Firing Squads and Death Panels

"Akron Woman Dies 19 Times and Lives" was the front page of the Akron Beacon Journal in 1961. That was my grandmother. She was one of the first people a pacemaker was used on. Doctors didn't pull her plug, they plugged her in, jolting her heart like jump-starting a car. She survived for five more years, running up her total deaths to 29. The last time she died, she died.

My mother's birthday is coming up soon. No one is sure how old she is. When I asked her age, her response was, "What difference does it make? I'm too old to die young."

A lot of very sincere people believe that if Obama's health care reform bill passes, old people will essentially be facing death panels and denied care.

"I could die any time you know," my mother said. "It won't be long before I'm called in front of the death panels. They're not going to decide to keep an old woman alive. First the death panels decide, then they put you in front of a firing squad. You tell your kids, the government is going to kill their grandma."

"Do you really believe that?" I asked.

"Do you really believe I believe that? I'm old, not stupid," she replied.

My mother reads three newspapers a day and watches the news constantly. "These people compare the president to Hitler? Hitler was not known for his health care initiatives. But I'm much more afraid of those who show up at town hall meetings with guns strapped to their legs - they look like the death panels to me."

It's the aberrant behavior that gets television attention rather than an intelligent discussion of the real issues. Want to get interviewed on television? Yell irrational "Hitler-Nazi-Socialist-Death Panel-birther" noise loud enough to disrupt any meaningful discussion. When that is no longer effective, strap a gun to your leg. That could get you a segment on Chris Matthews' show. Once that becomes old news, carry an assault rifle - that will get you air time. The ante is always being upped.

It will be no surprise when someone who is exercising their Second Amendment right to bear arms becomes unhinged enough to start shooting people who are exercising their First Amendment right to free assembly.

Much of the news media, instead of challenging the deliberate lies and misinformation, lends credibility to them by giving air time to the most outrageous points of view. Sensationalism drives ratings but is often at odds with the truth.

There are constant falsehoods circulating that try to link the Obama health care plan to the U.K. or Canadian model, which in turn tries to scare people into thinking that what allegedly happens there will happen here.

Claims of the health care system in the U.K. denying care to the elderly are false. The National Health System Constitution provides comprehensive health care service to all, irrespective of gender, race, disability, age, sexual orientation, religion or belief.

Claims that Dr. Anne Doig, the new head of the Canadian Medical Association stated, "The system is about to implode. The system is going to fail," referring to the Canadian Health Care System, are totally misleading. Her statement was made in response to a question about accusations from groups in the U.S. about what they believe is wrong with the Canadian system - she was quoting them, not stating her beliefs. That statement has since been taken out of context and distributed to many groups in the U.S. as evidence of Canada's failing health care system. This is another example of the endless hailstorm of misdirection and misinformation clouding serious debate.

No health care system is perfect. Our health care system has severe problems. There are honest disagreements to be debated based on fact, not the tabloid fiction we are exposed to on a daily basis. The cost of ignoring the actual issues, both human and financial, is dangerously high.

Since 1970, health care costs in the United States have gone from $352 to $7,000 per person, per year. This is the highest annual cost increase of any sector of our economy. Who benefits from these constantly increasing costs? It's not the citizens. The U.S. health care system is ranked 37th in the world by the World Health Organization. The country ranks 47th in the world for life expectancy. Contrary to the latest misinformation being put out there, these numbers relate to health care and do not factor in stats for murder or fatal car crashes. However, we do rank first in the world in fatal car crashes

Who benefits? Who puts their money where their money is? The top three lobbying groups ranked by money spent to influence policy/opinion this year are:

Pharmaceuticals/Health Products: $134,458,183
Oil & Gas: $82,102,040
Insurance: $81,528,794

(Center for Responsive Politics)

Who suffers? Most of us. Providing health insurance is the largest growing cost for employers. Many small businesses have either cut back or eliminated coverage. The burden falls on individuals and their families, which means the number of uninsured will grow as health care becomes less and less affordable. Couple that with the established pattern of cost increases per year and it is estimated that health care costs will double by 2017.

It's ironic that the same critics who claim the government cannot run anything efficiently are concerned that the government is going to run a health care system that is so cost-efficient insurance companies won't be able to compete.

Health care should not be a political issue. It's a civil rights issue. The people who have the least are constantly being manipulated by those who have the most and don't want to lose it.

"Facts don't matter," said my mother. "If there's anything I've learned in my 90 years, it's that people believe what they want to believe. How can we as a nation tolerate armed thugs at town hall meetings? It's crazy."

One person's crazy is another's reality.

Comments

[swimlikefish]

Jeff,
There was one industry which was not listed possibly because they call themselves a "practice" and do not consider themselves an industry. THE LAWYERS! The legal profession while still practicing but proclaiming they are a profession (how do you do that?) has taken the cost of medicine to insane levels because of malpractice lawsuits. Because of these lawsuits, doctors feel that they have to run every test known to man in order to cover their collective butts. If they don't, and the patient has a problem, these "practicing professionals" take the cases of malpractice on a contingency basis just to "make them pay". This is the slogan of a law firm in Cleveland. When we stop these nuisance lawsuits and allow the doctors to use their skills to reduce the amount of testing including referral to a specialist then we will see a drastic reduction in medical costs.

[Charles Weber]

Amen. Fixing health care has many facets. This is but one of them.

[AndrewAnthony]

Good article Jeff. I now see where your sense of humor comes from!

I can't really say what I think on this topic anymore. I hear so much from both sides and the road seems to become more foggy as the country drives down it. What I really want to know is "what are the bottom line facts of both sides". I want to know how the current system is operating, and what a future system would do to improve it all. I think as Americans we all need to know the basic facts without having to read two documents over 600 and 1,000 pages.
I believe that you have laid out some great facts Jeff. However, if you turn on the news all we keep seeing is the clutter, finger pointing, and outrage that gets ratings. This topic has been portrayed as a circus and not the real matter of HUMAN LIFE! I don't have a great deal of time to watch the news, but when I do it just seems to be more ridiculous than the day before.

[Charles Weber]

Andrew,

Human Life is and should be a prime consideration. But, if you want facts, simply refer to the CBO's analysis or scoring of the House health care committee results. These are nowhere near the "deficit neutral" threshold. It really comes down to how we, as a nation, can afford this legislation in light the projected growth of our economy and the associated costs projected in budgets for the next ten years. To this end, the CBO is the gold standard. if we cannot afford a Mercedes or Lexus, can we compromise and get a Corolla? Unfortunately, I believe that our political system is so fractured that neither side will come up with the solution. I also know that if we pass the legislation now in the House committees, we will eventually bankrupt our country.

The first priority should be to beef up the economy and THEN determine what and how much we can afford. Your comments also reflect my level of frustration with the whole mess.

[cweber0147]

By their one sided comments, many seem to be hell bent to sign up the country for socialized medicine, the likes of which have no precedent in our culture or economic system. The message many take from all this is that some folks prefer to embrace socialism vs. capitalism. Exit Adam Smith,
Among the most daunting questions that need to be addressed is how we plan to pay for the privilege of our government taking over 1/6 of our GDP? People advocating government run health care, or the so-called government option, seem to conveniently overlook the fact that the White House just released "revised" deficit estimates that project and increase with the deficit of 9 trillion dollars over the next ten years. This is without the "government option" in place! Imagine our surprise when this information was released late in the afternoon, this past Friday, when the news media heading out of town at the end of a work week. Can you spell obfuscation?

Liberals are quick to point out some sad sack story about a sick person needing health care while ignoring the responsibility of determining true cost and who is going to pay for it.

I believe that reform and legislation are needed to make the health care juggernaut work better. There are so many preferable options to improve the present system that will not require a "government option" , a Trojan Horse for a single payer system. It bankrupted Massachusetts. Is the US next?.

[meede]

If healthcare is ignored this time, there will be far more uninsured than there are now as people cannot maintain the costs the insurance companies charge, together with the deductibles, the treatments the insurance won't cover after which the insurance company drops you because you were sick and then the fact you have a pre-existing, therefore you are uninsurable in their eyes.

In the end, those with insurance, their premiums will continue to go up to cover them, and to cover those that are uninsured.

Therefore, the issue has to be addressed now. They've put this off for decades and it has come back to bite them.

When truth be told, there is not the need to recreate the wheel as there are programs throughout the world to draw on. They don't have to pick one specific country - they can draw the best parts from many that have done this for decades.

Add into the situation -- it relieves stress from people not having to worry about being sick, or loosing a job which means loosing coverage or changing a job.

The U.S. lives in the dark ages. It is the only civilized country without the healthcare. It is also the only civilized country that doesn't pay it's workforce for vacation. And the U.S. boasts it's the best country in the world -- fooled me on many issues.

[devadasi]

Health Care Reform has to be done now......a­ll of these excuses about why it shouldn't be done are are just that excuses, and those who are against health care reform will find any excuse in the book every time.

[pfeld]

Mr. Madoff,

Great stuff.

And if I may say so, I don't know why you and your family don't make a documentary film about your mother. She's better than Gracie Allen ever was.