Democrats Vote To Let Elderly Die In Name Of ‘Stimulus’

The so-called “stimulus” package was losing popular support on an almost daily basis until Barack Obama came out in a massive media barrage to support it.  But one thing Obama never seems to mention is the fact that its passage will ration health care to the elderly.

Betsy McCaughey, former lieutenant governor of New York, has uncovered a few unpleasant outcomes for little Suzy’s poor old Grandma if the Generational Theft Act gets passed.  Tom Daschle may be gone, now that folks know that this erstwhile Secretary of Health and Human Services didn’t bother to pay all his Medicare Taxes.  But even though Daschle is gone, his influence has already been built in.

Page numbers in parentheses refer to H.R. 1 EH, pdf version.

Elderly Hardest Hit

Daschle says health-care reform “will not be pain free.” Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them. That means the elderly will bear the brunt.

Medicare now pays for treatments deemed safe and effective. The stimulus bill would change that and apply a cost- effectiveness standard set by the Federal Council (464).

The Federal Council is modeled after a U.K. board discussed in Daschle’s book. This board approves or rejects treatments using a formula that divides the cost of the treatment by the number of years the patient is likely to benefit. Treatments for younger patients are more often approved than treatments for diseases that affect the elderly, such as osteoporosis.

In 2006, a U.K. health board decreed that elderly patients with macular degeneration had to wait until they went blind in one eye before they could get a costly new drug to save the other eye. It took almost three years of public protests before the board reversed its decision.

Hidden Provisions

If the Obama administration’s economic stimulus bill passes the Senate in its current form, seniors in the U.S. will face similar rationing. Defenders of the system say that individuals benefit in younger years and sacrifice later.

The stimulus bill will affect every part of health care, from medical and nursing education, to how patients are treated and how much hospitals get paid. The bill allocates more funding for this bureaucracy than for the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force combined (90-92, 174-177, 181).

Hiding health legislation in a stimulus bill is intentional. Daschle supported the Clinton administration’s health-care overhaul in 1994, and attributed its failure to debate and delay. A year ago, Daschle wrote that the next president should act quickly before critics mount an opposition. “If that means attaching a health-care plan to the federal budget, so be it,” he said. “The issue is too important to be stalled by Senate protocol.”

McCaughey also says:

The bill’s health rules will affect “every individual in the United States” (445, 454, 479). Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system. Having electronic medical records at your fingertips, easily transferred to a hospital, is beneficial. It will help avoid duplicate tests and errors.

But the bill goes further. One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.” According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and “learn to operate less like solo practitioners.”

Of the digitizing and electronic filing of every single American, Rush Limbaugh has this:

Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system.  Now, there are arguments back and forth about whether or not this is a good thing.  The opportunity for the loss of privacy is huge here by digitizing and making everybody’s health care records computerized, especially having a major federal database where everybody’s health records are.  Some people say this is a good thing because it will assist in treatment, particularly in emergencies.

That’s what they used to sell this, but (laughs) ask Alex Rodriguez about privacy.  There are 104 names on this list from 2003 of people who tested positive for steroids in a year it was legal.  Only his name gets released of the 104.  The players union was supposed to destroy the list, and they didn’t.  They had a reason for it, but they botched their philosophy. Their theory got confounded. So somebody who’s got it in for Alex Rodriguez released his name to Sports Illustrated, four or five different people, and so now he’s been tarnished with the steroids thing just as a lot of other players — Barry Bonds and others — have.  This notion that privacy can exist particularly in a politicized Washington is a bit of a… I’m doubtful about it, but there are some people who like the idea.  Anyway, this bill computerizes everybody’s health records.  Then after everybody health records are computerized, this new bureaucracy is created, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology.

It’s ironicly fitting that Alex Rodriguez’s privacy would be destroyed on the same day that the Senate debates a bill that would subject every single American to the same risk.  But this isn’t just about embarrasment.

Imagine this: the government, which is going to ration health care and make decisions on the basis of saving money, will have total access to your records.  Is there not a gigantic conflict of interest here?  If the government takes over health care, then this is every bit as serious of a problem as it would be for your insurance company to have full access to your genetic screening.  Do you not see how someone with a genetic predisposition to a serious condition could be written out of coverage by the government before he or she is even aware of the potential health problem?

Several years ago, I watched a sermon by D. James Kennedy.  He quoted Proverbs 8:36 – “But he who sins against me [God’s wisdom] injures himself; All those who hate me love death” – and linked the logical mentality of abortion to that of euthenasia and the overall culture of death overtaking our society.  In a chilling prediction, Kennedy said, “Watch out, Grandpa!  Because the generation that survived abortion will come after you!”

And now it’s time for Grandma and Grandpa to pay the piper.  The same embrace of death as a solution to the myriad “crises” that resulted in the extermination of more than 50 million babies in the United States will soon result in the death by abandonment of medical resources .  And, of course, it will simply be Grandma and Grandpa’s moral duty to “die with dignity.”

If you are a senior citizen or about to become one any time soon, realize that Democrat Senators are voting to let you die as part of their ‘stimulus’ package.

And if not, realize that Democrats are preparing to come after Grandma and Grandpa’s health care to bring down the cost burden of their socialized medicine.

Updated February 11 to insert following:

MEDICAL ‘RATION’ WARNING

By CARL CAMPANILE

Last updated: 2:45 am
February 11, 2009

Patient treatment could be restricted and health-care rationed under a provision in the economic-stimulus legislation, critics say.

A $3 billion Health Information Technology system included in the bill calls for all Americans’ medical records to be computerized by 2014.

President Obama says the plan will help bolster medical care, reduce errors and cut costs.

But critics see it as a power grab advancing socialized medicine by vesting more power over health care in the federal government.

The National Coordinator of Health Information Technology will oversee implementation.

The health-care package approved by Congress states HIT will provide “appropriate information to help guide medical decisions.”

Former New York Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey blew the whistle on the measure in an analysis for Bloomberg News, arguing the goal of the new program is “to reduce costs and ‘guide’ your doctor’s decisions.”

“Keeping doctors informed of the newest medical findings is important,” she said, “but enforcing uniformity goes too far.”

McCaughey’s withering critique was credited with helping scuttle Bill and Hillary Clinton’s health-care plan in the 1990s.

The American Medical Association has endorsed Obama’s plan, saying the measure prohibits the federal government from establishing national medical guidelines for doctors.

– the bill calls for all Americans’ medical records to be computerized by 2014

– HIT will provide “appropriate information to help guide medical decisions.”

– the goal of the new program is “to reduce costs and ‘guide’ your doctor’s decisions.”

“Time to kiss your Grammy goodbye, kids. The government has decided she isn’t worth keeping alive any more.”

Be afraid.  Be very, very afraid.