A Consequence of Health Care Reform

The Mainstream Media and squishy pseudo-Republicans like Joe Scarborough are all aghast that Sarah Palin used the term "death panels" to describe the new health care bureaucracy. While there is no entity given the title "Death Panel" in the bills before Congress nor is there a body whose exclusive function is determining who lives and dies, her charge is essentially correct. There will be a group of G-12s and consultants sitting in a government office somewhere deciding what type of patient is allowed to receive what kind of treatment based on a cost/benefit analysis. Your choices will be eliminated based on what the nameless, faceless, unaccountable bureaucrats decide is in the best interest of society. Eric Erickson writes this in his article in today's Macon Telegraph:

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W. Va., said in March that as part of responsible healthcare reform people must recognize they would not be able to get every treatment they wanted. The government would use a cost-benefit analysis to determine treatment options.

Noted liberal writer Ezra Klein wrote that health-care reform would save money by making tough decisions about a person’s life. “We’re profoundly uncomfortable saying that a person’s life, or health, is not worth the price of a particular procedure,” he wrote, alluding to the need for panels of experts to make those decisions.

Ezekiel Emanuel, Rahm Emanuel’s brother and one of Obama’s health-care advisors, wrote in a January 2009 white paper that health care should be rationed in a way that “promot[es] and reward[s] social usefulness.” He said age could play a factor in determining who can and cannot access health-care resources.

Emanuel also wrote, “[S]ervices provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens [in the body politic] are not basic and should not be guaranteed. An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia.”

He provides this real life example of what is already happening on the state level:

We see where this road we are now traveling goes out in the real world. Reporter Dan Springer reported in 2008, “Since the spread of his prostate cancer, 53-year-old Randy Stroup of Dexter, Ore., has been in a fight for his life. Uninsured and unable to pay for expensive chemotherapy, he applied to Oregon’s state-run health plan for help.” Oregon denied Mr. Stroup’s request and referred him to an assisted suicide specialist.

Clearly, there needs to be health insurance reform. But our health care is just fine. Can anyone seriously make the case that heavy government involvement in health care or outright government control of health care will produce positive results? Medicare and the VA health care system are atrocious. Does any thinking American want to swap access to our current health care system for that?

If the Dems scale back their Big Brother overreach for a consumer protection model of health insurance reform, with a government assist for folks who cannot afford premiums, they will be heroes...and deserve their accolades. But they won't do it. They cannot resist the socialism and statism that are fundamental to their political DNA.