The Real Death Panel Threat

[Eddie_T]

Those that have the power of life and death, those that decided which vets got treatment, those admin people that discharged my wife prematurely. Those are the dangers in the VA (a single payer system) and in Medicare at the present. Obamacare will add steroids to that concept with the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB).

The IPAB's 15 members would be appointed by the President and would have virtually unlimited power to design Medicare policy and set health care payment rates. The panel would essentially write healthcare law without congressional and judicial overview or consent. Such a lack of accountability is what led to vets dying in the Phoenix VA.

Cost cutting is the only means to make Obamacare affordable so the IPAB would in effect be Obama's "death panel" as care is denied, patients are prematurely discharged and doctors refuse to accept panel determined payment for procedures. This is a real threat that wasn't made public while the Obamacare supporters touted the pre-existing condition crap and keeping deadbeat kids on their parents insurance until age 26. For the record I never needed or used insurance before I was 26.

The current VA scandal is but a preview of the IPAB, the government has once again proven its inabiity to manage. Why should we expect more?