They Won’t Pull the Plug on Grandma — There Won’t Be a Plug To Pull
“Pulling the plug” is shorthand for denying otherwise available health care. It covers a multitude of possibilities, from taking Granny off life support, to denying such support in the first place, to denying all of us the benefits of existing medical technology without which our lives would be short, brutal, and nasty.
Actually, Thomas Hobbes said that about a society with too little government. Too much government can make it even worse.
According to President Obama, all the nasty things being said about ObamaCare are lies, spread by the enemies of “change” and those disrespectful of the late lamented Senator Kennedy, whose iconic status may be worth a lot. This has nothing to do with the merits of ObamaCare. President Obama also says that he and God are partners on health care — maybe his divine partner is Phobos, the God of Fear. Phobos has been very busy with climate change, but apparently has limitless time and energy.
Lacking divine advice, I don’t understand what ObamaCare means. Neither, I suspect, does anyone else.
Among many other things, HR 3200 provides for a comparative effectiveness research group. The research group was created as part of the stimulus package and includes the well-known Ezekiel J. Emanuel, and it may or may not decide when, whether, and how to pull lots more plugs than Granny’s. The euphemism “rationing” may well mean the same thing; as under the Oregon plan, it would be dreadful.
Although there may be no need to get all wee-weed up, explained by the White House press secretary to mean “bedwetting,” it would be best for all sides to try to understand what the various proposals actually say. Any bill which eventually passes will have consequences unknown to most of us and unanticipated even by those who vote for it. The focus should be on anticipating and avoiding those consequences — particularly the bad ones.
This is not an easy task.
According to an article in the New York Times, Mr. Obama has been unable to dispel the concerns of older Americans because the health care bills in Congress are long, complex, and evolving.
Moreover, if a bill becomes law, no one can say for sure how it may be applied or extended.
The key words are “bills” (plural) and “evolving” — contradictory promises and changes are being made daily. For example, a $10 billion “reinsurance program” has been added to benefit union and corporate health insurance funds. Nobody, not even President Obama, knows what the legislation would say or, more importantly, what it would mean or what impact it would have, for good or ill.
In these circumstances, the best that President Obama has been able to say is that these things don’t really matter. We must trust him! When someone says “trust me, I wouldn’t lie to you,” my first thought is that he is about to lie to me some more.
The important thing seems to be to “rahm” something, anything (except one of the three Republican-sponsored bills which have attracted little notice) through Congress so that President Obama can sign and claim credit for it. Something must pass. If it proves to be worse than nothing, that won’t become clearly apparent for months. President Obama and his party will find lots of others to blame; they have lots of practice. But it may also be too late to repair the damage.
Rep. John Conyers Jr., Michigan Democrat and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, thinks it’s ludicrous to expect members of Congress to read legislation before voting:
I love these members, they get up and say, “Read the bill.” What good is reading the bill if it’s a thousand pages and you don’t have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?
He might have a point if fewer than two days and insufficient lawyers were available. However, there are more than enough (probably too many) lawyers, and civilization won’t come to a screeching end if more than two days are devoted to understanding legislation and voting on it. If it stinks, it should be voted down and further efforts made until something that doesn’t stink evolves. The fearsome “Gotta Do It Right Now” monster took control when the “stimulus package” was voted upon. If that debacle didn’t demonstrate the need for more time and thought then nothing will. The “Gotta Do It Right” monster needs to assert himself.
On the upside, your doctor will either be Doogie Howser, M.D. offering you the red pill or the blue pill or Doctors Cheech & Chong prescribing you some really ‘killer’ weed. Oh happiness!
There are lies and then there are damned lies. Obama and his lame defense of the Health Debacle Bill use damned lies to deceive the public. With the lack of effectiveness of the Less Than Stimulating Stimulus Bill, the lucidity or perspicuity of voting on unread bills drafted by the Marxists Obama is installing around him on a regular basis is an exercise in absurdity.
Trusting Marxists in general is also an absurd concept. We want to avoid feeling like Carter when he complained that the Russian Premier lied to him and sounding like a disillusioned boy whose girl friend has dumped him. Te echoes of an impotent Stimulus bill designed to enrich Obama’s faithful at the expense of Americans yet unborn.
To believe Obama has compassion for the American people is to be deluded to the point of incompetency. Health Care Reform is for the sole purpose of Marxism to wrap its tentacles around an ever increasing portion of the American Economy. Anyone who supports this bill or the president is a member of the Marxist Front, either knowingly or in a duped state of denial. Either way is immaterial, if we submit we will be accepting the yoke of Communism and redistributing our wealth as a country and as individuals to the benefactors of Marxism.
Personally, I love Freedom and Liberty, I refuse to accept the chains of Marxist slavery because some dimwitted and envious faux Americans want to follow Obama and his lunacy toward the Utopian visions of a group of Marxist Morons. Marxist Morons who are anxious to set themselves up as the Elites of an Orwellian Dystopia, Elites who live in wealth and luxury while the rest of us accept the prosperity of a Third World Nation. Do you feel the initial stages?
It is called creeping Communism, it is implemented in incremental stages, otherwise people would be in the streets. The Obama Marxists have the benefit of having watched Marxism being installed many times around the world. They plan to gradually consolidate power and control, until one day we wake up and say, “What happened to my country!”
Tort reform, tort reform, tort reform. There is no hope that costs will be lower without this.
Obama, get your hands off my health care! Enough of your “rules for thee, not for me”.
The Democrat Party is a criminal enterprise.
Why doesn’t Obama and his democrats just cut to the chase: Put Dr. Kevorkian in charge of Universal Health Care when it is imposed. He’s unemployed, a doctor, experienced, and embodies the philosophy of the democrats. Plus, he has been to jail!That is a definate resume enhancer if you are a democrat.
To administer a really good nationalized health care program, Obama needs the following kind of person in charge:
1. An active, or former, medical doctor;
2. Someone experienced in end-of-life issues;
3 A cool hand who always keeps his eye on the bottom line;
4. A compassionate liberal.
I wonder if Dr. Kevorkian is available.
From the NYT
…Long-term care constitutes a difficult and expensive challenge in any health system. But the American patchwork, full of cracks through which people fall, has a special problem with medical expenses of all kinds bankrupting couples.
A study reported in The American Journal of Medicine this month found that 62 percent of American bankruptcies are linked to medical bills. These medical bankruptcies had increased nearly 50 percent in just six years. Astonishingly, 78 percent of these people actually had health insurance, but the gaps and inadequacies left them unprotected when they were hit by devastating bills.
M. still helps her husband and, quietly, continues to live with him and care for him. But she worries that the authorities will come after her if they realize that they divorced not because of irreconcilable differences but because of irreconcilable medical bills. There were awkward questions from friends who saw the divorce announcement in the newspaper.
“It’s just crazy,” she said. “It twists people like pretzels.”
The existing system doesn’t just break up families, it also costs lives. A 2004 study by the Institute of Medicine, a branch of the National Academy of Sciences, found that lack of health insurance causes 18,000 unnecessary deaths a year. That’s one person slipping through the cracks and dying every half an hour.
In short, it’s a good bet that our existing dysfunctional health system knocks off far more people than an army of “death panels” could — even if they existed, worked 24/7 and got around in a fleet of black helicopters.
So, for those of you inclined to believe the worst about President Obama, think it through. Suppose he is indeed a secret, foreign-born Muslim agent who is scheming to undermine American family values while killing off as many grandmothers as possible.
If all that were true, why on earth would he be trying so hard to reform our health care system? We already know how to prod families into divorce and take a life unnecessarily every 30 minutes — all we need to do is reject reform and stick with exactly what we have.
“It’s time for President obama to be honest…..”????
I’m sorry.
Drunk drivers charged with manslaughter will plead nolo contendre when faced with the facts about their situation. So might murderers. But obama? Believe your lying eyes: it won’t matter what the subject matter is.
No one can honestly believe that President obama has the moral capacity to be honest.
He’s the ultimate liar. He has lied and misrepresented (by both omission and comission) for so long about so many things (including his own TWO autobiographies!) that he habitually lies even when it’s not necessary.
Even if he were telling the truth, no one would know it. Especially those who know him best. You can’t negotiate with a liar.
Hotpatch (6) delivers some interesting points.
”
To administer a really good nationalized health care program, Obama needs the following kind of person in charge:
1. An active, or former, medical doctor;
2. Someone experienced in end-of-life issues;
3 A cool hand who always keeps his eye on the bottom line;
4. A compassionate liberal.
I wonder if Dr. Kevorkian is available.”
The first three points are agreeable.
The fourth is the satirical point. Liberal has nothing to do with it.
Of course a practicing doctor or other medic, is very experienced in end of life issues. So, points 1 and 2 are essentialy the same thing.
Point 3 is also the same thing. Cool hands are required if you are going to be in this business and expect to survive. People are mortal in the best of hands.
Point 4 requires compassion. Again an obvious point. You do not belong here without compassion.
To be liberal I do not understand. That is a political term and does not hinge upon the requirements of experience, coolness under pressure, and compassion. All of those are good points.
Medics need to maintain a certain distance from politics. The person next to you may be an avowed commie-socialist-gay-married-whatever. If you can get the tube in the right place you are my hero.
To throw another log into the fire. Kevorkian had a point. Because of that there are sometimes things that happen in a better way and I have seen that in my own family.
I would suggest that maybe American medicine is a bit over the top. We often do things because we can, which does not always impact so well in terms of the outcome.
Key to progress is keeping government as far to the periphery as possible. Last thing we want is more oversight and appointed ‘experts’ to decide all of the parameters.
I would appreciate more government funding. We all have our own lists of where that should go.
Anyway lets just agree that this is not the time. Nobody, including myself, really understands where this should go in actual terms.
Diagnostic Radiologist signs off on the case.
Three month follow-up exam recommended.
Spindok
Conyers has a point- this bill is way too complicated. Greta van Sustran is a lawyer, and she couldn’t make heads or tails of this bill. If a lawyer can’t understand what the bill says, we need to scrap the bill and start over.
Phobos is his PR guy. Hades is his partner.
Actually, Hobbes said life would be “poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” We’re getting there. Faster now than before.
Kevorkian does have a point. I do not want government (or society) to force me to stay alive when my condition has become unbearable. If I wish to end my life with someone else’s assistance, that is my business and not the government’s or any other ‘well meaning’ busybody.
Albert,
I have always considered divorce-in-name-only as a viable option when medical bills get too extreme. The healthy partner gets the assets, the sick one declares bankruptcy, and gets Medicaid to pay the costs.