Chicagobluesgirl’s Blog

“We spend one-third of our [health care] budget now on individuals who are in the last three months of their life with terminal incurable illness.  The government has a vested interest in having the end of life take place at an earlier date once their productive years are over and they become a negative financial entity on the books for healthcare, Social Security and nursing homes.” John Donaldson, MD, past chair, Board of Directors, Lee Memorial Health System

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/05/the_coming_of_zerocare.htm

By Dr. Steve Maloney, Ambridge, PA

The biggest issue that lies before America is Barack Hussein Obama’s version of national health care. Obama claims that increasing demands on the health care system, which his plan surely will do, is somehow going to lower costs while increasing quality.

Based on the experiences of other countries, including Canada and European nations, Obama-care eventually may lower unit costs modestly (mainly through rationing). On the minus side, it will decimate the quality of care. It will make the world’s gold standard in health care — the US — start to resemble your local Department of Motor Vehicles (“take a number please”)…

One way Obama wants to control health costs is by increasing the number of abortions, both in the US and worldwide. The basic concept is that dead embryos don’t incur any additional health costs. I’ll write more about that later.

I want to focus on the severely infirm and/or “terminally ill” elderly. Here’s what Obama recently said about them. He admitted he wants the government to decide what health care Americans receive.

“There’s always going to be an asymmetry of information between patient and provider,” he said. “And part of what I think government can do effectively is to be an honest broker in assessing and evaluating treatment options.” In other words, the federal government would be a middleman, basically usurping a doctor’s determination what treatment is appropriate.

In addition, Obama stated that “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.” (Note: it should not come as a surprise that people who are sick are big consumers of health care. People who are well don’t need it.)

For such patients, he said, “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 It is very difficult to imagine the country making those decisions just through the normal political channels.”

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/may/01/obamas-health-care-rationing/

In other words, if you’re “chronically ill” — say, you have diabetes or high blood pressure or multiple sclerosis or rheumatoid arthritis — society (in the form of a government employee) may decide your presence on earth is no longer needed! Perhaps Obama “misspoke,” as he has a chronic habit of doing, but his words as stated are extremely ominous. Frankly, those words may be the most chilling ever uttered by a US President.

What about that “democratic conversation” Obama mentions? Basically, it may be a show of hands (by bureaucrats mainly) on how best to get grandma out of her expensive hospital bed and into a pine box.

His initial choice for his Health and Human Services Secretary, Tom Daschle, wrote a book emphasizing the need to keep the terminally ill from staying around as long they do. If HHS Secretary Kathleen Sibelius differs with Daschle (and Obama), she’s yet to make that clear.

One thing Obama will not tell you is that dead people — who famously tell no tales — also incur no additional health costs. The more rapidly people die, the more the Obama Plan will save (if that’s any consolation to grieving relatives). Perhaps Joe Biden will tell us it’s “patriotic” for people to die with neither fanfare nor care.

Obama and other liberal Democrats regularly hold up the Canadian and European national health care systems as superior to our in the US They are dead wrong at that. By nearly any measure, health care in the US is much better at curing sick people than our counterparts overseas.

National health care systems save money in some bizarre ways. Consider how one business and economics writer (Phillippe Maniere) describes the situation in his native France:

“The majority of France’s state-owned hospitals are managed in a way that is reminiscent of the old USSR For example, in the average French public hospital, is not uncommon for every window to be open, even in winter, because the heating system for the building cannot be regulated. With the only options being no heat or unbearably high heat, everyone opts for the latter. Predictably, this is not very cheap.” Ah, the wonderful cost savings of Euro-care.

Oh, and French hospitals generally lack air conditioning, which can be a problem. In the summer of 2003 the lack of cool air, coupled with the fact most French doctors were on vacation, resulted in the death from dehydration of 15,000 elderly people.

By the way, the French health system, even with its obvious limitations, is far superior to those in Great Britain and Germany. Their mantra seems to be, “First, provide no care.”

Of course, the excess costs on heat in such hospitals presumably are balanced by the number of patients who pass away prematurely. Perhaps some enterprising journalist (if there are any in DC) will ask Barack Obama if one of his health care models for America is France. If so, patients can prepared to be very hot — and not just under the collar.

Am I really saying in this piece that a mainstay of Obama-care will be helping to terminate old people who are too stubborn to die quickly? To steal Gov. Palin’s favorite saying, “You betcha.”

http://stevemaloneygop.blogspot.com/

More on the Bamster’s plan to eliminate those who don’t fit his idea of worthwhile human beings:

http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2009/04/obama-endorses-government-mandated.html

And an article on good ole’ socialized medicine/healthcare in England and Scotland:

http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2009/04/gee-i-cant-wait-for-obamacare-and.html

And more on deadly Canadian health care:

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/03/27/deadly-canadian-care/

The Top Ten Myths of American Health Care

1.) Government administration is more efficient than private insurance.
“Studies show that Medicare officials waste as much as $1 out of every $3 the program spends. That’s hardly a system worth expanding.”
2.) Americans spend too much on health care.
When we talk about re-tooling our health care, we should be careful to also recognize what is good about the current system. Most everyone has a friend or relative who is alive today because of an advance — probably a very expensive advance — in medical technology or drugs.”
3.) Forty-six million people lack health care.
…The number of chronically uninsured who most need assistance is about 8 million, a much more manageable number.
4.) High drug prices push up health care expenditures.
…The increase in pharmaceutical expenses lags behind that for medical treatment generally.
5.) Importing drugs would reduce medical costs.
Importing pharmaceuticals from government-run systems really is importing drug price controls rather than drugs.
6.) Forcing people to purchase insurance is the answer.
Higher taxes, forced premium payments, one-size-fits-all policies, long waiting lists, rationed care, and limited access to cutting-edge medicine
7.) Prevention programs save money.
they’re referring to a very narrow category — brand-name drugs that have been approved and price-controlled by foreign governments.
8.) New government initiatives are necessary to cover the poor.
In fact, genuinely poor Americans are covered by existing programs, though design flaws — such as low reimbursement rates — discourage doctors from accepting Medicaid patients
9.) Information technology can dramatically reduce health care expenses.
“There are currently at least 12 different federal agencies with overlapping oversight when it comes to health care technology. This dirty dozen already produces mountains of red tape and conflicting rules.”
10.) Foreign government-run systems are better than America’s system:
Nationalized systems deliver waiting lists rather than treatments; outcomes are not better overseas; care is rationed; and access to advanced procedures and pharmaceuticals is limited; people suffer and die from bureaucratic and budgetary imperatives.

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9981

~ by chicagobluesgirl on May 8, 2009.

Posted in Pure Evil, Something Wicked This Way Comes...
Tags: Culture, Death, Democratic Conversation, Elderly, Health Care, Obama-care, Palin, Terminally Ill