Healthcare Obama

GUEST OPINION: JOSEPH WALKER

Obam.acare exaggerates need for reform,. creates more problerns than it solves Reforming our health Medicare or Medicaid care system is a top pri- eligible, but have elected ority of President Barack not to pursue enrollment Obama: The rationale in those programs. for the "r~form"is to deal About 18 million uninwith the "crisis" in health sured Americans who care. earn over $50,000 a year choose not to buy health Like the enormous "stimulus" spending bill insurance primarily (which nobody read), the because they are young, Obama administration healthy and don't want hopes to pass a trillion- the expense of health dollar spending bill insurance. Approximately lO-plus (unread) to reform million non-legal inhabhealth care. The nonpartisan Con- itants would be covered gressional Budget Office under the Obama plan has documented that the and paid for by taxpayrosy projections by the ing Americans. Cost containment and Obama administration for monetary savings denial of care is also a with the health care bill concern. The bill skirts are totally wrong. the issue. It mandates The Obama adminis- "death with dignity" tration's portrayal of this counseling sessions for "universal health care" every "elderly" Ameribill as an urgent, neces- can, every five years. sary process ignores Elderly is defined as anymajor problems. one 65 and older. Is this a One argument is that gimmick to substitute 46 million Americans are counseling for expensive uninsured, creating a medical care, restricting "crisis." Estimates of access to dialysis, heart those 46 million show surgery, or other procethat 14 million are dures which might prolong their life, health and functional capability? Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, brother of the president's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, holds two key positions in the administration regarding health care. On multiple occasions he has advocated restriction of treatment for those who are "nonproductive" or "disabled"; in other words, .those who' are impaired or elderly (translation: over 65). One Obama goal is to reduce

Medicare costs by over aged are forced to pur$500 billion over 10 chase health insurance years, probably cutting and forced to pay a highfunds for hip surgery, er rate than they would °cardiac treatments, can- otherwise in order to cer care and so forth. subsidize other risk In Britain, the govern- groups. ment -run health system Anyone with cancer or has a "NICE Board," chronic disease such as which has ruled against .heart or kidney disease, may have to deal with the use of numerous medications such as restrictions and denial of cancer treatments and care. restricted access to drugs The elderly are considfor Alzheimer's and ered part of the "disposable group" of individumany other conditions. When the macular als who may not get dialdegeneration drug, ysis, hip replacement, Lucentis, was approved cancer treatment, or carin the United States, the diac treatment. "NICE Board" in Britain Actually, there are no limited its use to 1 in 5 winners in this plan. eligible patients', with The currently proposed treatment only in one health care plan will eye, letting the other eye eventually produce total go blind, because Lucen- government-run care, tis is "expensive." similar to Canadian and Dr. Scott W. Atlas, at U.K.health care. If you want to personthe Hoover Institution at Stanford University, has ally pay for treatment, studied mortality rates in you probably won't be countries with govern- allowed. This is implicit ment-run medicine, in the present Obama such as the proposed plan. Politics and the govOqama plan. His studies bureaucrats have shown that breast ernment cancer mortality rates in . will dictate your options Germany are 52 percent and your ability to get higher than in the U.S. health care. and 88 percent higher in If you are totally the U.K.Also in the U.K., healthy and never get colorectal cancer death sick, no worry, as long as is 40 percent higher than you don't mind the in the U.S. mandatory cost imposed There is a marked on you.' Otherwise, the reduction in mammoObamacare mandatory grams, pap smears, PSA plan is not what you evaluations, and colono- want. scopies in those coun- Dr. Joseph P. Walker of tries. Losers in Obama Care Fort Myers founded Retina are apparent. Consultants of Southwest Young and middle- Florida in 1980.