It doesn’t take a soothsayer to know that if ObamaCare and the push toward government-run health care continue, America will begin to ration drugs and treatment for the sick and the elderly.

In fact, it may be too late.  Rationing is creeping into the system already.

The Wall Street Journal highlights the latest efforts to “end the cost curve,” this time in Washington State where bureaucrats could decide whether it is “too expensive” to treat kids with diabetes. The Journal in a critical editorial notes:

In 2006, Washington created a board to scrutinize the cost-effectiveness of various surgeries and treatments, known as the Health Technology Assessment program. At a hearing today, the panel will debate glucose monitoring for diabetic children under 18. In other words, the board is targeting the fundamental standard of diabetes care that has been the established medical consensus for at least three decades.

This state issue deserves far more scrutiny, if only because ObamaCare and the stimulus devoted billions of dollars to comparative effectiveness research. As President Obama has so often put it, the idea is to pit Treatment X against Treatment Y and find out “what works and what doesn’t.” In theory, it sounds great. But the Health Technology Assessment is an example of how comparative effectiveness will work in the real world, as the political system tries to find ways to restrict or limit treatment to control entitlement spending.

Of course, Washington State’s effort to reduce the cost of health care is the tip of the rationing iceberg.

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The implementation of the healthcare reform bill that was passed in March has now begun. Unfortunately, it is becoming obvious that the promises made such as: a) you can keep your physician and medical plan if you like them; b) your healthcare costs will go down; c) there will be no healthcare rationing; and d) everyone will be covered simply were not true.

We were fed a steady diet of fear, distraction and falsehoods to sell healthcare reform.

• We were told that unless something was done healthcare costs would bankrupt the country

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a report admitting that the actual cost of the healthcare system would be far higher than was initially estimated  - a cost of more than 1 trillion dollars

• We were told that healthcare premiums would decrease for families

The CBO report estimates that the cost of healthcare premiums would go up by $2100 for the average family next year

• We were told that if we liked our health insurance and doctor we could keep them

Thousands of Medicare recipients from Massachusetts to Maine will lose supplemental insurance through Medicare advantage thereby increasing there healthcare costs exponentially.

• There will be no healthcare rationing

The choice of Donald Berwick speaks for itself. He is a champion of the British model of socialized one size fits all medicine. It is a broken system that is based on rationing of care that is collapsing under its own weight.

There have also been examples of nascent rationing here in the US. e.g, in Colorado the cancer drug Avastin is not covered by Medicare although it is covered in other states. In addition, the effectiveness of screening tools such as mammograms are being questioned. It is likely that these studies will eventually be used to argue that mammograms are not effective and therefore will not be covered by insurance.

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ObamaCare expands coverage to millions of Americans, but, warns Professor Shirley Svorny, without stronger measures to expand the supply of healthcare providers and contain costs, we can expect a physician shortage and soaring premiums.

The California State University, Northridge economist suggests options for lowering costs and dismantling state-level regulations that restrain competition and innovation.

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On Sunday morning, March 21^st, I sent an e-mail to a handful of individuals, including Mike Flynn of Big Government.com, who have been very supportive of my efforts in informing people, family and businesses on Prevention, cost containment and health care reform. The topic was the impending passage of Obama Care and the stripping of Freedom and Liberty from every American which will be the end result.

One of the people I contacted was, Dennis Gartman. One of the nation’s and world’s leading financial analysts, investors and financial public educators through his work in the media.  Dennis is the founder of The Gartman Letter….a daily financial road map for corporations, individuals, investment funds and governments. Dennis asked if he could include my e-mail in The Gartman Letter. Below is Dennis’s article concerning my e-mail.

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GENERAL COMMENTS ON THE CAPITAL MARKETS ON ONE WELL KNOWN DOCTOR’S PERSPECTIVE ON HEALTH CARE:

Our friend, Dr. David Janda, is a nationally well known orthopaedic surgeon in Ann Arbor, Michigan, involved in delivering health care for 29 years.

David’s a clinical researcher in Prevention and Health care cost containment and he founded The Institute For Preventative Sports Medicine which is the only health care cost containment organization of its kind in North America. According to the Federal government, one of his studies has lead to the prevention of 1.7 million people from being injured every year in the U.S. and saved $2 billion in health care costs per year.

David also wrote a bestselling book….The Awakening of a Surgeon…… featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show and it’s been referred to as a “Weapon of Mass Instruction” as it tells people and families how to take control of their health care and to free themselves from the insurance companies, from the HMO industry and most importantly from federal bureaucrats.

That being said, David wrote to us last evening as the health care legislation was making its way to the House floor. He’s told us in the past about the ills involved in this legislation, but now it has passed and it has come to this. We believe David’s thoughts, as a physician of some renown to be worthy of our clients’ collective attention, He wrote:

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The Politico ran a story this weekend pointing out a very inconvenient truth for proponents of the House version of big government health reform legislation: contrary to its goal of “bending the cost curve downward” over time, the bill would actually INCREASE health care costs by $289 billion.

The report issued by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimated that the “Affordable Health Care for America Act” would increase health care costs from the current level of 20.8 percent of GDP up to 21.1 percent a decade from now. It also adds yet another voice to the chorus now showing that preventive care and wellness programs do NOT decrease long-term costs.

In a fascinating development, the White House has now actually admitted, apparently for the first time, that the House bill would increase health care burdens despite President Obama’s repeated assertion that he seeks a health care bill that would reduce costs. In response to the CMS study, Obama aide Nancy-Ann DeParle said, “the good news was that, despite extending coverage to 36 million people, health care spending would rise by only by 0.8 percent.”

The CMS findings could make it very difficult for Congressional Democrats and other proponents to follow through on what might be the central argument for their plan of massive tax hikes, subsidies, and regulations: that it would reduce crippling health care costs.  Several Members, particularly those facing tough re-election fights, have committed themselves to only voting for a plan that would cut long-term health care costs.

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