Gryffn Musings

We are getting more and more information from those who are actually reading that monstrosity of a health care bill. The Senate bill has tons of taxes on medical devices.  They seem to think that we regular folks don't deserve such frivolous luxuries as pacemakers, stents, artificial heart valves, defibrillators, automated wheelchairs, mechanized artificial limbs, replacement hips and knees, surgical gurneys, laparoscopic equipment, and the like. They are taxing them!  Like stuff isn't expensive enough?  And then they have the nerve to point fingers at insurance companies? Who is really taking advantage of the sick here?

And here is the evolution of this dumbass idea…

The medical device industry had its day at the White House as did the insurance industry, the drug makers, the nurses, and the doctors.  Each group was bombarded with demands for voluntary cuts in their health care costs and support Obama's proposed changes — in return for assurances that Congress would not impose deeper cuts (or, in the case of the doctors, that it would actually rescind cuts already scheduled under current statutes).

But, unlike all these other groups, the medical device industry refused the deal. This posture enraged the tyrants in the White House who vowed to punish the industry with cuts imposed by Congress.  The result was a decision by the revenue-hungry Senate Finance Committee to extract billions in funds from the industry.

The legislation does not work like a sales or excise tax.  Rather it follows the model of the punitive tobacco settlement imposed on cigarette companies in the 90s.  It assesses an industry-wide payment which firms must make in proportion to their market share.  It bars the them from passing along the cost of the assessment by charging more for certain basic products, but allows them to raise the price of others to raise the funds for the fee.

So, the result will be that virtually every piece of advanced surgical equipment will be subject to a price increase to meet the levy from Washington. No matter that these devices often make the difference between life and death and that, in effect, taxing them raises the cost of vital treatments.  The vengeful White House will have its pound of flesh from the medical device industry for daring to be independent and to refuse to knuckle down to Administration pressure!

….and meanwhile, 14 Americans died today in Afghanistan. You would think he would get off the pot and send backup over there.

If you are very young, or middle-aged to old, you die. No bull, just facts.

Ezekiel Emanuel (above left)) believes doctors try too hard to apply the Hippocratic Oath to everyone as equally as possible, which is what drives up costs.What?

Instead — Emanuel says we need to ration basic, guaranteed care to only those who can fully participate in society.

Uh, yeah, and WHO determines that?

He writes: "Savings 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).

So, according to Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, health care advisor to President Obama, the elderly with dementia and the young who have neurological disorders should be sacrificed for the common good.

Which concentration camp did this "doctor" crawl out from? Is this looking more like Hitler now?

All this rhetoric (AKA LIES) that no one will be denied services are bull. Besides the fact that Obama wants a single-payer system, and the two most prominent such systems already deny care – EUGENICS! – his top people want this rationing. Why are the blindfolds on?

This is the system they want for us! So if you are a baby or over 55, you are nothing and you do not warrant health care.

England and Canada already deny care to some patients to save money. But what the Emanuel brothers intend for us, is even worse. No bull, just facts.

We, the patients and the loved ones of patients want our doctors to do everything possible, right? That so-called doctor does not! He wants doctors to forget needs of their patients and consider social justice, such as whether the money could be better spent on somebody else.

Many doctors are horrified by this notion – as YOU should be too!

Emanuel, however, believes that "communitarianism" should guide decisions on who gets care. He says medical care should be reserved for the non-disabled, not given to those "who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens . . . An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia" (Hastings Center Report, Nov.-Dec. ’96).

Obese patients cannot get bypass or other care because they are deemed not as worthy. Where would you fall into that scale of worthiness? How about your mother or grandmother? Or your child with autism?

Translation: Don’t give much care to a grandmother with Parkinson’s or a child with cerebral palsy.

He explicitly defends discrimination against older patients: "Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination; every person lives through different life stages rather than being a single age. Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years" (Lancet, Jan. 31).

So, people, the questions is very simple – is that what you want?

Fight Back! STOP THEM

Deadly Doctors