First Obama pushed for end-of-life counseling in ObamaCare, then it was pulled after Sarah Palin rightly pointed out the spooky nature of the death panels (you put this in as a cost saving feature of a bill and you’re damn right its a death panel). Then Dr. Donald “I love Socialism” Berwick, head of Medicare, put it back in…this time during the yearly Medicare checkups, and he tried to do it all sly like and back door the thing. He got caught and now Obama is pulling it once again:
Reversing a potentially controversial decision, the Obama administration will drop references to end-of-life counseling from the ground rules for Medicare’s new annual checkup, a White House official said Wednesday.
~~~The White House official said the administration is now pulling back the language because there wasn’t enough chance for all sides to comment on the change. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss what has turned into an embarrassing episode for the administration.
Who is this Donald Berwick you ask?:
No one was surprised that a man of this character tried to quietly sneak this requirement into Medicare but still, wasn’t the whole hopey changey Obama thing supposed to include increased transparency? Yeaaaaah. So why the backtrack on this?
The general unpopularity of Obamacare has united conservatives and independents into a potential new political coalition that threatens to be the iceberg to the Obama administration’s Titanic. With repeal to be the first order of business for the House of Representatives, and a war of attrition likely to result against it when the Senate refuses to go along, it seems that the administration is trying to make Obamacare and its ancillary parts as small a target as possible. This is a sign of political weakness that should encourage repealers to keep pushing.
To put it plainly, Obama recognizes there is some real rumblings of discontent with ObamaCare and any issue which threatens to tip the scales in our favor is going to go down the drain.
Good.
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