Limiting medical treatment will always be for your own good.

You can always tell when a Democrat administration is about to unveil a new policy. The New York Times will write a story unveiling the need for the policy. As predictably as the sun will rise tomorrow, the government will limit the number of X-rays and CT-scans that you will be allowed to have.

From the June 17th edition: Hospitals Performed Needless Double CT Scans, Records Show

Here's the money angle (and how the government is going to save billions from Medicare fraud):

Double scans expose patients to extra radiation while heaping millions of dollars in extra costs on an already overburdened Medicare program. A single CT scan of the chest is equal to about 350 standard chest X-rays, so two scans are twice that amount.

The changes will not be labelled "rationing" but "changing protocols."

By changing protocols, the percentage of double scans is now “hovering around 5 percent,” Mr. Anderson said. “What that means for us is when a physician orders a scan from a radiology department, the radiologist begins to engage in a conversation with those physicians, talking about what might be a more reasonable and acceptable approach.”

Claims consultants will tell your doctor what tests should be performed.

The federal agency plans to use other, similar measurements to rein in what it considers to be unjustified — and potentially dangerous — medical procedures.

“Modifying physician behavior is a hard thing to do,” said Dr. Pentecost, the claims consultant. “And we are doing it. This is a very powerful tool.”

What? You didn't think that this could wait, did you?

It will also have the effect of increasing the number of lawsuits for malpractice when the patient dies and the family sues the doctor for failure to diagnose the illness. But that's not a bug, it's a feature.