Ezekiel Emanuel: 'Thinking has Evolved'

What a surprise!

Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, a top White House adviser on medical policy, is backing off his controversial statements.

Amazing, isn't it?

Support for ObamaCare keeps dropping and suddenly Dr. Emanuel is having an extreme makeover. What a coincidence!

The fact is Emanuel has been exposed and now he's doing interviews in an attempt to construct a different reality, one that won't be a detriment to Obama's government-run, single payer health care dream.

Emanuel is on vacation in Italy, but the White House made him available to the media.

This is damage control, pure and simple. These interviews are similar to the "Beer Summit," trying to spin the negative away. They're also just as lame.

From the Washington Times:

Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel, the White House official targeted by Sarah Palin and other conservatives as an advocate for health care rationing and "death panels," said Thursday his "thinking has evolved" on the need to decide who gets treated and who does not.

"When I began working in the health policy area about 20 years ago ... I thought we would definitely have to ration care, that there was a need to make a decision and deny people care," said Dr. Emanuel, a health care adviser to President Obama in the Office of Management and Budget, during a phone interview.

"I think that over the last five to seven years ... I've come to the conclusion that in our system we are spending way more money than we need to, a lot of it on unnecessary care," he said. "If we got rid of that care we would have absolutely no reason to even consider rationing except in a few cases."

Obviously, Emanuel is admitting to his alleged past views as being extreme and frightening. Otherwise, there would be no need to proclaim his "evolution. "

The problem is comments from Emanuel prior to this round of interviews arranged by the White House don't reveal that he has experienced any sort of significant evolution in his thinking.

For example:

Emanuel bluntly admits that the cuts will not be pain-free. "Vague promises of savings from cutting waste, enhancing prevention and wellness, installing electronic medical records and improving quality are merely 'lipstick' cost control, more for show and public relations than for true change," he wrote last year (Health Affairs Feb. 27, 2008).

Savings, he writes, will require changing how doctors think about their patients: Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath too seriously, "as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of the cost or effects on others" (Journal of the American Medical Association, June 18, 2008).

Where's the evolution "over the last five to seven years"? Did his evolution take a hiatus in 2008?

Dr. Emanuel, the elder brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, spoke with The Washington Times from Italy, where he is on vacation. The White House made him available in an attempt to tamp down criticism from conservatives such as Mrs. Palin, the former Republican governor of Alaska, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Georgia Republican.

These critiques have gained such steam that Mr. Obama on Tuesday told a town-hall meeting in New Hampshire that he has no intent to "pull the plug on Grandma."

Once the truth is revealed and people grasp it, it does have a tendency to gain steam.

Once trust has eroded so dramatically, and with good reason, it's a long process to get a skeptacle public back on board.

...The charges of rationing, or concerns about his language in journal articles, Dr. Emanuel said, is somewhat understandable given that he was "writing really for political philosophers, and for the average person it's not what they're used to reading, even if they've had a good liberal education."

Oh, I get it.

The masses, the simpletons, are misintrepreting the wise doctor's words.

"Average" people aren't used to reading journal articles. Even those with a "good liberal education" don't understand.

The condescending nature of Emanuel's statements and his elitist attitude is off-putting to say the least. I don't think that helps in the White House effort to defuse the explosive nature of Emanuel's writings.

I do think that some of his statements have been taken out of context by some opponents of socialized medicine; but even in context, the fundamental principles that shape Emanuel's arguments regarding his rankings of the value of some lives compared to others remain.

Example: Emanuel's article in The Lancet, Volume 373, Issue 9661, Pages 423 - 431, 31 January 2009.

If one is to believe that Emanuel has undergone an evolution, one must accept that it's been incredibly rapid, lightning fast. One could think of it as miraculous, more of a dramatic conversion than a gradual evolution.

It's certainly legitimate to believe that his very recent conversion seems much more about politics and expediency than a principled change in his professional opinion.

Here's the rub for the Obama administration damage control patrol:

Nonetheless, a spokesman for Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican and a practicing physician, said the senator remains "concerned about the rationing provisions in the House and Senate bills."

Coburn spokesman John Hart said: "On three different occasions during the [Senate Health, Education and Labor and Pensions] committee markup, Dr. Coburn and other Republicans attempted to insert language prohibiting rationing.

"All three amendments were voted down, which suggests that Democrats do, in fact, want to preserve the ability to ration care," Mr. Hart said.

That's a hurdle that Obama and the Dems can't clear by a few interviews with Emanuel insisting that he's being unfairly portrayed by critics.

On three different occasions, Republicans tried to add language to the bill that would prohibiting rationing.

All three amendments were rejected by the Democrats.

It's clear that the Democrats are bent on preserving the ability to ration care.

That is undeniable.

Reality check that.