Good News: Comparative Effectiveness Center in Reconciliation bill or It sounds better than Death Panel

Comrades,

This is good news indeed. Death Panels were just too right wing sounding

Tip: HotAir

Page 1557 has the Comparative Effectiveness Center:

(1) IN GENERAL.—The Secretary shall establish within the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality a Center for Comparative Effectiveness Research (in this section referred to as the ‘Center') to conduct, support, and synthesize research (including research conducted or supported under section 1013 of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003) with respect to the outcomes, effectiveness, and appropriateness of health care services and procedures in order to identify the manner in which diseases, disorders, and other health conditions can most effectively and appropriately be prevented, diagnosed, treated, and managed clinically.
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(i) DIVERSE REPRESENTATION OF PERSPECTIVES.—The members of the Commission shall represent a broad range of perspectives and shall collectively have experience in the following areas:

(I) Epidemiology.
(II) Health services research.
(III) Bioethics.
(IV) Decision sciences.
(V) Health disparities.
(VI) Economics.
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What is “comparative effectiveness”? It's a system of rationing scarce resources, and it has everything to do with economics.


Oh of course, Professor Altman in front of the Senate Finance Committee hearings on health-care reform summed it up well:



Comrades,

I believe that our Most Great Leader, Papa Obama said it best when it comes to health care rationing and saving money- "take a pill"



See:

A possible way the Comparative Effectiveness Center [Death Panels} might work ?

Hmmm, I'm afraid the Comparative Effectiveness Center will still be stigmatized in the public mind with the "Death Panel" rubric (thanks to Sarah Palin) even though the concepts are vastly different. Perhaps an alternative will need to be offered to the public to make the CEC seem less draconian. I've got it... how about an $8,000 tax credit for those who choose to self-euthanize instead of seeking non-cost-effective treatment? We could give it a jazzy name like "The First Time Die-r Tax Credit" or "Cash for Croakers". This should make the CEC more palatable. Everyone loves a tax credit.

Opiate of the People wrote:Hmmm, I'm afraid the Comparative Effectiveness Center will still be stigmatized in the public mind with the "Death Panel" rubric (thanks to Sarah Palin) even though the concepts are vastly different. Perhaps an alternative will need to be offered to the public to make the CEC seem less draconian. I've got it... how about an $8,000 tax credit for those who choose to self-euthanize instead of seeking non-cost-effective treatment? We could give it a jazzy name like "The First Time Die-r Tax Credit" or "Cash for Croakers". This should make the CEC more palatable. Everyone loves a tax credit.

Yes, and THEN we can claim that the one-time tax credit is a permanent tax cut, just like Dear Leader!! BRILLIANT!!

And with the estate tax, we'd get it right back. This has potential.

Komsomolka Olga Katrina wrote: Yes, and THEN we can claim that the one-time tax credit is a permanent tax cut, just like Dear Leader!! BRILLIANT!!

Yes, sadly it IS a permanent tax cut in this case as our best minds have not yet figured out how to tax the deceased. (In spite of which, Pelosi's healthcare bill anticipates $100 billion in revenues from necro-income tax so maybe someone should get started working on this soon.)

(in this section referred to as the ‘Center')

I do believe that our friends in the KGB will take umbridge at calling this new group "The Center." There is only one Center; Moscow Center.

Maybe we should call it "The Lubyanka Treatment Facility."

Comrades, I see an opportunity here. If a person dies before an estimated life expectancy of 100 years (since ObamaCare will make us all so healthy, we all should live to be 100) and if he dies a registered Republican, it will be deemed that he stole his money from the poor. So his estate "his heirs" will be assessed a tax on their inheritance for those remaining years.

On the other hand, if said decedent dies a registered Democrat, it will be deemed that he would have voted Democrat for those remaining years and ACORN can cast votes on his behalf for those remaining years.

Dibs on the gold fillings!

Comrade Whoopie wrote:Comrades, I see an opportunity here. If a person dies before an estimated life expectancy of 100 years (since ObamaCare will make us all so healthy, we all should live to be 100) and if he dies a registered Republican, it will be deemed that he stole his money from the poor. So his estate "his heirs" will be assessed a tax on their inheritance for those remaining years.

This is brilliantly glorious, Comrade Whoopie (MAYBE SOMEONE will get you a Beet Award, but I ain't go'n there)! A fabulous way for our glorious government to it's hands on more money that belongs to you and me (in the plural sense, of course)

p.s. I get dibs on used false teeth. The black-market has exploded.

p. p.s. the term "black-market" is not, I repeat, not a racial expletive, but a word meaning: the illicit buying and selling of goods in violation of legal price controls, rationing, etc.