Obama’s Health Rationer-in-Chief

It is worth some time learning about the man who will be playing a pivotal role in Obamacare (should it come to pass), and who is already playing a pivotal role in Obama’s version of Medicare.

He is Dr. Ezikiel Emanuel, and, if the name sounds familiar, he is the brother of Rahm Emanuel, the White House Chief of Staff.  So far, Dr. Emanuel has  been appointed by the President to two very important positions…health policy advisor to the Office of Management and Budget, and, a member of the Federal Council on Comparative Effectiveness Research.

What does Dr. Emanuel think of Obama’s statement that we will  cover some of the costs of Obamacare by cutting waste, etc.?

Vague promises of savings from cutting waste, enhancing prevention and wellness, installing electronic medical records and improving quality of care are merely ‘lipstick’ cost control, more for show and public relations than for true change.

So, how would Dr. Emanuel control costs?

To him, the issue is the Hippocratic Oath.  Here is what he says about that,

“Medical school education and post graduate education emphasize thoroughness,” he writes. “This culture is further reinforced by a unique understanding of professional obligations, specifically the Hippocratic Oath’s admonition to ‘use my power to help the sick to the best of my ability and judgment’ as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of cost or effect on others.”

Although most would find that approach to the practice of medicine laudable, in Dr. Emanuel’s mind, adhering to the Hippocratic Oath is a problem because it does not “control costs”.   His solution…change the Hippocratic Oath.  Medical students should be trained,

to provide socially sustainable, cost-effective care. [emphasis supplied]

Exactly what is socially sustainable, cost effective care?  According to Dr. Emanuel, it is,

adding the communitarian perspective to ensure that medical resources will be allocated in a way that keeps society going: “Substantively, it suggests services that promote the continuation of the polity—those that ensure healthy future generations, ensure development of practical reasoning skills, and ensure full and active participation by citizens in public deliberations—are to be socially guaranteed as basic. [emphasis supplied]

Thus, according to Dr. Emanuel, health care is a basic right if you fit the above description.  Conversely, it is not a basic right if you fit the following description:

Covering services provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens are not basic, and should not be guaranteed. An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia. [emphasis supplied]

And who decides whether someone is “prevented” from becoming a participating citizen?  Given his leadership role in Obamacare, I suppose Dr. Emanuel gets to make that decision.

I wonder what medical care he would have given to Helen Keller had he been her family’s doctor?

One further insight into Dr. Emanuel’s thinking…

“Every favor to a constituency should be linked to support for the health-care reform agenda,” he wrote last Nov. 16 in the Health Care Watch Blog. “If the automakers want a bailout, then they and their suppliers have to agree to support and lobby for the administration’s health-reform effort.”

Hum…could there be a connection between the union support for Obamacare, and the auto bailout?

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SoundOffSister

The Sound Off Sister was an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and special trial attorney for the Department of Justice, Criminal Division; a partner in the Florida law firm of Shutts & Bowen, and an adjunct professor at the University of Miami, School of Law. The Sound Off Sister offers frequent commentary concerning legislation making its way through Congress, including the health reform legislation passed in early 2010.

4 Comments

  1. phil on September 7, 2009 at 5:39 am

    It's too bad that the global warming (caused by Algore's hot air) is shrinking the ice cap.  Soon there won't be enough ice floes to set us all adrift when our bodies wear out.



  2. donh on September 8, 2009 at 4:02 am

    It goes well beyond Dr Zeke. Read some of the footnotes and credits in his writings and you will find the names of his ex wife who I believe now holds a high position in the AMA. The Dean of Columbia Medecine is a Zeker. Several Harvard doctors and prominant doctors at Mass hospitals. Dr. assisted suicide is a hommocide in Mass yet strangely a good number of practing doctors subscribe to it on an ideological level. I fear a lot of elderly are already being snuffed out under the table same as abortions were done in secrecy before Roe vs Wade brought it out into the open as a morally legitimate proceedure.



  3. sammy22 on September 8, 2009 at 4:33 am

    What is challenged above would make more sense if it were not for the fact that health care is "rationed" de-facto. While emergency care is "always" available, other care requires getting in line and waiting for an opening on a list that thay span months. There is a finite number of doctors taking care of an increasingly large number of patients (Law of Supply and Demand, anyone?)



  4. Dimsdale on September 8, 2009 at 7:39 am

    I wonder what role the race cleansing Planned Parenthood will have in Obamacare?  How many millions or billions will they be awarded for carrying on the work of Margaret Mead, and now, Holdren?

     

    Rationing of life works from both ends in the Obamanation.



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