In an oh so gingerly fashion, Robert Pear of the New York Times describes a number of reasons why a reasonable person might believe that President Obama’s health-care/insurance (or whatever) reform would probably lead to rationing of services, especially to the old.
Bills now in Congress would squeeze savings out of Medicare, a lifeline for the elderly, on the assumption that doctors and hospitals can be more efficient.
President Obama has sold health care legislation to Congress and the country as a way to slow the growth of federal health spending, no less than as a way to regulate the insurance market and cover the uninsured.
Mr. Obama has also said Medicare and private insurers could improve care and save money by following advice from a new federal panel of medical experts on “what treatments work best.”
The zeal for cutting health costs, combined with proposals to compare the effectiveness of various treatments and to counsel seniors on end-of-life care, may explain why some people think the legislation is about rationing, which could affect access to the most expensive services in the final months of life.
The effect of Pear’s article, however, whether intended or not, is to reinforce Obama’s claims of “misconceptions,” “bearing false witness,” etc., that he is ostensibly qualifying. First, his title (though that may have been the responsibility of some editor), “A Basis Is Seen for Some Health Plan Fears Among the Elderly,” even aside from its evasive, weasely passive voice (“Is Seen” by whom?), asserts that there is a basis only for “some” fears. Other fears are presumably totally without foundation.
Next, in his lede Pear reports that “Medicare beneficiaries and insurance counselors say the concerns are not entirely irrational.” Do those unnamed worthies thus believe “the concerns” are almost but not quite entirely irrational? Mainly but not altogether irrational? That they are all (or only some) based on just enough evidence (a smidgen? a little? some?) to keep them from being entirely irrational?
What exactly is Pear attempting to report here? Does he, does the New York Times, think the Swastika-wearing mobsters who are suffering from “misperceptions” and who are “bearing false witness” are nuts or not?
Not, I guess (but I’m not sure), entirely.
