Gee, wish I could have that kind of health coverage -

wonder if he paid for any of this.  

Dr. Donald Berwick Believes In Rationing:  For other people.

Donald Berwick, recess-appointed by President Obama to head Medicare and Medicaid, is a well-known advocate of health care rationing and admirer of Britain's National Health Service.  Rising health costs and limited resources "require decisions about who will have access to care and the extent of their coverage," Berwick wrote in 1999.  Last year, he said, "The decision is not whether or not we will ration care -- the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open."  Of the NHS, Berwick says simply, "I love it," adding that it is "one of the great human health care endeavors on earth."

As it turns out, Berwick himself does not have to deal with the anxieties created by limited access to care and the extent of coverage.  In a special benefit conferred on him by the board of directors of the Institute for Health Care Improvement, a nonprofit health care charitable organization he created and which he served as chief executive officer, Berwick and his wife will have health coverage "from retirement until death."

Curiously enough, Berwick did not ask them to provide the health care in Britain.

As Byron York notes, Berwick's recess appointment allowed him to avoid questions on this, and on many other matters.

(Berwick also believes, strongly, in redistribution — for other people, judging by his total pay and benefits while working at the Institute.)

- 6:24 AM, 15 July 2010   [link]

From Jim Miller on Politics