Krugman: Death Panels are Real

"Esteemed" New York Times columnist Paul Krugman visited This Week on ABC and told us that the much-maligned "Death Panels" are really in ObamaCare:

The (Medicare advisory panel created by the act) which has the ability to make more or less binding judgments on saying this particular expensive treatment actually doesn't do any good medically and so we are not going to pay for it. That is actually going to save quite a lot of money. We don't know how much yet. The CBO gives it very little credit but, but most, most of the health care economists I talk to think that's going be a really, uh a really major cost savings.

The government -- not you or your doctor -- will decide if a treatment will work, likely based on pure budgetary reasons. And, before you shout out how you would prefer the government to make that call rather than some insurance company, realize that you can appeal decisions by insurance companies.

Under, ObamaCare, if you don't like the decision by the panel to give you the pill instead of the surgery, you are out of luck:

Unlike existing Medicare coverage laws, patients won’t have the ability to appeal any of the decisions of this new Medicare Commission.

But, friends, we have been telling you this all along.

...the health-care legislation in Congress will subject doctors to a mix of financial penalties and regulations to constrain their use of the most costly clinical options. The penalties and regulations are aimed first and foremost at surgeons and the medical devices that they use, largely because that's where the bulk of spending is.

Someone owes us all an apology.