The new pork bill includes the development of a new agency to enable the government to "guide" physicians in their decision-making process. I hope no one was expecting to have Grandma or Grandpa around longer than the Federal Government approves of though.
This morning, Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter--one of three turncoat Republicans--made an appearance on Fox News Channel during which a discussion with network anchor Megyn Kelly. He backpedaled as much as possible, even admitting the bill is a "rush to judgment," he lamented the possible "harmful effects" of the provision, and he called the legislation a "bitter pill to swallow." He noted the bill included poor features that need to be "clarified." Yet, he already committed to the bill so his goose is cooked. Oh, and by the way, so are Keystoners and the Americans.
Several of the provisions in the boondoggle arose from disgraced tax evader Tom Daschle. Moreover, a 9 February 2009 Bloomberg piece effectively dissected the porkulus maximus:
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.”
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.”
Euthanasia is here.