Chattanooga Times Free Press | ObamaCare rationing confirmed

Chattanooga Times Free Press | ObamaCare rationing confirmed

You may remember that during the long debate prior to the enactment of ObamaCare socialized medicine, Democrat leaders sharply rejected claims that ObamaCare would lead to government rationing of medical care.

Howard Dean, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said last August on ABC, "Let me just say, A, there's no rationing in any of these bills, so we don't have to worry about that."

And President Barack Obama himself said at a rally in Pennsylvania that the real culprits for the rationing of care were health insurance companies: "The insurance companies continue to ration health care. ... That's the status quo in America, and it's a status quo that's unsustainable."

But now that ObamaCare has passed, at least some of its supporters have become quite candid in admitting that government rationing is on the way.

Dr. Donald Berwick, a Harvard professor, has been nominated by President Obama to run Medicare and Medicaid. But Dr. Berwick has not been shy at all about saying that rationing will be the order of the day under ObamaCare.

In an interview in 2009 in the journal Biotechnology Healthcare, Dr. Berwick declared, "The decision is not whether or not we will ration care. The decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open."

In other words, Dr. Berwick does not mind rationing so long as it is government making the decisions about how that rationing takes place -- about who gets what care and who does not.

The disastrous results of socialized medicine in foreign nations such as Great Britain -- where government makes such decisions -- ought to raise serious concern about similar government rationing in the United States.