Old folks too expensive to treat?

Found this over at Newsbusters, all emphases and comments are my own.

Obama Says We Shouldn't Treat Old Folks to Save Money And the Media Goes Deaf
By Warner Todd Huston

Created 2009-06-26 01:19

I am wondering when the euthanasia folks are going to start touting this one? I mean, it sure seemed to me as if the most caring, most civil, most intelligent president evah just said that healthcare could be cheaper if we don't give old folks and the infirm the full measure of care they now get. It appeared that Obama said we should just let them die or suffer because they aren't worth the effort. Imagine if Bush had said something like this? The left wouldn't have hesitated to call him any manner of names. (They'd have been on him like white on rice.) Oddly, though, the Old Media have not had so much as a raised eyebrow over his statements on Wednesday.

Obama said during the ABC Special on Wednesday night that a way to save healthcare costs is to abandon the sort of care that "evidence shows is not necessarily going to improve" the patient's health. He went on to say that he had personal familiarity with such a situation when his grandmother broke her hip after she was diagnosed with terminal cancer. (Did she get her hip replaced? That question doesn't seem to be answered, my guess would be "Granny's" wishes were honored and cost didn't enter the picture. Remember, this is the President that eats $100 dollar a pound steak with his family.)

Obama offered a question on the efficacy of further care for his grandmother saying, "and the question was, does she get hip replacement surgery, even though she was fragile enough they were not sure how long she would last?"

But who is it that will present the "evidence" that will "show" that further care is futile? Are we to believe that Obama expects individual doctors will make that decision in his bold new government controlled healthcare future? If he is trying to make that claim it is a flat out untruth and he knows it.

Does your homebuilder negotiate with your city hall over whether you get a building permit, or does the permit get levied no matter what? Does a cop decide if you really broke the law, or does he simply arrest you and let the courts hash it out? Does your tax preparer negotiate with the IRS or is he supposed to just calculate your tax bill on their terms and have you pay the required amount?

Government does not work by negotiation. Government does not work from the bottom up. It works from the top down. This singular fact means that no doctor will be deciding if you are too old or infirm to get medical care. It will be a medically untrained bureaucrat that sets a national rule that everyone will have to obey. There won't be any room for your grandma to have a different outcome than anyone else's.

So, what will it be then? Who will decide when medical care is just too expensive to bother with? Who will be left to perish because they just aren't worth the lifesaving effort? Well, for sure it won't be any members of Congress or anyone that works for the federal government because they won't be expected to suffer under the nationally socialized plan. It also won't be Obama's buddies in the unions who are about to be similarly exempted from the national plan, at least if Senator Max Baucus has his way.

Ah, but we are told that Obama's ideas on healthcare are "evolving," dontcha know? During the recent campaign for president (that was only 7 months ago, if you'll recall) Obama insisted that he would never tax your healthcare benefits from work. He even ridiculed McCain for proposing such a plan. Lately, however, he's "evolved" toward saying that such a new tax is on the table. What about his stance against fining people and businesses that don't join his UberPlan? He was against that sort of coerciveness before. Now he's "evolved."

Originally, he said it was "healthcare for all," but as of Wednesday night, it seems he's "evolved" to say that only those worth the bother should get healthcare. The rest should be left to die and/or suffer. If he does any more "evolving" we'll all be finding just who is "worth" what as far as he and his Democrats are concerned. Somehow I'd guess that many of you reading this today won't quite be worth as much as certain others! (Go figure.)

Let's hope none of us are ever in a position to find out if Obamacare deems our grandmothers worth saving.

And what ever happened to the left's mantra that healthcare is a "right" and that money should never enter into a life or death decision? Now The One is saying it's just too darn expensive to save the old and infirm? Will our friends on the left now disown Obama the "murderer"? (They haven't disowned him for voting against the Illinois version of federal law that mandates basic medical care for abortion-surviving babies, why quibble about the death of anyone else?)

Even worse, why has the media remained mum on the possibility that President Spock, Doctor of life, just said that old folks are too expensive to treat? Hello, CNN, NBC, New York Times... anyone?

For the shape of things to come, check out what goes on in the Netherlands these days. Old folk are actually afraid to go to a doctor, thinking they'll be euthanized against their will. And don't look for quality care for the masses, as this article states the elite will get their own health plan separate from ours. That isn't done or deemed necessary if everyone is assured of topnotch care.

The end result would be seen in what went on in the Soviet Union where the comrade on the street received piss-poor care. In part this explains why life expectancy actually DECREASED under the Soviets! Socialized medicine doesn't attract the best and brightest in the medical field which is why the Soviets valued their garbage collectors more than the doctors there. I'm not making this shit up either.

It isn't just the elderly that would have to rely on the mercy of government bean counters either, you can expect any fetus detected with a possible abnormality to have it's life weighed on the scales of cost effectiveness. This hits close to home with me, my two oldest boys by the War Department are slightly autistic. Had their condition been diagnosed prior to birth under a state-run system, I doubt any bean counter would take a pass on the option of mandatory abortion.

If you think we'll never get that far then I'd like some of what YOU'RE smoking!