Can we take seriously President Obama’s denials that his plan will ultimately result in healthcare rationing? Well no. The ultimate end of any such system further devalues the sanctity of human life because the government determines which citizens deserve to get the care they need, and the government can do this while simultaneously denying that healthcare is rationed.
We only have to look to England–or any other country with socialized medicine–to see ways this not only can be done but is being done and will be done here if Obama’s plan passes.
Daniel Hannan, Member of the European Parliament representing Southeast England for the conservative party, said that the British government rations healthcare by the long lines that are a part of the socialized system of medicine. This assures that many who need care soon will probably die before they get the care they need, and by this the system will not be financially drained to the point of collapse.
Hannan said that when Tony Blair was Prime Minister, he was appalled by such inhumanness and made it mandatory that once a person talked with a doctor’s office, the person must be able to see a doctor within 48 hours. However, in order to maintain the brutish status quo, the doctor’s office would make sure that when a person needing medical care called they would get a recorder and never actually talk with a doctor; therefore, they remained in queue, not getting the care they needed, and the rationing continues even to this very hour.
To personalize this, under Obama’s system, many in the church where I pastor would be dead since they would have been forced to remain in queue awaiting treatment. Rationing is Rationing regardless what one chooses to call it.
Given the fact of legalized abortion, not to mention the historical precedence of other socialized medical systems or the constraints of economics; it is inarguable that the decision of who will receive healthcare will move inexorably to being based on a government-determined quality of life that the patient will have to meet before being eligible for healthcare. Moreover, the callous and barbaric treatment of infants in the womb does not forebode well for the weakest at the other end of the life continuum.
