They think we are stupid

[pecunium]

That, or they just don't care; because they lie. It's all one can think of when something like this nonesense, in which Investor's Business Daily maintains a lie

People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.

They assume, I suppose, most people don't know that Stephen Hawking is British. That he was diagnosed with his condition at 21; while still a student, that his prognosis was absolutely predicatable, and by the best estimate he ought to be dead years ago.

That he's not is because the NHS treated him.

They go on about how the Obama Plan will do this:

The British have succeeded in putting a price tag on human life, as we are about to.

Can't happen here, you say? "One troubling provision of the House bill," writes Betsy McCaughey in the New York Post, "compels seniors to submit to a counseling session every five years (and more often if they become sick or go into a nursing home) about alternatives for end-of-life care (House bill, Pages 425-430)."

Right. Because we know there is no way the present system might decide to put dollars over lives. No one would ever say, "this costs too much, we can't do it." The motto is, "spare no expense."

Sure it is.

Let's use the "Wayback Machine" and look at Texas, where a hospital is allowed to cancel treatment, on ten days notice, if they decide it's not going to lead to improvement: Compare and Contrast.

The nut of that story is, the patient was terminal. She was going to die. The hospital decided the resources they had were being ill used (mostly because the patient hadn't ponied up an extra $75 a month for a premium addition to cover, venitilators).

Her family was only asking for some extra time for her mother to get there, in time to be there when the young woman (she was 27) died. The same people who are now crowing about the "death panels" which will be installed when (someday) the US gets a rational system of healthcare, instead of the opressive excuse we have now, were then braying that, "if people like her were willing to plan ahead, then this sort of thing wouldn't happen to them."

After all, we all have an extra $900 a year to make sure that, should we get ill, the hospital will help us to keep breathing.

Because "in Britian, they wouldn't be willing to spend the money to keep a Stephen Hawking alive" (never mind that Britian's NHS, did exactly that, before he was, "Stephen Hawking Really Good Physicist, and beloved of the world", and here in America, the insurance industry, and the hospitals, are all sweetness and light, sparing no expense to keep the spark of life alive, no matter what.

Sure they are, and next Sunday the Postman will bring me the money the daughter of the diplomat from Nigeria promised me for helping her out.

Comments

[onyxlynx]

The British have succeeded in putting a price tag on human life, as we are about to.

This from the cohort of folks that has spent the last thirty or so years monetizing almost everything and deprecating what can't be priced? (I have expressed this better elsewhere, but I have to go out Right Now.)

I call shenanigans. (Dashiell Hammett said something equally concise in more words that I'll just mis-paraphrase here, something about the first word being a guttural expletive, the second word, "them.")

[voidampersand]

The comparison of Stephen Hawking and Tirhas Habtegiris is very powerful.

[songblaze.livejournal.com]

Indeed.

I've been refused medical items that my doctors think would improve my quality of life, because the reasons I need them don't quite fit into their rubric of 'need'.

I can't get the mattress that might cause fewer dislocations and less pain because I don't have bedsores - apparently, low pressure mattresses are only available for the bed-bound, and not for anyone who would benefit from them!

And don't get me started on the rigamarole I had to go through to get the splints for my fingers. As is, I can't go to the OT who measured me for them to get the fit adjusted, I have to go to a different one. The insurance that paid for the braces won't pay for adjustments, so I have to use my other insurance (thank god I'm double-insured!) to cover the fitting sessions.

So goddamn stupid. I hate having to fight and fight and fight the healthcare system to get the care I need. It's ridiculous and takes energy I don't have to spare.

[songblaze.livejournal.com]

...I forgot to mention, these fights are all against insurance companies.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

Which are, of course, all perfect in the world of the perfect free market. Just ask any textbook.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I am so pissed off and I feel so helpless about this issue. They're lying and lying and lying and those media voices that do call them on it are not the same venues where the lies are being told, so those who hear and believe the lies don't hear the refutations.

[niamh-sage.livejournal.com]

I have been watching this unfold from afar, and it just enrages me, the lies and obfuscation. God. What is wrong with these people???

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Greed, and a lust for power; coupled to a lack of empathy and sympathy.

That's for the folks at the top of this. The people at the bottom... more complicated, but mostly they can't seem to fathom that the people at the top are willing to tell such bald-faced lies.

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

And yes, MS McCaugey (whoever she might be) apparently was lying when she wrote that. The provision in the citation she presented (something inserted by a _Republican_ Congressman, BTW) required (it's been withdrawn as a result of the hysteria, I understand) only that insurance companies pay for such optional consultations on end-of-life matters, not that patients must engage them. And most good health-care plans already pay for something like this (with good reason -- probably most people, like me, really don't want to have their /l/i/f/e/ dying needlessly (& expensively) prolonged.) As a friend of mine said to the doctor, after consultation with his beloved terminally-ill aged mother, "We don't want any 'heroic measures' or 'life-support' undertaken. In fact, give me the proper syringe and I'll take care of it". (Yeah, I have some courageous friends, and I'm glad this one has my medical-care authorization.)

[warclaw.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, few of the electorate take the time to become well informed about the issues.

As for why the politicians/demagogues are feeding this...well, fear as a method of control is a time tested and proven method. Just scare a vulnerable target population, and nine times out of ten, they'll be rushing to give you whatever you want to "Take care of the problem", without actually stopping to think or verify that it actually is a problem.

All it requires to take advantage of this, is a lack of ethics and be willing to lie outrageously, twist facts, or make them up if needed.

The sad part is, that even when caught, we've become so jaded about the character of our supposed "Leaders" that discovering that they've lied to us doesn't generate much outrage, just resignation. "Oh, ANOTHER politician lied...oh well, what did we expect?"

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Make the calls.

K.