Terry Pearson for Minnesota House

On page 1020 of the recently passed Senate Health Care bill, it makes it illegal to ever consider a bill that would eliminate “death panels” http://bit.ly/8ldPM9.

Of course the term “death panels” is never used. I do not think that any sane person would put something in a bill that would create a panel whose sole purpose was to
evaluate if someone should live or die. But that is not what I am talking about.

The panel I am referring to is called the “Independent Payment Advisory Board,” which is a panel of bureaucrats charged with cutting health care costs. This panel would operate similar to NICE (the British Health Care Rationing Body). NICE is infamous for the outright banning of several types of important but costly drugs due to price concerns.

There are very few ways to reign in costs without a free market. Your choices include cutting drugs. cutting care, or cutting patients. The other way is to mandate reductions in drug costs, but that will limit new research and development. Any type of rationing board would be faced with one of these non-free market options.

But the bigger problem is the prohibition on opening up the issue down the road. This violates current senate rules (because such a rule change requires 2/3 of the senate to approve such a measure), violates centuries of common law that prevent previous governmental bodies from regulating future legislative bodies, and one could even argue that it places limits on free political speech which is one of the most honored and cherished parts of our constitution.

If this becomes law, the senate created something that would essentially create tyranny in Washington. The law would essentially end political dissent. There should never be a reason that a bill should limit our ability to discuss or amend a law.

In Minnesota, we have a law with a similar intent. Minnesota currently bans even the consideration of new Nuclear power plants. It is foolish, and sometimes dangerous, to ever let a government restrict the issue that can be discussed in it’s law making body.

Any politician that tells you that his issue is so important that we restrict future free speech should not ever be trusted.