27. July 2009 05:00
Brushfire of Freedom
The Irritable Pundit
In a recent post on healthcare ( http://sparks.brushfireoffreedom.org/post/2009/07/20/The-Greatest-Danger.aspx ) I mentioned the following:
Sacrifice of the elderly:
The phrase "NWT" (Not Worth Treating) will soon become the proactive state-decided pre-DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) for senior citizens.
Then I doubled-down and mentioned it being similar to "Logan's Run", a movie where anyone older than "X" had to commit suicide at a government-run facility. Apparently, this analogy has caused a bit of commotion beyond the usual about Farrah Fawcett's too-short appearance. One particular liberal acquaintance could barely contain his sputtering outrage. What was I thinking?! How could I say that?!
Well, to be frank, I can say it for a few reasons.
Obama mentioned giving pain pills to an elderly woman instead of a pacemaker, as possibly a better option under his plan. (LA Times Story)
His various czars and advisors are floating constant trial balloons regarding rationing and lowering the expense of "end of life" care. (John Goodman Blog)
3) Common sense.
That last one deserves a bit of explanation. The only way to allow a government takeover of healthcare and still lower healthcare costs is to either lower/limit expenses for seniors or enact serious tort reform (stop the lawsuit lottery). Obama owes the trial lawyers as much as he did the unions for electing him, so there is little danger that tort reform will occur (please note who owns GM now). Which only leaves "senior citizens" as the fall guys. And there will be no exceptions, "No, means no" as (per Obama) there will be set rules with no "subjective" decisions.
The problem is that medicine is subjective, with many judgment calls made by doctors for a particular patient's needs. That is why medicine is an art as much as a science. Well, it was anyway. Not anymore, not for the elderly.
Hey AARP! Still happy you backed the Democratic candidate? How is that "Hope & Change" working out for you? Here, let me fire up Photoshop and give you something to send to all of your members, just to ease the transition. Go ahead, forward it to the millions who are about to be told "no". I wonder what your rank and file will feel about the "Change" they have coming?
No thanks are necessary. I am happy to help!
IP
PS. To my fellow bloggers, please feel free to use the JPG/story what-have-you, but host it on your bandwidth and give our little blog a link please. It keeps Ram happy. :)