An Obama Lie: No Interference with Doctor-Patient

Obama tells so many lies that a rational observer almost has to assume that if he says something, then the opposite is true. Or, at the least, what he has said can never be given the credence of truth.

In his recent speech before a Joint Session of Congress, when Representative Joe Wilson rather indecorously declared Obama a liar to his face on one statement about illegal aliens not getting health care benefits, Obama lied about that and many, many other things as well. One of these was that once he establishes:

a publicly-sponsored insurance option, administered by government just like Medicaid or Medicare ..... I will make sure that no government bureaucrat or insurance company bureaucrat gets between you and the care that you need."

Michael F. Cannon points out that the Medicare program already gets between you and the care you need. It already has a review of care process in place to put pressure on doctors not to provide some of the care doctors are providing. He quotes a letter from a government bureaucrat involved in this review process. The bureaucrat points out that the doctors are between a rock and a hard place. If they do not lean toward giving more care given a severe medical condition with potential to become life threatening, then they are subject to lawsuits, which will cost them and their hospitals a fortune, even if the court decides in their favor. So, they are under great pressure to consider the worst case outcomes of denying care, rather than simply the straight odds. The review contractors and the reviewing bureaucrats have no such concerns at all. They do not consider the litigation consequences of denying health care.

And of course, the reviewers have the benefit of hindsight and they were not present to actually judge the health situation of the patient either. The records are all they have to go on. This is not always adequate.

A logical person would also consider Obama's claim that he would never let the government get between you and the health care you need if you pass his legislation to mean that Obama is President for Life and Eternity. If the logic of a program requires rationing, the program might deny that logic for awhile, but in the eternal life of government programs, it will eventually generally fall prey to its internal logic. Government-controlled health care must eventually ration health care as doctors become scarce and as expenses rise. You can count on it happening. Obama will not always be there to stop the program from rationing health care. Even if he were, he will no more stop the rationing then, then he has stopped the rationing already in the Medicare program, which is just now enlarging the review programs to ration care under his watch!