Gross Inaccuracies: DEATH PANELS ARE REAL OR SOMETHING!

Posted on July 1, 2012 by Eric Austin

St. Cloud Tea Party

Local conservative layabout, Gary Gross, has been churning out quite a few posts since the Supreme Court ruled that the Affordable Care Act is, in fact, Constitutional. Any one of those posts could be the subject of another episode of Gross Inaccuracies but who has the time to keep up with a single childless unemployed blogger who lives off the government he loathes.

Today’s episode of Gross Inaccuracies concerns the most ludicrous of these most recent posts about how terribly awfully no good it is to now have Romneycare (oops, I mean Obamacare). Gross fawns over an exchange on Fox News between Sarah Palin and the token Democrat on the show about how there really are DEATH PANELS in the Affordable Care Act.

Here is the relevant part of the exchange from Palin:

There’s a faceless bureaucratic panel and the acronym is the IPAB and the I-P-A-B, what that will be is that is a board that will tell you, Bob, whether your level of productivity in society is worthy of receiving the rationed care that will be the result of Obamacare.

Now there is a board called the Independent Payment Advisory Board but its purpose isn’t anywhere close to what Palin suggests. The duty of the board is to find ways to keep Medicare spending from growing out of control. However, one of its provisions specifically states that it may not recommend “rationing” care.

From the Affordable Care Act:

‘‘(ii) The proposal shall not include any recommendation to ration health care, raise revenues or Medicare beneficiary premiums under section 1818, 1818A, or 1839, increase Medicare beneficiary cost- sharing (including deductibles, coinsurance, and co- payments), or otherwise restrict benefits or modify eligibility criteria. [emphasis mine]

While Palin continues to use a lie that has been repeatedly debunked by fact checking organizations and was even named the Lie of the Year by one, Gross takes the lie to a whole new level by adding some extra lies of his own:

One of the things that the IPAB will consider is an individual’s QALY or quality adjusted life years. IPAB, not you or your physician, will determine based on your QALY, whether you’ll get the treatment that you need. [emphasis mine]

The higher the QALY rating, the more likely it is that a patient will get the treatment.

While this sounds technical, it isn’t. It’s subjective. The first principle that QALY considers is age. The older a person is, the less likely they are to get expensive treatments. When treatment is withheld because of a person’s age, that’s proof that IPAB is interfering in a person’s ability to get the health care they need.

Gov. Palin’s explanation put Beckel in his place because she explained the details of how the ACA limits access to health care. When conservatives confront liberals with well-researched facts, liberalism loses. [emphasis mine]

Let’s take a couple things here, Gary. First, the Independent Payment Advisory Board doesn’t look at any “individuals” but rather looks at the Medicare system as a whole and it explicitly states in its mission that it shall not recommend “rationing” health care. Second, the phrase “quality adjusted life years” is not used ANYWHERE in the Affordable Care Act. I’m not sure which right wing source programmed you with that information but you may want to tell your programmers to do a little research before receiving your daily orders.

Finally, Gary, let’s address that whole “well researched facts” thing at the end. Your entire post is the opposite of “well researched” and nearly everything written in it is a lie so the lesson here is something more like “when conservatives are given free reign to lie without consequence, liberalism loses“.

This entry was posted in Election 2012, Fact Check, Gross Inaccuracies, Health Care, Issues, Legislation, National Politics, Politics, Thing I Read Today... and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.
  • MinnesotaCentral

    Great post.

    One concern that both political parties have expressed is the goal to lower the cost of healthcare and the IPAB may be able to do is that.

    Let’s ignore the “Death Panels” fear-mongering and look at real cost-value relationships. 
    But before we look at cost-value relationships, we need to look at the doctor-medical industry relationship.

    Erik Paulsen has made his mark with Repealing the Medical Device Tax issue (and in the process using fear-mongering tactics to get wide support — IF only people had read the report that he based his job loss claims on, they would see how hypothetical and unfounded the conclusions were).  Yet, he does not tell us about the level of competition (wanna knee replaced, there are only a handful of manufacturers) and the doctor relationships. The medical device industry is not dependent on patent-driven marketing exclusivity to generate its hefty margins. Rather, many of its best-selling products are minor variations of earlier products, which can be sold at higher prices because the companies claim they are substantially better than earlier versions. The companies rarely conduct clinical trials to prove those assertions.

    The industry also benefits from an opaque pricing structure, making it almost impossible for economists to determine who actually pays the tax. Many hospitals, which are the primary purchasers of implanted medical devices, are required to sign non-disclosure pricing agreements with medical device companies if they want to get discounts from the published list price. Unable to compare prices, hospital administrators have no idea how their final prices compare to hospitals across town or across the country.

    The companies also forge close ties with the surgeons who insert their products, which can include lucrative consulting arrangements. Because hospitals are dependent on independent surgical practices to bring patients in to fill their beds, they have little say over what device brands get used in their hospitals and thus have little bargaining power in their negotiations with the device companies.

    The source for this information is from a website devoted to the Medical Device Industry called MassDevice and is in an article titled “Tax on device makers won’t harm innovation” published June 22 — after the vote was taken.

    Now, let’s look at a current issue — should PSA tests be given to every man ?

    Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) is a protein produced by cells of the prostate gland. The PSA test measures the level of PSA in the blood. Prostate cancer or benign (non-cancerous) conditions can increase men’s PSA levels. As men age these can become more common.
    Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men, second only to skin cancer. According to the National Cancer Institute age is the most common risk factor with nearly 63% of prostate cancer cases occurring in men age 65 and older. Other risk factors for prostate cancer include family history and race. Men who have had a brother or father with prostate cancer have a greater chance of developing prostate cancer. No one knows exactly what causes prostate cancer, but early detection and treatment is critical before it has a chance to spread to other parts of the body.
    However, it has been said that all men, as a process of aging, will get prostate cancer, but since can be slow-growing, it may not be life-threatening.

    The PSA test has been used for years, and in 2008, a task force recommended that doctors stop giving the PSA to men at age 75 … now a task force has recommended against using the test in a wide-spread basis for all men.

    So what should a man do ? 
    You’ve seen the commercials … THE GOVERNMENT will come between the patient and the doctor under Romneycare … err ObamaCare.

    You ask your doctor (who has to consider malpractice claims) if the test should be done ?

    What do you think the doctor will say ?

    As you ponder that, let’s consider the insurance company.  Their job is to process claims as profitably as possible — if a cost is justified, they get a handling fee that is paid by the policyholder.  Do they have an incentive to question a test that has been routinely given for years and included in their basic package ? (Nah, they get their handling fee.)

    How about the doctor and the processing lab ? (Nah, they get their fee.)

    Now, what is a reasonable fee ?  In Mankato, my bill for a PSA test was $120.58 for which the insurance company got it reduced to $97.93 (but remember I paid the insurance company to get me a charge that is “reasonable and customary”.)  But if I lived in Eagan, I could have gone to a lab that would have charged me only 49 bucks for the same test.

    The doctor got paid, the lab got paid, the insurance company got paid … all by the policyholders (or taxpayers depending upon your status) … and what do we get for it … a test that produces a false positive up to 80% of the time.

    To the Palin-discliples, the IPAB is a death panel, yet it may take an IPAB to determine that the task force is correct, the PSA test should NOT be included in the standard package.

    As much good that the IPAB could do, politics may come into play as the Senate could simply refuse to confirm the nominated members.  Both Bush and Obama have had problems getting people confirmed to other boards.

  • Pingback: Austin-tatiously Disingenuous | Shot in the Dark