Stiles:
President Obama’s remarks at a White House press conference Wednesday were riddled with false choices and phony equivalence. These are the same scare tactics Democrats have been using all year.
False choices and phony equivalencies? Scare tactics? Rhetorical questions? Well, fair enough, I trust my ideological opponents to argue in good faith. Let’s take a look at a random Stiles article to ensure he’s not engaging in such deplorable, duplicitous tactics… how about this one, entitled IPAB Under Fire, from May 3rd, 2011…
From the opening paragraph, on Medicare:
Ryan plans to salvage the soon-to-be-insolvent health-care entitlement for seniors by transitioning to a “premium support” model that empowers consumers to choose among competing private plans.
Soon to be insolvent? Well in the sense that the Earth is billions of years old, I guess 15 years from now is “soon.” Okay, so bad start. Let’s keep going.
because Democrats may soon be forced to weigh in on President Obama’s alternative to Ryan’s reforms, namely the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), a 15-member panel of “experts” that would be tasked with “improving” Medicare by “finding savings” in the program — which many fear is simply code for rationing (remember “death panels?”).
Democrats already did weigh in on IPAB, as it was passed in 2010 as part of the PPACA. Characterizing it as THE alternative to Ryan’s plan is a weird bit of phony equivalency, as the PPACA outlines several other methods for maintaining cost controls including value-based purchasing, restructuring fee-for-service rates and outlining payment penalties for low-quality providers. We’re focusing on the scare tactics and false equivalences Stiles is making here but follow this link for further explanation of why Ryan’s current plan and IPAB/PPACA are not equivalent in Medicare cost savings.
Oh, also, the rationing “many fear”? Well, IPAB is not allowed to ration care. At all. Here, from page 409: “The proposal shall not include any recommendation to ration health care, raise revenues or Medicare beneficiary premiums” Moreover, Congress has the ability to override, and the president to veto, any unwanted changes the board recommends.
The panel was included in the Senate’s version of the health-care bill only at the last minute, lost in the flurry of negotiations during the controversial reconciliation process used to pass the bill.
There’s no documentation on that and I had some difficulty researching the specific point at which the language in the bill was inserted. If anyone knows when IPAB became a formal part of the Senate bill let me know via email or in comments. However, as was common during the health care debate, Stiles here uses the implication that the bill was rushed (it was not) to suggest IPAB was some new, foreign concept. It papers over the fact that it’s an idea that has been around Washington for years. Paul Ryan himself proposed a similar cost-savings board in 2009. Back to Stiles:
In fact, some Democrats have already begun to weigh in against the idea. Rep. Phil Roe (R., Tenn.), who introduced a bill in late January to repeal IPAB, currently has more than 80 cosponsors, including a number of Democrats.
What number? 7.
The bill actually has 140 cosponsors now so that’s 5% Democratic cosponsors (and 3.6% of the Democratic caucus). I guess Andrew Stiles is technically correct, 7 is A number, but the implication that it’s any kind of equivalent amount is a pretty blatant distortion.
[Bill sponsor Rep. Phil] Roe, a physician, tells National Review Online that…that Great Britain has a health-care board comparable to IPAB, known as the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence — or NICE.
IPAB cannot ration care. NICE can.
He says boards like these serve only to undermine the quality and even the availability of patient care.
Who is using scare tactics now?
For instance, in a recent decision, NICE denied approval for a breast-cancer drug that helps treat late stages of the disease, prolonging the life of the patient by an average of ten weeks. NICE deemed this benefit insufficient to justify the cost of the drug.
Again, IPAB does not ration care. Moreover, the details of this story are so vague it’s difficult to understand exactly what drug Roe and Stiles are referring to. Presumably it is Tyverb, but there’s no real way of knowing. Not really a lie or anything, just shoddy journalism, but let’s try to wrap this up.
The whole piece starts to fall apart towards the end. Stiles repeatedly raises the spectre of rationing (remember “remember ‘death panels”?) and then quotes Roe as saying,
“If care is going to be rationed, and I think it is in some kind of way, should it be done by government bureaucrats or should it be patients who get to decide?”
What was all that about phony equivalency? This is just utter nonsense. Patients have no more choice on rationing under the Ryan plan than they do in current Medicare or under IPAB. As the Ryan plan is vague on defining benefits, it’s unclear what the standard of care will be but said benefits, or said rationing, will ultimately be determined by the Office of Personnel Management, i.e. government bureaucrats. Here is the Kaiser summation of Ryan plan benefit determinations:
The proposal would require private plans in the new Medicare Exchanges to comply with “a standard for benefits” that would be approved by the Office of Personnel Management.
There’s so much more, including some Pete Stark quotes that apply perfectly to the Ryan plan, but I think we can stop here. Life is too short, I’ve got pictures of cats to look at. Besides, we already know Stiles manufactures controversy (read: lies) so it shouldn’t be surprising it’s something he’d do habitually.
This is basically what his reporting amounts to. It’s perpetually misleading and never up to a standard that constitutes legitimate journalism. Were I his editor I would be embarrassed. Were I his publisher I would be furious. Then again, in both circumstances I would work for National Review so I’d probably be too busy screaming “ISLAM!” or putting cigars out on homosexuals to care (good looking out though, Potemra and Steorts).
Let me be clear on another point– I think Andrew Stiles is very good at this. Go read the article. Out of the crop of young reporters at NRO, he is clearly the most effective at spin or persuasion or urinating on decency or whatever it is his job actually entails.
What is it like living a life without shame? Speculate in comments.
