHS hospitals providing secondary care in the UK] have now adopted the regime, which can involve the removal of hydration and nutrition from dying patients.

More than six out of 10 of those trusts – just over half of the total – have received or are due to receive financial rewards for doing so amounting to at least [$19 million].

At many hospitals more than 50 per cent of all patients who died had been placed on the pathway and in one case the proportion of forseeable deaths on the pathway was almost nine out of 10.

Read more from this story HERE.

ER Doctor: Obamacare Death Panels Are Here

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Today while working my shift in the emergency room, an old lady was brought in very sick and in fact near death. I did my usual workup and evaluation and attempted to administer life saving treatment. It was my plan to admit this woman to the hospital. I found out a little later that this same woman had been a patient here just slightly more than 2 weeks ago with a DIFFERENT DIAGNOSIS. I was told that if this woman was admitted, the hospital would not be paid.

The new Medicare rule now is that if the same Medicare patient is re-admitted to the hospital within 30 days, the hospital will not be paid. When they first started this nonsense they said this only applied to patients with the same diagnosis. Now they have “expanded” the rule to include re-admissions for any reason. So if you’re in the hospital for pneumonia, and 3 weeks later, you break your leg…….too bad. Medicare will not pay the hospital to fix your leg.

A little later a man was brought in by ambulance, very sick, in pain, and near death. I did my usual evaluation and treatment, doing my best to ease pain and stabilize this man’s illness. He needed to be admitted. To my chagrin I found out that he had been treated for the SAME problem at a DIFFERENT HOSPITAL about 10 days prior. If I admitted this man, our hospital would be paid nothing. I admitted the man.

My friends I am caught in a terrible position. I could have given treatment to both of these people and sent them out. There is no doubt that both of them would have died. Oh, I could also be sued for malpractice, but nobody cares about that. That’s why we have insurance, right?

My other choice is to admit the person, knowing full well that the hospital will have to absorb the cost of care without hope of remuneration.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Adviser Admits That Obamacare’s Death Panels Are “Inevitable”

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A top Democrat strategist and donor who served as President Obama’s lead auto-industry adviser recently conceded that the rationing of heath services under Obamacare is “inevitable.”

Steven Rattner advocated that such rationing should target elderly patients, while stating, “We need death panels.”

Rattner serves on the board the New America Foundation, or NAF, a George Soros-funded think tank that was instrumental in supporting Obamacare in 2010. Soros’ son, financier Jonathan Soros, is also a member of the foundation’s board.

Rattner was the so-called “car czar,” the lead auto adviser to the Treasury Department under Obama.

Last month, Rattner penned an opinion piece in the New York Times titled “Beyond Obamacare” in which he proclaimed “We need death panels” and argued rationing must be instructed to sustain Obama’s health-care plan. His comments have been virtually ignored by traditional media as the president campaign’s for a second term.

Read more from this story HERE.

Campaign 2012: The Return of the Death Panels

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Photo credit: eleanor ryan

Health care was supposed to be President Obama’s issue in 2012. The 2009 Obamacare law was hailed as his signature legislative achievement, but it’s never been popular. Its most onerous provisions were timed to kick in after the election specifically to avoid damaging the re-election effort. For months, the Obama campaign tried to negate the issue. It spent a great deal of energy seeking to inoculate itself from Mitt Romney’s attacks by claiming the Massachusetts health care law passed when Mr. Romney was governor was “just like Obamacare.”

Some of Mr. Obama’s supporters claimed to be thrilled by Mr. Romney’s selection of Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin as his running mate. The spin was that Mr. Ryan’s budget plan provided the necessary contrast to Obamacare to enable Democrats to move to the offensive. Pro-Obama commentators resurrected the allegation that the Ryan plan would “end Medicare as we know it,” a charge the nonpartisan fact checkers at Politifact dubbed the “lie of the year” in December 2011. Meanwhile, Republicans highlighted the $716 billion that Obamacare cuts from Medicare, a fact affirmed by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. This cut was the talking point that stuck.

The Obama campaign has had to contend with a serious pre-existing condition, namely a lack of support from seniors. According to the latest Gallup data, Mr. Romney enjoys an 11-point advantage among voters age 65 and older. Among the same group, Mr. Obama’s approval rating is 37 percent, the lowest of any age demographic. Medicare is a critical election issue in general. A recent poll by the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation found that 73 percent of respondents described Medicare as “very important” or “extremely important” in determining their votes. Mr. Obama now must explain to this skeptical cohort why he chose to cut a very popular program to pay for his very unpopular law.

Death panels also are back. At an appearance in Florida over the weekend, Mr. Ryan criticized the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) established under Obamacare to “contain” Medicare costs. The law “puts a board of 15 unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats in charge of Medicare who are required to cut Medicare in ways that will lead to denied care for current seniors,” he said. “We will make sure that this board of bureaucrats will not mess with my mom’s health care or your mom’s health care.”

Obamacare defenders scoff at the idea that the IPAB’s decisions would have fatal consequences for seniors, but the panel has been given an extraordinary and perhaps unconstitutional degree of power. Its proposals automatically become law unless Congress counters it with another plan. Overriding the IPAB requires a three-fifths supermajority in the Senate. The Obamacare law dictates that Congress may not even propose doing away with the IPAB until 2017 and may not actually get rid of it until 2020. This dubious provision undercuts the argument that the IPAB is a harmless advocate for government efficiency.

Read more from this story HERE.