Grooming the public for rationing, or just paranoia?

[pintbottlepress]

OK, I swear I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but I can't help but pick up a trend of "you don't really need this medical procedure" from vocal Obamacare advocate and NBC "chief medical editor" Nancy Snyderman.

Here's my train of thought. Snyderman, the TODAY SHOW and MSNBC regular, advocates gov't healthcare. And unless the supreme court steps in, we'll probably be stuck with gov't healthcare in the not-too-distant future, once Obamacare puts private health insurance out of business. At that point the Fed Gov't will be stuck with paying for everybody's healthcare. So, since the advent of Obamacare, I find it suspiciously coincidental that she keeps turning up on TV and suggesting that the public doesn't really need a number of preventive healthcare services that have become commonplace. I freely admit I'm not in the medical field and can't attest to the validity of her medical claims. But the timing sure does raise an eyebrow, when she has recently suggested: (1) Mammograms aren't as necessary for under-50 women as we once thought. (2) Routine prostate exams aren't as necessary as we once thought. (3) CT scans for children with head injuries may be too risky.

So I'm wondering, could this kind of rhetoric be a means of grooming the public to prepare them for when the government decides to ration these services due to the inevitable budgetary restraints? Or am I just seeing black helicopters?

Here are some links to the issues I've seen her comment on....

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/44809480/ns/today-today_health/t/panel-routine-prostate-test-not-needed/

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/42865992/ns/today-today_health/t/mammograms-plummet-among-women-under/#.T9ehuMWd58E

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/47720136/ns/health-health_care/#.T9eigsWd58E

[Zippyjuan]

Two points. One- medicine has always rationed. They only way you can not have it rationed is to give every person access to every medical proceedure they may want. Lack of money rations it- otherwise it becomes impossibly costly to pay for all of it for everybody. Second if you do allow unlimited access, you get a lot of unnecessary tests and proceedures done which add to the costs. With medical expenses soaring faster than the costs of anything else, it is rational to try to control those costs and to try to see if tests or proceedures are really necessary. If having an additional test is not going to improve a patient's outcome, why should money be spent on it?

[ZenBowman]

Any finite resource is already rationed. In a free market, it is rationed by price. In a centralized system, by other criteria.

Try not to go into a frenzy when the word rationing is mentioned.

[pintbottlepress]

OK, points well taken as far as "rationing," and frankly Snyderman's assertions would pass me with less notice if she wasn't such a vocal advocate of centralized healthcare. I'm an advocate of private healthcare and personal responsibility. I realize healthcare is a limited commodity and there will always be market-driven rationing. I don't want to get tangled in an issue of semantics. But what I'm driving at is this: If the U.S. gov't is -- whether we like it or not -- going to be the end-all-be-all of healthcare providers, then I question whether these new ideas of whether or not a preventive service is needed is truly vested in the well-being of the healthcare recipients or in the best interest of the healthcare provider's budget. The crux being this: In a free market -- even a rationed free market -- one can feasibly pay a premium for better care. However, if the public only has a single provider then the public would universally be stuck with the same degree of care, saddled with the govt's idea of satisfactory healthcare, with no free market options to turn to if we want the little extras like prostate exams or mammograms, which now seem deemed unnecessary by the bureaucrats in charge. I view Snyderman as a bullhorn for gov't healthcare and hinting at the direction it will take the country. Now, if her statements are rooted in hard fact and shrewd medical analysis, then my suspicions may be unfounded. I'm toying around a little, but I think Orwell would be suspicious as well.