Twila Brase, President of the Citizen’s Council for Health Freedom, has an informative and disturbing essay about how government-run national health information network (NHIN) of patient data can be used by the department of Health & Human Services (HHS) to control how doctors practice.

Also, the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) will develop ”evidence-based” standardized medical treatment. The Independent Payment Advisory Board will use these conclusions to determine what treatments Medicare should, and should not reimburse. As Merrill Matthews notes in “Twelve Things (Still) Wrong with ObamaCare,” nominally “private” insurers are likely to follow the IPAB’s recommendations:

Because Medicare is such a large payer, its arbitrarily set prices become a benchmark for private sector insurers. In addition, private insurers often wait until Medicare agrees to cover certain therapies and prescription drugs before they do. It is probable that IPAB decisions will similarly become the benchmark for what therapies and drugs private insurers will cover and how much they will pay.

See also:

• “We Call It ‘Rationing,’ Obama Calls It ‘Medicare Independent Payment Advisory Board’” by Paul Hsieh.
• IPAB, Obamacare’s Super-Legislature, by Michael F. Cannon & Diane Cohen