Obama Economics Adviser Robert Reich Explains How Public Option Health Care Will Let You Die
Posted by: velvethammer in health careWould ObamaCare lead to a form of “Death Panels”? In listening to Obama Economics Adviser Robert Reich in his own words, it would sure seem to be the case. Think about it, in order to control costs, rationing will be the cost saving avenue so…do the math.
Reich spoke these words in 2007, NOT when Obama was 8 years old.
Robert Reich: What An Honest President Would Say About Health Reform
Former Labor Secretary (under Bill Clinton) and Obama adviser Robert Reich speaking at UC Berkeley on Sept. 26, 2007.
Embedded video
Link @YouTube
The Progressive Left: Death panels? What death panels? That’s crazy talk. Heh
Transcript:
ROBERT REICH: [I'll] intellectually give you a speech made up entirely, almost at the spur of the moment, of what a candidate for president would say if that candidate did not care about becoming president. In other words, this is what the truth is, and a candidate will never say, but what candidates should say if we were in a kind of democracy where citizens were honored in terms of their practice of citizenship, and they were educated in terms of what the issues were, and they could separate myth from reality in terms of what candidates would tell them.
‘Thank you so much for coming this afternoon. I’m so glad to see you and I would like to be president. Let me tell a few things on health care.
‘Look, we have the only health care system in the world that is designed to avoid sick people, and that’s true. And what I’m going to do is I am going to try to reorganize it to be more amenable to treating sick people; but that means you, particularly you young people, particularly you young healthy people, you’re gonna have to pay more.
(Applause)
‘Thank you. And by the way, we are going to have to, if you’re very old, we’re not going to give you all that technology and all those drugs for the last couple of years of your life to keep you maybe going for another couple of months. It’s too expensive. So we’re going to let you die.
(Applause)
‘Also, I’m going to use the bargaining leverage of the federal government, in terms of Medicare, Medicaid — we already have a lot of bargaining leverage — to force drug companies and insurance companies and medical suppliers to reduce their costs. But that means less innovation and that means less new products and less new drugs on the market, which means you are probably not going to live that much longer than your parents.
‘Thank you.’
End transcript
Who applauds such thoughts? Oh yeah he was speaking at Berkeley…never mind.
Morgan @ Verum Serum (who I believe broke this story) adds this:
It’s also worth noting that when Reich gave this speech, all of the Democratic candidates had released their health reform plans. And it’s a topic that Reich is intimately familiar with, as an economist, and given his prior involvement in the Clinton health reform debacle.
And contrary to the platitudes and spin that you hear from Reich and other proponents of ObamaCare now, every point he made in this video represents an argument which conservatives have made against the bills in Congress:
- Will the individual mandate and “community rating” provisions result in young people paying substantially more for health insurance? Yes.
- Will the government inevitably have to restrict expensive medical treatments for people nearing the end of their lives? The President has all but admitted as much.
- Will the government’s hand in forcing cost-reduction commitments out of the pharmaceutical and medical device industries inevitably result in reduced investment and innovation (as Megan McArdle suggested it would)? It sure seems likely.
Meanwhile across the pond…a true to life scenario that may very well be indicative of what we could expect here in the US under government run health care.
Liz Hunt of London’s Daily Telegraph reports on an even more chilling euphemism used in a country that long ago instituted “health-care reform”:
“Mrs ——- has breathing difficulties,” the night manager told her. “She needs oxygen. Shall we call an ambulance?”
“What do you mean?” my friend responded. “What’s the matter with her?”
“She needs to go to hospital. Do you want that? Or would you prefer that we make her comfortable?”
“Make her comfortable.” Here’s what that meant:
Befuddled by sleep, she didn’t immediately grasp what was being asked of her. Her grandmother is immobilized by a calcified knee joint, which is why she is in the home. She’s a little deaf and frail, but otherwise perky. She reads a newspaper every day (without glasses), and is a fan of the darling of daytime television, David Dickinson. Why wouldn’t she get medical treatment if she needed it?
Then, the chilling implication of the phone call filtered through–she was being asked whether her grandmother should be allowed to die.
“Call an ambulance now,” my friend demanded.
The person at the other end persisted. “Are you sure that’s what you want? For her to go to hospital.”
“Yes, absolutely. Get her to hospital.”
Three hours later, her grandmother was sitting up in A&E [the accident-and-emergency ward], smiling. She had a mild chest infection, was extremely dehydrated, but was responding to oxygen treatment.
As Hunt notes, “Withdrawal of fluids (and drugs) is one of the steps on the controversial palliative care programme known as the Liverpool Care Pathway, which has been adopted by 900 hospitals, hospices and care homes in England.”
This brings to mind the old saying: “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth” Poor advice in regards to the democrat health care push. Especially being as it is a “trojan horse”
People, I beseech you please look this trojan horse in the mouth.
Also see: Robert Reich Responds to VS Video… – Verum Serum
So considering that Reich even now concedes that “the whole point of the mock exercise was to show that presidential candidates can’t state what everyone knows to be the truth“, I’m not sure I’m grasping how this is out of context. (Except perhaps in the bizarro universe where certain truths are only “in context” when they are spoken to an educated and enlightened audience.)
And…
Morning Bell: No Matter What You Call It, It’s Still Just Government-Run Health Care
Tags: death panels, health care, Health Care Reform, Obama, ObamaCare, politics, public option, Robert Reich, transcript, video
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