The Cost of Life

I find this almost too incredible to believe. More on the government control of health care sneaked into the stimulus bill.

One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.” According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and “learn to operate less like solo practitioners.” …

In short, a Washington bureacracy wants to tell doctors what treatments are not only cost effective but appropriate too. So if you fall sick to a serious illness in future, your survival will depend on what the .gov deems "appropriate". What does this all mean?

In his book, Daschle proposed an appointed body with vast powers to make the “tough” decisions elected politicians won’t make.

The stimulus bill does that, and calls it the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research (190-192). The goal, Daschle’s book explained, is to slow the development and use of new medications and technologies because they are driving up costs. He praises Europeans for being more willing to accept “hopeless diagnoses” and “forgo experimental treatments,” and he chastises Americans for expecting too much from the health-care system.

Got that? Americans need to be more willing to just accept that an illness is going to kill them, because actually treating it and saving lives is too expensive.

In the world-view of Democrats each American life, it seems, has a dollar figure attached. Exceed that and they'd rather you died to keep costs down.

And note too the opposition to experimental treatments and new medicines- you know, the ones that will become more commonplace in future after being tested and found to be effective. A cure for cancer? Not under this plan.

Daschle may have been defeated but his philosophy lives on.

I just can't believe that this is happening in America.