A Convenient Evolution?
This morning’s Washington Times article quotes Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel as saying his views on killing senior citizens have evolved over time:
Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel, the White House official targeted by Sarah Palin and other conservatives as an advocate for health care rationing and “death panels,” said Thursday his “thinking has evolved” on the need to decide who gets treated and who does not.
“When I began working in the health policy area about 20 years ago…I thought we would definitely have to ration care, that there was a need to make a decision and deny people care,” said Dr. Emanuel, a health care adviser to President Obama in the Office of Management and Budget, during a phone interview.
“I think that over the last five to seven years…I’ve come to the conclusion that in our system we are spending way more money than we need to, a lot of it on unnecessary care,” he said. “If we got rid of that care we would have absolutely no reason to even consider rationing except in a few cases.”
Forgive me but I trust Emanuel’s conversion to be a little too convenient to be believed. Betsy McCaughey highlights why we should treat Dr. Emanuel’s conversion with skepticism:
THE health bills coming out of Congress would put the de cisions about your care in the hands of presidential appointees. They’d decide what plans cover, how much leeway your doctor will have and what seniors get under Medicare.
Yet at least two of President Obama’s top health advisers should never be trusted with that power.
Start with Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. He has already been appointed to two key positions: health-policy adviser at the Office of Management and Budget and a member of Federal Council on Comparative Effectiveness Research.
Emanuel bluntly admits that the cuts will not be pain-free. “Vague promises of savings from cutting waste, enhancing prevention and wellness, installing electronic medical records and improving quality are merely ‘lipstick’ cost control, more for show and public relations than for true change,” he wrote last year (Health Affairs Feb. 27, 2008).
What recent event caused the final evolution away from Dr. Emanuel’s previously held beliefs? His supposedly newfound beliefs have been dramatic and recent. What major piece of information did Dr. Emanuel discover since February, 2008, that changed his opinion that dramatically?
Did Dr. Emanuel’s conversion have more to do with political considerations than with science? I’ve seen nothing that suggests Dr. Emanuel’s ‘transformation’ was based on scientific considerations. Dr. Emanuel’s ‘transformation’ is an attempt to limit the damage that Sarah Palin has caused to President Obama’s health care reform plans.
Here’s what Sarah Palin is asking of Dr. Emanuel:
The rationing system proposed by one of President Obama’s key health care advisors is particularly disturbing. I’m speaking of the “Complete Lives System” advocated by Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of the president’s chief of staff. President Obama has not yet stated any opposition to the “Complete Lives System,” a system which, if enacted, would refuse to allocate medical resources to the elderly, the infirm, and the disabled who have less economic potential. [1] Why the silence from the president on this aspect of his nationalization of health care? Does he agree with the “Complete Lives System”? If not, then why is Dr. Emanuel his policy advisor? What is he advising the president on? I just learned that Dr. Emanuel is now distancing himself from his own work and claiming that his “thinking has evolved” on the question of rationing care to benefit the strong and deny the weak. [2] How convenient that he disavowed his own work only after the nature of his scholarship was revealed to the public at large.
Convenient is a good word for it. Suspicious is a better adjective for the situation. That’s putting it politely. I suspect that Dr. Emanuel’s transformation has more to do with brother Rahm’s suggestion that he fall on his sword for the good of health care reform than on Dr. Emanuel’s sudden change of heart.
Technorati Tags: Reforms, Ezekiel Emanuel, Rahm Emanuel, Rationing, Spin, Democrats, Sarah Palin, Betsy McCaughey, Conservatives
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog
August 14th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
Obama Death Clinics coming for grandmas and you.
August 14th, 2009 at 8:36 pm
How can one be sure there will eventually be “Death Panels” with the proposed legislation, whether that is in the legislation now or not?
Because the jackasses are denying it, and denying it vociferously.
In the words of the great Bard, “Methinks thou dost protest too much.”
Just the fact they are denying it should be enough to convince the person of average intelligence they are lying, because their record of 100% lies is still unblemished. But when the denials are so high-pitched and constant, there’s more to it than the donks want anyone to see.
August 14th, 2009 at 10:34 pm
Isn’t it amazing what you can get away with when the lame stream press is asleep?
What a country!