Obama's Health Rationer-in-Chief

Wall Street Journal ^ | Updated Aug. 27, 2009 12:52 p.m. ET | Betsy McCaughey

[Eva]

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.

[Eva]

I am going to post more of these old Betsy McCaughey articles to remind people that none of this is real news. We have heard it all before, but no one seemed to be listening.

This one should be titled, "Dr. EZ-Kill"

[skinkinthegrass]

He's Back.

[Mortrey]

Doesn’t Ezekiel Emanuel believe that animals should be able to “bring suit” in court?

[willywill]

does Obama have a thing for guys named Emanuel?

[Eva]

I remember hearing something about animals, but not exactly what. Dr. EZ-Kill is really diabolic.

[Eva]

He’s Rahm’s older brother.

[MasterGunner01]

I nominate Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel for the first ObamaCare death panel. He's lived long enough already.

[Girlene]

Everyone should have been listening to and reading Betsy McCaughey’s analyses of obamacare and the the players involved.

[allendale]

This man behaves like a wicked callous commissar. He may have an M.D. but he should never be confused with a physician.

[beethovenfan]

What a dirty joke this man’s name is - “Ezekiel” the great prophet of the Old Testament, and “Emanuel” meaning “God with us”. I shudder to think what awaits him at the judgement.

[Eva]

I wish that I could find all of her old articles. I have been looking for the one that described the “environmental health” for depressed urban areas and reservations. Environmental health included jogging trails, gardens, parks, and community health programs on diet and exercise. ( yoga in the park?)

[Eva]

Rahm and Ezekiel may be secular Jews, but it doesn’t sound as though their parents were. I wonder if they are proud of their sons?

[Godwin1]

These people are evil. Totalitarians, thirsting for the right to make life and death decisions over the masses. One way or another, they must be defeated.

[JediJones]

Ezekiel sounds like a freaky Dr. Death to our ears, but he represents the standard way of thinking in socialized, government-run health care. The U.K. health system will not approve effective, safe drugs if they don’t think they’re “cost-effective” enough. There’s no reason to implement government health care unless you want to ration health care and implement “death panels.” Individuals in a free society will generally not deny themselves care or treatment. It takes a socialist government to hurt the individual for “the greater good.”

[clintonh8r]

Let’s let Zeke die first.

[laplata]

Hear, hear!!!

They would have fit in very nicely with Hitler’s inner circle.

[Jane Long]

Not enough were listening, indeed. Betsy McCaughey tried sounding the clarion. I remember seeing her on FoxNews....leading up to this debacle being "passed", reading from a foot high stack of the bill.

Mark Levin had her on, recently. She was warning everyone (again) about what's to come in 2014, with the group plan cancellations.

Thank you, Eva, for posting these articles...prescient, no doubt.

[Balata]

We now have a face to go with this master of diatribes.

[MtnClimber]

I would propose that the evil don’t just get no health care, they should get progressive care like late term abortions. It would benefit society and would keep their god, lucifer, busy.

[JediJones]

And why is rationing wrong for the health care system, even beyond the moral factor? It’s the easy way out. It’s terrible for “economic growth” in health care. Artificially decreasing demand for care and treatment by putting people into death panels will decrease the natural market forces that work to increase supply of scarce medical resources. We need to see costs going up in health care in order to know where the demand is. Then all health care providers know where the needs are and will work to produce more services and products to meet them. That’s why U.S. health care has the best QUALITY in the world by any and all surveys. Our system forces the work to be done on the supply side because we don’t have laws that artificially try to suppress demand for health care (by assisting people with suicide or making it illegal to produce safe, effective drugs).