Included within the recent stimulus bill signed into law by Obama several weeks ago, were monies earmarked for the creation of a National Health Care Database which is to be administered by the Department of Health and Human Services.
This database is to be created in partnership with Microsoft in grant monies which are to be awarded to several colleges and universities which will receive the software and other technology necessary under the grants, and be charged with inputting the data under fellowships which will be given to students at these universities to essentially work for the government as part of their “education.”
This tremendous Bill of Rights infringement and privacy invasion was the brainchild of Tom Daschle from published reports, who was to head up the program until his recent difficulties in the confirmation process.
There are no “opt out” provisions for this program for the American citizens. While many health care organizations have been objecting to the plan without simply “informed consent” provisions advising the citizens of the public nature such a system engenders regarding their private medical information, not a single Senator or Congressman objected on the grounds of the Constitutional abridgment which it clearly is.
Nor did Mr. Obama, a stated Constitutional lawyer. Obama to date has refused to so much as provide a certified copy of his birth certificate confirming that he meets the minimal requirements for holding the office upon which he swore on his honor to “preserve, protect and defend” that Constitution.
Constitutional Law 101
Apparently the battery of taxpayer paid legal counsels, who are at both the President and Congress’s disposal on Constitutional issues, also missed it. This is Constitutional Law 101, however. As with the original “Patriot Act” already the excuses are being made by some that there wasn’t enough time to thoroughly read this piece of legislation. That statement in and of itself is frightening in a representative government. The fact is, absention on voting on those grounds is clearly what would have been called for in such an instance.
As reported by WorldNet Daily and the Institute for Health Freedom, one of the many groups which discovered the provision hidden within all the pork, the administration of this database will be overseen by an ominous sounding new bureaucratic agency, the “Federal Coordinating Counsel for Comparative Effectiveness Research.”
So far it is anticipated that over 600,000 medical providers will have access to this database, including the public employees at the Department of Health and Human Services. With the ongoing abridgements of citizen’s Bill of Rights protections, how soon will it be before employers, private insurers, and even lawyers in litigation will be granted access to these public records?
The Institute reports that the function of this agency will be to evaluate prospective medical treatments for the citzens according to “actuarial” cost/benefit ratios. In other words, as a CEO or insurer would for a life insurance policy with respect to the costs vs. benefits and projected life expectancy given weight prior to approval of any treatment or coverage under this proposed governmental plan.
Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age
Daschle is quoted as stating that any planned health care reform “will not be pain free.” Also that “seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them.”
Defenders of the plan state that individuals will benefit while young while sacrificing later. Funny but it seems to me that on balance children and young adults health care costs are normally less than the elderly. It would appear this doublespeak simply means that the young will be supplementing the care for the elderly, or truthfully for the bureaucrats in Washington as another source of unaccountable revenue just as Social Security has become.
“Spreading the risk” in the insurance industry is one thing, but when the government does that it is clearly socialism. And so far Americans have the right to choose just who that provider will be, or whether they want insurance at all. Many have religious beliefs also that would force them to pay for treatments of which they might not approve. Are any and all abortions, for instance, to be covered? There are some whose religious beliefs discourage major interventions, immunizations or invasive medical treatments.
For others, that means by inference that so long as you are capable of being productive, the U.S.A. Inc. Healthcare Plan will “invest” in you, but when you are not providing that tax revenue or are more of a tax burden and drain than a contributor in your elder years, the CEO of this new agency will evaluate the costs vs. effectiveness of treatment based on life expectancy as the ultimate criteria.
Who has the right to live or die?
Isn’t this hauntingly similar to what the Nazis during World War II did in determining just who had the right to live or die based on a selective criteria in their fascist government? Someone who has HIV, or a chronic condition may not be physically wearing a patch, but with free access in the sheer number who will initially have access, this database is a patch all the same.
With the amount of time it now takes for the FDA to approve experimental treatments for diseases now in this country, also look for red tape and possible deaths while waiting for approvals, as has occurred quite frequently in Canada and Great Britain with their socialized health care program.
In fact, Great Britain – the country we fought a war in order to escape “sovereign intrusion – until recently had a system wherein for one particular progressive disease which involved blindness, the cost effectiveness scale utilized would not authorize needed surgery until the second eye was also affected, until public outrage caused a reversal there in that policy.
It appears President Obama, as with his predecessor, views his role as that of a CEO for U.S.A. Inc., and not in any way conversant or familiar with the actual limitations on his office accorded him in our Constitution with respect to the citizenry. He did swear an oath, twice actually, but seems to have the same interpretations of “executive privilege” and “executive powers” as his predecessor and quite a few before him. With 535 other “representatives” you would at least think one of them had read the document upon which they, too, swore their oath.
Soylent Green
This health care agenda definitely does not bode well for the baby boomer generation, which will be the largest segment of the population affected by these measures under the Obama regime. This is nothing short of “Soylent Green” come to life, and would appear Mr. Daschle may have written the script.
It will be interesting to see if the federal public employees including Mr. Obama and those Congressional members will keep their health care plans as with their private pension plans, and be exempted from the taxes and costs associated with this program and their records deemed “privileged.”
If the response is the same as has been the case over providing his certified birth certificate in order to unequivocally prove that he meets the legal qualifications for his right to hold the highest office in this country, how much would you like to bet that Mr. Obama’s personal health care records will not make it into that public database? And most likely 435 others, the ones who stood by silently again with nary an objection other than political posturing while a match was lit to that document lying under glass in it’s faded glory less than a mile or two away.
Either Harvard’s law curriculum needs some work, or maybe Mr. Obama should check with his physician to see if perhaps he is suffering from a stress related disorder after that two year campaign and might need to consult a mental health professional for a checkup – privately, of course.
