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The painful side effects of Obama's healthcare reform
LA Times ^ | July 5, 2009 | Charlotte Allen

Posted on 07/05/2009 6:23:47 AM PDT by RangerM

Here's a way for America to cut its spiraling healthcare costs: ice floes.

This idea isn't mine. It's President Obama's. Or rather, it's where we're likely to end up if the president prevails on Congress to pass the adventurous healthcare reform proposal currently being discussed, which the Congressional Budget Office estimates will cost about $1 trillion over the next 10 years. That's on top of Medicare's annual $327-billion budget, whose massive deficits, if they continue at the same rate, are predicted to bankrupt the Medicare system by the end of the next decade.

In looking for a way to fund healthcare, Obama has set his eye on the oldest and sickest. You see, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, about 30% of Medicare spending -- nearly $100 billion annually -- goes to care for patients during their last year of life. What if there were no "last year of life," the president seems to be asking. The Eskimos used to set their elderly and sickly adrift on the ice or otherwise abandon them during times of scarcity, and that, metaphorically speaking, is what Obama would like us all to start doing.

(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: euthanesia; healthcare; obama; obamacare; prolife; socializedmedicine
Anyone who lives by Obama's views, will die from them, as well.
1 posted on 07/05/2009 6:23:48 AM PDT by RangerM
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To: RangerM

Am I remembering correctly? Isn’t the LA Times usually in B.O.’s pocket?


2 posted on 07/05/2009 6:36:28 AM PDT by basil ( It's time to eliminate all "Gun Free Zones")
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To: RangerM

My 80-year-old (Democrat) mother-in-law had a hip replacement last week. My husband and I have said many times that she is lucky she got it done now, because if this crazy thing passes, she probably wouldn’t have gotten it.

But, to her credit, she did NOT vote for Obama. She and my father-in-law chose not to vote at all rather than vote Republican. It’s so sad...they don’t know that their party left them years ago. Both their sons are Republican and it just ‘drives them crazy.’ We can never talk politics.


3 posted on 07/05/2009 6:44:14 AM PDT by erkyl (We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office --Aesop (~550 BC))
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To: RangerM

Obama Healthy Care:


It only covers you while you are healthy.
4 posted on 07/05/2009 6:50:16 AM PDT by reg45 (Be calm everyone. The idiot children are in charge!)
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To: RangerM

Ice floes? What happened to global warming?


5 posted on 07/05/2009 6:55:44 AM PDT by Fast Moving Angel (GOP: Stop listening, start doing -- we need new leaders!)
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To: RangerM
Yikes. This really skewers him, and in the lapdog LA Times of all places.

Obama brought up his grandmother's hip replacement a second time in his June 24 town hall event on healthcare on ABC. The "question was," Obama said, "does she get hip-replacement surgery, even though she was fragile enough they were not sure how long she would last?" At that point I was thinking: If he says, "No hip replacement for you, Grams" one more time, it's going to be a drinking game.

6 posted on 07/05/2009 6:56:40 AM PDT by La Lydia
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To: La Lydia

The effect of Obamacare will be like getting a proctology examination with a buzzsaw.


7 posted on 07/05/2009 6:59:13 AM PDT by Ev Reeman
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To: RangerM

I’ve never, ever seen this level of honesty re: Obama at the Times.


8 posted on 07/05/2009 6:59:22 AM PDT by denydenydeny ("I'm sure this goes against everything you've been taught, but right and wrong do exist"-Dr House)
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To: RangerM

There’s an old joke. Why do so many old folks decide to live in Florida?? Because there are no ice floes there.


9 posted on 07/05/2009 7:02:47 AM PDT by greeter70
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To: RangerM

There’s an old joke. Why do so many old folks decide to live in Florida?? Because there are no ice floes there.


10 posted on 07/05/2009 7:02:56 AM PDT by greeter70
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To: RangerM
Britain also set up a National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence in 1999, whose bureaucrats assign "quality-adjusted life years" in deciding whether it is "cost effective" to pay for cancer drugs and other treatments.

Now, I'm well aware that having 47 million people who can't afford medical care is a genuine social problem -- although many of those millions are illegal immigrants, people between jobs and young folks who choose to go insurance-bare.

and there it is...

11 posted on 07/05/2009 8:04:59 AM PDT by Chode (American Hedonist - Obama is basically Jim Jones with a teleprompter)
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To: basil
Isn’t the LA Times usually in B.O.’s pocket?

..yes - this definately dosn't bode well for O's healthcare plan. The article hit on the clear personal impact this legislation will have on people - and I think that impact - putting health care decisions in the hand of the government - doesn't sit well with conservatives or liberals. I suspect only the hard, politicized, left will stay behind Obama's plan.

12 posted on 07/05/2009 8:52:02 AM PDT by ghost of nixon
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To: All; RangerM

We can use some of the points in this article to write a letter to the editor to get folks to contact their congresscritters to stop Obama”care.”

The politicians don’t want to lose their jobs on their election day, so let’s make sure they hear from us. We CAN stop this.


13 posted on 07/05/2009 9:42:59 AM PDT by Sun (Pray that God sends us good leaders. Please say a prayer now.)
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To: RangerM

This is a must read article for everyone, to wake them up to the reality of the universal coverage and Obama’s and the Dems’ cost reduction approach.

Thanks for posting it.


14 posted on 07/05/2009 5:10:57 PM PDT by FocusNexus ("Good and evil are present in this world, and between the two there can be no compromise." GW Bush)
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To: RangerM

Nice marketing strategy: Massive new taxes I will have to pay, including taxing my health benefits, so that I can get no treatment when I need it, plus de facto euthanasia when I get frail or infirm.

Sounds great to me! Where do I sign up for this magnificent deal?


15 posted on 07/05/2009 8:32:04 PM PDT by FormerACLUmember
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To: long hard slogger; FormerACLUmember; Harrius Magnus; hocndoc; parousia; Hydroshock; skippermd; ...


Socialized Medicine aka Universal Health Care PING LIST

FReepmail me if you want to be added to or removed from this ping list.

**This is a high volume ping list! (sign of the times)**


16 posted on 07/06/2009 4:00:22 PM PDT by socialismisinsidious ( The socialist income tax system turns US citizens into beggars or quitters!)
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