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AmSpecBlog
Should Government Decide on Our Health Care?
Nat Hentoff is a man of the Left who long wrote for the Village Voice. But he always was a man of principle--he defended free speech for all and vigorously opposed abortion despite much discomfort among his supposed allies.
Now he looks at the Democratic health care reform proposals:
I was not intimidated during J. Edgar Hoover's FBI hunt for reporters like me who criticized him. I railed against the Bush-Cheney war on the Bill of Rights without blinking. But now I am finally scared of a White House administration. President Obama's desired health care reform intends that a federal board (similar to the British model) - as in the Center for Health Outcomes Research and Evaluation in a current Democratic bill - decides whether your quality of life, regardless of your political party, merits government-controlled funds to keep you alive. Watch for that life-decider in the final bill. It's already in the stimulus bill signed into law.
The members of that ultimate federal board will themselves not have examined or seen the patient in question. For another example of the growing, tumultuous resistance to "Dr. Obama," particularly among seniors, there is a July 29 Washington Times editorial citing a line from a report written by a key adviser to Obama on cost-efficient health care, prominent bioethicist Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel (brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel).
Emanuel writes about rationing health care for older Americans that "allocation (of medical care) by age is not invidious discrimination." (The Lancet, January 2009) He calls this form of rationing - which is fundamental to Obamacare goals - "the complete lives system." You see, at 65 or older, you've had more life years than a 25-year-old. As such, the latter can be more deserving of cost-efficient health care than older folks.
No matter what Congress does when it returns from its recess, rationing is a basic part of Obama's eventual master health care plan. Here is what Obama said in an April 28 New York Times interview (quoted in Washington Times July 9 editorial) in which he describes a government end-of-life services guide for the citizenry as we get to a certain age, or are in a certain grave condition. Our government will undertake, he says, a "very difficult democratic conversation" about how "the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care" costs.
Which provides yet another reason to say "no thanks" to government control of health care.
Comments
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Pingback| 8.21.09 @ 11:42AM
Cstraining - Daily Healthy News Blog » Blog Archive » The American Spectator : AmSpec links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 8.21.09 @ 12:14PM
The American Spectator : AmSpecBlog : Should Government Decide on … | kozmom news links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Igor Marxomarxovich| 8.21.09 @ 1:25PM
How you tell when politician lie?
Comrade Pelosi blink
Slick Willy rub nose
Comrade Obama open mouth
Dumb Donkey Gibbs laugh...Hehaw..he..haw..he..haw!
Is this really health care "reform"?
Compare Obama Care vs Igor Care at Obama vs Igor Care
I Igor produce Barrack Milhaus Hussein Obama Birth Certificate at www.igormarxo.org
Tim| 8.21.09 @ 1:51PM
Euthanizing seniors not only saves health dollars but also would reduce social security rolls. A twofer!
Nobama| 8.21.09 @ 2:35PM
Sarah was right! She's the only Republican around with the guts to speak the truth.
PALIN 2012
yeswecan| 8.21.09 @ 4:26PM
Com'on, surley this all speculation and rumors floating around on the internet,right?WRONG!!! Wake up America before your government puts you to sleep with Obamacide.
Liberal Reader| 8.21.09 @ 5:54PM
Should government decide on health care?
This is not the question.
The question is, why can't everyone be in a position to go to a doctor where he or she can make proper medical decisions?
The reason?
Greed. It's simple greed.
A single payer or social system of medicine would be cheaper, more effective, simpler, portable, guaranteed, sensible, moral, and just.
It's the way to go.
JUST TALK to ANY one from England or France. They may have a few complaints -- well, at least the Brit might -- but you'll not find a SINGLE person from either of these countries who would exchange their system for ours.
Nobama| 8.21.09 @ 6:28PM
LIAR!! I have family in England and they HATE their health care system! They have had to fly to the UNITED STATES for procedures they needed and couldn't get in time under England's socialized medicine system.
Blow it up your @rse, Jeremiah. ObamaCare is dead--deal with it, moron.
Heather| 8.21.09 @ 6:32PM
When our liberal President and Congress get the SAME health care plan they want to ram down our throats, I'll think about it. Otherwise, forget it!
nyp| 8.21.09 @ 8:23PM
this is an incredibly misleading and unfair attack on a distinguished oncologist. Dr. Emanuel's article was expressly limited to the special case of scarce medical interventions - such as a limited supply of transplant organs or new vaccines where there there are more qualified recipients than there are donors. It says so in the very first sentence of the article. You deliberately ignored Dr. Emanuel's limiting context. Why? And don't you think your readers deserved to know that Dr. Emanuel is one of the leading opponents of assisted suicide? I suppose doing so would blast a large hole in your thesis. Better to mislead.
Heather| 8.22.09 @ 1:15AM
If what you say is true, nyp, why did Dr. Emanuel recently say that his opinion on these matters has "EVOLVED?" We don't trust you Godless liberals with our lives--can you blame us?
Truth is not an attack. Get over yourself and your phony outrage.
nyp| 8.22.09 @ 9:45AM
Heather:
1. Dr. Emanuel said that he once thought that the unsustainable current trend in health care costs would inevitably lead to health care rationing. Now he believes that common sense systemic reforms can "bend the curve" of cost increases and avoid such a scenario. One example of such a reform would be to provide insurance to Americans who have lost their jobs so that our overburdened emergency rooms to not continue to function as half-baked primary care centers. It is really hard to see what in his statement justifies the outragious smears.
2. I am please that you have conceded that the author unfairly and misleadingly neglected to inform his readers that Dr. Emanuels' Lancet article was expressly limited to the special case of transplant organs and vaccines.
3. Precisely what is it that has led you to conclude that I am "Godless"?
4. Wait a sec - is the problem that Dr. Emanuel used the term "evolved"? Is it that you think he believes in the theory of evolution that makes you so angry? That would explain a lot.
Heather| 8.22.09 @ 7:45PM
You made quite a leap with my use of the word 'evolved', liberal; a wrong one, I might add. I didn't say anything about the THEORY of Evolution, you're just putting words in my mouth.
That's what you liberals do best: Lie and put your words in other peoples' mouths. You are the fascist liberal thought cops who have to lie because your ideas stink.
Heather| 8.22.09 @ 7:50PM
I've conceded nothing, fool. It is YOU who have conceded my point: Dr Emanuel's position on health care rationing has "EVOLVED." You're not too smart are you?
I still don't trust the Godless b@stard.
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