Charlotte Allen, conversely, thinks that in order to free up some much needed healthcare cash, Barack Obama wants to take all our old people and set them adrift on ice floes to die. Do you think I'm engaged in some bloggy exaggeration for rhetorical effect? Let's roll the tape:Setting aside the illogical hysteria of this entire piece, somebody really needs to point out toCharlotte Allen that other countries all over the world are able to deliver better outcomes at less cost to all their people than we are. She doesn't seem to have read even the most rudimentary primer on what health care reform is supposed to accomplish.The Eskimos used to set their elderly and sickly adrift on the ice or otherwise abandon them during times of scarcity, and that, metaphorically speaking, is what Obama would like us all to start doing.
....The scarcity of resources to pay for expensive medical procedures will only increase under a plan to extend medical benefits at federal expense to the 47 million Americans who lack health insurance. So why not save billions of dollars by killing off our own unproductive oldsters and terminal patients, or — since we aren't likely to do that outright in this, the 21st century — why not simply ensure that they die faster by denying them costly medical care?
Most weirdly of all, though, at the end of the piece the conservative Charlotte Allen herself seems to suggest that Medicare should be funded with infinite amounts of money and there should never be any restriction on how it's spent. Either that or she doesn't realize that Medicare is the way most old people in America get medical care. Or that Medicare is a government program. Or something. I can't really make sense out of it.