Gruber in 2009 Only way to control costs is to deny treatment

“So what’s different this time? Why are we closer than we’ve ever been before? Because there are no cost controls in these proposals. Because this bill’s about coverage. Which is good! Why should we hold 48 million uninsured people hostage to the fact that we don’t yet know how to control costs in a politically acceptable way? Let’s get the people covered and then let’s do cost control.”

Gruber also said that the only way to control costs is to effectively deny treatment.

“The real substance of cost control is all about a single thing: telling patients they can’t have something they want. It’s about telling patients, ‘That surgery doesn’t do any good, so if you want it you have to pay the full cost.’”

Already older people are being told that they can't have certain treatment in the UK which is the model Gruber and Obama are trying to emulate.

"Older women 'denied breast cancer treatment

Older women with breast cancer are being denied potentially life-saving treatments which are available to younger patients, a charity said today.

While younger women routinely have surgery to remove tumours, surgeons are reluctant to operate on those over 70 because doctors believe they are too frail, according to the Cancer Research Campaign.

Women over 70 could enjoy an extra three years of life if they were given the same access to surgery as other breast cancer patients, experts said.

The charity said the NHS was discriminating against older women and called on doctors to give patients over 70 the option of having tumours surgically removed."

And since when does some bureaucrat get to decide your medical treatment?

Remember the "Death Panels"?

"The US Preventive Services Task Force is an independent body authorized by Congress to make “evidence-based recommendations about clinical preventive services such as screenings, counseling services, or preventive medications.” And since the onset of Obamacare discussions, the Task Force recommendations for treatment and screening have become less and less generous. In November 2009, the Task Force recommended that mammography for women every other year between the ages of 50 and 74. They admit that they have insufficient information to suggest that it would be fruitless to screen after 74, and they say that case-by-case screenings should take place before 50.

The Mayo Clinic, by contrast, recommends annual mammograms for women above age 40; so too does the American Cancer Society. As Dr. Sandhya Pruthi of the Mayo Clinic writes, “Findings from a large study in Sweden of women in their 40s who underwent screening mammograms showed a decrease in breast cancer deaths by 29 percent.”

Just who is going to make your health care decisions?

You and your physician?  Or some nameless faceless number cruncher in some dank office in the bowels of Washington D.C.?