Let Them Eat Painkillers!

No wonder Obama's poll numbers are sinking.  The more he talks off the cuff about healthcare, the more he sounds callous and arrogant, like another famous failed figure from history - Marie "Let them eat cake!" Antoinette.

In this exchange, the questioner's mother needed a pacemaker or she would die, but she was 100 years old, and the arrhythmia specialist declined to do it because of her age.  He made that decision like a government bureaucrat would, by reading her file rather than seeing her. When the arrhythmia specialist actually saw her in person - at her doctor's insistence - he changed his mind about the level of risk and went ahead. As the questioner put it, he did so when he saw "her joy of life." Here is Obama's answer:

Question: "Outside the medical criteria for prolonging the life of someone who is elderly, is there any consideration that can be given for a certain spirit, a certain joy of living, or quality of life; or is it just a medical cut off at a certain age?"

President Obama: "Yeah, we're not gonna solve every difficult problem in terms of end of life care. A lot of that is going to have to be we as a culture and a society making better decisions within our own families and for ourselves. But what we can do is make sure that at least some of the waste that exists in the system that is not making anybody's mom better that is loading up on additional tests or additional drugs that the evidence shows is not going to improve care, that at least we can let doctors know and your mom know that, you know what, maybe this isn't gonna help. Maybe you're better off not taking the surgery, but taking the painkiller."

I think people are turning on him the more they hear how he really thinks.  It is one thing to express empathy with other people's money and cry about the uninsured, but it is something else to hear him say that your grannie should die rather than receive care.  Is this America, where you would no longer be free to take care of your ailing mother?  Or is it Amerika? 

No wonder his Presidency is beginning to unravel. 

This is not an isolated incident.  Consider this answer:

Right now, doctors a lot of times are forced to make decisions based on the fee payment schedule that’s out there. So if they’re looking and you come in and you’ve got a bad sore throat or your child has a bad sore throat or has repeated sore throats, the doctor may look at the reimbursement system and say to himself, “You know what? I make a lot more money if I take this kid’s tonsils out.”

Oh my. Now some faceless bureaucrat will refuse to let you take your child's tonsils out.  And guess what - pediatricians in general do not do the operation; they refer it to a surgeon and receive no kickback.  Obama's comment is not only insulting to pediatricians, nea appalling, it is profoundly ignorant:

PBHO's pediatrician scenario just goes to show that he's either very uninformed about the issues or trying to mislead the public on the issues.

The pediatrician stands to make more money NOT referring the kid to an ENT. He makes more money by continuing to see the kid in the office every other week because he isn't getting better. If he refers the kid to an ENT and the ENT yanks out the tonsils, the kid gets better and stops coming in to the ped's office for repeated visits.

Given his callous ignorance on the doctor-patient relationship, maybe it is no surprise that he is delusional on costs.  He keeps claiming that we can increase coverage, subsidize care, and lower overall spending on medical.  This is so far out of the realm of reality that you must wonder at his economic illiteracy - and shake your head over how far the mainstream media has fallen to keep shilling for him on this point. 

The answer is not to add even more third-party subsidy to healthcare, but to increase incentives in the doctor-patient relationship for cost consciousness.  It is nuts to fantasize that a government program will contain costs.  RomneyCare in Mass. is already grossly over-budget and considered a failure by the Boston Globe.  Absurdly, the paper goes on to shill for ObamaCare.  Are we in the Twilight Zone yet? 

The following chart says it all: medicare has risen much more per patient than private care.  The gap is now in the range of $200B a year - more than enough to give every uninsured who cannot afford health insurance (a number estimated at around 8 - 12 million Americans) subsidized health insurance with $170B left over to reduce the deficit.

Comments

[fever symptoms]

When tonsils are infected, they will look redder than usual and swollen.

* A grayish-white or yellowish coating may cover part or all of the tonsils.

* The surrounding area of the throat near the tonsils also may appear red and inflamed. There may be swelling at the sides of the neck as the lymph nodes grow larger while producing cells to fight the infection.

[tonsils symptoms]

Treatment of tonsillitis aims to relieve its symptoms. Surgery is very rarely required.

* It is not always necessary to identify the exact cause of tonsillitis before beginning treatment, but it generally is advisable to at least determine whether the infection is due to streptococcal bacteria, so that appropriate treatment can be started. A "rapid strep" test is now available. If the test is positive, it is almost certain that your child's tonsillitis is caused by streptococcus bacteria. If the test is negative, a traditional laboratory culture will be needed.

* Tonsillitis caused by streptococcus bacteria must be treated with penicillin or other suitable antibiotics in order to prevent the development of rheumatic fever A disease that is caused by the body's reaction to infection by a bacterium known as group A beta hemolytic streptococcus. The disease can cause inflammation of the joints and damage to the heart.. Penicillin is the best drug to use, unless your child has an allergy to it. It should be given by mouth for at least 10 days. Taking penicillin for shorter time periods may not completely clear up the infection.

[Wosen]

Liberals tend to believe that tgohaulh there are cyclical changes in climate, those changes are being compounded by pollution from the burning of fossil fuels. Science, for the most part, agrees. Conservatives seem to believe that global warming is caused by god and it's nothing to worry about. They want to keep using oil and coal until there is not a bit of it left and THEN they will look into alternative energy solutions.

[Edo]

I think global wrmiang is caused by humans, I base such thoughts on the research and conclusions made by most climatologists. They could be wrong, and I accept that possibility but until the climatologist community finds evidence to show it is not the result of pollution I will continue to believe it is.Al Gore had nothing to do with my views, I haven't even seen the guy's movie or seen him talk of it.