Posted on 01/22/2009 2:43:37 AM PST by fabrizio
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The new administration of president Barack Obama is still putting up nameplates on walls and staff members are learning how to use their computers. But some watchdogs are concerned that the administration is already full steam ahead with a plan that could lead to assisted suicide, euthanasia and health care rationing.
Americans are familiar with the problems that accompany the British-style system of health care -- where costs outweigh the benefit of patients.
Patients see waiting lists and face pressured to go to Europe for an assisted suicide rather than receiving appropriate medical care. Medical providers use cost-analysis to determine if patients get the latest drugs or treatment.
Scott Gottlieb, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, has penned a new Wall Street Journal column saying the Obama administration plans to pursue the same thing here.
"In Britain, a government agency evaluates new medical products for their "cost effectiveness" before citizens can get access to them," he explains. "The agency has concluded that $45,000 is the most worth paying for products that extend a person's life by one 'quality-adjusted' year. By their calculus, a year combating cancer is worth less than a year in perfect health."
"Here in the U.S., President-elect Barack Obama and House Democrats embrace the creation of a similar 'comparative effectiveness' entity that will do research on drugs and medical devices. They claim that they don't want this to morph into a British-style agency that restricts access to medical products based on narrow cost criteria, but provisions tucked into the fiscal stimulus bill betray their real intentions," Gottlieb continues.
The plan calls for spending $1.1 billion of the $825 billion stimulus package to compare different drugs and devices to "save money and lives."
Report language accompanying the House stimulus bill says that "more expensive" medical products "will no longer be prescribed." The House bill also suggests that the new research should be used to create "guidelines" to direct doctors' treatment of difficult, high-cost medical problems.
Gottlieb complains, "The bill gives incoming Health Secretary Tom Daschle wide discretion to set priorities, and he's long advocated a U.S. approach modeled on the British [system]."
"Such calculations can't account for all the variation in disease and patient preference that drive medical decisions. So it's no surprise that in Britain there's vocal dissent against NICE constraints, especially among cancer patients who are denied many effective new drugs that, for now, are widely prescribed in the U.S," he says.
Bioethicist Wesley J. Smith says this kind of system invites the futile care theory where patients whose lives are declared too far gone no longer receive lifesaving medical treatment.
"When I was in the UK in the wake of Terri Schiavo, advocating for Leslie Burke's right to have a feeding tube when the time came that he could no longer swallow--Burke has a degenerative neurological disease akin to a slow motion Lou Gehrig's and he sued to make sure he wouldn't be dehydrated," Smith tells of one case.
Smith says British medical officials filed legal briefs against Burke.
"It wanted total control by the doctors over whether he lived or died when he became totally disabled based on quality of life/resource standards. Horrible, just horrible," he says.
"I don't think the American people will yet accept such a program here -- if they know about it," he says.
All together now and sing the Culture of Death song:
Kill 'em when they're young
Kill 'em when they're old
We hate it when they're warm
We love it when they're cold
If it took a trillion dollars to keep fat Teddy alive he would vote for it in a skipped heart beat.
1. Legislate (One must have the appearance of legality to accomplish further deeds.)
2. Confiscate (Once it has been authorized by legislation, they grab it.)
3. Incarcerate (Those who resist can be jailed.)
4. Incinerate (Those who really resist can be WACO'd.)
This is the obvious solution to the Social Security crisis. Kill the boomers and there’s no crisis.
Mostly, you can be assured of the “we voted for it, so it’s legitimate” argument.
It doesn’t matter how many people vote on it, if it’s immoral for one person to do it, it’s immoral for a group to do it.
Example: 10 men and 1 woman vote on the proposition of whether it’s OK to rape the woman. I guess if the woman disagrees, she’ll have to work harder in two years to convince 5 of the men that it’s not right for her to be raped. Until then, well, “we voted on it”!
A lib’s head will explode over this example, because it shows how logically indefensible their position is.
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The Obama administration thinks Americans are dying for change.
the thing is that private insurance companies do this too. They will refuse to pay for things or to allow people who need certain things get coverage.
and to get medicaid you have to be really, really poor with like 50 kids.
the thing is that private insurance companies do this too. They will refuse to pay for things or to allow people who need certain things get coverage.
and to get medicaid you have to be really, really poor with like 50 kids.
the thing is that private insurance companies do this too. They will refuse to pay for things or to allow people who need certain things get coverage.
and to get medicaid you have to be really, really poor with like 50 kids.
Great graphic. Shudder.
Democrat argument, heralded by media:
YOUR against healthcare??
YOU OPPOSE eaqual healthcare for all???
HOW DARE you oppose healthcare. Why are you against healthcare?
You have 4 seconds for a response on the news.
healthcare? I’m not against healthcare, I..... time up.
When the government is paying for health care through programs such as Medicare, I think it cost-benefit analyses are reasonable. I don’t want to pay for 100-year-olds getting heart transplants. I do want the freedom to pay for health care not covered by the government.
Red herring hyperbole troll argument. Isn't done.
Who would you trust to make life-or-death decisions about your health care? Your family, in association with your physician? Or a government bureaucrat?
Should life really be viewed solely through the prism of utility? The equivalent of a morning-after pill...???
ping
If the government is paying for the care, I accept the need for government regulations to weigh costs vs. benefits. Either the government will ration care, or the price system will. As a conservative I favor the latter, but unlike many conservatives here I acknowledge that there WILL be rationing.
That is what the idiots that voted for him want. I hope that they get it.
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