Part one: Obama Care will give us rationing and nanny-tyranny

Part one of:

The political class is neither good enough nor smart enough to run Health Care. The tyranny of rationing and behavior control will be the consequence of the Affordable Care Act.

v  If politicians, lobbyists, generic bureaucrats, Presidents, Presidential Czars and Presidential Cabinet members proportionally reflected the population’s temperament, there would be the same proportion of magnanimous altruist, of well-intentioned busybodies, of corrupted souls, of two face liars, of decent people, and of malicious psychopaths. Since the aforementioned “political class” exerts more control over us than the general population, it is right to fear them. It is necessary to constrain, dam, and decentralize their power with a Constitution because they are not angels. It is a stretch, however, to expect a proportional representation of temperaments among them. Tyranny is humanity’s historical norm. Power corrupts.  

v  The left-wing chortles with snarky disdain at “slippery slope” arguments like the tyranny argument above. They say that their command to purchase insurance will not lead to state enforced vegetarianism or state forced abortions.  It’s ridiculous to assert, they say, that the affordable care act will lead to death panels where Jack-Kavorkian-Democrats pull the plug on Grandma. “Trust us” they say.  

 Supreme Court Justice Ginsberg mocks conservatives by quoting Robert Bork. “Judges and lawyers live on the slippery slope of analogies; they are not supposed to ski it to the bottom.”:http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0612/77958.html#ixzz21xMirlV9  By focusing on what might happen, but probably will not, the “slippery slope” distracts us from discussing the matter at hand; that the Affordable Care is desirable. Or so they say. 

v  The problem with their brush-off of the likely tyranny argument is two-fold: 1) Much of what we fear is already happening. 2) We don’t trust them because we know what major power players in left-wing intelligentsia have said.  

v  Rationing occurs today under Medicaid and Medicare because the government needs to save money, so it short pays for medical care. (The Affordable Care Act expands Medicaid and it grants greater authority to the Independent Payment Advisory Board which authorizes the short paying.)

Example: “Want an appointment with kidney specialist Adam Weinstein of Easton, Md.? If you're a senior covered by Medicare, the wait is eight weeks.  How about a checkup from geriatric specialist Michael Trahos? Expect to see him every six months: The Alexandria-based doctor has been limiting most of his Medicare patients to twice yearly rather  than the quarterly checkups he considers ideal for the elderly. Still, at least he'll see you. Top-ranked primary care doctor Linda Yau is one of three physicians with the District's Foxhall Internists group who recently announced they will no longer be accepting Medicare patients.  "It's not easy. But you realize you either do this or you don't stay in business," she said.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/25/AR2010112503638.html

Example: Barbara Wagner and Randy Stroup of Oregon were both initially denied life pro-longing cancer treatments because of the expense. Oregon already has a government saturated Health Care system. A bureaucrat offered public funding for assisted suicide instead. (Legal in Oregon) http://special.registerguard.com/turin/2008/jun/03/gift-treatment/

So the message from Oregon, so aptly stated by Barbara Wagner, is: “We’ll pay for you to die, but not pay for you to live.” http://www.pccef.org/articles/art67.htm

Example: Only 16% of Maryland dentist accept Medicaid patients. In one extreme case of note, Deamonte Driver died of a tooth infection that spread to his brain. Deamonte’s tragedy was used as evidence in support of ObamaCare. It turns out that Deamonte was insured by Medicaid.

The Cause and Effect: According Richard Foster, Medicare’s chief actuary, Obama Care will bring Medicare’s reimbursement rates lower than Medicaid*1. .So private healthcare insurance is squeezed by a pincer movement; Medicaid is expanded by adding 18 million people and reimburses an average of 56%*2, Medicare will add 2.5 million or more per year as people age*3, the reimbursement rate for Medicare is lowered, Healthcare providers will have to foist the unreimbursed expense upon those who have private insurance, and private insurance is forced to provide for those with pre-exiting conditions which will necessarily force up insurance prices. Eventually the burgeoning vine strangles the tree that sustains it.

Rationing is the necessary consequence of the government’s paltry reimbursement rates. As private insurance becomes unaffordable, Americans will gravitate to Medicaid or State run subsidized exchanges. Because more Americans will be sucked into some form of government health care, more will experience rationed healthcare. 1How ObamaCare Harms The Poor, by Avik Roy, National Review July 30 2012, 2. http://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/2011/pdf/TheImpactOfObamacare.pdf  3. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/212585.php 

 

v  Busybody nanny-state control is already occurring or threatening at various levels of government and with the Affordable Care Act specifically.

Example: New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is proposing to ban large sodas in NYC. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-57451372-10391704/mayor-bloombergs-soda-ban-proposal-to-be-submitted-to-nyc-health-board-today/

Example: Several major US Cities, including New York and Philadelphia, and the State of California have banned trans-fats. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_fat   117-136

Example: When life issues and “preventative services” conflict, the Feds via the Health and Human Service Secretary determines the moral decision for insurance companies. K. Sebelius requires “free” coverage for early-abortion pills, and sterilizations. (Women’s Preventive Services Guidelines and HHS Mandate Pg. 2) www.alliancedefensefund.org/obamacare   

Example: As of July 2010, indoor tanning services are subject to a 10 percent excise tax, under the Affordable Care Act. http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=224600,00.html This tax, like an alcohol sin tax, is designed to decrease a behavior the political class dislikes. (And is unambiguously aimed at pale people)

Example: Medicare will pick up the tab for obesity screening and intensive behavioral counseling…The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid. http://www.medpagetoday.com/PublicHealthPolicy/Medicare/29940

Example: For more proof that Government taking care of you can lead to it taking control of you, check out the WIC government food program’s authorized food list. Not allowed; foods with added sugar, whole milk, brown eggs, white bread, canned beans, potatoes, nuts, sardines pack in hot sauce, and more. http://www.cdph.ca.gov/programs/wicworks/WIC%20Foods/WICAuthorizedFoodListShoppingGuide-7-5-2011.pdf.pdf

Example: California’s Energy Commission proposed installing remote controls in home thermostats that could not be overridden by homeowners during an emergency. (Some think Global Warming is an emergency) http://www.ucan.org/energy/electricity/advanced_metering/big_brother_control_thermostats_homes

Example: Many states have or are considering mandatory drug testing for food stamp recipients. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-02-17/welfare-food-stamps-drug-testing-laws/53306804/1 This is obviously an unconstitutional warrantless search, protected against by the 4^th and then the 14^th amendments. But if the Constitution is ignored to allow the Feds to surpass their boundaries to help you at your neighbor’s expense, it cannot be expected to protect you after it’s been ignored to begin with. 

v  Distrust the political class because of what they have actually said.

Example: From Ecoscience, co-authored by John Holdren in 1977. John Holdren is President Obama’s Science Czar.

“Adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods is a suggestion that seems to horrify people more than most proposals for involuntary fertility control. … To be acceptable, such a substance would have to meet some rather stiff requirements: it must be uniformly effective, despite widely varying doses received by individuals, and despite varying degrees of fertility and sensitivity among individuals; it must be free of dangerous or unpleasant side effects; and it must have no effect on members of the opposite sex, children, old people, pets, or livestock.

…

A program of sterilizing women after their second or third child, despite the relatively greater difficulty of the operation than vasectomy, might be easier to implement than trying to sterilize men. 

…

The development of a long-term sterilizing capsule that could be implanted under the skin and removed when pregnancy is desired opens additional possibilities for coercive fertility control. The capsule could be implanted at puberty and might be removable, with official permission, for a limited number of births.”  http://zombietime.com/john_holdren/  

 

Politicfact defends John Holdren because his recommendations attach the proviso "if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society." Oh in that case it’s perfectly tolerable for influential policy wonks to suggest China like oppression because they really don’t mean it, until of course they mean it. Regardless, the rebuttal includes the same quotes and therefore helps prove the veracity of Holdren’s statements. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/jul/29/glenn-beck/glenn-beck-claims-science-czar-john-holdren-propos/

 

Example: Cass Sunstein , Obama’s Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs  "Many analysts, however, have suggested that the government should rely instead on the 'value of a statistical life year' (VSLY), in a way that would likely result in significantly lower benefits calculations for elderly people, and significantly higher benefits calculations for children," the 2003 paper said.

"I urge that the government should indeed focus on statistical life-years rather than statistical lives. A program that saves young people produces more welfare than one that saves old people," it added.

"Older people are treated worse for one reason, they are older. This is not an injustice.”
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/06/is_it_time_to_push_cass_sunstein_over_the_cliff.html#ixzz21hATBMHF  

Example: Donald Berwick M.D. Obama’s head of HHS's Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services "The chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80% of the total health care bill out there. There is going to have to be a very difficult democratic conversation that takes place. The decision is not whether or not we will ration care. The decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open." Why Donald Berwick is Dangerous to Your Health By Hal Scherz Dr. Scherz, a pediatric urological surgeon at Georgia Urology and Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, serves on the faculty of Emory University Medical School and is president and cofounder of Docs4PatientCare.  http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/05/26/why_donald_berwick_is_dangerous_to_your_health_105730.html

Example: "I am romantic about the NHS. I love it." Dr Berwick says about probably the best-known case of socialized medicine -- Britain's National Health Service (NHS). http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/05/26/why_donald_berwick_is_dangerous_to_your_health_105730.html  

Reporting from a system that Obama’s head of Medicare, Dr. Berwick, is romantic about:

According to a report from a researcher at Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, one out of six people who died in the United Kingdom in 2007-08, died of continuous deep sedation, a mode of euthanasia.

In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, a group of experts who care for the terminally ill claim that some patients are being wrongly judged as close to death… As a result the scheme is causing a “national crisis” in patient care, the letter states. It has been signed palliative care experts including Professor Peter Millard, Emeritus Professor of Geriatrics, University of London, Dr Peter Hargreaves, a consultant in Palliative Medicine at St Luke’s cancer centre in Guildford, and four  others. “Forecasting death is an inexact science,” they say. Patients are being diagnosed as being close to death “without regard to the fact that the diagnosis could be wrong… Dr Hargreaves …added that some patients were being “wrongly” put on the pathway, which created a “self-fulfilling prophecy” that they would die…

“As a result a national wave of discontent is building up, as family and friends witness the denial of fluids and food to patients." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6127514/Sentenced-to-death-on-the-NHS.html

Or is he romantic about this story? “When Kenneth Warden was diagnosed with terminal bladder cancer, his hospital consultant sent him home to die, ruling that at 78 he was too old to treat.” Warden family did not give up. They paid out of pocket for private consultations to reduce pain and suffering. The treatments suggested by the private consultation, not only eased his pain, they cured his cancer. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2126379/Sentenced-death-old-The-NHS-denies-life-saving-treatment-elderly-mans-chilling-story-reveals.html#ixzz2213MAbOR

Or is he romantic about this statement made by a Brit in the web comment section of the Kenneth Warden story? “My dad paid into the system for over 40years and was diagnosed with cancer in February 2012 and left to die 6 wks later at 67- too young- as the NHS couldn't be bothered with sending him for testing any earlier despite continuous doctor appointments, glaring symptoms and even 2 A&e visits. We will be pursuing a complaint. It does make you wonder, doesn't it? The NHS is a shambles. All my family now have (sic) private cover but we shouldn't have to as we have all worked and paid our way. - Anoni, London, 08/4/2012 09:09”

Next blog, Part two: The political class isn't smart enough to run healthcare, even if their intentions are pure