New Health Care Act Will Ration Treatments

The Health Care Act signed into law in 2010 by President Obama will end up rationing treatments.

The respected Journal of American Medical Association, JAMA, has started programing the American public for future rationing of treatment by a series of articles about how "Less is More." JAMA's argument is that too much treatment is prescribed that is unnecessary. The reason of course is when a third party pays for a service that service will be used more. Imagine if a third party paid for a new car. Everyone would be driving a new car, and the cost of new cars would go much higher than the real market cost.

I agree that we have too much treatment when there are alternative treatments. Obesity causes diabetes and heart problems that require enormous expenses. Simply requiring patients to be less than 20% overweight before any insurance would pay for treatment for certain diseases would go a long way toward improving the health of Americans.

Update June 28, 2010. A yahoo news story today was about overtreatment when people are in their final days. The title, "American are treated, and overtreated, to death". This is the prepration stage to deny treatments that might prolong a life for a few months.

Charles Tolleson