The Rusting of Deaf Minds

Recently there's been a lot of finger pointing at Sarah's "Death Panels" comment calling her a hypocrite because while as Governor of Alaska she issued a proclamation for “Healthcare Decisions Day” to be recognized on April 16. Supporters of this current health care reform bill were breathlessly calling out Palin's proclamation as the same thing as the "death panels" she brought up earlier and proceeded to call her a hypocrite and accusing her of "flip flopping." One funny thing when they said that. Are they acknowledging that Section 1233 of HR 3200 health bill does contain provisions governing that "death panels" do exist?

That'd be a losing argument.

When people cannot even see the vast and simple differences between this health care reform bill to that of Palin's proclamination to generate greater awareness and personal responsibility to plan for end-of-life care. Indeed, iron doors shut tight and while their deaf mind rusts.

There is this fatal flaw in reasoning on calling out Palin's "death panels" comment while calling her a hypocrite. How so? Let me count the ways.

First of all in the health care bill there is a passage (there was one but now dropped) to offer financial incentitives for the push on end-of-life care at the behest of the doctors involved just to save money and for doctors to make money during the process as well. A slippery slope issue right there.

From NPR where :Mr. Jay Sekulow (Chief Counsel, American Center for Law & Justice) explains what and how this bill works.

The problem here is the financial incentive for the entire bill is to reduce cost. That will end up either being one of two things: rationing of services or life care, end-of-life-care decisions based on economic motive, where the doctor becomes basically the advocate for the determination as to life end, which should really be a decision that the doctor's involved in, obviously, but with consultation with the family.

A second problem with this bill.

And also the idea that the government itself, the bureaucrats, or the government, the doctors will be reporting back to the government these results. I mean, it almost sounds like a commission sales approach, which is not what doctors need to be in the position of doing. This idea you report back: Were you successful in getting A, B, C and D.

And these are decisions that have medical implications, ethical implications, implications for people that have religious faith, for those that do, moral concerns. All of those are the totality of what takes place here. And this idea that you just simply give this to a government commission, who's then in consultation with the doctor, I think, is dangerous.

Mr. Jay Sekulow explains further how consultation works in this bill.

The entire program, under the Health Reform Bill, is monitored by a government panel. Who do you think came up with, for instance, what would be included in the consultation? If a consultation's going to take place, and if in fact it is going to be a reimbursable expense under the Medicaid, which I have no problem with, who made the determination of what goes in that consultation? The government did. The panel did. The medical experts.

Hence, the worry over a "death panels" (note the quotation marks) scenario where there'd be financial incentives to reduce cost and quality of care. A classic case of what a slippery slope would look like.

This bill is vastly different by night and day to that of Palin's statewide awareness message which was sought to increase the public’s knowledge about creating living wills and establishing powers of attorney. Just a simple public awareness message to proclaim April 16 as "Health Care Decisions Day." Nothing insidous about the message and no where near the hypocrisy level either accusing her of promoting that same "death panels" for her own state.

But here's the good news so far. Obama capitulated.

Bowing to Republican pressure and an uneasy public, President Barack Obama's administration signaled Sunday it is ready to abandon the idea of giving Americans the option of government-run insurance as part of a new health care system.

Somebody's mad right now. But that doesn't mean we're out of the woods yet. The first obvious problem to this whole thing is that we don't have the money. We're already $11.5 trillion in debt. Where will the money come from to pay for this boondoggle nationalization attempt over health care? It's better to work at the root of the problem first such using tort reforms as a leverage and lower costs at the same time instead of ramming a nationalized and socialized health care down everybody's throat at the expense of our economy and national security.

And lastly, well maybe not, there is this problem of Democrats who will try and somehow sneak in a provision that was dropped earlier back into the bill or somehow find a way to get around. Why? This. And then of course we need to heed what the dear One said his goals were:

"Remember, we are going to rebuild every school, bridge and road in the country. We will fix healthcare. We will restore the constitution, end illegal wars [and] reduce emissions of greenhouse gasses."

Everything? He must be doing something right.