ObamaCare and the Elderly: Don't Entrust 'Sandmen' Technocrats With Deathly Medical Directorate Authority

Here's Newt Gingrich speaking on ObamaCare's end-of-life provisions for the elderly:

You're asking us to trust turning power over to the government, when there clearly are people in America who believe in -- in establishing euthanasia, including selective standards.

I've read the key passage of the bill, to which George Stephanopolous is referring; and I wrote about it last night, see "End of Life: ObamaCare and the Elderly." The entry triggered a lively discussion, and Dr. Ahmadinejad Chavez Biobrain weighed in with a subsequent post, "In Defense of Palin's Death Panel." At one point, Dr. Biobrain claims that " Donald's solid ground' just crumbled out from beneath him."

Actually, not so fast. The "death panel" terminology is not mine. Yet, I do know that President Obama is indifferent to the beauty and sanctity of life (he's President Infanticide, remember). And the legislation is clear: It requires "orders" for end of life decisions, a choice of language which is totally at odds with traditionally individualistic "patient's directives" terminology - and which is thus typically authoritarian in tone. That is fact, not opinion. It's explicitly set forth as such in the key sections of the House bill I cited last night. And why "orders"? Well, the Democrats hate private autonomy and personal liberty. It's no wonder that Newt Gingrich argues that President Obama is "asking us to decide that we believe that the government is to be trusted." I don't trust President Obama. He's a liar and a sneak, and he's gathering information on his political enemies. Perhaps one of those enemy's parents or grandparents might not be approved for some life-sustaining medical treatment. Of course, it's not a political decision, so the administration and the Democratic majority will have plausible deniability. It's a technocratic decision, which will be carried out by the government's "Sandmen" ObamaCare technocrats empowered with life-and-death authority to "order" treatment limitations for the elderly. Only a hard left radical like the not-a-real-doctor-who-posts-cowardly-under-a-pseudonym Dr. Ahmadinejad Chavez Biobrain would defend this monstrosity of Democratic big-government neo-Stalinism.

Dr. Biobrain has yet to prevail in debating me, although he's a glutton for punishment. I've been trying to ignore him lately, though, disgusted as I am with his recent outburst of unspeakable anti-Semitism. It really crosses a line.

In any case, check some other sources for reference.

* Betsy McCaughey, "DEADLY DOCTORS: O ADVISERS WANT TO RATION CARE". McCaughey writes of Ezekiel Emanuel, President Obama's health adviser at OMB and an Obama point-man at the Federal Council on Comparative Effectiveness Research:

Emanuel ... believes that "communitarianism" should guide decisions on who gets care. He says medical care should be reserved for the non-disabled, not given to those "who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens . . . An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia" (Hastings Center Report, Nov.-Dec. '96).

Translation: Don't give much care to a grandmother with Parkinson's or a child with cerebral palsy.

He explicitly defends discrimination against older patients: "Unlike allocation 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" (Lancet, Jan. 31).

* Also, the Heritage Foundation, "Obamacare: One Pill, Two Pill, Red Pill, Blue Pill":

Who Makes Medical Decisions? What is the right medical treatment and should bureaucrats determine what Americans can or cannot have? While the House and Senate language is vague, amendments offered in House and Senate committees to block government rationing of care were routinely defeated. Cost or a federal health board could be the deciding factors. President Obama himself admitted this when he said, "Maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller," when asked about an elderly woman who needed a pacemaker.

* The Washington Post, "The Health-Care Sacrifice: What President Obama Needs to Tell the Public About the Cost of Reform"

Mr. Obama's soothing bedside manner masks the reality that getting health costs under control will require making difficult choices about what procedures and medications to cover. It will require saying no, or having the patient pay more, at times when the extra expense is not justified by the marginal improvement in care.

See also my previous entry, "Obama's Health Plan Will Succeed (At Getting People to Die." Faster)."

Hat Tip: Hot Air, "We Have Seen the “Death Panel,” And You Are On It."