Aug 13 2009
Rationing Better Than Liberals’ Plan To Triage Health Care
Update: BTWÂ Jay over at Stop The ACLU has an interesting update on one of many of those so called Palin ethics violations – seems she has been cleared again! – end update
Right now health care is available to all, no one can be turned away. If you have the means you can buy whatever coverage you want. Under Obamacare all that would be wiped out. In the guise of ‘cutting cost’ all the liberals’ in DC plan to do is not pay for treatments – and force us all to live with their decisions.
Sarah Palin has been at the forefront challenging this crazy, dangerous liberal scheme to not just ration health care, but to triage it – where faceless and unaccountable bureaucrats decide who is worthy of expensive, life saving treatment:
Yesterday President Obama responded to my statement that Democratic health care proposals would lead to rationed care; that the sick, the elderly, and the disabled would suffer the most under such rationing; and that under such a system these “unproductive†members of society could face the prospect of government bureaucrats determining whether they deserve health care.
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Now put this in context. These consultations are authorized whenever a Medicare recipient’s health changes significantly or when they enter a nursing home, and they are part of a bill whose stated purpose is “to reduce the growth in health care spending.†[5] Is it any wonder that senior citizens might view such consultations as attempts to convince them to help reduce health care costs by accepting minimal end-of-life care?
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Even columnist Eugene Robinson, a self-described “true believer†who “will almost certainly support†“whatever reform package finally emergesâ€, agrees that “If the government says it has to control health-care costs and then offers to pay doctors to give advice about hospice care, citizens are not delusional to conclude that the goal is to reduce end-of-life spending.†[8]
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My original comments concerned statements made by Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, a health policy advisor to President Obama and the brother of the President’s chief of staff. Dr. Emanuel has written that some medical services should not be guaranteed to those “who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens….An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia.†[10]Â
I touched on this very issue in a previous post where I noted this is NOT rationing, but the act of advanced triage (yes folks, there is an established definition for this practice):
In advanced triage, doctors may decide that some seriously injured people should not receive advanced care because they are unlikely to survive. Advanced care will be used on patients with less severe injuries. Because treatment is intentionally withheld from patients with certain injuries, advanced triage has ethical implications. It is used to divert scarce resources away from patients with little chance of survival in order to increase the chances of survival of others who are more likely to survive.
Cutting costs = not paying = triaging health care = dying. This is not an assumption or theory. Here, again, is a quote from one of the President’s top architects and advisors to Obamacare:
This system incorporates five principles: youngest-first, prognosis, save the most lives, lottery, and instrumental value. … When implemented, the complete lives system produces a priority curve on which individuals aged between roughly 15 and 40 years get the most substantial chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get chances that are attenuated.
“Attenuatedâ€means withholding expensive treatments, going cheap. It is very Scrooge like, to plan to have the excess population to just get on with their dying to save some money. As I noted before, the UK is already considering changing their government run system from curing the ill to only keeping the healthy healthy:
Already around one in ten hospitals refuse to carry out joint replacements for obese patients or orthopaedic surgery on smokers.
The contract, first floated by Tony Blair was proposed by Gordon Brown in a New Year message to Health Service staff today.
The Prime Minister believes a new focus on the prevention of ill health, rather than curing it, is essential for a modern NHS.
The shift in focus has clear results for the UK, as noted here:
Smokers, heavy drinkers, the obese and the elderly should be barred from receiving some operations, according to doctors, with most saying the health service cannot afford to provide free care to everyone.
The UK is the model of Obamacare. It is the future of US health care if we go down this path. It is the real world example of a proud, independent, wealthy nation that made the mistake of ruining its health care system by going with government triaged health care. It is a warning to us all.
Voters Give GOP First-Time Lead on Health Care
Thursday, August 13, 2009
For the first time in over two years of polling, voters trust Republicans slightly more than Democrats on the handling of the issue of health care. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that voters favor the GOP on the issue 44% to 41%.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/trust_on_issues
Gibbs said today that the main reason for the Health Care bill was to give people choice in states where there is only one insurance company offering insurance. Does Gibbs think that we are so stupid as to believe that it took 1000 pages, the establishment of 53 different committees to determine what we need and can have, and a trillion dollars to give us more choice? Why not just allow buyers to buy over state lines?
This is getting positively ridiculous. I guess when you really want a single payer plan but you try to pass it off as saving the economy, or giving choice, or holding insurance companies accountable this is the kind of trouble that you get yourself into.
When you tell those who go to Townhall meetings to get answers, we the voters aren’t smart enough to understand the bill, or what we do see with our own eyes is a lie or misinterpreted, or we are really a mob and worse, the American Spirit is awaken big time. I JUST LOVE IT. NOW THIS IS THE AMERICA THAT I KNOW.
AJ, this was one of your finest. Think it is also important to point out that under this system, the powerful and very rich will have their health care. Just a fact. Only the middle and little people will be told to die. They will be able to buy it.
kathie, I had commented on yesterday’s WH press. They were zombies. Evidently I wasn’t the only one who thought so because it was as if someone finally stuck them with a pin. I suggest to Major Garrett to watch his back. What a hoot but did you notice that Gibbs NEVER answered a question? Oh, maybe Bill Press?
Owl,
Many thanks! I think I might be getting the hang of this finally.
Cheers, AJStrata
Major Garrett was great. No, Gibbs never answered the question, “How can the White House send e-mails to those who have never contacted the White House?” there is probable a reasonable answer, but it sounds bad, for sure.
Obama had better be careful, the press is speaking up. the next thing you know all the journalists will be in trouble, not just FOX, then the lies will hit the fan. It is too good!
I have a little feeling that if Obama pushes through this Health Care bill and or cap and trade, there is only one person who could undo the damage Obama has done as well as keep our National Defenses strong that would be acceptable.
READ THE WHOLE THING AT FREEREPUBLIC…….SARAH WAS CORRECT.
After the Great Recession (Obama interview on Death Panel)
New York Times ^ | April 28, 2009
Posted on 08/13/2009 6:53:58 PM PDT by Shermy
..THE PRESIDENT: So that’s where I think you just get into some very difficult moral issues. But that’s also a huge driver of cost, right?
I mean, the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill out here.
So how do you — how do we deal with it?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think that there is going to have to be a conversation that is guided by doctors, scientists, ethicists. And then there is going to have to be a very difficult democratic conversation that takes place. It is very difficult to imagine the country making those decisions just through the normal political channels. And that’s part of why you have to have some independent group that can give you guidance. It’s not determinative, but I think has to be able to give you some guidance. And that’s part of what I suspect you’ll see emerging out of the various health care conversations that are taking place on the Hill right now.