Obamacare is now the law of the land. Because health care and wellness are such essential parts of our lives and our culture, America will never be the same.

For now, Obamacare preserves a private financing system—no public option. Nonetheless, it still represents a government takeover of healthcare. By eliminating risk assessment–and seizing control of benefit determinations—government bureaucrats will now choose winners and losers. Because we are all now ensconced in the same closed system, we each now have a direct financial stake in the health care received by every other one of us.

Government control is, by definition, intensely political. Politically powerful “in crowds” are rarely denied what they want, while “out crowds” may be excluded altogether. The same will be true in health care.

Canada is a vivid example, where terminal cancer patients are routinely refused life-extending chemotherapy by cost containment boards, while support is growing to fully fund IVF (recently allowed in Quebec) and abortions must be publicly paid.

The UK presents another disturbing look into our potential future. In the UK, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) imposes an explicitly utilitarian quality of life rationing, with the aged, for example, refused treatments available to younger people. Obamacare was written to establish a similar centralized federal oversight system.

Medically vulnerable patients should now be very afraid because the sheer heft of government–and the even greater weight of culture–are going to shift against them. Again, Europe provides the model. Some countries—Sweden, the UK, for example—are seriously considering or already beginning to limit health care to people with unhealthy lifestyles, smokers, the obese, and to those who are deemed to have a low quality of life, the elderly and those with cognitive impairments.

That same impetus will emerge and strengthen here as time passes. Because what happens medically to each of our neighbors will directly impact us, “suspect” classes–those who are expensive to “maintain”—will emerge and come to be perceived with a less compassionate and inclusive eye by the healthy and able bodied.

Indeed, public expectations about how to best care for seriously ill and disabled people will change, and a subtle idea will grow that they no longer really belong. This could lead to the “duty to die”—already under active debate in bioethics literature.

That trend has already started. In Oregon, Medicaid patients already have been denied life-extending chemotherapy based on cost, and offered assisted suicide as a substitute–not coincidentally–the far less expensive alternative.

Over the years, I think Obamacare will similarly fuel assisted suicide advocacy. After all, what “treatment” is less expensive than killing? Currently, the specter of HMOs subtly pushing the death option has helped keep the euthanasia monster at bay. But now, our societal costs will be reduced if expensive people kill themselves months or years before they would have otherwise died from serious illnesses, disabilities, or age-related morbidity. The old saying, “follow the money,” takes on a whole new meaning.

The nuts and bolts of this dehumanizing system will be created primarily outside the spotlight of representative democracy in the tens of thousands of pages of rules that will now be promulgated by federal bureaucrats to effectuate Obamacare—including the extent of abortion coverage required in insurance plans and which life-extending or sustaining treatments will be refused coverage. Those with the most input in this process will be so-called “stakeholders,” that is non profit groups that advocate for affected people. And that–along with the courts–is to where the brunt of the battle over the sanctity of life in health care will now shift.

Stupak Stripped of "Defender of Life" Award

"In response to Rep. Bart Stupak's announcement that he and other self-labeled 'pro-life' Democrats will vote in favor of Healthcare reform legislation with the addition of an Executive Order from the White House to address concerns about abortion funding, Susan B. Anthony List Candidate Fund President Marjorie Dannenfelser offered the following statement:

'This Wednesday night is our third annual Campaign for Life Gala, where we were planning to honor Congressman Stupak for his efforts to keep abortion-funding out of health care reform-We will no longer be doing so. By accepting this deal from the most pro-abortion President in American history, Stupak has not only failed to stand strong for unborn children, but also for his constituents and pro-life voters across the country.'"

LifeSiteNews echoed the view that the Executive order issued by President Obama would not be effective in limiting Federal funding for abortions.

"Richard Doerflinger of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said in a March 21 memo to congressional aides that it was the 'unanimous view of our legal advisers' that the executive order was meaningless, thanks to decades of federal court precedent that apply the principles of Roe v. Wade to federal health legislation.

'According to these rulings, such health legislation creates a statutory requirement for abortion funding, unless Congress clearly forbids such funding,' wrote Doerflinger. 'That is why the Hyde amendment was needed in 1976, to stop Medicaid from funding 300,000 abortions a year. The statutory mandate construed by the courts would override any executive order or regulation.'

In addition, William Saunders, senior vice president of Americans United for Life Action, pointed out Supreme Court precedent demonstrating that 'a statute cannot be undone by an executive order or regulation.'

'For example, an Executive Order cannot prevent insurance plans that pay for abortions and participate in the newly-created exchanges from receiving federal subsidies, because this allowance is explicitly written in the bill,' wrote Saunders in a Washington Examiner column Sunday.

The National Right to Life Committee confirmed that the executive order 'does not truly correct any of the seven objectionable pro-abortion provisions' in the bill.

'The executive order promised by President Obama was issued for political effect. It changes nothing," stated NRLC. ' The president cannot amend a bill by issuing an order, and the federal courts will enforce what the law says.'"

Susan B. Anthony List

http://www.sba-list.org/site/apps/nlnet/content.aspx?c=ddJBKJNsFqG&b=4186739&ct=7319965&notoc=1

Life News reports that Planned Parenthood applauds the health care bill

Planned Parenthood called the pro-abortion health care bill the House approved late Sunday night a victory and applauded the financial windfall it is expected to reap as a result. The abortion business also dismissed the executive order President Barack Obama promised Congressman Bart Stupak as harmless.

“For more than a year, Planned Parenthood has worked tirelessly for a health care” bill, its president Cecile Richards said in a statement today. “It’s a huge victory for women’s health, but our work isn’t over yet.”

With passage of the legislation, “monumental progress was made toward achieving these goals.”

Richards dismissed the executive order, which has been slammed by pro-life groups, as a “a symbolic gesture … to anti-choice Congressman Bart Stupak (D-MI), which has diverted attention from the central goal.”

“Planned Parenthood is also extremely pleased that members of the House listened to the millions of women and men who expressed their strong opposition to the Stupak abortion ban. Stopping the Stupak ban was a high priority,” she said. “It was a tough fight, but we salute Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D- CA), Congressman Rosa DeLauro (D–CT) , members of the House Pro-Choice Caucus.”

Despite Stupak’s contention that the executive order would implement his abortion funding ban, Richards says that’s not the case.

‘What the president’s executive order did not do is include the complete and total ban … that Congressman Bart Stupak (D–MI) had insisted upon,” Richards said. “So while we regret that this proposed Executive Order has given the imprimatur of the president to Senator Nelson’s language, it is critically important to note that it does not include the Stupak abortion ban.”

“Thanks to supporters like you, we were able to keep the Stupak abortion ban out of the final legislation and President Obama did not include the Stupak language in his Executive Order,” Richards admitted.

lifenews.com

http://www.lifenews.com/nat6175.html

The executive order promised by President Obama was issued for political effect. It changes nothing. It does not correct any of the serious pro-abortion provisions in the bill. The president cannot amend a bill by issuing an order, and the federal courts will enforce what the law says. National Right to Life Committee

The harsh fact of the matter is when you're going to pass legislation that will cover 300 [million] American people in different ways it takes a long time to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people. Rep. John Dingell (D-MI)

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