Obama Returns to End-of-Life Plan That Caused Stir

[geauxtohell]

You are talking about the way it is now.

Under ObamaCare, there are dozens of agencies that will decide what is covered. It's quite clear that where this is headed is that certain procedures will be denied to people over a certain age.

It's happened in the UK.
It's happened in Canada.
It will happen here.

Read up on Dr. Berwick. His philosophical bias is apparent.

Again, I won't try and argue hypotheticals with you guys.

As it stands, this is a damn smart policy issue.

That is great, can we list you as one of the great "heroes" that condemned us into servitude, instead of citizenry.

Look kids! Hyperbole!

 

[Revere]

I'll tell you one thing, Texas is Ticked Off. We've had enough and we are going to send Rick Perry to D.C. to clean this stinking mess up. And I guarantee you he ain't nobody a scumbag wants to deal with. This country is in such a mess Rick Perry is the only person in the country who can clean it up. And watch 'em duck and run when he shows up.

Oh, yeah. That's just what America needs. Another fucking president from Texas, because the last two were so great for our country.

I am continually amused by the delusions of grandeur that some Texans have about their state.

What's so delusional about a 4 Congressional seat shift to their state after the census?

Someone must be voting with their feet.

 

[Meister]

Any agency that can write a regulation like this without the oversight of a real representative goverment needs to be de-funded.

I realize American Government isn't covered well in schools anymore but this is how your government works. Congress explicitly delegates implementation responsibilities to the executive branch in its legislation. HHS was given authority in the law to do this.

`Annual Wellness Visit

`(hhh)
(1) The term `personalized prevention plan services' means the creation of a plan for an individual--

`(A) that includes a health risk assessment (that meets the guidelines established by the Secretary under paragraph (4)(A)) of the individual that is completed prior to or as part of the same visit with a health professional described in paragraph (3); and
`(B) that--

`(i) takes into account the results of the health risk assessment; and
`(ii) may contain the elements described in paragraph (2).​

`(2) Subject to paragraph (4)(H), the elements described in this paragraph are the following:

`(A) The establishment of, or an update to, the individual's medical and family history.
`(B) A list of current providers and suppliers that are regularly involved in providing medical care to the individual (including a list of all prescribed medications).
`(C) A measurement of height, weight, body mass index (or waist circumference, if appropriate), blood pressure, and other routine measurements.
`(D) Detection of any cognitive impairment.
`(E) The establishment of, or an update to, the following:

`(i) A screening schedule for the next 5 to 10 years, as appropriate, based on recommendations of the United States Preventive Services Task Force and the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, and the individual's health status, screening history, and age-appropriate preventive services covered under this title.
`(ii) A list of risk factors and conditions for which primary, secondary, or tertiary prevention interventions are recommended or are underway, including any mental health conditions or any such risk factors or conditions that have been identified through an initial preventive physical examination (as described under subsection (ww)(1)), and a list of treatment options and their associated risks and benefits.​

`(F) The furnishing of personalized health advice and a referral, as appropriate, to health education or preventive counseling services or programs aimed at reducing identified risk factors and improving self-management, or community-based lifestyle interventions to reduce health risks and promote self-management and wellness, including weight loss, physical activity, smoking cessation, fall prevention, and nutrition.
`(G) Any other element determined appropriate by the Secretary.​

.
.
.
`(4) (H) The Secretary shall issue guidance that--

`(i) identifies elements under paragraph (2) that are required to be provided to a beneficiary as part of their first visit for personalized prevention plan services; and
`(ii) establishes a yearly schedule for appropriate provision of such elements thereafter.'.​

The bolded bits are the source of the authority (granted by Congress) for CMS (inside HHS) to decide what the components of the annual wellness visit will be. Indeed, that guidance ordered by the law is what this regulation is. And regs are subject to Congressional oversight.

I do believe that if Obama shit on your dinner you would believe it was good for you.

He's a paid goon, Ollie. He's just doing his job

 

[Revere]

Why have elections about government run health care if government can do whatever the hell it wants no matter the outcome of elections?

 

[Greenbeard]

Why have elections about government run health care if government can do whatever the hell it wants no matter the outcome of elections?

Rule of law. Seats change hands, laws remain on the books. Did you think on November 3 all U.S. law would magically have disappeared?

 

[Revere]

Why have elections about government run health care if government can do whatever the hell it wants no matter the outcome of elections?

Rule of law. Seats change hands, laws remain on the books. Did you think on November 3 all U.S. law would magically have disappeared?

If they are repealed or defunded, yes.

 

[Greenbeard]

If they are repealed or defunded, yes.

What was the point of your question again?

 

[Revere]

I forgot. Greenbeard is one of the whack jobs who think voters don't act in their best interest. So you need agencies sneaking around to make people do what they would not otherwise want for themselves.

 

[Trajan]

did the democrats strip the provision out, or not when it became the topic du jour during the bills run up etc.?

It was never in the ACA.

I see, so I'll ask the Q 2 different ways;

it was never considered as part of the bill before it was voted upon, at any time?

or-

did the dems not go through with putting it the final bill for vote, when it became a question that garnered public review and became rightly or wrongly a source of consternation?

???

 

[Granny]

Maybe a little off-topic, but I heard a little about this on the news today - Meghan Kelly speaking with Alan Colmes. Let's try to find a name that will disguise the problem for the sleeping masses. Found this little piece regarding Obamacare:

Rebranding 'Obamacare' - Kaiser Health News

 

[SFC Ollie]

Maybe a little off-topic, but I heard a little about this on the news today - Meghan Kelly speaking with Alan Colmes. Let's try to find a name that will disguise the problem for the sleeping masses. Found this little piece regarding Obamacare:

Rebranding 'Obamacare' - Kaiser Health News

Nice story, and they are right, the rising health care premiums have nothing to do with the bill. Problem is that; wasn't this bill supposed to make health care More affordable?

I think somebody forgot all about that part of it.

 

[Trajan]

Global warming= climate change, so why not?

 

[boedicca]

Maybe a little off-topic, but I heard a little about this on the news today - Meghan Kelly speaking with Alan Colmes. Let's try to find a name that will disguise the problem for the sleeping masses. Found this little piece regarding Obamacare:

Rebranding 'Obamacare' - Kaiser Health News

Nice story, and they are right, the rising health care premiums have nothing to do with the bill. Problem is that; wasn't this bill supposed to make health care More affordable?

I think somebody forgot all about that part of it.

The only way this bill will reduce the cost of health care is to limit how much is spent on a person - which means denial of services which the patient and doctor agree are necessary.

The biggest target are elderly deemed to be in their last years of life. 30% of medicare is spent on caring for the last year of an elderly person's life. This is Berwick's target.

 

[Samson]

Maybe a little off-topic, but I heard a little about this on the news today - Meghan Kelly speaking with Alan Colmes. Let's try to find a name that will disguise the problem for the sleeping masses. Found this little piece regarding Obamacare:

Rebranding 'Obamacare' - Kaiser Health News

Nice story, and they are right, the rising health care premiums have nothing to do with the bill. Problem is that; wasn't this bill supposed to make health care More affordable?

I think somebody forgot all about that part of it.

The only way this bill will reduce the cost of health care is to limit how much is spent on a person - which means denial of services which the patient and doctor agree are necessary.

The biggest target are elderly deemed to be in their last years of life. 30% of medicare is spent on caring for the last year of an elderly person's life. This is Berwick's target.

Pre-Qual to Logan's Run.

 

[Trajan]

interesting article this morning;


'Death Panels' Come Back to Life
The FDA's restrictions on the drug Avastin are the beginning of a long slide toward health-care rationing.

Earlier this month, the Food and Drug Administration banned doctors from prescribing Avastin, a potent but costly drug, to patients with advanced-stage breast cancer. According to the FDA, the drug doesn't offer "a sufficient benefit in slowing disease progression to outweigh the significant risk to patients." Yet in some clinical trials Avastin has halted the spread of patients' cancer for months, providing respite to women and their families wracked by physical and psychological pain.

Ponder the FDA's justification—there wasn't "sufficient" benefit in relation to Avastin's risks. Sufficient according to whom? For your wife, mother or daughter with terminal breast cancer, how much is an additional month of good-quality life worth? And what costs should be weighed? Like all drugs, Avastin has side effects including bleeding and high blood pressure. But isn't the real cost to these women a swifter, less dignified death? The FDA made a crude cost calculation; as everyone in Washington knows, it wouldn't have banned Avastin if the drug cost only $1,000 a year, instead of $90,000.

The Avastin story is emblematic of the government's broader agenda to ration care based on cost and politics. Once ObamaCare comes into full force, such rationing will be pervasive. When the government sees insufficient benefit, all but the wealthiest and most politically connected will have to go without.

Think it can't happen here? Think again. The 2009 stimulus bill spent $1.1 billion to research "comparative effectiveness." That's the same approach used by Britain's National Health Service to ration care, weighing cost against factors such as the ever-elusive concept of quality of life. And in an interview that year, President Obama confessed that "the tougher issue . . . is what do you do around things like end-of-life care." Pushed to articulate a solution, he replied, "It is very difficult to imagine the country making those decisions just through the normal political channels." He asserted that we needed "some independent group" to "give [us] some guidance."

He got that wish. ObamaCare created a commission—the Independent Payment Advisory Board—tasked with limiting spending on Medicare. Its recommendations will be binding, unless Congress can come up with equivalent cost-savings of its own. For the first time, an unelected group will be empowered to limit health spending for the vulnerable elderly.

ObamaCare proponents derided fears of "death panels" as a product of tea partiers' fevered imagination, and they lamented when Congress removed the provision that would have provided for end-of-life counseling that might coax the elderly away from life-sustaining but expensive treatments. Not to fear: The administration has resurrected that provision through regulations, and Medicare will now pay for such counseling as part of elderly "wellness assessments." Yes, the "death panels" charge is somewhat crude, but combine cost-based rationing with end-of-life counseling and, well, here we are.

There's an enormous difference between government-imposed rationing and treatment decisions in the private sector. When insurance companies deny coverage—for example, on grounds that treatment is "experimental" or not "medically necessary"—they do so based on contract language agreed to in advance by subscribers. If you don't like what a particular insurer offers, you're free to shop around. Moreover, you and your doctor have extensive rights to appeal the insurer's denial, and wealthy patients can pay for the care out of their own pockets.

But when the government denies approval of a medication, there will often be no appeal and no escape. For example, while doctors can still prescribe Avastin for other kinds of cancer—allowing them to prescribe it "off-label" to breast-cancer patients—this is merely fortuitous, something that's not the case with many other drugs. The next time the FDA bans a drug because its benefits are not "sufficient," patients may not be so lucky. FDA disapproval will be the equivalent of the emperor's thumbs-down.

more at-
Rivkin and Foley: 'Death Panels' Come Back to Life - WSJ.com

 

[Trajan]

Nice story, and they are right, the rising health care premiums have nothing to do with the bill. Problem is that; wasn't this bill supposed to make health care More affordable?

I think somebody forgot all about that part of it.

The only way this bill will reduce the cost of health care is to limit how much is spent on a person - which means denial of services which the patient and doctor agree are necessary.

The biggest target are elderly deemed to be in their last years of life. 30% of medicare is spent on caring for the last year of an elderly person's life. This is Berwick's target.

Pre-Qual to Logan's Run.

yup.....when the crystal flickers its time to go....

 

[bigrebnc1775]

Nice story, and they are right, the rising health care premiums have nothing to do with the bill. Problem is that; wasn't this bill supposed to make health care More affordable?

I think somebody forgot all about that part of it.

The only way this bill will reduce the cost of health care is to limit how much is spent on a person - which means denial of services which the patient and doctor agree are necessary.

The biggest target are elderly deemed to be in their last years of life. 30% of medicare is spent on caring for the last year of an elderly person's life. This is Berwick's target.

Pre-Qual to Logan's Run.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSnLU9nyFSA[/ame]

 

[geauxtohell]

interesting article this morning;


'Death Panels' Come Back to Life
The FDA's restrictions on the drug Avastin are the beginning of a long slide toward health-care rationing.

Earlier this month, the Food and Drug Administration banned doctors from prescribing Avastin, a potent but costly drug, to patients with advanced-stage breast cancer. According to the FDA, the drug doesn't offer "a sufficient benefit in slowing disease progression to outweigh the significant risk to patients." Yet in some clinical trials Avastin has halted the spread of patients' cancer for months, providing respite to women and their families wracked by physical and psychological pain.

Ponder the FDA's justification—there wasn't "sufficient" benefit in relation to Avastin's risks. Sufficient according to whom? For your wife, mother or daughter with terminal breast cancer, how much is an additional month of good-quality life worth? And what costs should be weighed? Like all drugs, Avastin has side effects including bleeding and high blood pressure. But isn't the real cost to these women a swifter, less dignified death? The FDA made a crude cost calculation; as everyone in Washington knows, it wouldn't have banned Avastin if the drug cost only $1,000 a year, instead of $90,000.

The Avastin story is emblematic of the government's broader agenda to ration care based on cost and politics. Once ObamaCare comes into full force, such rationing will be pervasive. When the government sees insufficient benefit, all but the wealthiest and most politically connected will have to go without.

Think it can't happen here? Think again. The 2009 stimulus bill spent $1.1 billion to research "comparative effectiveness." That's the same approach used by Britain's National Health Service to ration care, weighing cost against factors such as the ever-elusive concept of quality of life. And in an interview that year, President Obama confessed that "the tougher issue . . . is what do you do around things like end-of-life care." Pushed to articulate a solution, he replied, "It is very difficult to imagine the country making those decisions just through the normal political channels." He asserted that we needed "some independent group" to "give [us] some guidance."

He got that wish. ObamaCare created a commission—the Independent Payment Advisory Board—tasked with limiting spending on Medicare. Its recommendations will be binding, unless Congress can come up with equivalent cost-savings of its own. For the first time, an unelected group will be empowered to limit health spending for the vulnerable elderly.

ObamaCare proponents derided fears of "death panels" as a product of tea partiers' fevered imagination, and they lamented when Congress removed the provision that would have provided for end-of-life counseling that might coax the elderly away from life-sustaining but expensive treatments. Not to fear: The administration has resurrected that provision through regulations, and Medicare will now pay for such counseling as part of elderly "wellness assessments." Yes, the "death panels" charge is somewhat crude, but combine cost-based rationing with end-of-life counseling and, well, here we are.

There's an enormous difference between government-imposed rationing and treatment decisions in the private sector. When insurance companies deny coverage—for example, on grounds that treatment is "experimental" or not "medically necessary"—they do so based on contract language agreed to in advance by subscribers. If you don't like what a particular insurer offers, you're free to shop around. Moreover, you and your doctor have extensive rights to appeal the insurer's denial, and wealthy patients can pay for the care out of their own pockets.

But when the government denies approval of a medication, there will often be no appeal and no escape. For example, while doctors can still prescribe Avastin for other kinds of cancer—allowing them to prescribe it "off-label" to breast-cancer patients—this is merely fortuitous, something that's not the case with many other drugs. The next time the FDA bans a drug because its benefits are not "sufficient," patients may not be so lucky. FDA disapproval will be the equivalent of the emperor's thumbs-down.

more at-
Rivkin and Foley: 'Death Panels' Come Back to Life - WSJ.com

This has been covered before. Private insurance companies adhere to the "5%, 5 Year" rule too. Meaning that if a drug doesn't give you a 5% chance at a 5 year mortality, they won't pay for it either.

 

[Greenbeard]

Earlier this month, the Food and Drug Administration banned doctors from prescribing Avastin...

It's so hard to tell idiocy from dishonesty these days.

 

[bigrebnc1775]

Earlier this month, the Food and Drug Administration banned doctors from prescribing Avastin...

It's so hard to tell idiocy from dishonesty these days.

Maybe they misspoke.
FDA Delays Breast Cancer Drug Avastin Decision
FDA Delays Breast Cancer Drug Avastin Decision - CBS News