and why you shouldn’t believe anyone who tries to tell you that there will be no difference between government bureaucrats and the insurance-company bureaucrats we have now (even as problematic as that current bureaucracy is, even as badly as we need to prune it). Read Michelle Moore’s New Ledger piece on “Rationed Care & The Most Vulnerable Among Us” . . . but be prepared, it’s an emotional read. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that it was Sarah Palin, a mother of five, including a baby with Down Syndrome, who came up with the phrase “death panels”; newborns who aren’t “perfect” and perfectly convenient truly are, even more than the elderly, the most vulnerable among us. They are the ones who most deserve our care—not to be abandoned as “too expensive.”
(Cross-posted at Conservatives4Palin)
When I read that health care would not be available to the unborn, I realised that kids like my Andy would be in grave danger. There is a surgery available that can practically reverse severe spina bifida in the womb, but under the new plan, health care is restricted to the unborn. What about heart surgeries? What about all those amazing breakthroughs? Do we just now say, "let's just pretend they don't really exist!'
It is tragic.
I think the more people realize that, the greater the resistance to Obamacare will be.
That hit really close to home. My youngest was born at 29 weeks and my nephew at 25 weeks. They wouldn't have fallen under these "guidelines" but still, my heart is breaking for this mom, knowing how close my own family came to experiencing the pain of losing a baby.
Remember the picture of the baby reaching out of the womb during surgery and grasping the doctor's hand? How can anyone ignore that? It's incomprehensible to me.
It's true that this is tragic, definitely. It's untrue that our current system works better. If this mother had no health insurance, or too little insurance, what do you think would have happened?
It's also untrue that this would happen based on the legislation Sarah Palin was referring to, which is *identical* in its so-called "death panels" to legislation Bush supported six years ago.
But of course, it's only wrong when a Democrat does it.
Doug, I know what would have happened, because I've seen it happen: the hospital would have taken care of the baby and sorted it out later. They would probably have ended up writing off most of the cost and recouping it the way they recoup the other costs they end up writing off: by inflating their charges to people who have insurance.
And no, this legislation is not identical to anything to come out of the Bush 43 administration, which did not have any interest in socializing medicine–which is the clearly-admitted goal of this administration. And yes, this sort of scenario is ultimately where government control of health-care spending ultimately leads, to government bureaucrats promulgating guidelines and decisions which result in the denial of care to people.
Insurance companies deny payment; you can always go ahead with care and fight them about it later. Government can deny care, and require medical professionals to comply.
Sis–I don't know.
Sis, that pic was taken during the spina bifida reversal surgery I was referring to — he is a perfectly normal 8 year old now 🙂
And Doug, Rob is right — if a government is in charge of who gets treated and who doesn't it is going to get ugly. It will become impersonal and based entirely upon the numbers, just like what happened in Canada. They started out and quickly came to see it was bankrupting the country and so they did a number of things, one of which was to forcibly close the medical schools for a time in order to create a doctor shortage as a way to artificially deny care on a random basis. If you think insurance companies are cruel, government would be worse — because instead of denying at the back end, payment, they would deny on the front end. It is far better to declare bankruptcy after unsuccessfully fighting the insurance companies for payment on your child's emergency surgery than it is to have to live without him or her because it was denied altogether. I have lived under nationalised health care, something most of it's supporters have never done.
As for the Republican/Democrat thing, I am neither.
In Shreveport, this happens all the time, at LSU Medical Center. People with no insurance are taken care of, at the teaching hospital.