Still, the issue of euthanasia is even more frightening. Older people, as their bodies deteriorate, cost more money. Putting hospitals under increased government budgetary oversight and command will not miraculously increase government budgets for hospitals. Cutting costs will become a draconian theme, never ending . . . until death.
Even now, "death by waiting" is a common rationing procedure in Britain and Canada. If you are young and living under socialized medicine, getting dialysis from government-run hospitals is fairly easy; if you are old, wait. The system's limited medical facilities, doctors and nurses practice a kind of triage. The aged are the hopeless, in this common scenario, and give up their lives for the good of the hospital budget.
This is hardly an "easy death" or "good killing" ("euthanasia" comes from euthanos or “good death”). It is death by bureaucracy. Bureaucrats love their queues, need their queues. And the impetus is clear: Saving "the taxpayers" -- not the patients.
Former Colorado Governor Dick Lamm addressed this issue decades ago when he philosophized, "We've got a duty to die and get out of the way with all of our machines and artificial hearts and everything else like that and let the other society, our kids, build a reasonable life."
Mr. Obama and the congressional architects of their new medical regime are promising to cut the overall cost of care. Are we really to believe there will be no pressure to deny expensive treatments in order to save money?
Many opponents of Obamacare are jumping on a provision in one version of this legislative work-in-progress, a directive to pay doctors to counsel the elderly -- and terminally ill patients -- on various end-of-life issues. In the New York Post, Betsy McCaughey said this mandate "invites abuse" and that "seniors could easily be pushed to refuse care."
A front-page Washington Post article, headlined "Talk Radio Campaign Frightening Seniors," reported that this controversy "undercuts what many say is the fundamental challenge of discussing sensitive costly societal questions about how to align patient wishes at the end of life with financial realities, for both the family and taxpayers."
Not getting a pacemaker at 75 years old may mean a person dies at 77 or 78, instead of at 83. What are five years of life worth? Who should decide?
With the federal government in the medical care business through the so-called Public Plan, folks in Washington will have the power to decide.
If you don't like your health insurance company, you ain't seen nothing yet.