President Obama has decided to seat Donald Berwick via a recess appointment, avoiding what would have been weeks of idiocy and lies by Republican senators and a likely filibuster.
On the one hand, CMS needs a director, Berwick has work to do, and Obama has other battles to fight. But somehow, some way, we need to have this conversation. Maybe it's impossible after all, I don't know. But if we don't do it, we're screwed.
Discussion of public health and health care policy, from a public health perspective. The U.S. spends more on medical services than any other country, but we get less for it. Major reasons include lack of universal access, unequal treatment, and underinvestment in public health and social welfare. We will critically examine the economics, politics and sociology of health and illness in the U.S. and the world.
Berwick has himself praised healthcare rationing and is a proud support of it. There are no lies there.
ReplyDeleteNo, that, per se, would not be a lie. The issue is what "rationing" means and why the kind of rationing he wants to do is better or worse than what we have now.
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