Stand with Truth

Obamacare: Not a Slippery Slope, But a Cliff

By Phill Kline

“Authority (is hereby given for) certain physicians to be designated by name in such a manner that persons who, according to human judgment, are incurable can, upon a most careful diagnosis of their condition of sickness, be accorded a mercy death.”[i]

This September 1, 1939 order by Adolph Hitler was followed up by the establishment of vast network of doctors and professionals dedicated to providing “mercy” to those who were a burden on the state. Hundreds of thousands of “useless eaters” were euthanized. For this and other crimes, seven high ranking Nazi officials, including doctors, were executed after being convicted at Nuremberg.

In an effort to explain how the medical profession participated in such atrocities, prosecution expert witness Werner Leibbrandt, Professor of History of Medicine at Erlangen University testified “the concept of humanity is a very dangerous concept…it is most dangerous of all for the physician…for the physician, the individual stands above all humanity and the individual unfortunately has sunk very low in these last few years.”

Prof. Leibbrandt recognized that “humanity” substituted for God gives birth to inhumanity.

And thus is the problem with Obamacare - the individual sinks very low indeed.

America has incrementally removed the individual from medical decisions over a period of decades. Today, 46 cents of the health care dollar is spent by government, 42 cents by insurance carriers and only 12 cents by the individual.[ii]

Any time you remove the responsibility of payment from a person who receives services you diminish that person’s authority and introduce false and corruptive influences in the market. All of this increases inefficiency and eventually leads to inevitable corruption and distortion of the market. This leads to increased costs for demand is artificially inflated when people don’t believe they foot the bill.

And now a government which overpromised must reduce costs by rationing.

Typically, when the consumer pays the bill, such rationing occurs in the exercise of liberty. I decide whether to seek a large deductible and lower premium or get a top of the line health plan. When government pays the bill, such rationing takes the form of coercion through the force of law and therein is the rub. The “humanity” of the state replaces the humane physician.

And now, in an Orwellian twist, leading bioethicists label such coercion as a moral imperative. Bioethicist Peter Singer states that we must answer the question of how many lives of 85 year-olds are worth saving the life of one teenager.[iii] This formulary worked into a national health care plan is the only way to appropriately ration scarce health care dollars, he posits.[iv]

This “dangerous humanity” is increasingly expressed by bioethicists around the globe who now call health care a “global human right.” Yet, every right has a corresponding duty – on those who have the right to exercise the right wisely; and on everyone else to recognize the right.

The only entity available to force us to recognize the right of another to have health care is government. Further, only government has the power to coerce the individual to be wise with the right – to eat vegetables rather than candy bars.

This is what is ignored by USA Today and the left leaning US media who believe that all problems lend themselves to a government solution – government solutions don’t extend liberty, they limit liberty.

Leftist academia recognizes this. Writing in the Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law and Ethics, Maria Merritt, Ph.D. core faculty member of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, states “the recognition of any right as a human right thus carries grave political consequences…because it clears a space for the principled moral justification of external intervention (political, economic, if not military) in the domestic affairs of sovereign states.”[v] A global police force for health care, much like our new Science Czar supports such a force for the distribution of global natural resources.[vi]

This diminishes the individual, destroys liberty, thwarts the incentive for innovation and advancement and almost always ends in violence: by forcing the unwanted or burdensome to die or in revolution. The human spirit does not suffer bondage well or long.

President Obama’s incremental step towards national health care is the same in a small and concealed dose. It provides “a government option” - further entrenching government as the payer and the party most interested in “saving costs” which means rationing.

Such an approach again receives the support of academia through Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of the President’s Chief of Staff. Dr. Emanuel proposes a “complete life system” of rationing.[vii] Dr. Emanuel’s plan provides a priority for adolescents over infants (because society has not invested much in infants through education, etc.) and over the elderly because they have already lived a “complete life.”[viii]

The Obama plan pays for end of life consultation sessions with government recognized experts when a patient has a “chronic” (not terminal) condition.[ix] These experts will know what procedures government is willing to pay for when Singer’s hypothetical patient is 85 years old and what is deemed too costly. In fact, Obamacare, goes much younger, forcing the 55 year-old to engage in such discussions. Further, government will prohibit the 85 year-old from seeking the unreimbursed treatment outside the government system because allowing that private option undermines financial support for the government option and also defeats one of the “moral” objectives of the left – equality in fact rather than equal opportunity. In other words, it will be illegal to pay for it yourself.[x]

Further, these consultations include “counseling” on “artificial nutrition and hydration,” a.k.a. food and water. There was a day this was humane care which could not be denied.[xi] Today, it is considered “medical care” which can be withheld.

Counseling on food and water by government reimbursed experts is not needed – if you have it you live, if not you die, painfully - just ask Bobby Schindler who was forced to watch his sister die of thirst.

And the purpose of these government funded consultations with experts will be to save costs and reduce burdens but will innocently be called “public education.” This is not a slippery slope but a cliff; and the path is straight down.

By: Phill Kline

Bioethicists, many with newly constructed abbreviations after their name, need to meet my mother. If the cut wasn’t gushing like Mount Vesuvius or a bone wasn’t visible, the emergency room was out of the question. Nothing like a little peroxide and a band-aid. Health care rationing by a financially struggling single mother of five leads to better results than a government funded panel of bioethicists. And by the way, my mother just recently passed 70 and I want to keep her alive, something ObamaCare places in jeopardy.

To understand the current health care debate you must recognize two things: 1) America long ago set the stage for a government takeover of health care; and 2)the left (mainstream media included) begins the discussion without any respect for the concept of liberty.

America has removed the patient from health care and replaced him with payment formularies primarily based on government reimbursement rates. Government already comprises 46 cents of the health care dollar through Medicaid and Medicare. (Insurance companies spend 42 cents and individuals spend 12 cents of every dollar). Physicians groups are increasingly tempted to jettison autonomy and free market ideas for higher government reimbursement rates.

Government already rations health care through these payment schemes, determining what devices and procedures to cover. We have been incrementally moving towards universal health care for decades. As soon as the patient was removed from the payment system, health care became an issue for either bureaucrats or actuaries.

And so what is the problem?

The loss of liberty and the inevitable corruption and exploitation of government run health care is a cost we must avoid.

Don’t be fooled - the death panels are already out there advocating a utilitarian view of human life. Bioethicists, void of any understanding or training in economics and without a religious framework, are coming to the only conclusion left on the table: health care is a world human rights issue demanding that limited resources must be allocated and rationed in a moral framework as determined by our humanistic secular culture and enforced by a government with a global reach.

Voila, death panels are really Human Rights Panels and formulas will be devised for government experts to determine whose life makes the grade and who has the duty to die. In the Dingell/Rangel bill, the panels provide “Advance Care Planning Consultation” and a funded government study will provide “patient decision aids” of which cost to government is a consideration.

After all, it makes so much sense. Not enough to go around, so who must make sure we distribute wisely - government. Marx in the operating room.

And the private option will be prohibited for allowing people to opt out undermines the financial support for government health care and defeats the perceived moral objective of the left.

Prof. Peter Singer of Princeton University put in bluntly in the Sunday Magazine of the NY Times. Prof. Singer states that the life of an elderly American is not worth the life of a young American.

And all of this will be done in the name of “fiscal conservatism” and human rights. Let’s make health care less costly by letting the costly folks die. “Every child a wanted child.” The abortion justification on the back end. This is why we can call a “reform” bill that increases government spending and encourages death “America’s Affordable Health Choices Act.”

And all of this debate ignores the value of human liberty. When individuals are free to make these decisions and live with the results: it is amazing what humans accomplish.

My mother rationed our health care. She replaced inordinate emergency room visits with peanut butter and jelly to keep us fed. And she raised 5 kids on her own without government panels, government money or government prohibitions. I’ll choose my mother over Marx any day.

President Obama in McLean, Virginia at a rally for a Virginia Senator.

Deception has become an art form in politics. As a State Representative I often watched in amazement how legislative efforts were publicly represented as the opposite of the efforts resulting impact.  The deception is reaching its zenith in the current health care debate and the concern is that the American electorate will choose empty promises over self-responsibility.

Government run health care WILL result in rationed services.  Currently, such “rationing” is exercised by individuals and families as they balance goals and resources - this is called liberty.  In the future, such “rationing” will be exercised by government bureaucrats implementing tens of thousands of pages of regulations tied to a 1,000 page plus health care bill that none of the Congressional leaders drafting the bill have read.

Every time you separate power from the person who must live with the results of a decision, you create inefficiencies, incur a loss of liberty and invite corruption because you insert false motivators.

I encourage you to read my earlier post on how the Rangell/Dingell Health Care bill promotes euthanasia of non-terminal patients and also promotes abortion.

Then watch the following video and hear in the President’s own words how the goal is a single payer government run system.  This effort is not about assisting those in need; rather it is about government power.

Phill Kline

See also:  post below regarding mandating abortion and euthanasia counseling.