My Wife's Last Days -- And the Coming ObamaCare Death Panel

By Stuart Schwartz – American Thinker: We have been so absorbed by the cavalcade of government incompetence and individual hurt produced by the rollout of ObamaCare that it is easy to forget the tragedy-in-waiting should this federal healthcare takeover stay in place: the death panel, also known as the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB). This is the group of political appointees designed to allow the federal government to use a combination of medical and social criteria to determine the healthcare an individual receives.

Or, to put it as bluntly as Sarah Palin did, to determine who lives and who dies. Why am I thinking about that now? Because my wife and soul-mate of 33 years, Sharon Harrah Schwartz, died at the age of 62 in January. Her passing put an end to a slow-motion death from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, ALS, popularly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. She would have occupied the bottom portion of an IPAB treatment list.

Her suffering and passing was and remains wrenching for her family and friends. It was especially difficult over the last year as her illness accelerated, destroying her muscles and, consequently, her ability to speak, to eat, and ultimately to breathe. A variety of drugs and equipment kept her reasonably comfortable, while medical technology helped clear the fluids collecting in her lungs. She enjoyed, as much as possible, the last months with her family. An advanced directive, worked out in concert with ALS healthcare professionals, proscribed the treatment limits. For almost two years, her healthcare relied on a myriad of individual decisions based on relationships with both the ones she loved and with healthcare providers. The most significant one: she and I -- lovers and best friends for more than three decades -- had decided together that, barring a miracle and/or last-minute medical research breakthrough, we would allow the disease to take its course, keep her as comfortable as possible, and let God do the rest.

This illustrates something that President Obama and his party, in its zeal to use healthcare as a driving force in transforming American society, accrue power, and expand centralized government, have ignored: that the foundation of what has become the uniquely American and consequently world-class healthcare system is individual decision-making and values, resting upon a multitude of relationships that work best when left to those with a stake in it -- healthcare professionals, patients and their families. The government has a role, yes; but its role should be limited, allowing the marketplace of providers and patients to work.

At its most basic level, healthcare is individual and personal, depending upon relationships and particular values. Our faith, our love for each other and belief in the sacred responsibility of marriage underlaysleepless nights, caring for her when she could no longer care for herself, servicing the machines that alleviated some of the symptoms, the decisions that allowed just a few more months to live and love with her family and friends.

Her… our struggles with this terminal disease -- she referred to it as the “beast” in her body -- illustrate the government-sponsored agony awaiting so many families just over the horizon. Love informed our decisions in consultation with those providing treatment. I valued her life as sacred and God-given, acknowledging the debt I owed to someone who had joyfully served as wife, mother, and friend.

But looming on the horizon is a whole other set of criteria. ObamaCare has established an agenda-driven political board that will shift the loci of healthcare decisions from individual and relationship to the application of social justice concepts. Even a cursory reading (something that few, if any, of the Democrats foisting this law upon us took the time to do) of the pages and footnotes of this intrusion and the writings of its designers -- many so-called medical policy experts from academia -- makes it clear that progressive social engineering by government-appointed experts will largely determine medical treatment.

Peruse the publications and reports of the thinking of the architects of ObamaCare. Their various scoring systems, their social priorities would have put my wife at the bottom of the list for treatment. Obamacare architects perceive healthcare, as they do income, as a zero-sum game -- every dollar spent on her treatment is a dollar taken away from someone else. Never mind that this notion, like so much of ObamaCare, is a deliberate lie with no foundation in fact; healthcare, like wealth, in the United States has expanded  as new medical technologies, techniques and research have brought ever more accessible and better care.

But centralized control needs to declare medical resources finite, which in turn demands rationing, and rationing needs, of course, a government board to decide who gets treatment and when, who gets to live… and die. My wife, under a fully implemented ObamaCare, would have been among the last in line for treatment. She was a retiree (too old!) with a terminal disease (too expensive with a limited future!), a woman who had chosen to spend most of her adult life raising children (that’s not really societally valued employment, the architects might sniff) and who lived simply and lovingly, taking pride in her family and her role as a homemaker (what --no greater ambitions?)

Sharon was loved by her family, her friends and, above all, by God. We devoted a considerable portion of our energy and resources to making sure she felt loved during her last year. We could do no less, as love is a basic tenet of our faith, a Christianity that says her worth depends solely on her standing as a creation of God -- not a federal bureaucracy.  Such was the sanctity of Sharon’s life, a human life. That is the opposite of Obamacare which, if fully implemented, would likely have robbed us of much of her past year. To a centralized and progressive federal bureaucracy, Sharon’s worth was the totality of the probabilities of her contribution to the good of a theoretical community, as defined by Washington politicians and technocrats.

But for us, it was much simpler: She was God’s gift, to whom we owed our love and resources and energy until she passed from life in this world.

It is time to repeal Obamacare.

Dr. Stuart Schwartz is on the faculty of Liberty University and has been a frequent contributor to American Thinker. His wife, Sharon, passed away on January 7 at their residence in Lynchburg, Virginia.

Technorati Tags: IPAB,ObmamaCare,Death Panels,Sarah Palin,Palin Was Right,Repeal and Replace ObamaCare,Wake-Up,ACA,Fundamental Transformation,the Plan,Socialized Medicine,Obamaland,God,ALS,Rationing Panel,Big Brother,Christianity,PPACA,Healthcare

HEALTHCARE REFORM'S FIRST BIG TEST

“The portion of this email which I have highlighted in red is what HMO's have been doing all along. I watched a 2020 televised  expose on Humana doing this 20 years ago (but this is the first time I've seen it in print). All the money they don't spend to treat us they get to divide  up among themselves. Does that sound like an incentive to give us the healthcare many older Americans will/may need?? Not in my book.” Deonia Copeland

PEORIA, Illinois (Reuters) - By all accounts, Sandy Wright of Mackinaw, Illinois, is a challenging patient. The spunky 69-year-old with a rare autoimmune disease has been in the hospital more than a dozen times since she was first diagnosed in 1997.

"You name it, I've had it," Wright says. "I'm a very hard case."

Now, patients like Wright are at the forefront of an experiment, under way in Peoria, Illinois, and hundreds of other U.S. cities, that could transform the way doctors, nurses and hospitals deliver care to patients. Amid the barrage of criticism over the rollout of Obamacare, groups known as Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) are quietly going about the business of testing the potential for healthcare reform.

The efforts, born of President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act, are part of the biggest experiment yet to fix the costly and error-plagued U.S. healthcare system. The new models of care, which encourage providers to form networks to coordinate care and cut costs, involve close monitoring of the sickest patients to address budding health problems before they cause a costly trip to the emergency room or an extended hospital stay. Providers that succeed in keeping patients healthy and cutting costs are rewarded with a portion of the savings.

In Peoria, a city of 116,000 that is often seen as the archetypal middle American community, two hospital systems - OSF Healthcare and UnityPoint Health - are taking on the challenge.

Progress so far is largely anecdotal, but early data showing declines in readmissions and emergency room visits offers a tantalizing glimpse into the potential for reform. Still, there are no guarantees that the savings will exceed the costs.

OSF is in its second year of participating in the federal Pioneer Accountable Care Organization, a pilot program involving 32 hospital systems across the country that aims to improve quality while cutting costs in the government's Medicare insurance program for the elderly.

The program rewards doctors and medical centers that show gains on 33 measures of quality, including routine cancer and depression screenings, while still managing to cut overall costs. In its first year, 13 hospitals reported savings. OSF was not one of them, but it came close.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has not allowed providers to disclose their full first-year results, but Tara Canty, chief operations officer of OSF's Accountable Care Organization, said the hospital system saw a 30 percent drop in emergency room admissions and a 20 percent drop in inpatient stays among Medicare participants.

Canty sees the first two years as a learning process but says she will be "upset personally" if OSF is not achieving savings by year three.

Dr. Keith Knepp, chief information officer at UnityPoint Health-Methodist, says reforms are needed, but he sometimes finds it hard to stay optimistic. "Will there be reimbursement to reward the improved quality, or will we spend more money to take in less?"

Success may depend on controlling costs among high-use patients like Wright. She is among the 5 percent of OSF patients who consumes more than 50 percent of the care delivered by the system.

FOCUS ON THE 5 PERCENT

Wright spends most of her days in her tidy home in Mackinaw, outside Peoria, tooling around in a motorized wheelchair. Her legs swell up, making her prone to blood clots. Two years ago in November, she had a major complication from her blood thinner drug, Coumadin.

"My brain started bleeding. They had to drill holes in my head," Wright recalls of the ordeal, which kept her in the hospital for nearly a month. "I nearly died twice."

Wright was among the first of OSF's Pioneer patients to be assigned a care manager, a nurse charged with keeping her healthy and out of the hospital.

"The theory here is if you focus on the people with chronic disease who are your highest utilizers of care … and make a better outcome for those patients, you are able to invest that savings into some of the care for the larger population of patients," said Michelle Conger, OSF's chief strategy officer.

Like most providers across the country, Peoria's hospitals have been hit by federal budget cuts and burdened by an outdated reimbursement system focused on how many services they perform rather that quality.

OSF, a system of eight acute-care hospitals with $6 billion in annual patient revenue, needs to cut $200 million over the next five years in response to reimbursement cuts from Medicare and other payers. It has adopted the ACO model to help it get there.

An actuarial firm is combing through claims data for the 34,000 Medicare patients in OSF's ACO to help identify patients like Wright, whose high-risk conditions are likely to require more emergency room visits or admissions. The system assigned 35 care managers to work with these patients and come up with ways to prevent more acute health crises.

Sometimes that means simply helping patients keep track of their medications or arranging transportation to a pharmacy, said Priscilla Romans, a nurse who works in OSF's call center.

It also means routine checks on high-risk patients. During a call last month, a heart failure patient complained of shortness of breath and a headache. Romans asked whether she could put her shoes on that day. She was only able to get one on, a sign of fluid buildup, and she couldn't wear her rings.

Romans had the woman take her blood pressure, which was too high, and reported the findings to her doctor. The physician doubled the patient's dose of Lasix to cut the swelling in her hands and feet, and started her on a blood pressure medication.

When Romans called the next day, a Friday, the woman felt much better. Romans believes the time she spent on the phone with this patient helped avert a much more costly ER visit.

Often, the issues driving health costs are social. In one case, OSF discovered that a patient who kept getting readmitted to the hospital for emphysema had not been taking her medication.

"She was squirreling away her money to fix her roof," said Dr. Stephen Hippler, OSF's senior vice president for clinical excellence. The Catholic hospital system tapped into a charity program and made the repairs.

'GREAT SIGNALS'

UnityPoint Health-Methodist, Peoria's second-biggest provider, has been taking part in Medicare's Shared Savings ACO, a transitional program in which hospitals assume less risk than in the Pioneer ACO but have fewer potential rewards.

The hospital has cared for about 10,000 Medicare ACO patients since July 2012.

In November, UnityPoint acquired the 220-bed Procter Hospital, Peoria's third-largest provider, giving it access to new addiction recovery services and skilled nursing care. The Procter deal follows Methodist's decision in 2011 to join Iowa-based UnityPoint Health, the 13th-largest non-profit health system in the United States with annual revenue of $2.7 billion.

The moves are part of a national consolidation trend among hospitals trying to fill out their menu of services and bring costs under centralized control.

"There is a need for size and scale in the new environment," said Terry Waters, vice president for strategy and development at UnityPoint Health. "You have to be able to diversify your financial risk over a larger patient population."

According to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, an estimated 14 percent of the U.S. population is covered by some form of accountable care organization, including 4 million Medicare beneficiaries.

WILL IT WORK?

OSF could not say whether it has saved money on Wright's care in the two years since she has been in care management because the system does not release financial information about individual patients.

But Canty said the system "has seen significant and sustained declines in the cost of care for patients in care management."

As for Wright, she appreciates the quick access she now has to her doctors, but she still needs a lot of care.

In May, a hip implant had become infected and had to be replaced. While recovering, Wright developed a bothersome cough that turned out to be pulmonary fibrosis, a dangerous scarring of the lungs. "Between May 21 and July 19, I had been released and admitted five times. Five times! It was dreadful."

Romans, who has helped coordinate some of Wright's care, said her job is to try to keep patients out of the hospital, but that's not always possible. "Here we are trying to be financially prudent with our dollars, but the patient needed the care."

Now, the goal is to stretch out the period between visits.

Wright went from July to September with only one hospitalization. "It was quick. She went back home, and she hasn't been back to the hospital since," Romans said.

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; Editing by Michele Gershberg and Douglas Royalty)

Judge Jeanine Pirro Slashes Obama for Incompetence and Indifference, Dec 7, 2013

This is the Judge's "Opening Statement" from Dec 7, 2013, "Justice with Judge Jeanine Pirro" show.

Video: Judge Jeanine Pirro Slashes Obama for Incompetence and Indifference, Dec 7, 2013

Judge Jeanine Pirro, Dec 7, 2013, tears into Obama and his minions for stupefying overreach and incompetence in implementing Obamacare. The price may be the very lives of Americans who cannot get the healthcare they had before Big Government's meddling. Further, Obama's spokespersons, especially Jay Carney, try to trivialize the crisis by claiming that only a small number of Americans, just 5%, will suffer. Small comfort.

How can these people be this incompetent you wonder?  Perhaps because of the Dirty Little Secret: Rationing is at Heart of ObamaCare and that the goal is Single-Payer Socialized Medicine for all but the Elite.

Cancer and Obamacare Survivor, plus His Hero Audited – Interview

By: Arlen Williams  -  Gulag Bound

This administration is canceling health insurance plans all over the nation that they designed under the PPACA regulations in order to force these existing policy holders to subsidize the high cost of the “Medal” plans which will be available inside and outside the new ‘Health Insurance Marketplace” beginning 1/1/14. This is a deliberate action the administration new about for more than 3 years.

Cancer and Obamacare victim, Bill Elliott and C. Steven Tucker each got letters from the IRS, on the same day, just before Thanksgiving, to let them know they are being audited.

That would be this man, suffering from a long bout with cancer, whose life had already, potentially been put to an end by Obamacare, and the man who helped him recover his cancelled health insurance policy.

Video: Cancer patient forced to make life or death decision

Elliott interviewed by Megyn Kelly, November 7

How it has been playing out and fits into the whole “big f___ing deal,” as Vice President Biden more aptly called the “Affordable Care Act”?  See link below:

http://storify.com/ArlenWms/defending-bill-elliott-and-c-steven-tucker-vs-irs/slideshow

C. Steven Tucker’s answers this Friday evening (indented) to questions from the Bound:

Q1: So Tuck, what out of Hell just happened? So, Bill Elliot comes on Megyn Kelly’s Fox News show on the 7th, says his insurance has been canceled due to Obamacare and since he can’t pay for his cancer treatments he’s just going to let nature run its course. You help him understand that previously written law requires his insurance company not cancel him. (And then you write a killer article warning other Americans of the same!) He and his company connect and they reinstate him. Now he indicates he’s in remission? And then what day did you each get a letter from the IRS and what did it say?

Bill got his audit letter on the same day I received mine. That date was Monday November 25th. Bill’s letter informed him that is being officially audited in the spring of 2014 whereas the IRS sent me a letter simply demanding $4,000 from me for the year 2003 and $2,000 from the year 2010 which must be received at their offices no later than December 26, 2013. Merry Christmas from the IRS.

Q2. So, Happy Thanksgiving from the New Washington D.C., O Sovereign United States Citizen patriots in the way of Obamacare Marxofascism, right? How do you feel about this?

I am disgusted that the IRS can pull numbers out of thin air, demand the money in a month’s time and that there is no statute of limitations. 2003? For God’s sake! Worse yet, my taxes are prepared each quarter by a professional CPA. I pay on time and I do not get ‘tax refunds’ and this is the thanks I get for doing the right thing each and every quarter year after year. And Bill worked for the government during the tax year in question so the government agency he worked for would assure that his IRS fillings were accurate. So this whole thing is a political witch hunt. There is a reason that Lois Lerner pleaded the 5th during congressional testimony and their is a reason that the IRS chief counsel repeated the phrase “I do not recall’ more than 80 times during his congressional testimony. This is tyranny. Plain and simple.

Q3. The news of it is getting all over the patriot blogosphere. Anything you believe is important to add, or correct, by this moment?

No. The New Media has done a phenomenal job of covering this story. I am eternally grateful for their due diligence and for their willingness to consistently perform the job that Barack Obama’s Praetorian Guard media refuses to do.

Q4. I’m expecting to see you on network TV and radio about this, any updates there?

I have sent the follow up information to Megyn Kelly and hope that she has either Bill or I on her show for an important follow up to this story.

The American people need to know that there are existing Federal laws that protect them from having their health insurance terminated when they are sick. Barack Obama has been lying to the American people for 4 years. Public law 104-191 (HIPAA) section 2742 disallows any health insurer from canceling your health insurance coverage when you are sick. That law was passed by congress and signed by president Clinton in 1997.

Here is the salient point. HIPAA is a federal law duly codified by congress and signed by president Clinton. HIPAA is referred to and expanded upon throughout the PPACA. It trumps a posting in the federal register by HHS secretary Kathleen Sebellius which was made AFTER the PPACA was signed into law by president Obama. This posting in the federal register literally changed the definition of ‘grandfathered status’ that was originally written in the PPACA in 2010.

This posting has resulted in 5.8 million policy holders losing their health insurance coverage. Many whom are struggling with a major medical illness like Bill. This is exactly the opposite of what Barack Obama promised over and over and over again when he said “If you like your plan you can keep your plan and no one will take it away from you, period.” Using public law 104-191 section 2742, Bill was able to get his policy restored with the help of South Carolina governor Nikki Haley. Other Americans should be using the same section of HIPAA law to force their health insurers to comply and restore their coverage immediately. Most especially if they are sick.

Moreover, let me address another lie Barack Obama has been telling. That the plans being terminated are ‘substandard plans’. The plans being canceled now are not substandard plans. Millions of these health insurance plans were designed in large part by HHS regulations which were passed down after 9/23/2010. These regulations required all major medical policies sold in the U.S. to include unlimited lifetime maximum coverage amounts. 65 ‘free’ preventative care exams. “Children” staying on your plan until age 26 even if they are no longer living with you, dependent upon you or are even married.

This administration is canceling health insurance plans all over the nation that they designed under the PPACA regulations in order to force these existing policy holders to subsidize the high cost of the “Medal” plans which will be available inside and outside the new ‘Health Insurance Marketplace” beginning 1/1/14. This is a deliberate action the administration new about for more than 3 years.

As far as scheduled radio interviews. I will be on the Dan Proft and Bruce Wolf show on Chicago’s WLS Am890 at 7:35 a.m. central time on Tuesday December 2nd and later that same day with my two favorite “Chicks On The Right” on 93.1 WIBC in Indianapolis.

Q5. And… guessing you’re getting in touch with legal council and with one or two people who work for us Citizens in Congress?

I am indeed.

Q6. So, I suppose in addition to health insurance advise… you recommend to your friends who spell out the difference between authentic America and the Antiamerica of growing globalist collectivism… to keep their tax records secured and handy, eh?

Yes I do.

Bill Elliott

Part 1: Will our heroes do something?

Part 2: How Elliott and Tucker represent the smoking gun of Obamacare sabotage

Andrew Breitbart and C. Steven Tucker

Related: 

Attention Main Stream Media. Regarding Obamacare… I Told You So! 

Cancelled – Stories Behind HC Policy Cancellations Because of ObamaCare 

The TRUTH about Preexisting Conditions

This New Drug Appears to Cause Cancer Cells to Self-Destruct

Senate Goes 'Nuclear' - Opens Door To Controversial Healthcare Board - Death Panel? - Kelly File

Video: Senate Goes 'Nuclear' - Opens Door To Controversial Healthcare Board - Death Panel? - Kelly File

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

The Petition for "Mandatory Euthanasia" for Senior Citizens Under Obama Care!

WATCH: Obamacare Supporters Sign Petition For ‘Mandatory Euthanasia’ Of Seniors

Video: The Petition for "Mandatory Euthanasia" for Senior Citizens Under Obama Care!

Comedian Mark Dice asks people to sign a mandatory euthanasia petition for Seniors, loosely citing the related provision in ObamaCare.  Look how many, especially young people, are willing to sign it.  It might seem a bit humorous now, to some, but as the reality that is now dawning on more and more people, even former DNC Chair Howard Dean, who excoriated those who realized this provision was in there all along, is now voicing his concern. As reality is sets in… It won’t be funny!!

And to those  young people who signed this petition… you will some day also be old, or it could be your parents, grandparents or mentor. As anyone knows who ever studied history or lived in a system where euthanasia is acceptable…

First it will be the seniors with chronic illnesses…

Then it will anyone over a certain age…

Then it will be the special needs and handicapped people

And then it will anyone who stands up or speaks out against the system!!

Be aware… and be afraid of this one!!

Technorati Tags: ObamaCare,Affordable Care Act,euthanasia,rationing for seniors,rationed healthcare,watch the other hand,Howard Dean,Palin,Sarah Palin,special needs Patients,death panels,Mark Dice,seniors,senior healthcare,Defund ObamaCare

World's oldest man and oldest person ever dies in Japan at age 116

Oct. 15, 2012: Jiroemon Kimura smiles after he was presented with the certificate of the world's oldest living man from Guinness World Records Editor-in-Chief Craig Glenday at his home in the city, Kyoto Prefecture, Japan. (AP)

FoxNews/AP: TOKYO –  Japan's Jiroemon Kimura, who had been recognized by Guinness World Records as the world's oldest living person and the oldest man ever, died Wednesday of natural causes. He was 116.

Kimura, of Kyotango, Japan, was born April 19, 1897. Officials in Kyotango said he died in a local hospital, where he had been undergoing treatment for pneumonia.

According to Guinness, Kimura was the first man in history to have lived to 116 years old.

Kimura became the oldest man ever on Dec. 28, 2012, at the age of 115 years, 253 days, breaking the record set by Christian Mortensen, a Danish immigrant to the United States, whose life spanned from 1882-1998.

The title of oldest living person is now held by another Japanese, 115-year-old Misao Okawa, of Osaka. Okawa was born March 5, 1898.

"Jiroemon Kimura was an exceptional person," said Craig Glenday, editor-in-chief of Guinness World Records. "As the only man to have ever lived for 116 years — and the oldest man whose age has been fully authenticated — he has a truly special place in world history."

Kyotango officials said Kimura's funeral would be held Friday.

"Mr. Kimura was and will always be a treasure to our town, to our country and to our world," said Mayor Yasushi Nakayama.

The new oldest living man, according to the U.S.-based Gerontology Research Group, is James McCoubrey, an American who was born in Canada on Sept. 13, 1901. Now 111 years old, he is the 32nd oldest living person according to GRG's list, which shows all those older than him are women.

Related:

Japan man climbs Everest at 80 

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

At 102 Years Old, Birthday Girl Finally Stops Smoking

Go Granny Go!!

Humana Given Gag Order Letter by Government for Telling Seniors the Truth About ObamaCare Cuts

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

The 'kill granny' bill

Useless Eaters 

2050: 1.1 Million Over 100 Years Old; Their Aging Brains

“Death Panel” Three Years Later

Obama Embraces ‘Death Panel’ Concept in Medicare Rule

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

Soylent Green Anyone???

Death Panels are HERE 

Remember 'The Girls' - Views by Ann Hood

Waltz Into Old Age

Checkout: ObamaCare Survival Guide and Ageless

Technorati Tags: Gerontology,aging,seniors,oldest person,pneumonia,Guinness,death panels,Ezekial Emanual,Complete Lives System,Centenarians,socialized medicine,rationed healthcare,rationing for seniors,Soylent Green,granny,Japan,elderly

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

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

Video: Lindsey Williams - Doctors Quitting Over ObamaCare

Obamacare Set To Crash Entire Private Healthcare System – Force State-Run Coverage

The Ulsterman:  Lost in the myriad of reviews on Barack Obama’s second inauguration was this very interesting (and depressing) column clearly outlining the looming danger that Obamacare now poses for the entire healthcare system in the United States. And make no mistake – this result was INTENDED to usher in the era of total government control of how you will be born, how you will live, and how you will die…

(Remember the media ignoring when Barack Obama said at some point a dying patient needs to just “take a pill” and prepare for death? Well America…that time is now.)

EXCERPT: (Via RCM)

We Told You So…

As the Affordable Care Act–otherwise known as ObamaCare–begins to be implemented, we are seeing its first big consequence: it is making care less affordable.

…Lo and behold, we see reports today that insurance premiums are going up partly because of “new federal rules that increase the services that health insurers are required to include in the health plans they sell.”

…The rising premiums are bad enough in themselves, but they raise the prospect of crashing the whole structure of the health insurance system created by ObamaCare.

…But I don’t think that’s any kind of mystery. The consequences of ObamaCare – particularly the built-in “death spiral”– are so predictable that I don’t think the legislation’s architects can profess innocence. From the beginning, I have had suspicions, so to speak, that a stable health insurance industry was not the goal of ObamaCare. Rather, I warned: “It is an attempt to turn health insurance into what the left really wants: another welfare program in which everyone is entitled to free benefits, mandated by the government.”

…It smashes private health care–then leaves us stranded in the rubble, at which point we will be expected to come crawling back to the same people who caused the disaster and ask them to save us.”

The first half of our predictions from 2009 are already coming true. I am afraid that we’re going to have to come back in another few years, after the second half has come to fruition, and say once again: we told you so.

As the Affordable Care Act--otherwise known as ObamaCare--begins to be implemented, we are seeing its first big consequence: it is making care less affordable.

The New York Times reports that "Health insurance companies across the country are seeking and winning double-digit increases in premiums for some customers, even though one of the biggest objectives of the Obama administration's health care law was to stem the rapid rise in insurance costs for consumers."

"Even though"? In fact, Obamacare is simply doing what a lot of people predicted it would. Critics of ObamaCare warned that it would produce precisely the kind of premium increases we are now seeing, for precisely the reasons that new reports are now citing.

I was one of those critics, and I take no joy in pointing out that we told you so.

In 2009, as ObamaCare was being crammed through Congress, I gave three reasons for predicting disaster.

The first is "guaranteed issue," which requires insurance companies to cover you for a pre-existing condition. This forces insurance companies to take on extra costs, while reducing the incentive for healthy people to pay their insurance premiums. Why pay premiums for years, if you can just wait until you're already sick to buy coverage? So insurers are mandated to take on extra costs while losing revenues. As I wrote back in 2009, "Rather than increasing the number of insured by making health insurance more affordable, this bill makes health insurance more expensive and increases the incentive to simply drop your insurance until you need someone to pay for your medical bills."

And so we see today a report that as this takes effect and people who are already sick demand insurance, "paying for their care could add massive costs to the system."

"For one thing, they'll have no waiting period to get insurance. Someone who just got bad news from the heart doctor can walk into an insurance office and order a policy, Davis said. 'It's as if could you go home, see your house on fire, call Allstate and say, "Cover my home,"' Davis said.

"With medical bills easily reaching into the millions of dollars, a few of those cases could quickly add up, significantly boosting overall rates."

That leads to the second provision we warned about, the individual mandate. This is supposed to prevent free riders from waiting until they are sick by forcing them to buy insurance. But the penalty for refusing to buy insurance was set at $750, which is far lower than the cost of insurance. As I wrote back then, "we end up getting the worst of both worlds. This provision won't actually drive anyone to buy health insurance and prop up the risk pools for those who are insured. All it will accomplish is to create a brand new form of tax."

Finally, there are the federally mandated health-insurance exchanges, in which the federal government dictates what insurers are required to pay for, banning less expensive bare bones coverage and requiring insurance policies that cover more procedures and "preventative" tests. As I warned, "under the guise of making health insurance more affordable, this bill will restrict your menu of choices to include only the most expensive options."

Lo and behold, we see reports today that insurance premiums are going up partly because of "new federal rules that increase the services that health insurers are required to include in the health plans they sell."

There are also a couple of new reasons why rates are going up. We couldn't predict every negative effect of ObamaCare, because as Nancy Pelosi told us, Democrats had to pass the bill so we could find out what was in it. Thus, Peter Suderman points to a rule that requires insurance companies to refund part of their premiums if they don't spend enough on patient care in a particularly year. Suderman explains the results.

"If claims are low in a given year, they end up rebating the difference to the customer because of the MLR rule. If claims are unexpectedly high, however, they end up eating the difference. Insurers thus have an incentive to protect themselves by charging high premiums at the outset, and then paying those premiums back in rebates should claims come in at low or expected levels."

And then there is the extra cost passed on from new taxes on health insurance. Imagine that: when you tax something it becomes more expensive.

We can look to the consequences of RomneyCare in Massachusetts--the model for ObamaCare--as a preview of the near future. Massachusetts now has the highest insurance premiums in the country. The figures are quite staggering. A new study finds that "the average Massachusetts family health plan had a premium of $16,953 in 2011." One small business owner reports that "health-care benefits account for a quarter of the cost of hiring a new person." Even more startling is that this is an increase of 72% from 2003--nearly a doubling of insurance premiums in ten years.

As one expert explains, "Massachusetts is a state with a lot of mandates for coverage which other states may not have," and the report concludes that "The discrepancy will decrease once the Affordable Care Act is implemented." The discrepancy will decrease, not because Massachusetts premiums will go down, but because premiums for everyone else will go up to match them.

The rising premiums are bad enough in themselves, but they raise the prospect of crashing the whole structure of the health insurance system created by ObamaCare. Philip Klein explains:

"Should premiums continue to rise, more and more uninsured Americans are going to choose to pay the penalty rather than purchase expensive insurance. And those who go without insurance are more likely to be the ones who can afford to do so--young and healthy Americans with limited medical expenses. Should this occur, insurers would have to raise premiums even more to subsidize the expenses of the sicker beneficiaries they must cover under the law. This, in turn, would cause additional people to forgo insurance and pay the fine. And so on. This is known in the health care policy community as the 'death spiral' and it's one of the biggest threats to the structure of Obamacare."

Another article which cites many of the same problems I have just described marvels that "The congressional Democrats who crafted the legislation ignored virtually every actuarial principle governing rational insurance pricing."

But I don't think that's any kind of mystery. The consequences of ObamaCare--particularly the built-in "death spiral"--are so predictable that I don't think the legislation's architects can profess innocence. From the beginning, I have had suspicions, so to speak, that a stable health insurance industry was not the goal of ObamaCare. Rather, I warned: "It is an attempt to turn health insurance into what the left really wants: another welfare program in which everyone is entitled to free benefits, mandated by the government."

"But this would wreck private health insurance, making the whole industry financially unsustainable....

"This bill so comprehensively wrecks private health insurance that pretty soon a 'public option' will seem like the only alternative, and they will already have put into place one of the new taxes needed to pay for it. If the left's goal is to impose socialized medicine in America, this bill does it in the most callous and destructive way possible. It smashes private health care--then leaves us stranded in the rubble, at which point we will be expected to come crawling back to the same people who caused the disaster and ask them to save us."

The first half of our predictions from 2009 are already coming true. I am afraid that we're going to have to come back in another few years, after the second half has come to fruition, and say once again: we told you so.

Socialized medicine in the crown jewel of socialism… giving government control of every aspect of our lives, and ObamaCare is socialized medicine and Obama and his team are Progressives!  And remember: Progressivism = Socialism = Fascism = Marxism = Communism.  ObamaCare, like gun control, is not about healthcare (or safety), its all about control… The Obama agenda is all about control… controlling us, the masses and their minds. And when you watch the worship going on… by the entertainment, advertising and news media) and then talk to people who depend on them for all their information, you can see it is working!

The passing of ObamaCare was one of our major liberty or tyranny choice moments. And although much of the truth about ObamaCare surfaced and was available for those who did their homework, the powers that be forced this on the American people without even giving Congress the opportunity to adequately read the bill. Rationing, mandate committees & rationing panels, death panels (primarily for seniors and special needs children and adults) and the Complete Lives System are all part of this bill as well as higher taxes and fees, less healthcare and treatment choices, less freedom, and the control of at least 1/6 of the American economy by the U.S. government (and look whole they have done with our Social Security money) are all part of this bill plus a lot of surprises related to the IRS, guns and taking your freedom.  The warnings from people like Betsy McCaughey, Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, Mark Levin, Michele Bachmann, Sean Hannity, Rick Santorum, Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Mark Steyn, Judge David Kithil of Marble Falls Texas, scores of doctors, and the list goes on were 100% right on the mark.

Related:

States’ refusal to establish exchanges could undo Obamacare

Republican governors decide against setting up ObamaCare insurance markets

Top Five Worst Obamacare Taxes Coming in 2013

ObamaCare Disarray as 2013 Nears… Beware!

ObamaCare Summed Up in One Sentence

Denny’s to charge 5% ‘Obamacare surcharge’ and cut employee hours to deal with cost of legislation

Will Sick Babies Be Starved to Death Under Obamacare?

GAO Report: White House Intentionally Delayed Obamacare’s Cuts To Medicaid Until After 2012 Election…

Strassel: Axelrod’s ObamaCare Dollars

All Americans Will Receive a Microchip Implant in 2013 Per ObamaCare – Updated

RFID Chip for all Americans in 2013 as Part of ObamaCare… See Biden Telling Fed Judge He Will Have to Rule on Implanted Microchips

Obamacare Has Literally Replaced the Constitution

Technorati Tags: ObamaCare,watch the other hand,doctor shortage,control. Progressivism,Obama's agenda,seniors,healthcare rationing,Big Brother,Lindsey Williams,crown jewel of socialism,death panels,taxes,ObamaCare surprises

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