President Obama is willing to risk being a one term president on the issue of health care reform. If that’s true, why did he leave crafting health care legislation to Nancy Pelosi and the democrats in congress? The only bill out there for the public to scrutinize is HR 3200. And it’s scary. At over 1000 pages of legaleze, with all sorts of scary provisions; how can he believe the American people are going to approve? Not to mention that one of his top health care advisors, Ezekiel Emanuel, has written some pretty controversial opinions when it comes to health care rationing. He really shouldn’t be at all surprized that he’s scaring the crap out of people.
Enter Sarah Palin, now a private citizen. She recently remarked that ObummerCare’s death panels would threaten the elderly and people like her son trig. Of course the left and the White House went on the assualt. Zeke Emanel had some choice words. Sarah Palin’s never been one to back down in a fight, and she certainly didn’t back down this time.
As I noted in my statement last week, nationalized health care inevitably leads to rationing. There is simply no way to cover everyone and hold down the costs at the same time. The rationing system proposed by one of President Obama’s key health care advisors is particularly disturbing. I’m speaking of the “Complete Lives System” advocated by Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of the president’s chief of staff. President Obama has not yet stated any opposition to the “Complete Lives System,” a system which, if enacted, would refuse to allocate medical resources to the elderly, the infirm, and the disabled who have less economic potential. [1] Why the silence from the president on this aspect of his nationalization of health care? Does he agree with the “Complete Lives System”? If not, then why is Dr. Emanuel his policy advisor? What is he advising the president on? I just learned that Dr. Emanuel is now distancing himself from his own work and claiming that his “thinking has evolved” on the question of rationing care to benefit the strong and deny the weak. [2] How convenient that he disavowed his own work only after the nature of his scholarship was revealed to the public at large.
The president is busy assuring us that we can keep our private insurance plans, but common sense (and basic economics) tells us otherwise. The public option in the Democratic health care plan will crowd out private insurers, and that’s what it’s intended to do. A single payer health care plan has been President Obama’s agenda all along, though he is now claiming otherwise. Don’t take my word for it. Here’s what he said back in 2003:
“I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal health care plan…. A single payer health care plan – universal health care plan – that’s what I would like to see.” [3]
A single-payer health care plan might be what Obama would like to see, but is it what the rest of us would like to see? What does a single payer health care plan look like? We need look no further than other countries who have adopted such a plan. The picture isn’t pretty. [4] The only way they can control costs is to ration care. As I noted in my earlier statement quoting Thomas Sowell, government run health care won’t reduce the price of medical care; it will simply refuse to pay the price. The expensive innovative procedures that people from all over the world come to the United States for will not be available under a government plan that seeks to cover everyone by capping costs.
Our senior citizens are right to be wary of this health care bill. Medical care at the end of life accounts for 80 percent of all health care. When care is rationed, that is naturally where the cuts will be felt first. The “end-of-life” consultations authorized in Section 1233 of HR 3200 were an obvious and heavy handed attempt at pressuring people to reduce the financial burden on the system by minimizing their own care. Worst still, it actually provided a financial incentive to doctors to initiate these consultations. People are right to point out that such a provision doesn’t sound “purely voluntary.” [...]
Last year, I issued a proclamation for “Healthcare Decisions Day.” [6] The proclamation sought to increase the public’s knowledge about creating living wills and establishing powers of attorney. There was no incentive to choose one option over another. There was certainly no financial incentive for physicians to push anything. In fact, the proclamation explicitly called on medical professionals and lawyers “to volunteer their time and efforts” to provide information to the public.
Comparing the “Healthcare Decisions Day” proclamation to Section 1233 of HR 3200 is ridiculous. The two are like apples and oranges. The attempt to link the two shows how desperate the proponents of nationalized health care are to shift the debate away from the disturbing details of their bill.
Disturbing indeed. There are countless articles and blog postings outlining the most disturbing aspects of the bill. Here’s just a sampling:
Charles Krauthammer - The Preventive Care Myth
James Yanke – Part I – What Statist Evil Lurks within ObamaCare’s 1000+ Pages? , Part II – What Statist Evil Lurks within ObamaCare’s 1000+ Pages?, Part III – What Statist Evil Lurks within ObamaCare’s 1000+ Pages? (H/T No Sheeples Here!)
Roger Collier – Can HR 3200 be fixed?
