Death Panels

By Rick McCorkle

The reason why most members of congress who want the government to take over health care haven’t bothered to read the bill is that they know it doesn’t really matter. Their goal is to have the federal government control every aspect of health care in America. Once the government is given that extra-constitutional power, then it can do whatever it wants. Troubling aspects of the bill are immaterial because with total control goes the ability to set the rules and change the rules at will.

Are death panels a concoction of those who are against government controlled health care, or are they a necessary result of the government takeover? One thing is for sure. They are scary, and you really should be frightened by them. If the government controls health care, then it must decide two basic things: What is health care, and who gets it. Bureaucrats will be hired in droves to staff panels who will decide these things. Your doctor won’t decide what’s best for you anymore. In fact, the need for doctors will diminish because HCP’s, minimally qualified health care practitioners, will enter your symptoms on a government website and the diagnosis and treatment, if approved, will be printed out. Approval will only be granted for the right kind of people who are the right age. The HCP will face heavy fines or loss of his or her license if he or she tries to deviate from the plan for your sake, but they won’t know enough to do that because they’re not doctors. Pharmacies will not be allowed to fill any HCP’s prescriptions for you without the government’s stamp of approval. The prescription will only be filled if it matches one of the drugs in the government database that are linked to the master diagnosis code. Right now, in Britain, you’re not allowed to spend your own money to bypass the government health care bureaucracy. You have to leave the country to do that. If America becomes like Britain, where will you go?

Government resources are finite. Therefore, health care rationing is a necessity and an absolute certainty. There will be rationing, so there will be death panels. Bureaucrats will consult charts and graphs to ration your health care. They will follow guidelines developed by dispassionate and detached statisticians. They will allocate resources to younger, potentially more productive people. Older people, or anyone with any kind of physical or mental limitation, will be denied resources. There will be no love in this system, and no regard for the intrinsic value of human life. There is only cost/benefit analysis. It will always be cheaper for you to die, no matter what your age. What is the cost of a pain pill and a “Have a nice death” pamphlet compared to the cost of treating you?

I have a wonderful daughter with Down Syndrome. She is able to work and take care of herself, but her main purpose in life seems to be to bring joy to everyone around her. She won’t fit into the new system. There will be government mandated tests during pregnancy and children like her will no longer be allowed to be born. Abortion will not only be funded by the government, it will be required. Death panels will be there at the beginning and the end of your life, and everywhere in between.

Ultimately, death panels will have the power to deny care to anyone who opposes death panels. If the government controls your health care, then it controls your very life. It can force you to do anything to preserve your health and your life. Obama has openly declared conservative Republicans to be his enemies. Obamacare will give him the power to deny health care to his enemies, but no one will be able to prove that he used that power. There will be no accountability, and no appeals will be heard. If your name is on Obama’s list of enemies, and he does keep one, you’d better hope and pray that you never get sick. Under Obamacare, freedom will be a transient phenomenon enjoyed only by the healthy.