Health care reform = rationed care

Get ready for more stories like this, from the Boston Globe: "Hospital strains to cut elder care costs"

Massachusetts General Hospital launched a pathbreaking effort to cut medical costs by reducing hospital stays and emergency room visits by the frail elderly - an initiative that underscores just how hard it will be for the medical industry to make good on its promise to President Obama to pare healthcare spending by $2 trillion over the next decade.

The Globe also has an incredulous editorial about Obama's plan to prestidigitate savings from the current health care system: "$2 trillion saved, just like that?"

The hard truth is that America is aging and Obama is trying to constrain health care costs just as the wave of Baby Boomers is poised to join Medicare. This is like trying to cut gas costs while everybody's crowding onto the bus. And I'm not saying it's not worthwhile to cut health care costs; I'm just saying that there will be inevitable sacrifices to quality. So don't act shocked.