Posted on 03/15/2014 5:23:17 AM PDT by franky8
It is funny–in both the ha-ha and ironical senses–that those who often scream most loudly against the “death panel” meme often follow, sotto voce, ”But we need death panels.” The fact is that most of those in the technocratic classes want to medically discriminate against those who are seen as health care “takers” or perceived to have a lower quality of life.
They’re just not sure how to get from “here” to “there,” and retain popular support. (Hint: They can’t.)
billgatesNow in a Rolling Stone interview, Bill Gates joins the chorus. He says–like bioethicist Daniel Callahan–that we have to be careful about making technological improvements in medicine because we won’t want to make them available to all. From the interview:
G:…If you accelerate certain things but aren’t careful about whether you want to make those innovations available to everyone, then you’re intensifying the cost in such a way that you’ll overwhelm all the resources.
RS: Like million-dollar chemotherapy treatments.
G: Yeah, or organ transplants for people in their seventies from new artificial organs being grown. There is a lot of medical technology for which, unless you can make judgments about who should buy it, you will have to invade other government functions to find the money. Joint replacement is another example. There are four or five of these innovations down the pipe that are huge, huge things.
RS: Yeah, but when people start talking about these issues, we start hearing loaded phrases like “death panels” and suggestions that government bureaucrats are going to decide when it’s time to pull the plug on Grandma.
G: The idea that there aren’t trade-offs is an outrageous thing. Most countries know that there are trade-offs, but here, we manage to have the notion that there aren’t any. So that’s unfortunate, to not have people think, “Hey, there are finite resources here.”
But they do want to have the government (or bioethics committees delegated the task by government) decide “when to pull the plug on grandma.” Moreover, ”trade offs” is a code term in this context for death panels.
A few points I made about these matters at the World Affairs Council symposium on Obamacare earlier this week:
Patients should be treated based on their individual circumstances, not as members of a “class” or group. Refusing wanted efficacious non-elective treatment is coercion–in essence, a duty to die. Death panels will destroy what shaky trust remains in our health care system, particularly, I think, among minority communities. Death panels undermine Hippocratic values and deprofessionalize medicine. Education is already promoting better, less expensive care decisions. Very few terminally ill people insist on ICU treatment at the end. Hospice participation now exceeds 40%. How can we justify refusing non-elective treatment based on invidious classifications when we keep expanding what we call “basic health care” to elective, life-style enhancing procedures and interventions? For example, in California today, gay and lesbian persons are legally entitled to expensive fertility treatments if they are covered by group health insurance–whether they are actually infertile or not. I only see this trend growing. If we have to cut back through regulatory changes, how about starting on elective interventions that don’t impact physical health? Medicare has paid countless millions on penile pumps and Viagra to allow 75-year-old men pretend they are 18 in the sack. I mean, c’mon! Yes, we have to find ways to control medical costs. But not through death panels! Not through invidious discrimination depriving people of non-elective or necessary care, while payment for coverage of life-style enhancers continues to increase.
Of course he does,it won’t affect him,he can pay for his doctor
The sad part is, joint replacements for older adults have increased quality of life immensely for those folks.
I guess going forward more of them will be consigned to wheelchairs or life on the couch.
Like German Industrialists of the 30’s believing they could control/be immune from the Fascist ideals of an Austrian Corporal, too many modern high tech mega CEO’s are falling into the same trap with a two-bit Cook County Community organizer and his handlers.
History doesn’t repeat but most often rhymes...
They will take care of that with euthanasia. And it will not really be voluntary because they will by then make euthanasia a noble thing.
I have a dear friend in her late 60’s who is in the process of dying from pancreatic cancer. She is at home being cared for lovingly by her family with the assistance of Hospice. She has not been eating for the past few weeks, although she could still eat if she wanted to do so. She is being kept comfortable with pain medicine and is still consuming liquids. As a retired NC state employee, she has insurance that would cover whatever treatment she wanted, but the family has decided, once her most recent round of chemotherapy at Duke Cancer Center did not improve the spots on her spine, that she will not seek further treatment. There was absolutely NO need for a “death panel” to have any role in a decision that is best made by the patient, her family, and her doctors!
Climate Change is nothing but population control
As to Gates, it is past time for me to switch strictly to Linux!
I’d quit buying Microsoft except Apple is just as bad politically.
Fair warning to my fellow “Boomers”. Death panels will be our fate. If you don’t have the financial resources to pay for your treatment you are in trouble. The war on our generation has started
As we move closer to finishing the Constitution for the Republic of Maine and the secession vote on June 12, 2018, we see more and more what a wonderful place the Republic of Maine will be, not only for those living here, but because of the tax structure, lack of governmental intervention in medicine, business and restrictions on what government can even be involved in, the Republic will be a boon for those looking for affordable health care, alternative health care and recognition of NDs.
You and anyone can view the Constitution that will be voted on June 12, 2018 as part of the secession vote at www.MaineTV.net
Bill Gates started out as an apolitical guy. He is a tech nerd who got schooled in politics when he hired Clinton administration defectees for his foundation. Now it seems he is their mouthpiece.
When people get a certain amount of money, they begin to see themselves as gods. That’s why so many of the really big money people turn into statists, with themselves running the state.
Large amounts of “AMERICAN MADE MONEY” in AMERICA, those who made you what you are today, this amt of money rots your brain. The elitist mind set is one of mental disorder and arrogance
The elites have always believed in, and practiced, population control. It is easy to support government allocation of care when you are either the decision maker or a member of the protected class.
A prime example is the disabled scientist Stephen Hawking. If Hawking were an average UK worker, or even a professor in a 3rd tier school, he would have expired in the public health care system at least a decade ago. Having obtained international academic celebrity status his life has been continued for decades with medical care unavailable to the average taxpayer or citizen in the UK.
As health care in American declines rapidly for the masses, access to high level health care technology and medical procedures will be rationed and made available only to those who are politically connected and powerful. The desk jockey general will receive the digital printed kidney while the Medal of Honor winning corporal will exist on a dialysis machine until his body gives out. Former presidents, famous actors, media stars, and billionaires will have heart transplants in their 80’s while the average citizen will not be able to get a stent or valve replacement beyond age 70.
As time goes on it will be interesting to see how healthcare allocation decisions are made. Will unaccomplished fourth and fifth generation Kennedy family members have access to the best health care or will only those who have prominent government jobs or frequently show up in the press receive top tier medical support? How will a health care bureaucrat decide if a single liver for transplant should go to the alcoholic great grandson of a famous politician or the minority son of the mayor of a large city who happened to get stabbed at 3:00 am buying drugs in a bad neighborhood. Alternatively, will a female 70 year old alcoholic famous actress, who has a bused her body for years, receive the liver instead of an extremely talented and rising young white male concert pianist who accidentally contracted hepatitis by eating a hamburger prepared by an infected illegal immigrant fast food worker? Will a 75 year old grandmother who worked for 40 years as a nurse receive a hip replacement or will it go to the 22 year old son of a corporate executive who mangled his leg in a car accident driving his Porsche at 125 miles per hour on a city street?
I think we all know the answers to these questions. So the real question will be how will the elites hide their healthcare privileges from the toiling masses in order to avoid resentment and revolution?
But I'm sure you already have that in mind.
Even more scary are the articles written by Obamacare architect, Ezekiel Emanuel, who clearly advocates not “wasting” limited health care resources on the very young and the elderly. Emanuel makes many of the same cost saving arguments used by the Nazis to justify euthanizing the elderly, handicapped and others deemed having “life without life”.
just wait until the 70-year old Bill Gates needs a hip replacement? Or a family member develops terminal cancer- and further treatment is not to worth it to the government
If they had rationed computer technology like he wants to ration health care, he’d still be a pauper.
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