Many of the issues
swirling around before this election are
mere distractions. At its center is the
giant power struggle between the ruling
elite and productive Americans.
The appealing message
from our rulers is “empowerment.” But this
does not mean empowerment of the uninsured,
the unemployed, food stamp recipients,
illegal aliens, and other needy persons. It
means consolidation of power at the top, and
the disempowerment of any potential
rivals: successful industries, prosperous
professionals, even small businesses that
are still solvent and independent. Like
small doctors’ practices.
Giving people a handout
instead of a hand up never makes them
stronger. It makes them more dependent, and
turns them into an army of pawns who can be
counted on to do the will of those who feed
them. They reliably vote for their supposed
benefactors. And some of them also register
illegals to vote, disrupt town halls or tea
parties, key cars displaying signs for
challengers, steal campaign signs,
disseminate slander, and try to intimidate
people. If things get really bad, they could
become an army of rioters, looters, and
worse.
The productive Americans
who work every day, mind their own business,
take care of their families, obey the law,
and make the country function are being bled
through “redistributive” taxes, which
primarily benefit those who will soon be
strong enough to trample their liberties and
reduce them to poverty. The tax donors will
have to cooperate with the rulers, and
censor their own protests—or else.
NPR sent a message
through Juan Williams. If they can do it to
someone with an audience as large as his,
nobody is safe from the thought police.
Nowhere is the threat to
professionals and those whom they serve more
apparent than in ObamaCare—if you read the
actual law and not the glossy flyers sent by
Medicare at taxpayer expense.
The requirements of the
law are so costly and onerous that most
physicians, if they continue to practice at
all, will be forced into “accountable care
organizations.” Accountable to whom? To the
System, that is to the elite “decisionmakers.”
Accountable for what? For reducing “costs”
(that means spending on medical care), and
for implementing “best practices.”
The first target is the
“elderly” (those over the age of 65), and
others who might be near the “end of life,”
since that is where most of the medical
money goes. Not incidentally, older
Americans can also be a problem, judging by
the crowd at tea parties, since they know
something of American history and have lived
most of their lives in a free society.
We have heard that
ObamaCare is funded partly by redistributing
Medicare “savings” of some $500 billion over
10 years. This is less than half a truth. If
the 10-year period starts with full
implementation in 2014 rather than in 2010,
the amount is $800 billion, states Peter
Ferrara in his book The Obamacare
Disaster. And over the first 20 years of
implementation, the amount rises to nearly
$3 trillion.
ObamaCare advocates claim
they can do this by cutting out the 30
percent of services that are “unnecessary,”
as determined by them. A knee replacement,
for example, probably doesn’t save your
life—it is not “necessary” to be able to
walk or to be pain free. And it will also
cut out “fraud”—which increasingly is
defined to include “unnecessary” services,
as well as those coded incorrectly or not
meeting the established “standard of care.”
There are no death
panels. And no euthanasia. In fact, the law
takes care to specify that physicians and
institutions are protected against
discrimination or retaliation for refusing
to participate in physician-assisted
suicide.
However, this
protection explicitly does not extend to
refusal to participate in overmedication or
withdrawal of treatment or food and water.
More ominously, we already see state laws
proposed to immunize physicians from
criminal or civil liability, or discipline
for carrying out the terms of a Physician
Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST)
form, though they may be disciplined for
failure to do so.
Keep in mind that these
days “life-sustaining treatment” includes
food and water, especially if “artificially”
administered, say because the patient is too
heavily medicated to be able to swallow.
Such “palliative sedation” is a new subject
for discussion in the medical journals that
have been advocating Obama-style “reform”
for decades. No, the sedative doesn’t kill
the patient—it just keeps her more
comfortable while she is dehydrating, and
also keeps her from taking deep breaths or
moving around. So within two weeks she is
dead. If the underlying disease doesn’t kill
her, dehydration, or the pneumonia or blood
clots resulting from immobility will.
It’s not a very long
stretch to envision doctors being prosecuted
for failing to carry out patients’ alleged
wishes for early death through sedated
dehydration.
Before it comes to that,
doctors will just be co-opted into the
System, or marginalized as being “greedy,”
“disruptive,” or “paranoid” if they insist
on following the Oath of Hippocrates.
In the days just before
the election, incumbents are desperate. They
will do anything to prevent reasoned debate
on the central issue of where America is
headed—toward the consolidation of central
government power. They may even admit to
minor errors and promise to “tweak”
fundamentally flawed laws like ObamaCare.
Look for a blitz of attack ads, false
accusations, and outright election fraud.
“Reformers” talk a lot
about “fragmentation”—of things like medical
care. Their real fear is fragmentation of
their power. That’s what a thorough
housecleaning this election would mean. It
would give Americans who believe in our
founding principles a chance to take back
our country.
Failure to seize this
opportunity probably spells the death of
freedom–and literal death, for the most
vulnerable first.
Jane
M. Orient, M.D., Executive
Director of Association of American
Physicians and Surgeons, has been in solo
practice of general internal medicine since
1981 and is a clinical lecturer in medicine
at the University of Arizona College of
Medicine. She received her undergraduate
degrees in chemistry and mathematics from
the University of Arizona, and her M.D. from
Columbia University College of Physicians
and Surgeons. She is the author of
Sapira’s Art and
Science of Bedside Diagnosis; the
fourth edition has just been published by
Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins. She also
authored YOUR Doctor Is Not In: Healthy
Skepticism about National Health Care,
published by Crown. She is the executive
director of the Association of American
Physicians and Surgeons, a voice for
patients’ and physicians’ independence since
1943. Complete curriculum vitae posted at
www.drjaneorient.com.