First Conservative Blog

Conservative Blog post – supplemental for October 15

White House spin meisters have a real headache on their hands this morning, as former Clinton Labor Secretary and current Obama economic advisor Robert Reich appears in a speech revealing the partial truth about the Obama health care plan.   Reich said:

“We’re going to have to, if you’re very old, we’re not going to give you all that technology and all those drugs for the last couple of years of your life to keep you maybe going for another couple of months. It’s too expensive…so we’re going to let you die.”

That Democrats plan to cut costs by cutting short the life span of Senior Citizens is no surprise.  The real shock is that Reich felt he had to at least tell part of the truth – perhaps to maintain some manner of personal integrity. 

The truth that is left out of Reich’s statement though, surrounds the term ‘couple of months.’  Every nation that controls health care costs via a national delivery system makes an actuarial decision about every treatment request relative to cost and expected life span.  The more expensive the request, the lower the chances are of receiving the treatment.  And of course the older the patient, chances for receiving government approval for the expenditure declines further.  Unless the patient is able to return to work somehow to repay costs through his productive work and taxation, the actuarial decision almost always falls into the ‘no’ category.   For Seniors who really would like to live a couple more years, this is an early death sentence courtesy of their federal government.  Decisions that will directly extend the life of senior citizens by years and not months will in all probability be rejected – especially if they are in any way experimental or expensive.  (As seniors were to a large extent responsible for electing this government, they need to stand up and motivate their representatives to reject this plan entirely.)

Adding to the White House Press Office Misery Index (WHoPOMI) Reich is also on tape saying:

“(The government is) going to use the bargaining leverage of the federal government in terms of Medicare, Medicaid—we already have a lot of bargaining leverage—to force drug companies and insurance companies and medical suppliers to reduce their costs. What that means, less innovation and that means less new products and less new drugs on the market which means you are probably not going to live much longer than your parents.“

Setting realistic expectatons is an honest way of selling an idea.  And now that a senior level Democrat has been revealed speaking about the inevitable consequences of the health care takeover, the internal misery index is increasing right along with the unemployment numbers.

If Reich is true to his credentials as an economist, he must stand by these statements.  This of course puts him at odds with the current President who has promised exactly the opposite of what Reich points out to be the obvious results of the proposed health care takeover legislation.  

Check out the video itself – courtesy of Newsbusters.