OLD FOLKS NEED TO HURRY UP AND DIE, SO OBAMACARE CAN HELP YOUNGER FOLKS, SAYS NEW YORK TIMES

Is NYT Encouraging Old Folks to Give up and Die to Help Pay for Obamacare?

Hey, grandma, hurry up and die so that Obamacare can pay for healthcare for more worthy, younger folks. That seems to be the message that The New York Times is selling in order to smooth the waters for the nationalized healthcare system that president Obama is trying to peddle to us all.

The Times is running a series titled "Months to Live" in order to help spread the sort of end of life issues that are helpful to Obama's healthcare agenda, one of which seems to be the idea that elderly should forgo any sort of heroic measures to keep them alive so as not to waste those resources that might be able to go to younger, more vital patients.

In a July 8 article reporting on the end of life care afforded Catholic Nuns in Pittsford, New York, the Times hailed the "dignified" way that nuns end life there with particular emphasis on how many of them refuse extraordinary efforts to keep themselves alive. Apparently, the Times thinks we should emulate the nuns and just let ourselves die without trying too hard to keep on living.

But, even in its first few paragraphs the Times displayed several conflicting talking points one being that the nun that serves as the article's initial subject may be uninterested in life saving procedures, but her sister is definitely not of that same opinion. This tends to show that not everyone wants to just wither way and die without fighting to stay alive as the Times seems to be suggesting we should be.

The Times also tries to make a point on how many elderly people "are often overmedicated" and showcases how this nun refused most of the "23 medications not essential for her heart condition," but then adds that these medications were winnowed by a geriatrician. So, was she prescribed these medications or not? It isn't quite clear. This makes a poor case for the claim of overmedication and seems more like an assertion by the writer that is not germane to the case.

The Times goes on to describe how the sisters and several priests along with the church pay for this hospice-like care of those at the end of their lives, the story making it all seem like the perfect system. But one cannot help but realize that we are talking about a system built to serve a small handful of people with the support of the church behind them. How this financial burden can be translated to 300 millions of citizens is never addressed.

Misleadingly, the Times also tries to make it seem as if the church system being described quells any talk of both rationing of care and euthanasia of the elderly.

Laura L. Carstensen, the director of the Center on Longevity at Stanford University, says the convent setting calms the tendency for public policy discussion about end-of-life treatment “to devolve into a debate about euthanasia or rationing health care based on age.”

“Every time I speak to a group about the need to improve the dying process, somebody raises their hand and says, ‘You’re talking about killing old people,’ ” Dr. Carstensen said. “But nobody would accuse Roman Catholic sisters of that. They could be a beacon in talking about this without it turning into that American black-and-white way of thinking: Either we have to throw everything we’ve got at keeping people alive or leave them on the sidewalk to die.”


The problem with this rhetoric is that it denies the simple fact that should these concepts become federalized in a national healthcare system, then the patient's choice in the matter will be summarily dispensed with as rules and regulations prescribing procedures will take over.

In short, the second these ideas become the norm, government MUST by necessity of control begin to determine which citizens are "worth" saving and which aren't worth the efforts and should be denied services. And from there it won't be long before prescriptions of euthanasia for those "not worth" the costs of government largess will become de rigueur everywhere.

So, while the process of dying practiced by these nuns described in the Times might have something going for it, translating it to a nationalized healthcare system is fraught with eugenics styled evils.

But, if it soothes suspicions about Obamacare, why the Times is happy to oblige.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/warner-todd-huston/2009/07/13/nyt-encouraging-old-folks-give-die

HEALTHCARE OBAMA STYLE~OBAMA HATES OLD PEOPLE,LET THEM DIE HE SAYS

Obama Says We Shouldn't Treat Old Folks to Save Money And the Media Goes Deaf

I am wondering when the euthanasia folks are going to start touting this one? I mean, it sure seemed to me as if the most caring, most civil, most intelligent president evah just said that healthcare could be cheaper if we don't give old folks and the infirm the full measure of care they now get. It appeared that Obama said we should just let them die or suffer because they aren't worth the effort. Imagine if Bush had said something like this? The left wouldn't have hesitated to call him any manner of names. Oddly, though, the Old Media have not had so much as a raised eyebrow over his statements on Wednesday.

Obama said during the ABC Special on Wednesday night that a way to save healthcare costs is to abandon the sort of care that "evidence shows is not necessarily going to improve" the patient's health. He went on to say that he had personal familiarity with such a situation when his grandmother broke her hip after she was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Obama offered a question on the efficacy of further care for his grandmother saying, "and the question was, does she get hip replacement surgery, even though she was fragile enough they were not sure how long she would last?"

But who is it that will present the "evidence" that will "show" that further care is futile? Are we to believe that Obama expects individual doctors will make that decision in his bold new government controlled healthcare future? If he is trying to make that claim it is a flat out untruth and he knows it.

Does your homebuilder negotiate with your city hall over whether you get a building permit, or does the permit get levied no matter what? Does a cop decide if you really broke the law, or does he simply arrest you and let the courts hash it out? Does your tax preparer negotiate with the IRS or is he supposed to just calculate your tax bill on their terms and have you pay the required amount?

Government does not work by negotiation. Government does not work from the bottom up. It works from the top down. This singular fact means that no doctor will be deciding if you are too old or infirm to get medical care. It will be a medically untrained bureaucrat that sets a national rule that everyone will have to obey. There won't be any room for your grandma to have a different outcome than anyone else's.

So, what will it be then? Who will decide when medical care is just too expensive to bother with? Who will be left to perish because they just aren't worth the lifesaving effort? Well, for sure it won't be any members of Congress or anyone that works for the federal government because they won't be expected to suffer under the nationally socialized plan. It also won't be Obama's buddies in the unions who are about to be similarly exempted from the national plan, at least if Senator Max Baucus has his way.

Ah, but we are told that Obama's ideas on healthcare are "evolving," dontcha know? During the recent campaign for president (that was only 7 months ago, if you'll recall) Obama insisted that he would never tax your healthcare benefits from work. He even ridiculed McCain for proposing such a plan. Lately, however, he's "evolved" toward saying that such a new tax is on the table. What about his stance against fining people and businesses that don't join his UberPlan? He was against that sort of coerciveness before. Now he's "evolved."

Originally, he said it was "healthcare for all," but as of Wednesday night, it seems he's "evolved" to say that only those worth the bother should get healthcare. The rest should be left to died and/or suffer. If he does any more "evolving" we'll all be finding just who is "worth" what as far as he and his Democrats are concerned. Somehow I'd guess that many of you reading this today won't quite be worth as much as certain others!

Let's hope none of us are ever in a position to find out if Obamacare deems our grandmothers worth saving.

And what ever happened to the left's mantra that healthcare is a "right" and that money should never enter into a life or death decision? Now The One is saying it's just too darn expensive to save the old and infirm? Will our friends on the left now disown Obama the "murderer"?

Even worse, why has the media remained mum on the possibility that President Spock, Doctor of life, just said that old folks are too expensive to treat? Hello, CNN, NBC, New York Times... anyone?

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/warner-todd-huston/2009/06/26/obama-says-we-shouldnt-treat-old-folks-save-money-media-goes-dea