Somewhere in Europe in 1450, a midwife slapped the bottom of a little boy who grew up to be known as Hieronymus Bosch.
He became an artist and some of his paintings were of scenes idyllic but some were of scenes of souls in torment which Christians call Hell.
The Church in Rome loved those because they provided visual “proof” that the threats being sprayed from the pulpits were real which improved obeisance and tithes and indulgences.
It has always been thus; When in doubt follow the money.
Well I saw Hell yesterday in a view of the future should Obamacare come to pass.
I drove a friend of a friend for an appointment at the local Veteran’s Medical facility. He went to get blood drawn and to see a doctor to review his medication dosages.
From start to finish, the elapsed time was more than 3 hours. Now that was par for the course according to my passenger and would have been longer if he’d had to wait for prescription fulfillment.
It so reminded me of my experiences of the National Health Service in England and so it should as this was governmental healthcare at work.
Another friend was on a cruise recently and she spoke to quite a few Brits who were quite happy with their NHS. I pointed out that so was I until I came here and saw a different way, a better way.
In the last few days some entities have dared to bring up the issues of “medical rationing” in our future if Obamacare comes to pass. The whole subject was, of course, vehemently denied in the run-up to the bill’s passage. Well here is a case in point.
He became an artist and some of his paintings were of scenes idyllic but some were of scenes of souls in torment which Christians call Hell.
The Church in Rome loved those because they provided visual “proof” that the threats being sprayed from the pulpits were real which improved obeisance and tithes and indulgences.
It has always been thus; When in doubt follow the money.
Well I saw Hell yesterday in a view of the future should Obamacare come to pass.
I drove a friend of a friend for an appointment at the local Veteran’s Medical facility. He went to get blood drawn and to see a doctor to review his medication dosages.
From start to finish, the elapsed time was more than 3 hours. Now that was par for the course according to my passenger and would have been longer if he’d had to wait for prescription fulfillment.
It so reminded me of my experiences of the National Health Service in England and so it should as this was governmental healthcare at work.
Another friend was on a cruise recently and she spoke to quite a few Brits who were quite happy with their NHS. I pointed out that so was I until I came here and saw a different way, a better way.
In the last few days some entities have dared to bring up the issues of “medical rationing” in our future if Obamacare comes to pass. The whole subject was, of course, vehemently denied in the run-up to the bill’s passage. Well here is a case in point.
Now, if you’ve missed the Avastin controversy, here’s a quick summary of it: Avastin is a general anti-cancer drug that got fast-tracked by the FDA a few years ago and is now prescribed to under 18 thousand women a year in the United States who suffer from the last stages of breast cancer. It doesn’t cure the cancer; it has side effects; and its beneficial effects are disputed… but the drug has its defenders as well as its detractors.
However, now the FDA is contemplating reversing its approval of Avastin, which would probably mean the end of both its coverage by Medicare, and a subsidy program for low-income women.
Why?
Because then it won’t be covered by Medicare and the government can end the subsidy program for low-income women, of course. The difficulty here for Obamacare supporters is that Avastin can cost up to $100K a year - the aforementioned subsidy program only covers about 40% of that, by the way - and under Obamacare the government would have to be the one to make the awkward and politically fraught call on whether or not to spend a lot of money making available a drug that doesn’t magically destroy cancer on the spot.
It’s another ‘take a pill' kind of situation, in other words: or to be even more inflammatory (but perfectly accurate), it’s another ‘death panel’ kind of situation.
There’s no good answer for an Obamacare enthusiast: if the drug’s available and you subsidize it, that’s up to a couple of billion dollars right there per year that the government will have to pay for a treatment of disputed efficacy (and demand for the drug will assuredly go up, if it’s subsidized).
If the drug’s available and you don’t subsidize it, you’re denying care under your system that was available previously (which is precisely what has been promised as not going to happen). But if you can get the FDA to remove the approval, well… problem solved, right?
Assuming that you don’t have advanced breast cancer, of course.
For now, I’m ignoring the mosque at Ground Zero but I’m not going to ignore the premature death of thousands of low income women.
Two years ago it was all about Hope and Change. Now with the midterms on the near horizon, Obama’s speech writers decided to update it and they came up with, "Reach for Hope”.
I suggest that on November 2 we “Reach for Change”.
And this time, mean it.
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