And that’s before rationing their health care.
Barack Obama thinks he can seize upon Paul Ryan’s plan as a foil for his re-election.
Democrats still smarting from their 2010 mid-term defeat see Republican Rep. Paul Ryan’s controversial plan to overhaul Medicare as political aspirin, a cure for just about everything that ails them.
But for Barack Obama it’s more like Geritol — a targeted treatment for his chronic aches and pains with older voters.
If the elderly are exposed to the truth, they’ll find that Ryan’s plan is their only hope, because Obama’s plans for the elderly are brutal.
It’s no secret that Barack Obama wants pretty much every kind of energy to cost more in this country. Obama is on record as desiring higher gasoline prices. His Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has said that he would not want any domestic drilling even if gas went to $10 a gallon.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0FcNNeuf0E&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
Obama’s Energy Secretary Steven Chu said
“Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.”
Gasoline is nearly $10 a gallon in the United Kingdom. It sounds as though the Obama price target is somewhere north of $10 a gallon for gasoline.
Food prices were already on the rise last year.
An inflationary tide is beginning to ripple through America’s supermarkets and restaurants, threatening to end the tamest year of food pricing in nearly two decades.
Prices of staples including milk, beef, coffee, cocoa and sugar have risen sharply in recent months. And food makers and retailers including McDonald’s Corp., Kellogg Co. and Kroger Co. have begun to signal that they’ll try to make consumers shoulder more of the higher costs for ingredients.
Food prices are up 5% this year already, and this is before the full effect of rising gas and oil prices has made itself felt.
Home heating oil is up 33% over the last year.
Gasoline prices are up by at least a dollar over the last year.
Electricity rates are up by the at least 5%.
While Barack Obama has been quick to criticize Paul Ryan and his efforts to bring fiscal order to the country, Obama has not been forthcoming about his own Medicare plans. Rationing and death panels are back.
Mark Hemingway on IPAB
Here’s how IPAB works. It’s a panel comprised of 15 presidential appointees who are tasked with reducing Medicare spending. The panel is is given certain spending targets that kick in in 2014. At first those targets are on a sliding scale, but by 2018 the spending targets are set at the rate of GDP growth with an additional half of a percentage point tacked on. (Originally, it was GDP plus a full percentage point, but according to the “framework” released prior to the President’s speech the spending target has been reduced.)
Any recommendations IPAB makes about Medicare spending automatically become law. Congress can only override IPAB with a three-fifths majority vote, which is a very high legislative hurdle, or they can pass their own Medicare plan that meets the same spending target. There’s no administrative process for doctors or citizens to challenge the board’s decisions. There’s a school of thought that says IPAB is even more blatantly unconstitutional than the individual mandate, as its power sounds legislative in nature — its declarations would have the force of law — and therefore cannot legitimately be delegated to an executive entity.
Obama hid this from everyone. Stanley Kurtz:
The IPAB issue also brings out a second and less well understood aspect of the Obama puzzle. Obama’s gradualism and ideological stealth have helped to mask significant distinctions between his own position and that of many other Democrats. IPAB was never included in the original House version of the health-care bill. In fact, in January of 2010, 72 House Democrats joined Republicans in sending a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi asking that IPAB be excluded from the bill. (This mixed moderate Democrats opposed to rationing with some far-left Democrats worried that a future Republican president could use the board to gut Medicare.) Imagine how many more moderate Democrats would have opposed IPAB in 2010 had Obama been honest about his ambitious long-term plans for IPAB rationing. Even now some (mostly) moderate Democrats are beginning to join again with Republicans aiming to repeal IPAB. So on the American political spectrum, Obama and his core left-Democratic allies remain ideological outliers. That is precisely what their habitual stealth is designed to disguise–and what the truth about Obama’s past reveals.
James Capretta points out just how nefarious and disingenuous Obama’s plan is:
President Obama’s 2012 budget has rightly been lambasted as completely detached from fiscal and economic reality. Even under the budget’s own rosy assumptions, the country would accumulate $7.2 trillion in deficits over the coming decade. Under more realistic assumptions, it’s a plan for trillion-dollar deficits every year, with no end in sight. By 2021, government debt would likely approach $21 trillion under this budget, up from $5.8 trillion at the end of 2008.
This might lead one to think there is no Democratic plan for closing the fiscal gap. But actually, the president and his allies do have a plan of sorts. They just don’t want voters to know what it is. Indeed, it is their hope that they can get their plan adopted by stealth — and that voters never fully realize that the government has adopted it.
So now Obama’s plans for the elderly start to come into focus.
Starve them with high food prices, strand them with high gas prices, freeze them with his high heating oil prices and ration them to death with health care. If nothing else, it could be argued that Obama’s plan for the elderly is comprehensive.
DrJohn has been a health care professional for more than 30 years. In addition to clinical practice he has done extensive research and has published widely with over 70 original articles and abstracts in the peer-reviewed literature. DrJohn is well known in his field and has lectured on every continent except for Antarctica. He has been married to the same wonderful lady for over 30 years and has three kids- two sons, both of whom are attorneys and one daughter on her way into the field of education.
DrJohn was brought up with the concept that one can do well if one is prepared to work hard but nothing in life is guaranteed.
Except for liberals being foolish.
When the country is under attack by Obama and the Democrats on every level of our economy, it amazes me that his approval rating is above 10%. I know his liberal supporters and pals in the MSM want to igonore everything to protect this fool, but this is like ignoring the tornado story of this spring. Nothing is being left in place as the clear intent to destroy America continues from this crowd. What will it take to finally get americans to wake up and pull their head of this bozo’s butt? No economy can withstand what Barry and the Democrats are doing and unemployment, inflation, and loss of hope is going to be worse than under Carter. Is there a Reagan anywhere to have the talent, experience, and love of America to clean up this mess as he did after Carter? When will America learn that there is no free lunch and that the old tax the rich mantra is a lie and will never result in better lives or a stable country.
Those smart and talented enough to make the money do so primarily with investments in companies that have a future. This means that those companies create better jobs that have a future. Does anyone actually believe it makes sense to take the money away from these talented folks and allow the political hacks to decide where it should be spent will lead to something good? If you had a few thousand bucks and could select one of the richest folks in the country to invest it for you or you could select Obama, who would you give your money to? By taking the money from the rich guy and giving it to Obama, that is in effect what you are doing because what is done with that money impacts your future and that of the USA.
Obama already took about $80 billion of your money and invested it in Government Motors and Chrysler. The recently released Forbes report labeled most of the worst cars in our contry coming from those two companies. They have been producing crap for years and were going under because of that and the huge pensions the unions hung around their neck. No real changes after investment that can be seen as they are still producing crap and no one will buy them. Barry also invests in Green technologies of the future. What he does not tell you is that to be competitive, you have to drive current energy costs beyond anything the average family can afford as outlined so well above in this post. If these green ideas are so good, why aren’t the rich guys pouring money into them? Instead, Obama and the Democrats want to give them our money AND drive up the energy costs which is going to cost everyone a bundle while blocking drilling and putting on idiotic regulations? Everything you buy is going to cost more. And guess who gets hurt by this the most? Those idiots who had hope Obama would make their life better and who think hurting the rich guy helps them. Smile when you are paying 5-6$ or more for gas because you are getting screwed by your guy and should enjoy it…
TransCanada Pipelines wants to complete the Keystone XL part of the Keystone Pipeline that will span to the refineries in S. Texas. This 40 inch pipeline is approximately two thousand miles in length and can max out at 1.1 million barrels per day and get this, will access the Bakken Shales of N. Dakota. Without this extension drilling in N. Dakota will cease. The usual suspects are in on this, to halt the project. The Epa, Greenpeace, Sierra Club, Hillary Clinton, Waxman( now powerless) etc., want more studies done and want settlements through class action suits. Cost overuns are at 2 billion and climbing. Other excuses are dirty oil, seismic zone danger, wildlife preserve danger, and huge danger to the midstate aquifer. America wants to continue as the world leader in clean energy. Lol.
TransCanada is getting fed up and they might just walk on this 13 billion $ project and reroute the oil to Asia. Are there any doubts on 6 to 10 $ a gallon gasoline coming up in the future? Canadians want to invest in America and are being litigated to death. Try to get them back.
When I was new to my town, had no home and no job, I was very hungry. Going without food is ok sometimes, its not a great feeling to have but always a good feeling to remember when you have food; someone out there is hungry when you are eating. I’m no stranger to hungry, its happened a few times in my life. That changed when I was beginning to become desperate an very convincing old woman who just happened to be a volunteer at a local food charity insisted I join them that evening. I’ve felt a great deal of gratitude to that charity ever since, let’s just say I know where to give money too, now that I’m doing very well. Not rich, but very well compared to where I was. Its a debt I repay whenever I can.
What shocked me about the food charity was the single mothers with children, too many of them. Are there no fathers in the home to provide? That is a sad fact about so called “men” in western society. Is this where America is headed? No real men to take care of the children and now food is so expansive and at these prices who can afford it? Single mothers whom are desperate, were obviously not the target of this madness but they are the ones who have to bear the cross, or more specifically their children are the ones who bear it. I’ve been hungry but I have no children. I could not even imagine what it would be like to have to tell a child I could not afford to feed them.
Let’s be real here there is hunger between meals and there is deep in the soul hunger. We can all go without gasoline but food… Not for too long. If this is the fallout of liberal policy; than I refuse to be a party to it. When will the madness end?… I guess I write this post with sadness in my heart, because “I” unlike the people who are thinking up this socialist nonsense, understand the needs of the people and the single mothers who are struggling. If the price of bread is to high are they to eat cake? Nobody can lie to me about the price of food, I shop at a grocery store.
Some things transcend politics and an investment in education and social security will not ensure our young go to sleep after a good meal. Perhaps its time we remembered the children. They are the future.
So this is all part of what seems to be the Democratic plan: Which may be little different from turning America into a recreation of the old Soviet Union.
(1) To break the inflated economy the Federal Reserve has created, by forcing via “insufficient funds” a national debt born default and monetary collapse, making everything expensive and hard to get. (2) Blame all the people’s suffering on, (via a biased media,) Republicans, the wealthiest in society, and corporations while they turn the people and our poor children into dumbed-down supporters of the Socialist (aka, Democrat) Party’s platform. (3) Then the “Dems” will proclaim that “if the people only place them in control, they will make sure everyone gets food and fuel and the necessities of life.”
They certainly seem to be rushing us headlong down this road. This shows how much Obama and the Democratic Leadership really hate America, that they purposely want to “put us in our place” and destroy this nation. Will the people ever really see this coming? Or will it be unstoppable due to a naive Republican leadership who is willing to “compromise” with bad faith bargainers, against the demands, warnings and objections of the very people who voted them in power. When will the Republicans stop trusting these nefarious connivers who call themselves Democrats? Will the “mainstream” Republicans pull their heads out of their arses and listen to the Tea Party? Will they ever finally realize that they are being owned by the Dems, Obama & the press?
What do we the voters do if the Republican leadership remains clueless? Vote them out of office? And replace them with, …who?
I was listening to Mark Levin and he threw out some numbers that were astounding. America derives 47 % of its energy from oil and natural gas. Coal 29%, nuclear 12% and wind solar 1 %. Nothing said on hydro and geothermal so it must be the remainder. Exxon received 149 billion in gross sales and made a profit of 11 billion. Levin extrapolated these numbers to represent who is making what on a gallon of gas. Exxon makes 2 cents per gallon. The States and the feds tax at varying amounts while sitting on their ample behinds. California leads at 66 cents per gallon. Alaska has the least at 25 cents per gallon. 70% of the gallon price is crude oil cost. Add in refining and transport and business costs, then you see where the money goes.
Oh, those evil oil companies. Like I stated above, TransCanada Pipelines wants to invest in oil transportation and are hedging on firm pricing, so they should be demonized as evil, greedy speculators.
50% of electricity in this country comes from coal. But you now see that high gas prices are another means of redistribution. The problem is that it takes from everyone, including the poor, and hands it to over to the deferal and state government to for them to waste.
This post dovetails very well with another one here:
The Fed Will Make Sure Obama Wins in 2012
CNBC fails to make the strong case for its alarmist title, however.
The plan seems to be to have high enough gas and food prices to force more people to rely on Obama’s gov’t for basics.
Like that would change a person’s vote from ”anyone-other-than-Obama,” to ”can-I-have-some-more-Obama,-please.”
Republicans are not as divided as Obama and his media pretend they are.
When the time comes the Republican candidate, whoever that is, will get the votes.
Want to see real division?
Think back to the Obama/Clinton division.
Now, they all came together to vote Dem, didn’t they?
So, banking on Republican division is a bad play.
Also, not to be overlooked, is the cooperative nature of Republicans for one another.
I am part of a large group of Republicans who adopt older Republicans to look after their needs.
I take a list and shop for an elderly lady, a widow I know.
Other Republicans do the same.
If we each had a ration book for gasoline, I would get her book.
If she needed extra cash to heat or cool her place she would have it…..and it wouldn’t change her vote.
The Fed is trying to cut in half the savings of anyone who still has cash on the sidelines.
I’ve been through Jimmy Carter’s 17% inflation and this is only 10%.
I’m helping new food stamp recipients budget.
Obama’s plot will backfire on him.
Atlas Shrugged comes to life, no, not in a movie theater, but in your everday life.
Anyone remember the “Unification Boards” from the book? They made central planning decisions, that became law, outside of Congress as well.
When a government agency, with no representation from the people, can make laws at whim, outside of the Constitutional requirements for law to be made, we have ceased to be a nation of law, and are merely another nation ruled by men.
Nan G SAYS ” member of a large group of Republicans who adopt older Republicans and look out for their needs.”
Next time I help folks at my church St. Andrew’s, or cook for the homeless, or help the Marine families at Camp Pendleton,I’m gonna make sure I check their political affiliation first.
Maybe, as my friend John Galt suggests, above comment is a little “snarky” but c’mon Nan do you realize how that “Republicans helping Republicans” sounds?
Obama’s policies essentially amount to lining up the elderly against a wall and shooting them, so why the torture before the death? Is he trying to squeeze every little last ounce he can from them before they expire?
And before you liberals go mad with rage about my wording, may I bring you words uttered by Obama himself?
I’m simply using his own language to describe his actions.
@rich wheeler:
Rich, these folks are organized through the ride-to-the -polls arrangement of our local Republican Party.
(I was just giving that example because many of those are making it clear that there are many who say they would not be bought by Obama with aid confiscated from all taxpayers.)
Those who are helped through church are a completely different kettle of fish.
As are those helped through confiscatory taxes.
Nan, I admire what you do for your senior republican friends, and I commend you. My mom lives in Lancaster , Texas and has nothing but accolades for her governor Perry. I find him soft but, I would never tell her that. She’s 92 years old, and would probably whack me with her cane. If it wasn’t for my sister, she would walk through snow to go vote. I gave her a rundown on the upcoming senate vote in 2012 and now she’s so happy that so many democratic miscreant senators will be going down to defeat.
Sorry… I really have to take issue with this. The only ones’ that are not “forthcoming” are apparently zoned out conservative media and some conservative bloggers.
It’s regrettable that both the Weekly Standard and National Review believe they were blindsided by the IMAB. That’s a lot of whining to disguise they were really asleep at the wheel, or simply waylaid by the “death panels” finger pointed at the wrong issue in the legislation.
This you can lay at the feet of Palin and her ilk… something that drove me crazy about her in 2009-10. She kept putting the hounds on the wrong trail by referring to the end of life counseling reimbursement as the “death panels”…. and unfortunately, when on the wrong scent, apparently the NRO, the Weekly, and many others don’t know how to recollect and get their bearings.
I did my original post on this death panel back in August, 2009. Back then, it wasn’t in the House HR3200, but Obama proposed it as legislation to be either stand alone, or incorporated in the Senate bill that ultimately passed. It did. I brought it up again in March of 2010, when Stupak sold out cheap. Not to mention countless comments by me and a few others inbetween when ever someone brought up “death panels” in discussion.
Originally it was called the IMAC – the Independent Medicare Advisory Council. The Senate adds changed Council’s name to the IMAB (Independent Medicare Advisory Board), detailed more of their powers and increased the amount of “czars” that would sit on the board.
But those of us on FA aren’t the only ones that were paying attention to this. I guess conservative MSM also slept thru reports on it from other publications, such as:
McKnight and their article on it 3 weeks before mine in July 2009
The New Atlantis, also in July 2009
Jack Lewin was calling it MedPAC on steroids July 28th, 2009.
The New York Times’ article that appeared a week after my August post
Even CBS was pointing out it’s presence in the Senate bill in the fall of 2009.
The Heritage Foundation ran 5 articles in 2010 alone on the newly defined IMAB, and at least five prior in 2009 while in it’s IMAC incarnation.
It had no no lack of press all thru 2010, either.
I’m truly sorry that the bulk of the conservative leaning MSM and bloggers decided to follow Palin’s lead, and go off the beaten path into end of life counseling land instead of focusing on the panel of appointees that has been in the news and on the radar since the summer of 2009. But by 2010, when we had many providers opposed, Palin had already lead everyone so far astray with the talking point that no one could let go of the end of life counseling association. You, drj, were on that same Palin path when you did an entire Dec 2010 post on end of life as the “death panels”. Curt followed you a day later, still on that same end of life/death panel tangent.
Here’s the point… the IMAC/IMAB is not “back” because it never left. Nor has “Obama” NOT been forthcoming since this has been all over the news. Nothing stealth about it, except perhaps to those following the wrong and less important breadcrumbs.
You’ll find the IMAB detailed on page 982 of HR3590. Read it and weep… but don’t complain you’ve never been told. It’s been up front since a few months after the Zero moved into the WH, and even found many health providers in agreement with the opposition – wary of it’s implementation. The time for you to complain and debate was starting a year and a half ago… not now.
The only cure now is to repeal the law and all associated agencies and creations, or to wait until end of 2016 and attempt to get Congress to discontinue the panel. Unless there’s a hefty conservative majority in both chambers, good luck with that.
So if the conservative MSM feels they are blindsided, it’s because they had their blinders on, and allowed catch phrases attached to all the wrong issues. I might add a similar game is being played by the Chump and conservative media and bloggers even now…. off the reservation of important issues, and chasing danged rainbows and documents or transcripts instead of dealing with the really big issues.
And since the conservative MSM is late to the party, they may also want to get their facts correct as well. The boards recommendations/proposals do not “automatically become law”. Here’s somewhat how it works..
The appointed “czar” board members draft the proposal when they see the budget is getting out of control (heh.. it lives out of control, but I digress). That draft is sent to MedPAC, Congress and the HHS Sec’y for review… as well as the POTUS. This was supposed to begin to happen once a year, starting beginning of 2014. I believe I have read about the Zero, sniffing around for amendments that will begin this task sooner, and perhaps twice a year.
If the POTUS likes what he sees, he has a Congressional member introduce it in each chamber, where it will go thru various committees. These proposals have limited debate time, are subject to no changes or amendments that affect the original intent of savings, etc. The recommendations will be rendered as accepted as of Aug 15th, unless the Congress (both chambers) disapprove it by 3/5ths or enacts a law that supercedes the proposals. It looks like the timeline is about 5, maybe 6 months, depending upon the speed it moves thru committees.
Since Congress can do relatively nothing in addendums and changes, and can only DISapprove the proposal…. therein lies the “automatically becoming law” misconception. I guess waking up late to the news, and straying far off the path of the real issues is getting to be a nasty habit with the conservative press. And that’s not good for the conservative voter. We don’t need johnny come lately pundits, coming late to the party with all the wrong info to boot.
Nor can the board increase premiums or take away covered treatments. All they can do is cut payments to providers to stay within projected budget. Thus the “death panels” happens indirectly because the providers will drop out for low payments and fiscal reasons.
Coincidently, after the board is in action (starting Jan 2014 with original law), Congress can use a joint resolution to discontinue to the board as long as done no later than Feb 1st 2017 . Or, in other words, apparently the death panels can be allowed to die with Obama’s political life span in the WH.
Who needs rationing or panels, when the “premium support” voucher isn’t enough to buy an insurance policy that will guarantee access to essential health care services, and the voucher is all you have left to bargain with?
@Greg:
Greg, it is supposed to be a ”safety net.”
Being born or living in the USA doesn’t mean you get all your bills paid for by the taxpayers.
Not your health bills nor any of your other bills.
Not unless you are utterly destitute.
And most Americans are not.
Health care is a wonderful privilege that Obama tried to turn into a right.
@MataHarley:
I recall a different group that was, in effect, rationing health care.
It was called the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.
ObamaCare’s bill that passed refers to it 26 times.
In 2009 it called for fewer mammograms and for them to start 10 years later in life.
JUST a recommendation…..but insurers almost immediately climbed on board.
Then it was explained that waiting the extra 10 years would cost the USA ~ 300,000 new, earlier, preventable deaths (IIRC).
All of a sudden Obama distanced himself from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.
It fell off the radar, but was never disbanded.
The problem is that, when Obama’s big insuring gorilla in the room makes recommendations, other insurers MUST follow or be eaten alive by the costs.
And Obama is a rationer, plain and simple.
Nan G, that’s true. They touted preventative care, never recognizing that it would likely add considerably to the healthcare costs load. Then when the revelation hits, they cut the fiscal life line. As Larry likes to say, rationing is already taking place when insurers… battling to balance the premiums with costs… end up providing less for the money. Of course the counter to that is, you can opt for another insurer. It’s one of the reasons that I firmly believe they’ve attacked healthcare from the wrong tact by trying to control premiums, and not address what they can do to lessen the costs of actually administering health care.
I do agree with Larry on some of the cost solutions… being able to bargain/bid for lower drug prices i.e. Also both state and federal tort reform on frivolous lawsuits. I still like the idea of having all insurers being able to provide a basic package that fits all the states common needs to sell across state lines, and then have state riders available for each state’s particular mandates. This way if you move from one state to another, you only have to switch your rider. But I have to wonder why either of those options has to be a government creation and caveat, and not something made friendly for the private industry. For example, private health providers bonding together and buy “in bulk” for drugs, supplies and equipment, and a private enterprise portal like Travelocity/Orbitz/Lending Tree portate for insurance quotes. I’m not sure Larry’s cost for results bit would play out. That has proven to be a failure when tried in the education world. But the debate must be to reverse getting government out of health care, and lowering the costs of providing health care. The IMAB/IMAC is created specifically to address that by reducing payments to providers. But that will only create a larger vacuum in providers for those providing Medicare services now.
I’m not sure what the answer is, but I’m darned sure what it isn’t. The IMAB, slowing destroying the Medicare provider market by inching down payments doesn’t solve the problem. There is no way that even Ryan’s budget… the deepest cuts of all proffered to the nation… is acceptable with the promise of 18-20 years of continued deficits, adding to the debt. I suppose the only answer is a “livable austerity”. What that entails, who knows. But we already see the reaction of such measures with the arrogant public unions and union employees.
The problem is we’re so deep into this now, it ain’t funny. The boomers are looming at the brink of Medicare *and* Social Security. They can’t play the trust fund loans/securities accounting tricks anymore. They could just move the goal posts further away by raising the age limits for both, but that also has repercussions. Take the young off Medicare, and the ponzi scheme collapses because that trust fund would never sustain the incoming Medicare generation. Meanwhile boomers have paid in all their 40+ working lives, and it’s money that slipped thru the Congressional pockets. Increase the Social Security age option for retirement and the pressure getting thru this elongated recession increases on that age group. With unemployment so high, what hope of competing with young, out of work, college grads? No relief with doing “reverse mortgages” since most don’t have equity left in their homes anymore. Rock and a hard place for survival in the next decade.
Were we in a booming economy, some might see a glimmer of hope to live thru that federal theft and corrupt promises made 50 and 75 years ago with the two entitlement programs. But today’s recession and hard times are only exacerbated by a devaluing dollar, driving up fuel prices, which drives up all the other costs of living necessities – all amidst high unemployment. From where I sit, it’s a bleak picture for the once shining city on the hill.
@MataHarley:
It’s not a very rosy picture, is it? And, one of the “Plans” we have, from Obama, causes total meltdown in less than a decade, while the other “Plan”, only lengthens survival by a handful more years than the first. There is much that the government could do right now to alleviate much of the stress, but instead of realizing that the problems aren’t just minor annoyances, but major, looming catastrophes, much of the “enlightened” crowd in DC is simply sticking their heads in the sand, as if not seeing the problem somehow will make it non-existent.
That is one BIG reason why talking about bumping tax rates up, like the liberals want, won’t matter one little bit. Until the issue of the massive spending by the federal government is addressed, talk of anything else is meaningless.
@MataHarley: Rationing itself- of care or drugs- is tantamount a death panel. Those who decide to do the rationing constitute a death panel.
That’s why I pegged the IMAC/IMAB as the “death panel”, and not the bill’s intention to reimburse doctors for end of life counseling, Dr. John. However everyone followed Palin down the wrong rabbit hole, and they just couldn’t tear themselves away from the association… meanwhile ignoring the real death panels.
Linked Doug Ross. Thanks, Doug!
John G #10. C’ mon now. Not a single statement made by ,or action taken by BHO amounts to your “lining them up against the wall and shooting them.” Ridiculous hyperbole.
@rich wheeler:
Rich, your only talking about the degree of violent action. I stated that I’m only using his own language to describe his actions. That language that I used is the language of violence, of which I gave you some examples. I could have encompassed the whole of the democrat party, and given examples from other liberals, and my comment would have seemed mild in comparison.
@DrJohn, #18:
If increasing numbers of seniors a decade or so down the line simply can’t afford to buy insurance that covers health care services essential to keeping them alive because their premium support isn’t high enough, how will that situation be characterized? Perhaps there will be something offered for this new class who are health care-destitute, and people designated to determine whether or not their situation is desperate enough for them to qualify for it. A panel, for instance, that sets the basic eligibility standards defining “sufficiently poor and sick”, and other administrative personnel who decide on the individual cases…
@Greg:
And thus, we become, not a nation of law, but a nation ruled by the whims of men. Greg, it would be one thing, if the particular health insurance one acquires, has a ‘panel’ that sets prices, as well as available treatment, to individuals. Prior to Obamacare, one was not required to extend trade to a company, towards that end, without their consent. But with the passage of Obamacare, and the mandate to purchase healthcare, and a CENTRAL PLANNER that makes decisions for those healthcare companies, the choice to participate, or not, is not in your hands. As is whether or not you can receive the treatment that, not only you need, but that you may desire. Your healthcare choices are taken out of your hands, and placed in the hands of others, thus, you are at their mercy, or ‘charity’.
Your life, in someone else’s hands, without your choice. Liberals have not just given away any self-interest in their own lives, but taken by force(as any law is) the self-interest others have in their lives, and then given it away, for someone else’s whims to decide what a person’s fate might be, all in the name of sacrifice.
John G. re#21 FYI That’s the Democratic Party. Folks here don’t like to be called Cons.
@rich wheeler:
As you wish, friend.