The ways Americans might be harmed by a large-scale bio attack are eerily similar to the ways they can be harmed by government-run health care (a.k.a., "ObamaCare").
Experts at the
Center for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center announced today the results of a
study about two primary ways the United States could be harmed by a large-scale biological attack. In reviewing the study, I recognized two eerie parallels between the devastating aftermath of a bio attack and the negative impact government-run health care (a.k.a., "ObamaCare").
A large-scale bio attack on the United States, the experts warn, could potentially result in hundreds of thousands of illnesses and deaths and cost trillions of dollars to clean up. The assessment is based, in part, on what happened in this country following the 2001 anthrax attacks. Decontaminating congressional office buildings, postal facilities, and media buildings cost hundreds of millions of dollars, and some of the facilities could not be reopened for more than two years.
ObamaCare, other experts warn, will result in job losses, higher insurance premiums and higher health care costs as well as MediCare cuts, expansion of MediCaid and limits on choice and availability of care, just to name a few. Many of the negative assessments of ObamaCare were based, in part, on what happened in Massachusetts, where socialized medicine (a.k.a., "RomneyCare") became the law of the land in 2006 under Republican Gov. Mitt Romney.
While RomneyCare was, according to the governor, supposed to achieve universal health insurance coverage while controlling costs, most informed observers -- a group that excludes virtually every elected Democrat in Washington, D.C. -- agree the plan has done neither, and they shudder at the trillion-dollar-plus toll its federal-level clone, ObamaCare, could exact on the nation in years to come if not repealed.
At the end of the day, one question arises: Should Americans be more worried about a large-scale bio attack -- or, for that matter, a bio attack of any size -- more so than ObamaCare? Perhaps, for one reason: ObamaCare is the only man-caused disaster of the two that can be repealed.
Probably one of the more outrageous claims about health care legislation is that it establishes “death panels”. I decided to investigate this claim carefully beginning when bill HR3200 first came to light. If this claim made sense, then I could accept other concerns with only cursory examination.
The U.K. Telegraph and others awarded Sarah Palin a prize for telling the greatest political lie of 2009 when she became the first source for claiming the legislation would establish “death panels”. In fact her following statement discloses one of many deceits within health care legislation. Next follows an explanation of how this outcome will be realized.
“The Democrats promise that a government health care system will reduce the cost of health care, but as the economist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.”
Her anxiety arises from seeing hordes of new bureaucracies provide the framework for boundless regulatory masterpieces eroding human freedoms. The stimulus bill created the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology and the Health Information Technology Research Centers. These bureaucracies duplicated private sector information bases, utilizing computer technology for coordination and flow of recommendations and policies for medical knowledge. Now the legislation Obama signed adds over 100 new boards, commissions and programs. For example a new Medicare Commission, exempt from judicial review, will unilaterally write rules about utilization and pricing of medical devices and drugs often needed by surgeons.
The HHS Secretary will use these bureaucracies to reflect Congressional intent; not the will of the people. The regulations will utilize disquieting legislative provisions, selected legislator speeches, and selected expert testimony. Regulations will incorporate ideas politicians consider too sensitive for public debate. Medical professionals will join other private sector professionals I know such as education financial aid directors and CPA’s, who often serve as federal agents instead of client advocates. I know because I spent 18 years of my professional life intimately involved with managing federal grant programs and preparing tax returns for trusts.
There are a variety of influential sources for understanding the methodology of rationing. One can consult public statements of Tom Daschle, our health care Czar without portfolio, President Obama, and Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, who is Rahm Emanuel’s brother. However, Princeton bioethics professor Peter Singer recently presented in the New York Times Congressional and Administration intent comprehensively and without equivocation. “Rationing health care means getting value for the billions spent by setting limits on which treatments should be paid for from the public purse….There’s no doubt that it’s tough – politically, emotionally, and ethically - to make a decision that means that someone will die sooner than they would have if the decision had gone the other way….The task of health care bureaucrats is then to get the best value for resources they have been allocated….If a teenager can be expected to live another 70 years, saving that life gains 70 years, whereas a person of 85 can be expected to live another 5 years, then saving the 85-year-old will gain of only 5 life-years. That suggests saving one teenager is equivalent to saving 14 85-year-olds”.
Peter Singer’s scientific approach reminds me of the Geneva Conventions, which attempt rational, moral threads to grasp during wars’ barbarity. For my Navy experience pulverizing a major enemy base in Vietnam, I especially liked the clear and obvious reading of Articles 28 and 29 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. The VC were clearly responsible for any civilian deaths. Those civilians qualified as Protected Persons within the enemy’s physical control, and could not be used to render certain points and areas immune from military operations.
The passages furnished the basis for rules of engagement we followed when attacking a legitimate military target. Distance provided me the blessing of avoiding the clean up after-wards for the mess I helped create. However, I am certain our task force was an effective “death panel”. We permanently shattered that VC main force unit, forcing it to surrender the region to South Vietnamese control.
Government bureaucrats will apply similar detached patterns of analysis to those which enabled our ship to apply over 400 rounds of naval artillery to a VC base camp. Politicians will use the implementation process through regulation and exemption from judicial review to disconnect totally from consequences of their actions. The resulting health care regulations will place everyone on pathways to federally defined, cost effective, approved treatments. Seniors and the disabled will hold second class citizenship, because popular philosophies, as discussed above, find these people deficient in societal contributions compared to active workers and youth.
When Sarah Palin speaks of an “America I know and love” she understands that federal administrative laws and regulations are the soft underbelly of our Constitution. Pursuit of happiness means spiritual prosperity within the hazards and uncertainties of personal freedoms. Once again politicians offered enchanting material security, while obscuring subservience to rules vastly increasing their power. This legislation attacks our Bill of Rights by confiscating speech and religious freedoms, personal life without access to courts and trial, and Ninth Amendment personal freedoms guaranteed, but not enumerated by our Constitution.