Wall Street Journal: Death Panels Revisited, How Sarah Palin Helped Defeat ObamaCare's Deceptive Advertising

It is difficult to imagine that a nation which began, at least in part, as the result of opposition to a British mandate giving the East India Company a monopoly and imposing a nominal tax on all tea sold in America would have set out to create a government with the power to force people to buy tea in the first place.

~ From Judge Roger Vinson's decision on the unconstitutionality of ObamaCare

As you know, Judge Roger Vinson has declared that ObamaCare is unconstitutional. James Taranto makes the case, quite convincingly, that Sarah Palin almost single-handedly brought down ObamaCare. This isn't to take away from the hard work that millions of people put in trying to stop this government take over of almost every facet of our lives. No they were key. But with two little words, Sarah Palin brilliantly framed the entire debate.

Of course, in that same now famous Facebook post, Sarah also went on to explain that under government run health care, rationing of that care was inevitable. In every nation that has government run care, there are more people needing care than resources to provide them. In these government boondoggles, there is always a board, made up of unelected and unknown bureaucrats who decide who gets care and who doesn't. Literally deciding who lives and who dies, hence, "death panels."

Sarah also introduced the nation to Dr Ezekiel Emanuel and his "Complete Lives System." Dr Emanuel, Obama's health care adviser, wrote the entire blueprint for the allocation and rationing of health care. How these "death panels" would work. The official title of this horrific piece is: "Principles for allocation of scarce medical interventions."

This is a truly evil little document. It makes the case that only those who are "productive" to society deserve the best care. And of course, the government gets to decide who is "productive" and who isn't.

Such is life in a communist utopia.

Taranto writes in part:

"At a time when there is virtually unanimous agreement that health care reform is needed in this country, it is hard to invalidate and strike down a statute titled 'The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,' " Judge Roger Vinson observed Monday in his ruling in Florida v. HHS, which did just that.

It would have been a lot harder had ObamaCare enjoyed wide political support. But it did not and does not. Americans never bought the bill of goods that Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and their supporters in the formerly mainstream media tried to sell. A good deal of the credit goes to Sarah Palin, for coining the phrase "death panel" in an August 2009 Facebook post.

Four months later PolitiFact.com, a project of the left-leaning St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times, named the phrase "lie of the year":

Her assertion--that the government would set up boards to determine whether seniors and the disabled were worthy of care--spread through newscasts, talk shows, blogs and town hall meetings. Opponents of health care legislation said it revealed the real goals of the Democratic proposals. Advocates for health reform said it showed the depths to which their opponents would sink. Still others scratched their heads and said, "Death panels? Really?"

In truth, PolitiFact was more vulnerable to the charge of lying than Palin was, for its highly literal, out-of-context interpretation of her words was at best extremely tendentious. What she wrote was this:

The Democrats promise that a government health care system will reduce the cost of health care, but as the economist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's "death panel" so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their "level of productivity in society," whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.

Palin put the term "death panel" in quotes to indicate that she was using it figuratively. She was not lying but doing just the opposite: conveying a fundamental truth about ObamaCare. Proponents were describing it as a sort of fiscal perpetual-motion machine: We're going to give free insurance to tens of millions of people and reduce the deficit! As a matter of simple arithmetic, the only way to do that is by drastically curtailing medical benefits.

This is a much longer piece and a great read. You can do so here.

While Sarah didn't do it all by herself, it was her strong stance, cleaver wit, and never say die attitude that inspired millions to stand up and joined the fight. The fight isn't over, but when ObamaCare is finally dead and buried, America will owe Sarah Palin one big debt of gratitude. She literally helped preserve the American way of life.

Cal Thomas: Sarah Palin Deserves An Apology, Death Panels Are Just The Start

It's not every day when one of the old line Washington columnists starts their latest off with “Sarah Palin deserves an apology”, so this in itself is pretty newsworthy!

As you know the talk of the week has been the Obama regime sneaking paid end of life counseling into the Medicare system. This deal pays doctors to counsel old folks on their options when their time is near.

Now, before I go further, I have a beef with those who continually miss-characterize what Sarah Palin was calling “death panels” when she so brilliantly coined the term. She was not talking about end of life counseling, per se, though incentivizing doctors to engage in it is troubling in itself.

It bothers me that many pundits and politicians [who SHOULD know better] consistently get it wrong!

Sarah was talking about the unelected, unaccountable, and unknown government drones who will determine whether or not anyone, not just grandma, “deserves” certain treatments. This is all based on what we already know about massive health care rationing in every nation that has a government controlled health care system, and the writings of Barack Obama's very own Dr Mengele, Dr Ezekiel Emanuel. The brother of former White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel.

Dr Emanuel [Dr Death, if you prefer] penned what come to be known as the “Complete Lives System” a truly cold and disturbing document that says the life of a child, who hasn't lived a “complete life,” meaning they have yet to contribute to society, and an older person, whose days of being productive are fewer, don't deserve the quality of care, and range of treatments “productive” members of society do. Young, by the way means under twenty, and “old” starts in one's 50s!

This very disturbing document makes no consideration of a young person's future potential to “contribute” to society, or an older person's life time of contributions. In Dr Zeke's world, if you can't contribute to the collective NOW, you are dead weight. One more facet of communism people often forget. The collective looks down on “useless eaters.” They take resources away from those who feed the government machine.

This is as evil of a document that has ever been written. The scenarios coming from it are a cross between one of those cheesy late sixties, early seventies sci-fi flicks were those no longer useful were dutifully marched to their death in some sort of high tech disintegration device, and the Nazi death camps.

The actual title of this horror story is “Principles for allocations for scarce medical interventions” and you should read it. To understand this, is to understand why so many millions of Americans fought so hard to keep ObamaCare from becoming law, and why most Americans want it repealed now.

The tales are too numerous to list, but one doesn't have to search hard to find thousands of horror stories from Great Britain, and their National Health Service, which is so bad, moderately ill, but bed ridden patients have died of thirst, because there wasn't enough staff to even look after their most basic needs. We've read stories of desperate patients drinking the water out of plants at their bedside, trying to hold on! [And still ultimately dying of thirst!]

The mortality rate for major ills in Great Britain are many times higher than in the United States, under our current system.This is because care is severely rationed. There is simply not enough tax dollars to go around. Never will be.

Dr. Donald Berwick who will run ObamaCare, is in love with the failed British system, and has said he has a “romantic feeling” about it! He also openly calls this health care scheme a great way to “redistribute wealth” Something Ronald Reagan warned was the REAL goal of socialized medicine, when he spoke out 50 years ago! Berwick is very much on board with Dr Zeke's Complete Lives System as well. These are evil men.

This is not to take away from Cal Thomas' great column, which gets to Dr Berwick in due time, but I had to get the above off my chest first, and clarify exactly what sort of evil or as Sarah called it “downright evil” she was calling “death panels.”

From Cal's column in the Washington Examiner:

Sarah Palin deserves an apology. When she said that the new health-care law would lead to "death panels" deciding who gets life-saving treatment and who does not, she was roundly denounced and ridiculed.

Now we learn, courtesy of one of the ridiculers -- the New York Times -- that she was right. Under a new policy not included in the law for fear the administration's real end-of-life game would be exposed, a rule issued by the recess-appointed Dr. Donald M. Berwick, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, calls for the government to pay doctors to advise patients on options for ending their lives.

These could include directives to forgo aggressive treatment that could extend their lives.

This rule will inevitably lead to bureaucrats deciding who is "fit" to live and who is not. The effect this might have on public opinion, which by a solid majority opposes Obamacare, is clear from an e-mail obtained by the Times. It is from Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., who sent it to people working with him on the issue.

Oregon and Washington are the only states with assisted-suicide laws, a preview of what is to come at the federal level if this new regulation is allowed to stand. Blumenauer wrote in his November e-mail:

"While we are very happy with the result, we won't be shouting it from the rooftops because we aren't out of the woods yet. This regulation could be modified or reversed, especially if Republican leaders try to use this small provision to perpetuate the 'death panel' myth."

Ah, but it's not a myth, and that's where Palin nailed it. All inhumanities begin with small steps; otherwise the public might rebel against a policy that went straight to the "final solution."

All human life was once regarded as having value, because even government saw it as "endowed by our Creator." This doctrine separates us from plants, microorganisms and animals.

Doctors once swore an oath, which reads in part: "I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan; and similarly I will not give a woman a pessary to cause an abortion."

Did Dr. Berwick, a fan of rationed care and the British National Health Service, ever take that oath? If he did, it appears he no longer believes it.

Do you see where this leads? First the prohibition against abortion is removed and "doctors" now perform them. Then the assault on the infirm and elderly begins.

Once the definition of human life changes, all human lives become potentially expendable if they don't measure up to constantly "evolving" government standards.

It will all be dressed up with the best possible motives behind it and sold to the public as the ultimate benefit.

The killings, uh, terminations, will take place out of sight so as not to disturb the masses who might have a few embers of a past morality still burning in their souls. People will sign documents testifying to their desire to die, and the government will see it as a means of "reducing the surplus population," to quote Charles Dickens.

When life is seen as having ultimate value, individuals and their doctors can make decisions about treatment that are in the best interests of patients. But when government is looking to cut costs as the highest good and offers to pay doctors to tell patients during their annual visits that they can choose to end their lives rather than continue treatment, that is more than the proverbial camel's nose under the tent.

That is the next step on the way to physician-assisted suicide and, if not stopped, government-mandated euthanasia.

It can't happen here? Based on what standard?

Yes it can happen in America, and it will if the new Republican class in Congress doesn't stop it.

Chilling, isn't it?

Thomas makes the point well that government run health care, with a bunch of insane progressives at the helm is dangerous beyond anyone's wildest dreams.

Please don't take our word for it though. Do you're own research. There is no shortage of horrific stories from the UK, the exact system Berwick wants to create here, the one he has “romantic feelings” for.

Once your research is done, hit the phones and hold the new 112th Congress's feet to the fire and make sure the repeal of ObamaCare is job one, and stays job one, until they are successful.

Your life may very well depend on it.

Sarah Palin’s Powerful Message: Let’s Get Things Done

On Wednesday, the 9oth anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, giving women the right to vote, Sarah Palin posted a powerful Facebook note that not only spells out her endorsement philosophy and her battle plan, but also takes time to answer a rather silly attempt by the death cult that is Emily’s List to make themselves relevant.

Sarah also talks about one of the first death panel decisions, one that will effect women with breast cancer.

Oh, and she makes some exciting new endorsements as well.

Let’s take a look at this:

Proud to Support More Women Leaders on the 90th Anniversary of Women’s Suffrage

Today marks the 90th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment which granted American women the right to vote. Words cannot express the depth of gratitude we owe to those brave feminist foremothers who struggled and sacrificed, endured imprisonment and ridicule, and fought fearlessly to grant future generations of American women a voice. We stand on their shoulders. Our opportunities are their legacy; our achievements, their monument.

In honor of their sacrifice and triumph, I’m proud to endorse another group of strong American women who continue this tradition of service to our country. Their willingness to make sacrifices in order to serve others and make this world a better place by empowering individual Americans deserves our support.

Regardless of whether the many candidates I’ve had the honor of endorsing win or lose this time around, I support them because they boldly shake things up in their primary races. They don’t just sit on the sidelines whining; instead, they are in the arena fighting for commonsense constitutional conservative solutions; and in their oft-characterized (and enormously challenging) "underdog" status, they all exemplify the qualities of a winner who will serve admirably and for all the right reasons.

This is what we admire most about Sarah Palin. She is a strong, decisive leader. She has a solid plan, and has the courage to execute it. She also confuses the hell out of the Beltway elite! The ruling class is all in a tizzy trying to figure out just what in the world Sarah is up to. She’s not following the script. Can’t have that!

It’s actually pretty simple. Sarah loves competition. She knows it makes everyone better. She also knows far too many elected officials are in "safe" seats. This is especially true in the House of Representatives. Through a combination of gerrymandering and showering money on their districts, many congresscritters have turned what was supposed to be honorable and TEMPORARY public service into lifetime employment.

Until we can pass a constitutional amendment establishing term limits for Congress, what Sarah Palin is doing is exactly what we need. Everyone running for office should have a primary challenge, even the good ones. It makes them work for it. Makes them address the issues, and it serves to remind them that it’s not "their seat" they are sitting in. It belongs to the people, and they only sit there by our consent.

Sarah has a level of influence few will ever enjoy, and She is one of those rare breeds that understands how to use it. Politicians are generally too timid, more worried about holding on to their own power, to actually change the game.

It’s obvious Sarah cares more about righting this nation, getting our Republic back on firm footing, than her own political gains, which ... somewhat ironically ... is exactly why her own political future is so bright.

So let us highlight some more winners.

Martha Roby served on the Montgomery City Council where she fought tax increases and worked hard to reduce government spending. She’s now running to represent Alabama’s 2nd Congressional District with a strong message of reform to get our country back on the right track. Please join me in supporting this hardworking, proud mother of two by visiting her website at www.martharoby.com and following her on Facebook and Twitter.

Renee Ellmers is a true citizen-politician running in North Carolina’s 2nd Congressional District. Having worked in the health care industry all her life, she joined countless other concerned Americans at the town hall meetings last summer to protest the disastrous Obamacare legislation. And she didn’t stop there!

Renee decided to join the ranks of patriotic mothers across the country who have the courage to run for office this year and fight to make sure our children have as bright a future as we were given. Renee has an uphill battle against a truly out of touch incumbent who made news not too long ago when he was caught on video assaulting a student who asked him if he supported the Obama agenda. Simple enough question, but this Democrat Congressman who’s been in Washington for 14 years turned violent rather than answer it.

My point with this is that Renee is willing to answer that question. She supports a commonsense conservative agenda which will put our country back on sound fiscal footing. Please visit Renee’s website at www.reneeforcongress.com and follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

We are very happy to see Sarah endorse Renee Ellmers. We endorsed her some time back. She has been working tirelessly, campaigning to replace a truly bad Congressman. Renee has the strong work ethic and common sense values to make a real impact in Washington.

Jackie Walorski will make an excellent representative of Indiana’s 2nd Congressional District, having been born and raised there and serving as a state representative for the past five years. She knows the people, she knows the issues that matter to them, and most importantly, she knows what she stands for – limited government, fiscal restraint, and a proper respect for our Constitution. The incumbent Democrat she’s running against has already launched his first attack ad against her, so I hope you’ll join me in standing with Jackie. She truly knows what public service means. Please visit her website at www.standwithjackie.com and follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

Vicky Hartzler is determined to shake things up in Missouri’s 4th Congressional District. She ran an underdog campaign to win her primary and is now determined to challenge a 17-term Democrat incumbent who has long lost touch with the good people of Missouri. Vicky grew up on her family farm and is still a farmer with her husband.

Her diverse background includes being a teacher, a state legislator, a grassroots organizer, a successful small business owner, and a proud mom of a wonderful daughter. She’s a dynamic commonsense conservative who is running to get our economy and long-term fiscal security back on track for her daughter and all of our children. Please visit this farmer’s daughter’s website and learn more about Vicky at www.vickyhartzler.com and follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

Pam Bondi and Brenna Findley are running for Attorney General in their states – Pam in Florida, and Brenna in Iowa. These are both bold, sharp, selfless women who will respect our Constitution, defend their states, protect our rights, and push back against any overreach of the federal government.

We desperately need these conservative leaders who won’t kowtow to the Obama administration’s big government overreach into our states, small businesses, families, and individual lives. Please visit Pam’s website at www.pambondi.com and Brenna’s at www.findleyforiowa.com.

Also on the state level, I would like to endorse Beth Chapman who is running for re-election as Secretary of State of Alabama and will continue to serve the good people there with distinction, integrity, and common sense. Let’s not forget that reform often begins with the tough work at the local level, and it’s important to get good conservative reformers working from the ground up. Please visit her website at www.bethchapman.com.

On this anniversary of women’s suffrage, let’s take a moment to be grateful for the diversity of the debate. Women don’t walk in lockstep with each other in politics, any more than men do. We should be proud of our ability to engage in a civil discussion and healthy debate. I know I am.

Unfortunately, I’ve recently come under attack for speaking up for sisters who seek to serve in public office. The sad part is that the attack comes from other sisters who happen to be on the other side of an issue that has been of great importance to American women from the time of our feminist foremothers, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, down to today. I’m speaking of the issue of life.

I feel compelled to offer some advice to our sisters who like to throw stones at those of us who respectfully disagree with them on this issue (and they sometimes refuse to even countenance the fact that some of us can call ourselves feminists and disagree with those who claim the mantle of "real feminists").

First, ladies, it’s hard to take a critic seriously when they lecture you wearing a bear suit. So, it’s difficult for me to drum up much outrage at this latest ad. But, really, lying about a sister while wearing an Ewok outfit is no way to honor our foremothers on the eve of the 90th anniversary of their victory. But, that aside, I’d love to know where you got those get-ups. Halloween is just around the corner, and Piper and Trig would look adorable as little grizzly bears.

We love how Sarah just hammers these idiots over at Emily’s List, a death cult that exists solely to promote abortions for all. We saw this idiotic video the other day, and frankly have been laughing so hard we simply hadn’t posted or commented:





All words fail to do this justice. Suffice it to say, people take one look at these clowns and can’t stop laughing. This bunch has really gone off the deep end. They can't compete in the marketplace of ideas, so they are forced to lie their asses off while dressed up in ridiculous outfits.

We simply LOVE that Sarah has this effect on her enemies. Exposes them for all to see, and reject.

How about a little pallet cleanser? Here’s the genuine article:





One final thing, Thomas over at Palin Promotions reports these Ewoks from the Emily’s List death cult are pure astroturf.

More from Sarah:

We face so many challenges today. We struggle to provide a better future for our children despite our economic downturn and a federal government intent on robbing from our children’s tomorrow to pay for politicians’ recklessness today.

We struggle against the Obama administration’s pending decision to remove a drug treatment for breast cancer based on cost considerations and what could be argued as a person’s "productivity in life" rather than medicine.

Death panels

We struggle against our reliance on foreign countries to provide necessary energy supplies while America’s plentiful energy resources sit idle, warehoused under locked-up lands, just as the unemployed sit and wait for government to allow them the opportunity to responsibly utilize our resources. We struggle to ensure that America is strong and vigilant so that our sons and daughters can live by the motto "Peace through Strength."

We may disagree about how to get there, but I’d like to think that we all want an America that is strong, prosperous, peaceful, and free.

So, ladies, let’s lead. In the words of that great American woman, Abigail Adams, "We have too many high sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them." Let’s get things done.

~ Sarah Palin

Accountability, national security, energy independence, and the American spirit. Sarah hits it all here. It’s no wonder Sherman Frederick wrote that "One Sarah Palin equals three Barack Obamas"!

Sarah is focused like a laser on helping Americans take back our government from the ruling class. She is the kind of leader we rarely see anymore. Intelligent and courageous, she is going where others fear to tread.

Bart Stupak: ObamaCare Is A Death Panel For Children

"If you pass the Stupak amendment, more children will be born, and therefore it will cost us millions more. That’s one of the arguments I’ve been hearing," Stupak says. "Money is their hang-up. Is this how we now value life in America? If money is the issue — come on, we can find room in the budget. This is LIFE we’re talking about."

If was any doubt that Sarah Palin’s warning about the death cult the democrat party has become since the ultra-radical progressive movement wrested control of the party from it’s more reasonable members, the above quotes should end that debate for all time.

Those words come from democrat Congressman Bart Stupak. Congressman Stupak is one of just a handful of principled democrats left in government, and a real hero.

Stupak, of course, is talking about abortion funding here. You see, like most Americans, Congressman Stupak believes in the sanctity of life. He is leading a small group of like minded democrats who oppose tax payer funded abortion.

When Sarah Palin wrote her famous blog post pointing out the reality that her beautiful son, because of his disability, and her parents, because of their age, would not fare well when they went before ObamaCare’s "death panels" she was dead on.




Of course, the radical progressives lost their minds, and tried to discredit Sarah with all kinds of caterwauling and slight of hand, but at the end of the day, all Americans will face ObamaCare’s "death panels" each and every time they need health care.

Look, I won’t rehash all of this over and over. Long time readers as well as newcomers can search my blog archives for complete analysis. But here are the highlights:

First of all, yes, there will be "death panels" and no, they won’t be called that. As we have talked about, ad nauseam, there will be "comparative medicine boards" where a group of faceless, nameless bureaucrats will decide who gets care and who doesn’t. This won’t be based on what will be best for the patient, these people won’t be weighing on the best medical practices for an individual.

You see, these "comparative medicine boards" will be made up of accountants, bean counters. Their only goal will be saving the government, which will be in complete control of health care, money. The easiest way to cut costs is to deny, or limit, coverage to those deemed "unworthy."

The ramifications from this twisted thinking are enormous.

Even worse, we all know that it is all but impossible to fire a government worker, once they are entrenched, and there will be almost no way to meaningfully appeal one of the poor decisions made by these government drones.

The bottom line is this: Once ObamaCare becomes law, the only thing that will matter to the government is shaving costs. Let’s face it, the government, because of entitlements already promised, is broke. Adding a couple of trillion dollars more, just to start, isn’t going to help matters a whole lot.

How will the government save money? By only treating the "productive" members of society, of course!

Rahm Emanuel’s brother, Dr Ezekiel Emanuel, Obama’s health care advisor, literally wrote the book that sets up, not only the "death panels" but the guidelines for who should be allowed to live, and who can be left to die.


Emanuel, vying for the title of "America’s Josef Mengele" wrote about the "complete lives system." This lays out the argument that only the most productive deserve the best health care. Every American should read this. It comes from a truly diseased mind, and represents the progressive movement that controls the democrat party completely. Read it all here.

Here is a chart that explains the thinking of the radical left:




As you see, once you get past 30 years of age, the government won’t think very much of your ability to be productive. How insane is that?

What is so glaring to me though, is just how vile and cold these progressive democrats are. Of course, progressives have pushed the mass murder of babies since the turn of the last century. Ever since Margaret Sanger worked to make abortion acceptable, to "cleanse" the earth of blacks and other "human weeds" (her words) progressives have been on board. Sanger’s Planned Parenthood is the holy church of the progressive movement. The right to murder babies is one thing this bunch will actually go to war over.

Even so, for the death cult to openly admit they want massive tax payer funded abortions, and less babies...LESS AMERICANS... to save money for this unconstitutional ObamaCare boondoggle is simply breathtaking.

Quite simply, fewer babies means fewer people ObamaCare will have to cover.

There is something inherently evil in this sort of thinking.

Congressman Stupack made the above comments as part of a lengthy interview with National Review Online. The interview paints a horrific picture of what is happening with the health care debate is a must read. Here’s some more:

Sitting in an airport, on his way home to Michigan, Rep. Bart Stupak, a pro-life Democrat, is chagrined. "They’re ignoring me," he says, in a phone interview with National Review Online. "That’s their strategy now. The House Democratic leaders think they have the votes to pass the Senate’s health-care bill without us. At this point, there is no doubt that they’ve been able to peel off one or two of my twelve. And even if they don’t have the votes, it’s been made clear to us that they won’t insert our language on the abortion issue."

According to Stupak, that group of twelve pro-life House Democrats — the "Stupak dozen" — has privately agreed for months to vote ‘no’ on the Senate’s health-care bill if federal funding for abortion is included in the final legislative language. Now, in the debate’s final hours, Stupak says the other eleven are coming under "enormous" political pressure from both the White House and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.). "I am a definite ‘no’ vote," he says. "I didn’t cave. The others are having both of their arms twisted, and we’re all getting pounded by our traditional Democratic supporters, like unions."

Read it all here.

The sanctity of life, the protection of the innocent, is what sets us apart from the lower species. It should alarm all people, worldwide, that this President and his Congress not only want to promote the destruction of human life, in a crass attempt to save money for a health care overhaul that the American people don’t even want, but want the American people to pay for it too!

It’s fantastically evil.

It’s also one more reason that ObamaCare must be defeated and the progressives run completely out of government for all time.

Sarah Palin: Midnight Votes, Backroom Deals, and a Death Panel: The Continuing Constitutional Crisis

More like Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil with this bunch!

At what should be the happiest, most wonderfully magical time of the year, a great evil has gripped the nation. The most corrupt Congress in our nation’s history in lockstep with the most corrupt and evil man to ever step foot in the Oval Office are committing acts that amount to no less than treason.

As we wrote earlier, in a piece entitled Death of the Republic, some serious maneuvering by Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid slipped some language into the already grossly unconstitutional Obamacare fiasco that would prohibit future Congresses from making changes or repealing key measures of this legislation.

As you can imagine, the outrage over this is through the roof nationwide.

Ironically, and well...even laughably, this provision that Reid and the other communists want to make sure is never, ever modified, or repealed, is the very death panel that the communists and their lap dogs in the corrupt, Obamacentric media have been working night and day, with almost superhuman effort, to convince the public that it never existed!!

It was even deemed "lie of the year" by the radical left wing media!

Sarah has now weighed in on the subject:

Midnight Votes, Backroom Deals, and a Death Panel

Last weekend while you were preparing for the holidays with your family, Harry Reid’s Senate was making shady backroom deals to ram through the Democrat health care take-over. The Senate ended debate on this bill without even reading it. That and midnight weekend votes seem to be standard operating procedures in D.C. No one is certain of what’s in the bill, but Senator Jim DeMint spotted one shocking revelation regarding the section in the bill describing the Independent Medicare Advisory Board (now called the Independent Payment Advisory Board), which is a panel of bureaucrats charged with cutting health care costs on the backs of patients – also known as rationing. Apparently Reid and friends have changed the rules of the Senate so that the section of the bill dealing with this board can’t be repealed or amended without a 2/3 supermajority vote. Senator DeMint said:

"This is a rule change. It’s a pretty big deal. We will be passing a new law and at the same time creating a senate rule that makes it out of order to amend or even repeal the law. I’m not even sure that it’s constitutional, but if it is, it most certainly is a senate rule. I don’t see why the majority party wouldn’t put this in every bill. If you like your law, you most certainly would want it to have force for future senates. I mean, we want to bind future congresses. This goes to the fundamental purpose of senate rules: to prevent a tyrannical majority from trampling the rights of the minority or of future congresses."

In other words, Democrats are protecting this rationing "death panel" from future change with a procedural hurdle. You have to ask why they’re so concerned about protecting this particular provision. Could it be because bureaucratic rationing is one important way Democrats want to "bend the cost curve" and keep health care spending down?

The Congressional Budget Office seems to think that such rationing has something to do with cost. In a letter to Harry Reid last week, CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf noted (with a number of caveats) that the bill’s calculations call for a reduction in Medicare’s spending rate by about 2 percent in the next two decades, but then he writes the kicker:

"It is unclear whether such a reduction in the growth rate could be achieved, and if so, whether it would be accomplished through greater efficiencies in the delivery of health care or would reduce access to care or diminish the quality of care."

Though Nancy Pelosi and friends have tried to call "death panels" the "lie of the year," this type of rationing – what the CBO calls "reduc[ed] access to care" and "diminish[ed] quality of care" – is precisely what I meant when I used that metaphor.

This health care bill is one of the most far-reaching and expensive expansions of the role of government into our lives. We’re talking about putting one-seventh of our economy under the government’s thumb. We’re also talking about something as intimate to our personal well-being as medical care.

This bill is so unpopular that people on the right and the left hate it. So why go through with it? The Senate is planning to vote on this on Christmas Eve. Why the rush? Though we will begin paying for this bill immediately, we will see no benefits for years. (That’s the trick that allowed the CBO to state that the bill won’t grow the deficit for the next ten years.)

The administration’s promises of transparency and bipartisanship have been broken one by one. This entire process has been defined by midnight votes on weekends, closed-door meetings with industry lobbyists, and payoffs to politicians willing to sell their principles for sweetheart deals. Is it any wonder that Americans are so disillusioned with their leaders in Washington?

This is about politics, not health care. Americans don’t want this bill. Americans don’t like this bill. Washington has stopped listening to us. But we’re paying attention, and 2010 is coming.

I love this woman! The radical communist scumbags in the media, Congress, and the White House keep saying she's crazy with the death panel talk, trying to intimidate her, and she comes right back and shoves it up their asses!

BOOM, taste my nightstick!

Sarah, of course, is correct here. This is all about politics and nothing about health care. This is an evil, wicked thing that is being visited on the American people as we get ready to celebrate the birth of Christ, our Lord and Savior.

At the end of her note, Sarah references an opinion piece from the Wall Street Journal that must be read:

Change Nobody Believes In

A bill so reckless that it has to be rammed through on a partisan vote on Christmas eve.
And tidings of comfort and joy from Harry Reid too. The Senate Majority Leader has decided that the last few days before Christmas are the opportune moment for a narrow majority of Democrats to stuff ObamaCare through the Senate to meet an arbitrary White House deadline. Barring some extraordinary reversal, it now seems as if they have the 60 votes they need to jump off this cliff, with one-seventh of the economy in tow.

Mr. Obama promised a new era of transparent good government, yet on Saturday morning Mr. Reid threw out the 2,100-page bill that the world's greatest deliberative body spent just 17 days debating and replaced it with a new "manager's amendment" that was stapled together in covert partisan negotiations. Democrats are barely even bothering to pretend to care what's in it, not that any Senator had the chance to digest it in the 38 hours before the first cloture vote at 1 a.m. this morning. After procedural motions that allow for no amendments, the final vote could come at 9 p.m. on December 24.

Even in World War I there was a Christmas truce.

The rushed, secretive way that a bill this destructive and unpopular is being forced on the country shows that "reform" has devolved into the raw exercise of political power for the single purpose of permanently expanding the American entitlement state. An increasing roll of leaders in health care and business are looking on aghast at a bill that is so large and convoluted that no one can truly understand it, as Finance Chairman Max Baucus admitted on the floor last week. The only goal is to ram it into law while the political window is still open, and clean up the mess later.

***

• Health costs. From the outset, the White House's core claim was that reform would reduce health costs for individuals and businesses, and they're sticking to that story. "Anyone who says otherwise simply hasn't read the bills," Mr. Obama said over the weekend. This is so utterly disingenuous that we doubt the President really believes it.

The best and most rigorous cost analysis was recently released by the insurer WellPoint, which mined its actuarial data in various regional markets to model the Senate bill. WellPoint found that a healthy 25-year-old in Milwaukee buying coverage on the individual market will see his costs rise by 178%. A small business based in Richmond with eight employees in average health will see a 23% increase. Insurance costs for a 40-year-old family with two kids living in Indianapolis will pay 106% more. And on and on.

These increases are solely the result of ObamaCare—above and far beyond the status quo—because its strict restrictions on underwriting and risk-pooling would distort insurance markets. All but a handful of states have rejected regulations like "community rating" because they encourage younger and healthier buyers to wait until they need expensive care, increasing costs for everyone. Benefits and pricing will now be determined by politics.

As for the White House's line about cutting costs by eliminating supposed "waste," even Victor Fuchs, an eminent economist generally supportive of ObamaCare, warned last week that these political theories are overly simplistic. "The oft-heard promise 'we will find out what works and what does not' scarcely does justice to the complexity of medical practice," the Stanford professor wrote.

• Steep declines in choice and quality. This is all of a piece with the hubris of an Administration that thinks it can substitute government planning for market forces in determining where the $33 trillion the U.S. will spend on medicine over the next decade should go.

This centralized system means above all fewer choices; what works for the political class must work for everyone. With formerly private insurers converted into public utilities, for instance, they'll inevitably be banned from selling products like health savings accounts that encourage more cost-conscious decisions.

Unnoticed by the press corps, the Congressional Budget Office argued recently that the Senate bill would so "substantially reduce flexibility in terms of the types, prices, and number of private sellers of health insurance" that companies like WellPoint might need to "be considered part of the federal budget."

With so large a chunk of the economy and medical practice itself in Washington's hands, quality will decline. Ultimately, "our capacity to innovate and develop new therapies would suffer most of all," as Harvard Medical School Dean Jeffrey Flier recently wrote in our pages. Take the $2 billion annual tax—rising to $3 billion in 2018—that will be leveled against medical device makers, among the most innovative U.S. industries. Democrats believe that more advanced health technologies like MRI machines and drug-coated stents are driving costs too high, though patients and their physicians might disagree.

"The Senate isn't hearing those of us who are closest to the patient and work in the system every day," Brent Eastman, the chairman of the American College of Surgeons, said in a statement for his organization and 18 other speciality societies opposing ObamaCare. For no other reason than ideological animus, doctor-owned hospitals will face harsh new limits on their growth and who they're allowed to treat. Physician Hospitals of America says that ObamaCare will "destroy over 200 of America's best and safest hospitals."

• Blowing up the federal fisc. Even though Medicare's unfunded liabilities are already about 2.6 times larger than the entire U.S. economy in 2008, Democrats are crowing that ObamaCare will cost "only" $871 billion over the next decade while fantastically reducing the deficit by $132 billion, according to CBO.

Yet some 98% of the total cost comes after 2014—remind us why there must absolutely be a vote this week—and most of the taxes start in 2010. That includes the payroll tax increase for individuals earning more than $200,000 that rose to 0.9 from 0.5 percentage points in Mr. Reid's final machinations. Job creation, here we come.

Other deceptions include a new entitlement for long-term care that starts collecting premiums tomorrow but doesn't start paying benefits until late in the decade. But the worst is not accounting for a formula that automatically slashes Medicare payments to doctors by 21.5% next year and deeper after that. Everyone knows the payment cuts won't happen but they remain in the bill to make the cost look lower. The American Medical Association's priority was eliminating this "sustainable growth rate" but all they got in return for their year of ObamaCare cheerleading was a two-month patch snuck into the defense bill that passed over the weekend.

The truth is that no one really knows how much ObamaCare will cost because its assumptions on paper are so unrealistic. To hide the cost increases created by other parts of the bill and transfer them onto the federal balance sheet, the Senate sets up government-run "exchanges" that will subsidize insurance for those earning up to 400% of the poverty level, or $96,000 for a family of four in 2016. Supposedly they would only be offered to those whose employers don't provide insurance or work for small businesses.

As Eugene Steuerle of the left-leaning Urban Institute points out, this system would treat two workers with the same total compensation—whatever the mix of cash wages and benefits—very differently. Under the Senate bill, someone who earned $42,000 would get $5,749 from the current tax exclusion for employer-sponsored coverage but $12,750 in the exchange. A worker making $60,000 would get $8,310 in the exchanges but only $3,758 in the current system.

For this reason Mr. Steuerle concludes that the Senate bill is not just a new health system but also "a new welfare and tax system" that will warp the labor market. Given the incentives of these two-tier subsidies, employers with large numbers of lower-wage workers like Wal-Mart may well convert them into "contractors" or do more outsourcing. As more and more people flood into "free" health care, taxpayer costs will explode.

• Political intimidation. The experts who have pointed out such complications have been ignored or dismissed as "ideologues" by the White House. Those parts of the health-care industry that couldn't be bribed outright, like Big Pharma, were coerced into acceding to this agenda. The White House was able to, er, persuade the likes of the AMA and the hospital lobbies because the federal government will control 55% of total U.S. health spending under ObamaCare, according to the Administration's own Medicare actuaries.

Others got hush money, namely Nebraska's Ben Nelson. Even liberal Governors have been howling for months about ObamaCare's unfunded spending mandates: Other budget priorities like education will be crowded out when about 21% of the U.S. population is on Medicaid, the joint state-federal program intended for the poor. Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman calculates that ObamaCare will result in $2.5 billion in new costs for his state that "will be passed on to citizens through direct or indirect taxes and fees," as he put it in a letter to his state's junior Senator.

So in addition to abortion restrictions, Mr. Nelson won the concession that Congress will pay for 100% of Nebraska Medicaid expansions into perpetuity. His capitulation ought to cost him his political career, but more to the point, what about the other states that don't have a Senator who's the 60th vote for ObamaCare?

***

"After a nearly century-long struggle we are on the cusp of making health-care reform a reality in the United States of America," Mr. Obama said on Saturday. He's forced to claim the mandate of "history" because he can't claim the mandate of voters. Some 51% of the public is now opposed, according to National Journal's composite of all health polling. The more people know about ObamaCare, the more unpopular it becomes.

The tragedy is that Mr. Obama inherited a consensus that the health-care status quo needs serious reform, and a popular President might have crafted a durable compromise that blended the best ideas from both parties. A more honest and more thoughtful approach might have even done some good. But as Mr. Obama suggested, the Democratic old guard sees this plan as the culmination of 20th-century liberalism.

So instead we have this vast expansion of federal control. Never in our memory has so unpopular a bill been on the verge of passing Congress, never has social and economic legislation of this magnitude been forced through on a purely partisan vote, and never has a party exhibited more sheer political willfulness that is reckless even for Washington or had more warning about the consequences of its actions.

These 60 Democrats are creating a future of epic increases in spending, taxes and command-and-control regulation, in which bureaucracy trumps innovation and transfer payments are more important than private investment and individual decisions. In short, the Obama Democrats have chosen change nobody believes in—outside of themselves—and when it passes America will be paying for it for decades to come.

This health care bill is a complete and total disaster for the nation. It destroys the Republic forever. In this writer’s opinion, anyone who puts their name to this legislation is guilty of treason and deserves the harshest penalties allowed by law.

One last thing, as both Sarah and myself mentioned death panels here, I just got an e-mail linking to a nice piece from the CATO Institute, a libertarian think tank, that backs up what we’ve been writing about here, and Sarah has been saying from the start:

Death Panels? Sarah Palin Was Right

Posted by Alan Reynolds

PolitiFact.com gave Sarah Palin their "Lie of the Year" award for warning on August 7 that the Democrat’s idea of "cost containment" implied rationing by "death panels."

The self-described fact-checking web site of the St. Petersburg Times claimed Palin was criticizing a provision in the House bill under which "Medicare would pay for doctors’ appointments for patients to discuss living wills, health care directives and other end-of-life issues."

The claim that Governor Palin confused one-on-one counseling between doctors and patients with any sort of "panel" was always ridiculous on its face. Indeed, that claim should itself have been a leading candidate for "Lie of the Year." Yet Palin’s critics kept on equating death panels with counseling throughout the year, as though they could not even begin to understand plain English.

In a column called "Reporting the Lies," Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein wrote, "Before Sarah Palin talked about death panels, no one knew about Sen. Johnny Isakson’s quiet crusade to persuade Medicare beneficiaries to adopt living wills."

Adopting a living will requires a lawyer, not a doctor, so there must have been more to the crusade than just that. There is some reason to wonder if the crusaders intended to promote penny-pinching advice like President Obama’s famous suggestion that perhaps grandma should skip the expensive operation and take a cheap pain pill instead (generic, of course).

In any case, no single physician’s advice involves any panel, deathly or otherwise. Palin was clearly worried about rationing by some government-appointed group, panel or board of experts — such the (currently) powerless panel that recently suggested fewer and later breast exams, or the Senate bill’s potentially more lethal Independent Payment Advisory Board

The shameless hoax that Palin had confused individual consulting with rationing by a panel was repeated endlessly. By November, the Washington Post was treating this obvious canard as an established fact: "Proposed health-care reform legislation includes a provision that allows Medicare to pay for "end-of-life" counseling for seniors and their families who request it. The provision — which Sarah Palin erroneously described as "death panels" for seniors — nearly derailed President Obama’s health-care initiative."

What Palin wrote about death panels clearly had nothing to do with counseling or with any other specifics in seminal House bill. What she wrote was: "Government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course."

How could anyone believe Palin’s sensible comment about rationing was, in reality, a senseless fear of counseling? To say so was no mistake; it was an oft-repeated big lie.

Rather than even mentioning the House bill, Palin linked to an interesting speech by "Rep. Michele Bachmann [which] highlighted the Orwellian thinking of the president’s health care advisor, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of the White House chief of staff."







Dr. Emmanuel’s varied and murky remarks about using panels of experts (like himself) to ration health care are less clear or less candid than those of another bioethicist, Peter Singer of Princeton. Singer’s article, "Why We Must Ration Health Care," was a cover feature in The New York Times Magazine on July 15 — shortly before Palin took the opposing side of this issue.

Singer’s argument (about an expensive anti-cancer drug) is that, "If there is any point at which you say, ‘No, an extra six months [of life] isn’t worth that much,’ then you think that health care should be rationed." But the question itself is rhetorical trickery, sophistry. Even if there was certain knowledge about life expectancy with or without some treatment (which is never true), Singer has no right to any opinion about how much an extra six months of my life is worth (and vice-versa) unless he’s paying the bills.

But that, of course, is what makes the proposed expansion of insurance subsidies and Medicaid so ominous. Just as federal politicians imagine that a small minority stake in some bank entitles them to override all other stockholders when it comes to executive pay, federal politicians would surely claim that even small subsidies for anyone’s health insurance entitle them to, as Singer put it, set "limits on which treatments should be paid for." And those politicians would surely appoint panels of experts as cover when some life-saving procedure, device or drug was ruled-out for those with insufficient quality-adjusted years left to live.

Singer wrote, quite correctly, that in "Medicare, Medicaid and hospital emergency rooms, health care is rationed by long waits. . . [and] low payments to doctors that discourage some from serving public patients." [emphasis added]

Pending health care bills would make such government-mandated scarcity of health care much worse. There would be massive shifting of money away from Medicare toward Medicaid. But the extra Medicaid money would be spread around more thinly. States would cut benefits to the poor in order to accommodate millions of new, less-poor people lured into Medicaid, at least half of whom (7 or 8 million by my estimate) currently have employer-provided health insurance.

The Senate health bill supposedly intends to slash Medicare payment rates for physicians by 21% next year and more in future years, with permanent reductions in payments to other medical services too. It would also establish an Independent Payment Advisory Board which would be empowered to make deeper cuts which Congress could reject only with considerable difficulty. If that’s not quite a "death panel" it would surely not be pro-life in its impact.

The Congressional Budget Office says, "It is unclear whether such a reduction in the growth rate could be achieved, and if so, whether it would . . . reduce access to care or diminish the quality of care."

Actually, it’s clear enough that the proposed Medicare cuts won’t be achieved, but that efforts in that direction will nonetheless reduce access to care and diminish its quality. The government can’t boost demand and cut prices without creating excess demand. And that, in turn, means rationing by longer waiting lines and by panels (rationing boards) making life-or death decisions for other people.

As Sarah Palin predicted, "Government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course."

As the CATO Institute points out so well, Sarah is right, as usual. The chronically ill, old folks, and, of course, the disabled are royally screwed here. Evil men like Dr Ezekiel Emanuel have already written the book on these death panels, and it's all based on who is deemed "productive to society." This is as evil as it gets. This is a few psychopaths playing God with Americans' lives.

Below is the original poster the modified one above came from. In Nazi Germany, the government worked overtime to convince it's people that some lives just weren't worth living and should be extinguished. They even went so far as to point out how much keeping what they termed "useless eaters" alive cost each and every German. They got this thinking from the American "progressive" movement, by the way.




Sarah Palin brings this home to me, through her beautiful son Trig. Thanks to the American "progressive" (liberal) movement and immoral groups like Planned Parenthood, a group started by Klu Klux Klanner Margaret Sanger, as a way of Negro population control...she called blacks "human weeds"...,we now abort fully 90 percent of all Downs Syndrome babies.









As our friend Adrienne Ross points out: "Trig is a testimony to the beauty and value of all God's children." There is simply no way you can look at this beautiful boy and not see that he is a blessing and a true gift. He brings much joy to his family, and inspiration to other families with Downs Syndrome children.

It breaks one's heart that so many children like Trig never are allowed to experience life because the "progressives" are carrying out a jihad against all children with disabilities. They are attempting to desensitize and dehumanize all of mankind.

Kim Priestap has a very revealing piece on Dr Death, entitled Ezekiel Emanuel: Deny Coverage to Elderly and Disabled for the Greater Good that is a must read.

Sorry to be so long winded here, but lets face it, this is the most sweeping, and the most dangerous legislation ever proposed by Congress and a President. This is pure and absolute evil. Nothing less. The men and women who have signed on to this destruction of America, and her peoples need to be dealt with in the harshest manner humanly possible. They are all traitors.

There was one bit of sanity in Congress though as freshman Alabama Congressman Parker Griffith did something very rare, he switched parties. From Ed Morrissey over at Hot Air:

Usually one does not see Congressmen or Senators flipping parties to join the minority. However, Politico’s Josh Kraushaar has a scoop that Blue Dog Democrat Parker Griffith of Alabama, a freshman in Congress, has seen enough of Nancy Pelosi’s leadership. He will join Republicans in a move that has far more symbolic than substantive impact — for now.

This is a fascinating story. It is rare to see folks switch parties, and switching to the minority party is virtually unheard of. This is a very strong statement about the state of the democrat/communist party.

Congressman Griffith is a doctor BTW. I imagine that had a lot to do with his switching parties and fighting so hard against all of this. I know from speaking with my doctors and their staff, that this pending evil is not wanted in any way, shape, or form.

Sarah was quick to welcome Congressman Griffith aboard via Twitter:

Congratulations Alabama!And all Americans concerned about Capitol Hill's current agenda;Rep Parker Griffith just did the right thing.Welcome

We are proud to welcome him to the fight as well.

I want to leave everyone with this reminder from the Great Ronald Reagan on the dangers of allowing government to take over health care and what their real end game is:

Sarah Palin’s Cancer Screening Concerns, Death Panels Alive And Doing Fine In The UK

Cancer is a vicious killer, and one that hits home for me, having lost my dad at an early age, and several close friends to the dreaded disease. The good news about cancer though, is through innovation and research, by top scientists, survival rates have soared.

One of the really important developments that have lead directly to more cancer survivors is early detection through screenings. But if the communists in Congress, and Obama have their way, this will come to a grinding halt.

You see, screening costs money. Not only do those tests cost money, but so do the follow up tests as well treatments. Many cancer treatments are highly successful, but highly expensive, as well.

One thing we know, for sure, when the federal government unconstitutionally takes over health care, there will be a finite amount of money to be spent on caring for the sick. To make these dollars stretch, expensive treatments and many tests will have to be stopped, or postponed. Decisions to do this will be made by unelected and unaccountable boards of so-called experts, or as Sarah Palin has labeled them, death panels.

These "experts" won’t necessarily all be doctors, but they will be bean counters.

We’re seeing a couple of issues already, and ObamaCare hasn’t even passed. The first is in breast cancer screening. The U.S. Preventative Services Task Force has made the recommendation that we no longer do mammograms at age 40. It is their idea that 50 is the proper age to start, and those self exams? Forget about ‘em!

From Breast Cancer.com:

The standard schedule of starting screening mammograms at age 40 may soon change, and breast cancer prevention strategies would be improved, according to the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force. Women may not begin to have screening mammograms until they are 50, and they may cease doing breast self-exams altogether, if the newest guidelines for breast cancer screening from the USPSTF are widely adopted. In Canada and the United Kingdom, 50 is already the age at which screening mammography is begun. These new guidelines may have an impact on what health insurance providers will pay for.

The U.S. Preventative Services Task Force, a branch of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has updated its recommendations for breast cancer screening. After using computer simulation models to project the results of different screening strategies, the task force said that they recommend the changes because they want to cut down on the "harms" and risks of testing, which they believe do not outweigh the benefits. They cite too many false positives, unnecessary biopsies, anxiety, or in short, overdiagnosis. Their November 2009 guidelines suggest:

* Women between 40 and 49 years old should not be having routine screening mammograms. Instead, they say that women should make an informed decision about screening mammography before 50, and weigh their potential risks and benefits with their doctors.


* Women who are 50 to 74 years old should be having a screening mammogram every other year, because the risk for breast cancer increases as you age.


* Women over 74 years old are not given specific guidelines about routine screening mammography - as their risk of death from heart disease and other ailments is greater than from breast cancer.


* Women of any age should not be taught to do breast self-exams, but BSE is not forbidden.


* Clinical breast exams will not be required before screening mammograms, because CBE appears to add no benefit to the information gained from a mammogram.

In 2002, the USPSTF guidelines for breast cancer screening stated that women 40 and older should have annual mammograms to screen for breast cancer. The American Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute have also agreed on screening mammograms for women ages 40 to 70. The The American Cancer Society will maintain their recommendation to start screening mammograms at age 40.

Mammography is not a perfect tool and neither is a breast self-exam. But it seems odd to take away these two tools, which we have been told are important, for women aged 40 - 49. This same battle has been fought before, in the mid-1990s. It was resolved by 1997, when the National Cancer Institute agreed to support mammograms for women in their forties.

In an editorial published in Annals of Internal Medicine, Dr. Karla Kerlikowske says that the focus should shift from screening and early detection to breast cancer prevention interventions. But for this to be effective, Dr. Kerlikowske says that we need a better risk model, more research on prevention, and standards "for routinely assessing risk factors, calculating breast cancer risk, and reporting risk to women and providers in an easily understandable format." Couldn't we wait, until more research has been done, before we change screening guidelines? Won't women be more at risk for ten years of their lives, if they are not having a mammogram and doing their self-exams?

This sentence hit me like a ton of bricks, just because of the wording:

Women of any age should not be taught to do breast self-exams, but BSE is not forbidden.

Are you kidding me? "BSE" stands for breast self examination. And this government death panel is telling women they shouldn’t learn how to do them, but are not "forbidden" from learning how and doing them. How generous of them.

That one word, "forbidden," when talking about what one can and cannot do with their own body, in the privacy of their own home, tells you all you need to know about the entire process that is coming down the pike, and the mentality of those who will sit in judgement on these death panels.

You will notice too, that in making this recommendation, this death panel references the UK and Canada as their model of inspiration. Two counties that have such great health care, because of government control, that those who can, leave the country for treatment of anything more complex than a head cold.

From Deroy Murdock at National Review Online:

Compare America’s system with Canada’s and Great Britain’s. The latter are single-payer, universal health-care programs in which medical treatment is free at the point of service (Yay!), although citizens eventually pay for it through higher taxes (Boo!).

According to Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development data, there were 26.6 MRI machines in the U.S. per million people in 2004. In Canada, there were 4.9 such devices, while Britain enjoyed 5. For every 100,000 Americans, 2006 saw 436.8 receive angioplasties. Among Canadians, that figure was 135.9, while only 93.2 Britons per 100,000 got that cardiac procedure.

Maybe that’s why, among American men, heart-attack deaths in 2004 stood at 53.8 per 100,000. In Canada, 58.3 men per 100,000 died of cardiac arrest, while coronaries buried 69.5 of every 100,000 British males.

The fatality rate for breast cancer, according to the National Center for Policy Analysis and Lancet Oncology, is 25 percent in the U.S., 28 percent in Canada, and 46 percent in Great Britain.

Among those diagnosed with prostate cancer, 19 percent die of the disease in America. In Canada, 25 percent of such patients succumb to this disease. And in Great Britain — an Anglophone NATO member and America’s closest ally — prostate cancer kills 57 percent of those who contract it. That is triple the American fatality rate.

Here’s an interesting chart, for those who like charts:

…………………………………..........US……… Canada………..UK..............

CT Scanners.(per 1MIL)….....................32.2………..10.7…….…….7

MRI machhine(per 1MIL)…....................26.6…..........4.9……….….5

Angioplasties(per100K)…..................…..436.8……...135.9……....93.2

Bypasses(per100K)…..............................84.5…….....72.7…..…..43.4

Male Heart MI death(per 100K)..................53.8…..…..58.3…...…..96.5

Female Heart MI death(per100K)…............29.5…...….28.1.…..…..33.4

Breast Cancer fatality%)……………...........25……......28…………...46

Prostate Cancer fatality(%)…………….......19…..…….25….………..57

Male all cancer fatality(%)…………….........33.7…...…47…………..56

Female all cancer fatality(%)………............37.1……..42………......44.2

Notice, there is a serious lack of medical equipment in Canada and the UK, specifically, MRI machines and CT scanners, equipment that American hospitals use extensively on a daily basis to save lives.

You will also notice that breast cancer is slightly more likely to kill you in Canada, and probably will kill you in jolly old England. And if you are a guy, you really don’t want to live in either Canada or the UK. In the UK prostate cancer is death sentence for most.






Sarah has weighed in again on this craziness, as now the death panels are recommending changes in other screenings:

Cancer Screenings - Rational Advice or Rationed Care?

Today at 1:10am

It was a breath of fresh air to finally hear the Democrats admit to their health care bill as "a lot of show and tell and razzmatazz," (see Democrat talking points, in reference to my book). At least now we’re all on the same page when discussing the problems with their monstrous government health care "reform" plan.

Now, tonight, more disconcerting news – the New York Times reports of new guidelines to scale back cervical cancer screenings. The recommendation from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists comes on the heels of another recommendation to limit breast cancer screenings with mammograms. There are many questions unanswered for me, but one which immediately comes to mind is whether costs have anything to do with these recommendations. The current health care debate elicits great concern because of its introduction of socialized medicine in America and the inevitable rationed care. We need to carefully watch this debate as it coincides with Capitol Hill’s debate and determine whether we are witnessing the early stages of that rationed care before the Senate bill is rushed through as well.

Another question is why these women-focused cancers are seemingly receiving substandard attention at a time when proactive health and fitness should be the message. Every woman should encourage rigorous debate to ensure that our collective voices are heard. We are paying attention to Washington’s health care proposals, and we want to hear what helps patients the most.

We need answers: Is early screening not saving lives? Why do doctors’ groups disagree? Did costs play any role in these decisions to change the recommendations on breast and cervical cancer screenings? We need assurances that everything we’ve heard this week about fewer tests for women’s cancers is a result of patient-focused research and providing the best care for the right reasons, and not because of bureaucratic pressure to control costs.

Obviously the first thought that comes to mind when hearing of these new recommendations from bureaucratic panels is "rationed care." It’s fair – and healthy – to ask if that’s what Washington has in mind with a government-controlled takeover of a health care system.

- Sarah Palin

The rationing of health care is the only way ObamaCare will work. Again, there will be a finite amount of money budgeted to the nation’s health care. Our "benevolent leaders" will "generously allow" only a certain amount of the money they confiscate from us to actually be used to keep us in good health.

I mean, look, some of this money is desperately needed for more important projects, like keeping ACORN and SEIU in the "community organizing" business. How else will the

democrat/communists keep the glorious people’s revolution alive?

I promised you more still on death panels. (Like this ain’t enough!) Here’s an alarming report from the BBC:

Liver cancer drug 'too expensive'

A drug that can prolong the lives of patients with advanced liver cancer has been rejected for use in the NHS in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) said the cost of Nexavar - about £3,000 a month - was "simply too high".

But Macmillan Cancer Support said the decision was "a scandal".

More than 3,000 people are diagnosed with liver cancer every year in the UK and their prognosis is generally poor.

Only about 20% of patients are alive one year after diagnosis, dropping to just 5% after five years.

'Disappointed'

Campaigner Kate Spall, who won the right to have two months of treatment for her mother, Pamela Northcott, in 2007, said it had prolonged her life by four-and-a-half "precious" months.

It had allowed her 58-year-old mother, from Dyserth in Denbighshire, "closure" and "peace", she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"The problem in Mum's case is it took a year for me to fight for the treatment, so we'll never know how well she could have done," she said.

Prof Jonathan Waxman: "I'm very unhappy about the way these decisions are made"

"We had extra time, which was very precious to us all, her symptoms were helped greatly. And, more importantly, for Mum it was a case of getting some closure and peace.

"The psychological feeling when a group of people decide that you cannot have a treatment that can help you is really devastating."

Cancer Research UK's chief clinician Peter Johnson said the decision was "enormously frustrating" because there was no doubt about the drug's effectiveness.

He said: "There's no alternative treatment and there are no other places for people to go. It is expensive, but the only issue is cost and the number of patients affected are quite few - there's probably only six or seven hundred patients a year."

Nexavar - also known as sorafenib - had already been rejected in Scotland, despite studies showing it could extend the life of a liver cancer patient by up to six months.

'Devastating disease'

The Scottish Medicines Consortium ruled that "the manufacturer's justification of the treatment's cost in relation to its benefit was not sufficient to gain acceptance".

Andrew Dillon, chief executive of NICE, agreed: "The price being asked by [the manufacturer] Bayer is simply too high to justify using NHS money which could be spent on better value cancer treatments."

And the group's clinical and public health director, Peter Littlejohns, added the drug was considered "just too expensive" by its advisory committees.

Nexavar is routinely offered to cancer patients elsewhere in the world, and Mike Hobday, head of campaigns at Macmillan Cancer Support, said he was "extremely disappointed" at NICE's decision.

"It is a scandal that the only licensed drug proven to significantly prolong the lives of people with this devastating disease has been rejected, leaving them with no treatment options," he said.

Alison Rogers, chief executive of the British Liver Trust, said: "The decision to reject a treatment for advanced liver cancer is a huge blow for patients.

"This is a treatment to extend life for people where all other options have run out.

"It is particularly hard for people with liver cancer given that treatments for many other advanced cancers have been given the green light by NICE.

"People with liver disease often face stigma and discrimination and sadly this decision feels like a further disadvantage to them."

Earlier this year, a government review of end-of-life treatment said NICE should give extra weight to drugs that could extend a patient's life.

The Department of Health said NICE was not ignoring that recommendation, but the NHS could not just pay for any drug at any cost.

The UK is a very totalitarian system when it comes to patient care. The system also strips it’s citizens of many basic liberties and freedoms we take for granted in America. As I wrote in an earlier piece, not only do they have death panels in the UK, these government monstrosities have evolved into what I am calling "lifestyle panels."

I had included this from the Brussels Journal:

Kerry Robertson, 17, and Mark McDougall, 25, haven’t broken any law. But they are on the run from the authorities, and from their home in Dunfermline, Scotland.

Less than eight weeks ago the couple were excitedly planning their wedding. They had booked church ceremony for the 5th of September, a Saturday. She had already chosen and bought her wedding dress. They had bought the rings, and invited 20 guests. Two days before the big day, however, social services told them that their wedding would have to be cancelled. Fife Council wrote a letter, objecting to the marriage, to Dunfermline Register Office, who consequently refused to marry the couple.

Social services claim Kerry cannot understand what marriage means, because she has learning difficulties. They are mild, it seems. She is able to read and write, and is going to college to "catch up." Her partner Mark told the Daily Mail: "'I didn't even know she had learning difficulties until we'd been dating for two months."

Kerry is 29 weeks pregnant – with a boy they have named Ben. "Although Ben isn't born yet," Kerry says, "I already love my baby and know I will be a good mum. Mark and I talk to him inside me every day and tell him we love him. We've already bought him clothes and my cousin, who recently had a baby, has handed down a beautiful crib for him."

Social services say that Kerry – a college student – isn’t intelligent enough to bring up her child with Mark. They plan to allow the couple only a few hours with Ben after he is born. Then Ben will be taken from Kerry and Mark, and placed with foster parents.

I went on to add:

Let’s think about this for a minute.

Here are a couple of young kids in love. They were excited and planning a nice wedding, when all of a sudden, a Big Government drone steps in and through their own "expertise" decides they are not fit to be parents because the girl is a little "slow."

Under those guidelines, if adopted in America, would Barack Obama be allowed to keep his kids? I mean this is the guy that thought he had traveled to 57 states on the campaign, and had 1 or 2 to go. Would that make Obama a little "slow" in the eyes of the almighty bureaucrat?

Can you imagine?

My point? Allowing the government control over anything can be dangerous, even for the most noble of reasons. It’s why our founders wrote a Constitution that was design to allow the several states and all citizens, great freedoms, while restraining the federal government. In the past 100 years we have seen a rapid shift to the exact opposite, as "progressives" both democrat/communists and Republicans have grabbed more control, and wrestled many freedoms from the several states, and the American citizen.

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.

____Ronald Reagan

All of these new "recommendations" that are suddenly coming down from these faceless panels are the canary in the coal mine for what is to come if we allow Obama and his radical communist agenda to succeed., if we allow ObamaCare to become law.

This is can all be stopped, but you must be willing to put every single ounce of effort you can muster to achieve that goal. We are at war in this nation. Oh, it’s not a shooting war, but it is a war nonetheless. We are war with radical communists who want to "fundamentally change" America into something it was never meant to be.

It’s a failed prescription. Communism, socialism, Statism, whatever "ism" you want to call this evil, has destroyed nations world wide every time it has been tried. Just because this group of radicals think they are the ones smart enough to make it work doesn’t make it so!

The surest way to lose most, if not all, of your most fundamental freedoms and rights is to allow the Obama regime to continue along this path of certain destruction.

As I write this on an early Friday afternoon, I realize the U.S. Senate is about to vote on a 2000 plus page piece of liberty destroying garbage that absolutely no one has read, or understands.

This multi-trillion dollar affair will raise taxes, destroy our quality of health care, and give the government powers that will, for all practical purposes, void our Constitution, completely usurp it.

Speaking of the Constitution, it only took four sheets of paper to write the most significant and enduring political document in the history all mankind. Our Constitution is the envy of the world, and the absolute blueprint for the freedom of all mankind. Four sheets of paper.

By contrast, the lunacy that is our current radical communist controlled Congress, has produced bills in the House and Senate of a combined total of nearly 4100 pages. Incredible.





Here’s a good time to remind everyone the words of the Great Ronald Reagan on the dangers of allowing these radicals to take over our lives through health care. This is from the successful Operation Coffee Cup Campaign against socialized medicine in 1961:







Isn’t it time that all of America listens to one of our greatest leaders in history?

You can read more about the horrors in Canada and the United Kingdom here and here.