{"id":2777,"date":"2009-09-26T10:02:57","date_gmt":"2009-09-26T14:02:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/?p=2777"},"modified":"2009-09-26T10:03:38","modified_gmt":"2009-09-26T14:03:38","slug":"keeping-we-the-people-in-the-dark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/2009\/09\/26\/keeping-we-the-people-in-the-dark\/","title":{"rendered":"Keeping We the People in the Dark"},"content":{"rendered":"

Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee have refused to publish<\/a> the final text of their health care reform bill online prior to voting on it. They claim the language is too technically difficult for ordinary people to understand, and that releasing the text would just lead to confusion.<\/p>\n

Yeah, right… I suspect it has more to do with them not wanting us to see language like what appears at pages 80-81 of the bill<\/a>. Where it says:<\/p>\n

“Beginning in 2015, payment [under Medicare] would be reduced by five percent if an aggregation of the physician’s resource use is at or above the 90th percentile of national utilization.” Thus, in any year in which a particular doctor’s average per-patient Medicare costs are in the top 10 percent in the nation, the feds will cut the doctor’s payments by 5 percent.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As the Washington Times explains in its editorial what that means in English is:<\/p>\n

… in any year in which a particular doctor’s average per-patient Medicare costs are in the top 10 percent in the nation, the feds will cut the doctor’s payments by 5 percent.<\/p>\n

Forget results. This provision makes no account for the results of care, its quality or even its efficiency. It just says that if a doctor authorizes expensive care, no matter how successfully, the government will punish him by scrimping on what already is a low reimbursement rate for treating Medicare patients. The incentive, therefore, is for the doctor always to provide less care for his patients for fear of having his payments docked. And because no doctor will know who falls in the top 10 percent until year’s end, or what total average costs will break the 10 percent threshold, the pressure will be intense to withhold care, and withhold care again, and then withhold it some more. Or at least to prescribe cheaper care, no matter how much less effective, in order to avoid the penalties.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bottom line, this is a form of rationing… While there are no formal death panels, this bill will ultimately give us the functional equivalent by arbitrarily punishing doctors who are trying to provide the best quality of care for their patients.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee have refused to publish the final text of their health care reform bill online prior to voting on it. They claim the language is too technically difficult for ordinary people to understand, and that releasing the text would just lead to confusion. Yeah, right… I suspect it has more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[43,7],"tags":[791,781,730,825],"class_list":{"0":"post-2777","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-health-care","7":"category-politics","8":"tag-death-panels","9":"tag-health-care-reform","10":"tag-medicare","11":"tag-senate-finance-committee","12":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pfpI7-IN","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2788,"url":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/2009\/09\/29\/senate-finance-committee-rejects-public-option-twice\/","url_meta":{"origin":2777,"position":0},"title":"Senate Finance Committee Rejects Public Option — Twice","author":"Jeff","date":"September 29, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"The Senate Finance Committee rejected two amendments earlier today that would have add a government-run public health-insurance plan to the health care reform legislation currently before the committee: A key US committee on Tuesday rejected a push by liberal Democrats to have a government-run healthcare option included in the $856bn\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Health Care"","block_context":{"text":"Health Care","link":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/category\/health-care\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2735,"url":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/2009\/09\/16\/the-tax-man-cometh-senate-health-reform-bill-includes-many-tax-hikes\/","url_meta":{"origin":2777,"position":1},"title":"The Tax Man Cometh: Senate Health Reform Bill Includes Many Tax Hikes","author":"Jeff","date":"September 16, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"The folks at Americans for Tax Reform have examined the Senate Finance Committee health care reform bill announced today and come up with a list of all the tax hikes in the bill: Individual Mandate Tax.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t sign up for health insurance, you will have to pay a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Health Care"","block_context":{"text":"Health Care","link":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/category\/health-care\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2550,"url":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/2009\/07\/28\/is-the-public-option-dead\/","url_meta":{"origin":2777,"position":2},"title":"Is the Public Option Dead?","author":"Jeff","date":"July 28, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm hearing rumblings from various sources that the Democrats so called Public Health Insurance option is dead in the the Senate... The Associated Press is reporting that a bipartisan group of Senators is close to a compromise agreement that would eliminate the employer mandate and the public option, two of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Economy"","block_context":{"text":"Economy","link":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/category\/economy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2858,"url":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/2009\/10\/13\/senate-finance-committee-approves-health-care-reform-bill\/","url_meta":{"origin":2777,"position":3},"title":"Senate Finance Committee Approves Health Care Reform Bill","author":"Jeff","date":"October 13, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"The Senate Finance Committee voted largely along party lines to approve committee chairman Max Baucus's Health Care Reform Bill earlier today: A key U.S. Senate committee endorsed a sweeping healthcare overhaul on Tuesday, gaining the support of an influential Republican and delivering President Barack Obama a victory on his top\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Health Care"","block_context":{"text":"Health Care","link":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/category\/health-care\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2633,"url":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/2009\/08\/22\/sarah-palin-no-health-care-reform-without-legal-reform\/","url_meta":{"origin":2777,"position":4},"title":"Sarah Palin: No Health Care Reform Without Legal Reform","author":"Jeff","date":"August 22, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is once again wading into the debate on health care reform via her Facebook page.\u00a0 Last week she raised questions about the end of life counseling provisions contained in the proposed legislation... provision that have since been removed from the Senate Finance Committee bill. This\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Health Care"","block_context":{"text":"Health Care","link":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/category\/health-care\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3052,"url":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/2009\/12\/09\/senate-democrats-reach-health-reform-compromise-drop-public-option\/","url_meta":{"origin":2777,"position":5},"title":"Senate Democrats Reach Health Reform Compromise; Drop Public Option","author":"Jeff","date":"December 9, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"From the Wall Street Journal: Senior Senate Democrats reached tentative agreement Tuesday night to abandon the government-run insurance plan in their health-overhaul bill and to expand Medicare coverage to some people ages 55 to 64, clearing the most significant hurdle so far in getting a bill that can pass Congress.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Health Care"","block_context":{"text":"Health Care","link":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/category\/health-care\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2777\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}