Obama is Bush in Sheep's Clothing - Do You See it Yet?

It wasn't GTMO or the promise to bring troops home from Iraq and send them right back to Afghanistan that made it clear. It was simply the Obama fear factor. The reason for rushing the stimulus package is "A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe." I've learned acting impetuously often invites unforeseen and unwanted consequences! And I think Camille Paglia said it best: "Surely common sense would dictate that when Congress is doling out fat dollops of taxpayers' money, due time should be delegated for sober consideration and debate. The administration's coercive rush toward instant action, accompanied by apocalyptic pronouncements of imminent catastrophe, has put its own credibility on the line."

Should we really be surprised to find hidden provisions in the stimulus package? Bloomberg posted a rather frightening account of the hidden Healthcare provisions in the Bill:

Tragically, no one from either party is objecting to the health provisions slipped in without discussion. These provisions reflect the handiwork of Tom Daschle, until recently the nominee to head the Health and Human Services Department.

  
Senators should read these provisions and vote against them because they are dangerous to your health. (Page numbers refer to H.R. 1 EH, pdf version). 

The bill’s health rules will affect “every individual in the United States” (445, 454, 479). Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system. Having electronic medical records at your fingertips, easily transferred to a hospital, is beneficial. It will help avoid duplicate tests and errors. 

But the bill goes further. One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.” According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and “learn to operate less like solo practitioners.”

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In his book, Daschle proposed an appointed body with vast powers to make the “tough” decisions elected politicians won’t make.

The stimulus bill does that, and calls it the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research (190-192). The goal, Daschle’s book explained, is to slow the development and use of new medications and technologies because they are driving up costs. He praises Europeans for being more willing to accept “hopeless diagnoses” and “forgo experimental treatments,” and he chastises Americans for expecting too much from the health-care system.

The Bloomberg article goes on to illustrate how the elderly will suffer more from this Bill than the young. The Healthcare agenda passed in this Bill simply concludes it will not be cost-effective to treat the elderly for illnesses that naturally occur as a result of growing old. Ironically, Arlen Specter is one of the three republicans in the Senate who helped passed the Bill. A post on Hot Air points out when Specter was asked why he would support a Bill that requires doctors to get federal approval before treating a patient, he said he never read it!

According to Bloomberg, the Bill is modeled after a UK health board described in Daschle's book. The Bloomberg article states a U.K. health board decreed in 2006 that elderly patients with macular degeneration had to wait until they went blind in one eye before they could get a costly new drug to save the other eye. It took almost three years of public protests before the board reversed its decision. And Specter, a senior citizen and recent cancer survivor, voted for it-- Call me a cynic, but I doubt he didn't know what was in it.

The truly sinister liberals I know-- and I lived in San Francisco for a number of years and so I know quite a few sinister liberals-- think Obama is just doing what needs to be done for the good of the nation and to counter right wing politics. But how are these tactics any different from the previous administration? When are we going to be done with the two-party double-talk and insist on something that can bring us some genuine hope?