{"id":135101,"date":"2017-10-20T07:57:40","date_gmt":"2017-10-20T13:57:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/?p=135101"},"modified":"2017-10-20T10:39:56","modified_gmt":"2017-10-20T16:39:56","slug":"death-panels-always-real","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/10\/20\/death-panels-always-real.html","title":{"rendered":"“Death Panels” have always been real"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the great calumnies of the original debate over the ACA — and one still heard today — is that it would set up “death panels” that would make life-or-death decisions over the people they considered worthy or unworthy of spending health care money on. “Your child \/ grandmother \/ spouse is of [no] value, therefore they shall be allowed to live [die].” The idea of government bureaucrats passing such judgments was seen to be horrifying, and represented a profound source of paranoia about the ACA.<\/p>\n

But as anyone who had ever argued on the phone with an insurance company over coverage already knew, “death panels”<\/i> (bureaucrats making life-and-death decisions over whom to spend money on or not) have always<\/i> been with us — in the form of the insurance companies and their internal “Hey, we need to cut our payout spending” committees and “specialists.” Even today, under the ACA, as the attached article demonstrates.<\/p>\n

Part of this inevitable — money is a finite resource, and the demand on it is arguably infinite. But we find the making of such decisions, whether for purposes of increased profitability or for some vague tyrannical \/ political reason, to be revolting. Which lets people accuse the ACA (or single-payer, or whatever other Marxist-Socialist Conspiracy of the Week is getting play in Breitbart) of doing something awful (whether it is or not) which is already a feature of the existing system.<\/p>\n

The question, of course, is: given a world of finite resources [1] that are going to be allocated and triaged in some fashion, driven by motivations or goals that may or may not be agreeable, with whom would you rather argue:<\/p>\n

1. A private for-profit insurance company who has the last word on what the fine print of the policy really means, and shoals of lawyers to resist any effort to take you to court (or, more likely, forced arbitration with an arbitrating company that is paid by the insurance company itself) if you disagree.<\/p>\n

2. A governmental agency [2] that might be just as bureaucratic but which, as a political concern, is subject to public pressure — an outraged Congressman, bad press, etc.?<\/p>\n

Neither is ideal, but neither is a world of finite resources, and as the attached story indicates, the idea of a “free market” somehow saving us from all this turmoil and torment is a grave fallacy [3].<\/p>\n

Something to consider as the health insurance debate progresses, and Trump and his GOP sometimes-supporters try to turn the clock back to the days when all<\/i> of these decisions were made with an eye to how to maximize profitability for the insurance companies.<\/p>\n

——<\/p>\n

[1] Unless you are independently wealthy, in which case there are never any “death panels.” But that’s not how most people feel comfortable thinking of the system.<\/p>\n

[2] Again, it’s worth noting that this particular case represents option 1, even though it takes place under the ACA. But let’s assume we’ve moved into a completely nationalized health system.<\/p>\n

[3] There’s a reason why the scenes of Bob Parr trapped in a job as insurance adjuster in the early part of The Incredibles<\/i> resonates so much.<\/p>\n


\n
\n<\/a>
\nInsurance company sends letter to 9-month-old boy explaining he\u2019s too expensive to keep alive<\/a><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

View on Google+<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the great calumnies of the original debate over the ACA — and one still heard today — is that it would set up “death panels” that would make life-or-death decisions over the people they considered worthy or unworthy of spending health care money on. “Your child \/ grandmother \/ spouse is of [no] … Continue reading ““Death Panels” have always been real”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135110,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106,35,134,358],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-135101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-plusposts","category-big-business","category-health-care","category-poor-citizenship"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/unnamed-5.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":28610,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/07\/15\/as-ive-said-before-death-panels-already-exist.html","url_meta":{"origin":135101,"position":0},"title":"As I've said before, "death panels" already exist","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 15-Jul-12 4:11pm","format":false,"excerpt":"But they are run by private, for-profit insurance bureaucrats, unaccountable and shareholder-driven. They decide who is eligible for what sort of treatments are covered, with what sort of annual and life-time caps and with what level\u00a0of deductible. \u00a0And the vast majority of the US population is subject to them, since\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":133040,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/03\/14\/pushing-the-death-panels-down-to-the-states-is-not-the-flexibility-we-need.html","url_meta":{"origin":135101,"position":1},"title":"Pushing the Death Panels down to the states is not the "flexibility" we need","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 14-Mar-17 2:43pm","format":false,"excerpt":"During the debate over the ACA, the Republicans loooooved to talk about \"Death Panels.\" The idea was that any sort of national health insurance scheme would, perforce, require the federal government to ration the finite resources of the medical care system, and so there would have to be federal \"Death\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":37807,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/06\/13\/obamacare-rationing-death-panels-fox.html","url_meta":{"origin":135101,"position":2},"title":"Obamacare! Rationing! Death Panels! Fox!","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 13-Jun-13 10:22pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Sigh.Okay, so I get that Fox News needs to reflexively critique the ACA for its own partisan viewership reasons. \u00a0But it's one thing to point out problems and quite another thing to, y'know, just make shit up.Also, Mr. Johnson, in case you hadn't noticed it, in most cases health care\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":133744,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/06\/28\/all-those-death-panel-people-are-now-strangely-ambiguous-about-death-predictions.html","url_meta":{"origin":135101,"position":3},"title":"All those "death panel" people are now strangely ambiguous about death predictions","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 28-Jun-17 10:20pm","format":false,"excerpt":"When the ACA was being discussed (over the course of a year of hearings and amendments and debates), there was this weird obsession from its opponents with \"Death Panels.\" The idea was that, well, money is finite, and potential medical care demands were infinite, so sooner or later the Big\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":30703,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/10\/19\/compassion-isnt-a-sign-of-weakness-but-of-civilization.html","url_meta":{"origin":135101,"position":4},"title":"“Compassion isn’t a sign of weakness, but of civilization”","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 19-Oct-12 3:08pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Nicholas Kristof published two articles lately. The first detailed the life, arguably bad decisions, and far worse results of a college friend of his. \u00a0Long story short, the friend quit a lucrative job, decided he couldn't afford private health insurance, was scraping by, delayed checking on some funny symptoms because\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Health Care"","block_context":{"text":"Health Care","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/health-care"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/durer_cainabel.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":133845,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/13\/same-song-second-verse-little-bit-more-complex-a-little-bit-worse.html","url_meta":{"origin":135101,"position":5},"title":"Same song, second verse, little bit more complex, a little bit worse","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 13-Jul-17 4:09pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The Senate GOP's \"New and Improved\" Health Insurance reform plan is out, desperately trying to claw back a few more votes so that they can pass it with a bare majority.But the changes made seem to consist of:1. Throwing pots of money at a few pet causes (pots that can\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135101"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135101\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":135111,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135101\/revisions\/135111"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}