-By Warner Todd Huston
I am wondering when the euthanasia folks are going to start touting this one? I mean, it sure seemed to me as if the most caring, most civil, most intelligent president evah just said that healthcare could be cheaper if we don’t give old folks and the infirm the full measure of care they now get. It appeared that Obama said we should just let them die or suffer because they aren’t worth the effort. Imagine if Bush had said something like this? The left wouldn’t have hesitated to call him any manner of names.
Obama said during the ABC Special on Wednesday night that a way to save healthcare costs is to abandon the sort of care that “evidence shows is not necessarily going to improve” the patient’s health. He went on to say that he had personal familiarity with such a situation when his grandmother broke her hip after she was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
Obama offered a question on the efficacy of further care for his grandmother saying, “and the question was, does she get hip replacement surgery, even though she was fragile enough they were not sure how long she would last?”
But who is it that will present the “evidence” that will “show” that further care is futile? Are we to believe that Obama expects individual doctors will make that decision in his bold new government controlled healthcare future? If he is trying to make that claim it is a flat out untruth and he knows it.
Does your homebuilder negotiate with your city hall over whether you get a building permit, or does the permit get levied no matter what? Does a cop decide if you really broke the law, or does he simply arrest you and let the courts hash it out? Does your tax preparer negotiate with the IRS or is he supposed to just calculate your tax bill on their terms and have you pay the required amount?
Government does not work by negotiation. Government does not work from the bottom up. It works from the top down. This singular fact means that no doctor will be deciding if you are too old or infirm to get medical care. It will be a medically untrained bureaucrat that sets a national rule that everyone will have to obey. There won’t be any room for your grandma to have a different outcome than anyone else’s.
So, what will it be then? Who will decide when medical care is just too expensive to bother with? Who will be left to perish because they just aren’t worth the lifesaving effort? Well, for sure it won’t be any members of Congress or anyone that works for the federal government because they won’t be expected to suffer under the nationally socialized plan. It also won’t be Obama’s buddies in the unions who are about to be similarly exempted from the national plan, at least if Senator Max Baucus has his way.
Ah, but we are told that Obama’s ideas on healthcare are “evolving,” dontcha know? During the recent campaign for president (that was only 7 months ago, if you’ll recall) Obama insisted that he would never tax your healthcare benefits from work. He even ridiculed McCain for proposing such a plan. Lately, however, he’s “evolved” toward saying that such a new tax is on the table. What about his stance against fining people and businesses that don’t join his UberPlan? He was against that sort of coerciveness before. Now he’s “evolved.”
Originally, he said it was “healthcare for all,” but as of Wednesday night, it seems he’s “evolved” to say that only those worth the bother should get healthcare. The rest should be left to died and/or suffer. If he does any more “evolving” we’ll all be finding just who is “worth” what as far as he and his Democrats are concerned. Somehow I’d guess that many of you reading this today won’t quite be worth as much as certain others!
Let’s hope none of us are ever in a position to find out if Obamacare deems our grandmothers worth saving.
And what ever happened to the left’s mantra that healthcare is a “right” and that money should never enter into a life or death decision? Now The One is saying it’s just too darn expensive to save the old and infirm? Will our friends on the left now disown Obama the “murderer”?
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as newsbusters.org, RedState.com, Human Events Magazine, AmericanDailyReview.com, townhall.com, New Media Journal, Men’s News Daily and the New Media Alliance among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events and is currently the co-host of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Conservatism” heard on BlogTalkRadio. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of publiusforum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston
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Is this what Obama really meant when he wants to stress preventative health care? Denying care to older people who are now not contributors to society? Fine repayment for years of contributing to society to only be pushed aside in favor of another gullible voting block.
The reason why Medicare spending will explode is the demographics, the babyboom generation is retiring, senior citizens after retiring will require more healthcare as a consequence of their age. No matter how long a person lives, no matter what preventive healthcare they receive, they are going to die and in all probability will become sick before dying, living longer will not preempt this reality.
There are very few circumstances in which doctors can prevent or reduce over use of medical facilities in the last year of life because they can never tell if this would be truly the last year. We can only attempt to control the needless lengthy suffering using a DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) where a person has made an individual choice for their own life deciding not to live as a vegetable or be kept physically alive where there is no hope of recovery other than bedridden with excruciating pain. By coincidence a DNR will save money for medical procedures not performed. No one in government is allowed to make that decision and nor should they EVER be allowed to do so as we all have repeatedly seen government has it’s own criteria for making decisions that are not the same as the individual. One look at the British bureaucracy called NICE (how Orwellian), shows this to be true.
This reminds me of a movie with Edward Asner as a population control agent, in the movie The Last Child. http://www.fandango.com/thelastchild_v126905/summary
I have to wonder if the liberal elites were contemplating the cut off of medical care to the elderly for a long time since their usefulness disappears when they can’t vote anymore. Even now it is becoming unseemly for Democrats to round up senior citizens from retirement homes and ALF’s to get votes.
Congratulations on earning the ridicule of Wonkette!
http://wonkette.com/409458/meet-sir-arthur-conan-doyle-guest-editor-of-redstate
This is why we need to never change the current system, because private insurance would NEVER allow a scenario like that to happen.
Don’t take the flu shots. If they try to use force, defend yourself.
LOL, well if the profane little twerps at Wankette are agin me, then I KNOW I’m on the right track!