by Patrick J. Buchanan
“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.”
Of Sarah Palin it may be said: The lady knows how to frame an issue.
And while she has been fairly criticized for hyperbole about the end-of-life counselors in the House bill, she drew such attention to the provision that Democrats chose to dump it rather than debate it
And understandably so. For if Congress enacts universal health care coverage, we are undeniably headed for a medical system of rationed care that must inevitably deny care to some terminally ill and elderly, which will shorten their lives, perhaps by years. Consider:
Democrats call Medicare the model of government-run universal health care. But Medicare is a system whereby 140 million working Americans pay 2.9 percent of all wages and salaries into a fund to pay for health care for 42 million mostly older Americans. And Medicare is already going bust.
If Obamacare is passed, the cost of health care for today’s 47 million uninsured will also land on those 140 million. And if Obama puts 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens on a “path to citizenship,” as he promises, they, too, will have their health care provided by taxpayers.
Here is the crusher. The Census Bureau projects that, by 2050, the U.S. population will explode to 435 million. As most of these folks will be immigrants, their children and grandchildren, the cost of their heath care would also have to be largely born by middle-class and wealthy taxpayers.
Now factor this in.
In 2000, the average American male in a population of 300 million lived to 74; the average female to 80. But in 2050, the average male in a population of 435 million Americans will live to 80 and the average female to 86. And, according to U.N. figures, 21 percent of the U.S. population in 2050, some 91 million Americans, will be over 65, and 7.6 percent, or 33 million Americans, will be over 80 — and consuming health care in ever-increasing measures.
Now if a primary purpose of Obamacare is to “bend the curve” of soaring health care costs, and half of those costs are incurred in the last six months of life, and the number of seniors will grow by scores of millions, how do you cut costs without rationing care? And how do you ration care without denying millions of elderly and aged the prescriptions, procedures and operations they need to stay alive?
Consider two beloved Americans: Ted Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.
Since he was diagnosed with brain cancer more than a year ago, Sen. Kennedy has had excellent care, including surgery and chemotherapy, which have kept him alive and, until very recently, active.
For a decade, President Reagan, because of round-the-clock care, lived with an Alzheimer’s that had robbed him of his memory and left him unable to recognize his own family and close friends.
In the future, will a man of Kennedy’s age, with brain cancer but without the means of offsetting his own health care costs, be kept alive, operated on, given chemotherapy — by a government obsessed with cutting health care costs?
Will a bureaucracy desperate to cut costs keep alive for years the tens of thousands of destitute 80- and 90-year-old patients with Alzheimer’s, as was done with Ronald Reagan?
What if, in 2050, Palin and her husband are not here. And 42-year-old Trig, with Down syndrome, has been in an institution for years, and the cost of his care and that of hundreds of thousands like him with Down syndrome is draining the resources of the health care system?
Will there not be voices softly suggesting a quiet and merciful end?
In Oregon, the law permits doctors to assist in the suicide of terminal patients who wish to end their lives. Let us assume numerous patients have Alzheimer’s and, so, cannot be part of the decision to end their lives. Who then makes the decision to continue or end life? Would it be unfair to call the decision-makers in those cases a death panel?
Almost a third of all unborn babies in America have their lives terminated each year with the consent of their mothers. Fifty million since Roe v. Wade have never seen the light of day. For many, the quality of life now supersedes in value the sanctity of life. That is who we are.
Between 2012 and 2030, 74 million baby boomers will retire, cease to be the major contributors to Medicare and become the major drain on Medicare. How long will an overtaxed labor force in a de-Christianized America be wiling to pay the bill to keep all those aging boomers alive?
Rationed care is coming, and the death panels will not be far behind.
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While PJB is correct about health care rationing under government health care, insurance companies also ration care by either denying it or making the patient share of the cost too high to be affordable.
I am not a fan of ObamaCare, but believe in the long term, the USA will need universal health care of some sort.
Currently, a fix would be eliminating denial of a policy for prior illnesses, portability and coverage for pre-existing conditions. Obviously, the risk pool needs to be broadened for insurance companies to do that and still make money, so an insurance mandate may also be needed.
The ability to buy insurance across state lines also would help.
A sad but true scenario. In certain very serious situations, the Presidents’ solution of a “pill and a prayerbook” might be justified.
Health care does need to be reformed but it must be done with a consensus of the people in agreement as to how it effects us. A healthy 75 year old who needs a hip replacement should not be denied coverage. Should grandma’s health care be ignored while giving an illegal immigrant teenager with a gun shot wound from a gang fight access to our health care system?
In other situations, concerning health insurance companies, medical equipment manufacturers, pharmaceuticals, hospitals etc., cost, waste, and inefficiences and a host of other problems with health care must be addressed as well as capping malpractice law suits.
With a monumental task of reforming health care in front of us, our leaders must take their time and think things through. A bi-partisan effort on this is mandatory. Something needs to be done but the bills under consideration presently are not the answer. Slow down, don’t rush, and get it right!
On a side note, I’m so happy to see comments under PJB columns again on the website. I’m looking forward to seeing all my old buddies back here again, just like old times.
Pat
I agree with you on many things but not this. The basic problem as I see it is that Americans don’t want to die, death the only certainty in life is a thought many would rather not face. Before my father died, he decided he did not want to go to the hospital, to be put on ventilators, put on 20 different treatment. He just took his pain medicine and died while my Mom was making a cup of tea for him, in his home on his own couch. That is dying with dignity. I run a small business the cost for insurance for my family is $900 a month with a 250 deductable, the insurance company gets to decide if treatments needed are warranted. My high premiums take away from saving for kids in college, why, because some person who is living longer than the natural span of life, is in a hospital bed with massive medical intervention at $10,000 a day. When I can’t afford health care anymore, like very soon, my children will have none. So I don’t shed any tears for rationuing to near death seniors, and yes we should be putting children and young people who have their lives ahead of them, instead of investing it in people who have lived their lives, and are too selfish to let others try to live theirs.
I say YES YES YES to cutting back the needless and unwarranted treatment of near death patients, for the simple reason, death is not curable… thats the sting we all have to feel.
On other comment, speaking a catholic, the concept behind the opposition to artificial contraception but the acceptance of natural methods was that it interfered with the creative work of God.
Why then is interference in the end of life OK.
Is not God the Master of Life and Death
What do you think happened to the babies with Down’s syndrome and autism born 40 years ago. Most of them died of neglect, overcrowding, infectious disease, etc. in institutions like we have today.
It is easy to shorten the life of an Alzheimer’s patient. A little extra tranquilizer to restrain combative behavior leads to impaired gag reflex, aspiration pneumonia and death. Sir William Osler, father of American medicine, called aspiration pneumonia “the old man’s friend.” Doctors do this every day. There is a wide borderline zone between too little and too much chemical restraint of dementia patients. Same applies to pain medication in terminal cancer.
You missed something Pat.
“In the future, will a man of Kennedy’s age, with brain cancer but without the means of offsetting his own health care costs, be kept alive, operated on, given chemotherapy — by a government obsessed with cutting health care costs?”
But focus on the “without the means” bit. In the future, regardless of Universal healthcare, socialized medicine, whatever, someone as rich as a Kennedy or Reagan will be able to get help. Without healthcare overhaul a poor person will not be able to get such treatment. You’re right of course that with “Obamacare” a poor person might be subject to rationing. So what’s new? now the rich get service and the poor die. With Obamacare, the rich get service and the poor die. Thus has it always been.
I’d also contest your point about population growth and immigrants on the health care dole. Who’s to say some, or many of those immigrants won’t contribute to the health care tax base? I’m far more concerned about entitled feeling aging boomers than I am new immigrants, who tend to work their tails off.