“They don’t call them patients, they call them units” (Sarah was right, again)

Wizbang ^ | November 24, 2011 | Rick Rice

[2ndDivisionVet]

Remember when they laughed off, ridiculed and otherwise denied Sarah Palin’s assertion that Obamacare would usher in death panels?

Listen to this neurosurgeon, fresh from a seminar in Washington DC, tell about what it is that the HHS has in store for seniors:

(AUDIO AT LINK)

The Anchoress calls it what it is. Evil:

So if you are a 70 year-old Nancy Pelosi, or Paul Krugman — with a potent private health insurance plan such as the one enjoyed by Members of Congress and other bureaucrats — you will get every appropriate surgery and treatment applicable.

But if you are a 70 year-old former bookkeeper or waitress on Medicare, well — you have swung your last golfclub or danced your last waltz, because the “ethics panel” that assesses your unithood will have no problem inventing a equation that goes something like, “Potential-Tax-revenues-minus-potential-cost-divided-by-social-and-political-value-equals…a negligible unit.

And you’ll be shuffled off to the room with the big screen full of daffodils and excellent speakers blasting Vivaldi, and made “comfortable.”

Assessing human beings as “units” is Evil. Period, full stop. It is a diabolical disorientation. The only people who do not understand that are people who also have difficulty with that inconvenient old “conscience thing“.

The caller to Levin’s show said he was a neurosurgeon, and of German descent. He mentioned his ancestry at the same time he discussed “units” and admitted he was distressed. The source of his distress was very likely his recognition of a the sort of ruthless efficiency someone in his family once knew first hand, either from one side of the ledger, or the other.

Tell me again that elections don’t matter.

[APatientMan]

That doesn’t really answer my question about whether or not I am “fighting Him”. The statement you made up thread.

I can’t/won’t put a dollar value on Life. We disagree. I find your rationalization to be the same as a pregnant woman who murders her baby because of the financial hardship the child will cause. I am proudly “dense”.

[Grizzled Bear]

If you do not report to “Carousel,” the Sand Men will come looking for you. (obscure sci fi reference...)

[Grizzled Bear]

What if you are over fifty and have kidney problems? Would you be alright if they denied you dialisys? This happens now in the UK.

How about if you have a fractured leg and you’re over sixty? Would you be cool with being sent home with otc pain relievers? This happens now in Canada.

[Grizzled Bear]

Yes and no. I know people who will hold on forever, and they will cost the tax payers millions and millions of dollars EACH.

Which is why the government has no business in Health Care.

[Grizzled Bear]

Ah, Mr. Slippery Slope is here to proclaim that if you don't give quadruple by-passes to demented 95 year olds, you'll be smothering babies in no time.

Hyperbole much?

[who knows what evil?]

That’s not ‘obscure’... :-)

[achilles2000]

Someone has to pay, and eventually people will realize that the only moral system is paying for our own. Others aren’t slaves to be providing us things we want.

Unfortunately, many on FR think that intergenerational theft is fine.

[VeniVidiVici]

Wow. I can't believe anyone with an ounce of commonsense would allow a group of government employees decide that your own life isn't worth living. How long will it be before the death panels decide that not only will they allow tax dollars to be spent to prolong a life suffering from an aggressive cancer but that the cost/benefit analysis means that people with MS are killed early in life because of what it would cost to keep them alive. That a mandate to kill Downs kids in the womb will be enacted because they are useless in life and are not worth the money spent to keep them alive?

The problem with the death panels is not that some faceless burrocrat will decide your fate but that the list of ailments and conditions that result in refused treatment will grow and grow.

To save money they won't cutback on expenses with ObamaCare, they will just grow the list of ailments and conditions get rid of more people so they won't have to treat them.

[1_Rain_Drop]

Maybe it’s the age of the patient? They have tubes and stuff going into them and no one takes the responsibility. If doc A puts in an IV or hooks grandma to a machine, doc B is not going to remove it. Then comes doc C and prescribes his own contraption. Doc A says that the patient is no longer his patient. They rotate docs so that no one is responsible. This happened a month ago.

When my 96 y.o. grandma was in the hospital for a broken arm we had a hard time getting her out of there. The docs did everything but treat her arm. She arrived home a drug addict.

[Nowhere Man]

This is evil. We have elected the enemy. It is our moral and ethical duty for every one of us to elect people who will get rid of Obamacare. We are at a crossroads. These people who would deny our friends and loved ones medical care are nothing but pus filled boils on the butt of Adolph Hitler. My grandfather was at Normady, he made it all the way to Buchenwald, a place where a lot of these people were spawned from now we got them here. They are anti-Christs. This has really made me angry, both my parents are over 70.

I'd like to see them try to deny a Tony Soprano, and/or a relative therof, like this. All I can say is I hate to be in that bureaucrat's shoes, the Mafia being what it is, but it is getting to the point that I favor the Mafia over the U.S. Government, at least the prior will leave you alone unless you owe them money and/or a threat to them.

[Nowhere Man]

NP, but at least you are making that choice on your own and not forced to do it.

[noinfringers2]

I had a similar situation some years ago when my doctor gave a prescription for a severe health problem at the time. This was with a health plan. The plan sent the prescription to some pharmaceutical screener in Texas who denied me the prescription by reason it was not on the screeners formulary list. I challenged that clerks decision and ended up paying extra. I do not want some affirmative action person deciding my needs and dropped the plan.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks 2ndDivisionVet.

[Polynikes]

“If you do not report to “Carousel,” the Sand Men will come looking for you. “

Not unless you become a runner.

[A_perfect_lady]

Well, it sounds to me like you and I both understand that whether medicine is socialized or not, there will come times or situations where the best care cannot be paid for and therefore people will not get it. Whether it’s because the government is going broke or because the person is going broke, the result will be the same: the care cannot be paid for and therefore it will not be given.

[A_perfect_lady]

My remarks make no sense to you because one of them is policy and the other is merely an observation. I'm actually an atheist. What I have seen of a believer's description of God as they know Him, however, suggests that He is in charge of all things. Therefore, if you get cancer, presumably that is God's will and if someone fights it, hey, go for it, but I don't follow the logic that if you at some point decide, "Okay, this is it," and enter Hospice, that you are essentially committing suicide.

But because believers seem utterly irrational to me anyway, I don't really bother anymore with arguing with them. My real argument is this: are we spending two million dollars keeping people alive to do nothing but suffer in bed because they are so debilitated or so elderly that all we are doing is prolonging the suffering? I think that's very wrong. Now, if you want to do it with your own money, you go right ahead. I don't care. If you want to do it with MY money, I care. This is my stance and nothing you say will change it, so feel free to make some snarky remark and then decline to converse further with such as me. I won't be hurt.

[A_perfect_lady]

Bizarre. I guess my friend was able to do it because she pretty much camped out at the hospital and would stalk doctors down hallways if she had to. She’s also one of those who keeps paperwork and lists and can tell a doctor “You prescribed her such-n-such back in February, this is your signature here, right?” She knew who the admitting doctor was, who the regular doctor was, who the specialist was, who the respiratory therapist was, what time the nurses changed shifts, the names of every pill and every disorder... it was amazing. She would sleep in the chair by her mother’s bed.

[A_perfect_lady]

... and find Sanctuary.

[Lurker]

Screw that. I'll take the Vivaldi and the morphine, thank you very much. And bring me a gin & tonic.

If that's your choice freely made I'll be happy to bring you that g&t my dear. But I want it to be YOUR choice, not some room full of nameless bureaucrats who've looked at their Cost/Benefit spreadsheets and decided the matter for you.

And I don't care what you say, the way these people want to do things it won't be your choice. It'll be theirs, and not just for you but for me and mine as well.

And that I won't tolerate. Ever.

[Lurker]

That a mandate to kill Downs kids in the womb will be enacted because they are useless in life and are not worth the money spent to keep them alive?

Where have we seen exactly that sort of thinking before? Hmmmm....

L