The President Strikes Again...At Life

In case you missed it, President Obama made some interesting comments during his Town Meeting last week. One, in particular, struck me since it gives us a preview of how an Obama-inspired government-run health care system would likely decide about life and death issues.

While discussing possible ways to limit health care costs, the president suggested we stop giving dying people expensive treatments that will probably not extend their lives. His actual words were that families should be discouraged from approving "additional tests or additional drugs that the evidence shows is not necessarily going to improve care." He then went on to say, "Maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller." After all, it would be so less expensive and, anyway, most of those really sick people are old, too old to contribute much to society. And think of the money we'll save on their social security.

Don't you just love the compassion that oozes out of the pores of liberals? Of course there's something else wrong with his comments. Under a government health care system it won't be the families who will make such decisions; and it won't even be the attending physician. No, based on similar systems in other countries, and on what the president has already suggested, decisions about what tests or drugs or procedures to offer will be made by bureaucrats in Washington.

And, as Jonathan Goldberg has already noted, the president's desire to limit a person's freedom to choose when it comes to health care is strangely at odds with his oft-stated belief that a woman has an inviolate freedom to choose when it comes to aborting her child.

To read the full LA Times story, click here.