DEATH PANEL TO OBAMACARE
We're Pulling the Plug
by Ed Ross
August 24, 2009
The Democrat’s second attempt to nationalize healthcare in the United States is on life support. The patient’s vital signs are weak, and the death panel is about to pull the plug.
When Sarah Palin coined the term ‘death panel’ in one of the now-frequent commentaries on her
They’re right; but then, Palin never said there were. What she did is use one of the oldest and most effective political tricks in the book; and it worked. She used an attention-getting phrase to create an ominous image that resonated with the American people and drew their attention to questionable sections of House bill H.R. 3200.
Section 1233 provides for government-funded end-of-life counseling. When Democrats were for it before they were against it--they said they would take the provision out after Palin’s comment--it was only intended to educate the elderly about living-wills, hospice, and palliative care options.
As Charles Krauthammer points out in his August 21 column, “Let’s Be Honest About Death Counseling,” living-wills are almost always superseded by what family members believe the person really wants when the time comes. And “It's not an outrage. It's surely not a death panel. But it is subtle pressure applied by society through your doctor. And when you include it in a health care reform whose major objective is to bend the cost curve downward, you have to be a fool or a knave to deny that it's intended to gently point you in a certain direction, toward the corner of the sick room where stands a ghostly figure, scythe in hand, offering release.”
Section 123 establishes a panel of medical and other experts to be known as the Health Benefits Advisory Committee “to recommend covered benefits.” You can’t have a “public-option,” government-run health care program without rules that cover what it will pay for and what it won’t. But H.R. 3200 would greatly increase the demand for healthcare services, reduce their supply, and subvert the private healthcare insurance system. The result would be cost increases, long delays, and rationing, like those we see in the Canadian and British healthcare systems. To paraphrase Krauthammer, it’s not a death panel, but you’d have to be a fool not to recognize the implications.
No, there are no death panels in the Democrat's healthcare proposals before Congress, but there is one that consists of millions of American voters. They have the ultimate power of political life or death in the United States, and they are about to use it to kill Obamacare by influencing how their senators and representatives vote.
In townhall meetings across the country Americans have spoken up loudly and clearly, leaving Democrats, unable to effectively explain or defend their healthcare reform legislation, in disarray.
Congressional Democrats quickly dropped the end-of-life counseling provision rather than debate it.
Obama administration officials, such as Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, indicated that a “public option” wasn’t an essential element of the administration’s healthcare reform agenda. She quickly reversed herself, however, when liberal Democrats in Congress said they wouldn’t vote for any plan that didn’t have a public option.
Some
President Obama, whose leadership on healthcare reform has been questioned by people on all sides of the debate, attempted to change the subject. He said it's a moral imperative to provide healthcare for all and blamed Republicans for a conspiracy to undermine healthcare reform. The White House didn't help Obama's case, however, when they announced, just as the president left on vacation, that the national deficit over the next 10 years would be $9 trillion, not $7 trillion, and that does not include the $1.6 trillion healthcare reform would add to it.
Many expect that when Congress reconvenes after the summer recess it will get down to business and work out a compromise bill that can pass the House and Senate with bipartisan support. That would mean dropping the public option and other aspects of H.R. 3200 that Republicans and most Americans find unacceptable. Obama can’t afford a defeat on healthcare, the pundits argue, and he will settle for far less than he wants so he can claim victory and move on.
Perhaps they will, but it's best to start from scratch rather than try to fix a bill that's fatally flawed. As long as H.R. 3200 is on the table, healthcare reform Americans can believe in is not likely to emerge. Congress needs to throw it out and concentrate on practical and effective measures, such as tort reform and the ability to buy health insurance across state lines, that will fix the US healthcare system without cloning one with a disease.
The patient may show some signs of improvement in the weeks ahead; there are people willing to use every possible procedure to keep it alive, regardless of the consequences. As a registered member of the death panel, I vote with the majority. Let the patient die. The disease is fatal, and it’s costing the American people too much to keep it alive.
COPYRIGHT © Edward W. Ross 2009, All Rights Reserved
