It was surprised that about half of the businessmen I lunch with were aware that the new stimulus bill contained a foundation for Nationalized Health care and “civilized denial of some medical treatments” for older people. I wonder what percentage of seniors were aware of this?
A cynic might call this new program “payback time” or “poetic justice” for the older generation in whose name Medicare and the Social Security schemes have been imposed. These two programs impose a very heavy burden on the younger generations.
The 1,434-page stimulus bill provides for the creation of the Office of the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology. One of the chores set out for this office is to monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective.. One very important measure of cost effectiveness will be the cost of the treatment divided by the years of life left in the patient. If that number is too large then the treatment will be denied to the patient.
People are hesitant to use the E-word, but this is essentially a “civilized form of euthanasia.” There is really nothing new about this. Every country with a national health service is eventually forced to stop treating older people for certain things. For example, worldwide, kidney dialysis is one of the treatments that is frequently denied to older people under national health.
Many health care provisions in the stimulus bill came from Tom Daschle’s 2008 book entitled, “Critical : What we Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.” Some of the items in the book and the stimulus bill include:
# Doctors have to give up autonomy and “learn to operate less like solo practitioners.”
# Hospitals and doctors that are not “meaningful users” of the new system will face penalties. The definition of “meaningful user” is intentionally left vague and at the discretion HHS secretary.
# One of the goals is to slow the new development of new medications and technologies because they are driving up the costs.
# “Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them.”
# Medicare now pays for treatments deemed safe and effective. The stimulus bill would change that and supply a cost effectiveness standard set by The Federal Council. Cost effectiveness would be determined to a large degree by the cost of the treatment divided by the life expectancy of the patient.
Keep in mind that some of this is quite rational in principle and many people would agree with many of the decisions made in this fashion. However, most people would like to make their own life and death decisions or pain and no pain decisions rather than have some all knowing bureaucrat make it for them.
I wonder if this is part of the change that the Obama voters really had in mind when they cast their ballot.