Donald Berwick’s Motto? Rationing for Thee, but not for Me
If you’re like most Americans, you had probably never heard of Donald Berwick before July 7, when President Obama installed him as Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). And, unless you’re a health policy wonk, the news that Obama circumvented the normal Senate confirmation process with a recess appointment probably elicited no response beyond a briefly raised eyebrow and a stifled yawn. But this CMS decision deserves another look. Dr. Berwick has been granted the power to reach out and touch you in ways undreamed of by higher profile appointees like Elena Kagan. Whether you’re paying attention or not, he will have a profound impact on the quality of your life.
CMS isn’t some Beltway backwater with a few clerks processing Medicare and Medicaid claims. It’s a gigantic bureaucracy with thousands of employees, a budget larger than the Pentagon’s, and the authority to dictate treatment standards for the nation’s hospitals, nursing homes, and clinical laboratories. It also administers policies that directly affect how many physicians are available to provide medical treatment for you and your family. Moreover, Berwick isn’t just another political hack or Ivy League gasbag. He’s an experienced, sophisticated administrator who knows how to get what he wants. And what he wants for Medicare, Medicaid, and eventually the entire U.S. health care system is rationing.
Unlike his boss in the White House, Dr. Berwick has made no secret of his views on this issue, and has never avoided the “R” word. In a 2009 interview for Biotechnology Healthcare, for example, Berwick praised the heavy-handed rationing methods of Britain’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) and said, “The decision is not whether or not we will ration care; the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open.” Unfortunately, the interviewer failed to ask the obvious follow-up question: “Who’s we?” It turns out that what the good doctor really means when he says “we” is “you.” For himself and his wife, he has arranged to opt out of the health care system he plans to impose on the hoi polloi.
But before we get to that, it’s important to flesh out what Berwick has in mind when he talks about rationing. His praise of NICE is significant. The apparatchiks of that soulless health care bureaucracy have, quite literally, calculated how much money a single year of the average Brit’s life is worth (about $45,000). And if a patient needs treatment or drugs that exceed that amount, he’s out of luck. Consequently, the British news media are full of stories like those of Jack Rosser and Albert Baxter, both of whom were denied cancer drugs. The former is only alive today because an American benefactor came to his rescue. The latter killed himself when informed that he would not receive treatment.
You can bet your last nickel that government bureaucrats, politicians and cronies WILL get better medical attention than you or I under government health care.
Hey, they already are exempt from most of the regs they passed, including Obamacare.
I can’t bet my last nickel. Obama took it.
A satanic contempt for human life.
~ The Infidel Alliance
I wonder if we will see this in the New York Times or the Washington Post? Maybe both.
Gas Bag is a word that seems to fit. Any person who thinks the UK is the health care model we should aspire to is a certifiable idiot. Their systems is exactly what liberals want to control, degrade, insult, and demean their people before during and after they pass on. It is teh largest employer and naturally the largest block of liberal votes in the country. Gosh these GASBAG politicians would not actually be trying to manipulate the ballot box as they torture us during our last years on earth.
What a completely cynical move on teh part of Obama but given where this creep has taken us is anyone really surprised any more?
God help the American people. We need it.
Ah, Eugenics! One of the three legs on which “progressive” stands! (The other two being identity politics and the welfare state.) Consider that eugenics is a common demoninator to all three of the following models:
Lenin/Stalin: Class-based International Socialism (GULag)
Hitler: Race-based National Socialism (Concentration Camps)
Obama: Class- and Race-based Post-National Socialism (Obamacare)
I have considered that.
Takeover of “healthcare” has been an integral part of the totalitarian impulse.
It was central to Hitler’s National Socialist agenda.
As for Dr. Berwick’s personal exemption from all the restrictions & rules he would impose onto others, it, too, is a predictable and common aspect of the totalitarian impulse.
It is exactly right that the current crowd of liberals infesting DC does not see itself as the servants of the people but as the masters of the people.
We are well along the Road to Serfdom and the only tool left to the citizen is the vote.
Expect all kinds of voter manipulation, including, but not limited to, ACORN type efforts at voter fraud and continuing efforts by the Left to enlist illegals and felons.
That their ongoing power grab in DC is still even subject to a popular vote irks this crowd of would be kings and queens considerably.
The arrogance of government officials like Berwick is astounding in a two-fold way.
First, they believe they are qualified to set draconian rules over the lives of the citizenry, because we are unable to make such decisions for ourselves. The typical excuse given is that it’s for our own good or for some nebulous “common good”.
But by exempting themselves from their own rules, they recognize (at some level) that these rules are actually bad for the individuals involved — but they don’t care.
This isn’t just isolated to health care. We’ve seen this in the global warming debate, where officials lecture us about our “carbon footprints”, while jetsetting around the globe to conferences, sanctimoniously criticizing the industrial society that makes their luxury plans possible.
Or officials who have tried to deny citizens 2nd Amendment rights, while using their positions in government to make sure they (or their bodyguards) can carry weapons for self-defense.
Such men view themselves as special — and the rest of us as merely subjects to be ruled. This runs antithetical to the American ideal of the government being our servants, to protect our individual rights — not our masters.
The more quickly Americans wake up to this fact, the more quickly we can remove them from power before it’s too late. Catron’s OpEd is another much-needed alarm bell for our country. Let’s hope Americans are listening.
Hopefully physicians will be vocal about the harm being done to their patients.
The AMA has been bought off and it’s membership is below 20% of doctors. I receive weekly solicitations from them. Soon, I will be offered free dues; they are down to 50% off already. What Dr Berwick wants is control, not of costs but of us.
There is a way to control costs. Simply freeze Medicare reimbursement to doctors and hospitals and then allow them to bill patients for whatever the balance is between reasonable charges and what Medicare can afford to pay. That is what France does and it works pretty well.
Already, doctors are dropping Medicare and practicing for cash. Massachusetts now has a bill pending to force doctors to accept Medicare as a condition of being licensed. That should tell you what the motives are of the bureaucrats.
Obama and the Democrats made fun of Palin for her claim that the new health care bill would create “death panels”.
Then they just laughed, and laughed, and laughed . . .
The people who mocked Palin’s “death panel” comments are the same people, like Obama’s henchman Berwick, who’ve made or will make “provisions” for their own old age that won’t be “allowed” to lowly peasants who’ve paid into Medicare for 45-50 yrs. They are truly evil hypocrites.
They will try mightily to ridicule and marginalize Palin’s assessment. They will fail. The “Death Panel” label will forever stick.
I’m not really a pessimist but I’m convinced it’s going to get far worse than this article portends. That means there is likely only one thing that could possibly save and restore this country – but that will not happen on anything near the scale required, no matter how bad it gets. Not enough people can be convinced to be interested; critical thinking has been bred out of them, and p.c. has made the rest cowards. Nice republic while it lasted.
Sadly, I agree with you. I don’t believe it’s possible to turn it back. There’s only one last hope and that’s the ballot box. Unfortunately, tanstaafl is also correct about the voter fraud ACORN has gotten away with. The DOJ has already become complicit, and will not enforce the law as it does nothing to increase voter turnout. If the Congress had any care for the laws they write, and morals, they would wipe the voter slate clean and start over. When I registered in 1968, I had to go to the County Courthouse and present my SS card, driver’s license and Birth Certificate. It was a big deal! I couldn’t go to the local Kroger and sign up. It was a sacred American tradition, but no longer. It’s now fraught with fraud because we had to make it “easy.”
If we make it through the long hot summer without any major violence from the illegal mexican powder keg, we’ll be fortunate. Otherwise, I see obama declaring Martial Law and suspending the elections. If not, the voter fraud will steal many of the elections. If the Republicans are lucky enough to take one or both of the Houses, obama will have them to blame for all the fall-out from his thus far garbage bills. If they do manage to take the House or the Senate, there will be a Lame Duck Congress eager to pass Cap & Trade, V.A.T., Card Check, Amnesty and God only knows what else they have been pining for over the last 40 years. I see a WIN-WIN scenario for obama no matter what happens. He’s a crafty demonic monster.
I pray God sends him home to his beloved satan.
That crazy Sarah Palin..what a liar and extremest…I mean…”death panels”…..that will NEVER happen in the USA…..those nutty neo-con’s and their lies…..How much more of this has to happen…I mean really….Is there anyone, and I mean anyone that isn’t convinced this country is in the hands of people who DO NOT wish us well……
Like Glenn Beck; Try to come up with any degenerate scenario that this administration could partake in, and they make it come true.
No one could have envisioned the unmitigated disaster this individual and his gang of misfits and psycho’s could create for the American People.
The United States is becoming a model for any nation that intends to repress and mistreat it’s citizens.
No one could have envisioned the unmitigated disaster this individual and his gang of misfits and psycho’s could create for the American People
Sure, it’s an unmitigated disaster, but we got one “cool” president in the bargain! Feel better now?
carolannie
In response to your observation:
“No one could have envisioned the unmitigated disaster this individual and his gang of misfits and psycho’s could create for the American People”
I beg to differ… there is, at least, one journalist who did predict the disastrous situations that now plague us..
His name is Howard Galganov.. (bing him) Check his archives..
HG predicted exactly what we’re experiencing now..
“Sure, it’s an unmitigated disaster, but we got one “cool” president in the bargain! Feel better now?” —
As a matter of fact, Carolannie– Not really! h
I was ‘cooler’ than that my first year in junior high school. And I’d match my education to his at that time, also.
I have an uncle that ran two successful businesses, payed all his bills, raised a family, was respected in his community, and died not knowing how to read. His wife was retired Army Air Corps, and read for him.
I’d say my uncle was a helluva lot more accomplished than the coddled, incompetent, misfit in the White House.
Anyone with two brain cells to rub together could have forseen this. I’m sorry, but after hearing about a)his voting record in IL, b) his relationship to the wonderful, soulful, and totally christian, Rev. Wright, c) paid attention to the little that was said about his only two years at the fed. level, d) his not so plausibly denied relationship with Ayers (I shudder to think that useful idiot of a man has a hand in the education system) e) video clips of him speaking to groups like the SEIU…. It was all there, easily found, easily comprehended. Who he was, what he believed, and what he would like to do was easily found out, and really not very well covered over.
Add in a smidgen of attention to what Speaker Pelosi said, wrote, announced, etc, or the rantings of Reid, Rangle, Dodd, Boxer…. Easy to see. Easy to predict. People got so brainwashed with hating Bush (he wasn’t the best, but he’s far from the worst) and the young and idealistic are easy to confuse with faux inspiration that they ignored it all.
So, to say it couldn’t have been envisioned it to lie to yourself- the independants with their buyers remorse should especially be ashamed. It was there, out in the open, regardless of what he said in his campaign. You just had to look at his resume, not his campaign rhetoric.
We might get it back in the next two election cycles, but I doubt it.
Yes, it was all out there. When I tried to warn people I know, many of them wanted me to stop sending them “propaganda”. Some of them still believe in Obummer, in spite of all that has happened and all that is forcast. I, for one, will do all I can to stop this Obamanation!
Dr. Death Panels will never live down his name, although he will only have 6 months on the job; he is radioactive. Obama’s recess appoinment put ObamaCare back into the spotlight; something the other Democrats wanted to avoid with his hearing. In fact, given the midterms, I believe he never would have had a hearing in the first place. The man is politically DOA. Dr. Death Panels infamous reputation precedes him…
Meet the new Dr. Death Panel…
Remember (doctor) Zeke Emanuel’s writing on each person’s QALY* index ? Each person gets a score as a function of age & health which determines the type and level of care he/she will receive.
*quality adjusted life years
Kathleen Sebelius’ office just announced that each of us will receive an “obesity” rating score, required as part of every individual’s electronic medical records. Kathleen’s HHS is responsible for the kajillion new bureaucrats and agencies that will be established to administer Obamacare.
How in hell did this magnificent country descend into this BS ? Who ever conceived that, incrementally, this federal government would come to insert itself into the lives of individuals in such a fashion ?
How could the federal structure have become so compromised as to allow this to happen ?
This is a new, and incomprehensible, breed of human being, Dr. Berwick, Dr. Emanuel, Kathleen Sebelius, Janet Napolitano, John Holdren, Carol Browner, Eric Holder, really, the whole crowd in DC.
None of these small and insidious minds would have been allowed anywhere near the constitutional convention at the inception of this country.
These people are monsters – killers without conscience.
Progressives’ refusal to acknowledge the value of individual human life is one of the principal reasons why no peace can ever be made with them. It is a reckless, willful and evil disregard for the most fundamental of all of our rights: the right to live.
This is the foundational premise of leftism: that people are things. This premise is absolutely necessary in order to justify the slaughter of millions – and to enslave and impoverish the rest.
This is precisely the road down which that Marxist meat puppet of a President and his owners are taking us. History is my witness.
Why else would the modern American Left seek to ‘move the goalposts’ that define life? And further, to define the value of individual life by its utility? “Utility” – to whom or what? Who decides?
We have the likes of Peter Singer speaking blithely of extending that ‘right to choose’ to children as old as 28 months! Why? Because Singer argues that at that age, well… they’re not fully conscious and capable of reason! Why else would we hear of Ezekiel Emanuel – Rahm Emanuels brother – advocating the assessment of the relative ‘quality of life’ under the aegis of his innocuous-sounding “Complete Lives” program? Emanuel’s guidelines are strictly utilitarian, and are based in part upon the notion of an individual’s ‘value to society’.
What happens when:
1. Those goalposts converge?
2. The decision as to who lives and who dies eventually passes to the state? As it surely will if these monsters have their way.
Who has the courage to answer that?
There is only one way this can end.
Slight correction–Peter Singer has said parents should have 28 days (not months) to reconsider acceptance of their newly born child. It’s still ludicrously horrible, but no doubt academics (especially the philosophical kind) understand these things better than someone like me does.
Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to
feel important. They don’t mean to do harm — but the harm does not
interest them. Or they do not see it; or they justify it because they
are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
~T.S. Eliot
Mystical references to “society” and its programs to “help” may warm the
hearts of the gullible but what it really means is putting more power in
the hands of bureaucrats.
~Thomas Sowell
It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once. Slavery has
so frightful an aspect to men accustomed to freedom that it must steal
in upon them by degrees and must disguise itself in a thousand shapes in
order to be received.
~David Hume
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.
~ C. S. Lewis
You cut it off when you should have kept going, “…whereas to be punished by a robber baron because we ‘should have known better’ is to be treated as an adult created in the image and likeness of God.”
That was the quote as Wikiquote had it. Take it up with them.
And yet, in the face of all this, the Feds will continue to persecute states that allow euthanasia for dying and suffering patients.
My response is this cartoon “Above His Pay Grade” at http://drawfortruth.wordpress.com/2010/03/30/above-his-pay-grade/
I’m hoping change comes soon.
What’s the over /under for the amount of times Barry will say “Make no mistake”, “Do you want to vote for those who got us into this mess, or for the turning around of the economy”?
I’m so disgruntled.
Or “I will not rest until…”
Nomenklatura.
The 2010 medical law is a template for the ruling class’s economic modus operandi: the government taxes citizens to pay for medical care and requires citizens to purchase health insurance. The money thus taken and directed is money that the citizens themselves might have used to pay for medical care. In exchange for the money, the government promises to provide care through its “system.” But then all the boards, commissions, guidelines, procedures, and “best practices” that constitute “the system” become the arbiters of what any citizen ends up getting. The citizen might end up dissatisfied with what “the system” offers. But when he gave up his money, he gave up the power to choose, and became dependent on all the boards and commissions that his money also pays for and that raise the cost of care.
http://spectator.org/archives/2010/07/16/americas-ruling-class-and-the/print
===
Please pass it on…
Berwick and rationed care and eugenics except for him.
Gore and “green” rationing of energy except for him.
Obama and wealth is evil, except for him.
“Progressives” and government control except for them (and as long as they are in charge.)
Why do I feel like I am thrown back in time and place and am looking at Mengela, Goring, Hitler and National Socialism.
“You people” just don’t get it.
Your carbon footprint is too big, your capitalist wallet is too fat, your immune system is too expensive to assist and your freedoms are not worthy of protection.
But your face is just right for slapping.
Freddie Kreuger is now on the ballot and every day is Friday the 13th.
Of all the various fetid reeks coming from such “progressive” bastions, the worst of the lot, far and away the most odious,IMO, is that given off by those whom have made “exceptions” for themselves.
As the article points out how progressives REALLY feel about what they push is best seen in how LITTLE they wish to have it applied to THEM.
If Berwick is so in love with the system he wants to impose on the rest of us then the first step is using it for himself and his family. If he is unwilling to live under the rules he wishes to impose on others then there is no reason the rest of us should.
Wonder how Berwick would answer that question…….as if anyome in the Lame-stream Media would ask him.
Liberalism in a nutshell, treat people like dying cattle, regard them with inhuman contempt, and assure yourself of all the advantages, benefits, power & money you can grab.
Of course Berwick is vicious and insane, they all are, as are the little liberals, the dopes you see here calling people names with nothing else to say.
That penalty that wasn’t a tax if you didn’t get medical insurance? Now Obama is arguing in preliminary court filings that it is a tax. I’m losing track of all the lies, a truly twisted person, he denied a while back that it was a tax & seemed offended with the question.
The filth continues to spill out.
It’s FDR’s social security crapola all over again. It’s the setting of the stage for a Supreme Court showdown. Hopefully, this time, SCOTUS won’t fall for it. This is what makes the filibustering of Kagan so very, very important.
Didn’t I just recently read that Dr. Death Panels was granted or awarded a completely free complete medical health plan for the rest of his life. Not sure from who or by who, but if that is true well good old Doc Death Panels certainly has nothing to worry about as far as HIS health is concerned. So now he can remain focused on YOUR health, or maybe more specifically how much YOUR health is going to cost “The State” and are you worth spending all that money. Maybe it would be better if you just took some of these pain pill and wait at home until we get around to sending an “end of life” counselor to speak with you. And in the meantime how about making an inventory of everything you own and prepare that list for the agent of “The State”. And don’t forget the money, stock, bonds and mutual funds that you own. Thank you and have a nice death.
How many times were people warned?
How many times did the word, “RACIST!” get spewed as a response?
*Shakes head in dismay*
We need to ship all of the idiots who voted for 0 + cronies to Greece where socialism has worked out so successfully. Then, we need to fire any/all public servants who believe they can opt out of Zerocare. It should be illegal for anyone who works for the .gov to opt out of anything implemented by said servants.
This is true- no one in government should be able to opt out of the health care the citizens have to use. I might give in to a sitting general or president, in terms of continuity of government and avoiding a crisis, but anyone on federal payroll has to have the same healthcare options as the citizens, and this has to be enforced to the letter of the law as an example to prove there is not favoritism.
For anyone who has read C.S. Lewis’ “fairy tale for adults”, “That Hideous Strength”, the acronym N.I.C.E. is a chilling coincidence. If it is one. With that, and the camera/speaker on pole thing in London, it seems to an outsider that the Brits are going out of their way to emulate the worst dystopian nightmares of their own literary prophets.
We are out of the territory of “politics”, we are in the field of satanism.
What is the “value” of a human life ? Infinite. Period.
How did the nihilist-subversives trained us into accepting any horror ? By brainwashing us into accepting the abortion law.
We need to pray, we need to pray a lot, we need to pray a lot more.
So is rationing already in play? Three days ago I had what was called a mini stroke. After six hours in the emergency room, I was sent home with instructions to call my doctor for an appointment. Somehow at sixty six I find myself a little uneasy with this solution, but then maybe I’m a little paranoid. Or is this the new reality of medical care in the U.S..
And you are sitting at your computer reading and writing? I hope my strokes are that mild.
Saint Michael the Archangel,
defend us in battle;
be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray:
and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host,
by the power of God,
thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits
who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.
Amen
Sancte Michael Archangele,
defende nos in proelio;
contra nequitiam et insidias diaboli esto praesidium.
Imperet illi Deus, supplices deprecamur:
tuque, Princeps militiae Caelestis,
satanam aliosque spiritus malignos,
qui ad perditionem animarum pervagantur in mundo,
divina virtute in infernum detrude.
Amen
We are truly dealing with the devil in this administration
Our nation is at the precipice, being nudged inch by inch toward the edge. Soon all it will need is one good shove and we will fall. After that day our National Anthem, The Battle Hymn of the Republic, and the patriotic songs of John Philip Sousa will be heard with all the bereavement and mourning of a requiem, if they are heard at all.
“God of our fathers, thee, Author of Liberty, to thee we sing: Long may our land be bright, with freedom’s holy light, Protect us by Thy might, great God our King.” I assure you this last verse to America will surely be sung if only as an act of defiance. We will also utilize our Samson option. If we are going down no matter what, we will make sure that our dying act is to drag our tormentors into Hell.
This is a problem..??
Physicians are in Bed with Big Pharma, prescribing drugs for people that don’t need them, herding them to wildly overpriced sources for which they receive kickbacks.
Millions of children on Ritalin, god knows what else, and we wonder why drug addiction rates are climbing.
40,000+ people die each year in Hospitals due to Errors in diagnosis and incorrect Drug prescriptions.
100,000+ die in Hospitals each year from infections
10,000+ people die each year from drunk driving, many thousands more are permanently disabled.
Maybe the priorities on this site are a bit backwards…?
You make some good points. Let’s focus on the Ritalin problem for brevity. Parents make that choice. You and I agree that they are making the wrong choice. I would point them to studies showing that 5 periods of vigorous exercise per day is just as effective in controlling real ADD (ignoring the over-diagnosis problem for now) as Ritalin. You and I agree that huge soulless corporations encourage them to make the wrong choice. You and I probably disagree that soulless power hungry government agents are going to be better that soulless money grubbing corporations. (It is easier to come up with money that to come up with an army, and yes money often works with government agents also, but let’s not go there.) In fact, it is institutional schooling, government schools in particular, that finds 5 periods of vigorous exercise per day “impractical” (i.e. Ritalin is for the convenience of the school), but has no problem working in Islamic prayer times.
In short, your diagnosis of these problems seems to be that ordinary people are stupid, but smart educated people like you are not, and your prescription is for people like you to make these decisions for them. But people like you have consigned “ordinary” people to government schools, which effectively force Ritalin on ADD children as well as perfectly healthy but rambunctious children.
While we are on the topic of government schools and Ritalin, a plug for Separation of School and State: http://www.schoolandstate.org
So you are advising people to not go to the doctor or a hospital?
Socialists eugenics. It reminds me of the Nazi socialist party in Germany.
You know what makes me sick? I think it’s been at least 3 months since I’ve learned a single new “fact” about the sickening direction our “health care” is taking, even though I read everything written. We KNOW everything deadly there is to know about this criminal undertaking. More knowledge isn’t helping us.
It’s a sickening feeling: everybody knows there’s been a murder. Everbody knows who the murderer is. Everybody knows the sheriff by his first name. Everybody knows the sheriff isn’t going to arrest the murderer. And nobody can do a blasted thing about it.
But everybody’s sure up to speed on what Mel Gibson said. And why Lebron James moved.
Theodore Dalrymple, who as a retired British psychiatrist is very well acquainted with the National Health Service in Britain, has several scathing articles on the actual functioning of the British health system. They are well worth finding and reading. I would be astonished if they persuaded you that the British system is a desireable one.
One of his very recent articles is particularly relevant to the current David Catron article. He speaks specifically of QALYs, Quality of Life Years, the unit that Donald Berwick seems to favor as the basis for future medical decisions in the USA. You can find Dalrymple’s piece here:
http://www.express.co.uk/features/view/186931
Death Panels… perfectly reasonable when Democrats suggest them (unlike when nasty “racist” Republicans warn about them as a threat to our freedom, of course).
All we need to do is find out where he lives…you know…just like the SEIU.
I guess on some level he must really see himself as royalty. But his treasure isn’t money or jewels as in days past (who knows what money will be worth, anyway), instead it comes in privilege and membership in the club.
Rationing for Thee, but not for Me
Vactioning in the Gulf for you, but in Maine for me.
No carbon footprints from you, but private jet for my little pooch.
He’s been working with the Brits for a while now and he’s been knighted, too – he can’t wait to start dumping his subjects into the ground.
http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/07/08/obamas-socialist-healthcare-knight-in-charge-of-100-million-poor-elderly-and-disabled/
Just another example of the ruling class setting itself above the “small people.”
The man is a disgrace and a fraud.
Obamacare will result in underground health care. Americans will find a way around tyranny.
We will all be criminals soon.
Law breaking citizens are model citizens to tyrants. It gives them license to seize property. Just ask Hugo Chavez.
As Stalin observed: “One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic.” Berwick evidently loves statistics…
Dr. Berwick is not the problem. Once you posit that healthcare is a “right” then society must necessarily pay. And since healthcare resources are finite (and/or the money to pay for them), rationing is inevitable.
Condemming Dr.Berwick is silly…we would likely do the same in his shoes IF we shared his values which I do not. The chief value of healthcare for the elderly is avoidance of suffering. Do you really want to live until you are senile?
Trust me I’m a doctor.
Your question is too simple. Everyone faces death in different ways. My mother was more accepting and slowly drifted away. My father at 90 wanted to live and would have nailed the door shut to keep the grim reaper out. How can a panel possibly consider the consequences of a person’s life and circumstances? And, by the way, everyone of an advanced age is not senile.
Is the following “rationing”?
Gastroenterologist recieves consultation on a senile bedridden 90 year old with blood in her stools. Due to her condition he declines to perform the usual diagnostic tests.
Under current law he might be civilly liable if the patient’s family chose to press the issue.
Actually the above scenario is rare…usually the doctors just go ahead and do everything!
Rationing by discrimination. If you’re not a member of the ‘club’, you’re
toast.
BTW, about ‘racist’. Do you know the origins of ‘racist’? Did you know it’s not
in the dictionary?
Maybe if people knew the origins and agenda behind the invention of ‘racist’,
they would refuse to use it or allow it to gain any momentum in an argument or in accusations. Put it back on the accuser.
“The word “racist” has for a long time been the single most effective fear-word in the leftist and neoconservative arsenal. For decades, they have successfully used it in the political arena to slander traditionalists, shut down debate, and leave opponents running for cover. In the social arena, they have caused even more damage by using it to brainwash impressionable children and young college students, and to teach people to hate their nation, their cultural traditions, and worst of all, themselves.”
http://penetrate.blogspot.com/2010/01/racist-word-invented-by-ussrs-leon.html
The first thing that comes to mind when reading this and seeing the acronym of his organization is that NICE is also the name of the evil organization seeking to put society under its thumb in C.S. Lewis’ book That Hideous Strength, and it was just as prideful and arrogant as he is here.
The coming elections will change nothing. No politican will dismantle the bureacracy. Even Reagan didn’t. It will wait until the Democratic/Communists are re-elected and then continue its march forward. We are all headed to the new dictatorship. There is no one running with the ability to stop the bureacracy, let alone reverse its course.
Good to see the internet waking up to how bad this recess appointment of Berwick is.
This guy needs to be fully vetted. If he is not… than I call for his immediate resignation.
I encourage other Tea Party folks to do the same.
This is *THE* difference between the leftist elites and everyone else. They know damn well that what they’re advocating and creating is anti-human, anti-freedom, anti-liberty, and anti-capitalist and will result in the premature deaths of hundreds of thousands and they want it anyways.
Snake, Snake Plissken! Is that you, Snake? I thought you were dead!
DOCTORS not PANELS make the life and death decisions in the UK SOCIALIST Health Service on their OWN initiative. They write DNR (Do NOT Resuscitate) on the patients chart and any Nurse who disobeys and tries to save the Old Persons from dying is DISCIPLINED.
Coming to a Hospital near you soon Thank you Obama .
BTW one of the main reasons that UK Doctors do not care if Old People live or die is that they dont get paid by the patients they get paid by the STATE no matter what and as the State ALLOWS nay encourages them to let Old People die there is no chance whatsoever of them facing Legal Action.
but what happens today to people in the US if they need expensive care and they don’t have money or insurance?
One can only hope that Mr Berwick needs and receives the same care that John Murtha got. Some would call me mean spirited, but I only wish for Berwick that which he seeks to impose on me.
I agree with the headline’s point that this guy a special class of **** for touting these things while keeping private coverage (although Obamacare, stuck in those 2000+ pages, is full of games to try to control the coverage of even those that keep private care… by bypassing insurance to directly interfere with doctors and their choices)… but I have to say that Medicare has to ration OR it has to be changed. Let’s run through it. It has out of control costs. People don’t make decisions based on costs (because they’re not paying them). Example, someone of these anti cancer drugs cost $100-200,000 but only increase your chance of surviving a few percent… for six months (!). Its an extreme example (I have no doubt they’ll cut corners on good things that only cost $40k but make life much better for people… for years) but it hopefully makes the point that under the current system, some cost benefit analysis has to be done… the other option is to change the current system… I’d much rather simply has a ‘lifetime maximum’ than people like this decide what I can or can not have for my healthcare. Better yet would be a return of more private old age medical insurance but this has real obstacles (expense, private companies going under, Obamacare’s interference, et cetera)… So, I’m not holding my breath for that but the lifetime maximum would be a way to shut out these leftist control freak types. You get X (maybe 3 or so) million to cover your retirement medical care. You decide the best way to use it.
Massachusetts republican candidate for U.S. congress, Harvard Physicist, Mike Stopa comments on Berwick;
Youtube;
“The Darkness of Free Enterprise, Mike Stopa”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27UIzOqCQSY
Gee. Whatever happened to the “Right to Life” provision of the Declaration of Independence?
Yeah, I know, stupid me!
The United States is literally not our country anymore. The current administration and Congress are virtual occupiers, and the American people let them in. Should we ever get rid of these elitists, I wonder how many “Americans” will claim they’d been members of the “Resistance” all along?
This is just another example and another reason why the U.S. government needs to be overthrown by any means possible,and institute another government that actually works by,for and with the American people. As long as these tyrants are allowed to get away with these abuses of power they will. The American people have the numbers to overthrow the government, they just need to learn how to unite and use their numbers to force the current government out of office and out of power.Other nations have done it and so could we the American people,it is not only our right, it is also our duty to do so. None of the policies that the Obama regime has implemented have ever benefitted the American people, and they weren’t designed to. They were only designed to work for and benefit the power elitist who already control most of the money in this nation. All of Obama’s policies are about power and control.
First, we need to make a distinction between those who are in power, Congress, Senate, the Judiciary, the Executive, and Government. Our forefathers gave us a Republic, based upon the God of Isreal’s laws, statues, and judgments. We don’t want to overthrow our government, we need to throw out both the Dems and Repubs who have perverted and castrated our Constitution. As for the ballot box being the only tool we have, that is incorrect.
We need to start on the state level and return our individual states to our Republic roots. Creating A State bank, using gold and silver and other metals. We need to encourage a Biblical, constitutional mind set in the people we elect on the local level. We need to eradicate the statues that have forced Agenda 21 mandates upon our counties, towns and cities.
Donald Berwick and the rest in power are Satan’s Children and have believed the lie he used to tempt our Messiah on the high place about owning the kingdoms of the earth if He would bow down and worship him(Satan).
We need to ask God’s blessing on this endeavor by asking His forgiveness for our disobedience to His Laws, Statutes and Judgments. Turn from our wicked ways, and ask Him, divine Providence, to heal our land. Thomas Jefferson stated that the Liberty Tree need to be watered from time to time with the blood of patriots and traitors. It is time for the Sons of Liberty to rise. All the rallies, marches, emails, petitions, will not change the majorities’ collective mind. Greed, avarice, corruption, every evil thing under the sun, governs these people.
Obama needs to be tried on fraud, treason(he has perjured himself with the oath of Office several times) illegal entry into the country. His whole administration needs to be jailed.
Put on the whole armor of God and stand,