How The Rationing Will Occur

In the 1/27/2011 Daily Caller, Heather Smith explains that "The Obamacare rationing is beginning".

Here's how the rationing will occur:

The government isn't going to say, "We won't treat you for condition X" -- the public outcry would be too great. No, they have learned from other nations that have government health care that that would mean disaster. What they do is much more subtle -- they simply limit options in the hope that patients won’t realize that care is being rationed.

For most diseases, there are several options for treatment and the treatment regimen is based upon the individual patient's history and advice from their doctor. If the government refuses to pay for a particular type of treatment, that arrow is simply removed from the doctor's quiver and the patient will most likely never be made aware of it.

However, sometimes there is a period between the government deciding a treatment is no longer cost effective and when some patients are receiving it. This is the rare time when people can see how their options are being limited and actually stand a chance to do something about it...

(Read the full text of "The Obamacare rationing is beginning".)

Furthermore, as I noted in an an earlier PajamasMedia piece from last year, doctors will be co-opted into participating in this silent rationing -- as has already occurred in the UK:

...[N]early one in four British oncologists admitted to deliberately withholding information from their patients about treatments widely available in other European countries, but not allowed under the NHS system due to cost. These oncologists argued that "there was 'no point' in discussing treatments their patients could not have" and that such a discussions might "distress, upset or confuse" their patients.

But patients rely on their physicians for information about treatment options -- including an honest appraisal of all the risks, benefits, and alternatives -- so they can make fully-informed decisions about their lives. Failure to disclose such information is a serious breach of a doctor's Hippocratic Oath.

Hence, the importance of repealing ObamaCare.

We have been warned...