December 04, 2009
Cannibalizing America
By John Griffing
Americans have gone collectively insane. Like sheep being led to the slaughter,
no one could imagine the terror that is about to be visited on millions of
unsuspecting innocents. The health care bill is an instrument of selective
death. Seniors will be prematurely sacrificed so that millions of poor Americans
(many of them illegal immigrants) can get mediocre government care.
The health care bill soon to pass the Senate hasn't changed anything but the
packaging. Cuts to Medicare are still a reality, but a bureaucratic Medicare
Commission will indiscriminately make these cuts, and, we're told, not on the
basis of age [i]. In practice, it makes no difference, since those benefiting
from Medicare are seniors. Charged with deciding how to apply $500 billion in
cuts to primary Medicare services, the Medicare Commission will most surely make
decisions that result in rationed care for seniors. It's not conspiracy; it's
simple arithmetic. Less money equals less care.
Other provisions give the new government-funded Patient Center Outcomes Research
Institute power to decide what treatments are "effective," which results in the
ability to recommend cuts in certain types of treatments or services deemed
excessive. This organization is required to cooperate with the Federal
Commission on Comparative Effectiveness Research, of which Ezekiel Emanuel is a
part [ii]. Remember Ezekiel?
Ezekiel Emanuel views the handicapped and the mentally ill as an expendable
commodity, stating that medical care should be reserved for the non-disabled,
not for those "who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming
participating citizens ... An obvious example is not guaranteeing health
services to patients with dementia."
Emanuel's view of seniors is one of blatant disdain. He openly condemns what he
considers antiquated notions of age discrimination. If Emanuel has his way, age
discrimination will become standard practice. As he wrote in Lancet, a prominent
medical journal:
Unlike allocation [of healthcare] by sex or race, allocation by age is not
invidious discrimination; every person lives through different life stages
rather than being a single age. Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over
65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years. Treating
65-year-olds differently because of stereotypes or falsehoods would be ageist;
treating them differently because they have already had more life-years is not
[iii].
Consequently, Emanuel is an advocate of the "complete lives system," whereby
human life is rated on a curve, favoring the younger first and the older last in
treatment. As Emanuel has said:
The complete lives system lets us consider the morally relevant factors at work
in the choice between providing three 60-year-olds with a treatment that would
save their lives for 15 years each or providing it to a 30-year-old and
extending her life by 45 years. Youngest-first and providing individuals a
complete life counsels saving the one [iv].
If Emanuel has his way, to treat or not to treat will become a government -- not
a medical -- decision.
In the new legislation, the Health Secretary is given the virtual power of life
and death over the elderly. Section 3026 provides that those readmitted to
hospitals a certain number of times will be automatically transferred to hospice
care at the discretion of the Secretary, and the quantity and quality of hospice
care received will also be within the Health Secretary's purview [v]. Who needs
a death panel when the Health Secretary can make the call? Morphine will be a
senior citizens' best friend when the Baucus Bill passes.
Sen. Harry Reid, who has no aversion to lying, is doing his part to convince
Americans that there is no alternative and that delay means death. But in actual
fact, the Republicans have offered numerous alternatives, none of them taken
seriously by Democrats, who dismissed these proposals as more of the same. One
of these "nonexistent" Republican proposals suggested an ingenious strategy
whereby people below a certain income threshold would receive tax incentives
towards Health Savings Accounts (HSA). This is hardly a proposal that will lead
to riots in the streets.
Never let it be said that Americans haven't been warned. The health care bill
will turn America into a nation of cannibals, living on the sacrifice of our
elderly so that the disadvantaged can have checkups. We're selling our souls for
a bowl of stew. The Democrats call this "saving Medicare." Americans should call
this travesty an assault on human life.
[i] S. 1796, "America's Healthy Future Act," Section 3403, Introduced in the
Senate 19 Oct. 2009, Library of Congress THOMAS.
[ii] Ibid., Section 3502.
[iii] Govind Persad, Alan Wertheimer, and Ezekiel J. Emanuel, "Principles for
Allocation of Scarce Medical Interventions," (The Lancet, vol. 373, issue 9661).
[iv] Tim Baker, Peter Baker, Afschin Gandjour, Govind Persad, Ezekiel J.
Emanuel, et al., "Ethical Criteria for Allocating Healthcare Resources," (The
Lancet, vol. 373, issue 9673), 1425.
[v] S. 1796, "America's Healthy Future Act," Section 3132, Introduced in the
Senate 19 Oct. 2009, Library of Congress THOMAS.
Page Printed from:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/12/cannibalizing_america.html
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I think I can follow Doctor Emanuel's twisted logic, although I do not support his conclusion. I am old and disabled and receiving Medicare. I believe I have paid a high price for getting this far in life and I'm not done living yet. This scene appears in my head like a not very subtle waiter being obnoxious to force lingering guests to leave a table so he can seat a new party. He doesn't realize that he's going to get a lousy tip. But this isn't a restaurant, this is life, and this isn't diners, this is grouchy, belligerent me.
Hypothetical situation for you doctor: the aged and disabled people that you want to kill off are my peers, the heart of the Vietnam generation. 2.5 million of us went to the war. Many of that number were combat veterans, many of that group had Special Operations experience: SEALs, Special Forces, Marine Recon, Snipers, expert marksmen, etc. Doctor, do you really want to threaten the lives of these people? Do you know what just a few of them could do to you and your comrades, do you realize what many of them could do to you?