Death Panels for Babies in Obamacare? Kids With RSV Should Beware

Sarah Palin was attacked mercilessly for her claims that the Obamacare legislation would lead to death panels — where bureaucrats would make treatment decisions for patients or ration their expensive medical care.

Since then even some of her most ardent critics and strongest early supporters of ObamaCare have had to admit that Palin was right and that there are definitely death panels, a rationing board, or whatever you want to call it written into the ObamaCare legislation!

LifeNews.com: Sarah Palin was attacked mercilessly for her claims that the Obamacare legislation would lead to death panels — where bureaucrats would make treatment decisions for patients or ration their expensive medical care.

Since her warning salvo was fired, numerous examples have come up involving Obamacare rationing medical care or putting in cost containments that would lead to rationed care or prohibit patients from spending more of their own money on lifesaving medical treatment or wanted care.

Now, Jacqueline Halbig, principal at Sovereign Global Solutions and former senior policy adviser for the Dept. of Health and Human Services, has a guest post at the pro-life blog run by Jill Stanek about another Obamacare rationing example.

Parents of children with disabilities should pay particular attention because Halbig says “babies, especially those born prematurely, now face an even greater uphill battle – receiving needed health care” thanks to Obamacare. The rest of her column follows:

Every year between November and March, there are outbreaks of Respiratory Syncytial Virus, an illness similar to the flu.

RSV is the leading cause of pneumonia and bronchiolitis, and hospitalization for children under the age of one; premature infants and children before the age of two with congenital heart or chronic lung disease are considered to be at highest risk.

Each year RSV causes two million hospitalizations and 14,000 deaths. In addition, RSV disproportionately affects minority and especially African American babies, who, according to the Centers for Disease Control, are 59% percent more likely to be born prematurely than white infants.

While there is no vaccine for RSV, there is an FDA-approved treatment available. When it became available in 1997, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued evidence-based guidelines for its use, recommending that the treatment be administered once per month during outbreak season (an average of five months total).

But in 2009, with no clear medical evidence for doing so, the AAP both shrunk the pool of eligible infants and reduced the number of RSV treatments that would be made available – for some babies down to 3 doses, while for others as low as 1 dose. The only clear reason given was cost.

Unfortunately, the AAP’s guidelines are widely implemented by Medicaid and insurance providers, who in turn followed suit and greatly reduced coverage.

In response, concerned groups of parents, prenatal advocates, and medical providers such as the National Perinatal Association, the National Medical Association, and the National Black Nurses Association have pointed out that there is no definitive research to support these changes (indeed, these are not FDA-approved doses) and are urging the AAP to reconsider their recommendations.

If cost is the issue, let’s consider the cost of non-treatment. A 2010 study by the NMA and NBNA showed the rate of hospitalization and emergency room visits without proper treatment for RSV is astronomical.

For example, a child not properly treated for RSV is five times more likely to be hospitalized and more than twice as likely to visit an emergency room visit than with the flu.

But for those premature infants who received treatment, hospitalization decreased by 55-80%. Furthermore, infants who received the recommended treatment had decreased emergency room and physician office visits. As a result, there are cost savings associated with proper treatment.

Since RSV disproportionately affects African American, Hispanic and premature babies, there is great concern that this rationing policy will further increase health disparities in these communities.

So what’s the real benefit of limiting this treatment? If Obamacare’s objective is to make health care more accessible and affordable, an honest cost benefit analysis would respect the bottom line and acknowledge that an ounce of RSV prevention is cheaper than a pound of emergency room cure – unless their bottom line equates death as the cheapest option.

Related: 

Obama, Democrats Promised "Death Panels" Would Not Exist In Obamacare – Sarah Palin on Hannity

RUSH: Palin Was Right - There Are Indeed Death Panels In ObamaCare (audio) 

Obama Embraces 'Death Panel' Concept in Medicare Rule 

BILL WHITTLE: Sarah Palin was RIGHT

Betsy McCaughey: Obamacare designed to vastly expand single payer Medicaid by eviscerating Medicare 

RUSH: Palin Was Right – There Are Indeed Death Panels In ObamaCare (audio)

Death Panels are HERE 

Will Sick Babies Be Starved to Death Under Obamacare? 

“Death Panel” Three Years Later 

Did Obama hint at health-care rationing in SOTU?

On the Road to Death Panels

ObamaCare for Seniors: Sorry, You're Just Not Worth It

Meet the ObamaCare Mandate Committee

Obamacare rationing panels an ‘immediate danger to seniors’: former AMA president

Obama Regulation Czar, Cass Sunstein, Advocated Removing People’s Organs Without Explicit Consent

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Holdren: Seize Babies Born to Unwed Women

List of Obama’s Czars Plus Two – Updated: 8.18.09 – Remember when the Czars were the hot topic… but they overwhelmed us and forgot them to do they scary dirty jobs…

Science Czar John P. Holdren – Updated 9.2.09

Meet Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel: Deny Coverage to Elderly an Disabled for the Greater Good – But don’t forget… Sarah Palin was crazy…

Complete Lives System by Ezekial Emanuel

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Obamacare to Herd Disabled Seniors to Bare-Bones Medicaid Plans

"People 70 and over will not be treated under Obamacare… and you thought DEATH PANELS were gone"– Updated

Soylent Green Anyone???

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Go Granny Go!!

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Technorati Tags: RSV,Rationing Board,Death Panels,Palin,Sarah Palin,Howard Dean,Sarah Was Right,ObamaCare,ObamaCare Lies,Wake-Up,Babies,Infants,Obamaland,Black Babies,Repeal and Replace ObamaCare,Respiratory Syncytial Virus

RUSH: Palin Was Right - There Are Indeed Death Panels In ObamaCare (audio)

Audio: RUSH: Sarah Palin Was Right 'There Are Indeed Death Panels In ObamaCare' 

Former governor and vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin is blasting HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius for becoming a one-woman death panel. Sebelius is denying a young girl a lifesaving lung transplant — forcing the girl’s family to look to the courts for help.

Palin blasted Sebelius on Twitter and Facebook.

In her Facebook post, Palin said recalled how much criticism she received for decrying “death panels” in Obamacare:

The government will bend the rules left and right to harass targeted taxpayers, conservative patriots, selected journalists, etc., but it will strictly exercise inconsistent and subjective rules to deny a child a shot at life. And they called us liars when we spoke of “death panels” – faceless bureaucrats coming between you and your doctor to make life and death decisions about a loved one’s survival. It doesn’t sound so far fetched anymore, does it?

A federal judge has intervened to give hope to a young girl who needs a lung transplant as doctors have only given her weeks to live. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius received national condemnation after she refused to get involved to help the girl.

Sarah Murnaghan has been hospitalized for three months with end-stage cystic fibrosis. She is not giving up hope. She wants to be a singer, but needs a lung transplant to live. Her parents have been with her constantly while she waits at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Sarah’s parents asked a federal judge to intervene and order the Obama administration to alter longstanding organ-donation rules so she can get the lung transplant she desperately needs. A report shows the judge has given them hope that she can be put on the adult list.

*Unfortunately because of the delays the dying girl's condition worsens as she awaits lung transplant

**Since this was originally written, the same judge has acted on behalf of a second girl in the same hospital also needing a lung transplant has sued and has been added to the list.

Death Panel a la Sebelius… “Some people live. Some people die.”

Related… Who is HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius?:

Sebelius’ Controversial Fundraising Efforts Raise Concerns, Allegedly Chase Away Potential Donors 

Sebelius: Decrease in Human Beings Will Cover Cost of Contraception Mandate 

Comments More Print Reprints About the Obamacare ‘train wreck’ 

Sebelius Spends Your Taxes On Community Organizations 

Obamacare Architects Rockefeller and Sebelius: Our Bill is Confusing Beyond Comprehension 

ObamaCare: 1,000+ Pages of Socialized Health-Care Rules? Obama’s Private Army? And the Road to Socialism Through Health-Care By Reagan

*Here is Ultra Left Wing HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’ Spin on the abortion mandates within ObamaCare. (Remember, Sebilius was an ardent supporter of murdered partial birth abortionist, Tiller and her extreme record on abortion has sadly been ignored (or hidden) by the media.) 

Obama Embraces 'Death Panel' Concept in Medicare Rule 

Death Panels are HERE

Technorati Tags: death panels,ObamaCare,Sarah Palin,Palin,Rush Limbaugh,wake-up America,stand-up America,Kathleen Sebelius

Betsy McCaughey: Obamacare designed to vastly expand single payer Medicaid by eviscerating Medicare

By Marion Algier – AskMarion – h/t to MJ 

Betsy McCaughey, an expert on the Affordable Care Act, was on the Kelly Files regarding more enrollees in Medicaid is a signal for Single-Payer.  McCaughey is the author of Beating Obamacare: Your Handbook for the New Healthcare Law, Decoding the Obama Health Law: What You Need To Know (Kindle) and Obama Health Law: What It Says and How to Overturn It (Encounter Broadsides) (Kindle).  She knows of what she speaks!!

Video: Betsy McCaughey: Obamacare designed to vastly expand single payer Medicaid by eviscerating Medicare

One of the key Obamacare architects Zeke Emanuel – Rahm Emanuel’s brother - has lot in common with Hitler. He supports the rationing of medical care - you know denying care for the elderly. Betsy McCaughey cited 2 examples on Megyn's show - 1) a 2008 JAMA article in which Zeke said doctors take the Hippocratic Oath too seriously and focus too much on the needs of their patients. Instead they should be more focused on how resources can better be used for the young people. 2) He believes that 65 year olds have had their chance.

Video:  Obamacare Architect shares Hitler's values; Supports rationing of medical care for elderly

Rationing healthcare in a single-payer system where boards, a mandate committee, of primarily non-medical experts and non-medical practitioners, especially not your own doctor, decide on your treatment based on the good of the many… not the patient at hand, is socialized medicine and no matter how you spin it is a death panel system.  Someone will decide whether, or not, you, your grandparents, your special needs child or someone that the powers that be at the time don’t like get to have surgery, a major medical procedure or even an expensive medicine… or whether you will be left to suffer or just die.  That my friends is a death panel, exactly what Sarah Palin and others who read the ObamaCare Bill warned us of.  And because Palin was right and tried to warn Americans (about this and a lot of other things), the Progressives in power both hate and fear her, so the demonized her.  But Sarah and Betsy are right… there are death panels in this law.

In 2007, Senator Obama said he wanted to eliminate private health insurance.  And just recently Harry Reid admitted that the whole goal of ObamaCare is to get us all into a single payer system where the federal government controls one-sixth of our economy, will decide on who and when they will authorize treatment and will use the IRS as their enforcer to collect whatever premiums they set without competition.  Think about it!

And as for ole Zeke Emanual… he is for death panels! Inform yourself about his Complete Lives System.

Video:  Megyn Kelly Grills Zeke Emanuel on Obamacare Promises: Was Obama Lying or 'Grossly Mistaken'?

There are only two ways to stop this… (1) Win the House and the Senate in 2014 and then the White House in 2016 (2) and Repeal and then Replace ObamaCare!!

The time to get involved is now.  This whole ObamaCare rollout website disaster is the least of our worries!!… even if it did cost us $634 Million of taxpayer money paid to a Canadian company with ties to George Soros and Michelle Obama for a site that doesn’t work, and now we have to pay again to fix it.

Related:

Obama's Health Rationer-in-Chief

Ezekiel Emanuel & The Complete Lives System: part 3 of Health Care: Why We are Scared (Video) 

Doctors Quitting Over ObamaCare – Lindsey Williams –> Socialized Medicine… the Jewel of Socialism 

On the Road to Death Panels

Holdren, Obama’s Science Czar, Says Constitution Backs Compulsory Abortion 

"People 70 and over will not be treated under Obamacare… and you thought DEATH PANELS were gone" 

Ezekiel Emanuel, architect of ObamaCare..please read

“Death Panel” Three Years Later 

Death Panels 101? Chilling High School Assignment Makes Students Decide Who Lives and Who Dies 

Bill O’Reilly on Socialism and a Shocking New Book 

Will Sick Babies Be Starved to Death Under Obamacare?

Useless Eaters  -  Eliminate the Useless Eaters: A Disease of the Elitist Mind

Technorati Tags: ObamaCare,rationing healthcare,rationing for the elderly,Betsy McCaughey,Socialized Medicine,Zeke Emanuel,Rahm Emanuel,Hitler's Germany,Useless Eaters,elderly,seniors,Election 2014,Election 2016,Hippocratic Oath,Death Panels,Sarah Palin,Megyn Kelly,Fox News,Affordable Care Act,ACA,single-payer,Complete Lives System,Medicaid,Medicare,Get-Involved,You be the judge

Will Sick Babies Be Starved to Death Under Obamacare?

Doctor describes “horror” of Britain’s socialist healthcare system

Paul Joseph Watson  -  Infowars.com  -  November 30, 2012

A physician has told the British Medical Journal about the “unique horror” of watching a newborn baby shrivel up and die under a cost-cutting system of socialized healthcare that withdraws feeding tubes from sick and disabled babies, a method that could be replicated in the United States under Obamacare.

After speaking with doctors who have blown the whistle on how babies are being starved and dehydrated to death in British hospitals, an investigation by the Daily Mail has revealed that the controversial Liverpool Care Pathway end of life regime is being used to kill disabled newborns and young children. It was previously thought that the method was only being used on elderly and terminally ill adult patients.

The method has been criticized as a form of euthanasia because its primary purpose is to kill off patients quicker so as to free up more hospital beds and resources.

One physician spoke of how parents who gave permission for their babies to be put on the ‘pathway to death’ were making the decision without properly considering the abhorrent reality of what dehydration and starvation does to the human body.

“I know, as they cannot, the unique horror of witnessing a child become smaller and shrunken, as the only route out of a life that has become excruciating to the patient or to the parents who love their baby,” the doctor writes. “I reflect on how sanitised this experience seems within the literature about making this decision.”

The doctor also dismissed the myth that the baby does not suffer during the process.

“Survival is often much longer than most physicians think…..Parents and care teams are unprepared for the sometimes severe changes that they will witness in the child’s physical appearance as severe dehydration ensues,” he wrote.

“Some say withdrawing medically provided hydration and nutrition is akin to withdrawing any other form of life support. Maybe, but that is not how it feels,” he wrote, describing the mixture of “compassion, revulsion, and pain” the care team had to experience in watching the baby slowly die.

Bernadette Lloyd, a hospice paediatric nurse, also revealed how parents are being coerced into agreeing to put their children on the LCP, and that she “Witnessed a 14 year-old boy with cancer die with his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth when doctors refused to give him liquids by tube. His death was agonising for him, and for us nurses to watch. This is euthanasia by the backdoor.”

“I have also seen children die in terrible thirst because fluids are withdrawn from them until they die,” added Lloyd.

Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP), now under independent investigation by order of government ministers, is a process whereby a doctor identifies a patient who is likely to die and that patient is then heavily sedated while treatment is withdrawn, “including the provision of water and nourishment by tube.”

The investigation into LCP will “look at whether cash payments to hospitals to hit death pathway targets have influenced doctors’ decisions” to put patients on the ‘pathway to death’.

In a recent exposé, Patrick Pullicino, a consultant neurologist for East Kent Hospitals and professor of clinical neurosciences at the University of Kent, revealed that of the 450,000 patients who die annually under the care of the NHS, 130,000 of them were on the Liverpool Care Pathway.

“If we accept the Liverpool Care Pathway we accept that euthanasia is part of the standard way of dying as it is now associated with 29 per cent of NHS deaths,” Pullicino said.

The Telegraph’s Gerald Warner notes that LCP represents “euthanasia by the back door.” Other doctors such as Dr. Peter Hargreaves have highlighted the fact that patients taken off LCP have gone on to live for “significant amounts of time.”

Because death occurs on average within 33 hours of a patient being put on LCP, the cost difference between two days of morphine and treatment of a condition for months or even years means the NHS is literally euthanising people to save money.

“In fact, Hargreaves noted, some patients may exhibit signs of dying when their bodies are merely reacting to sedation combined with dehydration and then “be wrongly put on the pathway.” Once a patient is sedated under the LCP, University of London geriatrics professor P.H. Millard told the Telegraph, “it is much harder to see that a patient is getting better.”

“Pullicino echoed many of these sentiments, saying that “patients are frequently put on the pathway without a proper analysis of their condition,” that “predicting death” at a specific time “is not possible scientifically,” and that, as a result, “very likely many patients who could live substantially longer are being killed by the LCP.”

Could a similar system of euthanasia become commonplace in America under Obamacare?

President Obama has repeatedly expressed his support for the Medicare Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), a group of doctors that would make decisions on cost cutting measures under Obamacare. Opponents of government-run healthcare have dubbed this a system of “death panels” that would have the power to refuse treatment to the elderly or severely ill patients, a de-facto form of mandatory euthanasia.

Last month, Obama adviser Steven Rattner acknowledged that rationed healthcare would be part of Obamacare, brazenly stating, “We need death panels.”

The idea that “death panels” would be introduced through Obamacare as a means of rationing healthcare was also discussed during an Aspen Institute conference in 2010 when Obama supporter Bill Gates argued that money should not be spent on treating the elderly.

During a question and answer session, Gates implied that elderly patients undergoing expensive health care treatments should be killed and the money spent elsewhere.

Gates said there was a “lack of willingness” to consider the question of choosing between “spending a million dollars on that last three months of life for that patient” or laying off ten teachers.

“But that’s called the death panel and you’re not supposed to have that discussion,” added Gates.

This eugenicist mindset was also evident in a paper published earlier this year in the Journal of Medical Ethics by Alberto Giubilini of Monash University in Melbourne and Francesca Minerva at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne which argued that abortion should be extended to make the killing of newborn babies permissible, even if the baby is perfectly healthy.

Allowing patients to die via the horrifically slow and painful method of dehydration and starvation is not just restricted to the elderly and sick or disabled babies.

In a series of best-selling books, author and bioethics expert Wesley J. Smith has exposed how adults in the United States who regain consciousness after being comatose and are able to exhibit physical and emotional responses are also being starved and dehydrated to death.

If America mimics Britain’s notoriously bad socialized healthcare system, thousands upon thousands of sick babies will likely be left to die excruciatingly painful deaths in the name of cost-cutting measures that amount to nothing less than a cruel and inhumane death sentence.

*********************

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a host for Infowars Nightly News.

1. Related:
2. Elderly To Be Euthanized Under Obamacare?
3. Top UK doctor’s chilling claim: The NHS kills off 130,000 elderly patients every year
4. Elderly Woman Left to Die Under Britain’s Death Care System
5. Why My Doctor Hates Obamacare
6. Death on wheels: Dutch to send mobile clinics to euthanize people
7. Sick babies denied treatment due to corp. patent on gene
8. GlaxoSmithKline Fined Over Illegal Vaccine Experiments Killing 14 Babies
9. Sentenced to death on the NHS
10. Brit doctors admit practicing ‘slow euthanasia’ on terminally-ill patients
11. Using ultrasounds to determine gestational age could result in baby’s death
12. Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Obamacare
13. Doctors Agree: Their Jobs Suck, and the Government is Largely To Blame
14. Obama Embraces 'Death Panel' Concept in Medicare Rule
15. On the Road to Death Panels
16. ObamaCare for Seniors: Sorry, You're Just Not Worth It
17. “Death Panel” Three Years Later
18. Meet the ObamaCare Mandate Committee
19. Obamacare rationing panels an ‘immediate danger to seniors’: former AMA president
20. “Death Panel” Three Years Later
21. The Bilderberg Group’s Connection To Everything In The World – Updated
22. People of Faith
23. Obama Regulation Czar, Cass Sunstein, Advocated Removing People’s Organs Without Explicit Consent
24. Obama’s "Science Czar" Advocates De-Developing the US to World of Zero Growth
25. Video: More Scary Stuff From Obama’s Science Czar
26. Holdren Says Constitution Backs Compulsory Abortion
27. Holdren: Seize Babies Born to Unwed Women
28. List of Obama’s Czars Plus Two – Updated: 8.18.09 – Remember when the Czars were the hot topic… but they overwhelmed us and forgot them to do they scary dirty jobs…
29. Science Czar John P. Holdren – Updated 9.2.09
30. Meet Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel: Deny Coverage to Elderly an Disabled for the Greater Good – But don’t forget… Sarah Palin was crazy…
31. Complete Lives System by Ezekial Emanuel
32. ObamaCare… the Kiss of Death - Collection of OBAMA SCARE - Articles U CAN NOT MISS!
33. Obama Embraces 'Death Panel' Concept in Medicare Rule
34. Obamacare to Herd Disabled Seniors to Bare-Bones Medicaid Plans
35. "People 70 and over will not be treated under Obamacare… and you thought DEATH PANELS were gone"– Updated
36. Soylent Green Anyone???
37. Great Grandmother Mary Allen Hardison: 101-Year-Old Woman Breaks Guinness World Record... Oldest Female to Paraglide Tandem
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42. Checkout: ObamaCare Survival Guide

Technorati Tags: ObamaCare,death panels,Sarah Palin was right,watch the other hand,Big Brother,repeal and replace ObamaCare,Socialized Medicine,Britain,babies,sick babies,seniors,elderly,special needs

Obama Embraces 'Death Panel' Concept in Medicare Rule

Sunday, 26 Dec 2010 06:41 PM

During the stormy debate over his healthcare plan, President Barack Obama promised his program would not "pull the plug on grandma" and Congress dropped plans for death panels and "end of life" counseling that would encourage aged patients from partaking in costly medical procedures.

Opponents of Obama's plan, including former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, dubbed such efforts as "death panels" that would encourage euthanasia.

But on December 3rd, the Obama administration seemingly flouted the will of Congress by issuing a new Medicare regulation detailing -- "voluntary advance care planning" that is to be included during patients' annual checkups. The regulation aimed at the aged "may include advance directives to forgo aggressive life-sustaining treatment," The New York Times reported.

The new provision goes into effect Jan. 1, 2011 and allows Medicare to pay for voluntary counseling to help beneficiaries deal with the complex and decisions families face when a loved one is approaching death. Critics say it is another attempt to limit healthcare options for the elderly as they face serious illness.

Incoming House Speaker John Boehner said during the healthcare debate that, “This provision may start us down a treacherous path toward government-encouraged euthanasia.”

Specifically, the measure was known as Section 1233 of the bill passed by the House in November 2009. It was not included in the final legislation, however. It allowed Medicare to pay for consultations about advance care planning every five years. In contrast, the new rule allows annual discussions as part of the wellness visit.

Elizabeth D. Wickham, executive director of LifeTree, a pro-life Christian educational ministry, told the Times was concerned that end-of-life counseling would encourage patients to forgo or curtail care, thus hastening death.

“The infamous Section 1233 is still alive and kicking,” Ms. Wickham said. “Patients will lose the ability to control treatments at the end of life.”

The rule was issued by Dr. Donald M. Berwick, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, according to The New York Times. He is a longtime advocate for rationing medical procedures for the elderly.

Before being tapped by Obama to his Medicare post, Berwick had long applauded Britain's National Health Service, which uses an algorithm to determine if the aged are worthy of additional expenditure for medical care and advanced treatments.

Berwick has argued that rationing will have to eventually be implemented in the U.S, stating, “The decision is not whether or not we will ration care. The decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open.”

Seniors appear to be a major target for precious resources under the Obama healthcare plan. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Obama plan cuts nearly $500 million in Medicare benefits to seniors as the federal government adds 30 million uninsured Americans to private and public health care systems.

The cost of caring for the elderly has not been lost on Berwick.
“The chronically ill and those towards the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill out here… there is going to have to be a very difficult democratic conversation that takes place,” he said.

During the heated healthcare debate, supporters of the Obama vigorously denied rationing for seniors would take place and scoffed at "death panel" critics like Palin.

Last month, however, economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman told ABC News that rising Medicare costs could only be dealt with by "death panels and sales taxes."

He added: "Medicare is going to have to decide what it's going to pay for. And at least for starters, it's going to have to decide which medical procedures are not effective at all and should not be paid for at all. In other words, it should have endorsed the [death] panel that was part of the healthcare reform.’"

Read more: Obama Embraces 'Death Panel' Concept in Medicare Rule

The NY Times Concedes Governor Palin “Forced [Obama] Onto the Defensive.”

The NY Times concedes that Governor Palin put Obama “onto the defensive” with “death panels” (emphasis added):

Sarah Palin, the 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidate, and Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House Republican leader, led the criticism in the summer of 2009. Ms. Palin said “Obama’s death panel” would decide who was worthy of health care. Mr. Boehner, who is in line to become speaker, said, “This provision may start us down a treacherous path toward government-encouraged euthanasia.” Forced onto the defensive, Mr. Obama said that nothing in the bill would “pull the plug on grandma.”

Has any other potential Republican presidential candidate other than Palin been able to force the New York Times to concede that he or she put Obama on the defensive? Has any other potential Republican presidential candidate other than Palin destroyed a liberal policy to such an extent that the Democrat Party is afraid to publicize what it is doing and can only get it implemented through channels outside of the legislative arena?

“Death Panels” Regulation Begins Obama’s Rule by Fiat

by Ben Johnson – Posted at

In a foretaste of outrages to come, the Obama administration managed to sneak out a federal regulation paying doctors to provide “end of life counseling” to those covered by ObamaCare. The Medicare rule, which Congress never voted on, may encourage thousands to forego lifesaving treatment. This move is a voluntary precursor to the inevitable rationing engendered by socialized medicine. Many conservative media outlets have objected to the pro-death aspects of this decision. However, they have ignored a vital aspect of this story: the way he implemented the policy. This federal regulation inaugurates Obama’s two-year strategy to rule by executive order. The New York Times reports:

When a proposal to encourage end-of-life planning touched off a political storm over “death panels,” Democrats dropped it from legislation to overhaul the health care system. But the Obama administration will achieve the same goal by regulation, starting Jan. 1.

Under the new policy, outlined in a Medicare regulation, the government will pay doctors who advise patients on options for end-of-life care, which may include advance directives to forgo aggressive life-sustaining treatment.

Although the NYT just discovered this, Steven Ertelt at LifeNews.com reported the regulation nearly a month ago. (We covered it at the time.) For once, the Times included some salient facts along with its whitewash of the administration’s activities.

This program will be overseen by the Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Dr. Donald Berwick, a fanatical believer in limiting (read: denying) care. The paper quotes Berwick as saying, “Using unwanted procedures in terminal illness is a form of assault. In economic terms, it is waste.” Berwick added advanced directives were one of “several techniques” that led “to both lower cost and more humane care.” There is no question they lead to lower costs, in addition to providing an economic stimulus to tombstone carvers, morticians, and cemetery plot salesmen.

The Times reports the regulation was pushed by two Congressional Democrats: Rep. Earl Blumenauer of Oregon and Sen. Jay Rockefeller IV of West Virginia. This backing unintentionally reveals the measure’s greater significance: The liberals could not ram a death panels provision through even the Democratic-controlled 111th Congress, so Obama is imposing it with the stroke of a pen, without a single vote. The New York Times admits this is the wave of the future:

While the new law does not mention advance care planning, the Obama administration has been able to achieve its policy goal through the regulation-writing process, a strategy that could become more prevalent in the next two years as the president deals with a strengthened Republican opposition in Congress.

This author first exposed Obama’s plan to rule by executive order, in October. The following month, the Center for American Progress released a lengthy report compiled by Sarah Rosen Wartell calling for the president to implement a “progressive” agenda by fiat over the next two years. In its foreword, CAP president and CEO John Podesta called on Obama to rule through:

• Executive orders
• Rulemaking
• Agency management
• Convening and creating public-private partnerships
• Commanding the armed forces
• Diplomacy

Just last week, the inside-the-Beltway Bible Politico featured an article by John F. Harris and James Hohmann which concluded, “Republican gains in Congress make it essential for [Obama] to use new avenues of power,” including regulations and executive orders.

The Left is irresistibly drawn to collecting as much unbridled power as possible, because its agenda is so unpopular it could never receive sufficient popular support to pass an election. Since the November election, Obama, Reid, and company have followed the authoritarian path I predicted. I wrote in November, “Look for an aggressive agenda in the lame duck session of Congress, focused especially on passing the DREAM Act and repealing ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’” Harry Reid unleashed precisely these two measures (and passed one of them) in his lame duck power grab, cramming in a bid to pass a $1.27 trillion budget besides. Next, I wrote, “After January, Cabinet agencies will issue regulations at a faster clip.” This follows that prediction. Finally, I wrote, “Obama will rule increasingly through executive orders and appeals to the United Nations.” If this regulation means anything, it means we have not seen anything yet.

How fitting one of the first expressions of Obama’s new strategy was a measure to let people die. He seems to have the same fate planned for the U.S. Constitution.

Death Panels are HERE

The Grouch of Right Truth

Today while working my shift in the emergency room, an old lady was brought in very sick and in fact near death. I did my usual workup and evaluation and attempted to administer life saving treatment. It was my plan to admit this woman to the hospital. I found out a little later that this same woman had been a patient here just slightly more than 2 weeks ago with a DIFFERENT DIAGNOSIS. I was told that if this woman was admitted, the hospital would not be paid.

The new Medicare rule now is that if the same Medicare patient is re-admitted to the hospital within 30 days, the hospital will not be paid. When they first started this nonsense they said this only applied to patients with the same diagnosis. Now they have "expanded" the rule to include re-admissions for any reason. So if you're in the hospital for pneumonia, and 3 weeks later, you break your leg.......too bad. Medicare will not pay the hospital to fix your leg.

A little later a man was brought in by ambulance, very sick, in pain, and near death. I did my usual evaluation and treatment, doing my best to ease pain and stabilize this man's illness. He needed to be admitted. To my chagrin I found out that he had been treated for the SAME problem at a DIFFERENT HOSPITAL about 10 days prior. If I admitted this man, our hospital would be paid nothing. I admitted the man.

My friends I am caught in a terrible position. I could have given treatment to both of these people and sent them out. There is no doubt that both of them would have died. Oh, I could also be sued for malpractice, but nobody cares about that. That's why we have insurance, right?

My other choice is to admit the person, knowing full well that the hospital will have to absorb the cost of care without hope of remuneration.

This is the climate we as healthcare providers find ourselves in today. How many small and struggling hospitals will survive under such ludicrous payment schemes? Indeed many facilities will close their doors. Many doctors will retire early or simply go do something else. As more and more are added to the Obamacare rolls, there will be less and less access. People will get sicker and yes, people will die because of it.

I had a sick and sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach today after both of these incidents. We have a good hospital. Our nurses, technicians, and support staff work very hard and they deserve to be paid for their efforts. I am not so worried about myself as I am near retirement, but I worry for all the younger folks in the healthcare business and I worry about our seniors who are in the long run going to be sacrificed as the government implements cost cutting shenanigans to cover up their broken promise made way back in 1964.

Folks, this is a nightmare!

Related:

On the Road to Death Panels

ObamaCare for Seniors: Sorry, You're Just Not Worth It

“Death Panel” Three Years Later

Meet the ObamaCare Mandate Committee

Obamacare rationing panels an ‘immediate danger to seniors’: former AMA president

“Death Panel” Three Years Later

The Bilderberg Group’s Connection To Everything In The World – Updated

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Obama Embraces 'Death Panel' Concept in Medicare Rule

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Technorati Tags: rationing panels,rationed healthcare for seniors,granny,seniors,Complete Lives System,Sarah Palin,Soylent Green,ObamaCare,ObamaTax,elderly,ObamaCare surprises,John Holdren,Ezekial Emanuel,Obamaland,wake-up America,wake-up seniors,repeal and replace ObamaCare,Romney-Ryan 2012,death panels

“Death Panel” Three Years Later

by Sarah Palin on Monday, June 25, 2012 at 11:11am – on Facebook

As we wait for the impending Supreme Court decision on Obamacare, I reiterate what I wrote in my first post on this topic nearly three years ago. I stand by everything I wrote in that warning to my fellow Americans because what was true then is true now, and it will remain true as we hear what the Supreme Court has to say.

It was a pretty long post, but a lot of people seem to have only read two words of it: “death panel.” Though I was called a liar for calling it like it is, many of these accusers finally saw that Obamacare did in fact create a panel of faceless bureaucrats who have the power to make life and death decisions about health care funding. It’s called the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), and its purpose all along has been to “keep costs down” by actually denying care via price controls and typically inefficient bureaucracy. This subjective rationing of care is what I was writing about in that first post:

The Democrats promise that a government health care system will reduce the cost of health care, but as the economist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.

Health care by definition involves life and death decisions. Human rights and human dignity must be at the center of any health care discussion.

Rep. Michele Bachmann highlighted the Orwellian thinking of the president’s health care advisor, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of the White House chief of staff, in a floor speech to the House of Representatives. I commend her for being a voice for the most precious members of our society, our children and our seniors.

We must step up and engage in this most crucial debate. Nationalizing our health care system is a point of no return for government interference in the lives of its citizens. If we go down this path, there will be no turning back. Ronald Reagan once wrote, “Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth.” Let’s stop and think and make our voices heard before it’s too late.

If the Supreme Court doesn’t strike down Obamacare entirely, then Congress must act to repeal IPAB and Obamacare before it is indeed “too late.” All of Obamacare must go one way or another.

- Sarah Palin

Related:

Obamacare Has Literally Replaced the Constitution

Obamacare to Herd Disabled Seniors to Bare-Bones Medicaid Plans

Meet the ObamaCare Mandate Committee

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

"People 70 and over will not be treated under Obamacare… and you thought DEATH PANELS were gone"

Dirty Little Secret: Rationing is at Heart of ObamaCare

Obama “Fixed” Medicare…With Rationing

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Soylent Green Anyone???

Technorati Tags: ObamaCare,death panels,rationed healthcare,Sarah Palin,repeal and replace ObamaCare,seniors,disabled persons,IPAB,soylent green,wake-up,Independent Payment Advisory Board,America,stand-up America,rationing for seniors,special needs children,Supreme Court,Affordable Care Act,Palin

Did Obama hint at health-care rationing in SOTU?

Video: Obama’s Full 5th SOTU Speech

WND: Did President Obama hint at health-care rationing in last night’s State of the Union address?

In his speech, Obama listed health-care reform as a key in reducing long-term government debt, specifically referring to the “rising cost of health care for an aging population.”

“And those of us who care deeply about programs like Medicare must embrace the need for modest reforms,” he said.

Obama said he will work to “reduce taxpayer subsidies to prescription drug companies and ask more from the wealthiest seniors.”

“We’ll bring down costs by changing the way our government pays for Medicare, because our medical bills shouldn’t be based on the number of tests ordered or days spent in the hospital,” he said. “They should be based on the quality of care that our seniors receive.”

Obama’s comments about quality of care deserve careful consideration in light of largely overlooked sections of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, commonly called Obamacare.

Those sections, reviewed in full by WND, may lay the foundations for health-care rationing and even so-called death panels.

There is also concern for preferential treatment based on race, ethnicity and so-called life preferences.

Obamacare called for the establishment of a Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute.

Obama’s comments:

The new institute’s purpose is to carry out “comparative clinical effectiveness research,” which is defined in the law as evaluating and comparing “health outcomes” and “clinical effectiveness, risks and benefits” of two or more medical treatments or services.

The purpose of the research is purportedly for the government to determine which treatments work best so that money is not spent on less effective treatments.

Such research was already previously funded for $1.1 billion in Obama’s 2009 “stimulus” package. The legislation first created a Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research.

Obamacare now allows for about $3.8 billion in additional funding for effectiveness research, with the establishment of the new Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute.

The institute is to be governed by a board to assist in identifying research priorities and establishing the research project agenda.

Also weighing in will be an “expert advisory panel” of practicing and research clinicians, patients, and experts in scientific and health services research and health services delivery.

A section of Obamacare makes clear the secretary of health and human services may not use research data from the new institute in a manner that treats the life of an elderly, disabled or terminally ill individual as lower in value than that of an individual who is younger, non-disabled or not terminally ill.

However, that dictate comes with a qualifier some many find troubling.

Obamacare contains largely unreported text that allows the health secretary to limit any “alternative treatments” of the elderly, disabled or terminally ill if such treatments are not recommended by the new research institute.

The qualifier says:

Paragraph (1) shall not be construed as preventing the Secretary from using evidence or findings from such comparative clinical effectiveness research in determining coverage, reimbursement, or incentive programs under title XVIII based upon a comparison of the difference in the effectiveness of alternative treatments in extending an individual’s life due to the individual’s age, disability, or terminal illness.

Paragraph (1)” refers to the section that bars the Health Secretary from valuing the life of an elderly, disabled or terminally ill patient as lower than that of the younger or non-disabled patient.

The qualifier leaves the health secretary with the power to use government-provided research data to determine whether “alternative treatments” are effective in extending the life of the elderly, disabled or terminally ill.

Health-care rationing based on ethnicity?

Another section of Obamacare calls for the new institute to study the effectiveness of treatment in “subpopulations,” including “racial and ethnic minorities, women, age, and groups of individuals with different comorbidities, genetic and molecular sub-types, or quality of life preferences.”

The effectiveness of such research has been widely called into question.

In a 2009 study, the CATO Institute raised concerns about such government-funded research being politicized or influenced by lobbying.

“Unlike market-generated research, a federal comparative-effectiveness agency would be subject to political manipulation, which could block the generation of any useful research,” wrote CATO.

Continued CATO: “Such research necessarily poses a direct threat to the incomes of pharmaceutical manufacturers, medical device manufacturers, and millions of providers. If a government agency produces unwelcome research, those groups will spend vast sums on lobbying campaigns and political contributions to discredit or defund the agency.”

During the “stimulus” debate, Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., fought the $1.1 billion spending on effectiveness research, spotlighting the experience of countries such as the U.K. as cautionary tales.

“Think about this a moment,” Kyl told the Senate. “Do you want Washington bureaucrats, such as those who brought you the AIG mess, making your health care decisions for you and your family?”

Currently, in the U.K., the equivalent to Obamacare’s Institute is the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, or NICE.

The New England Journal of Medicine related that NICE “considers treatments cost-effective if their cost-effectiveness ratio is £20,000 ($34,000) per QALY (quality adjusted life year).”

A QALY is an extra year of “quality” life expectancy, based on the treatment.

There were recent reports that NICE was refusing to fund four new treatments for kidney cancer because they only change a patient’s life expectancy from six months to a year.

Andrew Dillon, NICE chief executive, commented on the denial of one drug for kidney cancer: “Before we recommend any new treatment we have to be sure the evidence on how well it works is robust and that it is cost effective. We do not want to divert NHS funds to a treatment that costs more but doesn’t help people live longer.”

Writing in Forbes last month, Sally Pipes, president of the Pacific Research Institute, slammed effectiveness research under Obamacare as a “recipe for cook-book medicine, where the government can pressure doctors into prescribing treatments according to average results rather than an individual patient’s needs and preferences.”

Related:

Obama’s Fifth SOTU – State of the Union Speech  -  As well as Rubio and Paul’s Rebuttals

“Death Panel” Three Years Later

Obama Embraces 'Death Panel' Concept in Medicare Rule

Who Will Tell Michael J. Fox He Needs to Die?

Death Panels are HERE

On the Road to Death Panels

America – Land of the Mis, Under and Low Informed

Book:  Fool Me Twice: Obama's Shocking Plans for the Next Four Years Exposed

Technorati Tags: Obamaland,State of the Union,rationing,death panels,ObamaCare

Technorati Tags: healthcare rationing for seniors,Medicare,watch the other hand ObamaCare,Obamaland,rationing,SOTU,politics,death panels,seniors,rationing for special needs patients

Romney During Debate: “I Will Get Rid of Obamacare”

LiveNews.com: During the third and final debate, presidential candidate Mitt Romney repeated his promise that he would work to get rid of Obamacare, the heath care law that prompts abortion funding and rationing concerns.

Romney said: “By the way, number one I get rid of is “Obamacare.” There are a number of things that sound good but, frankly, we just can’t afford them. And that one doesn’t sound good, and it’s not affordable, so I get rid of that one from day one; to the extent humanly possible, we get that out. We take program after program that we don’t absolutely have to have and we get rid of them.”

During the campaign, Romney has repeatedly indicated he would get rid of Obamacare, with his first television ad making that case.

In the October 3 debate, Romney scored points with pro-life voters for making a clear case for repealing Obamacare, the health care law that pro-life advocates have attacked for funding abortions with taxpayer dollars.

“You want it repealed. You want the Affordable Care Act repealed. Why?” moderator Jim Lehrer asked.

“I sure do,” Romney responded.

Well, in part, it comes, again, from my experience. You know, I was in New Hampshire. A woman came to me and she said, look, I can’t afford insurance for myself or my son. I met a couple in Appleton, Wisconsin, and they said, we’re thinking of dropping our insurance, we can’t afford it.

And the number of small businesses I’ve gone to that are saying they’re dropping insurance because they can’t afford it, the cost of health care is just prohibitive. And — and we’ve got to deal with cost.

And, unfortunately, when — when — when you look at Obamacare, the Congressional Budget Office has said it will cost $2,500 a year more than traditional insurance. So it’s adding to cost. And as a matter of fact, when the president ran for office, he said that, by this year, he would have brought down the cost of insurance for each family by $2,500 a family. Instead, it’s gone up by that amount. So it’s expensive.

Romney also went after the Independent Payment Advisory Board, the health care rationing board that pro-life advocates repeatedly called for repealing because it would limit life-saving medical treatments.

“We didn’t put in place a board that can tell people ultimately what treatments they’re going to receive. We didn’t also do something that I think a number of people across this country recognize, which is put — put people in a position where they’re going to lose the insurance they had and they wanted,” he said.

“So for those reasons, for the tax, for Medicare, for this board, and for people losing their insurance, this is why the American people don’t want Obamacare. It’s why Republicans said, do not do this, and the Republicans had — had the plan. They put a plan out. They put out a plan, a bipartisan plan. It was swept aside,” he said. “I think something this big, this important has to be done on a bipartisan basis. And we have to have a president who can reach across the aisle and fashion important legislation with the input from both parties.

Related:

Death Panels are HERE

On the Road to Death Panels

ObamaCare for Seniors: Sorry, You're Just Not Worth It

“Death Panel” Three Years Later

Meet the ObamaCare Mandate Committee

Obamacare rationing panels an ‘immediate danger to seniors’: former AMA president

“Death Panel” Three Years Later

The Bilderberg Group’s Connection To Everything In The World – Updated

People of Faith

Obama Regulation Czar, Cass Sunstein, Advocated Removing People’s Organs Without Explicit Consent

Obama’s "Science Czar" Advocates De-Developing the US to World of Zero Growth

Video: More Scary Stuff From Obama’s Science Czar

Holdren Says Constitution Backs Compulsory Abortion

Holdren: Seize Babies Born to Unwed Women

List of Obama’s Czars Plus Two – Updated: 8.18.09 – Remember when the Czars were the hot topic… but they overwhelmed us and forgot them to do they scary dirty jobs…

Science Czar John P. Holdren – Updated 9.2.09

Meet Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel: Deny Coverage to Elderly an Disabled for the Greater Good – But don’t forget… Sarah Palin was crazy…

Complete Lives System by Ezekial Emanuel

ObamaCare… the Kiss of Death - Collection of OBAMA SCARE - Articles U CAN NOT MISS!

Obama Embraces 'Death Panel' Concept in Medicare Rule

Obamacare to Herd Disabled Seniors to Bare-Bones Medicaid Plans

"People 70 and over will not be treated under Obamacare… and you thought DEATH PANELS were gone"– Updated

Soylent Green Anyone???

Great Grandmother Mary Allen Hardison: 101-Year-Old Woman Breaks Guinness World Record... Oldest Female to Paraglide Tandem

Go Granny Go!!

Seniors Left Behind?

The 'kill granny' bill

The Return of Mediscare

Checkout: ObamaCare Survival Guide

Technorati Tags: Independent Payment Advisory Board,CBO,ObamaCare,ObamaTax,Romney-Ryan 2012,Affordable Care Act,taxes,repeal and replace ObamaCare,Medicare,presidential debates,Congressional Budget Office