Sarah Palin Was Right

Remember when Sarah Palin was mocked for suggesting that ObamaCare contained what she called death panels?



It appears Miss Henny Penny was right all along. Here are a few excerpts from an article that appeared this week in the Wall Street Journal, written by David Rivkin and Elizabeth Foley ("An ObamaCare Board Answerable to No One")"

Signs of ObamaCare's failings mount daily, including soaring insurance costs, looming provider shortages and inadequate insurance exchanges. Yet the law's most disturbing feature may be the Independent Payment Advisory Board. The IPAB, sometimes called a "death panel," threatens both the Medicare program and the Constitution's separation of powers. At a time when many Americans have been unsettled by abuses at the Internal Revenue Service and Justice Department, the introduction of a powerful and largely unaccountable board into health care merits special scrutiny. . . 

The ObamaCare law also stipulates that there "shall be no administrative or judicial review" of the board's decisions. Its members will be nearly untouchable, too. They will be presidentially nominated and Senate-confirmed, but after that they can only be fired for "neglect of duty or malfeasance in office" . . . 

The IPAB's godlike powers are not accidental. Its goal, conspicuously proclaimed by the Obama administration, is to control Medicare spending in ways that are insulated from the political process. . . 

The power given by Congress to the Independent Payment Advisory Board is breathtaking. Congress has willingly abandoned its power to make tough spending decisions (how and where to cut) to an unaccountable board that neither the legislative branch nor the president can control. The law has also entrenched the board's decisions to an unprecedented degree. . . 

ObamaCare mandates that the board impose deep Medicare cuts, while simultaneously forbidding it to ration care. Reducing payments to doctors, hospitals and other health-care providers may cause them to limit or stop accepting Medicare patients, or even to close shop. These actions will limit seniors' access to care, causing them to wait longer or forego care—the essence of rationing. ObamaCare's commands to the board are thus inherently contradictory and, consequently, unintelligible. 

Once again, the Obama people speak from both sides of their mouths: no, you may not ration; yes, you will in all likelihood be forced to ration. 

Read full article here. And below is an ad where Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman is seen essentially concurring with Sarah Palin, albeit from a cynically leftist point of view. 

I don't expect any apologies to Ms. Palin will be forthcoming; I do, though, expect Congress to take the WSJ writers' advice to "act quickly to repeal this particular portion of ObamaCare or defund its operations." That would be a start.