Posted on 04/27/2009 1:53:20 PM PDT by wagglebee
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- President Barack Obama and his Congressional allies haven't yet announced a universal health care plan, but warnings are already beginning that it will likely include health care rationing. That's a concern for the pro-life movement because it can lead to euthanasia and assisted suicide.
In a powerful column written in the Washington Post, noted author Charles Krauthammer notes "the math doesn't add up" on covering Americans without cutting back on medical care.
"His universal health-care proposal would increase costs by perhaps $1 trillion," Krauthammer says.
"The hard part is Medicare and Medicaid. In an aging population, how do you keep them from blowing up the budget? There is only one answer: rationing," he explains.
Krauthammer points out that the stimulus package pours $1.1 billion into medical "comparative effectiveness research," which he calls the "perfect setup for rationing."
"Once you establish what is 'best practice' for expensive operations, medical tests and aggressive therapies, you've laid the premise for funding some and denying others," he says.
England and Canada are often used as the examples of the problems and abuses that show up when nations move to governmental-based health care and rationing what patients can receive.
"Britain's National Health Service can deny treatments it deems not cost-effective -- and if you're old and infirm, the cost-effectiveness of treating you plummets. In Canada, they ration by queuing. You can wait forever for so-called elective procedures like hip replacements," the columnist says. "A nationalized health insurance system would ration everything from MRIs to intensive care by myriad similar criteria."
Krauthammer says voters have been sold a bill of goods -- with Obama making promises to voters without talking about consequences.
"Obama, the consummate politician, knows to offer the candy (universality) today before serving the spinach (rationing) tomorrow," he writes. "But there is no escaping rationing. In the end, the spinach must be served."
Rationing may not only affect the elderly, as Fred Barnes notes in The Weekly Standard.
He points out that the recent death of actress Natasha Richardson occurred in a Canadian hospital that had neither scanning equipment nor a neurosurgeon. Nor was there a helicopter available to take her there from the popular ski slopes where she was injured. The Canadian government had decided not to pay for these medical services.
While rationing would curtail lifesaving medical treatment and encourage euthanasia, it would promote abortion says Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council.
"The only way for Obama to pay for his health takeover will be through rationing of health care to the elderly," he says.
"The plan Democrats envision will include a seductively framed 'government option' that will prescribe covered services, including abortion in all likelihood, with low cost and coverage mandates that may draw as many as 130 million Americans to it," Perkins adds.
Moving health care nationalization through reconciliation will SILENCE moderate Democrats and Republicans and produce the most aggressive, big-government health care plan possible. Health care reform is far too important an issue to be advanced with limited time and without full and proper debate. Any government plan to restructure one sixth of our economy should be debated fully under the regular rules of the Senate. If the budget resolution does include reconciliation, I will hold the conferees responsible and consider any vote in favor of the budget resolution to be a vote to subvert the legitimate legislative process.
I urge you to OPPOSE health care reconciliation!
PING!
It is naive to think that race hustlers and politicians would permit white groupings to have more treatment of a specialized nature than people of color.
This will be racial quotas on a scale of millions of persons.
It is also naive to think that the same hustlers/politicians will not directly intervene to “move-up” their supporters and sycophants.
Perhaps the joke loses something in the translation between cultures. I'm a Canadian; so I know that it's a rather cynical poke at our own health care system. A lot of people here have been brainwashed by the propaganda about health care costs in the U.S. At the same time, many of us recognize that our "free" system is very costly, where it counts.
I thought that the joke illustrated the subject matter of the thread quite well. If you ever get "universal government health care"; you'll appreciate the joke more.
Hey look on the bright side...WEDNESDAY WILL BE SOYLENT GREEN DAY!
I recall Obama during the campaign trail stating we are in the health care business not disease care business. That should tell you where he stands.
The U.S. health care system is already heavily constrained by government rule and regulation, separating the customer from the provider.
As we move even further away from the free market, health care will become worse. Politicians and small political interest parties will win; everybody else will lose.
And as the U.S. moves closer and closer to a Canadian style health care system, Canada will move closer and closer to no health care. Canada can afford a nationalized health care system because it is built from the crumbs falling of the U.S. healthcare table.
...and it will get worse...
Children of illegal aliens cost county welfare $44 million in March
- Up $1 million from last month [Los Angeles County]
the-signal.com | April 27, 2009
Posted on 04/27/2009 2:50:36 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2239064/posts
Ow, ow, ow, OWWWWW!
In Canada, most people's personal experience with the health care system is good. That's because most people don't need expensive operations, or diagnosis by expensive equipment. Access to those services is routinely rationed by waitlisting patients (many die while on the waitlist). The cost-effectiveness of treatment is also measured (once you're past a certain age, you don't qualify for expensive treatments).
The punch line of the joke is a bit of gallows humour.
Looks like he will be eliminating the last of the Roosevelt Democrats.
How did the majority of elderly persons vote in the last election? Just curious.
BINGO!!!
In his book on future govt healthcare Daschle said it out loud that the later seventy and eighty year olds had to realize they must not be allowed to burden the rest of us.
_____________
10-20 years is a long time considering the lifespan of a human being. I have never been afraid in my country until January 20th 2009. NEVER!!!! If there is no revolt, the time to get out is NOW.
I hate this man so much for doing what he is doing to this country. I don’t think I can live here anymore. We are probably going to leave soon.
I hope so....but somehow the evil, unscrupulous demoRATs & media hacks & especially the pathological liar 0booooombi, they always seem to be able to lie, smear & distort, and turn the facts into lies against Repubs. And then you have socialist lites like Bush or McCain, who can't seem to articulate a hard hitting effective conservative response, the Repubs end up looking exactly like the dems & media portrayed them to be.
Do you imagine, though, that Daschle believes this statement applies to him? Or to any other member of the Democrat leadership?
Even ex-Senators are better than the rest of us.
Health insurance companies ration usage by their premiums, copays, deductibles, and allowed procedures, and limits on prior conditions. You just don’t think about it as rationing, but that is the effect. But if you want to see how well it will work when BHO’s administration operates it, look at the disaster we pay for in Medicare....expensive, rationed, and corrupt. Do you think “National Health Plan” will be better? Dream on.
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.