Jun 25 2009
O-Bomba! Why Waste Money Saving A Life?
Update: I want welcome NY Times readers from Tobin Harshaw’s The Opinionator blog. I would like to give some context to my concern over the answers President Obama gave on his health care plans. I have medical power of attorney over my mid-to-late 80’s parents and frequent many kinds of medical facilities with them (from emergency rooms to out patient care).
We are the educated consumers and can make decisions and have discussions with the doctors  – which is tough enough when it is just us and the doctors. One problem my mother has is her reaction to narcotic medicines – she goes from lucid to late stage Alzheimer’s symptoms in just a 24-48 hours. We try very hard to make sure no one prescribes these without a serious reason.
However they are also the low cost first option many doctors use to see if they can avoid more drastic measures. If decisions are determined by bureaucrats with no idea of medical history and individual and unique physiology, then people will get the wrong care because it is cheaper. The number of times I have seen lucid seniors drugged into long term or hospice care why I know that cookbook, one size fits all solutions many times simply put people out to pasture to pass on, than deal with the individual patient.
As more people deal with aging parents (that would be those numerous Boomers out there) or are becoming the senior citizen patients, I think more people will reject the government run plans. Because the government deals with numbers and IDs, it does not deal with individuals. – end update
I had better things to do last night than watch the Obama-ABC infomercial. But from what I am seeing today it sounds like it was a bomb. First off, when the President says those dying should not be given care to save money, everyone can see that we are well onto the slippery slope that began with abortion for convenience and went viral with the idea of factories of young humans being set up to make a profit in the marketing of human spare parts. Spare parts harvested from the core of human embryos.
Obama, Mr Slick messenger, let slip how little he and the liberals deem human life, when he claimed saving money was more important that trying to save lives:
President Obama suggested at a town hall event Wednesday night that one way to shave medical costs is to stop expensive and ultimately futile procedures performed on people who are about to die and don’t stand to gain from the extra care.
And who will decide who shall live and who shall die? Will it be the family? No, it will be some unaccountable bean counter in Washington DC who does not have to face the human crisis up close. Will it be the doctors? No, the bean counter will decide who is worthy. And don’t kid yourself, the rich will be able to pay for whatever measures are available – this is  an attack on the middle and lower classes who have to work through government dominated health care.
We have seen this before in Canada and the UK, where people can wait months for an appointment with a specialist, wait months for surgery to correct a problem, and who too often die of complications as they wait. The deal with many tough medical conditions is early action increases the odds of recovery immensely. But if cost is the driver, if rationing is the priority, then getting the best help as soon as possible falls to the wayside.
Ed Morrissey did watch the Obama-ABC News informercial debacle, and points out why this was a stupid PR stunt:
Barack Obama got ABC to move their news division into the White House in order to make the big pitch for his egalitarian, everyone-gets-treated-equally ObamaCare push. Instead, Obama fumbled into a Michael Dukakis moment that exposed him as a hypocrite.Â
…
Dr. Orrin Devinsky, a neurologist and researcher at the New York University Langone Medical Center, said that elites often propose health care solutions that limit options for the general public, secure in the knowledge that if they or their loves ones get sick, they will be able to afford the best care available, even if it’s not provided by insurance.
Devinsky asked the president pointedly if he would be willing to promise that he wouldn’t seek such extraordinary help for his wife or daughters if they became sick and the public plan he’s proposing limited the tests or treatment they can get.
The president refused to make such a pledge, though he allowed that if “it’s my family member, if it’s my wife, if it’s my children, if it’s my grandmother, I always want them to get the very best care.[“]
The fact is the government wants to do for healthcare what they have done to the economy and the jobs market. And that should frighten everyone but the most naive and ignorant liberal dreamers.
I have had a pacemaker since I was 41. I am now 51 and on my 2nd pacemaker. I will need another in about six years. My BIG worry is this: when I am 77 or so, I will be on my 4th pacemaker. What if the wait is longer than my battery? Or – What if when I am 85, it isn’t deemed that another pacemaker will be cost effective? I mean – they could look at my father’s life expectancy (he died at 61) and my mother’s (she is 81 and in VERY bad health) and determine it would be a waste of money to put in another pacemaker. I am serious about this. It scares the you know what out of me.
I dind’t watch the infomercial either. However, the reports I’ve been reading on it look bad.
ABC ObamaCare Special Turns Into Presidential Filibuster
http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles/2009/20090625043708.aspx
“President Obama uses network primetime special and overtime ‘Nightline’ coverage to talk for more than 45 minutes of combined 75-minute programs, revealing nothing new.”
Obama Blows it on ABC – So-Called Universal Healthcare will be exclusionary and taxed
http://macsmind.com/wordpress/2009/06/25/obama-blows-it-on-abc-so-called-universal-healthcare-will-be-exclusionary-and-taxed/
““President Obama struggled to explain today whether his health care reform proposals would force normal Americans to make sacrifices that wealthier, more powerful people — like the president himself — wouldn’t face. ”
And, FoxNews reported this morning that the lates estimate for the ObamaCare is now up to 4.3 trillion.
lacegrl130,
I think you have every right in the world to be scared right now.
Another plan is to cut $300 billion from Medicare. I’ve paid for Medicare, I can’t get other insurance, but Obama can cut Medicare to pay for those who have no insurance? This is pathetic. The arrogance of a young President. He didn’t even go to his grandmothers funeral. What does that say?
Infomercial bombs
NBC and CBS had 3 times as many viewers as did ABC’s Obamacare infomercial
http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/2009/06/25/infomercial-bombs/#more-8941
will I get shouted at if I say that I hope he fails?
I changed my mind and decided I needed to watch but missed the first part. That’s okay because I still saw enough to scare the bezeeies out of a person.
If you didn’t see but one part, the woman that explained about the operation her elderly mother decided to have against one doctor’s advise, told the ENTIRE story of Obamacare. Her mother has enjoyed 5 years since and still going. He did not answer her question to begin with and then he did his very worst flub to date. He made a Mistake. He told the Truth. His truth was that some of the elderly might decide to take painkillers instead of the operation. The look on that woman’s face was either disbelief or confusion.
He kept reaching over and trying to control Charlie by touching.
This program confirmed the opinion I had already reached about Obamacare. Unlike the great, compassionate President Bush that tried to help elderly people that could not afford meds, this is where Obama intends to get his money. This really is The One that will touch Medicare. Limit life and he will solve his little money crunch.
So what will AARP do now? I suspect they will be like all those Jewish voters that voted for The Won. If anyone figures that out, please clue me.
AJ, you haven’t mentioned the Big Secret.
The level of medical ‘care’ from Obamacare will be dependent on how much money you donated to the Democrat Party.
Pay off Big Dem Master, and you get a second-class doctor (first-class doctors being reserved to the Democrat Snob Elite). Fail to do so, and you get Jack Kevorkian.
This has all the elements of a live-action horror film.
I honestly do not understand the way you people think sometimes.
It’s called a “public option”. See the key word there? “Option.”
If you like your current health care plan, you keep it. If you don’t, or if you don’t have one, the public option is available.
But you don’t have to take it – if your current plan meets all of your needs, you’re set. No need to worry about wait times, or who you can or can’t see – none of it.
But, millions and millions of Americans – including millions and millions of children – who do not currently have any form of health care insurance, will now have coverage.
Why, exactly, does this enrage you all so much? Why do you hate poor sick children?
AJ:
Ed Morrisey’s post was quite possibly the stupidest thing ever written by a human being. Obama says that he would do whatever was necessary to treat his daughters if one of them got seriously ill – and somehow, that’s a bad thing?
What, exactly, should he have said there? “No, I would never do that. If she dies, she dies”?
#
# WWS
will I get shouted at if I say that I hope he fails?
worse, you may get called a ‘true conservative’
GuyFawkes said:
I honestly do not understand the way you people think sometimes.
It’s called a “public optionâ€. See the key word there? “Option.â€
If you like your current health care plan, you keep it.
Typical G guy
the answer, there won’t be a ‘current health care plan’ for them to opt to.
once the gov gets into the health business, they will have the ‘only’ plan. You will still have an option, no treatment or go to Cuba for their ‘excellent’ health coverage.
Wanting someone’s policy idea to not pass Congress is not the same as wanting the President to fail.
Are you true conservatives all happy about Obama’s failed economic policies.
Does the thought of all those people out of work struggling make your egos feel bigger?
Get the subtle difference?
Probably not. Which is why Obama is still riding high in the polls.
From my understanding on past discussions regarding healthcare costs, one of the biggest problems that causes the prices to be so high is our society’s litigious nature. The first step in fixing the high price of healthcare coverage is to enact tort reform. Make it harder to file frivolous lawsuits. Then doctors would not have to have such expensive malpractice insurance. And that fee would not be passed down to the patients. This should at least be a first step prior to all of this “public option” talk.
Owl,
I watched the section of the ABC “special” that you mentioned and it was horrible. Obama pretty much told that woman that under his plan her mom would have been left to die. But then she told him that it was cheaper for Medicare to put the damn pacemaker in than to have her stay in the hospital receiving care. And he was like oh, really? The entire segment I watched all I could think was what an arrogant hypocritical prick. We can’t let this happen to our healthcare. We need to find other ways to fix the cost problem.
[…] of the Strata-Sphere, says he isn’t going to take that lying down, and certainly not when he’s lying down in the I.C.U.: And who will decide […]
Sorry folks but Obama is right on this one. Wasting money on the terminally ill is a serious mistake. And a government bureaucrat doesn’t have to decide. Let the dollar value of the proposed medical service decide. A person who doesn’t earn $1,000,000 in their entire life certainly isn’t entitled to brain surgery that costs $3,000,000 and is only going to extend their life 1 to 6 months. In some cultures, where people have respect for each other, people who have become a burden to society will “take a walk on the ice”. The entire problem with healthcare and other problems in this country is greed, greed by corporations, by politicians, but most of all by individuals. Only a very greedy individual would expect or ask society to pay millions for keeping them alive. Where do they think this money is going to come from? Greed it really is the problem. I read a post the other day from the CEO of Detroit Edison. His child has autism and he actually thinks that the health insurance industry should pick up the 3 to 5 million dollar tab for taking care of children with autism over their lifetime. The health Insurance Industry is you and me people. We have to pay that bill. And from a millionaire to boot! I mean that really is the height of greed. The millionaire wants me to pay for his child. Well I am sorry buddy, I can’t pay for your child, I am too busy bailing out banks!
davidgiles
So as I understand this argument, an analysis should be done of at what point in a persons life does the cost of care exceed the ‘expected’ benefit and just execute people when they reach that age.
let’s take this sentence and interpret it:
“A person who doesn’t earn $1,000,000 in their entire life certainly isn’t entitled to brain surgery that costs $3,000,000 and is only going to extend their life 1 to 6 months.”
What about a person, hmmm, say my wife that has never had a ‘paying’ job? She’s clearly not going to ‘earn’ a million dollars in her lifetime, or even a dollar, for that matter, so is she entitled to a dollar’s worth of care? Once she made the decision to get married, not work, be a mother, do we just execute her?
I personally don’t think the value of a person has anything to do with money.
The other point: why would brain surgery cost 3 million dollars. Let’s say you have 10 surgeons in the room and you pay each of them $1000 an hour and the hospital charges $5000 an hour, you’re never going to get to $3 million.
Oh, and one more point:
“Wasting money on the terminally ill is a serious mistake”
Do you know anyone that is not terminal?
[…] is Obamacare, where the critical cases better get on with dying in order to save the rest of us some money. As Ed Morrissey notes the real tragedy is not the fact […]
[…] is not hyperbole or exaggeration. It is a result of a direct quote from Obama: President Obama suggested at a town hall event Wednesday night that one way to shave medical costs […]