Sen. Mark Warner – More Power to Death Panels?
By Brian Kirwin | Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010 | PolicyApparently, Mark Warner didn’t get the memo. Voters overwhelmingly rejected the misguided, anti-free market Obamacare law that Republicans rightfully say will result in rationing of health care similar to other countries. Seniors do not want unaccountable Boards telling them their coverage has been slashed because costs happened to exceed estimates this year.
Sorry, you should’ve gotten cancer last year.
Independent Payment Advisory Board.
Obamacare created it, and its job is to ration medicare spending if it grows too fast. Slash. Cut. Deny payment for care. Bye Bye. You’re on your own.
Please tell me how many seniors lives are saved when a 15-member board decides if cancer drugs cost too much. Or a needed operation exceeds “cost projections.”
We can reform health care without death panels who decide how much can be spent this year, and anyone beyond that ration is out of luck.
Supporters claim the IPAB won’t be a death panel – the cuts they make will be “across the board” and not individual case-by-case decisions.
If you get denied, do you really care if your cut was individual or across-the-board?
However, Mark Warner thinks this panel is great! Mark Warner loves this Board so much, he wants it to have more and more power!
In a letter to the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility And Reform, Warner says we need to be “Strengthening and Expanding the Scope of IPAB.”
Look out, seniors! The Wall Street Journal says IPAB will “close Medicare financing gaps by adopting further Medicare cuts that would become effective without any congressional action.”
As it turns out, starting in 2015, decisions on how to cut costs in Medicare will be made by a 15-member Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), which is set to become the all-knowing, all-powerful price control.
According to Peter Ferrara and Larry Hunter, writing in the Wall Street Journal: “there will be additional cuts to Medicare adopted by bureaucrats at the Medicare Independent Payment Advisory Board. ObamaCare empowers this board to close Medicare financing gaps by adopting further Medicare cuts that would become effective without any congressional action.”
The board, consisting of 15 “experts” appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, would operate largely without congressional oversight. The board’s decisions on Medicare reimbursements would become law unless a three-fifths “super majority” of Congress takes action to overturn them. And the board’s decisions are not up for review by any court of law. (PD)
And Warner wants the scope of power of this board “EXPANDED?”
Even Democrat Congressman Pete Stark wants to repeal it. “I intend to work tirelessly to mitigate the damage that will be caused by IPAB,” Stark said.
But Mark Warner likes that bureaucrats on a board have unilateral power to slash and ration Medicare coverage, and wants to expand their reach. To what? My health care?
How much say in our lives does Mark Warner want government to have?
Rationing of health care is the wrong way to contain costs for health care. The wrong way to make health care more cost efficient is establishing a panel to deny coverage.
The right way is to offer more choices and competition. It’s the only way to bring down costs while providing greater access to health care. Anyone claiming to understand a market economy, as Mark Warner claimed during his elections, should know that.
Ironic that for all the Democrats’ attacks about Republicans cutting off seniors from their health care, its the Democrats that actually did it.
Mark Warner’s wrong. Not only do we not need “panels” cutting seniors off of Medicare when they need it the most, but we certainly don’t need to be “strengthening and expanding their scope.”
Wonder what Sen. Webb thinks…
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About the author
The right wants to jeer him. The left wants to censor him. Moderates usually want both. Brian Kirwin is a political consultant and public relations strategist in Virginia Beach with a lightning-rod flair. Brian also serves on the VB Arts & Humanities Commission and frequently appears on Hampton Roads theatrical stages, if only to prove that all actors aren’t liberals. Kirwin’s columns stir up debate and hit the political scene with no punches pulled.
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17 Responses to "Sen. Mark Warner – More Power to Death Panels?"
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Bearing Drift, Emile Husson. Emile Husson said: RT @bearingdrift: Web: Sen. Mark Warner – More Power to Death Panels? http://bit.ly/eE8xvY [...]
thanks for this Brian. All I needed to know about Obamacare is that it will be administered by the IRS.
Good post, Brian.
I have found the scoffing about Death Panels in the MSM and the liberal press very aggravating. When my mother was 88 years old, she was diagnosed with an abdominal aortic aneurysm. The doctors said that she needed surgery to implant a splint to prevent it from rupturing and killing her without warning.
Before she could have the surgery, a panel consisting of her doctor, the surgeon, the hospital tissue committee, Medicare, and the device manufacturer had to sign off on it. Fortunately, because of her excellent health she was approved, but it was not by any means a routine approval and she could have been denied the surgery as a “bad risk.” And this was four years ago and before ObamaCare.
Death Panel? Well, if looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck…
Mark Warner is more extreme than Pete Stark; I never want to see the adjective “moderate” in front of this guy’s name again.
We’ve been hands off on Mark Warner too long. If Virginians knew about his policy views, his popularity would fade quickly. Thanks for bringing this letter to light.
And as long as he’s written it down, let’s see what Warner’s willing to do to get “real” medical malpractice reform.
Sen Warner Did get the memo. It came from Paul Krugman who said the same thing. It came from Donald Berwick the Medicare chief who wrote the same thing. It came from Barack Obama who said to the woman in his healthcare seminar that her grandma should take the pain pill not get a pacemaker. It came from Tom Daschle who wrote about it in his health care book. It came from Ezekiel Emanuel, Obama’s chief health care adviser, who said the very young and senior citizens shouldn’t get any expensive treatment because of their low economic utility.
I have a simple suggestion. Let’s try Obamacare on liberals only for 50 years and see how it works out.
This just goes to show why health care needs to be solely the business of provider and recipient, without third-parties getting involved. Third-payer, single-payer, it’s all the same: an outsider holding the purse strings and dictating to the doctor and patient over — not the patient’s health, but money. Money controlled by the outside party who couldn’t care less whether the patient ever gets well, and might prefer the patient die because keeping him alive is too expensive.
ObamaCare is 180 degrees the wrong way to go to try to solve the problems of health care, and the only people who don’t know it are the ones who rammed it down the people’s throats against their will.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Barbara McMahon, Todd Starkey. Todd Starkey said: RT @southsalem: Sen Mark Warner LuvLuvLuvs #ObamaCare Independent Payment Advisory Board aka Death Panels! http://tinyurl.com/2eufy6v #tcot [...]
Actually, I have no problem with the government rationing health care that is paid for with my tax dollars. I don’t think any citizen should expect or demand unlimited care and cost at the expense of his fellow citizens. If you want expensive, end of life care in an ICU when you don’t even know who you are, where you are or if you’re even being treated, you should pay for it yourself or your family should bear that burden. Don’t ask me or other taxpayers or my children to pay for care just because you don’t feel like being responsible yourself.
Oh my gosh, let’s dream up another way to justify the taxpayer keeping Grandma alive for another 5 seconds. How can we put a price tag on this? If modern medical science can provide Grandma even just one more second, one more breath, then price is not an object.
ObamaCare aside, how do we keep Medicare and Medicaid from bankrupting us? If we keep the Doctors in charge with their always coming up with an ever more expensive method of providing just one more breath we are sunk. More profits for them and more expense for us.
Will we allow common sense arguments into the health care debate or will we insist that when it comes to health care, we’ll commit national suicide in order to give Granny 5 more breaths before she dies?
Apparently Mark hasn’t watched the news lately and completely missed what we Virginians have done in the last two years. Republican sweep of the top three state offices, knocked off a mouthy little Dem in the VA5, knocked off a 30 year Dem vet, elected Republicans in local elections. So he and Webb can start packing their offices as well. But if he wants to keep writing letters like this to help our cause then more power to him.
Well, as an 80 year old fat and bald guy, I gotta say that it makes a lot of sense to triage us old folks. If it doesn’t make economic sense to the panel, let us pay for it ourselves. That is when the real cost/benefit analysis takes place. If the insurance/Medicare is paying for it, Hell…the sky’s the limit. But when it is our own/children’s money?
Just don’t give your kids your medical power of attorney!!
Again let all the liberals try Obamacare on themselves for 50 years and see how it works out. Since when did liberals care how the government spends money except with national defense. They should not read any stories about what is going on in their beloved countries with nationalized health care either. I guess liberals are naive enough based on the comments above to think that the rationing of health care is limited to just that treatment that extends a life by 5 seconds. Nationalized health care plans deny treatments for all kinds of things besides end of life care. How about those pacemakers? How about those knee replacements? How about medications? But of course the rationers when they get sick promptly butt in at the front of the line or get on the plane and have a non nationalized health care system treat them. Witness the Canadian province minister who did just that. I’m sure he even wrangled a reimbursement from the Province.
I guess there is no trying simple solutions first like interstate competition or Medicare Advantage plans to see how they work. No facilitating pharmaceutical companies to develop drugs which mitigate against expensive hospitalization or surgery. They are evil evil evil. Lets get to Stalingrad on the A train.
Herky-jerky Warner needs to be moved out after his one term in the Senate. He is one of the most arrogant members of that not-so-August body. That is saying a lot- I used to live in Pennsylvania.
Warner is one of the richest members of Congress. Why should he care about the hoi polloi? Obviously in Warner’s eyes the government knows best! Warner is a diehard democrat and is unfortunately part of our plutocracy. I can easily see Warner following the Kerry lead with, “Do you know who I am?” as he cuts in at the front of the line… and I bet Warner gets reelected, just like that clown obama will. I hope our Republic survives. Thank God I moved the hell out of VA.
Applause to Jimbrock, sure sounds like he has a level head on his shoulders. I sure hope that if I live to his ripe old age I remain as sharp as him.
But one difference between him and me is our kids. I will trust giving medical power of attorney to my kids. My only hope is that they will be willing to pull the plug when it starts to become hopeless. I suspect they value my life more then I do.
I’m going to heaven and I am in a hurry to get there. The only reason I am still alive is because it suits God.
I doubt Warner actually wants it himself, he’s never had an independent thought in his entire political career.
No, someone in the Democrat leadership TOLD Warner to say this. So as a good little Democrat, he did.
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