Sep 03 2009
Death Panels? What Death Panels?
Liberals are so clueless to what they are trying to push on health care they refuse to understand what government rationed (e.g., ‘cost savings’) health care is. They idiotically claim their are no ‘death panels’ or ‘rationing’ in their ‘public option’ – but then again I know of no law that specifies ‘clueless bureaucrat’, ‘mountains of paperwork’, or ‘shyster lawyers’. It seems the poor saps on the far left can’t understand the concept of a descriptive moniker.
But the process of of cutting costs by restricting care for those in need and forcing some panel to chose who will be worthy of treatment does exist. Just look at the current ‘cost savings’ from Team Obama and who it targets:
You didn’t read this in your local paper, but 2010 could be a catastrophic year for elderly heart and cancer patients. Bloomberg News reports that President Obama has proposed cutting $1.4 billion in Medicare payments to heart and cancer specialists.
Does anyone want to  bet there will be more or fewer retiring Baby Boomers on Medicare next year? Do you suppose those aging Boomers will see increasing or decreasing rates of heart issues and cancer? I mean this is pretty simple stuff here, is there a valid reason to be cutting back here? Will reducing the number specialists who deal with the elderly on heart and cancer conditions, while the population of elderly is expanding at historic rates, make it easier or harder for the elderly to be seen and get treatment? Do delays in treatment make conditions better or worse?
Why isn’t anyone asking the basic questions here?
One of the first government rationed health care systems is in the UK – created after World War II. It is so strapped for money with its aging Boomers that it is selecting who is worthy of treatment every day (those mythical death panels), with one proposal lumping the sin of growing old in with those social miscreants who are overweight, smoking and drinking:
Smokers, heavy drinkers, the obese and the elderly should be barred from receiving some operations, according to doctors, with most saying the health service cannot afford to provide free care to everyone.
While this is a proposal, overweight people and smokers are being denied care – and dying. Drudge has a banner headline proving again that there are ‘death panels’ in the UK National Health Service:
In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, a group of experts who care for the terminally ill claim that some patients are being wrongly judged as close to death.
Under NHS guidance introduced across England to help doctors and medical staff deal with dying patients, they can then have fluid and drugs withdrawn and many are put on continuous sedation until they pass away.
But this approach can also mask the signs that their condition is improving, the experts warn.
But look at the fiscal side, they are cutting the costs of expensive care.
Beyond the ignorance and denial on the left to the downside of cost cutting through government rationed health care is that I find, when I read the liberals’ posts and comments on this subject, their primary concern is for someone to pay for their health care for them. They are willing to sentence thousands of people to the whims of a faceless bureaucracy focused on cost savings to save THEM some money. Personally I find that offensive.
I am all for reforms that make health care affordable and accessible (especially getting rid of the precondition barriers), but we have been taking care of our health care costs and I think it is a responsibility (not a right) to have health care. It is our responsibility just like putting a roof over our heads, feeding ourselves and clothing ourselves. I would never think I have a right to pick someone else’s pockets (through taxes and government give -aways) to take care of my family.
We may need help once in a while, and I am all for helping those with severe conditions or situations, but that is not what this is about (though people wave that around as if no one can get health treatments at all – which is a lie). The left lost this fight on day one, since government rationed health care has been rejected by this country for decades. It is not wanted here – get a clue.
As of today, those who carry Medical Insurance pay 130% of cost for those not insured, and those under insured (like those on government programs, medicare, medicaid, VA, S-CHIP’S programs). So we the insured are keeping afloat the medical care delivery system for the country. The country need us to buy insurance, any program that discourages us from buying insurance dooms our medical care for everyone else.
Its not just the liberals that are bashing the idea of death panels and rationing. Chucky and his dunces on LGF are also doing the same.
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/tag/Death+Panel
Social security…worker-to-retiree ratio…
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1950… [16 to 1]
1990… about 100 workers per 30 [3 to1]
Next 20 years… Maybe 100 workers per 45 retirees… [barely 2 to 1]
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And… going south as birth rates drop or stay low and people get healthier and/or live longer… Or does anyone believe that Americans will have extra babies [workers] in the future?? Nope… That will be one or two babies per woman, I think… NOT more…
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Social Securilty…Sad to say, I think unsustainable…
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Just like my 71 years old Medicare benefits… I like to say to young people… ” I want to thank you very much for the extensive and wonderful benefits I enjoy which won’t be available when you grow old…”
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In other words, over time, the system will break… Britain has reached this point approximately NOW… in 2009… It will get worse…
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Chat & opine and obaminate all we want… Numbers are numbers… math is math…
I find no realistic solution over time…
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I leave you pessimistically in the extreme… Sry, youngsters…
A random thought… I hear so many times a politician or commentator say… “Something” has to be done [about Social Security… Medicare… Terrorists… Drugs… etc. ]
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What if “something” doesn’t exist?
One has to wonder if the brits are not disclosing all the dirty relaities of a nationalized system on purpose to sink this bill and open the discussion about privatizing their NHS after the Torries winn next year….
I’ve linked to your post from Health Information Technology – Doctors Grade for approved care
AJ,
Here is what you are missing from the “liberals” response to claims of death panels in the health care proposals.
Seniors are already covered by a government run program – Medicare. Medicare is a single-payer system, which is even more progressive and socialist than the public option being discussed. Medicare already employs the same types of “rationing” you claim will happen if we adopt a public option plan, refusing to pay for certain procedures, and yet seniors have not been left to die and appear to be happy with the program. So claims that the government will allow seniors to die simply because they are too expensive to care for are contrary to the last 45 years of Medicare and seniors will still be covered by Medicare even if we adopt a public option system.
Private insurers have been rationing care for years. Private insurers will not insure certain pre-existing conditions, which means that Americans with the most serious medical conditions have the most difficult time getting insurance. It has been well documented that private insurers look for ways to deny claims, refuse to authorize certain procedures or rescind policies after-the-fact to save money. Why is it that you assume the government will allow people to die if it is too expensive, but a private for-profit insurer whose in the business of making a profit and has a fiduciary obligation to its shareholders to maximize profits won’t try to cut costs as well? If private insurance is so great, then why are so many Americans demanding health care reform?
Those pushing the public option are not doing so solely to ensure coverage for the 50 million Americans that don’t have it. They are pushing for it primarily because the current system is unsustainable due to rising costs. We currently spend 17% of our GDP on health care, well above all other industrial countries despite the fact that they insure 100% and we only ensure about 80%. Those costs are continuing to rise and are expected to reach 20% of GDP in 10 years. Almost everyone agrees that Medicare costs are unsustainable, which means that either it will bankrupt our country or it will not be available for our generation. Given that all other industrialized countries have some form of government insurance program and substantially lower health care costs, there is a pretty good basis for assuming that a public option will lower costs. In contrast, forcing private insurers to cover all pre-exisiting conditions, as you suggest, will simply result in higher premuims for everyone.
Your continuous claim that we shouldn’t adopt a public option because the UK system is so bad its laughable. The UK system is a totally different than what is being proposed here. The UK system is more like the VA system here – the government actually runs the hospitals itself. Nobody is proposing this type of system. The public option system is more similar to Germany and Japan, which have far superior health care than the UK. And while you repeat the same two or three anecdotal stories of individuals being denied coverage (I could provide you hundreds of such anecdotal stories with our private system), you ignore the statistics. If the UK system was so much worse than ours, wouldn’t you expect mortality and average life expectancy to be much worse? In fact it is higher than in the US. So for someone who claims to be such a brilliant mathmetician, what is more statistically relevant – two or three anecdotal stories or statistical data of the entire population?
Toes:
The baby boomers will be the first generation to get Medicare, who actually spent their working lives paying for it.