Looking Back: Sarah Palin as McCain’s VP – 2008 OpEd

Tripp Palin Johnston and His Uncle Trig Palin

Washington Times: Amid the speculation regarding John McCain’s choice to complete his presidential ticket, I offer my unsolicited suggestion for his vice president: the first woman — and youngest — governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, who is an unstereotypical and effective Republican.

During her first year in office, as reported by the Associated Press on May 10, she “distanced herself from the old guard, powerful members of the state GOP (and) stood up to the oil interests that hold great power in Alaska, and with bipartisan support in the statehouse, she won a tax increase on the oil companies’ profits.” Last December, this mother of four children, Mrs. Palin, four months’ pregnant, found she was going to have a child with Down syndrome — a condition characterized by moderate-to-severe mental retardation. A school friend of one of my sons had Down syndrome; I have also known functioning adults with the extra chromosomes of that syndrome.

However, as a longtime reporter on disability rights, I have discovered that many fetuses so diagnosed have been aborted by parents who have been advised by their doctors to end the pregnancies because of the future “imperfect quality of life” of such children.

Mrs. Palin’s first reaction to the diagnosis was to research the facts about the condition, since, as she said, “I’ve never had problems with my other pregnancies.” As a result, she and her husband, Todd, never had any doubt they would have the child.

“We’ve both been very vocal about being pro-life,” she told the Associated Press. “We understand that every innocent life has wonderful potential.” In an age when DNA and other genetic-selection tests increasingly determine who is “fit” to join us human beings, we are witnessing the debate between sanctity of life vs. quality of life being more often decided in favor of death. This is a result welcomed by internationally-influential bioethicist Peter Singer. He is now a celebrated Princeton University professor, who, in July 1983, wrote in Pediatrics, the official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics: “If we compare a severely defective human infant with a nonhuman animal, a dog or pig, for example, we will often find the nonhuman to have superior capacities, both actual and potential, for rationality, self-consciousness, communication, and anything else that can plausibly be considered morally significant.” And there are bioethicists who point to the continuing costs of rearing a “defective infant.”

By inspirational contrast, Mrs. Palin, says of her new son, Trig: “I’m looking at him right now, and I see perfection. Yeah, he has an extra chromosome. I keep thinking, in our world, what is normal and what is perfect?” Three days after she gave birth, Mrs. Palin was back in her Anchorage office with her husband and Trig. “I can think of so many male candidates,” she tells the AP, “who watched families grow while they were in office. There is no reason to believe a woman can’t do it with a growing family. My baby will not be at all or in any sense neglected.” Says the governor of Alaska: “I will not shirk my duties.” Taking her stand for life as a holder of high political office is all the more valuable in the face of the termination of fetal lives as not worth continuing before they can speak for themselves. Mrs. Palin’s stand also puts a searching light on the growing “futility” doctrine in hospitals which is affecting people of all ages.

Nancy Valko, a medical ethicist and intensive-care nurse I consult on these lives-worth-living debates, has emphasized that “with the rise of the modern bioethics movement, life is no longer assumed to have the intrinsic value it once did, and ‘quality of life’ has become the overriding consideration.” Because of Mrs. Palin’s reputation as a maverick, and her initial reduction of state spending (including pork-barrel spending), life-affirming Palin connects with voters. For these reasons, she has been mentioned as a possible vice presidential running mate for Mr. McCain.

She would be a decided asset: an independent Republican governor, a woman, a defender of life against the creeping culture of death and a fresh face in national politics. She was described in “the Almanac of National Politics” as “an avid hunter and fisher with a killer smile who wears designer glasses and heels, and hair like modern sculpture.” Moreover, I doubt that she would engage in such campaigning, as Sen. McCain’s strongly implying that a Hamas terrorist saying he would like Barack Obama to be president thereby damages Mr. McCain’s opponent (though Mr. Obama has totally condemned Hamas). Still unknown is whether Mrs. Palin would be as flip-flopping as Mr. McCain on the Bush torture policy that has so blighted our reputation in the world. But we would find out: If chosen as his running mate, she would create more interest in this already largely scripted presidential campaign.

And her presence could highlight Mr. Obama’s extremist abortion views on whether certain lives are worth living — even a child born after a botched abortion.  

Governor Palin: An Extra Chromosome of Love

Trig Palin Age 3 

Gov. Palin: Trig is getting a buddy!

Technorati Tags: Life,Life Is a Gift,Children,Babies,Abortion,Parenting,Choices,Palin,Sarah Palin,Trig Palin,The Palins,Pro-Life,Down Syndrome,Love,Extra Chromosome

Governor Palin: An Extra Chromosome of Love

Governor Palin promoted Down Syndrome Awareness Month by posting the following photos and comments  on her Facebook page yesterday:

Sarah Palin

I’m grateful for those with a heart of love for those who have that extra chromosome; we refer to it as “an extra chromosome of love!” And adding to Bristol’s collection of pictures on her blog during Down Syndrome Awareness Month, here’s one of our boys.

I'm grateful for those with a heart of love for those who have that extra chromosome; we refer to it as "an extra chromosome of love!" And adding to Bristol's collection of pictures on her blog during Down Syndrome Awareness Month, here's one of our boys.

Trig Palin and his nephew, Tripp Palin Johnston, Bristol’s son

Governor Palin with son Trig and Hubby Todd as Todd got ready for the 2013 Iron Dog Race last February

Here’s the link to Bristol’s blog post: Patheos

Supreme Court Unexpectedly Upheld Regulatory Elimination of Down Syndrome

Technorati Tags: The Palins,Bristol Palin,Sarah Palin,Down Syndrome,Love,Choices,Extra Chromosome,Special Needs,Joy,Supreme Court,ACA,Affordable Care Act,Death Panels,ObamaCare,Down Syndrome Awareness Month

Meet the ObamaCare Mandate Committee

Think the contraception decision was bad? Wait until bureaucrats start telling your insurer which cancer screenings to cover.

Offended by President Obama's decision to force health insurers to pay for contraception and surgical sterilization or my religious institutions mandated to go against their core beliefs? It gets worse: In the future, thanks to ObamaCare, the government will issue such health edicts on a routine basis—and largely insulated from public view. This goes beyond contraception to cancer screenings, the use of common drugs like aspirin, and much more.

Under ObamaCare, a single committee—the United States Preventative Services Task Force—is empowered to evaluate preventive health services and decide which will be covered by health-insurance plans.

The task force already rates services with letter grades of "A" through "D" (or "I," if it has "insufficient evidence" to make a rating). But under ObamaCare, services rated "A" or "B"—such as colon cancer screening for adults aged 50-75—must be covered by health plans in full, without any co-pays. Many services that get "Cs" and "Ds"—such as screening for ovarian or testicular cancer—could get nixed from coverage entirely.

That's because mandating coverage for all the "A" and "B" services will be very costly. In 2000, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the marginal cost of similar state insurance mandates was 5%-10% of total claims. Other estimates put the cost of mandates as high as 20% of premiums.

Health plans will inevitably choose to drop coverage for many services that don't get a passing grade from the task force and therefore aren't mandated. Insurance companies will need to conserve their premium money, which the government regulates, in order to spend it subsidizing those services that the task force requires them to cover in full.

David Klein

Americans first became familiar with the task force in November 2009, when it made the controversial decision to recommend that women ages 40-49 shouldn't get routine mammograms. More recently, it rebuffed routine prostate-cancer screening and the use of tests that detect the viruses that can cause cervical cancer.

The task force relishes setting a very high bar. Like the Food and Drug Administration in approving new drugs, it usually requires a randomized, prospective trial to "prove" that a diagnostic test or other intervention improves clinical outcomes and therefore deserves a high grade of "A" or "B."

This means its advice is often out of sync with conventional medical practice. For example, it recommended against wider screening for HIV long after such screening was accepted practice. As a result, many of its verdicts are widely ignored by practicing doctors.

The task force is a part-time board of volunteer advisers that works slowly and is often late to incorporate new science into its recommendations. Only in 2009 did it finally recommend aspirin for the prevention of stroke and heart attack among those at risk—decades after this practice was demonstrated to save lives and had become part of standard medical practice.

The task force is also the only federal health agency to have the explicit legal authority to consider cost as one criterion in recommending whether patients should use a medical test or treatment.

Over time, the task force will surely recommend against many services that patients now take for granted, while mandating full insurance coverage for things that they'd be just as happy paying for. Among the interventions that it plans to consider in 2012 are screening for hepatitis C in adults, for osteoporosis in men and for depression in children; counseling for obesity in adults and for alcohol use in adolescents; and daily aspirin for heart-attack and stroke prevention in people over 80.

The task force's problems are compounded by the fact that it is deliberately exempted from the rules that govern other government advisory boards and regulatory agencies. Thus it has no obligation to hold its meetings in public, announce decisions in draft form or even consider public comments. Consumers have no way to directly appeal its decisions. And health providers or product developers affected by its decisions can't sue it for recourse.

To begin addressing these problems, Congress should make the task force subject to the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which would at least require it to hold its deliberations in public. Congress could also make it a full-fledged part of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, which already convenes its meetings. That would make the task force subject to the Administrative Procedures Act and all the rules that bind other regulatory bodies, including the legal requirement to consider public comments and provide avenues for appeal.

Better still, Congress could let private health plans—and their members—decide on their own how preventive tests and treatments should be covered. If not, Americans will soon be surprised by all the important tests and treatments that become more costly, and all the less relevant stuff that's suddenly free.

It's all a reminder that President Obama's decision on contraception isn't a one-off political intervention but the initial exploit of an elaborate new system.

by Dr. Gottlieb, a physician and resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, has served as deputy commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration and senior policy adviser to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. He consults with and invests in health-care companies.  -  WSJ

As time goes on… if people don’t start reading the ObamaCare Bill and make sure it is repealed in its entirety, either by the Supreme Court or a New President and a primarily new Congress in November 2012, Americans will soon find out that former Alaska Governor and GOP VP candidate in 2008, Sarah Palin plus others who were paying attention, was 100% right about rationing, death panels or whatever you want to call it in ObamaCare and a lot more that we all won’t like… especially seniors, the disabled and special needs children and adults!  Wake-up America… before it is too late.

Related:

Breaking:  U.S. Supreme Court Meeting Today on Health Care/Eligibility Challenge (Purpura vs. Sebelius)

Senate Republicans Ask Supreme Court to Strike Mandate

Judge Rejects Health Care Law

SCOTAS ObamaCare Hearing

More Doctors Fire Vaccine Refusers

Life With Trig: Sarah Palin on Raising a Special-Needs Child

By former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin  -  Reprinted in its entirety from the Daily Beast

Last week, Rick Santorum and his family offered us a reminder of what really matters. When his 3-year-old daughter, Bella, born with Trisomy 18, was hospitalized with pneumonia, Rick left the campaign trail to be by her bedside. In the middle of this very heated campaign season, many of us prayed through tears for Bella’s health and added prayers of thankfulness for a public example of someone’s sacrifice made with the right priorities.

It’s a sacrifice every parent and caregiver of a child with special needs sympathizes with. Families of children with special needs are bonded by a shared experience of the joys, challenges, fears, and blessings of raising these beautiful children whom we see as perfect in this imperfect world.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, on rope lines at rallies across the country, my husband, Todd, and I met so many of these families and caretakers, and I’ll never forget them. There was an instant connection—a kind of mutual acknowledgment that said, “Yes, these children are precious and loved. Yes, we face extra fears and challenges, but our children are a blessing, and the rest of the world is missing out in not knowing this.”

Every parent struggles with juggling the commitments of work and family. Women, especially, know this well. Over the years, I’ve learned that women can “have it all,” just not all at once. For me, it was a lesson learned through the school of hard knocks, but it was one my own mother made me aware of when she calmly told me that as a working mom in the rough-and-tumble political arena, I would have to make tough choices. We all do. In making decisions about my career, I’ve put my family first, and I’ve never regretted it, although it has meant periodically putting particular pursuits on the back burner.

When I discovered early in my pregnancy that my baby would be born with an extra chromosome, the diagnosis of Down syndrome frightened me so much that I dared not discuss my pregnancy for many months. All I could seem to muster was a calling out to God to prepare my heart for what was ahead. My prayers were answered beyond my shallow understanding of what true joy could be. Yes, raising a child with special needs is a unique challenge, and there’s still fear about my son Trig’s future because of health and social challenges; and certainly some days are much more difficult than if I had a “normal” child.

Sarah Palin with her son, Trig., Jack Kurtz / ZUMA-Corbis

Many everyday activities like doctor’s appointments and social gatherings and travel accommodations and even mealtimes and a solid night of sleep are that much more difficult, but at the end of the day I wouldn’t trade the relative difficulties for any convenience or absence of fear. God knew what he was doing when he blessed us with Trig. We went from fear of the unknown to proudly displaying a bumper sticker sent to us that reads: “My kid has more chromosomes than your kid!” He may not be the next Wayne Gretzky, but our hearts are filled with so much pride watching Trig giggle with his sisters’ puppies, or sway to the rhythm of his Little Angels DVDs, it’s as if he were hoisting the Stanley Cup.Granted, I know I may be more fortunate than others to have loving friends and a big, supportive family I call on to help, including a husband who spends many sleepless nights with this restless little one. (And Todd actually makes Trig’s puréed baby food!) Others aren’t so fortunate, and in our thankfulness I am made more compassionate toward others who have less.I often think now, what would we do without Trig? He’s our “everything that really matters.”Trig is almost 4 years old now, and every morning when he wakes up, he pulls himself up, rubs the sleep out of his eyes, looks around, and then starts applauding! He welcomes each day with thunderous applause and laughter. He looks around at creation and claps as if to say, “OK, world, what do you have for me today?”

My family knows that Trig will face struggles that few of us will ever have to endure, including people who can be so cruel to those not deemed “perfect” by society. The cruelty is more than made up for, though, when someone simply smiles at our son. Nothing makes me prouder. As I explained in a Thanksgiving article, I notice it happens often in airports. Travelers passing by will do a double-take when they see him, perhaps curious about the curious look on his face; or perhaps my son momentarily exercises an uncontrollable motion that takes the passerby by surprise. Perhaps, as an innocent and candid child announced when she first met Trig, they think, “He’s awkward.” But when that traveler pauses to look again and smiles, and maybe tells me what a handsome boy I have, I swell with pride. I am so thankful for their good hearts. They represent the best in our country, and their kindness shows the real hope we need today.

My family understands that up ahead, some days will be better than others. We will adapt and juggle things and work through it. But Trig applauds the day. And that’s what he teaches us. That’s our priority, and we’re blessed by it.

*Both these politicians have a personal stake in overturning ObamaCare which includes rationing of healthcare, whatever your choose to call it.

Related:

Team Up for Down Syndrome

Shock Article: Bioethicists Suggest Killing Someone With ‘No Autonomy Left’ Is Not Morally Wrong

What has Glenn Beck so fired up that he said on his radio show “If this doesn’t wake your a** up this morning, then nothing will?” How about this quote from prominent bioethicists comparing killing a human being to pulling weeds from a garden.

Two bioethicists — one from Duke University, the other from the National Institute of Health — bring up the question “What makes killing wrong?” in the latest issue of the Journal of Medical Ethics. Using their definition of killing, the authors conclude if the person is “universally and irreversibly disabled” and has “no abilities to lose” then killing them to take organs for donation in order to save the lives of others should not be considered morally wrong.

Walter Sinnott-Armstrong from Duke University (Photo: Duke University)

Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, a professor of practical ethics from Duke, and Franklin Miller, a senior faculty member in the NIH Department of Bioethics, state in their abstract ”What makes an act of killing morally wrong is not that the act causes loss of life or consciousness but rather that the act causes loss of all remaining abilities.“ They argue that if no abilities remain then the ”dead donor rule,” which is the ethical practice that a person must be declared dead before removing vital organs, should apply to patients whose hearts have stopped and are being removed from a respirator.

This discussion has been ongoing for several years and continues with this article. BioEdge, a publication discussing bioethical news, brings a few segments from the subscription-only journal in which Sinnott-Armstrong and Miller publish their opinion. BioEdge reports that the authors are seeking to make a case for organ donation after cardiac death when a person is taken off of a respirator. Once off the respirator, the person’s organs would be immediately harvested, but even at this point, BioEdge states, Sinnott-Armstrong and Miller believe the person is not yet dead because there is the possibility that his or her heart could start beating again.

Miller has written on this topic before for the New England Journal of Medicine. Here’s some of what was written in his co-authored piece from 2008 “The Dead Donor Rule and Organ Transplantation:”

Over the past few years, our reliance on the dead donor rule has again been challenged, this time by the emergence of donation after cardiac death as a pathway for organ donation. Under protocols for this type of donation, patients who are not brain-dead but who are undergoing an orchestrated withdrawal of life support are monitored for the onset of cardiac arrest. In typical protocols, patients are pronounced dead 2 to 5 minutes after the onset of asystole (on the basis of cardiac criteria), and their organs are expeditiously removed for transplantation. Although everyone agrees that many patients could be resuscitated after an interval of 2 to 5 minutes, advocates of this approach to donation say that these patients can be regarded as dead because a decision has been made not to attempt resuscitation.

In the more recent Sinnott-Armstrong and Miller article, BioEdge reports the authors as stating that “these patients are not known to be dead at the time of organ procurement.”

Sinnott-Armstrong and Miller argue that the dead donor rule is already being violated in many cases and that recognizing this violation and stopping organ donation in these conditions would drastically reduce an already limited number of donor organs for those in need. They suggest sidestepping this issue by rethinking the “norm of killing.” BioEdge has more from the authors:

“[T]he dead donor rule is routinely violated in the contemporary practice of vital organ donation. Consistency with traditional medical ethics would entail that this kind of vital organ donation must cease immediately. This outcome would, however, be extremely harmful and unreasonable from an ethical point of view [because patients who could be saved will die]. Luckily, it is easily obviated by abandoning the norm against killing.”

[...]

“[I]f killing were wrong just because it is causing death or the loss of life, then the same principle would apply with the same strength to pulling weeds out of a garden. If it is not immoral to weed a garden, then life as such cannot really be sacred, and killing as such cannot be morally wrong.”

BioEdge clarifies that the authors seeks to better define just what is considered killing. It adds that the authors suggest killing someone with “no autonomy left” cannot be considered “unfair” or disrespectful because it “if it does her no harm.”

Franklin Miller of the National Institute of Health. (Photo: NIH Department of Bioethics)

While Sinnott-Armstrong and Miller make this argument, BioEdge reports in a separate article that several doctors have called for a moratorium on donated organs in the event of cardiac death until the issue is resolved from an ethical standpoint. The doctors state this opinion in the journal Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine.

In the abstract, these doctors calling for a moratorium write:

Many believe that the ethical problems of donation after cardiocirculatory death (DCD) have been “worked out” and that it is unclear why DCD should be resisted. In this paper we will argue that DCD donors may not yet be dead, and therefore that organ donation during DCD may violate the dead donor rule.

[...]

Moreover, some arguments in favor of DCD, while likely true, are “straw-man arguments,” such as the great benefit of organ donation. The truth is that honesty and trustworthiness require that we face these problems instead of avoiding them. We believe that DCD is not ethically allowable because it abandons the dead donor rule, has unavoidable conflicts of interests, and implements premortem interventions which can hasten death. These important points have not been, but need to be fully disclosed to the public and incorporated into fully informed consent. These are tall orders, and require open public debate.

The issue, however, isn’t an isolated incident. The Blaze has recently published articles about a disabled man in the U.K. who is seeking the “right” to die and a 3-year-old whose parents were told she couldn’t have kidney transplant because she was “mentally retarded.” And last year, we posted the disturbing video of a British advice columnist who said if a child were disabled a loving mother would “put a pillow over its face” to smother it. Watch that clip:

Related:

Eugenics in Action

Eugenics In Action: 3 Year Old Girl Denied Kidney Transplant ...

Eugenics In Action: 3 Year Old Girl Denied Kidney Transplant Because She Is “Mentally Retarded”

You are about to read about a 3 year old girl named Amelia that was denied a kidney transplant because she is considered to be "mentally retarded". The doctor that made this decision felt as though Amelia would not have a good enough "quality of life" to justify the procedure. Unfortunately, this is yet another example of eugenics in action and this is the kind of thing that starts happening when human life becomes cheap. When a society decides that life is not precious, all sorts of nightmarish things begin to occur. Women start aborting babies that are discovered to be less than "perfect". Life support systems are terminated for those that are considered to be "vegetables". Medical procedures are denied to elderly patients because they would be a "waste of resources". Terminally ill children are regarded as "not worth saving". We often look back in horror on the human sacrifices of past civilizations, but many of the things that we do today are extremely barbaric as well. And as the population control agenda of the global elite continues to be promoted in the classrooms of thousands of colleges and universities around the globe, the value placed on human life is going to continue to decline.

The following comes from an account by Amelia's mother of what it was like to hear a doctor tell her that her daughter was being denied a kidney transplant because she is considered to be "mentally retarded". You can read the full account right here. After dropping this bomb on Amelia's mother, the doctor and the social worker that were talking with her just got up and left the room. Unfortunately, scenes like this play out all over America every single day....

I am beginning to realize I want this over with so I can move onto the next person who will help me with the transplant. So I say the words and ask the questions I have been avoiding.

“So you mean to tell me that as a doctor, you are not recommending the transplant, and when her kidneys fail in six months to a year, you want me to let her die because she is mentally retarded? There is no other medical reason for her not to have this transplant other than she is MENTALLY RETARDED!”

“Yes. This is hard for me, you know.”

My eyes burn through his soul as if I could set him on fire right there. “Ok, so now what? This is not acceptable to me. Who do I talk to next?”

“I will take this back to the team. We meet once a month. I will tell them I do not recommend Amelia for a transplant because she is mentally retarded and we will vote.”

“And then who do I see?”

“Well, you can then take it the ethics committee but as a team we have the final say. Feel free to go somewhere else. But it won’t be done here.”

They both get up and leave the room.

Fortunately, there has been a great outcry over this story and this decision is being reconsidered. But the eugenics agenda has been promoted so hard for so long in this country that there are a lot of voices out there that are actually supporting the decision to deny the kidney transplant to Amelia.

For example, the following is from a Huffington Post editorial that supports denying a kidney transplant to this little girl because it would be "a waste of an organ".....

The stark reality then, is that a kidney that goes to one patient means it does not go to another. Giving a kidney to Amelia means that someone, whose name you will probably never know, but who will be loved just as fiercely as Amelia is, won't get one in time.

Which is why there are rules -- unemotional, clinical, detached rules -- for a situation that is none of those things. And it is why there are forms like the ones placed in front of Amelia's parents. Amelia is not being denied a donor transplant because she is, as her mother writes, "mentally retarded." She is being denied a donor transplant because she has a cascading syndrome that will shorten and limit her life, meaning that kidney will not "save" her in the way that it might someone who starts out healthier. In cold clinical terms this means that everything it takes to undergo a transplant -- the medications, the repeated biopsy procedures afterwards, the constant monitoring and machinery -- are difficult and sometimes impossible compared with a child who is less impaired. The less mobile a patient is, the far greater the likelihood that she will develop an infection, or pneumonia, or a host of other complications that make it probable that the transplant will eventually fail. Which, in those same cold clinical terms, would make it a waste of an organ.

If you feel like losing your lunch after reading that, it is perfectly understandable.

Somehow, millions upon millions of Americans have been convinced that just because a child is sick or disabled that they are not going to have a good enough "quality of life" to be worth saving.

In other instances, decisions about medical care come down to money.

The goal of health insurance companies is to make as much money as possible. When they can get away with refusing to pay for expensive treatments and procedures that increases their profits.

Anyone that has ever had a claim denied by a health insurance company knows what I am talking about. They will gladly take your money, but when the time comes that you really need them many of them will do whatever they can to wiggle out of paying.

Many health insurance companies even treat our injured veterans very badly. The following example comes from CBS News....

John Woodson, a 51-year-old contractor from Oklahoma who was featured on ABC's 20/20 in 2009, lost an eye and a leg when the truck he was driving hit a roadside bomb in Iraq. He is covered by an AIG government benefits program for employees of U.S. contractors working in Iraq and Afghanistan. But AIG refused to provide him with the new plastic leg his doctor had ordered, and even fought against paying for a wheelchair and glasses for his remaining eye. (He has only 30 percent vision in his remaining eye.) The insurance company eventually provided him with a better artificial limb made of replacement parts, but not the one his doctor ordered, according to ABC.

Can you believe that?

But at least that solider did not end up dead.

Other "health insurance victims" are not so fortunate.

This next example comes from a Huffington Post article....

Hilda and Krikor Sarkisyan went to CIGNA's Philadelphia headquarters, along with supporters from the California Nurses Association, to confront the CEO Edward Hanway over the death of her 17-year-old child.

In 2007, Nataline Sarkisyan was denied a liver transplant by the company, on the grounds that the operation was "too experimental" to be covered. Nine days later it changed its mind, in response to protests outside its office. It was too late: Nataline died hours later.

"CIGNA killed my daughter," Nataline's mother Hilda told security. "I want an apology." Sarkisyan was not able to speak to Hanway; a communications specialist talked to her instead. After their conversation, employees heckled the group from a balcony; one man gave them the finger. CIGNA called the police and had the family and their friends escorted from the building.

The health insurance system in America is completely and totally broken. At some health insurance companies, employee bonuses have actually been based on who can deny the most claims.

Hopefully you are with an ethical health insurance company. If not, you may not have the coverage that you think that you have. If there is the smallest thing wrong on your health insurance application, they will find it. And when they find it they will use it as justification to deny your claim.

We live in a very cold-hearted society.

Even the government is cold-hearted.

If something has gone wrong with your health insurance and you are slowly dying at home, the government is not going to save you.

But the government is very concerned about making sure that your kids get pumped full of toxic vaccines.

After all, they have to do what they can to increase the profits of the pharmaceutical companies, right?

Recently, the CDC has been ramping up efforts to put even more pressure on parents across the United States to vaccinate their children.

Unfortunately, that is probably going to mean that we are going to see even more healthy children become disabled or die. The following example comes from VacTruth.com....

It has been reported a fit and healthy 7-year-old girl died unexpectedly before Christmas after a flu vaccine. Kaylynne died in her mother’s arms four days after she was given a flu vaccine by her doctor at her annual check up.

Officials are now investigating Kaylynne’s death and an autopsy report is due in a couple of week’s time. Kaylynne’s mother is positive the vaccine killed her daughter and told reporters, “We’re just waiting for an answer,” “but we believe in our hearts that it was the flu shot.”

State officials however, are not convinced that the flu vaccine was the cause of the girl’s death.

What is even worse is when pregnant mothers get injected with vaccines. The immune systems of their babies are simply not developed enough to be able to handle the toxic vaccines and many of them die.

For dozens and dozens of stories of miscarriages that were caused by vaccines, please see this article and the comments that follow.

So why isn't the government doing more to protect us?

Well, that becomes easy to understand when you realize that most of the people in our government and most of those that make up the "global elite" actually believe that the world is massively overpopulated.

That is why they spend so much money promoting "family planning" programs around the globe. They are obsessed with finding ways to get us to have less children.

In fact, the global elite promote their population control agenda all over the world in dozens of different ways. If you are interested in learning more, please see the following articles....

#1 From 7 Billion People To 500 Million People – The Sick Population Control Agenda Of The Global Elite

#2 Al Gore, Agenda 21 And Population Control

#3 Governments Around The World Are Eagerly Adopting The Strict Population Control Agenda Of The United Nations

#4 Yes, They Really Do Want To Reduce The Population – 22 Shocking Population Control Quotes From The Global Elite That Will Make You Want To Lose Your Lunch

#5 The Dangerous Myth Of Overpopulation

#6 One Less Child? Environmental Extremists Warn That Overpopulation Is Causing Climate Change And Will Ultimately Destroy The Earth

#7 Hillary Clinton: Population Control Will Now Become The Centerpiece Of U.S. Foreign Policy

#8 New U.N. Report: We Must Reduce The Population To Fight Climate Change

#9 The Population Control Agenda Behind The Global Warming Movement: For The Environmental Extremists At Copenhagen Population Reduction Is The “Cheapest” Way To Reduce Carbon Emissions

#10 To The Global Elite The Math Is Simple: Human Overpopulation Is Causing Climate Change So The Solution To Climate Change Is Population Control

If we do not stand up for what is morally right now, in the future it will become "normal" to routinely deny kidney transplants to "mentally retarded" children because their lives will be considered "not worth living".

We look back in horror at the eugenics programs of the Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s, but most Americans don't realize that the Nazis got most of their ideas about eugenics from America.

Now many of those same concepts are being repackaged for a new generation.

If we do not value human life, our society will fail.

It is as simple as that.

Throughout human history, whenever the value placed on human life in a society declines dramatically, mass death has usually never been far behind.

And with ObamaCare this will only get worse! We have embarrassed abortion for so long that this is the natural next step… rationing for special needs patients, then will come the the rationing or death panels for seniors… and then?

So what do all of you think about the 3 year old girl that was denied a kidney transplant because she was considered to be "mentally retarded"? Please feel free to leave a comment with your opinion below....

Source: The American Dream – h/t to AJ

Related Read: The Nazi Connection

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Bill Gates Confirms Population Reduction Through Vaccination on CNN

Anyone Recall Jane Bergermeister and the Letha Vaccinations???  It’s Back!

 ObamaCare… HIts, Misses and Perhaps a Look into the Future

On H.P.V. Vaccine, Palin’s First Overt Attack on Perry

Sarah Palin might have sounded like an ally of Representative Michele Bachmann on Monday night when she assailed a short-lived Texas mandate that girls receive the H.P.V. vaccine, calling it a possible product of “crony capitalism.”

But, as she continues to consider her own presidential bid, the comments could also be interpreted as her first overt attack on Gov. Rick Perry, the man who signed the 2007 order -– a move he later withdrew and was forced to defend at the Republican debate on Monday night.

“I knew even at that time something was up with that issue,” Ms. Palin said on Fox News Channel after the debate, noting that Mr. Perry’s former chief of staff had ties to Merck, the company that manufactures the Gardasil vaccine. “And now we’re finding out, yeah, something was up with that issue. It was an illustration or a bit of evidence of some crony capitalism.”

All three politicians – Ms. Palin, Mrs. Bachmann and Mr. Perry – would need to rely on both social conservatives and Tea Party activists to win the G.O.P. nod. So it’s not hard to see why the issue is proving appealing fodder for the two women. The can use it to undermine Mr. Perry’s credibility with social conservatives by noting that he would have required girls under 12 to be inoculated against the virus that causes cervical cancer, which is generally transmitted sexually. And the argument that his move was influenced by donations and ties to lobbyists appeals to Tea Party supporters skeptical of government authority and backroom political dealing.

When Ms. Palin first used the term “crony capitalism” earlier this month to describe generally the process by which lawmakers become wealthy by using taxpayer dollars to benefit corporations and donors, she was talking about Mr. Perry.

In fact, up to this point, she had resisted applying any criticism directly to him. Last year, she campaigned for Mr. Perry as he fought back a challenge from Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison in the Republican gubernatorial primary. In January 2010, she posted a note on Facebook saying she looked forward to supporting him and other candidates “so they can continue to fight for our American values.” (The other two she mentioned by name, by the way: Senator John McCain and Mrs. Bachmann.)

During that race Ms. Palin said he “walks the walk of a true conservative,” and the two are thought to have a cordial relationship off the trail.

Up to this point in the G.O.P. primary, Ms. Palin has called Mr. Perry a “fine candidate” and defended him after he called Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s approach “treasonous,” saying he was “voicing great concerns that many of us share.”

And during a recent trip to Iowa, when asked to contrast their records as governor, the former Alaska governor declined, noting that Texas has a weak executive.

“That doesn’t mean he’s doing a better job or worse job than any other governor, including myself,” Ms. Palin said.

Mrs. Bachmann is taking the the “crony capitalist” line and running with it. We’re still waiting to see whether Ms. Palin lets the Minnesotan continue to be the sole beneficiary, or if she’ll start using the phrase in her own campaign.

By SARAH WHEATON

Related:

GOP Candidates Rail Against Perry Over Mandatory HPV Vaccination

Bachmann Finds an Issue With H.P.V. Debate

Video: Bachmann Claims Vaccine Causes Mental Retardation

About That Gardasil Mandate “Opt-Out” Perry Is Touting  -  Rick Santorum said at the CNN/Tea Party Sponsored debate, “If anything, this should have been an Opt-In not an Opt-Out!  This is another over-reach of government. Will give vaccines at schools only for illnesses that can easily be passed from student to student during the normal school day process.”

Texas Governor Orders STD Vaccine for all Girls (By Executive Order)

Stealth Vaccine Laws Allow Children to Consent to Vaccines

Merck Vaccine Dangers

Dr. Mercola:  Don’t Let Your Child Be the Next Victim of This Deadly Vaccine

Gardasil: Oversold, Over-Hyped, and Risky?

32 Girls Have Died

Research Firm Blows Hole In Big Pharma Vaccination Lie

Vaccines:  Cooking Up a Witches Brew of Death and Deceit

Vaccinations, Obama, and the Illusionatis Depopulation

Sterilization of Our Children Has Begun With the H1N1 Vaccine…  -Lots of informative links

Vaccination Nanotechnology

Review:  The New World of ObamaCare

Bilderberg Behind Rick Perry 2012 Run  Given Their Nod in 2007

By Ask Marion for True Health Is True Wealth

Obama Caught Admitting His Health care Plan Designed to Eliminate Private Insurance

Now we know a little bit more about what Obama means when he says he plans to "fundamentally transform the United States of America":

Video: Obama: We are 5 days from FUNDAMENTALly transforming America

But it also goes to show that Barack Hussein Obama cannot be trusted, as he talks out of both sides of his mouth.

As this video demonstrates, he tells lies to the American people to keep us soothed and pacified while he dismantles the fruits of the American Revolution brick by brick. But behind closed doors, when he is speaking to his fellow anti-American radicals, he can be quite candid about his real plans for America:

Video:  SHOCK UNCOVERED: Obama IN HIS OWN WORDS saying His Health Care Plan will ELIMINATE private

Of course, this video is just the tip of the iceberg.  Rest assured, there will be many more to follow.  But it underscores just what kind of people we are dealing with, and further underscores the need for us to elect a president who is their true opposite:  a person who is pure of heart, where they are cynical; whose stand for the truth is firmer than their commitment to lies; who wants to build this country up more than our enemies want to tear it down; someone who has demonstrated unshakable honor and courage and determination to do what's right in the face of extreme adversity; someone who rejects Obama's drive to fundamentally transform American into a socialist dictatorship, and instead wants to fundamentally restore America's greatness.

Video:  One Nation

That person, is Sarah Palin.  Don't let her slip through your fingers, America.

Posted by Joel Schwartz at 8:33 AM - Californians4Palin

How ObamaCare Threatens Solvency Of Health Insurers

IBD Editorials ^ | August 1, 2011 | JOHN R. GRAHAM

Posted on Monday, August 01, 2011 8:39:56 PM by Kaslin

One of the most remarkable outcomes of ObamaCare is how the stock market has treated commercial health plans, which have rallied significantly.

In the two years between the 2008 and 2010 elections, the Morgan Stanley Healthcare Payors' Index rallied 26% (annualized), vs. only 9% for the S&P 500.

Outperformance increased even more since the mid-term election. Investors believe that the government guarantee of millions of customers to health plans will lead to profits. Unfortunately, this optimism is likely unfounded.

ObamaCare distributes federal grants to states that encourage their insurance departments to increase power of prior approval of premium increases.

And the coming wave of political interference will threaten health plans' very solvency. We already know that such laws do not keep a lid on health costs.

In Massachusetts, the 2006 health reform imposed a "mandate" to carry health insurance, but also to draconian limits on premium hikes.

Using the power that his counterparts in many states might soon enjoy, the state's Insurance Commissioner refused 235 of 274 requested rate hikes for April 2010, and demanded that plans rebate premiums that had already been paid.

But medical costs in Massachusetts increased faster after the new regulations than before.

Massachusetts' health plans are hemorrhaging cash, and a senior regulator has described the mess as a "train wreck."

(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...

Sources to: Californians4Palin, investors.com  & h/t to Jean Stoner   -  Cross-Posted to Ask Marion

Obama “Fixed” Medicare…With Rationing

A Shovel Ready Project

Posted on June 24, 2011 by Guest Writer  John Goodman

While charges and counter-charges about Medicare are flying back and forth in Washington, hardly anyone seems to have noticed that Medicare’s financial problems have already been solved. They were solved by the health reform bill enacted last year, what some people call ObamaCare.

So why isn’t this front page news? Why aren’t people dancing in the street? Why isn’t the Obama administration boasting about this accomplishment far and wide? Probably because Medicare’s financial problems are slated to be solved by the unconscionable

rationing of health care for the elderly and the disabled, which will lead to the equivalent of death panels for senior Boomers and some disabled persons! Please stop laughing at Sarah Palin, she’s telling you the truth, and stop listening to the mainstream media and AARP, they aren’t!!

The most recent Medicare Trustees report conveys the same message as the last one: On the day that Barack Obama signed the health reform bill, Medicare’s long-term unfunded liability fell by $53 trillion. That sum is about three times the size of the entire U.S. economy. And, it gets better. Once the Baby Boomers work their way through the system, Medicare spending will grow no faster than the payroll taxes, premiums and general revenue transfers that pay for that spending.

So what does this mean for senior citizens who rely on Medicare? No one knows for sure. But it almost certainly means they will get less health care.

Last August, the Office of the Medicare Actuary predicted that within nine years Medicare will be paying doctors less than what Medicaid pays. Think about that. In most places around the country Medicaid patients have extreme difficulty finding doctors who will see them. As a result, they end up seeking care at community health centers and in the emergency rooms of safety net hospitals. In a few more years seniors will be in that same position — with this difference. From a financial point of view, the seniors will be perceived as less desirable customers than welfare mothers. Also, by that point one in seven hospitals will have to leave the Medicare system.

As Medicare Chief Actuary Richard Foster (page 282) said in the 2010 Medicare Trustees’ report, “Well before that point, Congress would have to intervene to prevent the withdrawal of providers from the Medicare market and the severe problems with beneficiary access to care that would result.”

But suppose Congress didn’t intervene. Suppose that the law continues on the books exactly as it is written.

Consider people reaching the age of 65 this year. Under ObamaCare, the average amount spent on these enrollees over the remainder of their lives will fall by about $36,000 at today’s prices. That sum of money is equivalent to about three years of benefits. For 55-year-olds, the spending decrease is about $62,000 — or the equivalent of six years of benefits. For 45-year-olds, the loss is more than $105,000, or nine years of benefits.

In terms of the sheer dollars involved, the planned reduction in future Medicare payments is the equivalent of raising the eligibility age for Medicare to age 68 for today’s 65-year-olds, to age 71 for 55-year-olds and to age 74 for 45-year-olds. But rather than keep the system as is and raise the age of eligibility, the reform law instead tries to achieve equivalent savings by paying less to the providers of care.

What does this mean in terms of access to health care? It almost certainly means that seniors will have extreme difficulty finding doctors who will see them and hospitals who will admit them. Once admitted, they will certainly enjoy fewer amenities (no private room, no gourmet meal choices, and no cable TV perhaps) as well as a lower quality of care. We will have a two-tiered health care system, with the elderly getting second class care.

All these problems will be exacerbated by what ObamaCare does in the rest of the health care system. In just two years, 32 million people will become newly insured. If economic studies are correct, they will try to double the amount of health care they have been consuming. In addition, almost everyone else (including most above-average income families) will be forced to obtain more generous insurance than they have today. With more coverage for more services these people will also try to greatly expand their consumption of care. Yet the health reform act did not create one new doctor or nurse or other paramedical personnel to meet this increased demand.

We are about to experience a system wide rationing problem, which will be reflected in longer waits at doctors’ offices, emergency rooms and clinics and delays in getting almost every kind of care.

In such an environment you will be at a real disadvantage if you are in a health plan that pays doctors less than what private plans are paying. The disadvantaged patients will be the elderly and the disabled on Medicare, poor families on Medicaid, and (if Massachusetts is any guide) people who are newly enrolled in government subsidized health plans.

And here is the final tragic irony: The most vulnerable population are the ones whose access to care is likely to decrease the most under a health care act that was widely touted at the time of its passage as a humanitarian measure

John Goodman is President and CEO/Kellye Wright Fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis.

This article originally appeared on Conservative Battleline Online and is reprinted with permission.

h/t to A at  Sovereignty in Colorado

Dirty Little Secret: Rationing is at Heart of ObamaCare

There is a dirty secret about health care that President Obama hopes will escape the headlines. In his newly released plan to “reform” Medicare as part of overall deficit reduction, Obama has punted actual cost-cutting and instead proposed a panel – the Independent Payment Advisory Board – to recommend savings for the financially doomed program. Translation: Welcome to the world of rationing.

The board, which was an original part of Obamacare (remember the death panel debate?), consists of 15 unelected bureaucrats who will have unchecked, binding power in the interest of supposedly greater efficiency and lower costs. That means that instead of you or your doctor making decisions about your care, a group of Washington micromanagers will do it for you.

Oh, and the rationing panel will be immune to lawsuits. According to The New York Times, “In general, federal courts could not review actions to carry out the board’s recommendations.”

The panel is one of the scariest policy moves made by this administration and is the epitome of government interference in our lives at the most personal of levels. If you’re not eligible for Medicare, you will be one day, which is why everyone should be very afraid of what’s to come when the panel starts its work in 2014 with a report to the President. Though defenders claim that Obamacare bars rationing, the panel will do just that.  (Full Story Below)

There is a dirty secret about health care that President Obama hopes will escape the headlines. In his newly released plan to “reform” Medicare as part of overall deficit reduction, Obama has punted actual cost-cutting and instead proposed a panel – the Independent Payment Advisory Board  – to recommend savings for the financially doomed program. Translation: Welcome to the world of rationing.

The board, which was an original part of Obamacare (remember the death panel debate?), consists of 15 unelected bureaucrats who will have unchecked, binding power in the interest of supposedly greater efficiency and lower costs. That means that instead of you or your doctor making decisions about your care, a group of Washington micromanagers will do it for you.

They will do this by cutting reimbursements to doctors and hospitals and restricting patients from costly end-of-life care by enforcing caps on how much a patient can spend to stay alive. Most at risk will be the disabled, who require special and often expensive care. Cancer patients will be at risk, as well, since chemotherapy and other oncological treatments are some of the priciest.

In fact, there is very little Congress will be able to do to stop the panel. It will only be able to block its rulings with a two-thirds vote to override an expected presidential veto.

In the past, Obama has hinted that we'll need a way to address these patients. "The chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80% of the total health care bill out here," he said shortly after taking office. "There is going to have to be a very difficult democratic conversation that takes place."

But there was no real conversation. Democrats inserted the rationing panel into the Affordable Care Act (i.e., Obamacare), and when the opposition tried to draw attention to the risks involved by invoking rationing, they were branded by the left and the mainstream media as crazies.

But this is far from fantasy. In fact, it's already reality across the pond.

In many ways, Obama and congressional Democrats copied the British, who have a similar model called the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, or NICE. According to The Wall Street Journal, the acronym is quite the oxymoron when one looks at what passes for standard practice: "NICE has rejected a number of pricey drugs for cancer and other diseases in the past. . . . Sometimes NICE rejects drugs for all patients with the disease, and sometimes just for patients with a specific form of the disease, where the efficacy doesn't appear to justify the price. NICE's decisions often anger patients, their families and drug companies."

Most recently, NICE made the decision to deny the use of several new drugs to treat chronic leukemia patients. This showcases how deficit savings will be achieved under Obama's plan.

First, it's baffling to me that with countless government health officials on the federal payroll, nobody has been able to definitively figure out how to save Medicare from fiscal ruin. But somehow, these 15 Independent Payment Advisory Board pencil pushers will do the trick? Unless Superman, Wonder Woman and the Flash are entering the world of public service, there is no reason to believe that the same bureaucrats who got us into this mess will be able to solve the problem simply because they've joined a newly created panel.
It does, however, give Washington air cover. Just like in England, when the panel makes a controversial decision, lawmakers will be cleared of any direct involvement, claiming they aren't responsible for cutting your mother's cancer treatments.

In fact, there is very little Congress will be able to do to stop the panel. It will only be able to block its rulings with a two-thirds vote to override an expected presidential veto.

Oh, and the rationing panel will be immune to lawsuits. According to The New York Times, "In general, federal courts could not review actions to carry out the board's recommendations."

So, to break it down: Democrats are against limits on private-sector lawsuits but are in favor of preventing patients from suing government bureaucrats. But if this rationing panel has been designed to be so efficient and good at its job, as the President and his administration claim, then why do Democrats fear litigation in the first place?

Even some on the left are unsettled about Obama's solution to lowering the deficit through a medical panel with frighteningly unchecked powers. Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.), a notorious liberal, said this of Independent Payment Advisory Board-style rationing: "In its effort to limit the growth of Medicare spending, the board is likely to set inadequate payment rates for health care providers, which could endanger patient care."

It could also lead to a doctor shortage. If the panel cuts reimbursements to physicians, they will simply stop treating Medicare patients, thus forcing patients to purchase their own health care. Already, "Obamacare's passage has led as many as two-thirds of physicians to drop out of government-run health programs," reports the Senate Republican Policy Committee.

The panel is one of the scariest policy moves made by this administration and is the epitome of government interference in our lives at the most personal of levels. If you're not eligible for Medicare, you will be one day, which is why everyone should be very afraid of what's to come when the panel starts its work in 2014 with a report to the President. Though defenders claim that Obamacare bars rationing, the panel will do just that.

Donald Berwick, the President's controversial Medicare administrator, already stated that "The decision is not whether or not we will ration care - the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open."

Although Obama and many congressional Democrats are hoping the complexity of the Independent Payment Advisory Board will keep people from paying attention, our eyes must be open, too. The fate of the elderly, the sick and the disabled depends on it.
andrea@andreatantaros.com

Andrea Tantaros, whose column appears on Thursdays on NYDailyNews.com and often in the print edition of the newspaper, is a political commentator as well as a corporate communications executive. She previously served as a senior adviser on a number of political campaigns and as communications director for former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld and Rep. Thomas Reynolds (R-N.Y.) and on Capitol Hill as press secretary for Republican leadership. Tantaros lives in New York City.

By ANDREA TANTAROS

The Dems, the White House and the media are trying to scare seniors about the Ryan Plan.  It is another diversion.  The real issue is the rationing or death panel headed by Donald Berwick that Sarah Palin and a few others warned us about and then were demonized by the same people who are hiding true facts of ObamaCare from you, until it is too late! Take it from someone who read as much of every version as possible during the ObamaCare battle… the panel and rationing are in there along with many other scary provisions.  And a vote to re-elect Obama is a final vote to destroy America’s healthcare as well as freedom!

Sarah Palin Will Be An Advocate For Special Needs Kids and Their Families

Wonderful MSNBC Video On Sarah Palin

This is an amazing woman doing amazing things. It would be grand and just if McCain won this election by the margin of special needs families that Sarah brought to the ticket.

Posted by: Daily Thought Pad