Let’s take a stroll down “death panel” memory lane. Here are just a few excerpts for you to draw your own conclusions.
My Facebook Post on August 7, 2009:
“And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.”
Politifact declared my statement “Lie of the Year.” August 10, 2009, is their first claim:
“We agree with Palin that such a system would be evil. But it’s definitely not what President Barack Obama or any other Democrat has proposed.”
Hot Air yesterday, May 15, 2014:
“VA Secretary Eric Shinseki declared himself ‘mad as hell’ over the allegations of wait-list fraud in Phoenix, where 40 veterans passed away before accessing medical assistance while the office falsified records.”
Daily Caller yesterday, May 15, 2014:
“When individuals receive care through the VA, it becomes the only payer and hence, the only decision-maker. The VA decides who gets care, when, and how much. Moreover, as the single payer, the VA bears the risk of loss: If tax dollars aren’t enough to pay for the care demanded, there’s only one result —rationing of care.”
Again, remember what the influential (to other sheep in their leftist herd anyway) Politifact wrote about this “Lie of the Year”:
“We agree with Palin that such a system would be evil. But it’s definitely not what President Barack Obama or any other Democrat has proposed.”
Las Vegas Sun on August 10, 2013:
“[Senator Harry] Reid said he thinks the country has to ‘work our way past’ insurance-based health care during a Friday night appearance on Vegas PBS’ program Nevada Week in Review. ‘What we’ve done with Obamacare is have a step in the right direction, but we’re far from having something that’s going to work forever,’ Reid said. When then asked by panelist Steve Sebelius whether he meant ultimately the country would have to have a health care system that abandoned insurance as the means of accessing it [by moving to a single-payer system instead], Reid said: ‘Yes, yes. Absolutely, yes.’”
And Barack Obama himself warned he wanted single-payer! June 30, 2003: “I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer health care plan.”
Obama repeatedly warned America: http://youtu.be/Kvg8qVKZYuM. So, media, your average Joe Six Pack American (i.e. me) caught those warnings, and YOU didn’t? Riiight.
I love this American Awakening when finally more voters can’t say they weren’t warned. Stamped with the media’s “Lie of the Year”, I had the sticky label on my back for years used as convenient “proof” that commonsense conservatives just don’t know what we’re talking about. Denouncing from the Orwellian Left and a squishy Right ensued. But the truth stares us in the face and pocketbook, especially as we see the unworkable Obamacare.
What happens next is the Left will subtly suggest moving America toward a single-payer system, which was their intention all along. Watch for this gradual, but driving, descent into statism.
So, are you still relying on Obamacare to help and not hurt you? On the Democrat’s watch, health care in the hands of unaccountable bureaucrats proves Reagan’s adage that government is not the solution; government is the problem.
And speaking of the VA scandal, we’ve seen how Obama merely gives lip service to his bureaucrats “investigating” his bureaucracy, so don’t be surprised if he finds nothing wrong in the government’s VA health system – “NOT EVEN A SMIDGEN”!
In 2009, the corrupt democrat-centric “PolitiFact” called Sarah Palin’s proclamation that ObamaCare had “death panels” essentially unelected, unaccountable, bureaucrats who could grant or deny treatment to patients, based on age, or even how much they “contribute” to society, the “Lie of the Year“. As we have learned since, the only lie, and liars, are those who have called Governor Palin a liar, and those who continue to lie about the absence of death panels in ObamaCare.
These death panels, known as the Independent Payment Advisory Board [IPAB] are what everyone was talking about.
On Friday, August 7, 2009 Governor Sarah Palin wrote: [emphasis mine]
Statement on the Current Health Care Debate
As more Americans delve into the disturbing details of the nationalized health care plan that the current administration is rushing through Congress, our collective jaw is dropping, and we’re saying not just no, but hell no!
The Democrats promise that a government health care system will reduce the cost of health care, but as the economist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.
Health care by definition involves life and death decisions. Human rights and human dignity must be at the center of any health care discussion.
Rep. Michele Bachmann highlighted the Orwellian thinking of the president’s health care advisor, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of the White House chief of staff, in a floor speech to the House of Representatives. I commend her for being a voice for the most precious members of our society, our children and our seniors.
We must step up and engage in this most crucial debate. Nationalizing our health care system is a point of no return for government interference in the lives of its citizens. If we go down this path, there will be no turning back.
Ronald Reagan once wrote, “Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth.” Let’s stop and think and make our voices heard before it’s too late.
~ Sarah Palin
Rep. Bachmann’s speech can be viewed here:
Since Governor Palin’s ground-shaking Facebook post, some of Obama’s closest advisers have admitted that death panels do, indeed, exist.
Last September Steven Rattner, President’s former [and failed] Car Czar wrote an op-ed in the New York Times that not only admitted death panels were a part of Obama’s treacherous legislation, but the rationing of health care was essential: [emphasis mine]
Beyond Obamacare
WE need death panels.
Well, maybe not death panels, exactly, but unless we start allocating health care resources more prudently — rationing, by its proper name — the exploding cost of Medicare will swamp the federal budget.
But in the pantheon of toxic issues — the famous “third rails” of American politics — none stands taller than overtly acknowledging that elderly Americans are not entitled to every conceivable medical procedure or pharmaceutical.
Most notably, President Obama’s estimable Affordable Care Act regrettably includes severe restrictions on any reduction in Medicare services or increase in fees to beneficiaries. In 2009, Sarah Palin’s rant about death panels even forced elimination from the bill of a provision to offer end-of-life consultations.
At the time I wrote:
In her 2009 article Sarah Palin mentions Dr Ezekiel Emanuel, Rahm Emanuel’s brother and Obama’s adviser on ObamaCare. Dr Emanuel is the creator of the so-called “Complete Lives System” a document that would make Dr Josef Mengele proud. I suggest everyone read Emanuel’s report entitled: Principles for allocation of scarce medical interventions to understand how these people’s thinking works.
While admitting death panels exist, Rattner still felt compelled to lie about Medicare as well as take a gratuitous shot at Governor Palin. Fact is, ObamaCare is hateful, as hateful as the democrats who created it. All one has to do is read Dr Emanuel’s little essay to understand evil in our time.
In a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, Governor Howard Dean, a one time presidential candidate, and a doctor, while shilling for ObamaCare in general, took a big swipe at the death panels included in this evil law, even going so far as saying this panels should be abolished! [emphasis mine]
One major problem is the so-called Independent Payment Advisory Board.
The IPAB is essentially a health-care rationing body. By setting doctor reimbursement rates for Medicare and determining which procedures and drugs will be covered and at what price, the IPAB will be able to stop certain treatments its members do not favor by simply setting rates to levels where no doctor or hospital will perform them.
There does have to be control of costs in our health-care system. However, rate setting—the essential mechanism of the IPAB—has a 40-year track record of failure. What ends up happening in these schemes (which many states including my home state of Vermont have implemented with virtually no long-term effect on costs) is that patients and physicians get aggravated because bureaucrats in either the private or public sector are making medical decisions without knowing the patients. Most important, once again, these kinds of schemes do not control costs. The medical system simply becomes more bureaucratic.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has indicated that the IPAB, in its current form, won’t save a single dime before 2021. As everyone in Washington knows, but less frequently admits, CBO projections of any kind—past five years or so—are really just speculation. I believe the IPAB will never control costs based on the long record of previous attempts in many of the states, including my own state of Vermont.
If Medicare is to have a secure future, we have to move away from fee-for-service medicine, which is all about incentives to spend more, and has no incentives in the system to keep patients healthy. The IPAB has no possibility of helping to solve this major problem and will almost certainly make the system more bureaucratic and therefore drive up administrative costs.
To date, 22 Democrats have joined Republicans in the House and Senate in support of legislation to do away with the IPAB. Yet because of the extraordinary partisanship on Capitol Hill and Republican threats to defund the law through the appropriations process, it is unlikely that any change in the Affordable Care Act will take place soon.
The IPAB will cause frustration to providers and patients alike, and it will fail to control costs. When, and if, the atmosphere on Capitol Hill improves and leadership becomes interested again in addressing real problems instead of posturing, getting rid of the IPAB is something Democrats and Republicans ought to agree on.
Governor Dean is right. Anytime government attempt to impose price controls on goods and services the results are disastrous. We saw this during the Nixon administration, the liberal president’s answer to run away inflation, that led to the incredible rise in the price of gasoline, and other commodities, and eventually shortages.
Here’s a thought provoking essay from Jack Rafuse from 2007 that speaks to the horrors of government imposed price and wage controls.
On Tuesday night, Governor Palin talked at length with Sean Hannity about ObamaCare and the looming disaster all American’s face:
As you may have heard by now, 10 year old Sarah Murnaghan has received two new lungs, through transplant, and is doing well, and according to family, could be running down the halls soon.
Sarah came to the nation’s attention after HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius refused to intervene on her behalf, and her parents filed a lawsuit to force action.
Governor Palin was all over this early on, and had this to say about the wonderful news:
Sarah Murnaghan had a successful lung transplant; God bless her & docs & judge who said "yes" after death panel/HHS Secy Sebelius said "no".
The government will bend the rules left and right to harass targeted taxpayers, conservative patriots, selected journalists, etc., but it will strictly exercise inconsistent and subjective rules to deny a child a shot at life.
~ Sarah Palin
BREAKING NEWS
As we go to publish this article, we’ve learned Sarah Murnaghan’s parents have filed a lawsuit in federal court to save their daughter’s life.
By Gary P Jackson
This is a heartbreaking situation made even more so when you know that HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebilius can intervene and won’t.
Sarah Murnaghan is a 10 year old little girl in Pennsylvania who is dying and needs a lung transplant.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The U.S. health secretary said she won’t intervene in an “incredibly agonizing” transplant decision about a dying Pennsylvania girl, noting that three other children in the same hospital are just as sick.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told a congressional panel Tuesday that medical experts should make those decisions.
However, relatives of 10-year-old Sarah Murnaghan said Sebelius’ remarks confused them because they want a policy change for all pre-adolescent children awaiting lung transplants, not just Sarah.
The Newtown Square girl has been hospitalized at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia for three months with end-stage cystic fibrosis and is on a ventilator. Her family wants children younger than 12 to be eligible for adult lungs because so few pediatric lungs are available.
Under current policy, only patients 12 and over can join the list. But Sarah’s transplant doctors say she is medically eligible for an adult lung.
The change would add perhaps 20 children from ages 8 to 11 to the adult waiting list, which has more than 1,600 people on it, according to Sharon Ruddock, Sarah’s aunt.
“One moment they say we’re asking for an exception for Sarah. The next moment they say we’re asking for sweeping changes and it has to be studied,” Ruddock said Tuesday.
Sebelius has called for a review of pediatric transplant policies, but the Murnaghans say Sarah doesn’t have time for that.
“I’m begging you. … She has three to five weeks to live. Please suspend the rules,” Rep. Lou Barletta, R-Pa., urged Sebelius at a House Education and the Workforce Committee hearing on her department’s budget.
Sebelius conceded the case was an “incredibly agonizing situation” but said many complex factors go into the transplant-list formula.
Researchers have less data on lung transplants in pre-adolescents because only about 20 a year are done. And young children suffer from different lung diseases, making it harder to weigh their risk versus their chance of surviving a transplant, according to a letter to Sebelius from Dr. John P. Roberts, president of the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network.
Amid concerns about the higher mortality rate in pediatric patients waiting for lung transplants, the network has tweaked its policies in recent years, Roberts said. The new rules give the younger children priority over adults when adolescent lungs become available and give the sickest children priority in a 1,000-mile radius, a broader range than used in the adult system, he said in the letter, which was shared by the office of Rep. Patrick Meehan, R-Pa.
Meehan, in a letter to Sebelius, said Sarah’s doctors are confident they can perform a successful transplant on her. And he said she would jump to the top of the adult list if placed there, given the stage of her disease.
Ruddock, the aunt, called it “a question of morality” that children get a place in the adult line, given that a far higher percentage of children die waiting for pediatric lungs than do adults on that waiting list.
“Do you put them at the back of the line if you’re not sure how to measure (their potential outcome)? Or do you put them in the line?” she said.
Sarah Palin posted this on Facebook: [emphasis mine]
The government will bend the rules left and right to harass targeted taxpayers, conservative patriots, selected journalists, etc., but it will strictly exercise inconsistent and subjective rules to deny a child a shot at life. And they called us liars when we spoke of “death panels” – faceless bureaucrats coming between you and your doctor to make life and death decisions about a loved one’s survival. It doesn’t sound so far fetched anymore, does it?
I stand with Governor Palin here. The rules about no one under 12 getting a lung transplant [using an adult lung] is rather arbitrary, and based on a ruling from 2004. Medical advances since this rule was created now make it possible to have great success with transplanting a lung in a younger person.
This is exactly what happens when government, and not the doctor and patient, are in control of health care decisions.
It should be noted that while Sebelius won’t intervene here, she does stand behind murdering abortionists like LeRoy Carhart, who describes murdering innocent children, and leaving the body in the mothers womb, like “putting meat in a crock pot.
Liberalism really is the greatest evil man has ever faced.
While we wait for corrupt and dishonest Politifact’s apology to Sarah Palin, let’s consider more and more evidence that death panels are real, and already killing people in Canada.
Sarah Palin’s prophecy is a fact of life in Ontario.
It was Palin, the former U.S. vice-presidential candidate and governor of Alaska, who conjured up the Orwellian spectre of “death panels” — faceless groups of bureaucrats who’d make tough decisions on who gets what medical care under socialized medicine.
In this province, a patient whose application for out-of-province care is turned down can appeal to the Health Services Appeals and Review Board (HSARB).
But, according to lawyer Perry Brodkin, almost all those appeals are rejected.
Carol Bacchus has problems with her blood. She has been prescribed a costly medication ‹ $4,000 a month. She can’t afford it and OHIP is stalling on whether to cover it. Shown on Tuesday Sept 11, 2012 with a two week prescription for the medicine she can’t afford .
Part of the problem, he says, is that patients try to represent themselves at the hearings — and find themselves up against a battery of high-priced OHIP (Ontario Health Insurance Plan) and ministry lawyers.
And high legal costs mean it’s only worthwhile hiring a lawyer if the procedure is expensive.
“When we’re talking $25,000 only, the legal fees are going to be pretty close to that.
“If your appeal is granted, you get nothing. If your appeal is denied, you pay the $25,000 (for the procedure) plus all the legal fees,” he said.
Either way, you’re out of pocket.
So who makes up these panels?
Well, of HSARB’s 43-person board, 31 are lawyers. One is a chartered accountant, one is a mortgage underwriter, and the rest are a mix of educators and consultants. The position pays $398 a day.
So much for the little guy.
When it comes to drugs, there are three hurdles a new medication must clear to be paid for by the provincial government.
First it must be approved for safety by Health Canada.
Then a cross-country agency in Ottawa — the Canadian Agency for Drug Technologies and Health, made up of health specialists and patient reps — make a recommendation to the provinces.
Because each province is structured differently, almost every province does another review.
Then the Committee to Evaluate Drugs, made up of physicians, pharmacists, health economists and patient reps, make recommendations to Dianne McArthur, executive officer of Ontario Public Drug Programs, who oversees the $4.4-billion program.
“We have to have some very difficult conversations around the relative improvement in treatment versus the cost that is associated with that incremental improvement in care,” McArthur said in an interview.
Besides the fact that Canada’s “free” health care system is structured in such a manner that it makes it almost impossible to win an appeal if you are turned down for treatment, look at how complicated it is. Rather than have a nationwide standard, the system, which costs $4.4 billion just to administer the drug portion of the program, also has different standards throughout the various provinces. This is a good illustration of how Government not only complicates matters, but charges tax payers through the nose for the privilege.
If Obama and Senate democrats are not defeated this November, Americans will suffer greatly under ObamaCare, which is even worse than what the Canadians are forced to endure.
John O’Sullivan, a former adviser to Margaret Thatcher, has a great, succinct piece up at the National Review following the presidential debate between President Obama and Mitt Romney:
Romney’s answer on Obamacare was a model one: crisp, clear, authoritative; the president’s initial statement and reply were not dreadful, just rambling and nervous. And the longer he went on, the less confident (and so persuasive) he was. His attempt to argue away the importance of death panels was the nadir — call it the revenge of Sarah Palin.
Governor Romney never used the phrase “death panel” that Governor Palin famously used, though had he done so, President Obama’s reaction would have no doubt been priceless. However, Romney knew well enough that the message that Governor Palin has been hammering on for over three years is one that resonates with voters. People do not want greater government involvement, much less from those whom they can’t even elect, at the risk of rationing of care to Medicare patients.
Romney referred to what he instead called an” unelected board” five times during the debate. See below from the debate transcript:
Number three, [Obamacare] puts in place an unelected board that’s going to tell people, ultimately, what kind of treatments they can have. I don’t like that idea.
[..]
We didn’t raise taxes. You’ve raised them by a trillion dollars under “Obamacare.” We didn’t cut Medicare. Of course, we don’t have Medicare, but we didn’t cut Medicare by $716 billion. We didn’t put in place a board that can tell people ultimately what treatments they’re going to receive.
We didn’t — we didn’t also do something that I think a number of people across this country recognize, which is put — put people in a position where they’re going to lose the insurance they had and they wanted. Right now, the CBO says up to 20 million people will lose their insurance as “Obamacare” goes into effect next year. And likewise, a study by McKinsey & Company of American businesses said 30 percent of them are anticipating dropping people from coverage. So for those reasons, for the tax, for Medicare, for this board and for people losing their insurance, this is why the American people don’t want — don’t want “Obamacare.” It’s why Republicans said, do not do this.
[…]
But let’s come back to something the president — I agree on, which is the — the key task we have in health care is to get the costs down so it’s more affordable for families, and — and then he has as a model for doing that a board of people at the government, an unelected board, appointed board, who are going to decide what kind of treatment you ought to have.
[…]
I used to consult to businesses — excuse me, to hospitals and to health care providers. I was astonished at the creativity and innovation that exists in the American people. In order to bring the cost of health care down, we don’t need to have a — an — a board of 15 people telling us what kinds of treatments we should have. We instead need to put insurance plans, providers, hospitals, doctors on targets such that they have an incentive, as you say, performance pay, for doing an excellent job, for keeping costs down, and that’s happening.
As O’Sullivan noted, when President Obama tried to defend his “death panel”, he failed miserably. Obama’s attempt at defending his plan is below:
So at — at Cleveland Clinic, one of the best health care systems in the world, they actually provide great care cheaper than average. And the reason they do is because they do some smart things. They — they say, if a patient’s coming in, let’s get all the doctors together at once, do one test instead of having the patient run around with 10 tests. Let’s make sure that we’re providing preventive care so we’re catching the onset of something like diabetes. Let’s — let’s pay providers on the basis of performance as opposed to on the basis of how many procedures they’ve — they’ve engaged in. Now, so what this board does is basically identifies best practices and says, let’s use the purchasing power of Medicare and Medicaid to help to institutionalize all these good things that we do.
Yep, that’s right. President Obama tried to defend his “death panel” by referencing something that the private sector to make care better and more innovative. Later, President Obama claims ” this board that we’re talking about can’t make decisions about what treatments are given. ”
IPAB could deny access to care as it sees fit simply by setting Medicare’s prices for certain treatments and procedures so low that no providers will offer them.
This is rationing plan and simple, and it’s doing exactly what President Obama claims the bill cannot do. However, Obamacare wrapped itself in so much rhetoric that it blurred the truth. Truth always wins, however, and as O’Sullivan said, this is the revenge of Sarah Palin. Much like O’Sullivan wrote regarding Sarah Palin following the 2008 election, “snobs are wrong about Sarah Palin”.
We enjoy the writings of John O’Sullivan. O’Sullivan was a special adviser to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Back in 2008 he penned an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal entitled Conservative Snobs Are Wrong About Sarah Palin and indeed they were.
Here’s a little taste of what he wrote:
Being listed in fourth place for Time magazine’s “Person of the Year,” as Sarah Palin was for 2008, sounds a little like being awarded the Order of Purity (Fourth Class). But it testifies to something important.
Though regularly pronounced sick, dying, dead, cremated and scattered at sea, Mrs. Palin is still amazingly around. She has survived more media assassination attempts than Fidel Castro has survived real ones (Cuban official figure: 638). In her case, one particular method of assassination is especially popular — namely, the desperate assertion that, in addition to her other handicaps, she is “no Margaret Thatcher.“
[ …. ]
Inevitably, Lloyd Bentsen’s famous put-down of Dan Quayle in the 1988 vice-presidential debate is resurrected, such as by Paul Waugh (in the London Evening Standard) and Marie Cocco (in the Washington Post): “Newsflash! Governor, You’re No Maggie Thatcher,” sneered Mr. Waugh. Added Ms. Coco, “now we know Sarah Palin is no Margaret Thatcher — and no Dan Quayle either!“
Jolly, rib-tickling stuff. But, as it happens, I know Margaret Thatcher. Margaret Thatcher is a friend of mine. And as a matter of fact, Margaret Thatcher and Sarah Palin have a great deal in common.
Wednesday night O’Sullivan, talking about Mitt Romney’s absolute thrashing of Barack Obama in the debate on healthcare, talks about death panels as well, once again noting Sarah was right:
Romney’s answer on Obamacare was a model one: crisp, clear, authoritative; the president’s initial statement and reply were not dreadful, just rambling and nervous. And the longer he went on, the less confident (and so persuasive) he was. His attempt to argue away the importance of death panels was the nadir — call it the revenge of Sarah Palin.
I tend to agree. As a Conservative I’ve been incredibly frustrated by Romney’s attempts to justify RomneyCare, something he’s not only NOT run from, but continued to embrace. I thought he made several strong distinctions not only between the mechanics of the two plans, but how both pieces of legislation were passed and signed int law. RomneyCare was a true bi-partisan effort, while ObamaCare was passed in the dead of night only after bribes [using over a billion tax payer dollars] and parliamentary tricks.
Sarah Palin was right when she noted there were death panels in ObamaCare, and has been vindicated over and over since making that statement.
On Friday, August 7, 2009 Governor Sarah Palin wrote: [emphasis mine]
Statement on the Current Health Care Debate
As more Americans delve into the disturbing details of the nationalized health care plan that the current administration is rushing through Congress, our collective jaw is dropping, and we’re saying not just no, but hell no!
The Democrats promise that a government health care system will reduce the cost of health care, but as the economist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.
Health care by definition involves life and death decisions. Human rights and human dignity must be at the center of any health care discussion.
Rep. Michele Bachmann highlighted the Orwellian thinking of the president’s health care advisor, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of the White House chief of staff, in a floor speech to the House of Representatives. I commend her for being a voice for the most precious members of our society, our children and our seniors.
We must step up and engage in this most crucial debate. Nationalizing our health care system is a point of no return for government interference in the lives of its citizens. If we go down this path, there will be no turning back. Ronald Reagan once wrote, “Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth.” Let’s stop and think and make our voices heard before it’s too late.
Recently the New York Times published an article by one of President Obama’s flunkies, Steven Rattner not only extolling the virtues of death panels, but demanding them. A caller to the Rush Limbaugh show on Friday mentions this:
Rattner was Obama’s “Car Czar” a job he failed miserably at. Failure in Washington is a résumé enhancement though, hence the New York Times piece: [empahsis mine]
Beyond Obamacare
WE need death panels.
Well, maybe not death panels, exactly, but unless we start allocating health care resources more prudently — rationing, by its proper name — the exploding cost of Medicare will swamp the federal budget.
But in the pantheon of toxic issues — the famous “third rails” of American politics — none stands taller than overtly acknowledging that elderly Americans are not entitled to every conceivable medical procedure or pharmaceutical.
Most notably, President Obama’s estimable Affordable Care Act regrettably includes severe restrictions on any reduction in Medicare services or increase in fees to beneficiaries. In 2009, Sarah Palin’s rant about death panels even forced elimination from the bill of a provision to offer end-of-life consultations.
Now lets stop right there. One of the biggest lies told is that Sarah Palin was talking about end of life counseling when talking about death panels. Just as many ignorant Republican lawmakers and “brand name” television pundits, as liberal moonbats, repeated it though. Sarah Palin was ALWAYS talking about health care rationing, and nothing else. She was talking about exactly what Rattner is demanding.
In her 2009 article Sarah Palin mentions Dr Ezekiel Emanuel, Rahm Emanuel’s brother and Obama’s adviser on ObamaCare. Dr Emanuel is the creator of the so-called “Complete Lives System” a document that would make Dr Josef Mengele proud. I suggest everyone read Emanuel’s report entitled: Principles for allocation of scarce medical interventions to understand how these people’s thinking works.
ObamaCare is definitely based on the idea that less productive members of society must be denied care, and left to die, for the good of the collective. It’s a complete, 100 percent communist piece of legislation, and will have the same outcome as it has in other nations that have tried the same scheme, total failure. Millions dead before their time.
People will be allowed to die under ObamaCare. The provisions that set up death panels are right there in the legislation.
When the evil ObamaCare legislation was first put in motion, the Congressional Budget office told the American people it would steal $500 billion from an already broke Medicare system.
Now the CBO has revised their numbers upward. What’s troubling is not just this upward revision, but the fact we know the CBO is likely understating the the numbers still.
This shouldn’t shock people who understand what ObamaCare is all about. Sarah Palin noted there were death panels in this thing. Unelected, unaccountable government panels that will decide who lives or dies.
For those that still don’t get it, you need to read Dr Ezekiel Emanuel’s “Complete Lives System” and understand how cold and calculating the people who created ObamaCare are.
In the minds of the monsters who created ObamaCare, health care is a commodity, and a scarce one at that. They understand that funds will be scarce as well, so there will be rationing. Under their system, patients will get treatments considered “scarce medical interventions” based on how much they “contribute to society.” This is an age based deal, with people aged 25-30 considered the most important, and most “deserving” of critical care, and the priorities for older folks absolutely collapses after this.
The fact that ObamaCare steals nearly $1 Trillion from Medicare, health care funds used to treat the elderly and disabled, only reinforces the evil that is the “Complete Lives System” which is the basis for the death panels Sarah Palin spoke of.
Last week, a new Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report updated the amount of money Obamacare robs out of Medicare from $500 billion to a whopping $716 billion between 2013 and 2022.
According to the CBO, the payment cuts in Medicare include:
* A $260 billion payment cut for hospital services.
* A $39 billion payment cut for skilled nursing services.
* A $17 billion payment cut for hospice services.
* A $66 billion payment cut for home health services.
* A $33 billion payment cut for all other services.
* A $156 billion cut in payment rates in Medicare Advantage (MA); $156 billion is before considering interactions with other provisions.The House Ways and Means Committee was able to include interactions with other provisions, estimating the cuts to MA to be even higher, coming in at $308 billion.
* $56 billion in cuts for disproportionate share hospital (DSH) payments.* DSH payments go to hospitals that serve a large number of low-income patients.
* $114 billion in other provisions pertaining to Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP* (does not include coverage-related provisions).
* Subtract $25 billion total between DSH payments and other provisions for spending that was cut from Medicaid and CHIP.
In total, Obamacare raids Medicare by $716 billion from 2013 to 2022. Despite Medicare facing a 75-year unfunded obligation of $37 trillion, Obamacare uses the savings from the cuts to pay for other provisions in Obamacare, not to help shore up Medicare’s finances.
The impact of these cuts will be detrimental to seniors’ access to care.The Medicare trustees 2012 report concludes that these lower Medicare payment rates will cause an estimated 15 percent of hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, and home health agencies to operate at a loss by 2019, 25 percent to operate at a loss in 2030, and 40 percent by 2050.
Operating at a loss means these facilities are likely to cut back their services to Medicare patients or close their doors, making it more difficult for seniors to access these services.
In addition, as MA deteriorates under Obamacare’s cuts, many of those who are enrolled in MA (27 percent of total Medicare beneficiaries) will lose their current health coverage and be forced back into traditional Medicare, where Medicare providers will be subject to further cuts.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services chief actuary predicted in 2010 that enrollment in MA would decrease 50 percent by 2017, when Obamacare’s cuts were estimated at only $145 billion. Now that the cuts have been increased to $156 billion (or possibly $308 billion, as the Ways and Means Committee estimates), MA enrollment will surely decrease even further.
But Obamacare’s raid of Medicare doesn’t stop with cuts; it includes a redirection of tax revenue from the Medicare payroll tax hike in Obamacare. The payroll tax funds Medicare Part A, the trust fund that is projected to become insolvent as soon as 2024. Obamacare increases the tax from 2.9 percent to 3.8 percent, which is projected to cost taxpayers $318 billion from 2013 to 2022. However, for the very first time, Obamacare does not use the tax revenue from the increased Medicare payroll tax to pay for Medicare; the money is used to fund other parts of Obamacare, much like the $716 billion in cuts are.
With a raid on Medicare of this magnitude, President Obama’s assertion that his new law is protecting seniors and Medicare is astonishing. The truth is that Obamacare does the opposite.
This is pure evil. No other way to say it. Something must be done to stop this. ObamaCare must be repealed completely. No other solution is acceptable.
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A Time For Choosing 
