Betsy McCaughey in The Wall Street Journal:
The assault against seniors began with the stimulus package in February. Slipped into the bill was substantial funding for comparative effectiveness research, which is generally code for limiting care based on the patient’s age. Economists are familiar with the formula, where the cost of a treatment is divided by the number of years (called QALYs, or quality-adjusted life years) that the patient is likely to benefit. In Britain, the formula leads to denying treatments for older patients who have fewer years to benefit from care than younger patients.
When comparative effectiveness research appeared in the stimulus bill, Rep. Charles Boustany Jr., (R., La.) a heart surgeon, warned that it would lead to “denying seniors and the disabled lifesaving care.” He and Sen. Jon Kyl (R., Ariz.) proposed amendments to no avail that would have barred the federal government from using the research to eliminate treatments for the elderly or deny care based on age.
In a letter this week to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, White House budget chief Peter Orszag urged Congress to delegate its authority over Medicare to a newly created body within the executive branch. This measure is designed to circumvent the democratic process and avoid accountability to the public for cuts in benefits.
Driving these cuts is the misconception that preventative care can eliminate sickness. As President Obama said in a speech to the American Medical Association: “We have to avoid illness and disease in the first place.” That would make sense if most diseases were preventable. But the two most prevalent diseases of aging-cancer and heart disease-are largely caused by genetics and their occurrence increases with age. Your risk of being diagnosed with cancer doubles from age 50 to 60, according to the National Cancer Institute.
The House bill shifts resources from specialty medicine to primary care based on the misconception that Americans overuse specialist care and drive up costs in the process (pp. 660-686). In fact, heart-disease patients treated by generalists instead of specialists are often misdiagnosed and treated incorrectly. They are readmitted to the hospital more frequently, and die sooner.
Please, please read the whole thing. I have warned – often – about Obama’s budget director Peter Orszag and his obsession with eliminating health care treatments that “don’t work”. Since, ultimately, no health care treatment works in the end – we will all die eventually – this is a truly sick line of reasoning for a government to take.
And it is the line the Obama administration is going for.
They fully intend to deny treatment to those who it is not “cost effective” for and offer the patient a handful of pills instead of that treatment.
That the patient will eventually be required to take those pills all at once is a logical progression.
This is coming under ObamaCare. This is what all of you younger supporters of the Obama administration have waiting for you. By the time you reach a certain age, you will not have a choice. It will be your legal obligation to take the pills and cease being a “burden”.
At the rate the Obama economy is sinking, that certain age may be around 30 or so.
Gaius, at what point does self-defense require violence? What is going to happen if we can’t stop this politically? I really don’t want to cross the line here, but sometimes freedom requires direct action. Look at how things got started in Germany in the ’30′s. All of the horrible things that happened were legal. Direct action at the beginning would have stopped it.
This is being stopped – by exposing it for what it is. That is the correct approach in a republic – so, have you called your representatives? Have you called to make it very clear that you will not support them if they support this plan?
If you have not, you are, quite literally jumping the gun.
You also put me, as the proprietor of this blog, at risk of having your comments cherry-picked to prove that I am advocating something I certainly am not. That is the line you may not cross here.
Knock off these references – as of now, please.
Gaius, Exactly right. The MSM likes to pretend that it’s a done-deal, but outside of the true believers in ultra-safe districts, most of our fearless representatives are more committed to keeping their seats, than to specific policy. Sunlight and mobilization should be sufficient.
Might I suggest that besides disapproval of policy, writers mention their plans to contribute to, or better yet get out and work for their opponent in the next election cycle. Hit’m where it really hurts…
There is a valid argument to made that large sums of money should not be paid for a person that only has, statistically, a few years to live. That decision is up to the individual and/or the legal guardian, not some freaking bureaucrat as long as the patient is personally able to pay for the care. It should not be a responsibility of government, at any level, to pay for such life continuence.
I personally support voluntary euthanasia in such cases. Bureaucratically enforced suffering and death to control costs is anathema to a libertarian.