Welcome Aboard

Finally, some of the very issues in the Obama-care bill(s) that the right and libertarians have been highlighting have received some attention from members of the left.

Writer for the Village Voice (of New York), Nat Hentoff, has written a column "I am finally scared of a White House administration". This columns, written for the Jewish World Review takes on the issue of Government control that, in Hentoff's eyes, goes too far. The issue Hentoff raises is, amazingly, government panels, rationing and end-of-life-services.

But now I am finally scared of a White House administration. President Obama's desired health care reform intends that a federal board (similar to the British model) — as in the Center for Health Outcomes Research and Evaluation in a current Democratic bill — decides whether your quality of life, regardless of your political party, merits government-controlled funds to keep you alive. Watch for that life-decider in the final bill. It's already in the stimulus bill signed into law.

Hentoff is not your garden variety northeast/New York lib/rad. I have agreed with his views before, primarily because he comes from a liberal/libertarian and not a big government control viewpoint.

If someone like Hentoff believes "death panels" are an issue, then they are not a chimera like the backers of Obama-care have tried to convince middle America.

You might remember that Senator Charles Grassley who has been negotiating with Chairman Max Baucus of the Senate Finance Committee came out and said last week that the "death panels" are out of the bill. This was after Sarah Palin's use of the term in her Facebook Page finally clicked the issue on in many people's minds. Don't buy that. The issue lives on in all of the House of Representative's bills.

This end-of-life consultation has been stripped from the Senate Finance Committee bill because of democracy-in-action town-hall outcries but remains in three House bills.

A specific end-of-life proposal is in draft Section 1233 of H.R. 3200, a House Democratic health care bill that is echoed in two others that also call for versions of "advance care planning consultation" every five years — or sooner if the patient is diagnosed with a progressive or terminal illness.

So as we saw at the beginning of the "Town Halls", most of our elected representatives had not yet had a chance or bothered trying read the bills they were asked to pass by the end of July. Thus these politicians would try to federalize/nationalize so much of our economy without knowing the details. Many pooh poohed the very talk of death panels...let alone a host of other issues like the public option...the camel's nose which would eventually lead to "single payer". The real secret is that it is not what is in the bill that is the biggest problem with Obama-care....it is what the people who write the regulations and put the vast number of programs into effect which is the biggest problem.  Hentoff is slao VERY concerned about this:

I was alerted to Lanes' crucial cautionary advice — for those of use who may be influenced to attend the Obamacare twilight consultations — by Wesley J. Smith, a continually invaluable reporter and analyst of, as he calls his most recent book, the "Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America" (Encounter Books).

As more Americans became increasingly troubled by this and other fearful elements of Dr. Obama's cost-efficient health care regimen, Smith adds this vital advice, no matter what legislation Obama finally signs into law:

"Remember that legislation itself is only half the problem with Obamacare. Whatever bill passes, hundreds of bureaucrats in the federal agencies will have years to promulgate scores of regulations to govern the details of the law.

"This is where the real mischief could be done because most regulatory actions are effectuated beneath the public radar. It is thus essential, as just one example, that any end-of-life counseling provision in the final bill be specified to be purely voluntary … and that the counseling be required by law to be neutral as to outcome. Otherwise, even if the legislation doesn't push in a specific direction — for instance, THE GOVERNMENT REFUSING TREATMENT — the regulations could." (Emphasis added.)

Who'll let us know what's really being decided about our lives — and what is set into law? To begin with, Charles Lane, Wesley Smith and others whom I'll cite and add to as this chilling climax of the Obama presidency comes closer.

So I welcome Nat Hentoff to the fight...now it's more than the uneducated masses or the minions of the insurance industry that are bringing some of the issues of the health reform monster to light.