The Washington Times offers its editorial opinion today on Obama’s position that the government should deny care to the terminally ill and elderly as part of a government takeover:
…It’s a scary picture the president paints. He stated that "the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill out here." For them, he said, "I think that there is going to have to be a conversation that is guided by doctors, scientists, ethicists. And then there is going to have to be a very difficult democratic conversation that takes place. It is very difficult to imagine the country making those decisions just through the normal political channels."
The time to really worry about your health is when a government bureaucrat, not your personal doctor, tells you what treatment you can have. Yet that’s exactly the scenario endorsed by Mr. Obama. This position clearly leads to health care rationing. Nobody in the government or in any "political channels" should tell individuals how to make decisions about "the end of their lives." The only conversations happening should be personal, not democratic. It’s not up to government to pull the plug.
