Posted on 02/10/2009 9:44:24 AM PST by Michael Eden
The so-called "stimulus" package was losing popular support on an almost daily basis until Barack Obama came out in a massive media barrage to support it. But one thing Obama never seems to mention is the fact that its passage will ration health care to the elderly.
Betsy McCaughey, former lieutenant governor of New York, has uncovered a few unpleasant outcomes for little Suzy's poor old Grandma if the Generational Theft Act gets passed. Tom Daschle may be gone, now that folks know that this erstwhile Secretary of Health and Human Services didn't bother to pay all his Medicare Taxes. But even though Daschle is gone, his influence has already been built in.
Page numbers in parentheses refer to H.R. 1 EH, pdf version.
Elderly Hardest HitMcCaughey also says:Daschle says health-care reform “will not be pain free.” Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them. That means the elderly will bear the brunt.
Medicare now pays for treatments deemed safe and effective. The stimulus bill would change that and apply a cost- effectiveness standard set by the Federal Council (464).
The Federal Council is modeled after a U.K. board discussed in Daschle’s book. This board approves or rejects treatments using a formula that divides the cost of the treatment by the number of years the patient is likely to benefit. Treatments for younger patients are more often approved than treatments for diseases that affect the elderly, such as osteoporosis.
In 2006, a U.K. health board decreed that elderly patients with macular degeneration had to wait until they went blind in one eye before they could get a costly new drug to save the other eye. It took almost three years of public protests before the board reversed its decision.
Hidden Provisions
If the Obama administration’s economic stimulus bill passes the Senate in its current form, seniors in the U.S. will face similar rationing. Defenders of the system say that individuals benefit in younger years and sacrifice later.
The stimulus bill will affect every part of health care, from medical and nursing education, to how patients are treated and how much hospitals get paid. The bill allocates more funding for this bureaucracy than for the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force combined (90-92, 174-177, 181).
Hiding health legislation in a stimulus bill is intentional. Daschle supported the Clinton administration’s health-care overhaul in 1994, and attributed its failure to debate and delay. A year ago, Daschle wrote that the next president should act quickly before critics mount an opposition. “If that means attaching a health-care plan to the federal budget, so be it,” he said. “The issue is too important to be stalled by Senate protocol.”
The bill’s health rules will affect “every individual in the United States” (445, 454, 479). Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system. Having electronic medical records at your fingertips, easily transferred to a hospital, is beneficial. It will help avoid duplicate tests and errors.Of the digitizing and electronic filing of every single American, Rush Limbaugh has this:But the bill goes further. One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.” According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and “learn to operate less like solo practitioners.”
Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system. Now, there are arguments back and forth about whether or not this is a good thing. The opportunity for the loss of privacy is huge here by digitizing and making everybody's health care records computerized, especially having a major federal database where everybody's health records are. Some people say this is a good thing because it will assist in treatment, particularly in emergencies.It's ironicly fitting that Alex Rodriguez's privacy would be destroyed on the same day that the Senate debates a bill that would subject every single American to the same risk. But this isn't just about embarrasment.That's what they used to sell this, but (laughs) ask Alex Rodriguez about privacy. There are 104 names on this list from 2003 of people who tested positive for steroids in a year it was legal. Only his name gets released of the 104. The players union was supposed to destroy the list, and they didn't. They had a reason for it, but they botched their philosophy. Their theory got confounded. So somebody who's got it in for Alex Rodriguez released his name to Sports Illustrated, four or five different people, and so now he's been tarnished with the steroids thing just as a lot of other players -- Barry Bonds and others -- have. This notion that privacy can exist particularly in a politicized Washington is a bit of a... I'm doubtful about it, but there are some people who like the idea. Anyway, this bill computerizes everybody's health records. Then after everybody health records are computerized, this new bureaucracy is created, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology.
Imagine this: the government, which is going to ration health care and make decisions on the basis of saving money, will have total access to your records. Is there not a gigantic conflict of interest here? If the government takes over health care, then this is every bit as serious of a problem as it would be for your insurance company to have full access to your genetic screening. Do you not see how someone with a genetic predisposition to a serious condition could be written out of coverage by the government before he or she is even aware of the potential health problem?
Several years ago, I watched a sermon by D. James Kennedy. He quoted Proverbs 8:36 - "But he who sins against me [God's wisdom] injures himself; All those who hate me love death" - and linked the logical mentality of abortion to that of euthenasia and the overall culture of death overtaking our society. In a chilling prediction, Kennedy said, "Watch out, Grandpa! Because the generation that survived abortion will come after you!"
And now it's time for Grandma and Grandpa to pay the piper. The same embrace of death as a solution to the myriad "crises" that resulted in the extermination of more than 50 million babies in the United States will soon result in the death by abandonment of medical resources . And, of course, it will simply be Grandma and Grandpa's moral duty to "die with dignity."
If you are a senior citizen or about to become one any time soon, realize that Democrat Senators are voting to let you die as part of their 'stimulus' package.
And if not, realize that Democrats are preparing to come after Grandma's and Grandpa's health care to bring down the cost burden of their socialized medicine.
We complain that medicaid is too high and now we complain when they want to ration health care?
Wow...bump this and call your Senators and congress people again!
As a member of AARP, they got a note on this, this morning. I will be interested in any response I receive. Given that their site has postings that tell their members to ENCOURAGE THE GOVERNMENT TO PASS THE STIMULUS BILL — which contains the draconian measures AGAINST SENIORS in Obama’s (Daschel’s) radical socialized medical laws.
Hypocrisy? From AARP? We shall see.
But now the joke is on us -- the government is promising Better Healthcare, More of it, and it will be Free!!!!
Some people actually think this is possible. Those people mostly work in the media.
It’s too late. Porkulus has passed and so has life as we now know it.
All of you "principled conservatives" who sent your message? I hope you are proud of yourselves! You are tools of the RATS!
And not just for the elderly. For everyone.
Obama is doing everything the left did to destroy thge UK. Letting Muslims flood in, endless freebies for illegals and rationing for old people. Illegals will get no cuts but old people will because they will die soon. The Democrats learned last election that they don’t need the seniors vote anymore.
Many stupid old people voted for this evil clown.
It just occurred to me...outside of the military and intelligence departments, the government galumphs along on computers that are ten years out of date. Just what are they going to do for data storage for all the medical records of 300,000,000 individuals? Just asking, is all.
I think they still have to hammer out a compromise bill between the house and senate so I don't think it's quite over yet. Keep the pressure on!
DOW is down 300 points! All Hail "The Magic Negro!"
I’ll certainly complain when my parents are allowed to die for lack of medical care.
Just because people complain about the high cost of health care doesn’t mean that they want to see a massive socialized medical bureaucracy imposed that makes life and death decisions for us.
I would rather see us save money by eliminating illegal immigration, by reforming how hospitals are forced to absorb emergency room costs, by dramatically reducing litigation that forces doctors/hospitals to purchase massive insurance policies, and by getting government regulations more OUT than in.
So, for example, my complaint about the high cost of Medicaid has nothing in common with what the Dems are doing.
Arlen Specter was on Fox News this morning and was asked about this. He admitted he had no idea this was in the plan. Few apparently did, which was exactly what Daschle suggested: do it on the sly in the name of something else or opposition will build and it won’t pass.
AARP has always been a liberal-Democrat organization. I’ve seen enough of their literature to be pretty clear in that.
And I’m guessing Obama didn’t tell AARP that he planned to let old people die of medical neglect to save money for his government health care.
Frantzie,
There is that sense of talionic justice as D. James Kennedy put it: “Watch out, Grandpa! Because the generation that survived abortion will come after you!”
And now they are.
I wonder if the older members of Congress will have this same health care and will be denied medical procedures due to their age? </EXTREME_SARCHASM>
What I do see is the information groundwork being laid for nationalized health care. By establishing a nationwide standard medical information system nationalized health care can be achieved.
Then the abortion and euthanasia programs will be implemented. However, by saying something that is not there, the poser loses credibility.
I don't deny they want it.
I don't deny it's coming.
It just isn't here in the bill. IF you call everyone and say they are rationing health care you will be dismissed as an alarmist. Instead call and object to the centralizing of the medical information system in the name of efficiency. It is a weapon to be used later on the weak and the helpless.
Because he ran ads in Arizona, Florida, etc., over and over and over again saying “John McCain is going to take away your right to healthcare”... the joke is on the voters he scared into believing it.
“AARP has always been a liberal-Democrat organization. I’ve seen enough of their literature to be pretty clear in that.”
Agreed, they are, and that’s why neither my wife nor myself ever joined that organization.
“And I’m guessing Obama didn’t tell AARP that he planned to let old people die of medical neglect to save money for his government health care.”
Possibly, but I don’t think it would have mattered to the leaders of the AARP if they had been told. They are in the tank for Socialism IMO.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.