Death Panels?
The Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research, already functioning, has this to say about its work:
The Council will consider the needs of populations served by federal programs and opportunities to build and expand on current investments and priorities. It will also provide input on priorities for the $400 million fund in the Recovery Act that the Secretary will allocate to advance this type of research.
And if we ever have the Public Option, how do you think Comparative Effectiveness Research, will be administered? Sure, calling it a Death Panel is hyperbole, but we’d be crazy to think that government bureaucrats, following the Panels guidelines, will not make judgments on “End of Life” care, whether that comes for senior citizens or for anyone who suffers some sort of life-threatening trauma. The scariest part is not that they will make the judgments, but that those judgments are going to be made and promulgated ahead of time… In fact making those judgments is the core purpose of the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research. It’s easy to imagine the Council’s representative in a trauma center, not listening to the Doctors or the Family, but instead referring to the volumes of regulations and the Effective Care Matrix, to determine whether life-saving treatment is government approved.
No. There won’t be a Death Panel judging whether or not we or our family gets possibly life-saving treatment. Instead there will be a bureaucracy, not MAKING those decisions, but ADMINISTERING the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research’s guidelines.
The Government Option and/or Single Payer System MUST be stopped.
More Thoughts from George Will’s column from January:
Well, it already has been stealthily created and we ought to be wary. Is Death Panel an exaggerated description? Well not in the sense of it’s authority over determining what is excessively expensive life saving intervention.
