posted September 22, 2009 11:58 PM            

His "Complete Lives Theory" is the very road to rationed health care and pulling the plug on granny...and infants as Sarah Palin said.

His references to "Communitarianism" are nothing if not warmed over Communist bullshiiit.

O'Bomber found his Dr Death in Zeke Emanuel and put him on the Federal Council on Comparative Effectiveness Research Board...the "Death Panel" which will decide who gets what medical services..if any.

It's a shameless lie to say Zeke Emanuel isn't advising O'Bomber on health care costs..and how to kill senior citizens and infants to control Medicare and other health care costs.

He's also O'Bomber's health policy adviser at the Office of Management and Budget.

Since Sarah Palin nailed Zeke Emanuel and O'Bomber's O'BomberCare cold, support for O'BomberCare has plummeted.

But then acoustic, Sarah Palin is a hell of a lot more intelligent than you and other O'Bomber Kool-Aid drinkers.

posted September 23, 2009 01:17 AM            

If anyone's unethical in this conversation, it's you. You refuse to understand what a bioethicist is.

It's amazing to me that you talk about bringing Hitler back to whisper in my ear, and yet when you have an actual person representing his actual positions you blatantly refuse to understand anything.

This is ALL YOU. YOU being wrong 100%, and showing that you don't have enough intellectual integrity to admit when you're wrong.

quote:

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O'Bomber found his Dr Death in Zeke Emanuel and put him on the Federal Council on Comparative Effectiveness Research Board...the "Death Panel" which will decide who gets what medical services..if any.

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Research boards are not in the position of decision making. A research group is by default an advisory group. They produce educated opinions.

quote:

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It's a shameless lie to say Zeke Emanuel isn't advising O'Bomber on health care costs..and how to kill senior citizens and infants to control Medicare and other health care costs.

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No it's a shameless, blind, and utterly nonsensical lie to try to frame this bioethicist in the way the Right has tried to. It's ludicrous and absurd, and as I've said over and over and over again you have nothing at all that serves your point.

quote:

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But then acoustic, Sarah Palin is a hell of a lot more intelligent than you and other O'Bomber Kool-Aid drinkers.

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Sarah Palin is an empty vessel hiding out from the media, receiving coaching from the right, and trying to carve out a niche for herself in American's political life. She can't deal with media, because it shows her for the farce that she is, so if she really is going to run in four years she's going to spend the whole time learning how to appear intelligent in front of cameras, because when she tries to riff and BS it's plain for everyone to see that she's got nothing. No understanding. No insight. Same as you. Completely useless to politics altogether.

posted September 23, 2009 03:21 PM            

And now for this writing you mistakenly think I don't want to acknowledge. That's right. I'm going to post it right here.

The complete lives system
Because none of the currently used systems satisfy all ethical requirements for just allocation, we propose an alternative: the complete lives system. This system incorporates fi ve principles (table 2): youngest-first, prognosis, save the most lives, lottery, and instrumental value.5 As such, it prioritises younger people who have not yet lived a complete life and will be unlikely to do so without aid. Many thinkers have accepted complete lives as the appropriate focus of distributive justice: “individual human lives, rather than individual experiences, [are] the units over which any distributive principle should operate.”1,75,76 Although there are important differences between these thinkers, they share a core commitment to consider entire lives rather than events or episodes, which is also the defining feature of the complete lives system.

Consideration of the importance of complete lives also supports modifying the youngest-first principle by prioritising adolescents and young adults over infants (figure). Adolescents have received substantial education and parental care, investments that will be wasted without a complete life. Infants, by contrast, have not yet received these investments. Similarly, adolescence brings with it a developed personality capable of forming and valuing long-term plans whose fulfilment requires a complete life.77 As the legal philosopher Ronald Dworkin argues, “It is terrible when an infant dies, but worse, most people think, when a three-year-old child dies and worse still when an adolescent does”;78 this argument is supported by empirical surveys.41,79 Importantly, the prioritisation of adolescents and young adults considers the social and personal investment that people are morally entitled to have received at a particular age, rather than accepting the results of an unjust status quo. Consequently, poor adolescents should be treated the same as wealthy ones, even though they may have received less investment owing to social injustice.

The complete lives system also considers prognosis, since its aim is to achieve complete lives. A young person with a poor prognosis has had few life-years but lacks the potential to live a complete life. Considering prognosis forestalls the concern that disproportionately large amounts of resources will be directed to young people with poor prognoses.42 When the worst-off can benefit only slightly while better-off people could benefit greatly, allocating to the better-off is often justifiable.1,30 Some small benefits, such as a few weeks of life, might also be intrinsically insignificant when compared with large benefits.8

Saving the most lives is also included in this system because enabling more people to live complete lives is better than enabling fewer.8,44 In a public health emergency, instrumental value could also be included to enable more people to live complete lives. Lotteries could be used when making choices between roughly equal recipients, and also potentially to ensure that no individual—irrespective of age or prognosis—is seen as beyond saving.34,80 Thus, the complete lives system is complete in another way: it incorporates each morally relevant simple principle.

When implemented, the complete lives system produces a priority curve on which individuals aged between roughly 15 and 40 years get the most substantial chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get chances that are attenuated (fi gure).78 It therefore superficially resembles the proposal made by DALY advocates; however, the complete lives system justifies preference to younger people because of priority to the worst-off rather than instrumental value. Additionally, the complete lives system assumes that, although life-years are equally valuable to all, justice requires the fair distribution of them. Conversely, DALY allocation treats life-years given to elderly or disabled people as objectively less valuable.

Finally, the complete lives system is least vulnerable to corruption. Age can be established quickly and accurately from identity documents. Prognosis allocation encourages physicians to improve patients’ health, unlike the perverse incentives to sicken patients or misrepresent health that the sickest-first allocation creates.58,59

Objections
We consider several important objections to the complete lives system.

The complete lives system discriminates against older people.81,82 Age-based allocation is ageism.82 Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious (offensively or unfairly discriminating; injurious) discrimination; every person lives through different life stages rather than being a single age.8,39 Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years.16 Treating 65-year-olds differently because of stereotypes or falsehoods would be ageist; treating them differently because they have already had more life-years is not.

Age, like income, is a “non-medical criterion” inappropriate for allocation of medical resources.14,83 In contrast to income, a complete life is a health outcome. Long-term survival and life expectancy at birth are key health-care outcome variables.84 Delaying the age at onset of a disease is desirable.85,86

The complete lives system is insensitive to international differences in typical lifespan. Although broad consensus favors adolescents over very young infants, and young adults over the very elderly people, implementation can reasonably differ between, even within, nation-states.87,88 Some people believe that a complete life is a universal limit founded in natural human capacities, which everyone should accept even without scarcity.37 By contrast, the complete lives system requires only that citizens see a complete life, however defined, as an important good, and accept that fairness gives those short of a complete life stronger claims to scarce life-saving resources.

Principles must be ordered lexically: less important principles should come into play only when more important ones are fulfilled.10 Rawls himself agreed that lexical priority was inappropriate when distributing specific resources in society, though appropriate for ordering the principles of basic social justice that shape the distribution of basic rights, opportunities, and income.1 As an alternative, balancing priority to the worst-off against maximising benefits has won wide support in discussions of allocative local justice.1,8,30 As Amartya Sen argues, justice “does not specify how much more is to be given to the deprived person, but merely that he should receive more”.89

Accepting the complete lives system for health care as a whole would be premature. We must first reduce waste and increase spending.81,90 The complete lives system explicitly rejects waste and corruption, such as multiple listing for transplantation. Although it may be applicable more generally, the complete lives system has been developed to justly allocate persistently scarce life-saving interventions.39,80 Hearts for transplant and influenza vaccines, unlike money, cannot be replaced or diverted to non-health goals; denying a heart to one person makes it available to another. Ultimately, the complete lives system does not create “classes of Untermenschen whose lives and well being are deemed not worth spending money on”,91 but rather empowers us to decide fairly whom to save when genuine scarcity makes saving everyone impossible.

Legitimacy
As well as recognising morally relevant values, an allocation system must be legitimate. Legitimacy requires that people see the allocation system as just and accept actual allocations as fair. Consequently, allocation systems must be publicly understandable, accessible, and subject to public discussion and revision.92 They must also resist corruption, since easy corruptibility undermines the public trust on which legitimacy depends. Some systems, like the UNOS points systems or QALY systems, may fail this test, because they are difficult to understand, easily corrupted, or closed to public revision. Systems that intentionally conceal their allocative principles to avoid public complaints might also fail the test.93

Although procedural fairness is necessary for legitimacy, it is unable to ensure the justice of allocation decisions on its own.94,95 Although fair procedures are important, substantive, morally relevant values and principles are indispensable for just allocation.96,97

Conclusion
Ultimately, none of the eight simple principles recognise all morally relevant values, and some recognise irrelevant values. QALY and DALY multiprinciple systems neglect the importance of fair distribution. UNOS points systems attempt to address distributive justice, but recognise morally irrelevant values and are vulnerable to corruption. By contrast, the complete lives system combines four morally relevant principles: youngest-first, prognosis, lottery, and saving the most lives. In pandemic situations, it also allocates scarce interventions to people instrumental in realising these four principles. Importantly, it is not an algorithm, but a framework that expresses widely affirmed values: priority to the worst-off, maximising benefits, and treating people equally. To achieve a just allocation of scarce medical interventions, society must embrace the challenge of implementing a coherent multiprinciple framework rather than relying on simple principles or retreating to the status quo. http://www.ncpa.org/pdfs/PIIS0140673609601379.pdf

It should be clear to any reader that this paper discusses the merit of various systems. Complete Life is obviously their favorite as they deem it the most moral and just amongst them. If it's not clear, here is an excerpt from the start of the paper:

Allocation of very scarce medical interventions such as organs and vaccines is a persistent ethical challenge. We evaluate eight simple allocation principles that can be classified into four categories: treating people equally, favouring the worst-off , maximising total benefits, and promoting and rewarding social usefulness. No single principle is sufficient to incorporate all morally relevant considerations and therefore individual principles must be combined into multiprinciple allocation systems. We evaluate three systems: the United Network for Organ Sharing points systems, quality-adjusted life-years, and disability-adjusted life-years. We recommend an alternative system—the complete lives system—which prioritises younger people who have not yet lived a complete life, and also incorporates prognosis, save the most lives, lottery, and instrumental value principles.

Jwhop, even this exerpt from this paper doesn't substantiate your claim of Emaneul's being immoral or unethical. It does, in fact, refute both.

posted September 23, 2009 05:55 PM            

More to the point, what makes you think any reasonable person wouldn't reject this morons bumbling musings out of hand after they read it?

What makes you think that taking $564 BILLION dollars out of the Medicare budget wouldn't bring about the exact scarce medical resources the immoral, unethical dunce Zeke Emanuel is actually talking about. And acoustic, taking $564 BILLION out of the Medicare budget is exactly what O'Bomber IS talking about doing.

Zeke Emanuel is as close to a Nazi death doctor as could be found in America.

posted September 23, 2009 07:09 PM            

quote:

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What makes you think I didn't read this twits insanity acoustic.

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The fact that you keep misrepresenting him, of course.

quote:

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More to the point, what makes you think any reasonable person wouldn't reject this morons bumbling musings out of hand after they read it?

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The fact that he's a well admired bioethicist as well as the fact that the paper is tributed to THREE individuals, not one.

quote:

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What makes you think that taking $564 BILLION dollars out of the Medicare budget wouldn't bring about the exact scarce medical resources the immoral, unethical dunce Zeke Emanuel is actually talking about.

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You keep pushing this number not only without the justification for the number itself, but also the reason why funds would be pulled from Medicare. Every time I bring this fact up to you, you go quiet.

I'll allow you to use those labels once you prove that he fits any of them. Until then, you're shiit out of luck.

Here's a point I will concede, though. He was indeed writing about America as much as he was writing about anywhere, because lack of organs for transplant will always CAUSE a scarcity in the medical profession, and he and his colleagues are correct in thinking that there should be a reasoned, principled approach to dealing with such issues.

quote:

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And acoustic, taking $564 BILLION out of the Medicare budget is exactly what O'Bomber IS talking about doing.

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Like I said, you keep saying it, but you also keep mum on where you're getting your information from. I'm not going to seriously discuss that aspect of health reform with you until you bring up your source, and we can look at how you (or rather your people) came up with that number.

quote:

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Zeke Emanuel is as close to a Nazi death doctor as could be found in America.

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That's about as retarded a thing as you could say, but if you're willing to PROVE it, I'm still waiting.

quote:

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Now, let's talk about your lie. The lie you told when you said Emanuel isn't advising O'Bomber on health care policy.

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Show me where I said he wasn't serving in an advisory capacity. You lied when you said that Emanuel would be responsible for health care decisions. I said that as an advisor he would have no such hand in things.

Kat,

I doubt his numbers are right in the first place, and the reason behind the idea of cutting certain Medicare costs is that some of the prices are simply overinflated. They get more money out of the government, but they don't actually provide more costly services.

From Obama's mouth:

OBAMA: No. Here -- here's what's going to happen. These are essentially private HMOs who are getting, on average -- and this is not my estimate, this is Democrats and Republicans, experts have said -- they're getting, on average, about 14 percent more over payments, basically subsidies from taxpayers for a program that ordinary Medicare does just as good, if not better, at keeping people healthy.

Now, they package these things in ways that, in some cases, may make it more convenient for some consumers, but they're overcharging massively for it. There's no competitive bidding under the process.

And so what we've said is instead of spending $17 billion, $18 billion a year, $177 billion over 10 years on that, why wouldn’t we use that to close the donut hole so the people are actually getting better prescription drugs… http://blogs.abcnews.com/george/2009/09/obama-defends-medicare-advantage-cuts.html

posted December 01, 2009 09:50 AM            

That makes O'Bomber and the Socialists in the demoscat Congress who talk about insurance companies "Obscene Profits", "Obscene Liars"; and not just liars (small cap liars) but "Damned Liars".

The "Death Panels" are not only in both the House Health Care Bill and the Senate Health Care Bill but it was also found to have been slipped into the so called Stimulus Bill...which is really the Porkulus Bill with more than 9000 Pork Earmarks. You know, those Pork projects called Earmarks which O'Bomber lied about when he was "candidate O'Bomber" and promised he would never sign any legislation which contained even 1 (one) Earmaked Pork project.

As usual, you lose on every count.

Zeke Emanual is exactly the immoral, unethical proponent of "medical murder" I said he is.

O'Bomber has proved to be the "Liar" and "Empty Suit created persona" I said he was...when he was "candidate O'Bomber".

For all the reasons cited, Americans overwhelmingly reject O'BomberCare by the score of 38% to about 57% and it's even worse than that among Independent swing voters and Repbulicans.

Even the title of this thread depicting Sarah Palin as an "empty intellect" is a dead bang loser.

posted December 01, 2009 10:12 AM            

"But when the cloud of rhetoric has passed ... when the roar of the crowd fades away ... when the stadium lights go out, and those Styrofoam Greek columns are hauled back to some studio lot - what exactly is our opponent's plan? What does he actually seek to accomplish, after he's done turning back the waters and healing the planet?

The answer is to make government bigger ... take more of your money ... give you more orders from Washington ... and to reduce the strength of America in a dangerous world. America needs more energy ... our opponent is against producing it. Victory in Iraq is finally in sight ... he wants to forfeit. Terrorist states are seeking nuclear weapons without delay ... he wants to meet them without preconditions. Al Qaeda terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America ... he's worried that someone won't read them their rights? Government is too big ... he wants to grow it. Congress spends too much ... he promises more. Taxes are too high ... he wants to raise them."
Sarah Palin

(Realizing I was pregnant) "blew me away, it rocked my world... It was a time I asked myself, was I going to walk the walk? Just for a fleeting moment I thought, 'No one knows me here; no one would ever know.' ...My amniocentesis came back and then I understood why some people would think they could change their circumstances, just take care of it. Todd didn't even know. No one would know. Plus, I was old and I thought, 'Very funny, God. My name's Sarah, but my husband's not Abraham, he's Todd.' ...We went through some things a year ago that's helped me understand a woman and a girl's temptation to make this go away....Believe it or not, I didn't even know what a baby with Down syndrome was going to look like or feel like. I had to ask that my heart be filled up...That prayer was answered the minute he was born...My heart overflowed. I felt a love I had never felt before. He's brought amazing, surprising happiness; he's the best thing that has ever happened to me."
Sarah Palin

"We believe that the best of America is not all in Washington, D.C. ... We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America..."
Sarah Palin

"(Barack Obama) can give an entire speech about the wars America is fighting, and never use the word "victory" except when he's talking about his own campaign."
Sarah Palin

"Divorce Todd? Have you seen Todd? I may be just a renegade hockey mom, but I'm not blind!""
Sarah Palin

"But here's a little news flash for all those reporters and commentators: I'm not going to Washington to seek their good opinion - I'm going to Washington to serve the people of this country. Americans expect us to go to Washington for the right reasons, and not just to mingle with the right people."
Sarah Palin

"My fellow citizens, the American presidency is not supposed to be a journey of personal discovery."
Sarah Palin

"(Barack Obama) is not a man who sees America like you and I see America. Our opponent is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country. Americans need to know this."
Sarah Palin

"I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a 'community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities."
Sarah Palin

"Only dead fish go with the flow."
Sarah Palin

"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."
Sarah Palin

"They say the difference between a hockey mom and a pitbull? Lipstick."
Sarah Palin

posted December 01, 2009 01:19 PM              

she acts like having a down syndrome baby is the greatest heroic act of the century. the biggest problems with these kids is a) if you are broke it is hard to be there for them and b) making sure there is someone there when the parents die...since a large portion are born, like hers, to older parents. i doubt if her child is in much danger there. it is not a matter of unmanageable deformities or brain damage, or of the mother's health.

posted December 01, 2009 03:00 PM            

The American Traitor, John Traitor Kerry has been trying to make that nonsense fly since he was running for Prez...and he failed. Now, to give O'Bomber cover..from the leftist loons which infest the demoscat party and don't want additional troops sent to Afghanistan...the Traitor Kerry trots out this nonsense again as an imperative because Bush dropped the ball. It's simply leftist trash.

The fact is that Bush and the generals turned Tora Bora into a flaming inferno with a bombing campaign designed to kill al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters. The Traitor John Kerry couldn't find his ass with a road map and a searchlight. Not only that but Traitor Kerry could not possibly KNOW bin Laden was in Tora Bora when the attack on the Taliban commenced.

Neither did Bush outsource the capture or killing of bin Laden to Northern Alliance fighters. Those Northern Alliance fighters...who knew the Tora Bora mountain and cave areas well were accompanied by US Special Forces when they went into the Tora Bora region.

Beyond that is the fact Kommander Korruption could have taken Osama bin Laden into custody when bin Laden was offered up on a silver platter by the Sudanese in the late 1990s...before he was ejected from Sudan and fled to Afghanistan. Kommander Korruption took a pass...3 times the offer was made and 3 times Kommander Korruption took a pass on taking bin Laden into custody from Sudan...along with his senior commanders..AND their computers, notebooks and lists of fighters...AND their locations.

I wish that just once...just once you would engage your brain and do some basic research instead of repeating the trash of lame brained leftists...before you pop off. BTW, there is no greater example of a lame brained leftist than the Traitor John Kerry.

posted December 01, 2009 04:05 PM            

As Thanksgiving festivities wind down we contemplate all we have to be thankful for as free Americans! We head into the Christmas season wishing for leadership in Washington that reflects our commitment to the values and ideals that have built the freest and most prosperous and generous nation on earth.

Heading into December and Tuesday’s announcement of our nation’s strategy in Afghanistan, I ask the President to reassure us that the administration is in this War on Terror to win.

And I’ll pass along the following from Harold B. Estes, a 95-year-old member of the Greatest Generation: “I realize you never served in the military and never had to defend your country with your life, but you’re the Commander-in-Chief now, son. Do your job. When your battle-hardened field General asks you for 40,000 more troops to complete the mission, give them to him. But if you’re not in this fight to win, then get out.”

Thank you, Mr. President. Please tell us on Tuesday that America is in it to win.

posted December 01, 2009 07:20 PM              

and sarah palin, quitter-of-the-year, who blames the campaign manager for putting her foot in it continuously, has never served in the armed forces either.

in case you don't remember obama won on a platform that included getting OUT of iraq within 16 months (if i remember rightly), and a quick strike into afghanistan to finish the job the bush administration fluffed. that didn't work. so getting out of afghanistan would be kind of like hitler getting out of russia BEFORE his troops starved and froze to death. which he didn't do! he plowed on, in it to win it, and lost almost all of them. but the glory, right, the glory of it! starving in the snow, SO glorious.

posted December 01, 2009 07:47 PM            

No katatonic, I didn't bring the Traitor John Kerry to this thread; you did.

Let me be the first to inform you...since it's obvious you don't know...that the report you cite about having bin Laden in our grasp and letting him escape...came from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee...wait for it katatonic...

the committee Chaired by John Traitor Kerry.

You would have found this out if....you had performed the most casual search or read the Committee report..or even the introduction to the report...instead of parroting the blither, blather, bloviation and bullshiiit of brain dead leftists.

As I said before, when John Traitor Kerry trotted this bullshiiit out when campaigning for Prez in 2004 the retired Commanding General of US forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, General Tommy Franks...gave Kerry a biaatch slap up beside his head that made his ears ring.

War of Words
By TOMMY FRANKS
Published: October 19, 2004

President Bush and Senator John Kerry have very different views of the war on terrorism, and those differences ought to be debated in this presidential campaign. But the debate should focus on facts, not distortions of history.

On more than one occasion, Senator Kerry has referred to the fight at Tora Bora in Afghanistan during late 2001 as a missed opportunity for America. He claims that our forces had Osama bin Laden cornered and allowed him to escape. How did it happen? According to Mr. Kerry, we "outsourced" the job to Afghan warlords. As commander of the allied forces in the Middle East, I was responsible for the operation at Tora Bora, and I can tell you that the senator's understanding of events doesn't square with reality.

First, take Mr. Kerry's contention that we "had an opportunity to capture or kill Osama bin Laden" and that "we had him surrounded." We don't know to this day whether Mr. bin Laden was at Tora Bora in December 2001. Some intelligence sources said he was; others indicated he was in Pakistan at the time; still others suggested he was in Kashmir. Tora Bora was teeming with Taliban and Qaeda operatives, many of whom were killed or captured, but Mr. bin Laden was never within our grasp.

Second, we did not "outsource" military action. We did rely heavily on Afghans because they knew Tora Bora, a mountainous, geographically difficult region on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is where Afghan mujahedeen holed up for years, keeping alive their resistance to the Soviet Union. Killing and capturing Taliban and Qaeda fighters was best done by the Afghan fighters who already knew the caves and tunnels.

Third, the Afghans weren't left to do the job alone. Special forces from the United States and several other countries were there, providing tactical leadership and calling in air strikes. Pakistani troops also provided significant help - as many as 100,000 sealed the border and rounded up hundreds of Qaeda and Taliban fighters.

Contrary to Senator Kerry, President Bush never "took his eye off the ball" when it came to Osama bin Laden. The war on terrorism has a global focus. It cannot be divided into separate and unrelated wars, one in Afghanistan and another in Iraq. Both are part of the same effort to capture and kill terrorists before they are able to strike America again, potentially with weapons of mass destruction. Terrorist cells are operating in some 60 countries, and the United States, in coordination with dozens of allies, is waging this war on many fronts.

As we planned for potential military action in Iraq and conducted counterterrorist operations in several other countries in the region, Afghanistan remained a center of focus. Neither attention nor manpower was diverted from Afghanistan to Iraq. When we started Operation Iraqi Freedom we had about 9,500 troops in Afghanistan, and by the time we finished major combat operations in Iraq last May we had more than 10,000 troops in Afghanistan.

We are committed to winning this war on all fronts, and we are making impressive gains. Afghanistan has held the first free elections in its history. Iraq is led by a free government made up of its own citizens. By the end of this year, NATO and American forces will have trained 125,000 Iraqis to enforce the law, fight insurgents and secure the borders. This is in addition to the great humanitarian progress already achieved in Iraq.

Many hurdles remain, of course. But the gravest danger would result from the withdrawal of American troops before we finish our work. Today we are asking our servicemen and women to do more, in more places, than we have in decades. They deserve honest, consistent, no-spin leadership that respects them, their families and their sacrifices. The war against terrorism is the right war at the right time for the right reasons. And Iraq is one of the places that war must be fought and won. George W. Bush has his eye on that ball and Senator John Kerry does not.

posted December 02, 2009 01:12 PM              

and furthermore the money being spent on converting other countries to our way of life would be better spent at home, PRESERVING our way of life.

posted December 02, 2009 01:33 PM            

Most Committee reports and findings on legislation or other matters are settled along party line votes.

In this instance, along demoscat party wishes since demoscats have a majority of committee members on the Committee.

posted December 02, 2009 01:38 PM            

Insurer's profits are beside the point in my mind. The healthcare discussion has never been about how much insurance companies are making. It's about ensuring people have access to healthcare. Talk of profits is moot. Even if it weren't, any amount of profit in such a profitable industry would necessarily be astronomical even if only a few percent.

Death Panels aren't in ANY proposed bills anywhere. Death Panels are a figment of certain people on the Right's imagination.

By any rational count, you've not had a reasonable argument anywhere within this thread.

posted December 02, 2009 04:04 PM            

Creating a government run health insurance option TO COMPETE WITH THE 1300 PRIVATE SECTOR INSURANCE COMPANIES...WHICH THESE TWITS SAY ARE RIPPING OFF AMERICA IS DIRECTLY ON POINT HERE.

Facts are that they're lying through their teeth as insurance company net profits range between 1.5% and 5% of gross business receipts on the top end.

So acoustic, you're off point because creating a competing entity is the bullshiit coming out of O'Bomber and brain dead morons in Congress.

The death panels are enshrined in the House Bill, the Senate Bill and are authorized and funded in the so called Stimulus Bill. Further acoustic there is NO appeal from their decisions as to who gets what level of healthcare or even treatment at all. Provisions in the bill(s) say there is no recourse to any administrative or court process or review. They're judge, jury and executioner.

It's not my week to keep track of you acoustic, so....I had no reason to "presume" you're not here or there..or any place else for that matter.

posted December 02, 2009 05:49 PM            

We've already been over the Death Panel nonsense ad nauseum, have we not? We already know that insurance companies, doctors, and judges are already making those decisions for us as things are today, don't we? The end-of-life counseling that Republicans so lamented paying doctors to initiate was/is the one means of giving an elderly person a choice of what should happen when a fatal situation comes about. Otherwise, there's no freedom on behalf of the individual nor that individual's family. Fact.

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If you ever get up to speed enough to defend your usual illogical, unreasonable and irrational blither, blather, bloviation and bullshiit; get back to me

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We both know it's not me who's ever "not up to speed". You should be more thankful for the grace I offer you.

What page are you up to in Palin's book? Did you catch the latest Palin-inspired SNL skit?

posted December 02, 2009 06:30 PM            

quote:

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Healthcare is being debated because it's not efficient, and too few people have access to it...acoustic

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This statement says it all. You don't know what you're talking about. Everyone in the United States has access to "health care", even those in the country illegally...as in illegal aliens.

Further, the American health care system is the best in the world...bar none. That's the reason Canadians, Europeans and others come to the United States for treatment. That and the fact they would die waiting for their Socialist health care system to schedule an appointment to see even a primary care physician let alone a specialist.

It's impossible to have a rational discussion with someone who doesn't know the difference between "health care" and "health insurance".

You would make such a good little slave to brain dead Socialist meddlers and planners acoustic.

posted December 03, 2009 12:51 AM            

quote:

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Actually, it's moron demoscats who are making an issue of insurance company profits, not me.

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I'm pretty certain you've made more of an issue of it than, say, Obama has.

quote:

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Everyone in the United States has access to "health care", even those in the country illegally...as in illegal aliens.

It's impossible to have a rational discussion with someone who doesn't know the difference between "health care" and "health insurance".

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You're using the term "access" to mean availability. I used the term "access" to mean affordability. Yes, healthcare is available. Yes, emergency medical service is a right that even illegal aliens can use. No, people who can't afford insurance won't go to the doctor despite that lump they feel under their skin. They have physical access, but not financial access. Much like they have access to Ferrari's, but they don't really, because the debt could be staggering.

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Further, the American health care system is the best in the world...bar none. That's the reason Canadians, Europeans and others come to the United States for treatment. That and the fact they would die waiting for their Socialist health care system to schedule an appointment to see even a primary care physician let alone a specialist.

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I posted Singapore's system here awhile back. Same quality of healthcare, but far less expensive. If you haven't figured it out yet, that's the goal here.

posted December 03, 2009 01:14 PM            

Republican Senators are questioning whether President Barack Obama’s stimulus bill contains the right mix of tax breaks and cash infusions to jump-start the economy.

Tragically, no one from either party is objecting to the health provisions slipped in without discussion. These provisions reflect the handiwork of Tom Daschle, until recently the nominee to head the Health and Human Services Department.

Senators should read these provisions and vote against them because they are dangerous to your health. (Page numbers refer to H.R. 1 EH, pdf version).

The bill’s health rules will affect “every individual in the United States” (445, 454, 479). Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system. Having electronic medical records at your fingertips, easily transferred to a hospital, is beneficial. It will help avoid duplicate tests and errors.

But the bill goes further. One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.” According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and “learn to operate less like solo practitioners.”

Keeping doctors informed of the newest medical findings is important, but enforcing uniformity goes too far.

New Penalties

Hospitals and doctors that are not “meaningful users” of the new system will face penalties. “Meaningful user” isn’t defined in the bill. That will be left to the HHS secretary, who will be empowered to impose “more stringent measures of meaningful use over time” (511, 518, 540-541)

What penalties will deter your doctor from going beyond the electronically delivered protocols when your condition is atypical or you need an experimental treatment? The vagueness is intentional. In his book, Daschle proposed an appointed body with vast powers to make the “tough” decisions elected politicians won’t make.

The stimulus bill does that, and calls it the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research (190-192). The goal, Daschle’s book explained, is to slow the development and use of new medications and technologies because they are driving up costs. He praises Europeans for being more willing to accept “hopeless diagnoses” and “forgo experimental treatments,” and he chastises Americans for expecting too much from the health-care system.

Elderly Hardest Hit

Daschle says health-care reform “will not be pain free.” Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them. That means the elderly will bear the brunt.

Medicare now pays for treatments deemed safe and effective. The stimulus bill would change that and apply a cost- effectiveness standard set by the Federal Council (464).

The Federal Council is modeled after a U.K. board discussed in Daschle’s book. This board approves or rejects treatments using a formula that divides the cost of the treatment by the number of years the patient is likely to benefit. Treatments for younger patients are more often approved than treatments for diseases that affect the elderly, such as osteoporosis.

In 2006, a U.K. health board decreed that elderly patients with macular degeneration had to wait until they went blind in one eye before they could get a costly new drug to save the other eye. It took almost three years of public protests before the board reversed its decision.

Hidden Provisions

If the Obama administration’s economic stimulus bill passes the Senate in its current form, seniors in the U.S. will face similar rationing. Defenders of the system say that individuals benefit in younger years and sacrifice later.

The stimulus bill will affect every part of health care, from medical and nursing education, to how patients are treated and how much hospitals get paid. The bill allocates more funding for this bureaucracy than for the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force combined (90-92, 174-177, 181).

Hiding health legislation in a stimulus bill is intentional. Daschle supported the Clinton administration’s health-care overhaul in 1994, and attributed its failure to debate and delay. A year ago, Daschle wrote that the next president should act quickly before critics mount an opposition. “If that means attaching a health-care plan to the federal budget, so be it,” he said. “The issue is too important to be stalled by Senate protocol.”

More Scrutiny Needed

On Friday, President Obama called it “inexcusable and irresponsible” for senators to delay passing the stimulus bill. In truth, this bill needs more scrutiny.

The health-care industry is the largest employer in the U.S. It produces almost 17 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. Yet the bill treats health care the way European governments do: as a cost problem instead of a growth industry. Imagine limiting growth and innovation in the electronics or auto industry during this downturn. This stimulus is dangerous to your health and the economy.

posted December 03, 2009 01:21 PM            

When you read through the nearly seven hundred pages of the House stimulus bill it is easy to begin dozing off after a few hundred billion dollars worth of run-of-the-mill wasteful government spending. One has to keep a keen eye out for the components of the bill that don't just steal your money, but that may actually do you great physical harm, if not kill you outright.

On page 151 of this legislative pork-fest is one of the clandestine nuggets of social policy manipulation that are peppered throughout the bill. Section 9201 of the stimulus package establishes the "Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research." This body, which would be made up of federal bureaucrats will "coordinate the conduct or support of comparative effectiveness and related health services research."

Sounds benign enough, but the man behind the Coordinating Council, Health and Human Services Secretary-designate (and tax cheat) Tom Daschle, was kind enough to explain the goal of this organization. It is to cut health care costs by preventing Americans from getting treatments that the government decides don't meet their standards for cost effectiveness. In his 2008 book on health care, he explained that such a council would, "lower overall spending by determining which medicines, treatments and procedures are most effective-and identifying those that do not justify their high price tags."

Once a panel of government experts decides what is and what is not cost-effective by their definition, the government will stop paying for treatments, medicines, therapies or devices that fall into the latter category. Initially, this will limit access to very expensive treatments for federal employees, veterans, the elderly, members of the military and their dependents and others who rely on the feds to pay for their health care. But since this would place nearly half of health care dollars off limits for such treatments, the demand for and further development of such treatments would likely dry up. And Daschle wants to expand the Coordinating Council's power even further, allowing the government to deny tax benefits for private insurance that covers treatments deemed too expensive by the Council. Thus, if a handful of government employees deem a therapy not cost effective, no health insurance will cover it and it will become virtually unobtainable to patients at any cost.

Mind you, they are not simply looking to exclude treatments that don't work, but to exclude treatments that are effective, but whose cost, in their opinion, does not justify their use. You, the patient, and your physician don't get a vote. This would make the federal government the single most important decision-maker regarding health care for every patient in America.

This is also another wonderful example within the stimulus bill of infantile economics. When something is new it is usually expensive, (think $3,000 VCR's back in the ‘70s). As supply increases, two important things happen. First, innovations take place that improve the product. Second, the cost comes down. If the feds step in and say, no, that new treatment is too expensive, it will never have the chance to become better, the supply will not increase and it won't become more cost-effective. It will just die on the shelf, and so will the patients who potentially could have benefited.

For example, scientists have found that proton beams can be used to destroy cancerous tumors by pinpointing the beam on a tumor diminishing the collateral damage to surrounding tissue that often accompanies conventional photon radiation treatment. Five facilities in the United States offer proton therapy at places like Massachusetts General Hospital and the University of Texas. The five can treat a total of about 8,000 patients a year. Protons are most beneficial for children who can suffer severe developmental side-effects from radiation treatment. But the therapy is expensive, often running over $100,000 for a six-week course of treatment. But as new proton treatment facilities are built, improving the delivery of the therapy and increasing its supply, prices will decrease and quality will improve. But how will a panel of bureaucrats react to this situation? Will they allow insurance to cover a treatment that can be many times more expensive than conventional care and let it reach its full potential? Or will it be blackballed for future patients in the name of cost-containment?

Imagine the conversation: Parents are told that their daughter has a brain tumor. Doctors will immediately begin radiation treatment to destroy the tumor. But they also tell the parents that bombarding the child's brain with radiation will likely have developmental impacts. The doctors lament that there once was a better way to deal with this situation with a higher success rate and virtually no side effects, but some people in Washington decided it was too expensive and the centers that offered it closed and no one persisted in further developing the therapy.

Repeat this scenario time and time again and you will glimpse health care in the Age of Hope and Change. Emphasis will be shifted to prevention and management of chronic illness-an excellent idea and potentially very economically beneficial. But health care will be frozen in time. New treatments come on the market at very high costs and most often represent incremental improvements over existing care. That is how progress works and that is why we live longer lives than our great-grandparents. But that is exactly the kind of progress that Daschle and his Coordinating Council will be targeting in order to limit health care spending. It is a perfect example of the way socialized medicine rations care in the name of equality of access and proves the old Canadian axiom that, "national health care is wonderful, unless you get really sick."