Dr Ezekiel Emanuel AKA Josef Mengele

On Mon, 10 Aug 2009 10:02:53 -0700 (PDT), Spartakus

Hahaha! Once again, you live up to your pseudonym by NOT READING WHAT
EZEKIEL EMANUEL'S ARTICLE ACTUALLY SAYS!
The article which appeared in the British medical journal Lancet says
*nothing* about killing people. It discusses alternative ways of
allocating scarce medical resources like transplant organs and rare
vaccines. (You do know that there are long waiting lists for
transplant organs like hearts, kidneys, etc, don't you?)
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(09)60137-9/abstract
For the record, Ezekiel Emanuel is an outspoken opponent of legalizing
"The proper policy, in my view, should be to affirm the
status of physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia
as illegal. In so doing we would affirm that as a society
we condemn ending a patient's life and do not consider
that to have one's life ended by a doctor is a right."
-- Ezekiel Emanuel, "Whose Right To Die".
http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/euthanasia/eu0007.html
/begin Edward G. Robinson/
Where is your Josef Mengele comparison now, Moses?
/end Edward G. Robinson/

Yaeh right asshole. Like there is a big difference between killing a
patient outright and simply letting them die because they are not as
socially valuable as someone younger than them..
So it's safe to assume that once you reach the age of forty or fifty,
if you need any type of major surgery such as a liver transplant,
you'll be a good Obamanite and be happy to simply take painkillers
until you croak and get out of the way for someone that has more
"socially beneficial" years to offer society right?

Spartakus

2009-08-10 19:09:13 UTC

Yaeh right asshole. Like there is a big difference between killing a
patient outright and simply letting them die ...

Yes, there actually is a big difference between killing a patient and
letting him die. I'm glad you agree with me that euthanasia is *not*
a part of any of the 4 health care reform bills currently being
considered. And that you've come to the realization that doctors
can't do everything.

[--strawman argument deleted--]

kujebak

2009-08-10 21:24:13 UTC

Yaeh right asshole. Like there is a big difference between killing a
patient outright and simply letting them die ...

But the question is not what you call it (it
is health care rationing), but how you go about
applying it. Dr. Easy Kill claims scarcely available
resources should be reserved for “actively parti-
cipating citizens”, and he specifically identifies
the elderly as being outside of that definition, ir-
respective of the fact they might have actively
participated in paying for the system (Medicare)
all their lives. To be intellectually consistent,
if we are going to dispense with providing life-
extending care to the elderly, and the demented,
to free up resources to cover the working uninsured,
shouldn’t we also consider limiting nonessential
health care related spending for all other econo-
mically non-participating groups, like the millions
of people on welfare? How about those afflicted
with incurable diseases like HIV? The seniors
have every right to raise hell on this issue.
I think the guy is insane, and so is Obama for
giving credence to his opinion.

Spartakus

2009-08-10 22:46:07 UTC

Yaeh right asshole. Like there is a big difference between killing a
patient outright and simply letting them die ...

But the question is not what you call it

Another strawman.

Post by kujebak
(it is health care rationing), but how you go about
applying it. Dr. Easy Kill claims scarcely available
resources

Like transplant organs. Remember, Emanuel is not talking about
routine medical care here. You can't increase the supply of
transplant organs to meet the demand. Obviously, some sort of system
for allocating these extremely rare medical resources will have to be
implemented, one that hopefully balances rationality with compassion.

Post by kujebak
should be reserved for “actively participating citizens”, and
he specifically identifies the elderly as being outside of that
definition, irrespective of the fact they might have actively
participated in paying for the system (Medicare)
all their lives.

That is *one* parameter out of eight. Emanuel stated that no one
parameter is sufficient in making a determination:

"Allocation of very scarce medical interventions such
as organs and vaccines is a persistent ethical challenge.
We evaluate eight simple allocation principles that can
be classified into four categories: treating people equally,
favouring the worst-off, maximising total benefits, and
promoting and rewarding social usefulness. NO SINGLE
PRINCIPLE IS SUFFICIENT TO INCORPORATE ALL
MORALLY RELEVANT CONSIDERATIONS and
therefore individual principles must be combined
into multiprinciple allocation systems."
[all-caps emphasis mine]

Post by kujebak
To be intellectually consistent, if we are going to
dispense with providing life-extending care to the
elderly, and the demented,

If you were intellectually *honest*, you would have already
acknowledged that Emanuel is not arguing in favor of "dispens[ing]
with providing life-extending care" for the elderly.

Post by kujebak
to free up resources to cover the working uninsured,
shouldn’t we also consider limiting nonessential
health care related spending for all other econo-
mically non-participating groups, like the millions
of people on welfare? How about those afflicted
with incurable diseases like HIV? The seniors
have every right to raise hell on this issue.

If that was the case, I would agree with you. But that is not the
case - the original poster *lied* about the content of the cited
article. There's been all kinds of scare-mongering going on,
especially with seniors who aren't getting all the information they
need. This is no exception.

Post by kujebak
I think the guy is insane, and so is Obama for
giving credence to his opinion.

If Emanuel and Obama are insane, what is your opinion of former
Governor Sarah Palin, who introduced the crazy idea of "death panels"
last week?

"The America I know and love is not one in which
my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will
have to stand in front of Obama’s 'death panel' so
his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective
judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,'
whether they are worthy of health care. Such
a system is downright evil."
-- Ms. Mooseburger, on her ***Facebook page***

Would it surprise you to learn that *she* was part of a de facto
"death panel" during her tenure as Governor of Alaska?

http://www.adn.com/life/health/story/864670.html

"State programs intended to help disabled and elderly
Alaskans with daily life -- taking a bath, eating dinner,
getting to the bathroom -- are so poorly managed, the
state cannot assure the health and well-being of the
people they are supposed to serve, a new federal
review found.

"A particularly alarming finding concerns deaths of
adults in the programs. In one 2 1/2 year stretch,
227 adults already getting services died while
waiting for a nurse to reassess their needs.
Another 27 died waiting for their initial
assessment, to see if they qualified for help.

No other state in the union has a senior in-home care program as
poorly managed as Alaska's. And this happened under Ms. Mooseburger's
governance.

So now that you see that you are misinformed and that (as usual) Ms.
Mooseburger has never walked the talk, you will be changing your
perspective, right?

kujebak

2009-08-10 23:47:54 UTC

Yaeh right asshole. Like there is a big difference between killing a
patient outright and simply letting them die ...

But the question is not what you call it

Another strawman.

Post by kujebak
(it is health care rationing), but how you go about
applying it. Dr. Easy Kill claims scarcely available
resources

That is *one* parameter out of eight. Emanuel stated that no one
"Allocation of very scarce medical interventions such
as organs and vaccines is a persistent ethical challenge.
We evaluate eight simple allocation principles that can
be classified into four categories: treating people equally,
favouring the worst-off, maximising total benefits, and
promoting and rewarding social usefulness. NO SINGLE
PRINCIPLE IS SUFFICIENT TO INCORPORATE ALL
MORALLY RELEVANT CONSIDERATIONS and
therefore individual principles must be combined
into multiprinciple allocation systems."
[all-caps emphasis mine]

Post by kujebak
To be intellectually consistent, if we are going to
dispense with providing life-extending care to the
elderly, and the demented,

If you were intellectually *honest*, you would have already
acknowledged that Emanuel is not arguing in favor of "dispens[ing]
with providing life-extending care" for the elderly.

Post by kujebak
I think the guy is insane, and so is Obama for
giving credence to his opinion.

If Emanuel and Obama are insane, what is your opinion of former
Governor Sarah Palin, who introduced the crazy idea of "death panels"
last week?
"The America I know and love is not one in which
my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will
have to stand in front of Obama’s 'death panel' so
his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective
judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,'
whether they are worthy of health care. Such
a system is downright evil."
-- Ms. Mooseburger, on her ***Facebook page***
Would it surprise you to learn that *she* was part of a de facto
"death panel" during her tenure as Governor of Alaska?
http://www.adn.com/life/health/story/864670.html
"State programs intended to help disabled and elderly
Alaskans with daily life -- taking a bath, eating dinner,
getting to the bathroom -- are so poorly managed, the
state cannot assure the health and well-being of the
people they are supposed to serve, a new federal
review found.
"A particularly alarming finding concerns deaths of
adults in the programs. In one 2 1/2 year stretch,
227 adults already getting services died while
waiting for a nurse to reassess their needs.
Another 27 died waiting for their initial
assessment, to see if they qualified for help.
No other state in the union has a senior in-home care program as
poorly managed as Alaska's. And this happened under Ms. Mooseburger's
governance.

Palin's comments on health care reform are of
no consequence here. Her foreign policy expertise
exceeded that of all of the other major candidates
in in the last elections, because she was the only
one who could see a foreign country from her front
porch, remember? Palin knows nothing about health
care economics, just as most other governors, in-
cluding Lingle of Hawaii. She's also a Republican,
but that is not my point. Hawaii's failed universal
health care experiment is.

Post by Spartakus
So now that you see that you are misinformed and that (as usual) Ms.
Mooseburger has never walked the talk, you will be changing your
perspective, right?

I'm afraid not. At least not until I fully understand the impact
of the projected $500 billion cut in Medicare funding over the
next 10 years:

http://tinyurl.com/mmu7gs

Spartakus

2009-08-11 02:16:33 UTC

Now that you see that you are misinformed and that (as usual) Ms.
Mooseburger has never walked the talk, you will be changing your
perspective, right?

I'm afraid not. At least not until I fully understand the impact
of the projected $500 billion cut in Medicare funding over the
http://tinyurl.com/mmu7gs

Once again, you are misinformed. What's being cut are *increases* in
Medicare payments to providers.

kujebak

2009-08-11 05:09:46 UTC

Now that you see that you are misinformed and that (as usual) Ms.
Mooseburger has never walked the talk, you will be changing your
perspective, right?

I'm afraid not. At least not until I fully understand the impact
of the projected $500 billion cut in Medicare funding over the
http://tinyurl.com/mmu7gs

Once again, you are misinformed. What's being cut are *increases* in
Medicare payments to providers.

I'm sorry, but the CBO's $500 billion Medicare *savings* is
an essential half of Obama's revenue neutral health reform
proposal (his own words). How does increasing payments
to providers translate to Medicare saving $50 billion per year
for ten years? Please expound ;-)

Spartakus

2009-08-11 15:14:47 UTC

Now that you see that you are misinformed and that (as usual) Ms.
Mooseburger has never walked the talk, you will be changing your
perspective, right?

I'm afraid not. At least not until I fully understand the impact
of the projected $500 billion cut in Medicare funding over the
http://tinyurl.com/mmu7gs

Once again, you are misinformed. What's being cut are *increases*
in Medicare payments to providers.

You should be sorry. You are conflating budget projections for
Medicare with those of the 4 health care reform bills before
Congress. Did you mean to do that?

kujebak

2009-08-11 20:29:18 UTC

Now that you see that you are misinformed and that (as usual) Ms.
Mooseburger has never walked the talk, you will be changing your
perspective, right?

I'm afraid not. At least not until I fully understand the impact
of the projected $500 billion cut in Medicare funding over the
http://tinyurl.com/mmu7gs

Once again, you are misinformed. What's being cut are *increases*
in Medicare payments to providers.

You should be sorry. You are conflating budget projections for
Medicare with those of the 4 health care reform bills before
Congress. Did you mean to do that?- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -

I am talking about CBO's projections of the fiscal
impact of proposed Medicare changes that is as-
sumed in the pending health care reform bills, and
you are avoiding my point, which, again, is how you
expect to achieve $50 billion savings by raising the
doctor reimbursement rates without eliminating ser-
vices to Medicare patients.

Spartakus

2009-08-11 22:27:35 UTC

Post by kujebak
I am talking about CBO's projections of the fiscal
impact of proposed Medicare changes that is as-
sumed in the pending health care reform bills, and
you are avoiding my point, which, again, is how you
expect to achieve $50 billion savings by raising the
doctor reimbursement rates without eliminating ser-
vices to Medicare patients.

Well, I answered your question and you completely misunderstood the
answer. In an action completely unrelated to health care reform and
directed more toward budget control, Obama Administration announced
_cuts_ in scheduled _increases_ in Medicare and Medicaid payments to
providers that were written into future budgets by the previous
administration. Avoiding these increases will save the country a
projected $1 trillion over the next ten years. Which makes sense,
because our economy cannot sustain the current 6% annual increase in
monies flowing into the health care system.

kujebak

2009-08-13 00:26:50 UTC

Medicare reimbursements have *decreased* by 40% over
the last 10 years (AMA's own statistics).The escalating costs
of Medicare and Medicaid to the federal government has been
driven purely by growth in the number of people who are eligible
for these programs, and not by general health care inflation. In
fact, as I pointed out in another post here, the general health
care inflation is significantly driven by this public to private cost
shifting by the federal government. I am mazed by your logical
disconnect between any future limitations on public sector
health care dollars (whatever you call it), and the availabilty of
customary care available to the patietns, who rely on them. This
is why you Marxists must destroy private health care, before
this relationship becomes obvious to everyone, and the federal
government will no longer be able to promise, and demand the
same level of service for a fraction of the private sector cost.
Obamacare is clearly a tool of your design.

Spartakus

2009-08-13 14:59:55 UTC

Post by Spartakus
Well, I answered your question and you completely misunderstood
the answer. In an action completely unrelated to health care reform
and directed more toward budget control, Obama Administration
announced _cuts_ in scheduled _increases_ in Medicare and
Medicaid payments to providers that were written into future budgets
by the previous administration. Avoiding these increases will save
the country a projected $1 trillion over the next ten years. Which
makes sense, because our economy cannot sustain the current
6% annual increase in monies flowing into the health care system.

Medicare reimbursements have *decreased* by 40% over
the last 10 years (AMA's own statistics).

Source, please.

Post by kujebak
The escalating costs of Medicare and Medicaid to the federal
government has been driven purely by growth in the number
of people who are eligible for these programs, and not by
general health care inflation. In fact, as I pointed out in
another post here, the general health care inflation is
significantly driven by this public to private cost shifting
by the federal government.

Public to private cost shifting? Huh. Sounds like you are in favor
of a strong public option.

Post by kujebak
I am amazed by your logical disconnect between any
future limitations on public sector health care dollars
(whatever you call it), and the availabilty of customary
care available to the patietns, who rely on them.

We have lack of availability already. 46 million Americans do not
have health insurance, for the simple reason that $12,000 a year for
premiums is a little hard to swallow for a country where the median
household income is roughly $50,000 a year.

Post by kujebak
This is why you Marxists must destroy private health
care, before this relationship becomes obvious to
everyone, and the federal government will no longer
be able to promise, and demand the same level of
service for a fraction of the private sector cost.
Obamacare is clearly a tool of your design.

You wingnuts *still* wet your pants every time something that looks
like "socialism" is proposed. Look, the total cost of health care
provided in the U.S., including health insurance premiums, is about
$2.5 trillion. For which we receive about $900 billion in actual
services. Other countries with single-payer systems get a *higher*
level of service at a fraction of the cost that we pay. Talk about
logical disconnects, what is rational about accepting a 150% mark-up
in a vital service?

kujebak

2009-08-13 18:40:23 UTC

Medicare reimbursements have *decreased* by 40% over
the last 10 years (AMA's own statistics).

Source, please.

Public to private cost shifting? Huh. Sounds like you are in favor
of a strong public option.

The public option is the most obscene component of the
pending legislation for many other reasons.

Nine out of ten working Americans get their health
insurance through their employer, and are perfectly
content with it. This includes all the public sector
employees. Only about 10% of economically par-
ticipating Americans bear the entire cost of their
health insurance. There are many ways to lower the
cost for the self-insured that do not involve dismant-
ling the whole system. One of the biggest threats to
the stability of the current system is the increasing
popularity of the pay-as-you-go medical savings plans
among the young and healthy workers, which, of course,
makes it a primary target in all versions of the pending
health care legislation. The reason for this is that a la
carte, and catastrophic-only policies do not gene-
rate enough dollars to keep the overburdened system
afloat. Requiring full coverage for everyone, and inclu-
sion of the "public option" provision in the final health
care bill are the two most important objectives to those
behind the push for health care reform. Not because
they would improve the current system, but because
they would make it even more impervious to scrutiny.
Government "competition" in the health insurance market
would be almost as effective in obscuring the true cost
of health care as any form of single payer financing.

If we value the "actual service" in terms of what the govern-
ment is currently willing to pay for them, I don't find your
figures that appalling ;-) Anyway, your single payer bang-for-
the-buck argument does not square with the fact that most
of the countries that have instituded single-payer health care
systems in the last 50 years are currently looking for ways
to make them more flexible by reintro-ducing private financing
and delivery mechanisms. In other words, they are moving in
the oposite direction.

Spartakus

2009-08-13 22:26:35 UTC

Medicare reimbursements have *decreased* by 40% over
the last 10 years (AMA's own statistics).

Source, please.

Still waiting.

Public to private cost shifting? Huh. Sounds like you are in favor
of a strong public option.

The public option is the most obscene component of the
pending legislation for many other reasons.

*Obscene*? Interesting choice of words.

Nine out of ten working Americans get their health
insurance through their employer, and are perfectly
content with it. This includes all the public sector
employees.

For most routine medical care, the system delivers according to most
people's expectations. But when people who have private medical
insurance experience a catastrophic illness or injury to themselves or
their covered dependents, there is a 50-50 chance that they will be
dropped by their insurance carriers.

Post by kujebak
Only about 10% of economically participating
Americans bear the entire cost of their health
insurance. There are many ways to lower the
cost for the self-insured that do not involve
dismantling the whole system.

Do tell! You know, there are 4 bills being considered by Congress,
and I don't believe any of them propose dismantling the whole system.
And if there are other ways, why hasn't anyone (I'm looking at you,
Republican congress critters) proposed these ways as alternatives to
what is now under consideration?

liberal

2009-08-12 17:41:57 UTC

Post by First Post
On Mon, 10 Aug 2009 10:02:53 -0700 (PDT), Spartakus

Hahaha! Once again, you live up to your pseudonym by NOT READING WHAT
EZEKIEL EMANUEL'S ARTICLE ACTUALLY SAYS!
The article which appeared in the British medical journal Lancet says
*nothing* about killing people. It discusses alternative ways of
allocating scarce medical resources like transplant organs and rare
vaccines. (You do know that there are long waiting lists for
transplant organs like hearts, kidneys, etc, don't you?)
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(09)601...
For the record, Ezekiel Emanuel is an outspoken opponent of legalizing
"The proper policy, in my view, should be to affirm the
status of physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia
as illegal. In so doing we would affirm that as a society
we condemn ending a patient's life and do not consider
that to have one's life ended by a doctor is a right."
-- Ezekiel Emanuel, "Whose Right To Die".
http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/euthanasia/eu0007.html
/begin Edward G. Robinson/
Where is your Josef Mengele comparison now, Moses?
/end Edward G. Robinson/

Ummm, stupid...yeah, you! There aren't enough hearts available
today....donate yours and save a life.

kujebak

2009-08-10 18:54:20 UTC