|
A selection of letters on government healthcare, from the US, Canada, Britain, the Netherlands and Sweden. This mailbox will be updated on a regular basis.
NOT AVAILABLE IN CANADA
Yesterday, as a result of an x-ray taken because of a lung infection, my doctor ordered a CT scan. Her nurse called me at 2:00 PM to inform me what the doctor wanted and that my prescription could be picked up at my convenience. Within the hour I had the prescription, gone to my neighborhood clinic,
had the procedure, and arrived back at home. Could this happen in Canada?
Enjoy your work, keep up the effort.
Guy Campbell
New Port Richey, Florida
PS I am on Medicare.
NO BEDS IN WINNIPEG
Take a look at this, from the Winnipeg Free Press.
Maria Horvath
ONLY 40 MONTHS IN THE QUEUE
I suffer from arthritis bad enough that I require shoulder replacement surgery. In the summer/fall of 2006 our GP referred me to the University of Calgary Sports medicine clinic, who promptly sent me a note I received in July 2007 saying I could see the doctor in a few more months. Since then (after unsuccessful arthroscopic surgery made the pain worse) I've been referred to another colleague at the same centre. I am now in the queue for replacement surgery and have just another 7-10 months to wait! If I am lucky enough to receive the surgery in that time frame it will have taken nearly 40 months from the first referral to replacement surgery. Yippee!
When the first surgeon referred me to the second I was told that I was very lucky because I wouldn't have to wait the average of 18 months just to see the new surgeon for an initial consultation.
I haven't tried to verify the wait time they mentioned but I wouldn't doubt a wait time of over a year.
Mark Gray
THREE DAYS ON A STRETCHER
Another indictment of socialized medicine...
A story of a Quebec woman that died waiting 48 hours on a stretcher outside the Emergency room of a Hull (Gatineau) hospital. Especially look at the last couple of paragraphs.
Andrew
HOW COULD IT HAVE HAPPENED?
I am sending you this tragic story to add to your catalogue of nightmare anecdotes. ( I was born in the U.S. and have lived in Canada since marrying a Canadian 35 years ago. I work as an R.N. in the British Columbia capital Victoria.)
A colleague of mine just lost her 2 1/2 half year old daughter this July. The little girl was taken to E.R. with symptoms of croup and eventually discharged that afternoon. By the middle of the same night she was again in respiratory distress and 911 was called. The ambulance arrived WITHOUT the equipment for pediatric intubation despite the 911 call describing a young child in respiratory distress. It took 20 more minutes after the ambulance reached the child to send for the proper equipment, in which time the child suffered irreversible brain damage and subsequently died a week later. She was her parents' only child.
Yes, in theory this tragedy could happen anywhere, and an inquest, coroner's case, and autopsy are all called for. It may turn out that the little girl succumbed to one of the exotic new micro-organisms that would have been fatal in any case. But I would take my chances with the U.S. system any day. This tragedy has been the talk all around the Royal Jubilee Hospital--how could it have happened? I asked why somebody didn't at least try some kind of improvised intubation with equipment that was in the ambulance, such as pushing an I.V line or suction tube segment into her trachea and blowing into it The post mortem may bring all such questions out. But I think that the Canadian system does tend to leave even the caregivers passive. One of my great grandfathers died of tetanus in 1895. He had injured his hand in a rural mill accident and thought he would be all right, but it was realized later that he had become infected with tetanus. They used to call it lockjaw or blood poisoning then His country doctor in southern Delaware knocked out one of his front teeth and pushed a tube down into his stomach to drip in fluids when his mouth clamped shut. He died anyway because there was no antibiotic against tetanus in 1895, but that country doctor at least tried what he could. I just don't see that kind of effort so much here.
Name withheld
MISSING, PRESUMED IN THE US
For the "wonders of socialized medicine In Canada" file:
Wanted alive: One emergency room doctor.
Reward: $5,000.
The head doctor at Hawkesbury General Hospital has taken an unorthodox step in recruiting much-needed physicians to the hospital’s emergency department: A financial reward.
Rob
NEAREST ONTARIO HOSPITAL, IN BUFFALO
Since these stories seem to be of particular interest to you, I thought I would write with ours.
My twins were born on May 30 2008, at 27 weeks GA. They were quite big given their age, 2lbs11oz and 2lbs12oz. They were delivered by emergency c-section at North York General Hospital at 9:37pm and 9:39pm, after a team from sick kids was mobilized at NYGH. I was told that they prefer to transfer the mom to a hospital with a level 2 NICU, but since I was so far along in my labor, there was no time for this. I was then told, following the birth of my children, that they were doing everything they could to find a hospital in Ontario that could accommodate them.
The following morning, a member of the sick kids team came in at around 5:30am, asked where my husband was (at home with our then 10 month old!), and told me to get him back to the hospital as soon as possible, so that he could say good bye to our kids, as they were being transferred to the children's hospital in Buffalo. Needless to say, the most devastating moments of our lives were when we watched them load them into the incubator and roll them away.
The kids were then taken by ambulance to Buffalo, as they could not get clearance to go by air due to poor weather conditions. They remained in the hospital in Buffalo until they were ready to be transferred to a level 3 NICU, 6 weeks later. As I mentioned, at the time my husband and I had a 10 month old at home at the time, and we were also moving 2 days after the twins were born. So while we would have loved to spend every minute in Buffalo by our babies' sides, this simply was not feasible for us. We relied on phone conversations with the nurses and doctors, and made the trip to see them a couple of times a week.
On July 3, 2008 our kids were transferred back to North York General Hospital. While we should have been thrilled about having our kids back in Toronto, for us the experience was bittersweet. I was able to be by their sides for the better part of every day that they were in the hospital here. However, the care they received in Buffalo was top notch, and I don't imagine that the care here would have compared. While in Buffalo, we got detailed reports on how the kids were doing, what steps they were taking to care for them, what procedures/tests/follow-ups were being done, etc. Once transferred back, I got minimal information from nurses who apparently were not allowed to discuss the medical situation with me in case they couldn't answer my questions. I asked many times to speak to the doctor that was caring for our kids at NYGH, and finally, a month after they were transferred back, the doctor called me and stated "I have no concerns". My questions were then "what about the bleed in my son's brain? What about the hole in his heart? What about both of their murmurs? What about their eyes (they were diagnosed with ROP)? What about my daughter's stomach infection? What about my son's edema?" And to each one of those things, I was told nothing.
After that experience, we were thankful that our situation had unfolded as it had, and that our children were able to receive top notch car, at the expense of the Canadian government. When they were so young and fragile, it really was the doctors' roles that were so important, and there was little that we could do for our kids (we weren't even able to hold them until days before they were transferred back!), and we can't help but wonder if they would have fared as well here as they did there.
Thankfully we now have two healthy 13 month olds. They are meeting all of their developmental milestones, and look like any other baby - you would never guess that they had such a rough start to life! This is something that we credit to the care they received in Buffalo, and though it was devastating for us to go through, we thank G-D every day that things unfolded as they had.
Stacey Diamond
Canada
HEALTHCARE MESTASTASIZES
You wrote: "When health care is the government's responsibility, it becomes its principal responsibility."
Nowhere has this process been more apparent than in the Canadian Provinces. Forty years ago, these unhappy jurisdictions were charged with the responsibility of providing universal health care, with the promise of fifty per cent funding from the federal government. The federal share has dwindled like the late prairie snows of May in Saskatchewan, but the obligation has long since metastasized, to the point where the health care portion is now the largest budget item in every province, and increases everywhere in excess of population growth. Worse yet, and in keeping with your observation, the provinces are now regarded primarily as healthcare providers and little else, since grade-school education and much road construction is provided locally and the feds handle the rest. In less than a half a century, the responsibility of each Province in respect of its citizens has been decisively shifted towards medical care, without a line altered, to say nothing of a shot fired, in what passes for a Canadian constitution, supposedly drafted to formally designate who does what between the federal government and the Provinces.
As always, your work confounds Those Who Know What Is Best For Us All!
John Pfriem
Edmonton, Alberta
HEALTHCARE NATION
I received a bone marrow transplant in Seattle in 1993. A number of the patients (I couldn't exactly go room to room doing a census) were from Canada. The waiting list for transplants in Canada was so long, that they chose to pay out of pocket for a transplant in the U.S.
If Obamacare comes, I suppose we can expect some small island somewhere in the Pacific to develop a thriving for-profit health care system. The best hospitals and thousands of doctors will re-locate there to attract wealthier patients who don't like waiting lists. This, of course, will be considered an act of war by the Obama administration.
Jim Rudolph
Meridian, Idaho
ROCKIN' AND A ROLLIN'
“Dany Mercado, a leukemia patient from Kitchener, Ontario, is cancer-free after getting a bone marrow transplant at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit." (See "Okay, you don't like the term 'death panels'”)
So, do you thing the Mercado family now spends all its time singing that old Beach Boys classic:
Ba ba ba ba Barbara Ann
Oh Barbara Ann, take my hand
Barbara Ann
You got me rockin and a-rollin
Rockin and a-reelin
Barbara Ann ba ba
Ba barbara Ann
John Galvin
THE CARE-CATION
Front-page headline in le Jounal De Montréal :
EXPLOSION OF GETTING HEALTH CARE OUTSIDE OF CANADA ...up 70%. (rough
translation...I'm in a hurry here)
John Gross
Quebec
THE TEN-MONTH WAIT FOR THE MATERNITY WARD
And yet, somehow, the infant mortality rate is significantly higher in the US than it is in the UK. In fact, if you want to be precise, it's 34% higher.
Don't take my word for it take a look at real, you know, data.
Yes we can kill more infants than the NHS! Yes we can have a higher infant mortality rate than Hungary, Greece, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia(!)!
Seriously, how little respect do you have for the intelligence of your readers?
Mark Adomanis
United Kingdom
MARK REPLIES: Speaking of "respect" for "intelligence", in what sense does the shortage of beds in British maternity wards correlate to the country's infant mortality rate? Are you suggesting they'd have an even better infant mortality rate if they made every woman give birth in the toilet or the elevator?
As to infant mortality rates in general, as with "life expectancy at birth", that's a very interesting topic that I will be writing about at length in the weeks ahead. But, even without taking into account the significant variations in the definition of "live birth", one thing you notice is that, by comparison with the United States, the countries with the lowest "infant mortality rate" have some of the lowest fertility rates on the planet. That's to say, it's not just that they have fewer infant deaths, they have fewer infants, period. They have so few, indeed, that over the medium-term (in Italy, Germany and elsewhere) it will render their government health systems unsustainable. But, as a general proposition, I would say that, when fertility rates get as low as they are in Germany, Italy, Spain and elsewhere, to the point that you now have upside-down family trees of four grandparents, two children, one grandchild, it's hardly surprising that "infant mortality" is lower.
It's one thing for you to disagree. But try to give up the dreary assumption that I'm peddling stuff I know is hooey because I think my readers are morons. That reflects only on you - and, indeed, "respect" for your own "intelligence". I'm doing you a favor by spelling it out politely, since I assume from your missives you have a genuine wish to partake in policy discourse. You won't be able to if you can't overcome crapped out, lazy and cliched assertions of bad faith. You'll thank me for this advice one day.
BOTCHED OPS
More grist for your anti-NHS mill.
Fred Schwarz
GUIDELINED INTO THE GRAVE
I thought this story might be of interest to you. A man in Belfast with liver failure is being denied a liver transplant because of government “guidelines”.
''Gareth Anderson, 19, is critically ill with liver failure after binge drinking with friends at the weekend. He became ill after returning home and was taken to the Ulster Hospital where doctors said his liver had failed. Mr McGimpsey [Northern Ireland Health Minister] said guidelines state that he has to be alcohol free for six months before going on the organ list''
What was that about “death panels” again? It seems to ring a bell for some reason......
C H Ingoldby
DAYS OFF
No idea whether there's an ideological explanation for the error, but note the strange math here:
Annual NHS sickness levels are 10.7 days a year per employee . . . 50 per cent higher than the private sector average of 6.4 days.
Actually it's 67% higher. I doubt that either figure will dissuade single-payer advocates, though.
Michael Greenspan
Bronx, NY
COTTONWOOL-BUD CURE
This story so infuriated me when I read it a year and a half ago that I still can't get it out of my mind, basically this boy spent 9 years "deaf" because the NHS never gave him an X-RAY.
Stephanie Lynch
WRONG-DIAGNOSIS DEATH
Here is another story from the Daily Mail
Soon to be coming here I'm afraid.
Richard McDevitt
'AGAINST THE RULES' TO SAVE PREEMIE
This is exactly what you've been saying. Not only did they leave the baby to die, but everyone is blaming some nameless, faceless bureaucracy to which they answer, ultimately without any real accountability for themselves or the national "death panel."
Daniel Mark
SORRY, YOU’RE NOT NICE ENOUGH FOR A HIP REPLACEMENT
Thought you'd be interested in the case of Edward Atkinson, a 74-year-old Englishman jailed for 28 days (in 2006) for sending pictures of mutilated fetuses to the staff of a Norfolk Hospital. The images were described as as "offensive, horrendous and absolutely disgusting" and, in sentencing Atkinson, the judge said, "It is clear that you intended to shock and I am certain your purpose was to cause distress and anxiety." One wonders what would happen if Atkinson had, say, sent pictures of Iraqi combat victims to the colonel commandant of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers.
One more detail. Atkinson, who was on a waiting-list for a hip replacement, was removed from the list and refused treatment by the hospital. Here's the link.
Paul Mankowski
SCOTTISH DOCTORS SHORTENED MY LIFE
Since you’re on the Hugh Hewitt show telling the world about Glaswegian survival rates under the Scottish NHS I had to write to you about my NHS experience.
Three years ago when I was 23 I was feeling extremely ill and had pains in my stomach. I phoned HNS 24 and they sent me to one of these old Victorian hospitals we have here in Glasgow. I was given a cursory look over by the doctor, while being made to feel like a time waster, pronounced OK! and sent home with a tube of analgesic cream.
The pain went way but a month later a worst pain began slowly affecting my hip muscles. It became so bad I could hardly walk. I went to the hospital again and again was treated like a time waster. The conduct of the reception staff was like I should just feel grateful that they were taking down my name and address. This time the doctor could hardly be bothered with my complaints and sent me home with slightly stronger pain killers.
I had to live with the pain and the pain killers for about three week until I began feeling my heart pounding really fast. I went to my GP this time. I was astonished when he didn’t even consider listening to my heart with his stethoscope because that would take up too much time. He then gave me a prescription for 5 days worth of tablets.
After 5 days I had become so weak and breathless I couldn’t wash or brush my teeth. I went back to my GP but this time, luckily, he was off and I got a doctor who decided to spend more that the allotted 3 minutes that you get at the GP’s surgery. He discovered that my body temperature was very high, my blood pressure was extremely low, I had a racing pulse and my weight had dropped to 7 stone. He sent me straight to the hospital but he had to personally phone the Glasgow Royal infirmary to make sure I would be admitted for tests.
After I was admitted to the hospital I was told by the cardiologist that I was dying of heart failure due to endocarditis and one of my heart valves had been destroyed. After a week in hospital I had to have emergency open heart surgery, I then stayed in hospital for a further 3 months while receiving aggressive I.V. antibiotics 3 times a day for 2 hour at a time.
The fact is this would not have happened to me in American. In America I would not have been treated like a time waster. In America the first time I set foot in the Hospital I would have been properly examined by the doctors, given a multitude of tests and the common blood infection that caused the endocarditis (once discovered) could have been treated at an early stage with standard oral antibiotic before it caused any damage. That would have cost be around £500 to £1000 in America but that is nothing when it comes to the quality of my life and I would have been happy to pay it if only to avoid the suffering I had to undergo.
I am now very unlike to see my mid 30’s because of my heart problems all thanks to NHS we have here in Scotland. Anyone that wants a health care system like the Scottish NHS must be completely mad, bonkers or both!
Stephen McMorran
Glasgow, Scotland
PEDOPHILES ON VIAGRA
I take it you're aware of the convicted paedophile who was receiving Viagra from Britain's NHS courtesy of the tax payer?
Thank you for your words/thoughts of wisdom and sanity in an ever increasingly incomprehensible world.
Tim
London, UK
SWEEPING NEW ENFORCEMENT POWERS
Why isn't anyone highlighting the language in HR 3200 that gives the IRS sweeping new enforcement powers, including the right to violate any and all Privacy Acts? Here are three examples:
In the first example, the new "Health Choices Commissioner" is given broad powers. Section 1801(a) states that “the Social Security Administration can obtain tax return data on anyone who may be eligible for a ‘low-income prescription drug subsidy’ but has not applied for it.” So the Health Choices Commissioner and anyone in his office, the fifty state health programs and their staffs, and the vast Social Security Administration will all now have access to your personal tax info. This legislation will end any hope or pretense of privacy.
The next two examples are under Title IV of HR 3200, aptly titled as "Amendments To Internal Revenue Code of 1986."
First, Section 401 (a) amends the Tax Code of 1986 by adding the following new part: "Part VIII - Health Care Related Taxes." This new part includes "Subpart A - Tax On Individuals Without Acceptable Healthcare Coverage." In Subpart A, you find subparagraph (a) which states the following: "In the case of any individual who does not meet the requirements of subsection (d) [paying for healthcare] at any time during the taxable year, there is hereby imposed a tax equal to 2.5 percent of the excess of ... the taxpayer's modified adjusted gross income for the taxable year ...(not to exceed) the applicable national average premium for such taxable year."
Second, Section 431 (a) of the bill says that the IRS must divulge taxpayer identity information, including the filing status, the modified adjusted gross income, the number of dependents, and ‘other information as is prescribed by’ regulation” to the “new Health Choices Commissioner and state health programs.”
There will be thousands of new faces able to look directly into your most private information, without your knowledge or your permission.
Where is the ACLU when you need them?
Fred Denny
Irvine, California
BASED ON MEANS, NOT ON NEED
Greetings. After years of enjoying your hard work, I had the great pleasure of quoting you in an article. It’s a debate piece titled, “Nationalized Healthcare - Prescription or Problem?”, in the Christian Medical and Dental Association’s Fall 2009 Today’s Christian Doctor. The pro position is taken by Dr. Emil, chief surgeon of Montreal Children’s Hospital.
Here’s the part where you come in:
TCD: How can we expect a system that is profit-driven to provide healthcare based on need, and not based on means?
Dr. Emil: We can’t. The reason healthcare cannot be treated as a commodity is that the more healthcare you provide, the more you lose financially. That is why it is different from any other commodity where the more you sell, the more you profit. If we look at “healthcare services” rather than “health insurance” as the product, as we should, then it is obvious that profit-driven healthcare can never produce justice. Patching the present system is doomed to failure. A new system is needed.
Dr. Van Mol: Government means are precisely the constraining point for nationalized healthcare, thereby leading to rationing and over regionalizing. Columnist Mark Steyn calls it “universal lack of access, equality of non-care,” and further laments, “We believe it’s more moral to take poor government healthcare than to make arrangements for our own.” Winston Churchill conceded the inherent vice of capitalism to be the unequal sharing of blessings, while that of socialism was the equal sharing of miseries. The past sixty years of American medicine has been anything but exclusively profit-driven. Yet for all its shortcomings, our record is remarkable for innovation, positive results, providing a framework which integrates numerous non-profit delivery entities, and makes feasible continuous improvements. Try that with government-driven medicine’s heartless juggernaut.
If you’d like to read the other ten questions and answers, here’s that link.
Andre Van Mol, MD
Redding, California
MEDICARE DEATH PANELS
I am an Administrative Law Judge for the Office of Medicare Hearings and Appeals (OMHA/DHHS). Under our medicare system: 1) a patient seeks treatment; 2) the doctor/hospital seeks reimbursement by the insurance company (contracted with by the government); 3) the insurer approves or denies payment; 4) if denied, reconsideration can be sought through a contracted intermediary (QIC); 5) if denied by the QIC, an appeal can be made to my office - or other offices like it - for a hearing and adjudication. We handle thousands of such appeals every year.
Usually such appeals seek reimbursement for services already performed, but on occasion they seek prospective medical treatment; e.g.; an "out of plan" visit to the Mayo Clinic or some other specialist; the use of an insulin pump; etc.
If the (QIC) denies the reconsideration request for payment they use the following language: "Our Medicare Panel, consisting of a nurse and a Physician, has reviewed the submitted documentation and decided the payment cannot be allowed." Oft times the appeal is denied because there is deemed to be insufficient evidence - not that the treatment was actually performed, but that it was not "medically necessary," which is clearly a qualitative decision.
Admittedly, these panels do not always deal with life and death decisions, but sometimes they do: e.g.; an insulin pump; an oxygenator; a pacemaker..
Medicare is already making subtle rationing decisions and the panel can simply use the phrase "not medically necessary" for denying payment. Even in cases where the treatment has been performed - perhaps saving the patients life -- when the request for reimbursement is denied and the doctor or hospital is on the hook for the money they learn the not so subtle lesson - stop performing these procedures because medicare will not pay for them.
Are there death panels? We report - you decide.
Name withheld
‘SECURING CONTROL OVER THE HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY’
I saw the following on a thread at Free Republic and wanted you to know about it. It was posted by someone who writes under the nom de guerre cripplecreek:
"I found a downloadable version of the SEIU bylaws and have found lots of things that can be used against them. For instance, all their claims about concern for health care in America are summed up in their own words.
“'We must organize unorganized Healthcare workers, extending to them the gains of unionism while securing control over the Healthcare industry.'
"Another oddity I found was that if only 7 members in any sized local oppose leaving the SEIU, the local will remain SEIU without debate. (If 993 members want out, 7 can override the majority without debate) They will also have a political director at every worksite."
The post contains a link to this pdf file.
Merrill Weber
Oak Park, Illinois
WRITTEN IN LEVIATHANESE
Here is one tiny section from the better than 1,000 page House crack at health care "reform" (via the Weekly Standard blog).
"The requirements of sections 2711 (other than subsections (c) and (e)) and 2712 (other than paragraphs (3), and (6) of subsection (b) and subsection (e)) of the Public Health Service Act, relating to guaranteed availability and renewability of health insurance coverage, shall apply to individuals and employers in all individual and group health insurance coverage, whether offered to individuals or employers through the Health Insurance Exchange, through any employment-based health plan, or otherwise, in the same manner as such sections apply to employers and health insurance coverage offered in the small group market, except that such section 2712(b)(1) shall apply only if, before nonrenewal or discontinuation of coverage, the issuer has provided the enrollee with notice of non-payment of premiums and there is a grace period during which the enrollee has an opportunity to correct such nonpayment."
No self-governing polity can long survive as a self-governing polity with thousand page bills written in this kind of opaque, circularly referential Leviathanese. But of course that is the point, isn't it.
At times I fear for the Republic.
Boyd Klingler
Chicago, Illinois
WE WOULD RALLY, IF WE STILL COULD
Here's a great piece on healthcare, something real to rally for I think. Of course I live in Europe so we can forget about that, but for the USA it may be a possibility.
Love your columns,
Leon Vervoort
Netherlands
IT WILL DESTROY SMALL BUSINESSES
I love and respect the work you do for America. As a small business owner I am afraid many ramifications of healthcare reform legislation are not being discussed. In the interest of brevity I will point out a major problem that will destroy thousands of small businesses.
There are thousands of small businesses in our country that barely scrape by or make modest profits. Many business owners certainly don't make money hand over fist as everyone in the left-wing seems to think. The premise of the House legislation is that business owners are all filthy rich and can afford to have their profits confiscated for healthcare. That premise is false!
By way of example, I operate hair care salons and employ many people (about 100) that make around 9-11 dollars an hour. Paying their health benefits as outlined in the house bill will cost approximately $250,000 per year. I don't make that much. So as a result I will go bankrupt, my employees will lose their jobs. The legislation makes no provision for companies that do not make enough to cover the additional expense of insurance premiums. The legislation merely confiscates my money. The legislation will also kill service industries even quicker than businesses outside of service (manufacturing for instance). The reason is we have more workers at lower pay, so the increase in cost to service related businesses is generally dramatically higher than to other businesses.
The legislation proposed will destroy small businesses by the thousands! And take our economy down as well.
If they are going to shove this down our throats is there a better way to fund reform. Should we consider a NATIONAL SALES TAX? At least that way all of us would contribute on a sliding scale. The rich would pay more because they consume more and the poor would pay less for obvious reasons.
Help get this impending crisis discussed!
Charles
Re: Give me liberty or give me death panels
HERE’S YOUR HAT AND WHAT’S YOUR HURRY
Last night, 7/27/09, I attended a telephonic "town hall" conducted by Congressman Gus Billarakis of West Central Florida (parts of Pasco and Hillsborough Counties). The topic was the proposed legislation in the
House of Representatives regarding "Health Care Reform."
During his presentation, the Congressman revealed that on page 425 of the proposed legislation there is a provision that requires periodic and mandatory "end of life counseling" for seniors. I'm not sure of the
parameters of the term "seniors" in the context of the legislation. In his remarks, Billarakis explained that the counseling had to occur every 5 years.
If that weren't chilling enough with the obvious macabre implications, the legislator elaborated that the end of life counseling - as it is currently envisioned - includes mandatory discussion on the topic of "assisted suicide." I am a retired Federal prosecutor, and I happen to know that assisted suicide is still a serious crime in most states. So, inclusion of this highly controversial topic in the mandatory counseling demonstrates that the proponents of the legislation intend to chart a wholly new course in health care reform, obviously hoping to achieve cost reductions by encouraging seniors to get out on the proverbial ice flow, and save the country the trouble of funding their health care.
I have not personally read this provision. I only learned of it yesterday. I am deeply offended by its inclusion in the intended reform bill. Regardless of its legality, assisted suicide is forbidden by my religion. Mandatory counseling about assisted suicide, imposed by the Federal government will violate my First Amendment rights, though I doubt that the authors of this travesty care much about the Constitutionality of their laws. What's next, mandatory counseling for abortion during gestation, before the government will allow payment to the Ob/gyn??
Mr. Steyn, with your contacts, perhaps you could confirm this information. I wonder that if such a perverse provision, as mandatory counseling for assisted suicide, could be camouflaged on page 425 of the
bill, what other monstrosities could be lurking in the text. One thing I know for sure, legislators like Conyers won't be able to tell us.
Tony P.
NEITHER CONSERVATIVE, NOR INTELLIGENT
Ah, dearest one man global content provider:
What you call "finnicky conservative critics" is also largely known as "the conservative intelligentsia." What us movement conservatives have learned from the last presidential election is that such a moniker doesn't suit people who simply are neither intelligent nor conservative.
If you use that formulation, I'd like some credit.
Owen Heslin
New York City
MEDICAL SELECTION
With respect, I don't believe "rationing" is the mot juste in "Governmentalization of health care leads to rationing, and rationing leads to death panels – very literally."
As I read somewhere (I regret I cannot remember who wrote this), "rationing" is slicing the bread thinner so everyone gets some. What the NHS seems to be doing and what Sarah Palin warned against in Obama care is selection, the deciding of who gets what care -- and who doesn't.
Now where have I heard that word "selection" before? Hmmmmm... That's right, in Elie Wiesel's Night and Thomas Keneally's Schindler's List.
Robyn Bailey-Orchard
PS. THANK YOU for your work against the Alice-in-Wonderland-Queen-of-Hears Human Rights Commission.
NO TIME FOR NUANCE
As a landscaper who mingles with the unwashed voters by day and immerses himself in NRO by night, I have a unique perspective, I think, on the "death panel" rhetoric. In short, you , Andrew, and Mark are right. Unlike the NR world, at least 50% of voters (the ones who decide elections), don't have the time or energy for nuance. They hear Obama's "painpill" soundbite and think, "Christ, does this guy want some kinda death panel or something?" So...Palin's comments resonate; Obama mocks Palin's comments; voters feel mocked (yet vindicated because of their vague knowledge that something has been removed from the bill); Obama plunges in the polls and has no clue why. We're in a streetfight against folks who call "card check" the "Employee Free Choice Act." There is such a thing as too much integrity (think Bill Bradley vs Al Gore), and if we can't stoop to the occasional cynical over-simplification, we're doomed. I have huge reservations about Palin, but her greatest weakness is also her greatest strength: she keeps it simple. "Tax and spend liberal" won us elections for decades (and will again, thanks to The One) for just that reason. Was that cynical? Ya, but we got over it. And besides, despite the common misconception, Palin was not referring to end-of-life counseling when she first coined "death panel,'" but rather the inevitable US equivalent of the UK's NICE, and in particular Ezekiel Emmanuel's ruminations on the subject, for which "death panel" is frankly perfect, especially when one is trying to be both accurate AND derogatory. "Death panel" drew blood. Tell your colleagues to rejoice and quit going wobbly.
Scott Reusser
THE WHOLE BILL IS A DEATH PANEL
You’re very right of course on this - critics have not focused the argument to the heart of the matter - the whole rationing system a de facto Death Panel!
Craven politicians and government employees would never have the guts to tell you this in person - they just let the maze of rules and regulations etc do the dirty work for them!
Again, fine catch! Cheers!
Richard J Little
Lawton, Oklahoma
BRING OUT YOUR DEAD (OR NEAR ENOUGH)
Reading your post about Britain's NHS ushering patients into the great yonder, I couldn't help but be reminded of a scene from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail".
Life imitates fiction?
Marc Giller
St. Petersburg, Florida
Re: Obama won't surrender in his war of choice
THE 'CRISIS' IS LIBERALISM’S
I just finished reading your column "Obama won't surrender" and as usual, funny, cutting, edgy, perfect for Monday afternoon blahs.
I agree with your primary theme, none of Obama's actions seem to make sense. Of course, part of the lever pulling behind the curtain is no doubt to push the American center as far left as possible. But I also have another theory, that's not getting a whole lot of traction with my friendly, neighborhood debate society. I would interested in your thoughts on it, feel free to let me know if I'm a lunatic fringe wacko.
When the president and his minions get up to the mic and proclaim we are having a health care cost crisis, I stopped and asked myself, what exactly is this crisis. I'm certainly not experiencing any crisis. My dear father, who just got out of the cardiac ICU at the local hospital isn't having a monetary crisis (though I'm sure his insurance agent may experience a crisis of some sort when he gets the bills). So where is the crisis? Medicare and Medicaid are the monetary crisis.
They are both going broke, and the day is rapidly approaching when pretending everything is fine will no longer suffice. When that day is reached, the federal government will have no choice but to start rationing care, in the form of denying procedures, and pushing people towards Dr. Kevorkian. When that happens, the left's lie that government can dependably provide everything to everyone with a cherry on top, will be exposed for what it really is, a marketing campaign to win power in Washington. And every one who bought in will be exposed as, well, boobs.
But even more important, everyone who knows better will be on the outside, with adequate health care, looking in at all those who are now trapped. In other words, the game is over. Finished. Modern liberalism will have been completely and utter exposed.
That, in my opinion, is the President's "health care crisis." How to get around that, or at least duct tape it over enough to keep the lie machine going? Force every one on to the sinking ship. With every one on the inside, all in the same mess, it changes the dynamics from some people suffering greatly while most others are not. Think of social security: no one seriously believes social security will provide for every one's retirement. But we're all in it together, so no one is pointing fingers and saying "you should have listened to us and never signed up." Instead we just work on our own private plans and hope its enough to get us by.
Edward Mikulski
SWEDEN'S TRYING TO PRIVATIZE HEALTHCARE
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Mark Steyn, for making the argument against universal health care on principle (loss of liberty) rather than on grounds of efficiency. This point needs to be driven home again and again. But I greatly fear that Obamacare will go through and impose on my beloved native country a system more complicated, less efficient and more suffocating than the one we have in my adopted country of Sweden - where we have been introducing reforms to privatize the system increasingly for many years now.
Keep up the good fight!
From your loyal (I even buy your books about musicals!) fan in Stockholm,
Denis Michael Searby
Stockholm
WE STILL DON’T WANT IT
You're hitting right at ground zero, a bulls eye. What the pols don't understand, is that even if Obamacare were all they hope--covers everyone, lowers costs, better care, etc--we still don't want it. We want the freedom to make our own mistakes! Freedom! Responsibility! They just don't get it. Even if the government plan were perfect - and it isn't - and even if our current government officials are totally honest and above board (hah!), it provides the opening for future abuse.
Jack Seeley
Leesburg, Virginia
FASTEST WAY TO A LEFT-OF-CENTER CULTURE
You wrote this morning in the OC, and have made the same assertion on several other occasions: "For Obama, government health care is the fastest way to a permanent left-of-center political culture in which all elections and most public discourse will be conducted on Democrat terms."
I agree with that assertion - at some point, the citizenry becomes so dependent on government for jobs, health care and retirement, and as a consequence so invested in government's success, that it becomes reluctant or unwilling to take the risk - whether out of fear or laziness - to move back to a system where it takes responsibility for itself. I do not believe, however, that the explanation for why that will be and the consequences if that occurs are obvious to others. I would appreciate your thoughts in a future opinion piece.
John Hunt
WHY HE’S IN A HURRY
Hi Steyn-Dude: Just read your article about why Obama is in a hurry to pass any health care legislation. I was struck by your simple argument that the government in a free society has no business ordering citizens around when I realized that it is exactly the same argument that the left has been making for decades in regards to abortion. Therefore, I think this presents a big fat opportunity to hoist them on their own petard, if you could get people to start casting the health-care debate in pro-choice slogans.
Mark Cabaniss
Kelseyville, California
CENTRAL PLANNING DOESN’T WORK
I read your column dated August 1st entitled "A Liberty Issue."
As usual, it contained a lot of wisdom. It reminded me of Hayek's critique of central planning, which is premised on the epistemological significance of market prices. As I am sure you know, the basic idea is that prices amalgamate an enormous amount of information relevant to conditions of supply and demand. (See "Competition as a Discovery Procedure," first published in 1978, but based on a lecture given in 1968). The reason why central planning doesn't work is because no planner can process and accurately value all that information.
The basic point of your column is even more important: the takeover of health care would lead to government involvement in almost any facet of life. I am, however, more optimistic than you that Obama's plans will be rejected, though as Charles Krauthammer pointed out in his Washington Post column yesterday, what will emerge is heavy regulation of the health insurance industry.
Scott Arnold
THE DEVIL IS NOT JUST IN THE DETAILS
Sir, I think the most salient point in this article, although you made several excellent points, is that once we begin to argue back with liberals about the fine points of one of their programs we give them credibility. I agree with you that we shouldn't be discussing how much the health bill will cost, or who should be covered, the argument should be that the Federal Government should have no hand at all in the issue.
A corolarry to your tentet is the issue of gun control. The liberals will argue that for legitimate hunting purposes the private ownership of firearms is okay. They suck the conservatives in by having us argue back that competition shooting should be okay, and gun collectors should be included as well. Once we jump into bed with them on the fine points then they own us. The conservative argument, like that in health care should be, "No government intervention at all." Once a leak in the dam starts, it's only a matter of time until the dam breaks. The liberals know this, and they are patient.
I just purchased your book "America Alone," and can't wait to get started on it. Thank you for being our voice.
Bret Bartlett
Land O' Lakes, Florida
LAST WORD
Thank you, Mark. As Ben Franklin said: " Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."
Tom Richardson
Alta, Utah
|
