Happy little death panels

read the fine print in the NYTIMES.

But there’s a side that’s often forgotten: the so-called pay-fors and the cost-containment measures. These components — provisions to finance the new expenditures and tax credits, as well as to slow the rapid rise of health care costs — help explain why the act was so hard to pass, and why it remains the subject of so much debate. Unfortunately, they are also the parts that need to be expanded and built upon....

A third measure is the new Independent Payment Advisory Board, charged with proposing near-term cost savings whenever Medicare spending is projected to grow faster than a target rate. Though it’s precluded from suggesting many things — notably additional revenue measures or benefit limitations — it can suggest restructuring or cuts in payments to health care providers. Congress must either accept these recommendations or find alternatives that achieve the same savings. In this way, the board may be able to bring about politically difficult changes.

so if it costs too much, they can order your insurance company not to pay the doc or to cut what he/she is paid.

And this is the Obama bill, not the Ryan budget cuts to Medicare.