Posted on 08/14/2009 10:54:01 PM PDT by Steelfish
AUGUST 14, 2009
Obama's Senior Moment
Why the elderly are right to worry when the government rations medical care.
Elderly Americans are turning out in droves to fight ObamaCare, and President Obama is arguing back that they have nothing to worry about.
Allow us to referee.
While claims about euthanasia and "death panels" are over the top, senior fears have exposed a fundamental truth about what Mr. Obama is proposing: Namely, once health care is nationalized, or mostly nationalized, rationing care is inevitable, and those who have lived the longest will find their care the most restricted.
Far from being a scare tactic, this is a logical conclusion based on experience and common-sense. Once health care is a "free good" that government pays for, demand will soar and government costs will soar too.
When the public finally reaches its taxing limit, something will have to give on the care and spending side. In a word, care will be rationed by politics.
Mr. Obama's reply is that private insurance companies already ration, by deciding which treatments are covered and which aren't. However, there's an ocean of difference between coverage decisions made under millions of voluntary private contracts and rationing via government. An Atlantic Ocean, in fact. Virtually every European government with "universal" health care restricts access in one way or another to control costs, and it isn't pretty.
The British system is most restrictive, using a black-box actuarial formula known as "quality-adjusted life years," or QALYs, that determines who can receive what care.
If a treatment isn't deemed to be cost-effective for specific populations, particularly the elderly, the National Health Service simply doesn't pay for it. Even France—which has a mix of public and private medicine—has fixed reimbursement rates since the 1970s and strictly controls the use of specialists and the..
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Just what I was trying to say recently.
People still refuse to see this!!! I just don’t understand how some can be so blind... unless they are just very young or not handicapped.
This is truly an abamanation on America. Shame on us!!
People still refuse to see this!!! I just don’t understand how some can be so blind... unless they are just very young or not handicapped.
This is truly an abamanation on America. Shame on him!!
And not only the elderly but anyone who costs a bit more to keep alive. Pretty soon you have the netherlands situation or the early nazi regime.
“once health care is nationalized, or mostly nationalized, rationing care is inevitable, and those who have lived the longest will find their care the most restricted.”
Exactly. This is not a question of politics; it is simple math.
I think the death panels are really the panels of rationing decisions.
If ya didn’t hear this, you gotta:
Heard On Rush Today
“From the 1961 Operation Coffee Cup Campaign against Socialized Medicine as proposed by the Democrats, then a private citizen Ronald Reagan Speaks out against socialized medicine.”
We're already on the back side of the Laffer Curve. It has very little to do with public sentiment; there's a maximum amount of money the government can take out of the system. If f is a continuous function and f(a)=0 and f(b)=0 there is a maximum between a and b. For all the idiots at MSNBC I can provide the proof.
If there are to be “end of life” interviews for those who are getting on in years, are getting to be a big expense and no longer contributing to society. Why are there not to be “end of life” interviews for those who are pepetually on welfare, no matter what their age? Who is more a drag on society, some elderly person who needs some care for a few years, or a middle age, non-productive person, who is entierely supported by welfare for most of their lives because they haven’t applied themselves? What productivity can we expect from them in the future?
This a rhetorical question, to create some perspective. I am not advocating anything other than not rationing the elderly of care just because they are old.
There. Fixed it.
I believe that with all my heart. That’s why I am so noisy about it! :D
They (press/libs/trolls) keep trying to say it isn’t so, even though the very words of the bill are clear. And obama has shown his intentions and his heart (or lack of), in my view, thus I don’t trust him ever to do the “right” thing, only the thing that helps him accomplish his goal of overtaking America. I am prepared to defend our rights to the end.. it is that serious, IMO, and my children and grandchildren are at stake here.
Everything in life is rationed — by price, favoritism, luck. Everybody cannot have everything there is to have. So the question is who should do the rationing?
Socialist/commies/leftists will ration us all according to some formula (elite exempted of course). No system or formula will always work under all circumstances. But, the free market will more equitably ration available resources according to who saved, planned worked hard and made good choices. The ants will get the good stuff not the grasshoppers.
Without spending a dime of taxpayer money free market strategies could vastly reduce our healthcare costs. Insurance reform, tort reform, tax rebates to doctors for pro bono and unpaid treatment, stopping the fraud inherent in government control, and limiting service to non-citizens.
Doesn’t anyone ever wonder what REALLY HAPPENED to Granny TOOTS, the White Granny that was never allowed to talk to the Media, who Never saw her great granddaughters even as they “Vacationed” mere miles from her Deathbed, and the “Beloved Granny” who raised THE MESSIAH and sent him to the Best Schools as his alleged Mother and Dad selfishly pursued their booze, drugs and egos; and who mysteriously DIED just a day before THE MESSIAH was elected....The Granny who knew where THE MESSIAH was really born and all of the other secrets about HIS Phantom Past that are destroyed or otherwise obfuscated from the AMERICAN CITIZENRY! GRANNY JUST WASN’T CONVENIENT!!! DIDN’T FIT THE STORY LINE!!! POOR THING!!
Death Panel exists and did before the end-of-life provision was removed. It was in the Stimulus/Porkulus..
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2316535/posts
She was his first guinea pig for his healthcare plan, and it worked!
I heard that today. It was great but what I want to know is where is today’s GOP? Anyone?...Anyone?
Why not “end of life” interviews for HIV/AIDS patients. I mean, how much money are the taxpayers supposed to shell out for ailing journalists?
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