
by: Bill Dupray posted: 2009-05-19 16:24:00
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Neat trick, huh? They haven't even passed Nationalized Health Care yet and we already have rationing. Under Medicare, which is Nationalized Health Care for the elderly, the government decided yesterday that virtual colonoscopies, a non-invasive diagnostic tool, costs too much and the government will no longer pay for them.
From WSJ.
[The] future is playing out in miniature in Medicare right now. Desperate to prevent medical costs from engulfing the federal budget, the program's central planners decided last week to deny payment for a new version of one of life's most unpleasant routine procedures, the colonoscopy. This is a preview of how health care will be rationed when Democrats get their way.
At issue are "virtual colonoscopies," or CT scans of the abdomen. Colon cancer is the second leading cause of U.S. cancer death but one of the most preventable. Found early, the cure rate is 93%, but only 8% at later stages. Virtual colonoscopies are likely to boost screenings because they are quicker, more comfortable and significantly cheaper than the standard "optical" procedure, which involves anesthesia and threading an endoscope through the lower intestine. . . .
The problem for Medicare is that if cancerous lesions are found using a scan, then patients must follow up with a traditional colonoscopy anyway. Costs would be lower if everyone simply took the invasive route, where doctors can remove polyps on the spot. As Medicare noted in its ruling, "If there is a relatively high referral rate [for traditional colonoscopy], the utility of an intermediate test such as CT colonography is limited." In other words, duplication would be too pricey.
So an effective, available, and more comfortable treatment (in a bygone era, such things were celebrated as breakthrough technological advancements to improve people's lives), costs too much. So the government has decided that the elderly are not allowed to have them.
Democrats know that European countries, which have had Socialized medicine for decades, routinely ration care. But they are trying to pretend that it won't happen here. Even President Obama was asked in an interview about how his own grandmother would have fared under her grandson's plan. His answer? She would have been fine because he would have paid out of his own pocket. As for everybody else's grandmother, sorry, they are screwed..
In the weeks before he was elected president, Barack Obama confronted a life crisis all too common in families across America. His grandmother, who already had a diagnosis of terminal cancer, fell and broke her hip, possibly because of a mild stroke. The question became whether to replace her hip even though she was dying. . . .If society is to rein in health costs, at what point are expensive operations like Ms. Dunham’s hip replacement surgery no longer affordable?
“I don’t know how much that hip replacement cost,” Mr. Obama said in the interview with David Leonhardt of The Times. “I would have paid out of pocket for that hip replacement, just because she’s my grandmother. Whether, sort of in the aggregate, society making those decisions to give my grandmother, or everybody else’s aging grandparents or parents, a hip replacement when they’re terminally ill is a sustainable model is a very difficult question.”
So no colonoscopy now, and no hip replacements later. Of course the elderly are, well . . . old, and the liberals, those champions of the weak and downtrodden, are perfectly content to let them die early, painful deaths . . . for the good of the State.
Trackback url: http://patriotroom.com/article/health-care-rationing-has-begun/trackback
It seems to escape Sullivan's attention that Palin came to prominence because the entire right was agitating for domestic exploration and then this attractive governor from Alaska spoke the magic words... "Drill, baby, drill..." Sullivan would posit that things happened in the opposite order. Here we all were celebrating the untainted and quite godforsaken barren tundra known as ANWR, but suddenly a woman who could rock a D cup came on the scene, and then we were sold. And finally... Sullivan really, really hates women, and really, really resents their power and really, really resents that they might possess a degree of sexual attractiveness for the majority of the male population that he can't compete with, no matter how much he squat-thrusts.Add some stuff about Sully hating Jews and it's a fun read.
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But Dr. Pachauri and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are now under intense scrutiny, facing accusations of scientific sloppiness and potential financial conflicts of interest from climate skeptics, right-leaning politicians and even some mainstream scientists. Senator John Barrasso, a Wyoming Republican, called for Dr. Pachauri’s resignation last week. Critics, writing in Britain’s Sunday Telegraph and elsewhere, have accused Dr. Pachauri of profiting from his work as an adviser to businesses, including Deutsche Bank and Pegasus Capital Advisors, a New York investment firm — a claim he denies. They have also unearthed and publicized problems with the intergovernmental panel’s landmark 2007 report on climate change, which concluded that the planet was warming and that humans were likely to blame.
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The share of the blame comes as cracks are beginning to show in Emanuel’s once-impregnable political armor... on Capitol Hill he’s under fire for poor execution of the president’s healthcare agenda in the Senate... Senate Democrats grilled White House advisers last week during a special Senate Democratic retreat, expressing frustration over the lack of a clear plan. While Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) ripped chief political strategist David Axelrod, Senate Democrats say Emanuel, who was more closely involved in managing negotiations in Congress, also deserves scrutiny.
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Michelle Obama defended her husband against some of his most vocal critics, saying President Obama did a "phenomenal" job this year and that change is a long-term process. The first lady talks about her nationwide campaign called "Let's Move." "I think my husband has done a phenomenal job staying on course, looking his critics in the eye, coming up with clear solutions against staying the course," Michelle Obama told Robin Roberts in an exclusive morning television interview on "Good Morning America." "That's what leadership is. But people have the right to criticize the President of the United States."Let me finish that last thought for you, Michelle. I see you rubbing your hands together and thinking, "Yes, for now people have the right to criticize him, but we're working on changing that."
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In his letter, being sent out to Arpaio supporters today as part of a 100,000-person national direct mail drop, the sheriff calls Hayworth's decision to challenge McCain "courageous." And he pledges to help Hayworth "every step of the way." "Senator McCain has served this country admirably but it's time to replace his moderate or even liberal positions on taxes, the border, social causes and big bank bailouts with a consistent conservative like J.D.," Arpaio continues. "After years of running over Republican principles his entire career no election year conversion to our way of thinking will save his campaign from voters that want conservatives to be a part of the solution rather than part of the problem," he says.
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McCain now finds himself jammed, moving starkly — and often awkwardly — to the right, apparently in an effort to gain favor among the same voters whom Mr. Hayworth, a consistent voice for the far right, could pull toward him like taffy come summer. McCain now sharply criticizes the bailout bill he voted for, pivoted from his earlier position that the Guantánamo Bay detention facility should be closed, offered only a muted response to the Supreme Court’s decision undoing campaign finance laws and backed down from statements that gays in the military would be O.K. by him... “John is undergoing a campaign conversion,” Mr. Hayworth said. Hayworth’s radio-personality bluster and big emotions.. may now have a part in the greater populist narrative that threatens many of the nation’s more centrist Republicans.
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Iran said Tuesday that it had begun producing higher-grade enriched uranium, marking a new and potentially dangerous turn in Tehran's confrontation with the West over its nuclear ambitions... U.S. National Intelligence Director Dennis C. Blair told the House intelligence committee last week that "Iran has the scientific, the technical, the industrial capacity to produce enough highly enriched uranium for a weapon in the next few years and eventually to produce a nuclear weapon. The central issue is a political decision by Iran to do so."
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I wouldn't want my fingerprints on anything this administration or congress proposes. Reid told reporters the bill would be introduced on Tuesday, and that it would include an extension of the tax breaks... Reid did not say how expensive the jobs bill would be. The Senate had been considering a package of roughly $80 billion. The House passed a larger jobs bill before Christmas, but now plans to unveil a different bill independent of that package, which did not garner Republican support.
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Back in November, the House passed its health care bill by a narrow 220 to 215 margin, with 39 Democrats voting against it. Since then, the one Republican who voted for it — Joseph Cao — has indicated that he would not support the bill a second time around given the weaker language on abortion in the Senate version. In addition, Florida Rep. Robert Wexler already retired prematurely. Factor in Murtha’s death today, and Pelosi is down to 217 votes — one short of passage. To pass the bill at some point in the next few months, she’ll need to flip a Democrat who is already on record voting against the bill.
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Don't think that Republicans can't be sucked in when an anti-Wall Street lynch mob gets its blood up. Recall that Sarbanes-Oxley, the devastating antigrowth response in 2002 to the Enron and Worldcom scandals, was passed with virtually unanimous support by Republicans in Congress, and signed by a Republican president. Recall that last year 85 House Republicans voted for a 90% tax on bonuses for any employee of any bank that took more than $5 billion in TARP money. Investors got some good news last Friday. Stocks resisted following through on Thursday's sharp plunge after (Congress) reached an impasse on bank re-regulation. That's a nice down payment on what investors need a lot more of now: proof that the GOP won't join Democrats in a populist rush to seek revenge against Wall Street.
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