PrintJuly 20, 2010
ObamaCare Mythology: One Man's Life Is Another Man's Loss
If President Obama is to be believed, health care is a dwindling, finite resource that must be rationed. According to Obama, quality health care for some deprives the less fortunate of quality care. The only good health care in Obama's worldview is that which is "redistributional."
So says Dr. Donald Berwick, Obama's new health care czar, appointed to oversee the distribution of $800 billion worth of benefits payments. This mostly means denying life-extending treatment to seniors, in practice. Of course, Obama lacks the constitutional authority to appoint an individual with this kind of authority without Senate confirmation, but using the "recess appointment" ruse, shocking even Democrat senators, Berwick now holds vast power over who gets what medical treatment.
But no matter. Obama has decided. Illegality has not stopped other contentious Obama appointments. Obama does what he wants, when he wants, regardless of his sworn oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution. The drilling ban serves as a perfect example of Obama's lawless mindset. After two court rulings voided the economically destructive ban, Obama announced that he would impose the ban anyway, separation of powers notwithstanding.
The Obama redistribution claptrap is based on a false notion, i.e. that one man's gain is another man's loss. But in the ObamaCare paradigm, lives are at stake, so his phrase would read, "One man's life is another man's loss." This idea is either sheer stupidity or overt deception, since no one is denied health care in this country, with or without the ability to pay.
If the wealthy pay for select physicians instead of waiting in line for a general practitioner, those waiting in line are not deprived of health care. The method of delivery is merely different. And what if the wealthy receive better care? If they choose to pay for premium care at greater cost, is it not their prerogative to do so? Is this not America, where hard work and talent yield a bigger slice of pie? When did spending hard-earned money become a federal offense?
And yet, Obama would have Americans believe that some must perish so that the noble poor can live. Who is stopping the poor from living? It is not the wealthy. In fact, hospitals are filled with illegal immigrants unable to even barter for the services American hospitals provide. Then why the selective assault on human life? As with all of Obama's policies, the rationale is control. Vulnerable Americans will be unlikely to challenge Obama if their medical treatment is at stake. This is about political control through medical means.
Newly appointed health care czar Dr. Donald Berwick does not conceal his contempt for human life. In a speech to a captive British audience, Berwick uttered these words:
Any health care funding plan that is just, equitable, civilized, and humane must, must redistribute wealth from the richer among us to the poorer and the less fortunate. Excellent health care is by definition redistributional.
He further added, "The decision is not whether or not we will ration care -- the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open. And right now, we are doing it blindly." This is the individual who will preside over the committee that will decide how to cut $500 billion out of Medicare. Goodbye, seniors. Enjoy Florida while you can.
Berwick's views are closely aligned with those of Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, who sits on the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research that will decide what treatments are allowed and in what quantities[i]. Emanuel infamously stated in the prominent medical journal Lancet:
Unlike allocation [of health care] by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination; every person lives through different life stages rather than being a single age. Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years. Treating 65-year-olds differently because of stereotypes or falsehoods would be ageist; treating them differently because they have already had more life-years is not[ii].
In March 2009, I warned that if government gained control of the medical profession, it would control life. The far-left Washington Monthly all but called me insane. But the sinister assault on that most essential human right, the right to life, is now out in the open for all to see. Aside from capital punishment, which requires trial by a jury of our peers, government is not empowered to end the lives of citizens. Governments that have this power are no longer democratic, but despotic. (See the Soviet Union and Communist China, which together were responsible for the deaths of over 80 million of their own citizens[iii].)
America from the very beginning was to be different from the tyrannies of Europe, whereby "subjects" lived or died at the monarch's whim. Americans live by right, a right upon which no public official who is loyal to the Constitution may infringe. If America allows government to control medical care, it ceases to be free. For he who controls medical care controls life. And if life is the province of government, who will dare resist? We live freemen or die slaves.
[i] The Patient Protection an Affordable Healthcare Act, H.R. 3590, 5 Jan. 2010, 111th Congress, 2nd Session, Sec. 6301-02.
[ii] Govind Persad, Alan Wertheimer, and Ezekiel J. Emanuel, "Principles for Allocation of Scarce Medical Interventions," (The Lancet, vol. 373, issue 9661).
[iii] R.J. Rummel, "War Isn't This Century's Biggest Killer," Wall Street Journal, 7 July 1986, http://libproxy.calbaptist.edu:2083/pqdweb?index=0&did=27254204&SrchMode=1&sid=1&Fmt=3&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1235181353&clientId=52936, (retrieved 20 February 2009).
