Posted on 08/29/2009 6:41:13 AM PDT by kindred
Ezekiel J. Emanuel, Obamacare, and Death Panels by rayharvey on August 27, 2009
Poor misunderstood Ezekiel J. Emanuel.
Ezekiel, if you don’t know, is the older brother of the statist Rahm Emanuel, and recently Ezekiel got his feeling hurt.
In an interview he just gave the Associated Press, Monday (August 24th), Ezekiel said this:
“I’m completely dumbfounded. I’ve been in academic disputes before, but I never thought I’d be disparaged on Sunday morning talk shows and in the papers, being distorted in ways that can only be described as willful and intentional.”
What Ezekiel Emanuel is referring to here is what that same AP article describes as The sometimes ugly health care debate [which] has dragged Ezekiel Emanuel very reluctantly into the spotlight, as opponents of Obama’s proposed reform have seized on snippets of his past writings to bolster their charge that he and the administration advocate a system where bureaucrats — on what former Gov. Sarah Palin has famously called “death panels” — would play God, ruling on whether ailing Grandma deserves medical care. The accusations have been widely debunked as distortions of Emanuel’s and the administration’s views. Still, they persist, leaving Emanuel both stunned and hurt.
You see, it’s tough being a eugenicist. If you doubt that, just watch Ezekiel squirm like the worm that he is under this historian’s searing testimony:
Here, while we’re on the subject, is what Barack Obama told the New York Times regarding his desire to control your health:
The chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill out here. [Therefore] I think that there is going to have to be a conversation that is guided by doctors, scientists, ethicists. And then there is going to have to be a very difficult democratic conversation that takes place. It is very difficult to imagine the country making those decisions just through the normal political channels. And that’s part of why you have to have some independent group that can give you guidance.
Keep in mind that this unspeakable injustice would all be avoided if your inalienable right to your own life — and only your own life — were recognized as it should be.
In response to that despicable ideology, no less than Nat Hentoff — a civil libertarian about as far to the left as the socialist Noam Chomsky — wrote the following:
I was not intimidated during J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI hunt for reporters like me who criticized him. I railed against the Bush-Cheney war on the Bill of Rights without blinking. But now I am finally scared of a White House administration. President Obama’s desired health care reform intends that a federal board (similar to the British model) — as in the Center for Health Outcomes Research and Evaluation in a current Democratic bill — decides whether your quality of life, regardless of your political party, merits government-controlled funds to keep you alive. Watch for that life-decider in the final bill. It’s already in the stimulus bill signed into law.
The members of that ultimate federal board will themselves not have examined or seen the patient in question. For another example of the growing, tumultuous resistance to “Dr. Obama,” particularly among seniors, there is a July 29 Washington Times editorial citing a line from a report written by a key adviser to Obama on cost-efficient health care, prominent bioethicist Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel (brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel).
Emanuel writes about rationing health care for older Americans that “allocation (of medical care) by age is not invidious discrimination.” (The Lancet, January 2009) He calls this form of rationing — which is fundamental to Obamacare goals — “the complete lives system.” You see, at 65 or older, you’ve had more life years than a 25-year-old. As such, the latter can be more deserving of cost-efficient health care than older folks.
No matter what Congress does when it returns from its recess, rationing is a basic part of Obama’s eventual master health care plan. Here is what Obama said in an April 28 New York Times interview (quoted in Washington Times July 9 editorial) in which he describes a government end-of-life services guide for the citizenry as we get to a certain age, or are in a certain grave condition. Our government will undertake, he says, a “very difficult democratic conversation” about how “the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care” costs.
Nat Hentoff continues:
As the Washington Post’s Charles Lane penetratingly explains (Undue influence,” Aug. 8): the government would pay doctors to discuss with Medicare patients explanations of “living wills and durable powers of attorney … and (provide) a list of national and state-specific resources to assist consumers and their families” on making advance-care planning (read end-of-life) decisions.
Significantly, Lane adds that, “The doctor ’shall’ (that’s an order) explain that Medicare pays for hospice care (hint, hint).”
But the Obama administration claims these fateful consultations are “purely voluntary.” In response, Lane — who learned a lot about reading between the lines while the Washington Post’s Supreme Court reporter — advises us:
“To me, ‘purely voluntary’ means ‘not unless the patient requests one.’”
But Obamas’ doctors will initiate these chats. “Patients,” notes Lane, “may refuse without penalty, but many will bow to white-coated authority.”
And who will these doctors be? What criteria will such Obama advisers as Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel set for conductors of end-of-life services?
I was alerted to Lanes’ crucial cautionary advice — for those of use who may be influenced to attend the Obamacare twilight consultations — by Wesley J. Smith, a continually invaluable reporter and analyst of, as he calls his most recent book, the “Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America” (Encounter Books).
As more Americans became increasingly troubled by this and other fearful elements of Dr. Obama’s cost-efficient health care regimen, Smith adds this vital advice, no matter what legislation Obama finally signs into law:
“Remember that legislation itself is only half the problem with Obamacare. Whatever bill passes, hundreds of bureaucrats in the federal agencies will have years to promulgate scores of regulations to govern the details of the law.
“This is where the real mischief could be done because most regulatory actions are effectuated beneath the public radar. It is thus essential, as just one example, that any end-of-life counseling provision in the final bill be specified to be purely voluntary … and that the counseling be required by law to be neutral as to outcome. Otherwise, even if the legislation doesn’t push in a specific direction — for instance, THE GOVERNMENT REFUSING TREATMENT — the regulations could.” (Emphasis added.)
Who’ll let us know what’s really being decided about our lives — and what is set into law? To begin with, Charles Lane, Wesley Smith and others whom I’ll cite and add to as this chilling climax of the Obama presidency comes closer (Nat Hentoff, an article for Jewish World Review (August 19, 2009) entitled “I am finally scared of a White House administration.”).
In the previously mentioned AP interview, Ezekiel Emanuel added the following:
“I worked pretty hard and against the odds to improve end-of-life care. And so to have that record and that work completely perverted — it’s pretty shocking, and it’s also very, very hurtful…. I happen to be my brother’s brother. So I’m a convenient target.”
Yes, it must be that, sir, and not the loathsome content of your so-called ideas.
As a matter of fact, a Washington Times editorial entitled “Health rationing by other names: Obama health adviser doesn’t ‘evolve’ enough,” blasted to smithereens Ezekiel Emanuel’s pathetic excuses:
When Ezekiel J. Emanuel, a key presidential health care adviser, told The Washington Times on Thursday that his “thinking has evolved” on the subject of health care rationing, he was making a distinction without a difference. Even his “evolved” ideas amount to nothing more than government rationing by another name.
Here’s what Dr. Emanuel told news reporter Jon Ward: “When I began working in the health policy area about 20 years ago … I thought we would definitely have to ration care, that there was a need to make a decision and deny people care.” And: “I think that over the last five to seven years … I’ve come to the conclusion that in our system we are spending way more money than we need to, a lot of it on unnecessary care. If we got rid of that care we would have absolutely no reason to even consider rationing except in a few cases.”
First of all, notice that he gives himself an out “in a few cases.” That is the health-care-rationing equivalent of being just a little bit pregnant. You either ration or you don’t.
Second, when it is the government, rather than private individuals through the open market, deciding what is or isn’t “unnecessary care,” and deciding what care to get “rid of,” then that by definition is government rationing. Government acts by compulsion. If government decides what is “necessary,” and grandma’s hip-replacement surgery is deemed “unnecessary” even if grandma wants the surgery, then grandma’s care has been rationed by the power of the state — no matter what words you use to describe it.
The reason people were wary of Dr. Emanuel in the first place is because of his writings from the 1990s in which (to quote one of them), he advocated giving younger people first dibs on medical care: “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.” In late 1996, he wrote that “services provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens are not basic and should not be guaranteed.”
As noted Friday by Ralph Reiland in the American Spectator online, Dr. Emanuel had not seemed to change much even as late as 2008: “Last year in ‘Health Affairs: The Policy Journal of the Health Sphere,’ Emanuel wrote that ‘Vague promises of savings from cutting waste, enhancing prevention and wellness, installing electronic medical records and improving quality are merely lipstick cost controls, more for show and public relations than for true change.’ ”
Ironically, those “vague promises of savings” are exactly the ones President Obama has been making in his fruitless attempts to claim that his plans won’t be exorbitantly expensive. Dr. Emanuel was right then: The only way to implement Mr. Obama’s proposals without breaking the bank is to impose the sort of rationing that Dr. Emanuel formerly pushed. That is morally unacceptable (source).
No, being a eugenicist can’t be all gravy. Just ask Ezekiel Emanuel: not only must one take on the responsibility of deciding who lives and who dies; one must also keep straight the endless lies, rationalizations, and equivocations.
that’s Ezekiel Mengele Emanuel.
Of the three people sure to meltdown in a huge, public way — Pelosi, Obama, and Dr. Zeke — I expect Dr. Zeke to go first, and to have the biggest flameout.
If the Democrats get any part of the health care bill put in place, it will be just the beginning of the downfall of the next generation. This bill would just grow and grow and grow until they get exactly what they want over the years. It needs to be stopped totally.
I'll tell you what is hurt. For him, what hurts is that he has a long trail of papers and public speaking appearances in which taking him out of context is nealy impossible. In these settings, you must be very clear what your point is, or you don't speak. And the scum has left a trail for us to follow.
[Emanuel writes about rationing health care for older Americans that “allocation (of medical care) by age is not invidious discrimination.” (The Lancet, January 2009) He calls this form of rationing — which is fundamental to Obamacare goals — “the complete lives system.” You see, at 65 or older, you’ve had more life years than a 25-year-old.]
The chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill out here. [Therefore] I think that there is going to have to be a conversation that is guided by doctors, scientists, ethicists. And then there is going to have to be a very difficult democratic conversation that takes place. It is very difficult to imagine the country making those decisions just through the normal political channels. And that’s part of why you have to have some independent group that can give you guidance.
This is why democracy was completely rejected by the Founding Fathers. The symbol of democracy is the guillotine.
"...I'm sorry sir...we cannot schedule that appointment for you in November 2010 to have that melanoma removed because you have not undergone your mandatory annual counseling after age 65...oh, of course you are right. I know you are only 62, but they did move the age down again this year...we have an opening in three months with the counselors office...would you like that?"
This is fully expected, but It will not be the people you will be FORCED to talk to in order to receive your care, nor the intentional delays in care that will be the most insidiously evil facets of this. It will be the conversations like this one below that will become commonplace that ONLY BEGIN to illustrate what it is all about:
"...Hi Jan, how are you? I heard your father is resisting counseling. It must be difficult, I know. There just seems to be so much of that lately. I know I am only 40 years old, but I don't understand why people like your father are so opposed to this.
I went with my mother to her counseling session, and while she was angry because she was supposed to have another five years before she had to go but they moved the age down again, she went anyway. I thought she was really rude to the counseling agent, who was just a young woman only doing her job. Hm.
Someone told me they are only hiring young women as counselors now, because the men who were doing it just got angry too easily and shouted at people to just "sign the damned papers". Hm. I tried to tell my mom why they have to do this, but she said they do it just to get rid of old people to save money.
The counseling agent gave my mom a copy of the book "Death is Joy". I read it, and it makes a lot of sense to me. Of course, when I was going to school, we didn't have to read it, but now they have required classes they take every year beginning in first grade.
Suzie is in third grade and is taking the course this year that deals with the chapter on keeping birth rates down, and Tommy is in his senior year where they cover the financial aspects of care for the elderly. He was so excited, he said that since they have implemented this national care program, the number of elderly people has dropped dramatically, so they can spend more money on programs such as monthly equality checks for the economically disadvantaged and reparations for the descendants of slaves. I think it is wonderful.
He asked me why so many elderly people are so selfish and refuse to accept counseling...I didn't really have an answer for him. Hm. Now, don't be defensive, I am not criticizing your parents.
I am just saying, it is a problem.
They had an hour-long program on PBS about this the other night, and they were saying how the people who are being selfish about this and refusing to take advantage of early exit programs that pay cash to their children are being so self-centered because they grew up in a time where everyone was self-centered and were interested only in money. You know, they showed films from the days of the capitalists where there were people who had what they called 'gas-guzzlers", and they used to make so much more money than they needed to live comfortably, so many people were going without health care because they were taking all the money..."
Then, just wait until they pass legislation for a "Death Benefit" that will be paid to the families of elderly people. That will be the icing on the cake. It will be presented as a compassionate gesture to help the families with their grief, and will put at ease those people slated for "end of life" counseling. I can see the conversation on this as well:
COUNSELOR: Thank you for coming in today, sir. Now, let's see...you have high blood pressure, rheumatoid arthritis but more importantly, positive genetic tags for vascular/heart disease, Alzheimer's, matricular degeneration and three types of cancer, prostate, esophageal and colon. Prostate and colon are very high. We see one of these two expressing itself in the next three years.
ME: Er...really?
COUNSELOR: Yes. This is all very scientifically based, and the results are incontrovertible. There is no mistake.
ME: Ahhh...could I speak to a doctor about this?
COUNSELOR: I am afraid not, sir. The rules are physicians are for direct care only, and nothing else. Federal Statue HCR23.1771-b mandates that I communicate this information to you, and inform you of the various options.
ME: But you don't know anything about medicine! You are a clerk, nothing more! How can I discuss this issue with you?
COUNSELOR: Sir, I have taken all the courses coming through High School, and attended the Life Counseling University courses offered by the government. I graduated in the top half of my class. I do understand the issues here.
ME: But...but...
COUNSELOR: Look, sir. You are getting old, and are soon going to be a burden on society. You don't have cancer right now, and can still think and get around, but for how long? You need to think about your children and their children. We offer a special financial compensation package that will help them bear the grief of your passing, to be paid out upon your death. With your approval, we emailed them an official forms packet before this meeting.
ME: I approved that?
COUNSELOR: Well, yes sir. The electronic copy is right here with you esignature (TURNS SCREEN TO FACE ME).
ME: I never signed that!
COUNSELOR: Sir, didn't you read the codocil that was automatically added at the bottom of your government supplied Will and Last Testament session that we finished up your first End of Life session you had with us last year? You did click the button that said "I approve all the changes" and you did use your voice authentication to say "I do approve".
ME: What! What is going on here? I...
COUNSELOR: Your two sons and your daughter who came in with you today have been in communication with our department on this. (Smiles) I think it is great that the government approves time-off pay for employees to attend these End of Life meetings for their parents. I'll call them in...
ME: Hey! I am not finished discus...
(DOOR OPENS, CHILDREN ENTER)
SON 1: Dad, I am so glad you signed up for the Early Exit Death Benefit. I was really behind on my tax payments for last year, and that will put me over the top...
ME: You...what?
SON 2: Yeah, dad. Billy is graduating from high school, and we want to send him to a quality college, but we could never afford it. But now we might...thanks to you.
Daughter: Oh, Daddy (tears in her eyes) I know none of us live forever, and I will miss you so much, but this money will allow me to pay th license fees to the government so I can open my dream business! Without you...
ME: HEY! WTF is going on here? I am not "ready to die", I feel pretty good, I could live for another twenty years! I didn't sign that damned thing, they just threw all this stuff in front of me! This is effing stupid! (TURNS TO COUNSELOR) Look, I don't know what kind of crap you set in motion, but undo it. I didn't sign up for this.
COUNSELOR: (PRIGGISH, TIGHT LIPPED LOOK ON HIS FACE) Sir...you have already been scheduled for next year, and your family has been paid that benefit in advance as the law allows. We cannot undo it. See the text that you signed (TURNS SCREEN) states explicitly that this if final and cannot be remanded...
ME: (SMASHES SREEN WITH HAND) LOOK! I DON'T GIVE A RAT'S ASS IF YOU HAVE TO BURROW THROUGH THE WIRES BACK TO THE CENTRAL COMPUTER SYSTEM YOURSELF, USING YOUR SLIMEY PENCIL NECK AS A LEG TO DO IT SO YOU CAN UNDO THIS ROYAL F*CKUP ON YOUR PART...
COUNSELOR: (HAND CUPPED OVER SPEAKER, EYES ON ME, WHISPERING) We have a 22-22 in here...get in here right away...
DAUGHTER: (WAILS) How could you be so selfish?
SON 1: Great. I might as well go down to the Tax Police right now to get fitted for the volunteer industry uniform...
COUNSELOR: How am I going to tell Billy he can't go to the Barack Obama University? How?
DOOR OPENS, BURLY UNION GUYS IN BLACK COVERALLS RUN UP TO ME AND TASE ME. ALL GOES BLACK
[installing electronic medical records and improving quality are merely ‘lipstick’ cost control, more for show and public relations than for true change. Savings will require changing how doctors think about their patients. Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath too seriously, as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of the cost or effects on others.”]
Democrats are generally slow on the uptake as they have been taught in their leftist schools to not use their minds and eyes and ears but rather to trust their loving government. One has but to study history to see the error of such blind trust in mankind as governments throughout history have murdered more innocent people than any given human institution. We look for the government of God on the earth in the person of King Jesus ruling over all nations from Israel during His coming 1000 year rule of God over all mankind and nations, a just and merciful government which only He will and can do.
It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man.
It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in prince’s.
As much as I hate focus grouping, maybe conservatives need to do more of it.
Folks, let’s say for just a moment that we are wrong. Let’s say that the normal progression when you give power to statists doesn’t occur.
Rationing of health care is still going to occur. I will occur through attrition and long waits for scarce services and materials. Those stories we hear about 9 month waits for a CT and MR scan? In year one of the plan, there is going to be a 4.8 billion dollar reduction in money paid for imaging services (according to Association of American Physicians and Surgeons) and there is going to be a massive increase in those who want and need them.
The government legislation will also make it impossible for hospitals to grow or expand without government approval, and will also make it illegal for someone to open up a private imaging center.
The end result will be a woman with breast cancer waiting 6 months for a diagnostic mammogram. A death sentence.
Amen. History shows that Hitler was propelled to power by many Jewish people who, though educated, proved to be fools who did not hear what the man said in the 1930’s as he consolidated power.
The wise Jewish people who used their mind and eyes and ears got out of Hitlers Germany while they could before the National Socialist (hence, Nazi) regime closed the borders and murdered them.
A lot like today's American Jewish who do not use their mind or their eyes or their eyes and did not listen to what the Obamanation and his national socialist (democrat) administration said during his campaign for presidency.
[The “Death Panels” thing that Sarah Palin put out there has really gotten under the nerves of the left. I have friends who still can’t shut up about it. It is funny how simple phrases mean so much to the simple minded and uninformed.
As much as I hate focus grouping, maybe conservatives need to do more of it.]
We must fight fire with fire and be vigilant and courageous in stating the facts to the deceived self hating and America hating leftist liberals who could not find their behind in the middle of the desert in the afternoon sun.These are those of whom the Scriptures warn of saying in Romans 1:
ROM 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;
ROM 1:19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.
ROM 1:20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
ROM 1:21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
ROM 1:22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
ROM 1:23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.
ROM 1:24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:
ROM 1:25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
ROM 1:26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
ROM 1:27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
ROM 1:28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
ROM 1:29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
ROM 1:30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
ROM 1:31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:
ROM 1:32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.
The ethicist would be the government controlled bureaucrats of the left who support abortion and eugenics and who care little for any ones life but their own.
It saddens me to see the state of our nation.
Give me that old time health care,
Give me that old time health care,
It’s good enough for me.
It was good enough for Teddy.
It was good enough for Teddy.
It was good enough for Teddy.
And it’s good enough for me.
Refrain
Makes me love everybody.
Makes me love everybody.
Makes me love everybody.
And it’s good enough for me.
Refrain
It has saved our fathers.
It has saved our fathers.
It has saved our fathers.
And it’s good enough for me.
Refrain
It will do when I am dying.
It will do when I am dying.
It will do when I am dying.
And it’s good enough for me.
Refrain
It will take us all to heaven.
It will take us all to heaven.
It will take us all to heaven.
And it’s good enough for me.
Refrain
Hmmm... so you're 64½,
that's a real conundrum?!?
I don't know if we should
Cure you or Kill you?!?!?I'll Flip A Coin, Okay?
His entire family should be the first one's subject to the Death Panel.
Its off to 'the Showers' and then the Ovens for them.
I'm suuuuure Reichsführer-US, Rahm 'Heinrich Himmler' Emanuel, will gladly sacrifice his life for his Lieber Führer
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