Ezekiel Emanuel: MUST READ

This is a MUST READ post from John Goodman's Health Policy Blog.

In his speech to the American Medical Association, President Obama said what White House health advisor Ezekiel Emanuel and Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag have said in print some time ago. The only way to control health care costs is to get doctors to provide less care — fewer tests, fewer procedures, fewer everything. Of course, the Administration wants to eliminate only that care that is "unnecessary."

...[T]he Administration is proposing a new federal health board to decide whether health care services are "effective" or "appropriate." When he first advanced this idea in Critical, Obama health care guru, Tom Daschle, pointed to the British National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) as the model. NICE has adopted a rule of thumb that health expenditures are inappropriate if they involve spending more than $22,000 to save six months of life. As a result, British cancer patients do not have access to drugs that are routinely available in the United States. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 25,000 British cancer patients die prematurely every year because of these restrictions.

If health care is to be rationed, what's the right way to do it? Zeke Emanuel (who is also the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel) wrote an entire article on this subject in the Lancet on January 31, 2009. Emanuel advocated allocating health resources in order to maximize collective life years. Suppose a 25-year-old and a 65-year-old have a life threatening disease. Since the 25-year-old has many more potential years of life ahead of him, he should receive preferential treatment, says Emanuel.

...There's more. In a different article written more than 10 years ago for the Hastings Center Report, Emanuel said health services should not be guaranteed to "individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens." He continues, "An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia."

I don't say this casually.

Zeke Emanuel is like someone from the Third Reich.

In effect, the policies Ezekiel Emanuel is encouraging Obama to adopt would create a virtual death camp for seniors and the very young and the mentally challenged.

This is immoral. Where is the compassion?

I never thought health care in America would be modeled on a death camp philosophy.

"Dr." Emanuel wants to care for the economic health of the state, not tend to needs of people. His goal is to cut costs. (Obama calls that "making difficult decisions.") Emanuel wants to trim the high price of health care by literally eliminating people who are a drag on the system, like the elderly.

HEALTH SERVICES DENIED.

How can Herb Kohl and Russ Feingold support this horor? Oh, that's right. They're exempt. They won't be subjected to rationed health care.

Unbelievable. This is America!

I really can't believe this. I can't believe Emanuel's ideas are even being considered by Obama and the Democrats. Absolutely heartless.

I don't recognize my country anymore.
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Related posts:

Ezekiel Emanuel: Complete Lives System, The Lancet, Volume 373, Issue 9661, Pages 423 - 431, 31 January 2009

Ezekiel Emanuel: 'Thinking has Evolved'