Congressman Etheridge: You Better Ask “Who Is Dr. Berwick?”

When Congressman Etheridge asked the student who are you, he asked the wrong question. He should have asked, “Who is Dr. Donald Berwick?”

He’s the man Obama has appointed to implement the half trillion dollars in Medicare cuts under the Obamacare plan Congressman Etheridge voted for.

The good doctor will be the health care rationer for seniors. In his own words, “The decision is not whether or not we will ration care—the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open.”

And Dr. Berwick is open about his desire to deny health care to some and give it to others. “Any health care funding plan that is just, equitable, civilized, and humane must, must redistribute wealth from the richer among us to the poorer and the less fortunate. Excellent health care is by definition redistributional.”

In other words, it’s not about good health care for everyone. It’s about taking from some to give to others.

And Great Britain’s National Health Service is the model for the new Obama/Etheridge Medicare Chief. He says “I am romantic about the NHS; I love it.”

In the system he loves, cancer patients are routinely denied cutting edge drugs because the lives they help aren’t considered worth the cost.

A quote from a document I received in the mail from Congressman Etheridge (published and mailed at taxpayer expense, with the union label firmly in place), reads: “Strengthens Medicare. Reduces average cost for Medicare beneficiaries by $400 and extends the life of the trust fund by a decade so beneficiaries get the benefits they were promised.”

At the top of the same document the following appears, “I proudly stood with the working families for North Carolina to vote in favor of health insurance reform, because it will save lives and money.  When families are hurting, doing nothing is not an option for me.  — Bob Etheridge.”

The reason Donald Berwick is so dangerous as Director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is because in that position he will control whether doctors and hospitals get paid by Medicare.  If you don’t cooperate, you don’t get paid.  That will force doctors and hospitals to unwillingly participate in rationing of care.

The Medicare cuts Congressman Etheridge voted for have consequences.  The cuts may save money, but Congressman Etheridge is wrong when he says those cuts save lives.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

As a nurse, I will fight to repeal Obamacare, and to reign in appointees like Donald Berwick.