Video: Forum Unearths Underbelly of Obamacare

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“It is headed your way like a locomotive,”

Sandra Goss told a crowd at a Gilmer County healthcare forum last week. Hosted by FYN’s Brian Pritchard, the event was a joint effort between the Gilmer County Tea Party and the Gilmer County Republican Party with the sole purpose of informing the public about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also know as Obamacare. A nurse originally from England, Goss said Obamacare will hit the United States like a locomotive. Goss was one of two keynote speakers. The forum also featured a panel of local healthcare professionals who fielded questions from the audience about the legislation.

The first keynote speaker, Dr. Dan Eichenbaum, explained the philosophy behind Obamacare. In addition to linking the ideas in the bill to Nietzsche and Nazism, he gave a profile of the bill’s two primary framers, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel and Dr. Peter Singer. Emanuel, White House Policy Advisor and brother of Rahm Emanuel, is a staunch advocate of infanticide, while Emanuel’s “Complete Lives Plan” prioritizes the lives of people between the ages of 15 and 40 over those outside this range, marginalizing the very young, middle-aged, and elderly. Eichenbaum explained how this philosophy is manifested in Obamacare.

The bill establishes a 15 member commission appointed (not elected) by the president called The Independent Payment Advisory Board or IPAB, where the number of physcians on the board must be a minority. These boards are also known as “death panels” due to their authority to decide how much money to allocate for medical procedures or treatment.

“That’s a figure”

Eichenbaum explained,

“that’s calculated by dividing the cost of any service or procedure by the projected life expectancy of the recipient.”

He went on to explain a patient who needs a $10,000 procedure and only has a projected five years of life left is considered low cost-effectiveness. As such, this patient is not likely to receive the needed money for the procedure no matter how necessary it is. Even more grave, though, was Mrs. Goss’ testimony to the horrors of nationalized healthcare.

As a nurse working and living in England, Goss has had inside experience with a socialized health systems, which is called in England the National Health Service (NHS). Under the NHS, she said if a patient is 65 or older and needs dialysis, he or she will not receive it. She also said waiting lists for medical treatment in England is an average of 18 months, during which time many people die prematurely while waiting the proper care. If a patient with a terminal illness codes, he or she is not resuscitated and left to die. Goss recalled being at the bedside of a young woman.

“She was 35 (years old), very obese, and had a massive stroke,”

she said,

“She was technically dead, but there was no hope that she was going to survive; she was comatose, so she was left to die.”

She said the woman was left in a ward where she died three weeks later, emphasizing that no comfort-means are provided in socialized medicine. Turning to specific items in Obamacare, Goss noted that the government will have real-time access to an individual’s bank account and the authority to make electronic fund transfers (p58), adding that cancer hospitals will ration care according to the patients’ age (p272). Goss called Obamacare a path to death for the sick and the elderly.

On the other side of the stage, the panel consisted of owner of Mountain Home care Equipment in Ellijay John Rhodes, President of Parris Pharmacy in Blue Ridge Mark Parris, and retired doctor Dr. Schwartzman. Rhodes said Obamacare has already caused more audits for his company than previously. These audits, he said, are slowing down Medicare payments between six to nine months for his equipment. He also said the government will now only pay 36 months for the oxygen equipment; patients will pay the remainder of the cost, or the cost could fall to Rhodes. Additionally, Rhodes said he must be accredited, bonded for a certain amount of money and insured at a certain level. If not, he will not receive Medicare funds to care for his customers.

For his part, Parris said he’s already seeing a shortage in prescription drugs from wholesale companies not available to Parris. Dr. Schwartzman unearthed another, grim detail of the legislation. He said doctors who care for patients with a series of “risky problems” will get not paid. As such, doctors will be less likely to treat “risky patients.” Earlier, in his presentation, Dr. Eichenbaum noted that doctors who give patients needed medication or treatment when the government forbids it, can be fined or incarcerated. During the question and answer session, one citizen asked Dr. Schwartzman if Obamacare would force by consequence a medical black market. Schwartzman confirmed this, saying a sort of black market has already started.

“People who have money,”

he said,

“will pay this doctor $5000 a year, a $100 a month or whatever…They can see their doctors whenever they want to.”

Eichenbaum warned that voters have about a year to repeal Obamacare and encouraged everyone to vote in the presidential election on November sixth. Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney has said he will work to repeal Obamacare. A full repeal, however, would require approval by both houses of Congress. Additionally, a lawsuit is pending against the legislation, which also shows promise in overturning the law.

See Video of Forum Below.

2012 Oct Gilmer POL ObamaCare Panel Discussion from Fetch on Vimeo.

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