Reason Writers Around Town: Shikha Dalmia on ObamaCare's Rationing Board
Mike Huckabee has quipped that Mitt Romney has more positions than the Kama Sutra. But Romney has found one that works both for him and the country. And that's his opposition to ObamaCare's rationing board aka the IPAB.
As Reason Foundation Senior Analyst Shikha Dalmia explains in her debut column in the Washington Examiner this morning:
[T]he whole point of the board is to use price controls to discourage expensive treatments. Yes, it is possible that some good doctor will be willing to perform bypass surgeries for Medicare patients even when the board only allows, say, payment for aspirin. It's also very unlikely. If the board decides to set payment for state-of-the-art dialysis at below cost, reasoning that the benefits of the procedure aren't commensurate with the added expense, it isn't rationing care directly. But it is indeed rationing care, because this would effectively consign patients to older treatments.
Go here for the full column.
