Posted on 12/28/2010 3:20:27 AM PST by Scanian
The text of ObamaCare is dry and legalistic, except when it summons the maj esty of the King James Bible to intone imperiously, "the secretary shall . . . "
The secretary in question is the secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, who "shall" and "may" do all manner of things to complete the great unfinished canvas that is ObamaCare.
As George W. Bush might say, Sebelius is "the decider." In the discretion she's granted to remake American health care, she rivals Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton and Oprah Winfrey as the most powerful woman in America.
The New York Times reported the other day that HHS has created a version of the "death panels," in Sarah Palin's famous coinage, that were stripped out of the law after an uproar in 2009. Why did we bother having that fight, with all its fiery accusations, if Kathleen Sebelius and her underlings could simply act at their discretion?
The first thing to know about death panels is that they aren't death panels. They are shorthand for consultations between doctors and patients to set up advanced directives governing decisions over end-of-life care. These consultations are innocent enough, even desirable. Unless you worry that ObamaCare's inevitable drift into price controls and rationing will twist them into something more sinister.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
The system is over the edge. I do not think any amount of rearranging and tweaking it will help.
Obama&Co. gift to America. /s
There’s so much in this article worth quoting that I’m not going to quote any of it.
Read it.
Learn it.
Print it.
Take a copy of it to your next tea party meeting.
As I emailed to my oncologist about this yesterday, “It increases my paranoia...like looking in my mirror and seeing a po-lice car!”
His response: “Don’t send any political emails to this address.”
I think of them more as ‘Meg Stapleton Memorial’ death panels. That is, they are consultations rather than the very real procedure rationing panels to which I think Palin was referring. But Palin’s then spokesperson Stapleton responded to a Jake Tapper email query by saying the consultations were death panels. Jake trumpeted that around, claiming to debunk the claim, and it stuck.
They can call it “death panels.” I call it a Trojan Horse. Allow that practice to go into effect and in a short time we’ll be seeing federal funds for abortion, euthanasia, sex change operations, and Lord knows what else.
Medicine will become completely politicized.
Fair point.
My understanding is that they write it and rewrite it as they go along and, as they please, to achieve their ends. Remember, Nancy Pelosi said they needed to pass it so that we could find out what is in it! Remember they did not need to read the bill because it hadn’t really been written yet.
ABC did a ‘setup’ piece last night with Dr. Tim Johnson on this.
All nice and sweet having the Dr.s consulting with the patient and family as to the course of action of a cancer patient.
No problem.
What was not mentioned (of course) was the possibility of the government dictating what the Dr.s could do to perpetuate a life.
The ‘inoculation’ begins, as was done with breast and prostate exams starting at age 50.
I know 3 people in my small circle of friends that would be dead had the after 50 for those 2 exams been in effect.
Let them get their foot in the door with this and next thing you know a government bureaucrat will have to be present at those “counseling” sessions.
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