Every time attempt at a government run or mandated health plan has resulted in some form of rationing. There is no exception to this rule. The reason for this is quite simple. Once people get something that appears to have no cost to it they will demand more and more of it. As folks demand more and more it costs more and more to provide the service. At some point, even the most arrogant printers of money will realize that there has to be some cap on the total costs.
Canada, England, Cuba and Massachusetts all have rationing occurring in their plans. Rationing can take all kinds of forms; from the most blatant and obvious forms of outright denying the particular service to the less obvious like someone not answering a phone to accept an appointment.
Since the rationing issue has been raised, those who support Obamacare have been besides themselves telling us that there will be no rationing in this plan. As evidence, they often point to Medicare and Medicaid as shining utopian examples of everyone gettng all the health care they need without a hint of rationing.
An article from Tuesday’s USAtodayshows just how Medicaid is implementing rationing. As a result of budget constraints the State of Louisiana has cut payments made to service providers of Medicaid by 10%. The result? 68% of surveyed physicians will begin rationing of services to Medicaid patients. Oh, they won’t refuse to perform a procedure that a patient needs, they’ll just quit accepting new patients, stop accepting referrals or for nearly 16%, quit seeing medicaid patients altogether.
In a separate but related article, Bloomberg reportsthat the Obama administration’s plan to take $1.4 billion in payments from physicians who provide Medicare patients heart or cancer treatment and shift it to family practice physicians will likely result in fewer cardio and cancer physicians.
Folks, you can call it anything you want; cost shifting, benefit reduction or some other euphemism. The fact remains that no matter what you call it, you will have to recognize it as rationing.
