[BRIGADE] PJB: Sarah and the Death Panels
Published: Fri, 08/21/09
by Patrick J. Buchanan
August 21, 2009
"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."
Of Sarah Palin it may be said: The lady knows how to frame an issue.
Culture of Corruption by Michelle Malkin FREE
And while she has been fairly criticized for hyperbole about the
end-of-life counselors in the House bill, she drew such attention
to the provision that Democrats chose to dump it rather than debate
it
And understandably so. For if Congress enacts universal health care
coverage, we are undeniably headed for a medical system of rationed
care that must inevitably deny care to some terminally ill and
elderly, which will shorten their lives, perhaps by years. Consider:
Democrats call Medicare the model of government-run universal
health care. But Medicare is a system whereby 140 million working
Americans pay 2.9 percent of all wages and salaries into a fund to
pay for health care for 42 million mostly older Americans. And
Medicare is already going bust.
If Obamacare is passed, the cost of health care for today's 47
million uninsured will also land on those 140 million. And if Obama
puts 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens on a "path to
citizenship," as he promises, they, too, will have their health
care provided by taxpayers.
Here is the crusher. The Census Bureau projects that, by 2050, the
U.S. population will explode to 435 million. As most of these folks
will be immigrants, their children and grandchildren, the cost of
their heath care would also have to be largely born by middle-class
and wealthy taxpayers.
Now factor this in.
In 2000, the average American male in a population of 300 million
lived to 74; the average female to 80. But in 2050, the average
male in a population of 435 million Americans will live to 80 and
the average female to 86. And, according to U.N. figures, 21
percent of the U.S. population in 2050, some 91 million Americans,
will be over 65, and 7.6 percent, or 33 million Americans, will be
over 80 -- and consuming health care in ever-increasing measures.
Now if a primary purpose of Obamacare is to "bend the curve" of
soaring health care costs, and half of those costs are incurred in
the last six months of life, and the number of seniors will grow by
scores of millions, how do you cut costs without rationing care?
And how do you ration care without denying millions of elderly and
aged the prescriptions, procedures and operations they need to stay
alive?
Consider two beloved Americans: Ted Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.
Since he was diagnosed with brain cancer more than a year ago, Sen.
Kennedy has had excellent care, including surgery and chemotherapy,
which have kept him alive and, until very recently, active.
For a decade, President Reagan, because of round-the-clock care,
lived with an Alzheimer's that had robbed him of his memory and
left him unable to recognize his own family and close friends.
In the future, will a man of Kennedy's age, with brain cancer but
without the means of offsetting his own health care costs, be kept
alive, operated on, given chemotherapy -- by a government obsessed
with cutting health care costs?
Will a bureaucracy desperate to cut costs keep alive for years the
tens of thousands of destitute 80- and 90-year-old patients with
Alzheimer's, as was done with Ronald Reagan?
What if, in 2050, Palin and her husband are not here. And
42-year-old Trig, with Down syndrome, has been in an institution
for years, and the cost of his care and that of hundreds of
thousands like him with Down syndrome is draining the resources of
the health care system?
Will there not be voices softly suggesting a quiet and merciful end?
In Oregon, the law permits doctors to assist in the suicide of
terminal patients who wish to end their lives. Let us assume
numerous patients have Alzheimer's and, so, cannot be part of the
decision to end their lives. Who then makes the decision to
continue or end life? Would it be unfair to call the
decision-makers in those cases a death panel?
Almost a third of all unborn babies in America have their lives
terminated each year with the consent of their mothers. Fifty
million since Roe v. Wade have never seen the light of day. For
many, the quality of life now supersedes in value the sanctity of
life. That is who we are.
Between 2012 and 2030, 74 million baby boomers will retire, cease
to be the major contributors to Medicare and become the major drain
on Medicare. How long will an overtaxed labor force in a
de-Christianized America be wiling to pay the bill to keep all
those aging boomers alive?
Rationed care is coming, and the death panels will not be far
behind.
SOURCE: http://buchanan.org/blog/sarah-and-the-death-panels-1859