In a recent interview with The New York Times Magazine where he discussed many of his economic policies, President Obama has given an early indication as to the true costs of his health care reform agenda, particularly the ultimate costs to seniors.
Using his grandmother as an example, he explained how health care decisions, such as the hip replacement surgery she received after being diagnosed with cancer, might not be available to Americans in the future due to the costs, unless you have the money to pay out of pocket like Obama can.
I would have paid out of pocket for that hip replacement, just because she's my grandmother. Whether, sort of in the aggregate, society making those decisions to give my grandmother, or everybody else's aging grandparents or parents, a hip replacement when they're terminally ill is a sustainable model is a very difficult question.
Sustainable model? A difficult decision? Despite this apparent conundrum, Mr. Obama appears to have already made his decision on this matter, as we can see in the stimulus bill he promoted and signed into law.
Squeezed into the spending bill was a little known provision that establishes certain health care changes which are based on suggestions made by the former Health and Human Services Department nominee, Tom Daschle. According to an editorial by Betsy McCaughey, former lieutenant governor of New York and an adjunct senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, these included:
- Reducing costs by "guiding" doctor decisions
- Doctors surrendering autonomy and learning to operate less like sole proprietors
- Establishes the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research, whose goal would be to slow down new medications and techniques because these drive up costs
- Forcing the elderly to accept the realities of aging and surrendering certain advanced treatments
Of course, hiding this in the stimulus bill was intentional to prevent debate, and it would now appear that it was a part of Obama's intentions all along.
Near the end of his interview, Mr. Obama claimed these decisions shouldn't be left up to government or politicians:
It is going to be very difficult to imagine the country making those decisions just through normal political channels.
Either he's lying, or it was always a part of his plan. Regardless, it looks like Americans better hope nothing happens to them as they get older, because Obama's health care reform is likely to be fatal to them if it does.
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Comments
So-------- you're problem is what exactly? It's called rationing. Who lives forever? I thought believers in the after-life would be happy to get there. Why delay the inevitable if the end is in sight?
You wrote: "Establishes the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research, whose goal would be to slow down new medications and techniques because these drive up costs".
Absolutely wrong. Any EFFECTIVE new medicine would not be slowed down if it was cost-effective. This is a sound business decision aimed at getting the most for our money. Or are you in favor of wasting money on ineffectual new treatments simply because they're new?
Your biases are showing.
You must be fortunate enough not have yet had a parent who was slowly dying. If you had, you would have seen how the doctors, hospitals, nursing homes, etc., profiteer off these sad old people on the tax-payer's money. Shortly before my mother died of Alzheimer's one doctor wanted to open her gut just to see if she might have cancer, and another told me I was killing her when I opted not to have a feeding tube extend her life when she slipped into a coma. As a society, we must put some limits on the amount of money spent on health care for the very old and the terminally ill. Many families elect to "do anything" to postpone the death of an elderly relative -- at enormous cost to society. Obama is correct if he says these decisions can not be made politically -- we need a procedure in place similar to the one used to determine who receives organs available for transplant. Objective professionals making decisions based on likely outcome is the only rational way. Your article is wrong in many ways. There is no "Obama health plan" yet. Thank God we finally have a smart president who cares about what happens to all of us!
Oh my goodness! You people sound like you're saying if older people are going to die anyway, let them go and decrease the surplus population. There are people who are in their 90's and still going to work every day. Who says older people cannot contribute to society if they require a surgery or expensive pills? According to the Stimulus package, the death sentence has been set that the nation's "best" health care will go to young, vivacious people who still have plenty of years left in them.
I am over 50, and I want to live long! Genicide is coming as part of the Obama health plan. But you young people won't know any other way than socialism and fascism very soon. You actually believe Obama is keeping his campaign promises? He's breaking them and forgetting them faster than the mainstream media can and are willing to report.
I dare you to watch Fox news just one hour, and you'll learn more about what Obama is actually doing than you've leared in the last 3 months!
Jeanne, I am over 50 as well and if I were diagnosed with a terminal illness I absolutely would not agree to a hip replacement! What would be the point? Prolonging life, regardless of quality and with no regard for the cost to society, has become the norm.....shame, shame on us for allowing this to happen. One of the very reasons health care costs have grown to unsustainable levels!!!
I have no desire to live forever but the last thing I want is for some faceless, nameless bureaucrat telling me it's my time to die. We already intentionally kill babies in the womb. This is just the next step to selective extermination.
Kathy, if you want to die young, then perhaps you should do so and decrease the surplus population.
I, for one, believe that if a society has advanced capabilities of prolonging someone's life who can still be a productive member of society, then let them choose life! But LET THEM choose - not some government beurocracy who has never met me and doesn't know whether or not this procedure will keep me alive another twenty years.
The Obama health care plan is going to make those types of choices on my behalf, and I am outraged at how many of my rights are being taken from me by this administration.
I will not go silently into the night! Elderly people are just as important to our society as the 30-somethings! Let us live!
If you want a damn hip replacement you can pay for it yourself. Seniors have effed over our health care system b/c they can vote, and so politicians pander to their every whim and need. They get motorized wheelchairs on MEDICAID for Christs sake! Its about time more attention was paid to the rest of us who work full time, pay into the system, and yet still get bankrupt for NECESSARY medical proceedures. And no, hip replacement is not necessary.
And Fox news is ridiculous. If this is the only place that you get your information then you are seriously misinformed and clearly blissfully ignorant.
old people like me have been using up our medical resources for too long. it is no fun to be in intensive care, it is not a priviledge that i want or anyone should be able to choose if others are paying for it. Learn to accept death, who knows,you may get reincarnated as a doctor.
i too am a senior and support our right to help dr' make a life decison to do or not to do
if we are still productive. but don't keep us in a comatos state.
Something you've been neglecting. . . senior citezens HAVE ALREADY WORKED 40 - 70 or more years! They have paid for your kids to go to school, your roads to be built, and everything else young people aspire to. Why on earth do you suddenly think they haven't earned a few perks? They DESERVE to be treated with respect in their last years. After all, THEY'VE ALREADY PAID FOR IT!
Til it directly effects them, will these people understand that we owe everything to the elderly. They fought in the wars, they lived in the depression/recession, they worked and paid into a system that has afforded US TO LIVE with freedoms, education, etc.
My 80 yr. old mother is getting her knees replaced this month so she can take care of my Dad because they cannot afford a nursing home for him. Under Obama's new healthcare, she would not be afforded this "luxury".
Dr.Leach, Does it bother you that you are circulating outright lies?
While its sad that Dr. Leach is recklessly spreading lies, with no concern for ethical responsibility or journalistic integrity, its even more sad to see so many people willing to buy those lies. Conservatives lied about WMDs in Iraq, they lied about Gay Marriage as a "threat worse than terrorism", and now they are lying about this. What is truly ironic is that a political party with a long history of denying both the elderly and the poor now wants to pretend they are now so sympathetic to both. Anyone who falls for this BS does so willingly... I'm sorry for your base ignorance and paranoia, but you must realize that youre taking down the whole country with you.
I just have to say to whoever the crap "sd" is, you should be ashamed of yourself for saying such ruthless things. Someday when you need a hip replacement cause you cant walk and are unable to do anything on your own you might not think so selfishly. What an outrageous and truly "blissfully ignorant" comment to say hip replacement isn’t necessary, will it be necessary when you suddenly need it? The elderly are the reason you can live the way you do and the reason you can even post such a comment, if your grandparent, or spouse or sibling needed a hip replacement so they could walk again would you go up to them and say, "walking isn’t a necessity (because by denying a hip replacement that is exactly what you are saying, you need your hip to walk f.y.i), no way am I wasting my hard earned cash on your life"? I don’t know maybe you would. If you ever need one you might think otherwise.
i am doing my mid-term essay on obamas health care reform. Im trying to see if im pro or con, and it seems to me that you did not help me at all. I am a very comprehensive person when it comes to reading articles and such. And you did not put your point to no justice at all, I did not understand how or why obamas health care is bad for the elderly. You should go back and try it again, with more reaserch to back up your argument sir.
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