"...President Obama is now making a recess appointment of Donald Berwick to oversee Medicare and Medicaid. The purpose of the recess appointment is clear; Obama wants to avoid a confirmation hearing on Berwick in which this man's ideas ands previous statements would be brought to the fore; namely, thet Berwick has expressed support for the idea of rationing health care to people based on their age and the whole cost-effectiveness of treating the elderly..."
Americans should be very well aware where you're headed once you let a guy like Berwick decide who "deserves" what treatment. Read this Wesley J. Smith article, Continent Death: Euthanasia in Europe.
"... It gets worse: Repeated studies sponsored by the Dutch government have found that doctors kill approximately 1,000 patients each year who have not asked for euthanasia. This is not only a violation of every guideline, but an act that Dutch law considers murder. Nonvoluntary euthanasia has become so common that it even has a name: "Termination without request or consent."
Despite this carnage, Dutch doctors are very rarely prosecuted for such crimes, and the few that are brought to court are usually exonerated. Moreover, even if a doctor is found guilty, he or she is almost never punished in any meaningful way, nor does the murderer face discipline by the Dutch Medical Society. For example, in 2001, a doctor was convicted of murdering an 84-year-old patient who had not asked to be killed. Prosecutors demanded a nine-month suspended probation (!), yet even this brush — it can't even be called a slap — on the wrist was rejected by the trial judge who refused to impose any punishment. Not to worry. The appellate court decided to get tough: It imposed a one-week suspended sentence on the doctor for murder.
Even such praising with faint damnation isn't enough for the Dutch Medical Association. As a result of this and the handful of other non-punished murder convictions of doctors who engaged in termination without request or consent, the organization is lobbying to legalize non-voluntary euthanasia. Along these same lines — and demonstrating that the culture of death recognizes no limits — the day after the Dutch formally legalized euthanasia, the country's minister of health advocated the provision of suicide pills to the elderly who do not qualify for killing under Dutch law.
Lest we think the Dutch experience is a fluke, let us now turn our attention to Belgium. Only one year ago the Belgians legalized Dutch-style euthanasia under "strict" guidelines. As with the Netherlands, once unfettered, the euthanasia culture quickly began to swallow Belgium whole. Moreover, the slide down the slope has occurred at a greatly accelerated pace. It took decades for the Dutch euthanasia to reach the current morass. But Belgian euthanasia went off the rails from day one: The very first reported killing — that of a man with multiple sclerosis — violated the legal guidelines (not that anything was done about it). Moreover, while 203 people were officially recognized as having been euthanized in Belgium during the first year of legal practice, most euthanasia deaths were not reported (a violation of the law). The actual toll is probably closer to 1,000.
And Belgian euthanasia advocates have already begun agitating to expand the categories of killable people. A just-completed forum attended by hundreds of Belgian doctors and euthanasia enthusiasts advocated that minors be allowed to request euthanasia, as well as people with degenerative conditions, such as Alzheimer's, who are not imminently dying. Not only that, but the chairman of the conference wants to force doctors to participate in killing patients, even if they are morally opposed. If he gets his way, the law will soon require doctors who oppose euthanasia to refer patients who want to be killed to a colleague willing to do the deed. So much for choice..."
And if you are not convinced yet, try Simon Caldwell:
WARNING TO BRITAIN AS ALMOST HALF OF BELGIUM'S EUTHANASIA NURSES ADMIT TO KILLING WITHOUT CONSENT.
By Simon Caldwell
Last updated at 7:48 AM on 10th June 2010
"...A high proportion of deaths classed as euthanasia in Belgium involved patients who did not ask for their lives to be ended, a study found.
More than 100 nurses admitted to researchers that they had taken part in ‘terminations without request or consent’.
Although euthanasia is legal in Belgium, it is governed by strict rules which state it should be carried out only by a doctor and with the patient’s permission.
The disturbing revelation - which shows that nurses regularly go well beyond their legal role - raises fears that were assisted suicides allowed in Britain, they could never be properly regulated.
Since its legalisation eight years ago, euthanasia now accounts for 2 per cent of deaths in Belgium - or around 2,000 a year.
The researchers found that a fifth of nurses admitted being involved in the assisted suicide of a patient.
But nearly half of these - 120 of 248 - also said there was no consent.
‘The nurses in our study operated beyond the legal margins of their profession,’ said the report’s authors in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
It is likely many nurses ‘ under-reported’ their involvement for fear of admitting an illegal activity, the study said.
But it added that many were probably acting according to their patients’ wishes, ‘even if there was no explicit request’.
Last night, Dr Peter Saunders, director of the Care Not Killing campaign in Britain, said: ‘We should take a warning from this that wherever you draw the line, people will go up to it and beyond it.’
‘Once you have legalised voluntary euthanasia, involuntary euthanasia will inevitably follow,’ he added...."
The recess appointment of Berwick to head Medicare/Medicaid encompasses of course far more than the possible falldown from "health care rationing" and the introduction of European euthanasia "mores" in the USA. Nevertheless, in this post I focused on euthanasia in particular because the topic struck a chord with me. In Belgium and Europe, we have seen this before, with the abortion debate.
It starts with "cases". And it ends up with wholesale murder.
It will be JUST THE SAME WITH EUTHANASIA. It is absolutely not that difficult to envisage a society in, say, thirty years time, where death panels, ruling that you can no longer contribute to society, will just get rid of you. Even if you are otherwise perfectly healthy. In Europe, in excess of 3,000 perfectly healthy human beings are murdered daily in the womb. Now these could have been productive citizens. And yet they went thru the meatmill. How much credit do you think you will be given when you're 75, shuffling along and no good for either working and/or paying taxes?
MFBB.
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