Obama's Run

Fire of Liberty

One thing that I'm highly concerned about the "nationalized health care" policy being proposed by the Obama administration is the fact that it will place pointy-headed bureaucrats in charge of our medical care thus pushing our decisions and that of the Dr. aside. One only has to look at Canada or the UK to see how such a system has led to a scarcity of "miracle drugs", top of the line and timely cancer care, state of the art technology, not to mention excessive waiting lines. Even more this system leads to the rationing of medical care to the folks who are deemed "eligible" or "viable" for this procedure or that medicine by a government bureaucrat sitting in D.C. I believe that Hugh Hewitt summed up what could be coming down the pike in his May 5, 2009 op/ed "Flu pandemic today, health care rationing tomorrow," in which he noted":

Almost anyone familiar with the push for what is euphemistically called “health care reform” knows that many experts on the left believe that far too many dollars are spent on providing health care to people in the final weeks or months of their earthly lives. If controls can be placed on these expenditures, then more of the government’s resources will be available for younger and much healthier people.

Thus, rationing’s first target is going to be the expensive demands made by the elderly. The new system will simply scoff at the idea of a liver transplant for anyone over the age of 65. Or 60. Or maybe even 55. Liver transplants are expensive.

Rationing’s second target will have to be those very expensive services laid out for the profoundly disabled. Any ideology which rejects the value of even completely healthy late term fetuses (and support for late term abortion rights absolutely means the rejection of that value) is simply not going to be able to support the expenditure of scarce resources on hugely expensive medical interventions on behalf of the severely handicapped.

After the easy cuts are made at the beginning and end of life, expect the government to begin to squeeze on disfavored behaviors via the minimization or withdrawal of medical care for, say, lung cancers in smokers or heart disease among the obese.

I for one hope that such legislation will fall to the wayside, but such can only happen if the American people become aware of what President Obama and his supporters have in store for us.

*Now being a Sci-Fi fan, one can imagine this progressive inspired utopian dream world emerging in our near future.