The Washington Post was in favor of Ezekiel Emanuel of aka ("Dr. Death") who had endorsed genocidal policies of cutbacks and Encouraging people to die.
The Washington Post again rushed to the defense of Ezekiel ("Dr. Death") Emanuel on Saturday, in its second editorial. Under the title "The 'Dr. Death' Distortion," the Post—which has itself endorsed the genocidal policies of cutbacks and encouraging people to die—claims that the likes of Sarah Palin have misrepresented the "thoughtful and nuanced positions" of the chief Health Care advisor to the OMB.
The Post cites two of the main public-record items for which Emanuel has rightly been attacked: his 1996 article about how care could be denied those incompetent mentally, as in the case of dementia; and his 2009 Lancet article on the "complete lives" approach to rationing medical care.
Emanuel doesn't mean it the way it reads, the Post writes, and quotes Emanuel defending himself as well. He is only making proposals for "genuine scarcity," they claim.
That, of course, is a total lie. As LaRouche pointed out recently, any expert reading the Lancet article can see that the doctor's a fascist.
And, as for the so-called scarcity, that is a matter of choice, as Emanuel himself said in an interview published in last Sunday's Washington Post. There, the Bad Doctor recalled the circumstances in Seattle, in the 1990s when the shortage of kidney dialysis machines led the city to set up what was called a "God Committee," which decided who would get dialysis, and who not. This caused such an uproar that the medical community decided to increase the number of dialysis machines, so that rationing would not be required.
But the budget-cutting Emanuel is not proposing eliminating scarcities today. Rather, as a series of articles he wrote about medical technology demonstrates, he advocates cutting off access to so-called expensive machines to those with "lives not worthy to be lived." We cite a couple examples:
*In an article entitled '5 Myths About Our Ailing Health-Care System,' published Nov. 23, 2008 and co-authored with Shannon Brownlee, Emanuel attacks the idea that cutting down on administrative costs of the insurance companies would deal with health inflation, and argues:
"Most of the relentless rise can be attributed to the expansion of hospitals and other health-care sectors and the rapid adoption of expensive new technologies new drugs, devices, tests and procedures. Unfortunately, only a fraction of all that new stuff offers dramatically better outcomes. If were worried about costs, we have to ask whether a $55,000 drug that prolongs the lives of lung cancer patients for an average of a few weeks is really worth it. Unless we find a cure for our addiction to the new but not necessarily improved, our national medical bill will continue to skyrocket, regardless of how efficient insurance companies become."
* In a 2005 article entitled 'The Cost of Marginal Medicine is too high," Emanuel writes:
"Other prime examples of wasteful marginal medicine include lung volume reduction surgery for emphysema, antitumor necrosis factor drugs for rheumatoid arthritis, Macugen for macular degeneration, implantable defibrillators, and CT [computer tomography] scans for the detection of heart disease.
"Some say that spending on marginal medical care doesn't hurt anything. Not true if the payment comes from public funds or insurance. States are cutting public education and raising tuition at state universities because of rising Medicaid costs. Employers are cutting insurance for retirees and employees. Rising medical costs help create so many uninsured Americans. We doctors need to be more responsible in how we practice. We need to work toward eliminating marginal medical care and using interventions with more tangible benefits. This way we can really promote health, cover more uninsured, and improve education which itself greatly improves health."
The Post cites two of the main public-record items for which Emanuel has rightly been attacked: his 1996 article about how care could be denied those incompetent mentally, as in the case of dementia; and his 2009 Lancet article on the "complete lives" approach to rationing medical care.
Emanuel doesn't mean it the way it reads, the Post writes, and quotes Emanuel defending himself as well. He is only making proposals for "genuine scarcity," they claim.
That, of course, is a total lie. As LaRouche pointed out recently, any expert reading the Lancet article can see that the doctor's a fascist.
And, as for the so-called scarcity, that is a matter of choice, as Emanuel himself said in an interview published in last Sunday's Washington Post. There, the Bad Doctor recalled the circumstances in Seattle, in the 1990s when the shortage of kidney dialysis machines led the city to set up what was called a "God Committee," which decided who would get dialysis, and who not. This caused such an uproar that the medical community decided to increase the number of dialysis machines, so that rationing would not be required.
But the budget-cutting Emanuel is not proposing eliminating scarcities today. Rather, as a series of articles he wrote about medical technology demonstrates, he advocates cutting off access to so-called expensive machines to those with "lives not worthy to be lived." We cite a couple examples:
*In an article entitled '5 Myths About Our Ailing Health-Care System,' published Nov. 23, 2008 and co-authored with Shannon Brownlee, Emanuel attacks the idea that cutting down on administrative costs of the insurance companies would deal with health inflation, and argues:
"Most of the relentless rise can be attributed to the expansion of hospitals and other health-care sectors and the rapid adoption of expensive new technologies new drugs, devices, tests and procedures. Unfortunately, only a fraction of all that new stuff offers dramatically better outcomes. If were worried about costs, we have to ask whether a $55,000 drug that prolongs the lives of lung cancer patients for an average of a few weeks is really worth it. Unless we find a cure for our addiction to the new but not necessarily improved, our national medical bill will continue to skyrocket, regardless of how efficient insurance companies become."
* In a 2005 article entitled 'The Cost of Marginal Medicine is too high," Emanuel writes:
"Other prime examples of wasteful marginal medicine include lung volume reduction surgery for emphysema, antitumor necrosis factor drugs for rheumatoid arthritis, Macugen for macular degeneration, implantable defibrillators, and CT [computer tomography] scans for the detection of heart disease.
"Some say that spending on marginal medical care doesn't hurt anything. Not true if the payment comes from public funds or insurance. States are cutting public education and raising tuition at state universities because of rising Medicaid costs. Employers are cutting insurance for retirees and employees. Rising medical costs help create so many uninsured Americans. We doctors need to be more responsible in how we practice. We need to work toward eliminating marginal medical care and using interventions with more tangible benefits. This way we can really promote health, cover more uninsured, and improve education which itself greatly improves health."
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