Medical Rationing and Death Panels are Real
Obama's Health Rationer-in-Chief
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020370660457437...
Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, health adviser to President Barack Obama, is under scrutiny. As a bioethicist, he has written extensively about who should get medical care, who should decide, and whose life is worth saving. Dr. Emanuel is part of a school of thought that redefines a physician’s duty, insisting that it includes working for the greater good of society instead of focusing only on a patient’s needs. Many physicians find that view dangerous, and most Americans are likely to agree.
The health bills being pushed through Congress put important decisions in the hands of presidential appointees like Dr. Emanuel. They will decide what insurance plans cover, how much leeway your doctor will have, and what seniors get under Medicare. Dr. Emanuel, brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, has already been appointed to two key positions: health-policy adviser at the Office of Management and Budget and a member of the Federal Council on Comparative Effectiveness Research. He clearly will play a role guiding the White House's health initiative.
True reform, he argues, must include redefining doctors' ethical obligations. In the June 18, 2008, issue of JAMA, Dr. Emanuel blames the Hippocratic Oath for the "overuse" of medical care: "Medical school education and post graduate education emphasize thoroughness," he writes. "This culture is further reinforced by a unique understanding of professional obligations, specifically the Hippocratic Oath's admonition to 'use my power to help the sick to the best of my ability and judgment' as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of cost or effect on others."
In numerous writings, Dr. Emanuel chastises physicians for thinking only about their own patient's needs. He describes it as an intractable problem: "Patients were to receive whatever services they needed, regardless of its cost. Reasoning based on cost has been strenuously resisted; it violated the Hippocratic Oath, was associated with rationing, and derided as putting a price on life. . . . Indeed, many physicians were willing to lie to get patients what they needed from insurance companies that were trying to hold down costs." (JAMA, May 16, 2007).
Of course, patients hope their doctors will have that single-minded devotion. But Dr. Emanuel believes doctors should serve two masters, the patient and society, and that medical students should be trained "to provide socially sustainable, cost-effective care." One sign of progress he sees: "the progression in end-of-life care mentality from 'do everything' to more palliative care shows that change in physician norms and practices is possible." (JAMA, June 18, 2008).
"However, other things are rarely equal—whether to save one 20-year-old, who might live another 60 years, if saved, or three 70-year-olds, who could only live for another 10 years each—is unclear." In fact, Dr. Emanuel makes a clear choice: "When implemented, the complete lives system produces a priority curve on which individuals aged roughly 15 and 40 years get the most substantial chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get changes that are attenuated (see Dr. Emanuel's chart nearby).
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REVOLUTION NOW!
HMO's w/Ted Kennedy's help found gold in rationing.
Government has and always will ration health care unless forced to stop. HMO's were a perfect vehicle for rationing. According to this article as Published in "Ideas on Liberty" by the Foundation for Economic Education February 2001 entitled, "Blame Congress for HMOs" (http://www.cchconline.org/privacy/hmoart.php3) you can see how long Congress has been behind rationing health care. In the following excerpts from the article, even the Supreme Court says so. Here are a couple under the paragraph entitled, "The Ruse of Patient Protection":
"Even the U.S. Supreme Court acknowledged in its June 12, 2001, Pegram v. Herdrich decision that to survive financially as Congress intended, HMOs must give physicians incentives to ration treatment."
The article goes on to pretty much lay a lot of the blame at Ted Kennedy's feet for govt. health care rationing. Here's another quote from the same article:
"Truth be told, HMOs allowed politicians to promise access to comprehensive health-care services without actually delivering them. Because treatment decisions could not be linked directly to Congress, HMOs provided the perfect cover for its plans to contain costs nationwide through health-care rationing. Now that citizens are angry with managed (rationed) care, the responsible parties in Congress, Senator Kennedy in particular, return with legislation ostensibly to protect patients from the HMOs they instituted."
They've been filling their pots w/gold by denying and rationing health care to Americans for a long, long time and they aren't about to stop now unless we stop them!
i wonder how the hospitals
i wonder how the hospitals see this? do they want socialized health care. from the standpoint of free enterprise do they want to provide care for every need. the government if it were to provide socialized health care would be eliminating money making opportunities.are they fighting on our side or against?
one of the globalists said "the concept of limits is starting to permeate society" i think it was in the reece report. they would like people to start seeing health care as not enough to go around. this concept , i believe is one of the benefits they get from raising the prices of drugs etc less people are able TO SEEK medical care in our current system.
seems like the surgery for my dog that costs 300$ would cost me 30.000$. ...anyone know a good veternarian that will work under the table?
The revolutionary forces have to take civil society before they take the state, and therefore have to build a coalition of oppositional groups united under a hegemonic banner which usurps the dominant or prevailing hegemony." -Strinati, Dominic.
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Everything is rationed
In life everything is rationed. The question that remains is whether we as free individuals are the ones making ration- based decisions, or do we allow collective entities to make the ration-based decisions for us.
I choose freedom! and the individual right to pursue life, liberty and happiness my own way.
Not Really, but I See Your Point
The Communists frame the debate like this: Of course some sort of rationing is necessary, would you rather have that rationing performed on the basis of cost or on the basis of need?
In layman's terms a "ration" is a fixed amount of goods or services doled out by an authoritative entity.*
When a person decides to spend a portion of his hard earned money on goods or services he does not receive a fixed amount but rather the amount for which he is willing to pay.
Furthermore, rations are doled out by authoritative entities while free market exchanges of goods or services are conducted to the satisfaction of the parties involved in the transaction.
In the article cited above Dr. Emanuel is quoted as saying:
"However, other things are rarely equal—whether to save one 20-year-old, who might live another 60 years, if saved, or three 70-year-olds, who could only live for another 10 years each—is unclear."
Consider this: A seventy year old man with three dollars in his pocket and a twenty year old man with a hole in his pocket walk into a McDonald's and each order a Big Mac. Is there any lack of clarity in regard to which of these two men deserves to eat the burger?
Don't let the Communists frame the debate -- allocation of goods and services by price is in no way comparable to government rationing.
* See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationing
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Wow, important op ed, thanks for posting...
"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money."
-Alexis de Tocqueville
"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money."
-Alexis de Tocqueville
Real or not
Rationing is the only natural outcome when you mandate price controls on something with a very limited supply. The laws of economics will ensure rationing regardless of how Obamacare is written, if ever.
Instead, relax or eliminate Fed & State professional licensing requirements, allow the industry to create standards bodies and affiliations for medical professionals. This would have the effect of immediately increasing the supply of medical professionals, who are in short supply (by design, I think).
Offer a tax credit for retaining a family doctor for routine care on a cash basis. Only use insurance for catastrophic illness.
Require tort reform so medical professionals can practice real medicine instead of CYA medicine.
Eliminate state mandates on policies. One egregious example: requiring fertility coverage on all health insurance plans, requiring an insurer to pay out over $2 million in benefits for the birth of one baby. This would have been a great opportunity for the couple to appeal to Senator Ted Kennedy for help. Surely, he could have helped in more way than one (doh!).
Some ideas that won't ever see the light of day with Obamacare.
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"The consolidation of the states into one vast republic, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of the ruin which has overwhelmed all those that have preceded it."
- Robert E. Lee, 1866
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RON PAUL 2012
Nudge, Nudge
Because I know you'll want to see this.
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