The Government Creeps In
I found this one from a college of mine, Mark Duling, covering some of the government's health reforms in the stimulus package.
You can read the details here.
Apparently Daschle (originally heading the Health and Human Services position) had claimed the health care reform "will not be pain free".
Bloomberg explains:
Medicare now pays for treatments deemed safe and effective. The stimulus bill would change that and apply a cost- effectiveness standard set by the Federal Council (464).
The Federal Council is modeled after a U.K. board discussed in Daschle’s book. This board approves or rejects treatments using a formula that divides the cost of the treatment by the number of years the patient is likely to benefit. Treatments for younger patients are more often approved than treatments for diseases that affect the elderly, such as osteoporosis.
In 2006, a U.K. health board decreed that elderly patients with macular degeneration had to wait until they went blind in one eye before they could get a costly new drug to save the other eye. It took almost three years of public protests before the board reversed its decision.
Also disturbing is the attacks by the news media against that woman in Los Angeles who recently had eight babies at once. The "news" has decided this is too many babies, and that the government should stop people from having too many babies.
Do they want us to become like China? Where the government murders unborn babies when the parents already have a child? Where high volumes of people convicted of capital crimes have their organs sold in America? [1]
This reminds me of the New Zealand story about the man whose wife was refused citizenship because she was overweight and would be a burden on their health services. Should the government decide who we can marry too?
Why should the government tell people how much money they can make? Or how many kids they can have? Why should news papers be telling people how to vote or how many kids to have?
posted by Matthew Canonicus at
11:08 PM
6 Comments:
I think you're blowing the 8 babies thing out of proportion. As far as I know (I saw some of the coverage) noone was suggesting that the Government mandate how many babies a person can have. Even if they did, it was probably an editorial position and sounds no more radical to me than many other things said in the media. The criticism was regarding her ability to support herself and her eight children, and how (I think) she originally picked 6 babies through IVF. The discussion is more centred around should people be able to choose unlimited babies when conceiving that way, especially considering her living conditions and her ability in the future to care for them.
Also, saying things like "do you want us to be like China?" is unfair. There's a big difference between mandating that the amount of children a person can plan to have given their financial means, and having a one child policy where babies are killed after birth if their parents already have a good one. It isn't often "all or nothing" with political issues (although admittedly it can be sometimes).
Hi Matt,
My husband's sister and family live in London and hearing them talk about the problems they face gives us a good idea of what it is like to live under socialism. They are retired now but ran their own business for many years and it was a struggle. It is common practice for buisness owners to hide money because their taxes are so high that they would not be able to stay in business for very long and they surely wouldn't have enough to live on. At that time, taxes took 75% of their income. It was also hard to find workers who would stay for long because so many people work only long enough to get unemployment as they can stay on it all of their life. And the health care, well people who can pay for a doctor behind the governements back or go out of country. If you don't, you have to put up with long waiting lists for treatment or surgery. As you've said, the government decides who gets what when and compassion is not the governor of their decisions.
I understand what you are saying about liberals and socialists wanting to govern how many children we have but this woman and even more so her doctor is a good case in their favor. Those babies are doomed to be brought up on tax dollars or in foster care.
As for the stimulus bill, I believe that it is really a grab for power for the democrates. It a jobs patronage bill. It will create millions of buerocratic jobs for democrats and then at election time, they'll be commanded to get out there and get out the vote just as ACORN did last fall. We all need to remember that all these new government jobs will need refunding by congress next year. If they only give them half of what they gave them this go around it will, in democrat lingo, be called a tax cut. I'm still praying that something will happen and it won't make it through but I know chances are slim. If we get the chance, after Obama leaves office, we will spend the rest of our lives trying to get rid of all the excess government this bill will put in place. (Besides creating jobs this bill also takes care of a lot of pay-back for getting Obama in office.)
He's brought change alright. He is bringing more corruption into our Federal government than most Americans have ever dreamed possible. I think Bill Clinton has him pegged as a "Chigaco thug".
"Even if they did, it was probably an editorial position and sounds no more radical to me than many other things said in the media."
Seriously, Tim, I am caught off guard by how well you understand this. It is by all means an editorial position, but it is given to us as 'the objective news'. The news (esp. Yahoo!) is telling us what the limits of government should (or rather should not) be.
"The discussion is more centred around should people be able to choose unlimited babies when conceiving that way, especially considering her living conditions and her ability in the future to care for them."
While this 'discussion' is going on, the woman is receiving death threats (yes!), the doctor is under investigation by the government, and the newspapers are posturing themselves as jury, judge, and executioner. This is the mob mentality of the press! Yahoo! alone has committed far more evil than all the lobbyists in the world combined.
"There's a big difference between mandating that the amount of children a person can plan to have given their financial means, and having a one child policy where babies are killed after birth if their parents already have a good one."
Okay, you have a point here. It would be better to live in America (or Australia) than China, you are right. The distinction you're making, though, isn't black or white, (which you've said) and that means you're standing on a slippery slope. My position is absolute: 'No woman -no matter how bad her judgment- should ever be told by the government or the press how many children she can have.'
Thanks again for your contributions here, although we rarely seem to agree (although sometimes we do in surprising ways!)
Hi Lady Lavendar,
You raise some good points about the stimulus package. I will respectfully disagree with you in terms of the implications of this case. If you'd like to address it further, you should consider posting your comment because I think you raise some good points.
"the newspapers are posturing themselves as jury, judge, and executioner. This is the mob mentality of the press!"
While we probably approach this conclusion for completely different reasons, I couldn't agree more! I think it happens everywhere. While there is no death penalty in Australia, the amount of times i've seen Australian newspapers propagate the opinions of a victims family and how they would like to see some criminal be put to death. There are many more examples of this.
Unlike yourself, I don't believe the media has any set political slant (save one or two like FOX news and whatever is generally considered to be the most liberal media company in America); just naked populism and sentimentalism. For example, CNN flipped its projection of Florida for Bush in 2000 in fear of embarassement and criticism. Criticism of the Iraq war in the early days was often labelled as "unpatriotic", right until the overwhelming scholarly condemnation of the war strategy trickled down to the media. I'm sure you have many examples of the media siding with the Democrats as well. It's all about the money. They take the temperature of the population through polling and other outlets and then shape their presentation of the information to exploit the prejudices and opinions of the majority.
This all makes it so precious when a news program actually appears to cut through the pandering and misinformation and present the news as even-handidly as possible. Australia has one called "World News", which I love to death. As an illustration, when Israel invaded the Gaza strip again, you can imagine how angry I was at what I considered to be the needless loss of life. World News talked to an Israeli spokesman and also someone from Palestinian politics (might have been Hamas or Fatah), and while I disliked everything the Israeli spokesman had to say in that particular instance, I appreciated the balance.
I know what you mean about agreement in surprising places!
Matt,
Maybe I'll have time and energy enough to post on it in a day or two but everything will probably be different by then. I don't think I've ever seen an incoming administration with so many scandals! I don't know which portoin of debauchery and power mongering to focus on first! Maybe that is the point...
I heard an interesting comment on the death threats the mother of 16 was receiving. It was said that people in California are so angry about their bloated government and how it is taking all of California down the drain that she, being already on the dole with 8 children in the hospital also getting treatment on the government's dime, became the face of the taxes that are strangling their way of life.
Americans are pretty stressed out these days.
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