Posted on 07/20/2009 6:02:12 AM PDT by bestintxas
Newsweek Managing Editor Daniel Klaidman explains that his magazine decided to ask Sen. Ted Kennedy to author a cover piece on health care, because "his absence during this historic debate had been so palpable, yet here was a way for this respected voice on health care to weigh in and be part of the national conversation at a critical moment."
Well, Sen. Kennedy has weighed in, and he may have helped doom Obamacare.
For Kennedy and his co-author, Bob Shrum, have let the rationing cat out of the bag. And that's a problem for President Obama and the Democrats. Make no mistake: Beyond all the other crippling problems with the Democrats' health care proposal--its cost at a time of massive deficits, the tax increases it requires at a time of recession, its preference for government over the private sector and for central planning over free competition--the deepest vulnerability of Obamacare is that it (intentionally) puts us on a course towards government rationing of health care.
Here's the key paragraph from Kennedy and Shrum:
We also need to move from a system that rewards doctors for the sheer volume of tests and treatments they prescribe to one that rewards quality and positive outcomes. For example, in Medicare today, 18 percent of patients discharged from a hospital are readmitted within 30 days--at a cost of more than $15 billion in 2005. Most of these readmissions are unnecessary, but we don't reward hospitals and doctors for preventing them. By changing that, we'll save billions of dollars while improving the quality of care for patients.
(Excerpt) Read more at weeklystandard.com ...
You first, Ted. No more brain cancer treatments for an old coot like you.
40 years ago, American heroes walked on the moon and 40 years ago, a coward from Massachusetts walked away from a drowning woman.
But this will never make the evening news...
Hey Teddy would recommend withhold care for a 76 year old alcoholic diagnosed with brain cancer? I think you would, except of course if it was you.
Exactly. Terminal when diagnosed, he should be dead already if he had done the right thing for society and entered hospice.
I doubt that Kennedy had much input into this article. From what I have read he’s in such bad shape that writing an article is the last thing he could do.
These elitist bastards don’t care about old folks in general, because they have money to buy their own care. In the case of the Chappaquiddick hero, it’s money handed down from his criminal short selling bootlegging father.
Sounds like a good idea. Lets start with Kennedy and discuss it later.
Hasn’t Kennedy had enough of his ration??? CUT HIM OFF>
Make them the first recipients of Oboombacare before they try and make us accept it. No?
Then shove this bill wherever
Gurgle gurgle, Teddy. Gurgle, gurgle.
Why the hell doesn’t someone mention that a large portion of the medical test demanded by doctors are to provide a DEFENSE in the all too common malpractice suit.
The tort lawyer demands indignantly, “Doctor why did you NEGLECT to order (such and such) test for my client?”
So the test is ordered, needed or not.
Under ObamaCare, the tort lawyers will lose a large part of their ammunition as the ordering of medical tests will be dictated NOT by the doctor but by the “out of reach” medical bureacrat.
I’m really surprise the ABA hasn’t figured this out yet.
The Kennedy family as a whole have been wasting precious health resources for years.
Hell, Patrick Kennedy alone has been to rehab as many times as the state of Massachusetts.
He is on the SPECIAL Congressional plan that will never include rationing for these asshats.
Didn’t read beyond the first FR page, but it looks like they’re pushing the idea that they could be “saving” Healthcare from the “Bad Cops” in the Dem Party. Once it became clear how many people were onto them, and how many were waking up to an awareness of how catastrophic the costs would and could be, they backed off and starting “refining” and watering their original proposals down.They do this with everything. In final form
it will probably incorporate key elements stolen from the Republicans.
It would be at this point disastrous to try to push the entire original package down our throats. NOT EVEN THE DEMS would be re-elected if they try this.
Personally I think old alcoholics with inoperable brain tumors should go to the end of the Health Care line.....
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