Posted on 09/03/2009 7:21:54 PM PDT by altura
There are quite a few problems with the so-called ObamaCare. First of all, socialized (government-run, single-payer, public – you pick your favorite term) nowhere worked as promised. Not even close.
Secondly, the discussions are not conducted in good faith. Proponents are naming a few real and a few imaginary issues and then claim they will solve them if they will get a complete control over medical decisions and over the money flow. It’s snake oil salesmanship at its worst.
What is tangible – unlike the feel-good promises of “taking care” of us if we surrender ourselves – is one thing: some inaccessible bureaucrat will be a judge, jury and an executioner with no possibility of appeal. You’ll pay, but they will decide how to spend money better. And those decisions – consider the heavy government debt – will surely not be medical in nature.
There are real ways to solve problems and there are no less real ways to concentrate power under the guise of solving problems.
I gave the following to my wife - doubt she’ll put it on her page though. Almost makes me tempted to get on Facebook!
“.... for developing a just allocation of health care resources.... Conversely, services provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens are not basic and should not be guaranteed. An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia.”
1996 quote from the chief advisor to the President of the United States on health care - Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel.
Read more at http://www.jeffhead.com/finalsolution.htm
The whole thing may not be going over too well. One of my liberal friends changed it to “Nobody’s cat should...”
My Facebook response was something to the effect of, “No Canadian should die because they can’t get to the US for the best medical care in the world. And no one from Great Britain should have to wait 6 months for knee surgery because government runs their health system.”
OMG, my lib friend just posted that too. Exact words...
mine too.
I’m sorry, but this is unacceptable. I’m very sensitive about cats.
My Headline: “We can get the wait for a hearing aid down from 2 and a half years to JUST 16 weeks!”
From the offical UK parliament record:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmhansrd/vo051220/debtext/51220-02.htm
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con): In July 2004, last year’s Health Minister acknowledged, in response to my concerns, that waiting times for fitting digital hearing aids were extending. Yet 17 months on, the waiting time to see a specialist audiologist and get fitted in my region of the south-east has risen from 58 to 81 weeks. At the Royal Sussex county hospital in Brighton, the worst wait is for 130 weeks—two and a half years. At that rate, many of our elderly constituents will have appointments with the undertaker before they have appointments with the audiologist. When is the Minister going to get a grip on this scandal, particularly given that he could be using hundreds of qualified professionals in the private sector who could be brought on board now at no extra cost?
Mr. Byrne: Let me take the example of the constituency of the hon. Member for Hornchurch (James Brokenshire). We know that waiting lists there could be brought down to just 16 weeks by moving the number of sessions at the local trust from 54 to about 71. That is not an earth-shattering exercise, particularly when we know that an extra £75 million is going into the PCT over the next two years. We have brought down the price, we have put more audiologists in place and we have helped PCTs to use their resources more effectively, so the conditions are in place for waiting lists to fall very quickly over the next 12 months.
More of Zeke’s quotes from Jeffhead.com:
From: Principles of allocation of scarce medical interventions, January 31, 2009
Also see: Deadly Doctors, New York Post, June 24, 2009
“Strict youngest-first allocation directs scarce resources predominantly to infants. This approach seems incorrect. The death of a 20-year-old woman is intuitively worse than that of a 2-month-old girl, even though the baby has had less life. The 20-year-old has a much more developed personality than the infant, and has drawn upon the investment of others to begin as-yet-unfulfilled projects.... Adolescents have received substantial substantial education and parental care, investments that will be wasted without a complete life. Infants, by contrast, have not yet received these investments.... It is terrible when an infant dies, but worse, most people think, when a three-year-old child dies, and worse still when an adolescent does.”
“Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination; every person lives through different life stages rather than being a single age. Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years. Treating 65-year olds differently because of stereotypes or falsehoods would be ageist; treating them differently because they have already had more life-years is not.”
“Ultimately, the complete lives system does not create ‘classes of Untermenschen whose lives and well being are deemed not worth spending money on,’ but rather empowers us to decide fairly whom to save when genuine scarcity makes saving everyone impossible.”
“When implemented, the complete lives system produces a priority curve on which individuals aged between roughly 15 and 40 years get the most substantial chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get chances that are attenuated”
“Every favor to a constituency should be linked to support for the health-care reform agenda. If the automakers want a bailout, then they and their suppliers have to agree to support and lobby for the administration’s health-reform effort.”
From: Journal of the American Medical Association, June 18, 2008
“Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath too seriously, as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of the cost or effects on others”
I got three more of these today. It’s frightening how people I thought were lucid are posting this crap. I’m starting to have fun with it though. Let them see how stupid it is.
No one should starve because they can't afford Arugula, and no one should go broke because Arugula is so expensive. If you agree, please post this as your status for the rest of the day.
No one should struggle for want of words, and no one should want of words when they are so available. If you agree, please post this as your status for the rest of the day.
No one should urinate themselves because they can't find a toilet, and no one shall find a toilet if they aren't looking for one. If you agree, please post this as your status for the rest of the day.
No one should consider moving that rubber tree plant, and no one should consider that anyone but an ant. Can't. Move that rubber tree plant. If you agree, please post this as your status for the rest of the day.
No one should suffer smelling a fart in public, and no one should hold in their farts lest they should suffer. If you agree, please post this as your status for the rest of the day.
Very good !
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