In the hands of Obama the potter, American Jews are but clay. In his recent telephonic pep talk to a reported 1,000 American rabbis, the president invoked some of the most memorable (and theologically challenging) passages from the Rosh Hashanah liturgy to support his health policy agenda. He spoke about the new month of Elul, the meaning of this time of year and, oh, by the way, the crazy distortions of all those who have dared to object to his massive experiment with one-sixth of the American economy.
Some good prep-work from Obama’s staff (“Sir, it’s pronounced eh-LOOL”), some happy talk, and the president apparently had these mostly left-leaning rabbis eating out of his hand. In these kinds of calls, there is always an “ask,” and Obama’s was simple: Proselytize to your congregants and tell them the good news about health care reform.
This is an intriguing prospect. What would happen if these American rabbis went back to their laptops, hit delete on the current drafts of their High Holy Day sermons and started afresh by reading the latest issues of the health policy journals? No doubt some have already Googled “health policy sermon” in the vain hope that there’s an easy solution to Obama’s challenge.
But there isn’t an easy way, and not just because the details of health care policy are far more challenging than Obama or anyone else would have you believe.
And this is where Obama, otherwise so well-versed in the habits of liberal Jews, has completely misread the community. You see, nobody really listens to rabbis in non-Orthodox synagogues. Maybe when it comes to what’s permissible for wedding party menus, or whether to stand for the reader’s Kaddish, but on health care? Does anyone really think that as American Jews follow the health care debate, they are wondering to themselves: “What does my rabbi think?”
Obama has no doubt seen some of the congressionally sponsored town hall meetings with a lot of angry constituents saying some unkind things about him and his health care agenda. If the rabbis follow Obama’s directive to speak about health care, they might well invent a new phrase for the lexicon: “Rosh Hashanah riots.”
Rabbis won’t be talking to rubes. In any given synagogue, there will be doctors with various specialties, business owners and more than a handful of others with a very deep awareness of how health care costs, government payments and public policy affect their livelihoods. They may be liberal, they may have voted for Obama, and they may well be sympathetic to Obama’s stated goal of expanding health insurance in America. But many of them will have seen enough of Obama’s plan to know they don’t like it.
Rabbis who start to cite a few passages from Scripture to extol the virtue of the “public option,” a government-subsidized insurance plan that would squeeze private insurers out of the health marketplace, will be met not by the open minds of seekers but with the wary eyes of those who can point to piles of health paperwork as their own testimony to the dangers of government mandates, controls and payment policies.
These congregants may well stand up and walk out as their rabbis, who have never had to make payroll in their lives, go on about how “greedy” employers and business interests are blocking Obama’s bill.
They may mutter loud enough to be heard: “If I wanted to hear an ignoramus talk about health care, I would have just stayed at home and watched the TV news.”
Or worse, they may decide: “Ach, I haven’t listened to this rabbi before. Why should I start now?” And their minds will begin to wander — again.
Noam Neusner is the principal of Neusner Communications, LLC. He served as a speech writer and Jewish liaison for President George W. Bush.
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I have warned the Jewish voting public about President Obama not being a friend of Israel since before the election. Yet 80 % of Jews voted for him, and the large majority still support him. He is selling out Israel and we are asleep at the wheel.
Healthcare should be of great importance to all us. Many of my congregants are angry at President Obama and do not trust the congress to decide our fate. This is the same congress who passed the stimulus bill without reading it and look where it has gotten us. The best program was the clunker car stimulus which the government ended on Monday. As a Rabbi I pray that if I go to a doctor I am not treated the way Canadians are. The solution is for congress to offer and pay for health benefits equal to what they get.That would be a miracle and a great Channukah sermon. Since the High holidays are approaching I can only hope that I can keep my doctor and not go begging the government to heal anyone in my family.
Rabbi Rosenberg inadvertently proves Neusner's point, since he clearly knows nothing about what the Congressional committees have proposed.
First of all, no proposal is even directly changing anyone's health plan, let alone preventing him from "keep[ing] my doctor." The "public option" that the President supports is only an option, not a mandate.
Second, the Canadian single payer system is not being seriously considered by this Administration. Again, the "public option" is only an option, not a mandate. To be fair, in theory the public option could be so generously funded as to drive private insurers out of business. But since private insurers exist even in Canada, this seems highly unlikely - at least in the short run. And given our giant budget deficits, it seems pretty unlikely that the public option will be well funded enough to affect private insurance. (More likely is that it will be so poorly funded as to be not worth the trouble of setting up).
I'm not sure what he means about Congress, but here's a link on what Congress actually does get- http://factcheck.org/2009/08/health-care-for-members-of-congress
Any "rabbi" who preaches for Obama is an idiot who should be fired. Period! It would however be a good idea if all rabbis reminded their congregations that Obama (and Hillary) has mislead and betrayed the Jewish community, and is the most anti-Israel president in history, and that Israel is under attack from virulently anti-Israel leftist extremists (such as J Street). He should remind his congregation that a second Holocaust looms if Iran's nuclear weapons program is not bombed, and soon.
Mike is correct, however one should ask Canadians as I have what really goes on. I for one do not trust what our leaders are saying, remember what they said about the stimulus. How much more debt can this country take. Yes, Mike I do understand the proposal made by congress, I just do not trust them. Maybe you do.
Frank. I have been saying this all along. Can another Holocaust happen?. You gave the answer. The president of Iran who was illegally re-elected and who is busy punishing innocent people who want freedom in Iran, would not hesitate to murder innocent Israelis by attacking Israel.Only foolish people believe we can negotiate with this maniac who denies the Holocaust ever happened and who openly has declared that Israel should be destroyed. Frank, we need more people like you speaking out. Have a happy and healthy New Year and pray for Israel's security. My youngest son just left for Israel and is on his way there now to study in one of the Yeshivot for his second year.More of us need to support Israel financially and to visit as tourists and perhaps make aliyah. We also need to pray for our American troops through out the world. May G-d bring them home safely.
When one of the hundreds of tiniest wigglers or eelings, comes first to an ovum, we don't know what we'll get: mozart, hitler, pasteur, idiot savant, 'idiot', planck, tolstoy, bundy, bush, sharon, jesus, mohammad, capone, moshe, einstein, et al.
We don't know whether a bad to good wigler will score first. We don't know that a cancerous or any other sick wiggler will get in first. We don't know that a pair of 'idiots' can give birth to a genius or two geniuses birthing an 'idiot'.
So, if we share one genetic pool with ist blessings and curses, we shld share one living pool: everybody get's health care, free higher education, etc.
Nobody wants to have long nose, bulging eyes; be 'short', fat, 'ugly', 'stupid', etc. But nature-god soyuz had said, U'll get what i give u. That's the best i cld do! There is no more! So, be human first of all and then rich, smart; a priest, artist, scientist, etc. caveat! Words under single quotes denote their misleading and downright injurious value. Let us deem selves as humans first of all! tnx
Of course, it is perfectly within the High Holy Day tradition to abandon the 40 million Americans with inadequate on non-existent health care!
Dear Joe. We should of course help everyone in need. But if the country is broke and we who are killing ourselves to make a decent living can no longer afford health insurance or the ability to live our lives and feed our families we have a big problem . G-d helps those who help themselves. Is it fair that a small business owner should go out of business or that the rich find loop holes so that we the middle class suffer. Let us tax the very very rich, find their bank accounts in Switzerland and leave the hard American worker alone. I hope the government does not abandon us.
Were I a rabbi, I would share the following with my congregation:
When as a youngster I learned about the horrors of the Holocaust, it became clear that there is such a thing as EVIL. I read about SS officers taking a baby from the arms of its mother and smashing its head against a curb. I saw the photos and read about the cold-blooded manner in which the Germans methodically, intelligently, and with a belief in the rightness of their conduct, went about the business of murder. I tried to imagine what kinds of people could perform these horrors.
But the most blood-curdling stories of all, to me, were those of the medical doctors, like Dr. Mengele, who with intimacy, with cool and calming smiles and reassurances, vivisected and performed medical experiments on youngsters. I remember watching a movie filmed from the perspective of a young girl, wheeled into an operating arena, where medical students watched as the Nazi doctor, for their education, dissected her womb under local anesthesia. It was too awful to imagine: A medical doctor, whose life and vocation was supposedly to care for human beings, for the sick and infirm, and whose "Hippocratic Oath" was to first do no harm - was somehow able to rationalize treating this girl as non-human - a dispensable object. And I learned while still young: there is EVIL in this world. And it does not require hatred, or anger. It only requires a cold-blooded, albeit "intelligent", view of human beings as dispensable objects, to be used by the state.
This view concerning the value of a human life as measured by its use to "society" is quintessentially totalitarian, whether a fascist or communist. Medical "ethics" in such societies measures the value of an individual human life with reference to its usefulness to the state, the community, the collective. This philosophy is innately anti-humanist, anti-American (in its most essential value of placing the individual as "endowed" by the creator with inalienable rights), utterly anti-Jewish (which believes human life as the ultimate value), and EVIL.
And now I read about the philosophical theories of President Obama's health-policy adviser, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, including some of what he has written, and as described today in the Wall Street Journal. And it makes me horrified and outraged, for what is described there is EVIL. It is not that he proposes a philosophy in which hard moral decisions have to be made when healthcare and cures are scarce. It is that he proposes a philosophy in which medical care is denied for financial reasons alone. (It is medical "ethics" devoid of "morality".) It is EVIL to rate the value of an innocent human life. Yet he does so on the basis of society's "financial investment" in the individual and his "useful remaining life".
I do not quarrel with the fact that in some dire circumstances, moral decisions have to be made, as to which life to save. In Judaism, there is no higher priority than to save a life. It is our first obligation to save our own life, generally agreed we must risk ourselves to save another, that we must act to save another if there is no risk to our life, and that active euthanasia is wrong. But there are times when because of an UNAVOIDABLE SCARCITY of food or medicine, that gut-wrenching decisions must be made, that those unavoidably scarce resources must be "rationed".
No one doubts that if a plane crashes in the Andes and there is too little food and water, that those surviving human beings must make tough decisions. In times of famine, families and societies have been forced to make those decisions. Or if there are too few heart-lung transplants available for those needing them, some "ethical" decisions have to be made as to who should receive them and who should not. Dr. Emanuel posited such an example:
....
"We had a big controversy in the United States when there was a limited number of dialysis machines. In Seattle, they appointed what they called a 'God committee' to choose who should get it, and that committee was eventually abandoned. ended up paying the whole bill for dialysis instead of having people make those decisions."
....
The solution in that case was for society to "pay the whole bill", i.e., build enough dialysis machines to satisfy the need. THAT was the moral answer! But what does Emanuel propose? The opposite! That necessary medical care not be "guaranteed" by society, and that instead it be "rationed" according to a totalitarian utilitarian formula. That formula effectuates Emanuel's ethical philosophy: Very young children, older adults, and the mentally handicapped, should not be provided medical care which is "too expensive".
In a chilling prescription reminiscent of the Nazis, he prescribes that: "An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia." To anyone who values human life, certainly to any Jew, this is the farthest thing from "obvious" that one can imagine. The most helpless will be sacrificed on the altar of financial frugality, and usefulness to the society. And what a slippery slope it is. In Nazi Germany, those useless people included Jews and other sub-humans including the handicapped, sickly and retarded, homosexuals, Gypsies, Communists, Slavs - all those who were determined not to be desirable to the greater society.
In order to have doctors do his bidding, Emanuel argues for the wholesale violation and renunciation of the Hippocratic Oath, which admonishes doctors to "use my power to help the sick to the best of my ability and judgment". Instead, Emanuel would have doctors deny their patients treatment, choosing not to spend too much money to save and extend a patient's life. Using an example he considers particularly egregious, he writes:
....
One drug "used to treat metastatic colon cancer, extends medial survival for an additional two to five months, at a cost of approximately $50,000 for an average course of therapy." (JAMA, June 13, 2007).
.....
Put aside whether the cost of that drug could be brought down by making much more of it (such as the savings in mass-producing dialysis machines), or that most people would happily spend their savings to buy so many more days of precious life, or that people who purchase private insurance have already paid premiums to provide them with that drug should they ever need it. Emanuel, in the name of fiscal frugality, presumes to make the judgment that "society" should not spend that much money to save someone's life for two to five more months, and that the doctor should be complicit in refusing the patient that drug because of the expense. That is EVIL.
The Jewish, the humanistic, the American ANSWER to "expensive" healthcare is: .... (1) to do what we can to make it less expensive (and there are plenty of things which can and should be done), and ..... (2) spend the money! There is no more important expenditure.
One can argue that money necessarily spent for food, shelter, military defense and education of the young, are all necessities. But the rest are secondary! That includes bigger and fancier homes, cars, appliances, vacations, and goodies like corporate jets for Congress. Government's waste and corruption alone is mind-boggling. But medical treatment to save and preserve life is primary. If, even after true "reforms" we must still spend more per capita than any other country - wonderful - so be it! Our lives are worth every penny!
But let it never be said that in the name of a philosophy of scarcity, of the limited worth of the individual, of a "communitarian perspective", and in total disregard of doctors' Hippocratic Oath, that we are unwilling to spend what is necessary to save and preserve our individual lives, by "rationing care". That would be EVIL.
.....
Addendum: see the WSJ article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203706604574374463280098676.html
President Obama has urged rabbis to proselytize to their congregants to urge their support for what he calls "health care reform." As the WSJ article notes:
....
"The health bills being pushed through Congress put important decisions in the hands of presidential appointees like Dr. Emanuel. They will decide what insurance plans cover, how much leeway your doctor will have, and what seniors get under Medicare. Dr. Emanuel, brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, has already been appointed to two key positions: health-policy adviser at the Office of Management and Budget and a member of the Federal Council on Comparative Effectiveness Research. He clearly will play a role guiding the White House's health initiative."
> "You see, nobody really listens to rabbis in non-Orthodox synagogues" I see. Exemplary hate speech of sheitel bigot. I do listen, what my Reform Rabbi has to say.
Hitler did not ask if one wore a sheitel or if one professed to be reform, reconstructionist, conservative,orthodox and yes even an atheist. What does this have to do with health care or safeguarding the state of Israel?
"Rabbi" Frank, If you honestly believe that, right now, we don't have a huge problem where "medical care is denied for financial reasons alone," if you honestly believe that, right now, many millions of people are not being denied cancer drugs, dialysis, and countless other procedures, then you live in a very privileged, elite bubble. By your definition, the system we live under now is a "Nazi" system since it does all the rationing and denying of care that you decry. If you don't like Obama's proposals (which, whatever Ezekiel's role, incorporate virtually none of his published ideas), then come up with better ones - but the system we live under now is, by your definition, EVIL, which would mean, by your definition, not mine, that any attempt to stop changes and preserve it as is is evil, too.
When Cong. Conyers described his single payer bill I pointed out to him that we do not have enough primary care MDs (PMDs) to go around and those now in the field are swamped as specialists, each with his/her favorite organ, throws back the patient to the PMD, to manage as a WHOLE patient. The notion of "best practices" is also very problematic as statistics will be sloppy and so broad that they won't apply to any individual. Remembers figures never lie but liars figure so don’t let it be on your survival. I am told that "hip-hop dress" is designed to mimic Southern prisons wear. For example, size 36 waist on pants may be the average, but it seems to fit no single individual. As a result most wear falling pants because they are not allowed belts in case they might try to hang themselves. It's the same with PHARMA. Here are some more PMD nightmares: (1) PMDs are hit from all sides with requests. The specialist orders some prescriptions but when the patient's plan doesn't cover that drug, it is the PMD, not the specialist that the pharmacist calls, figuring he'll get less lip from the latter. Now the PMD is responsible for what the specialist got paid big bucks for. Most specialists depend on letter from PMD introducing patient. (2)PMDs are so swamped with patients that they every minute of a visit is precious. Yet, many a patient will waste most of the visit insisting that he/she wants something prescribed that he saw advertised on TV. (3) Patients don't like specialists so they blame PMD for sending the there, not realizing that their plan prohibits any other specialists. (4) When a patient has a reaction to or is not satisfied with a drug prescribed by a specialist, the PMD gets all the anger. What is she/he to do? (5) Most specialists demand that the PMD order all tests (MRI, CAT Scan, Lab works etc.) before seeing the patient. That means that PMD has to spend an hour on the phone for each giving the data to a clerk, to Nurse "NO," and finally to a medical reviewer MD who treats you like you are an idiot until you present the case well and he begins to show you respect, at times is even collaborative. What's not calculated is that in between each of these people, the PMD has to sit listening to bad music interrupted by the HMO's self-promoting ads every 15 sec. that are so loud that he can't concentrate on anything else while waiting. Because the HMOs work by clinical data, the PMD can't use a clerk but must do it himself. I remember a friend tried using a nurse. When she went to the chart to see why a patient needed an MRI of the head, she said "dizziness." By the time she got to the medical reviewer, he said in a tone of derision: "We don't do MRIs for dizziness, young lady."
We are at the threshold of a new field in medina: GENOMICS. It is really molecular medicine. The data is gradually coming in to enable us to individualize the disease process-- even predict its development-- and individualize the treatment to maximize benefits and minimize side effect. The problem now is that Pharma provides FDA with only statistical results from populations like Andean Indians and Lapland deer herders...all people who will not sue the Pharma if people get sick or don't get better. Besides liability, Pharma gives incredible sums to physicians doing a "study" on their patients; but should he report problems with the drug under test, the money is pulled back immediately, both as punishment to the bearer of bad tidings and as example to any other pay-to-play-MD. The same happens to great big medical centers that rely on Pharma cash to maintain research centers. As a result, as soon as a drug presents problems to a threshold of 10% of patients using it in the post-marketing public use, it is "black-boxed" and the 90% who benefited from it are out in the cold. I can think of innumerable older patients taking a betalactm antibiotic prescribed by a dentist for dental infection who so fear that the antibiotic that "stopped my unbearable pain" will be discontinued that they hide from the doctor taking of the antibiotic when he is trying to understand a skin rash. Not knowing what caused it, there's a malpractice case. I don't need mention the fad of herbal therapies people use and never bother to tell the PMD in order to avoid a dangerous interaction.
All in all, for most patients, their diseases are like a big bag of manure. As soon as it gets too heavy to carry around, they bring it to the PMD, throw it in his/her lap and say: "Here my HMO is paying you to take care of this; I just want to get back to my regular life." They expect to leave relieved because now it is no longer their problem.
What Obama is trying to do is revolutionize medicine so that the PMD and the specialists are a "Tx Team" and the patients and PMDs are a "Dx Team." He is trying to integrate all aspects of healthcare. Most importantly, he is trying to expand care from the office to the home. Any PMD that doesn't get to see the patient's home is like a general fighting a battle without a G2 intelligence service. The more care is integrated and a shared responsibility between patient and care givers, the better the outcome and, ONLY THEN, is there a chance of preventive medicine.
Most importantly, we can't treat patients like a statistic as if they were size pants for Alabama prison farm inmates. Preventive and therapeutic care must be INDIVIDUALIZED. For the first time GENOMICS is on the threshold of making that possible. Alas, most MDs do not understand the basic lingo of molecular medicine. So they need time to study-- paid time because they now don't have any off time. PMDs get paid less per hour of patient care than do plumbers. Yet we ask of the constant updating when their kids grow up not recognizing them by face because they are so busy. PMDs don't ask to be rich, only to have time to look into everything in depth and to consider all the possibilities rather than play "gotcha!" with patients' lives. That takes time. It takes time to squeeze the "history of complaint" from, a patient. Given its critical importance to Dx and Tx, a PMD must have time to coax the facts out of the patient. Too often patients don't want to talk about it and just throw out confusing evidence that misleads. Furthermore, from the point of view of a PMD, the patient's personal problems are as much a part of the picture as are signs&symptoms. It takes time to get a good outcome and that's what Obama wants to provide: an outcome based rather than in-and-out number of procedures payment system. Right now the HMOs go by algorithms as if dealing with 2006 Honda Civic two-door cars rather than multivariate humans. If the standards of care become such a rat study like statistics and algorithms, then we will all get 1950s level of care. But if we come to inculcate genomics into healthcare, we can prevent rather than treat hit-and-miss. But to use genomics, patients must be assured that insurance plans will not use that against them. Here is hey key element for the single-payer system. Insurance is an attempt to make money for investors by making premiums sum up to a lot more than costs. young people tend to be real cash-cows to health insurers. It is only from 45 to 65 that you become a possible problem. For the sake of profits rather than the insurance you had paid fro since your first day of work at 18, they have gimmicks to minimize care and to dump you so that you are on your own for 20 heath wise dangerous years until-- and IF-- you survive to go on Medicare. The chances of your house going on fire are small; but you get insurance anyway, just in case. But the chances of you getting really sick are very high after 45-- after all, by then, everyone gets sick. Who do you trust to pay your medical bills then...a cannibal who sees you as profit maker or a single payer whose only role in life is taking care of you in the best way possible?
HMOs are "entrepreneurs"-- that's a French word meaning "TAKER IN BETWEEN." HMOs are like predatory animals that go after the most vulnerable and drop them when that vulnerability burdens them. That's why the entire civilized world has single-payer health care other than the US. And still we pay more than 2X as much as they do for healthcare and we are still 35th in longevity in the world. What Madoff did to your investments, HMOs are doing to your health. There's no reason for cannibalism by the taker-in-between in this era of high tech. 80% of people are happy with their healthcare because they don't know what their employers are doing to pay the HMO extortions. But what Wall Street did with your retirement 401Ks is what the HMOs will do with your health as you approach 45. Obama is trying to save you from all that with a single payer option to keep your HMOs forced to serve you rather than to eat you as predator's profits. Don't just say: "aaahhh, what does that Schwarta know!" He is betting his whole career on YOUR life. Recall, for contrast, from the Nixon White House tapes what he said to Erlichman when they were discussing HMO: "You mean, it gets people to pay for healthcare and then doesn't give it when they're sick. I like that." So you've got a choice: that "schwartza" Obama as a savior of your health" or the "Great White Hope" Republicans who are trying to keep you as a cash cow until the final slaughter somewhere around 45. Join the world, support single payer so America will rise above its paltry return on its massive investment in health care-- 35th nation on this planet in longevity
Perhaps Mr. Neusner's perception is that nobody in his congregation listens to the rabbi's sermon on Rosh HaShanah. I question whether Mr. Neusner's generalization holds for every person (1) in his own congregation and certainly for (2) every reform, reconstructionist?, renewal? and conservative congregation.
From my perspective, as an educated Jew, a holder of an University of Chicago MBA, and 10+ years experience in employee benefits leadership positions, there's much for rabbis to convey. First and foremost, what our tradition conveys about how we need to speak to each other so that we avoid "lashon harah"-- respectfully, listening to the other, and truthfully--without distorting the position of the "other" with whom we disagree for the purposes of convincing a third of our position. On Rosh HaShanah we need to ask ourselves whether we are speaking truthfully or slandering another. Are we distorting the truth for our own gain? Is it possible to find common ground? Can we respectfully, agree to disagree?
The lawyers--as an example, small business owners, those who have been "laid off" and are unable to pay the full COBRA cost of their medical insurance all recognize the high cost of health care insurance as well as the high cost of medical care. Each group has their own fears about change. But as a start, we need to be able to open our ears and our hearts to listen to each other, to understand what the other is saying.
Right now, "we" who have been responsible for making recommendations about and implementing health care plans in the private sector know that the costs of health care and thus medical insurance are inflated for a number of reasons: (1) those of us who have medical insurance are, in fact, paying for the use of emergency rooms as primary care facilities by those who lack medical insurance, (2) the lack of adherence to well-tested protocols for the treatment of chronic diseases by MDs and the lack of educated patients who know what they should ask for, (3) medical errors (4) lack of use of "centers of excellence" for various conditions and (4) other proven medical practices. Further, with large purchasing pools created either in the private or public sector, former "lemons" will be insured. The proposed plans are efforts to deal both with finding ways to improve the health care for those currently without medical insurance as well as improve the quality of care for those who do. The latter will, indeed, reduce the costs on an aggregate level for those who currently are "covered" by medical insurance. None of these ideas are new.
I encourage your readers to read what Pam Geller just wrote. As a child of Holocaust survivors who was born in a DP camp and came to America as a refugee I know what she says is true. I too have written extensively, especially on the Holocaust. History does repeat itself.President Obama is not Muhammed nor Jesus and he obviously does not walk on water. He certainly is no Moses. We had better make certain he does not drown Israel. As one who was born in Germany I did not appreciate President Obama offering apologies for America's actions to the world when he visited Germany.Let the German's in attendance apologize for their parents and grandparents murdering most of my family.Shabbat Shalom
It is amazing. The previous President invokes religious life and liberals nail him to a cross. This President dictates to Rabbis what they should talk about on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and liberals swoon.
Wake up folks! Soma, even dosed out by Obama, is still traif. His buddy Rahm should have read him the part in Perke Avot that says dont' make friends with the prince.
I often mention the surviving Jews of double Holocaust (Hitler's and Stalin's), close friends of my parents that raised me in our DP trek across Europe after WW II. Their teaching me TOLERANCE, UNDERSTANDING, COMPASSION and OBLIGATION towards strangers enabled me to survive the country-hopping uprooting again and again to yet another strange new culture, language and the ever present sense that I'm an outsider child taking bread out of the locals' mouth. They pointed me to see the other side of the selfishness of others and the despair that wracked Europe so that I never hated anyone. And still, I could not adapt to America because, living in Harlem, I could not understand the injustice. Here too they enabled me to understand the pathology, lowering my guarding. But what I never adjusted to is the me-ism of the 60s. American Jews were the only people in this country that really welcomed you with open arms and did feel a human obligation towards you. Whatever ethnocentricity I later came to see-- making them seem almost like Anglo-Saxons-- in fact, they never were and the difference was obvious by a mile. But somehow many Jews seem to have gone the way of the neocons. Perhaps they were swept up by the Podhoretz article in COMMENTARY, "My NEGRO PROBLEM, AND YOURS." If neoconism has swept American Jews it is very sad for these are not real Jews and not bound by the culture, having so easily been Communists and right wingers when it fits their profit motives. I more fear that the neocons exploited an American trait that took over the idealism of the 1960s-- the me-ism of the 1970s. Now all the Jewish young revolutionaries, hippies and idealists of that era are, like me, old farts. As such they are not the Jews that shepherded me through the long refuge, nor like the American Jews that welcomed and helped us here. Rather they are like Ms. Geller. Rather than be Jewish as was the code of Talmudic law, they are synthetic Holocaust victims who justify their 1970s acquired Americanization with vicarious 1930-isms. If you talk to "Righteous Gentiles," for whom saving Jews was like a death sentence, you will here form every one of them that they did it because when the Jews were on top they always had a heart and never let a stranger's child go hungry. I met similar Jews here in America. Has Farakan become enough of an excuse that my generations' old far Jews are now using him as an excuse to violating the precepts from which Jesus Christ took form? If so it is sad because, if you bother to look, you will see that your children and grand-children have gone back to being the kind of Jews that raised you in your pre-hedonic childhood. And if they see you as old mean me-ist farts, they will turn away from you and will not want their children to be infected by your neocon-con me-ism. A Jew, unfortunately, is no like a Christian; he/she has no way in-out-in-out.... of redemption. A Jew is a Jew all the way from the tip of the head to the toes. It may not be fair, given what scumbags Americans in general have become since the me-ist era, but no matter what others do, as Jew, what you do is like an ugly wart and it doesn't fall off. No, no way does Obama walk on water. But he has a social heart-- one as big as that of a pre-1970s American and pre-neocon Jew. He wants "revolutionary" change as a Jew named Jesus wanted revolutionary change back to the social conscience of Jews as he was raised with. For that the crucified him. Those of you who think you can have it both ways: be a Jew but be a me-ist American at the same time, I'm afraid you face the worst Holocaust possible: rejection by your children as Jesus the Jew rejected the Judaism of foreign occupation where the words were the same but the soul was barren. Obama is your chance to once again divert America from its flight path leading to a crash into the mountain of geriatric me-ism. The Jews gave America a gift in liberating it from their racism, even while they themselves stood on something of an unsure platform. Back then the Holocaust was not an excuse. It was a warning Jews took as their painful lesson as a gift to their fellow Americans TEACHING this nation we all share that from racism can only come Holocausts because of the cancer for which it is a sentinel sign. So before you curse Obama as that upiddy shcwartza who is anti-American, anti-Israel, anti-Capitalist and all the other dirty lies that the ex-Leninist neocons like to throw at him, just ask yourself what is he trying to do and for whom? When you do you will see that he is seeking to bring to the nation that gave him the presidency EVEN THOUGH HE IS A "SCHWARZA" what the Jews made possible for him to get and YOUR Jewish children flocked around him to give to THEIR America. Don't be left out in the cold by your kids, rabbi, bitching and moaning about that schwartza through all sorts of unsaid innuendos, for Obama s the Americans Jews struggled and died to create: one liberated from racism, hate and selfishness.
NOTHING proposed by Obama and the Democrats improves medical care for anyone who already has it. To the contrary, the purpose of this EVIL "change" is to degrade, but more importantly control and ration health care. It is an obscenity.
There are numerous true "reforms" which could provide medical care to all of the uninsured (who now receive medical care in any event, despite their financial inability, or more often, simple refusal to insure themselves). None of these reasonable "reforms" are contained in of the Democrats' bills. Instead, what is proposed is a massively expensive totalitarian government bureaucracy to control and ration healthcare. The result would be a disaster for everyone who is now insured (and for almost everyone else).
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Now some FACTS:
There is no "huge problem".
A recent poll found: "89% of Americans are satisfied with their own personal medical care ... Of those with insurance who had suffered a serious illness during the last year, 93% were satisfied; 95% of those who suffered chronic illness were satisfied with their health care."
Obama's numbers are bogus. Of the "45 million" he claims are uninsured, only 11 million, or about 4% want and cannot afford insurance. 83% of the population is insured. The rest are comprised of (1) illegal aliens without insurance (many are insured), (2) college students who could be covered, and those earning $75,000 or more who choose not to insure, (3) 11 million who are eligible for SCHIP and Medicaid but have not signed up for some reason. The remaining 4% can be insured and presumably even save taxpayers money since they can be seen in clinics and not emergency rooms.
In response to this "crisis" (sic), Obamacare will cost the rest of us a minimum of $1 Trillion dollars (a million million dollars) over the next 10 years, and ..... then the cost really goes up! The following 10 years make the first look like chump change!
So, what is this EVIL "change" really about?
Oh Rabbi, rather than cite those stats for support please remember that Jews are bestowed with a social conscience and a sense of foresight. Sure 80% of Americans are happy like pigs in s--t with their heathcare insurance because, like the piggies, they don't know what's ahead-- the massacre because that comes when it's time to make a profit. HMOs depend on investments and investments depend on dividends. How are they cutting costs? By denying, denying, denying; just look at how screwed are Medicare patients that abrogated their rights for the 20% that the HMOs get-- even the Gov wants to stop being ripped off by the HMOs for that. Algorithms that make no sense, uniformization of human medicine that makes no sense, that's what people in total ignorance of their tomorrows are "satisfied" with. A PMD gets so little and has such a high capitation. Don't tell me everyone is happy because patients blame their disatisfaction on the PMD rather than on the HMO-- that's not satisfaction, that's dumb ignorance. Those that are are DUMB and happy are that way because they don't think about what lies ahead. Employer paid insurance is a gimmick that took fire in 1950s when workers were desperately needed. Now they can be replaced with machines that don't need health insurance or by slave labor in the Third World that doesn't get health insurance. Most of today's people with POOR healthcare were yesterday's happy little pifgs in s--t who didn't think of the slaughter when healthcare can no longer be afforded by employers. How many people don't have healthcare because they were thrown off plans they payed for years? Do these people really know what goes on behind the HMO witch doctor's screen? Medicine IS killing a lot of people in ignorance and despair. AIDS drained so many resources and now we're supposed to do even more with less in the hospital. It is estimated that 39% come out of hopspital worse than when they came in; a lot of diseases are missed and caught too late because of the in-and-out economics of for-profit healthcare. Come on Rabbi, why do we spend twice as much as anyone on healthcare and are rated 26th of of 26 top modern countires on longevity and quality of care? TR Reid of WashPost rightly puts the issue in his book after seeing why others do so much better than us: http://www.amazon.com/Healing-America-Global-Better-Cheaper/dp/1594202346/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251559566&sr=1-1
I hope that as a moral man you will read it. He explains that the other 26 countries did not ask how they'll pay for universal healthcare but decided first to provide it and then found a way. It was not always socialized medicine but it was universal healthcare. Reid insists that we asked the wrong question. He insists that we should ask: why not us too? That's the question Obama is trying to answer before the cost of health care destroys us. Obama's no RADICAL, the US econmy, thanks to total 8 years od Bush-it entrepreneurial cannibalism is in "Code Blue" and as the next physcian on call Obama is trying to save it.
As a Rabbi you have a social conscience and you are a servant of God assigned the task of making all of us remember our own. Sure, for the multimillionaire there's insti-healthcare. But the rich too see only some PMD who is as profit motivated as they are. Those guys decide to DNR when the COST is beyond a certain point or when the patient is of minimal return for that cost....noty on the basis of the value of trying to save a life, like you trying to save a soul. You as a spiritual health provider have a mission: to raise social consciousness and moral consciousness to the highest level possible. You too should never be merely "satisfied." You don't just let a parishoner go by becuase he sais: "Don't bother me Rabbi, I feel OK about myself." No, you go after the lost sheep because they must be members of the flock to survive spiritually. Same here, we don't work to keep well the richest amongst us, the most self-satisfied or those who expect me to fix their diabetes as they eat candy bars; fix their liver while they drink on; fix their lungs as they keep smoking; control their hypertension while they eat high salt pickles. You don't give up on the sinners-- whether they know they are sinners or not-- and we don't give up on those creeping into ill health despite their insistance on slef-destructive habits and their claim: I'm feeling fine, get the hell away from me until I come to you with a problem. People think that there's a path to redemtion no matter what they do and a path to good health no matter what damage they do to themselves. A rabbi who gives up on his flock because it is "satisfied" with itself and doesn't want him to bother it is a putz. A healthcare provider who gives up on his patients because they say they are feeling well should be washing cars. Good moral self, like good healthy self, both need constant tweeking because the road to evil, like the road to irreversible illhealth, gets steeper as you get closer to your final end. So to pull them back gets harder and harder the further both deviate from the potential destination that God's plan has for each of us per the Good Book. God, as I recall the Bible, punished self-satisfaction much as the Greek Gods punished hubris. The poll you cite is one of hubris stemming from ignorance. The cure is information, not submission. A democracy does not mean that we abandon our social conscience because others are victims of ignorance andresultant self-satisfaction. If it did, then what the hell is the poit of our professions? What Obama seeks to do is what you should do: bring your faithful to full faith and harmony with the social GOOD-- the rest of us don't have your divine calling so we merely seek to make their bodies as healthy as possible using science because we know that their bodies are constantly under attack. If we fail to treat H1N1 flu well this winter, can we blame it on the self-satisfaction of patients who didn't bother to get vaccinated? Lastly rabbi, are you in the rabbinate for profit or because of Divine Inspiration? Why don't you want us with the lives of others in our hands just as you have their souls in your hands to be as divorsed from profit motive as you are?
I am addressing Mike, and answering his faulted take on Government controlled Insurance that will let you keep your own Insurance if you like. This is said over and over my Mr. Obama and it is a big lie.
Case History. I am a small business owner employing twenty people who I supply with Health Insurance with some support from the people taking the Insurance I offer. It is with a good company but very expensive and keeps my bottom line in bad shape. Along comes Mr. Obama and says to the small business owner if you don't supply Health Insurance you will be forced to pay a tax of two to five percent of your payroll. Now there are twenty million insured employees working for small business. By the way SMALL BUSINESS IN MY DAY WAS A COMPANY EMPLOYING 500 PEOPLE and doing business under 20,000,000 dollars. I am 85 so those were figures from the 50's and 60's. I am sure theyvare much higher now. Anyhow now I begin to figure that 2% of payroll is a lot better then the 15 or 20% my Health Insurance is costing. People, you will have to go to the pool which will include private Insurers and are benevolent Government Insurance which will probably be cheaper by 20% over the private guys. Now where does it say I get to keep my private Insurance if I like it when my damn Boss has canceled and I have no recourse.
Mike, if you can't understand that this whole scheme is paving the way for a single payer plan, Government owned, I don't know whAT IT COULD BE. Now to put all facts on the table, I am on Medicare, which I think is great, and it is a Government run program. I get my Meds from the VA because I am a Veteran of WW II. The only problem is that this goverment run Program is going broke because it is costing ten times what the Government experts predicted it would cost.
If Obama thinks he can take $500, to 600 Billion out of Medicare and, in his own words, keep the quality the same I am falling over laughing-not, because I am crying over the runiation of a good program that has been missmanaged by Government. Beware of all of the proposals that are coming out of DC. The President for one does not know half of what the Polosies and Reids are stuffing in the 1200 or so pages. If Congress knows what is good for it, it had better listen to the American Public who by bigger and bigger margins hate this whole Health Care Reform which started out lowering Health Care Costs but wound up costing a milion million dollars. Thats a Trillion for those that think that was a typo.Oh,I failed to mention that the savings will begin to accrue 15 years out, that is if we still have a country.
What does President Obama's color of his skin have to do with Judaism or supporting his health plan ?How did Jesus get into the act? His skin color by the way was dark and so was Moses. In fact we all started out being people of color. I begin with my original question. Does he or does he not support the State Of Israel? Is he selling Israel out? At the rate this country is going, with so many people unemployed and with us all having lost so much in savings none of us will be able to afford health insurance. How many graduating college seniors have jobs?Has the congress even read the health bill? These are the same people who brought us the stimulus bill/ Will we ever wake up from this nightmare?
I am addressing Mike, and answering his faulted take on Government controlled Insurance that will let you keep your own Insurance if you like. This is said over and over my Mr. Obama and it is a big lie.
Case History. I am a small business owner employing twenty people who I supply with Health Insurance with some support from the people taking the Insurance I offer. It is with a good company but very expensive and keeps my bottom line in bad shape. Along comes Mr. Obama and says to the small business owner if you don't supply Health Insurance you will be forced to pay a tax of two to five percent of your payroll. Now there are twenty million insured employees working for small business. By the way SMALL BUSINESS IN MY DAY WAS A COMPANY EMPLOYING 500 PEOPLE and doing business under 20,000,000 dollars. I am 85 so those were figures from the 50's and 60's. I am sure theyvare much higher now. Anyhow now I begin to figure that 2% of payroll is a lot better then the 15 or 20% my Health Insurance is costing. People, you will have to go to the pool which will include private Insurers and are benevolent Government Insurance which will probably be cheaper by 20% over the private guys. Now where does it say I get to keep my private Insurance if I like it when my damn Boss has canceled and I have no recourse.
Mike, if you can't understand that this whole scheme is paving the way for a single payer plan, Government owned, I don't know whAT IT COULD BE. Now to put all facts on the table, I am on Medicare, which I think is great, and it is a Government run program. I get my Meds from the VA because I am a Veteran of WW II. The only problem is that this goverment run Program is going broke because it is costing ten times what the Government experts predicted it would cost.
If Obama thinks he can take $500, to 600 Billion out of Medicare and, in his own words, keep the quality the same I am falling over laughing-not, because I am crying over the runiation of a good program that has been missmanaged by Government. Beware of all of the proposals that are coming out of DC. The President for one does not know half of what the Polosies and Reids are stuffing in the 1200 or so pages. If Congress knows what is good for it, it had better listen to the American Public who by bigger and bigger margins hate this whole Health Care Reform which started out lowering Health Care Costs but wound up costing a milion million dollars. Thats a Trillion for those that think that was a typo.Oh,I failed to mention that the savings will begin to accrue 15 years out, that is if we still have a country.
I am addressing Mike, and answering his faulted take on Government controlled Insurance that will let you keep your own Insurance if you like. This is said over and over my Mr. Obama and it is a big lie.
Case History. I am a small business owner employing twenty people who I supply with Health Insurance with some support from the people taking the Insurance I offer. It is with a good company but very expensive and keeps my bottom line in bad shape. Along comes Mr. Obama and says to the small business owner if you don't supply Health Insurance you will be forced to pay a tax of two to five percent of your payroll. Now there are twenty million insured employees working for small business. By the way SMALL BUSINESS IN MY DAY WAS A COMPANY EMPLOYING 500 PEOPLE and doing business under 20,000,000 dollars. I am 85 so those were figures from the 50's and 60's. I am sure theyvare much higher now. Anyhow now I begin to figure that 2% of payroll is a lot better then the 15 or 20% my Health Insurance is costing. People, you will have to go to the pool which will include private Insurers and are benevolent Government Insurance which will probably be cheaper by 20% over the private guys. Now where does it say I get to keep my private Insurance if I like it when my damn Boss has canceled and I have no recourse.
Mike, if you can't understand that this whole scheme is paving the way for a single payer plan, Government owned, I don't know whAT IT COULD BE. Now to put all facts on the table, I am on Medicare, which I think is great, and it is a Government run program. I get my Meds from the VA because I am a Veteran of WW II. The only problem is that this goverment run Program is going broke because it is costing ten times what the Government experts predicted it would cost.
If Obama thinks he can take $500, to 600 Billion out of Medicare and, in his own words, keep the quality the same I am falling over laughing-not, because I am crying over the runiation of a good program that has been missmanaged by Government. Beware of all of the proposals that are coming out of DC. The President for one does not know half of what the Polosies and Reids are stuffing in the 1200 or so pages. If Congress knows what is good for it, it had better listen to the American Public who by bigger and bigger margins hate this whole Health Care Reform which started out lowering Health Care Costs but wound up costing a milion million dollars. Thats a Trillion for those that think that was a typo.Oh,I failed to mention that the savings will begin to accrue 15 years out, that is if we still have a country.
Where in the constitution does it give feds power over insurance.Our state goverments can regulate private insurers,create co-ops.Can not the states enter into a compact to create a single payer/co-op if that is will of the people. We say we believe in the constitution but ignore it at will just like the hypocrites who claim to believe in the bible but live otherwise.
Survey finds hundreds of thousands of specimens may be mislabeled before reaching UK pathology labs. The UK's Telegraph (8/21, Hough) reports, "Almost 366,000 specimens were mislabeled before they arrived at" British "pathology laboratories, figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act disclose." In fact, "46 recorded cases over the past financial year were uncovered where 'mislabeling was found to have been related either to a patient death or a significant delay in patient treatment,'" according to a "survey of every NHS trust in Britain." What's more, "almost 12,000 samples were incorrectly labeled by pathology lab staff." Professor John Kay, "a Royal College of Pathologists spokesman," explained that the majority "of those errors actually occurred, because we are using handwritten request cards." And, in "a small number of those examples, there will be really serious problems." Still, a "Department of Health spokesman said the NHS tested and reported on 700 million pathology samples every year and took patient safety 'very seriously.'"
I don't understand all this. We are seeking savings in a coordinated NOT FOR PROFIT system. A predator profits from a limb in an otherwise hard to get gazelle. Is that law of ingle what you want rabbi, as "rationing." Right now we are rationing because health insurance heads RATION healthcare based on the big profit margin needed for investors that pay execs $2-3 million a year. That's the universal insurance you have now: CANNIBALISM, as insurers make money off of your INEVITABLE illness. The chances of my house going on fire are very small. But I get insurance anyway, just in case. My insurer shares the small chance of fire with me for a fee and makes a nice profit. But should my house go on fire HE PAYS UP...in full! But illness is a part of life. The only way my insurer can provide the big profits he needs to disperse competitive dividends so he can get his big bonuses from his investors is to cut back on care. Is that the kind of rationing you would accept as moral, rabbi? That to me is a sacrilege against the millions of doctor's hours donated by Jewish MDs for people whose luck and health insurance ran out. And most plans make volume deals with hospitals that are the real cash cows today. They pass costs around so they can satisfy their boards with dividends. Rabbi, Luther abandoned-- indeed condemned-- the Catholic Church for taking "indulgences" in cash to wipe away sins before God. Even today the Holy Roman Church has admitted to the evil of its past. Would you say: yea, that's healthcare for the soul but the body is open season to the law of the jungle?
The moral issue aside, the average or median patient in other civilized countries does quite well of single-payer. It is rational and makes everyone understand his/her responsibility.....Best of all hospitals are run NOT for profit in most places and doctors are not part of complex for profit schemes. As a result people live better longer and use less of the system. Best of all, practices are under constant review and medical science butts into medical "art" all the time. As a result people fix their lives better and overall longevity is about 10 years longer. The goal is to recognize that if in the partnership the provider and the provided make coordinated sacrifices all live better. Here in America we are what we eat and we eat what we see and are told to eat on TV. As a result we are very sick and medicine is fighting a losing war to make us healthy. I don't see you, rabbi, complaining about seat-belt laws while driving nor about illicit drug laws. What are we to do about those of us who are self-inflicting known poisons to our bodies? Are we to make that the issue of profit until it becomes a public burden and then collectively let that drain us? HIV AIDS has destroyed the abilities of health care on both coasts because it is shrouded in secrecy. And yet, if you have syphilis the doctor must report it to the Board of Health immediately. We now face H1N1 epidemic; would you have us turn it to profit makers? Public health was developed on basis that in a nation once one gets sick all are at risk. Perhaps a RATIONAL rationing instead of an on-again-off-again irrational profit motive rationing would help. The for-profit motive has made the cost of health care totally uneven. And it has made it so exorbitant that what we are learning as good medicine can't be tested or used because of the long slide of profit between the patient and doctor that makes it prohibitive. Soon, the prohibitive cost will reach your Congregation that will find putting a roof on the Synagogue more costly that taking care of your prostate cancer. What will you do then when faced with such a choice? The 80% happy with their plans today cannot in any way be assured that next year they will have the coverage they are sooooo satisfied with today? If their employer cuts them off, we will be a year more in deficit than we are now in the public sector. Should we then deny them care because they are satisfied now? America has long drunk the blood of the rest of the planet. We are ~6% of the world's population consuming ~60% of the world's assets. As it is we are living on profits that are phone, real only in that they were made off the back of Chinese that have none of the benefits we have. All they get to do is send us their savings as loans with which to buy their goods. As one author said: before Reagan we got paid for manufacturing thing, since then we get paid for shuffling them around. Right now, healthcare is living off of the Wall Street schemes that devastated the rest of the economy. It stands alone in a wreck of greed as a "profitable industry." Can you imagine the effect of it too facing the consequences of money-making schemes that other "industries" faced? Perhaps if you get a true picture of what that would be in your mind, you would chose taking advantages of the reform options available to us now rather than try the crooked alchemy of greed that Paulson asked for and imposed on his successor. Life is given and taken by God, not by profit. Jews have finally imposed that on the morally lapsed conscience of pseudo-Christians in the world of Anglo-Saxon Protestants of predatory profit avarice by risking their own well being—as they did in purging racism form this nation’s basic precepts—insisting upon the preaching of a Jew whom they all claim to have named their faith after that that's slavery turned cannibalism. In America I have had innumerable Jewish-American professors in social science classes drumming into my head that here the state is us. So are you now refusing to extend the logic to say that if we get sick and are not taken care of is not the same as if the state gets sick and we don’t take care of it you get tyranny?
Richard, insurance is theoretically the most regulated industry. You saw effect of AGI when it was not regulated a la Bush and its assets were a small proportion of its liabilities and YOU BAILED OUT INSURANCE. If what happened to AGI happened to health care, can you imagine the concequences? WELL, IT IS!
DE TEDODORU As a anglo saxon protestant i take offense at your snide comments regarding our morals.I also point out to you that congress makes law and budget.The mess created is bipartisan and both jew an gentile have dirty hands.Obama supported AIG bailout as did most democrats. Profit is built into every system including single payer-firms sell supplies for profit to single payer driving up cost. Rationing is built into every system because of resource limits. By law no one can be denied care.There is no need to upend the constitution to create a system that won't control cost or improve care.Changes in regulation can be done at state level. As hard as it may be for you to believe some of us anglo saxon protestants do care for our fellow human beings.
Aside from the fact that Obama"care" seeks to deprive Medicare patients of $500 Billion in healthcare benefits (their inhumane fix for a government health plan that has been so abysmally administered by bureaucrats that it is losing Billions), the issue of "Death Panels" has been mocked by extreme leftists, who tout the British system. Well, British "DEATH PANELS" are real:
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"SENTENCED TO DEATH ON THE NHS
Patients with terminal illnesses are being made to die prematurely under an NHS scheme to help end their lives, leading doctors have warned.
In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, a group of experts who care for the terminally ill claim that some patients are being wrongly judged as close to death.
Under NHS guidance introduced across England to help doctors and medical staff deal with dying patients, they can then have fluid and drugs withdrawn and many are put on continuous sedation until they pass away. But this approach can also mask the signs that their condition is improving, the experts warn.
As a result the scheme is causing a “national crisis” in patient care, the letter states. It has been signed palliative care experts including Professor Peter Millard, Emeritus Professor of Geriatrics, University of London, Dr Peter Hargreaves, a consultant in Palliative Medicine at St Luke’s cancer centre in Guildford, and four others.
“Forecasting death is an inexact science,” they say. Patients are being diagnosed as being close to death “without regard to the fact that the diagnosis could be wrong."
“As a result a national wave of discontent is building up, as family and friends witness the denial of fluids and food to patients."
The warning comes just a week after a report by the Patients Association estimated that up to one million patients had received poor or cruel care on the NHS.
The scheme, called the Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP), was designed to reduce patient suffering in their final hours. .... It was recommended as a model by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), the Government’s health scrutiny body, in 2004.
It has been gradually adopted nationwide and more than 300 hospitals, 130 hospices and 560 care homes in England currently use the system.
Under the guidelines the decision to diagnose that a patient is close to death is made by the entire medical team treating them, including a senior doctor.
They look for signs that a patient is approaching their final hours, which can include if patients have lost consciousness or whether they are having difficulty swallowing medication. However, doctors warn that these signs can point to other medical problems.
Patients can become semi-conscious and confused as a side effect of pain-killing drugs such as morphine if they are also dehydrated, for instance.
When a decision has been made to place a patient on the pathway doctors are then recommended to consider removing medication or invasive procedures, such as intravenous drips, which are no longer of benefit. If a patient is judged to still be able to eat or drink food and water will still be offered to them, as this is considered nursing care rather than medical intervention. Dr Hargreaves said that this depended, however, on constant assessment of a patient’s condition.
He added that some patients were being “wrongly” put on the pathway, which created a “self-fulfilling prophecy” that they would die.
He said: “I have been practising palliative medicine for more than 20 years and I am getting more concerned about this “death pathway” that is coming in.
“It is supposed to let people die with dignity but it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
“Patients who are allowed to become dehydrated and then become confused can be wrongly put on this pathway.” .....
Prof Millard said that it was “worrying” that patients were being “terminally” sedated, using syringe drivers, which continually empty their contents into a patient over the course of 24 hours.
In 2007-08 16.5 per cent of deaths in Britain came about after continuous deep sedation, according to researchers at the Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, twice as many as in Belgium and the Netherlands. “If they are sedated it is much harder to see that a patient is getting better,” Prof Millard said. .....
The letter has also been signed by Dr Anthony Cole, the chairman of the Medical Ethics Alliance, Dr David Hill, an anaesthetist, Dowager Lady Salisbury, chairman of the Choose Life campaign and Dr Elizabeth Negus a lecturer in English at Barking University."
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Lets not let Obama and the extreme leftist "progressive" Democrats institute fascist eugenics and destroy the most advanced cutting-edge healthcare system in the world. 90% of Americans are insured and are happy with their health insurance. Perhaps 5 million are unintentionally uninsured, and that can be dealt with - certainly without destroying healthcare for everyone else, and rationing healthcare with an inhumane inferior socialist system. Only extreme leftists want "Death Panels".