In his Best of the Web column today in the Wall Street Journal, James Taranto links to an appalling story in the Washington Examiner involving ObamaCare maven Kathleen Sebelius:
“Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius rebuffed an appeal from Rep. Lou Barletta on behalf of a girl who needs a lung transplant but can’t get one because of a federal regulation that prevents her from qualifying for a transplant,” the Washington Examiner reports:
“Please, suspend the rules until we look at this policy,” Barletta, a Pennsylvania Republican, asked Sebelius during a House hearing Tuesday on behalf of Sarah Murnaghan, a 10-year-old girl who needs a lung transplant. She can’t qualify for an adult lung transplant until the age of 12, according to federal regulations, but Sebelius has the authority to waive that rule on her behalf. The pediatric lungs for which she currently qualifies aren’t available.
“I would suggest, sir, that, again, this is an incredibly agonizing situation where someone lives and someone dies,” Sebelius replied. “The medical evidence and the transplant doctors who are making the rule–and have had the rule in place since 2005 making a delineation between pediatric and adult lungs, because lungs are different that other organs–that it’s based on the survivability [chances].”
Remember when PolitiFact named “death panels” the “Lie of the Year”? Turns out they were dead right. After all, Kathleen Sebelius isn’t a panel.
It’s too grim a story to add the usual Insta-heh here. Particularly since, Ace of Spades writes in response, “Drudge may or may not have overplayed this — but this sure seems like a preview into the future, where all decisions about life and death are made by bureaucrats, and, hence, are naturally swayable by political processes.”
Welcome to the Matrix, as a key corporate backer of ObamaCare would say:
[jwplayer config=”pjmedia_eddriscoll” mediaid=”73055″]
(Headline via Portmeirion’s most famous resident.)
Join the conversation as a VIP Member