Something not being considered, or at least much talked about, with Obamacare is what effect it may have on the National Crime Rate.
Midnight Rider's really hit the bottle hard this time you say.
Nay, says I. Consider.
The Death Panels (yes yes I know they dropped it in the Senate. We'll see about that) determine someone's mother or grandfather or spouse or son or daughter is not worth the expense it will take to keep that loved one alive. Because they are too old or too sick or disabled or what have you.
How long, how much would it take, until a normally reasonable father is pushed to the edge, facing the loss of a son daughter or wife, and decides to take matters as well as a gun into his own hands and rob the pharmacy of the medicines needed, threaten the physician to write the prescription, perform the care.
And how much would it take for him to pull that trigger on the doctor or Death Panelist if his loved one dies because care was arbitrarily denied, when it was felt that it would be better to talk about how they would prepare to die instead of how they would stay alive.
The anger and vitriol we see at the town halls now is nothing compared to what America may face, what it may turn loose, if Obamacare goes through and our loved ones start dying off needlessly just so Obama can meet the bottom line.
Then whose hands will that blood be on?
9 comments:
What's the name of that film with Denzel Washington? The one where he takes the hospital hostage?
I don't know. I don't think I ever saw it.
John Q
This may be an unimportant consideration but this topic brought it to mind...how does this plan affect prisoners? Individuals in penal institutions have til now (I think) received a pretty acceptable level of care, including cancer treatments, etc. Are their lives going to be judged at a different level than the very young or the very old when it comes to sickness? For example, will a target age (18-40 say) incarcerated gang banging murderer needing expensive extreme care measures be given a better level of consideration than say...a retired, elderly citizen ( say 75) who has faithfully contributed to society through their taxes and personal lives all along, who has the same condition and needs? (Sorry for the run-on sentences). Any thoughts?
Anonymous,
You have a good point.
I suppose that the plus side is that Charles Manson might be allowed to die instead of receiving treatment.
But that's not what you meant, is it?
I can't imagine that ObamaCare would "discriminate" against prisoners -- particularly young ones.
I'll tell you what, when my wife was in labor with our first daughter, she was dilated and ready to give birth for close to 24 hours, and her pulse rate began to drop, and the doctors continued to try to push for "natural childbirth" rather than go to the extra expense of a Caeserean Section (sp?).
It took a major display of anger on my part, before they finally did the C-section.
Insurance companies do ration healthcare.
But, ultimately, you have a Doctor bound by the Hippocratic Oath as an intermediary between you and the corporate bureaucracy.
I do not believe the Doctors would be allowed to make such decisions were the government to be involved. I think such decisions would be made by bureaucratic commitee (i.e. Death Panels), who would make the decisions based purely upon a cost/benefit analysis.
In other words, I believe that under a government arbitrated healthcare system, my wife and first child would likely be dead.
Am I crazy? Hey, that's left up to you all to decide.
As to your larger point, MR, if the Doctor would not have gone along with my demands, I would have put my hands around his throat and began choking the life out of him, if that's what it would have taken.
Pastorius, the Criminal.
In America we do have death panels. They are called insurance companies. We also already have people who commite crime to get drugs that the insurance companies won't pay for. Every time the insurance companies let someone die to save money, they always talk about their duty to the shareholders. Wouldn't you rather have access to the people who make these descisions just as you do your congressmen rather than some faceless executive who will simply leave the country when things get bad? The fantasy here is that all of these things are not happening already and somehow, public health care will be the first step.
We don't have access to our politicians now. I have choices in health care now. I will no longer have those when the government is running things.
Under this proposed plan, (in conjunction with the Comparative Effectiveness crap in the stimulus which was passed earlier this year), there is to be a federal database with all your (and everyone's) medical information in it. The Dr. then accesses that information, and checks to see whether his or her plan for your medical treatment is approved by the government board. NO RECOURSE.
If the Dr. doesn't want to use the database, there are unspecified "penalties" for the Dr.
Do you get this??? The government wants your money, your freedom and now it wants your body, too. Your actual, physical body. Not just your freedom of speech, or of your assembly, or your food choices.
Also, health care is a service, not a right. They should de-regulate the industry, allow people to save more in HSAs, let insurance be portable across state lines, allow insurance companies to sell multi-year policies, allow policies to be tailored based more on lifestyle needs, etc.
Let's try the obvious, easy, non-tyrannical things before we allow them to strip us of our privacy, our money and our medicine.
Ro
Mike,
You came here and commented. However, I doubt you read any of the other comments here. And, I doubt you read our website very often, because we clearly acknowledge that insurance companies are already rationing and that terrible things happen.
Read my comment on this thread. Read Ro's comment, and then, instead of dropping a turd into the comments section here, perhaps we could actually have a discussion.
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