In a town hall meeting in Grand Junction, CO yesterday, Obama, referring to vicious rumors over provisions in the healthcare bill that there is a death panel that will decide grandma's healthcare fate, said " I don't want to pull the plug on grandma." He asserted that there is no such provision for such a council in the Healthcare Bill. But, Senator Grassley said that the provision for such a council (the one for end-of-life counciling) had been removed from the Senate version of the bill and won't happen. If it wasn't there to begin with, then why did it have to be removed?

Both Obama and Grassley are "technically" right - there is no mention of a "death panel" in the healthcare bill. The dirty little secret is that this panel is already established by law! It was secretly slipped into the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 (the Stimulus Bill) without being noticed or a word said about it by our congressmen - of course, they didn't read the bill, so how could they have known? If you know anything about Tom Dashel and his ideas on healthcare, you know that he is a proponent of rationing healthcare services based on an individual's "productivity" to society. He was the person who had a lot to do with this provision being "slipped" into the ARRA. The council is called the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research. You can read about the purpose of this council as described by its proponents here:

http://www.ngelaw.com/news/pubs_detail.aspx?ID=998

Here's an excerpt from a portion of the writeup:

"Comparative effectiveness research examines clinical evidence to determine which medical procedures, medications and technologies are most effective. ARRA establishes the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research to “foster optimum coordination of comparative effectiveness and related health services research conducted or supported” by federal agencies, including DHHS, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense. The goal of this coordination is to “reduc[e] duplicative effort and encourag[e] coordinated and complementary use of resources.” ARRA tasks the Council with advising the President and Congress on “strategies [for] the infrastructure needs of comparative effectiveness research within the Federal Government” and the “expenditures for comparative effectiveness research by relevant Federal departments and agencies.”

You only have to look at the healthcare systems in Canada, England, France and other socialized countries to realize where this is going when the government runs out of money - rationing and denial of services to the very young and the elderly who are not activite participants in producing goods and services in our economy! Medicare and Medicaid are already bankrupt, exceeding cost by more than 10 times what they were originally projected to cost. When money and resources are scarce (470,000 more doctors are already needed to handle the demands for healthcare services), rationing has to result, as it did in Canada, England, France, and other socialized countries in the world. In fact, rationing is already happening in this country, especially under Medicare and Medicaid. The current healthcare proposal for a public option would cut Medicaid and Medicare funds to pay for medical services by $500 Billion. The only way that can happen is if services are rationed and some services denied. Private insurers also already deny certain expensive services and medications as well.

Will the government pull the plug on Grandma? You be the judge!