The Thirst for Freedom

I’m sure you’ve been listening to the debate about “Death Panels.” Our President has called them a Myth.

I believe Sarah Palin coined the phrase here: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=113851103434

When Barack Obama tries to stop this “deception” he does so by saying it is an outright lie, there is no “death panel” in any current legislation.

I think he is missing the point. Palin is addressing the mentality behind the bills and the implications of the bills as well. She clearly shows this in a subsequent note here: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=116471698434

Here is a quote from that article:

“Of course, it’s not just this one provision that presents a problem. My original comments concerned statements made by Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, a health policy advisor to President Obama and the brother of the President’s chief of staff. Dr. Emanuel has written that some medical services should not be guaranteed to those ‘who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens….An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia.’ Dr. Emanuel has also advocated basing medical decisions on a system which ‘produces a priority curve on which individuals aged between roughly 15 and 40 years get the most chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get chances that are attenuated.’” [Read More]

I just read an article that seems to show these implications coming true in the U.K. I don’t mean to attack the U.K. health system. I have never lived there. Perhaps some of my friends in the U.K. can explain. The point is not to attack a nation, but to try and really see if we can observe the “death panel” type consequences really coming true in a state health care system, whether or not that is the intent of such a system.

You can read that article at JewishWorldReview.com:

“Remember the whole controversy over ‘death panels’—the idea, as President Obama dismissively put it, that greater government control over medicine would cause bureaucrats to ‘pull the plug on grandma’?

Well, for weeks now Britain’s newspapers have been filled with articles about the National Health Service pulling the plug on grandma.” [Read More]

The story has a number of links to articles from U.K. sources about various stories where the “death panel” kind of thing is allegedly taking place.

The United States is in a Worldview War primarily between the ideas of Secular Humanism and the ideas of Christianity. (Sometimes the “Christian” ideas are even pushed by people who are not necessarily “Christian.” They just embrace some of the values.) The rest of the world is in this war as well.

I don’t think we’re at a place where a law could openly say “let those who aren’t productive die;” but it is a clear implication of contemporary worldview to let this happen. Our culture actually considers it a legitimate debate whether or not the wholesale slaughter of the unborn going on through abortion should be illegal. This is not a culture that can be trusted to force a health care plan upon us. If our culture tolerates the murder of innocent unborn children, what will end up being tolerated in the name of saving health care costs? I would suggest we avoid any expansion of government, especially in the current climate.

Just some thoughts.

Dr. Kevin Pho discusses the problems caused by Massachusetts’ “universal” health care at CNN.com.

” The Massachusetts Medical Society reported that the average wait time for a new patient looking for a primary care doctor ranged from 36 to 50 days, with almost half of internal medicine physicians closing their doors entirely to new patients. And when you consider that Massachusetts already has the highest concentration of doctors nationwide, wait times will likely be worse in other, less physician-abundant parts of the country, should universal coverage be enacted federally.

“When patients are forced to wait weeks to obtain medical care, they inevitably find their way into the emergency department for treatment that ordinarily can be handled in a doctor’s office. Indeed, since health reform was passed, according to state data provided to the Boston Globe, Massachusetts emergency rooms have reported a 7 percent increase in volume, which markedly inflates costs when you consider that emergency room treatment can be up to 10 times more expensive than an office visit for the same ailment.” [Read More]