"Maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the pain killer.."
He didn't really say that, did he? I must say I was appalled when watching this ABC news clip of Obama making this ludicrous statement to the daughter of a now 105-year-old woman who needed a pacemaker (she needed the surgery at 99). The daughter in question, Jane Sturm, was asking the President if he thought medical criteria such as age should be used or should quality of life and joy be important in making the decision to provide care. From his answer, which basically boils down to "Mom can take a pain pill," Obama shows himself not only to have no understanding of medicine, life, or the science of improving people's lives, but no empathy for those of us who have life threatening illnesses that require immediate medical intervention.
Some heart arrhythmias are deadly, and a doctor telling a patient to take a pain killer to treat V-tach or V-fib should be guilty of malpractice. For example, the American Heart Association states:
Heart arrhythmias can be absolutely terrifying leading to panic attacks and/or fatigue so crippling that one cannot get off the couch. A pain killer is not going to help. But maybe that's the idea. Obama is so determined to get his health care plan passed--no matter what the consequences-- that he doesn't care how or if people suffer, especially older people.
Is Obama heartless, mean or just plain ignorant? His response to Jane Sturm leaves me wondering which.
Some heart arrhythmias are deadly, and a doctor telling a patient to take a pain killer to treat V-tach or V-fib should be guilty of malpractice. For example, the American Heart Association states:
The term "arrhythmia" refers to any change from the normal sequence of electrical impulses. The electrical impulses may happen too fast, too slowly, or erratically – causing the heart to beat too fast, too slowly, or erratically.
When the heart doesn’t beat properly, it can’t pump blood effectively. When the heart doesn’t pump blood effectively, the lungs, brain and all other organs can’t work properly and may shut down or be damaged.
Heart arrhythmias can be absolutely terrifying leading to panic attacks and/or fatigue so crippling that one cannot get off the couch. A pain killer is not going to help. But maybe that's the idea. Obama is so determined to get his health care plan passed--no matter what the consequences-- that he doesn't care how or if people suffer, especially older people.
Is Obama heartless, mean or just plain ignorant? His response to Jane Sturm leaves me wondering which.
Labels: health care, Obama, politics
posted by Helen at 1:08 PM
77 Comments:
All of the above.
I don't like BHO or his health care "reform" any more than you do, but I think his answer is being taken out of context. Listen again. He is referring to other patients in other situation, who may not benefit from aggressive intervention, and may be candidates for comfort care instead. As an interventional cardiologist, I've implanted pacemakers in 95 year olds, and opted not to in others. Each case is different, and depends on multiple factors such as physiological age, quality of life, and patient/family expectations.
I'm no fan of the president, but let's be fair here.
I'm glad BHO wasn't YOUR cardiologist ;-)
Great post. Does Obama realize how clueless he sounds? My father had a pacemaker put in about a year before he passed away (at age 81). In that year he made sure my Mom (who suffers from dementia) was well taken care of and spent time with his children and grandchildren. We knew he wasn't going to live long (he suffered from another illness) but what kind of world will we live in when the government gets to decide that your life is no longer worth extending. He wanted to live!
It is so easy as a younger person to look at an older person who is sick and say, "oh, I don't want to end up like that. Just put me out of my misery." But we don't know until we get there if we will actually feel that way.
I know several relatively young men (less than 45 years old) who were diagnosed with ALS and obviously it was a horrible way to die. But they did everything they could to hang on as long as possible because of their young children. One man did everything he could to stay alive to make a very difficult trip just to see his son play soccer. Is this another group of people will be told, sorry, because this disease is terminal, you won't be given any life extenders. Too expensive!
Richard is half right. Obama knew that , "no we're going to let your mother wither away and die because she's old and pacemakers are expensive" wasn't going to fly. So he fell back into bureaucratic pablum "we are going to make the system better and spread information around."
Richard,
The woman asking the question was asking if he would do as you say, go on a case by case basis. Obama did not answer that question and instead went off on waste tying it to the woman's mother. In the video, he says "let your mom know" that the surgery will not help. He should have acknowledged that in some cases the surgery might help, and in some cases, maybe not but I think his real feelings came through---no expensive surgeries for old people.
Re critical care situations, BHO said he wants people to make better decisions than they now make. Who is he to disapprove of what people now decide in their own/family situations? Just what is he criticizing about us citizens here?
And precisely what decisions does he plan to impose or choices negate through his health care plan?
I think Richard is one of the army of paid Obamabots spreading disinformation around the internet. I have no doubts.
When discussing whether Obama is heartless, mean or just plain ignorant?" please remember that neither he nor his family nor anyone in Congress nor their families will, under his bill, ever have to use the health care he's proposing on foisting off on the rest of us.
No such bill should pass until it includes, at the very least, *all* government employees and elected officials mandatorially.
They should not be allowed, under any circumstances, to use any other health care or plan.
Then we'll see how serious they are.
I guess Obama thought saying maybe it’s better to let her die without pain, although I don’t recall a reference to pain, only the need for a pacemaker, then to allow her to cost the healthcare system more money to live. The question, as I heard it, queried what criteria Obama would use; and Obama indirectly answered the question: cost is the criteria, followed by age & all else comes after this.
In my opinion, he seeks to deny health care, not provide it. How many people would agree that currently, government administered health care doesn’t deny enough?
You didn't expect a narcissist to share your pain did you?
He's not a doctor, he just plays one on TV.
Why waste a pacemaker on a typical white person?
The real problem is his suggestion that we have to decide "as a society" how to handle these tough decisions.
No, with all due respect, we have to decide as individuals so that this 99 year-old's situation could be properly evaluated.
That is the real flaw in ObamaCare.
Richard, may I call you Dick?
At least Bill Clinton said "I feel your pain"...
Look, he simply doesn't know what he's talking about, whether from a medical viewpoint or cost viewpoint.
From the ACC/AHA/HRS 2008 Guidelines for Device-Based Therapy of Cardiac Rhythm Abnormalities: "...the cost-effectiveness of dual-chamber pacemaker implantation compared with ventricular pacemaker implantation (287) was approximately $53 000 per quality-adjusted year of life gained over 4 years of follow-up. Extended over the expected lifetime of a typical patient, the calculated cost-effectiveness of dualchamber pacing improved to $6800 per quality-adjusted year of life gained."
Around the same time, he's asked about his grandmother getting a hip replacement, and he suggests that maybe she should just have gotten a painkiller instead of surgery, which is cruel, shortsighted, and amazingly costly when the sequelae of being bedridden are added in. It's interesting that Obama singles out some of the most cost-effective interventions out there as being unnecessary, which strongly indicates that he's making things up as he goes along.
As Richard points out, there may be valid medical reasons not to intervene here, as in any patient's case. And I doubt that Obama wants to see old people dying in the street, particularly old voters.
But that's why we go to doctor school and take the Hippocratic Oath. To make decisions based on the patient's best interest.
In Obama's case it's the "Hypocritic Oath".
"He is referring to other patients in other situation, who may not benefit from aggressive intervention, and may be candidates for comfort care instead."
Like Ted Kennedy?
Richard apparently can't distinguish between the doctor and the 95 year old patient making an informed decision together on the one hand and ont he other hand some government bureaucrat making a blanket arbitrary decision that someone 95 doesn't get the pacemaker --- period. Big, big difference.
Larry,
I'm fairly fond of my name so I'd appreciate it if you didn't tack it onto Richard.
Why didn't I see "jackass" in your list of possible labels for the president? Hmm. I'm adding it as my answer to what Obama is.
Why didn't I see "jackass" in your list of possible labels for the president? Hmm. I'm adding it as my answer to what Obama is.
None of the above. Obama is certain that he's right, that this is the way things should be, and no amount of introspection will convince him otherwise.
Perhaps that's a form of ignorance, but it looks more like arrogance to me.
Richard,
you don't get to duck the question and then complain that your remarks are being taken out of context when people try to interpret them as being a relevant response.
What I don't really get is why he didn't just say "Of course the decision will remain with your mother and her doctor, all we want to do is provide them with the best information possible about the effectiveness of various treatments." That's probably as true as his often repeated assertion that if you're happy with your doctor and plan nobody is going to force you to change.
When he becomes the provider of health care, he is forced to answer these questions. It's a no-win situation for him. Fiscal prudence suggests some amount of triage before engaging in procedures and empathy suggests almost none. No matter what answer he gave, he was going to be wrong.
Of course he puts himself in this situation over and over and over again by trying to become our priest-king so I have no sympathy for him at all.
Well.
"They should not be allowed, under any circumstances, to use any other health care or plan."
That won't matter you know.
A few months ago there was a scandal in Britain. Evidently there is/was a hospital in London that was a part of the UK's NHS (National Health Service) where you absolutely could not get admitted unless you were a high level government official, very wealthy or equally powerful or connected. Even emergency cases that showed up at this hospital were rejected and forced to go elsewhere.
In Socialist math the "=" comes with an adjustment knob.
> Is Obama heartless, mean or just plain ignorant?
With all due respect, this doesn't really seem to be an either/or question. We need an option D)All of the above (and I'm willing to add arrogant as datarat suggests).
This is the party of compassion. And it is racist to question The One.
OTOH - I can't think of any avowed socialist who is/was also known as a humanitarian.
There is only one way to reduce the total costs of all health care provided in the USA. And that is to provide less of it. There WILL be rationing. Sooner or later, there will be rationing. Either it comes by a bureaucracy appointed by Congressional Democrats or it comes when Medicare and Medicaid become insolvent and unable to reimburse the providers. And that will force many providers to close their doors. One way or another the Boomers will bust the healthcare budgets.
If Obama seems bored with your family's pain, so what? He's the President and there is nothing you can do about it.
Richard said...
"I don't like BHO or his health care "reform" any more than you do, but I think his answer is being taken out of context.....I'm no fan of the president, but let's be fair here."
I am being fair. The President said we as a culture and a people need to make decisions about these things. Well, to be fair, he can kiss MY as*. 'We' as a 'culture' and 'a people' can get the collective hell out of MY healthcare decisions and those of my FAMILY. I want to pick MY private insurance and government to not interfere if I want expensive coverage (because I do, because I want everything covered).
PS
I also had a CRT deliberator put in… at 38. The last thing any of you need is politicians and their professional full time government employee bean counters working at government regulating organs deciding if you get one or not if you need it. Insurance companies often do suck, but why any sane person thinks government would be better is beyond me. I have bones to pick with my insurance co, but for the most part they’ve dealt in good faith and paid up as agreed.
Google "Lebensunwertes Leben"
BHO's answer is not being taken out of context. He's answering that woman's question. If you can't hear/see that he's saying give her a pill so she can die without pain, you're blind and deaf.
It's ironic to hear BHO talk about culture. He doesn't fully understand American culture as he spent much of his formative years elsewhere. I think this is why he has litte regard for our Constitution, other "American" values and bows to Arab royalty.
He's a typical arrogant, narcissistic sociopath who feigns caring and interest to get what he wants.
At the risk of being called an Obamabot (NOT!), I have to agree (somewhat) with Richard. He didn't want to answer the question asked and took the common political tack of answering the question you want. Unfortunately for him, he made this shift in a very muddled way that made it easy to misinterpret his "take a pain pill" solution as being directly related to Ms. Sturm's question. That does not, however, absolve him from what is still a bad and rather chilling answer to even the general question he tried to answer.
Some eloquent speaker, eh?
This comment has been removed by the author.
TO: Dr. Helen, et al.
RE: My Vote....
Is Obama heartless, mean or just plain ignorant? His response to Jane Sturm leaves me wondering which. -- Dr. Helen
....is for "All of the Above".
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[The Truth will out....]
The word you're groping for, Dr. Helen, is evil.
As S pointed out, he has claimed -- as Speaker for Society -- the authority to set his will in preference to our own, regarding decisions that affect our own lives and those of no one else. Evil is not too strong a word.
Note: deleted and reposted to fix a typo. It's the language of Shakespeare and Milton, and deserves some respect.
Okay, I have a good friend who suffers from V-tach too. She has had the surgery, which was only partially successful, and she takes the drugs. It's still not optimal, but she's functioning and reasonably happy. If Obamacare had existed thirty years ago, the surgeries and drugs that have kept her alive and well would never have been developed, and odds are she'd be dead.
Number Six, it's not even guaranteed that rationing will actully reduce the cost of health care. I figure it's at least equally likely to make it go up. It's kind of like when electric utilities urge customers to save energy, and the customers do so: power rates then go up. Because the fixed costs of carrying and maintaining all of the facilities is spread over a smaller rate base. Medicine is similar; it has a lot of money tied up in capital assets too.
TO: All
RE: What He Said
The last thing any of you need is politicians and their professional full time government employee bean counters working at government regulating organs deciding if you get one or not if you need it. -- S
Look upon it as health care prescribed by the Department of Motor Vehicles.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Doctors bury their mistakes. Mechanics have to repair them.]
These times are tumultuous but it should give all you carpers out there some solace that there is one certainty. Regardless of what bill is passed, regardless of the economic turmoil, regardless of the results of the mid-terms or the 2012 or any vaguerie one could practically envision you can be sure that Barack and Michelle and their lovely daughters will get the best care money can buy. If it cannot be bought in the US, it will be bought overseas in some lavish clinic or by whatever means then available. That is the chief thing to remember. Few of our political overlords are going to be subjected to the standards and practices of the rabble. Would Ted Kennedy's treatment of the last few years be approved by the boards proposed to make such decisions? Sure it would be... for HIM!
mega - not only BHO and family but all the politicos. They're so much more important than the rest of us.
pills are so much more profitable than surgeries.
and besides, obama is about addressing the issues of how to handle groups, not individuals.
he is a collectivist after all.
his language is always going to bias toward the group. pesky individual situations just create more work and actual caring and compassion.
not a bureaucrat`s job.
Is Obama heartless, mean or just plain ignorant?
Shouldn't that be "clueless, preening, or just plain arrogant"?
I watched the video earlier today and Obama's answer was both canned and disconnected. Looking back, I suspect that one of his stooges was supposed to ask a planted question for which the obvious answer really was "just get better pain management" but that's not what was asked and Obama is so clueless off script that he didn't even bother trying.
No one, particularly not the lap dogs who take health industry PAC money is brave enough to state publicly that the value of any individual human life is determined by who they are, who their closest friends and family are, and how much money they have.
The Nazis were more direct about getting rid of economically burdensome people than we are, (see The Nazi Doctors by Robert Jay Lifton) but Americans don't particularly mind if the old, the poor, the mentally retarded, etc. quietly suffer and die out of sight.
"Is Obama heartless, mean or just plain ignorant?"
I'll go with heartless; if he's as narcissistic as he appears, he has a hard time feeling empathy.
I wonder, though, why is he using the "maybe you're better off taking the painkiller" line so often. (This isn't the first time, not by any means.) Does the line polls well? It seems obvious that people don't realize the implications of relying on shortening end-life care as a device to save money. Otherwise, Obama won't be using that canned line.
The logical implication of Obama's vision is the rationing of life itself.
Oh relax Helen.
By "take a pain pill" what Obama really meant was "stay in a drug induced high" so that you don't really care about the abnormal heart beat.
After all, you're old. You're a burden on society. You shouldn't be so selfish.
You're contributing no taxes to keep the elect-elite ensconced in their plush lifestyles.
You're of no value; you're a leach on the rest of us.
We have no intention of spending, you know, real money extending your life. But we're not monsters, after all. We'll keep you so drugged out of your mind that you don't even know you're sick.
So, relax sweetheart.
First "transparency." Now "empathy." Maybe we need a new guide to Obamaspeak.
I don't believe that government should be paying for health care, including my own, but it does, and I have to wonder if there is a rational basis for discriminating on the basis of age or health needs.
Is Obama heartless, mean or just plain ignorant?
Yes.
Empathy from the bench. Not at the bedside.
Pretty much sums it up.
This is the "Logan's Run" health plan. I can at least enjoy the irony of the 60's era baby boomers getting whacked one by one by this guy, in the abstract. In the reality they are mothers fathers, sisters,...
I don't know if my life would be as rich if I did not know my grandmother, who still lived a semi frontier way of life in her '90s back in the sixties.
If you want another quote from Obama on this same subject, go back to his prime time town hall on health care, and he is asked a similar question, about whether medical decisions for the elderly should be partly based on the zest for life or "joy" that an elderly patient still feels.
Obama said that he didn't see how that could be made a bureaucratic standard, or some such nonsense. I wish I could remember the exact words, but at the time, I though he had just made an add for the Republicans, who are, thanks to God, the party of no.
She didn't even say her mom was in pain. That leads me to think that "take the painkiller" is a euphamism for "Stop being a drain on our resources and become Soilent Green."
OK, I watched the clip now, and this is not the whole clip. Here is what was cut out:
"My question to you is, outside the medical criteria for prolonging life for somebody elderly, is there any consideration that can be given for a certain spirit, a certain joy of living, quality of life? Or is it just a medical cutoff at a certain age?" - Sturm
"don’t think that we can make judgments based on peoples’ spirit.
That would be a pretty subjective decision to be making." Obama
http://ironicsurrealism.blogivists.com/2009/06/25/transcript-obamas-prescription-for-america-june-24-2009/
If I were a leftie, I would make teh logical leap that Obama answered her question and said that since it is not one, it is the other, "a cutoff at a certain age"
Does anyone besides me remember Logan's Run?
TO: GawainsGhost
RE: Logan's Run
Does anyone besides me remember Logan's Run? -- GawainsGhost
I do. Indeed. I've mentioned it at least a couple of times on other blogs since hearing about Obama 'care'.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[A healthy loyalty is not passive and complacent, but active and critical. -- Harold Laski]
It is amazing how life is beginning to mimic Hollywood. Under Obama, both Logan's Run and Soylent Green are coming together.
I have for a long time, and do now as well, feel the same as Dave way up there in an early response: the House, Senate, Administration and all government level workers should be under the same exact plan as proposed for the rest of us. Of course, it is not, and we all know that. So forget it.
This is still America. The people are still the boss. When are we going to act like it? We still need to vote everyone out who got us where we are. All of them. Don't forget that! And that would be everyone who is currently "serving".
Life isn't mimicking Hollywood.
When a lefty see's "Logan's Run", they don't see it as a warning.
They see a plan.
We should ban Orwell's distopian "1984." Too many people with power read this noval and see it as a roadmap to their utopia.
Is Obama heartless, mean or just plain ignorant?
A question about as valid as someone asking, after reading your blogpost, "Is Smith brainless, stupid or just plain prejudiced?"
Obama has a lawyer's grasp of medicine.
Will there be any painkillers left to take? Consider all the NSAIDs that have been taken off the market...the recommended changes to Tylenol, etc.
Obviously Ms. Sturm's mother has had more than her "fair share" of life, and Obama is more than willing to cut her off. Sure, doing that sort of thing will cause average life spans to drop, but it will also reduce the unfair and widening gap between the people who live longest and those who die young. And isn't that what it's really all about? Fairness?
I had surgery to correct a heart arrhythmia done at the Cleveland Clinic in 2005. I had to argue with my insurance company to get them to cover it at my in-network rate, but they did relent.
Without the surgery I have no doubt that I'd be living off disability right now, and it's quite likely that I'd be dead.
When Obama talks about some people not needing surgery, I am quite sure that I am the sort of person he means. I've tried to come up with a polite response to that, but I am not sure there is one.
@ RJ said... Obviously Ms. Sturm's mother has had more than her "fair share" of life, and Obama is more than willing to cut her off. Sure, doing that sort of thing will cause average life spans to drop, but it will also reduce the unfair and widening gap between the people who live longest and those who die young. And isn't that what it's really all about? Fairness?
__________
Well, two items the left subscribes to is abortion and euthanasia. When people are helpless and inconvenient at one side of life or another, better to legalize killing them I guess. *shrug*. (Of course, it is okay to kill the unborn and the elderly when inconvenient, but never the life of a murderer after due process.)
Note: It's a shame that this needs to be stated... I asknowledge that not all leftists, liberals, and democrats are pro abortion and pro euthanasia and anti-death penality. However, the fact remains that the modern left and it's agents in the democratic party do.
As to Orwell's 1984, I've always said there are two kinds of people who read it. The first says, "Thank God I'm an American." The second says, "Oh, so that's how it's done."
Same thing with Logan's run.
I don't understand what the big deal is here.
Wealthy people will always be able to buy all the medical care and drugs they want.
Poor people can't - but they are losers and are not entitled to anything. They should be happy they can ANYTHING in the transfer-of-wealth scheme.
This Web site has clearly seen in the past that wealthy people have EARNED the right to have medical care and other things in society. Why the sudden reversal here?
If some old woman can't afford a pacemaker or anything else, it's her own fault. She should have either earned money or whored herself out and married a rich man. This Web site knows better than most others that poor people are losers.
It's not like she didn't have enough time (if she's old) to either earn money or get it off a rich man.
The political party that protects abortionists will happily use euthanasia to control the costs of universal healthcare.
"There is only one way to reduce the total costs of all health care provided in the USA. And that is to provide less of it. "
While this blanket statement may have some basis in fact, the truth is that, for most aspects of Health Care, each component becomes LESS expensive as innovation makes itself felt. However, innovation also opens up NEW avenues of care, so that more things can be treated, and more effectively. So the TOTAL cost of Health Care may always go up, but the quality and quantity of it always increases (in general - don't jump in with anecdotes about individual Doctors and Hospitals).
However, new procedures are often more expensive than older ones, and if the focus is too much on raw costs, innovation will take a nosedive. Likewise, more effective treatments which are more costly will also decline, even if they would be more cost-effective in the long run (due to extending life more), because of the short-sided nature of the managers of such things, especially in Government.
There is a lot of wasted money in health care, such as protection against (or loss of) frivilous lawsuits or excessive judgments (i.e., "chivilrous" rulings against companies because "they have the money" and "it will sure help the little person"), and also people who over-use the care provided (usually people who don't pay, i.e. see it as free so show up for a hang nail, slowing the lines for people who take pain pills waiting for heart surgery). We'll have longer lines and longer waits if Obamacare makes even more people think it is "free."
Obama is a presidential joke.
There's certainly a lot of waste in healthcare, but skipping right to surgery when pain medication is an option is really not one of them.
Pre law school, I worked as a claims adjuster for short term disabilities. We saw all sorts of chronic issues, but (unless there was a defect like a broken bone that could only be corrected by surgery) almost every patient had months or years of failed conservative treatment before going to surgery, particularly back surgery, which can be very risky. Many of my claimants lived with very significant quality of life limitations, including disability, for a long time before undergoing something as drastic as surgery. Even assuming he's speaking generally (rather than just about heart issues), Obama doesn't know what he's talking about.
Lyssa - the point is there can be Palliative care prior to surgery that's a lot more costly then just taking a "pain pill", but I assume THAT would be rationed as well as the pacemaker and grandma dies anyway.
Obama is either a clueless fool or conniving liar and must be stopped.
Number Six,
America is a very darwinian place. Treating healthcare as anything other than just another product for sale to the highest bidder goes against the grain here.
@Lyssa Lovely Redhead said... There's certainly a lot of waste in healthcare, but skipping right to surgery when pain medication is an option is really not one of them.
_____
I never said it was an option. Another waste in health care is unnecessary or excessive treatment (often a side effect of fear of lawsuits). However, telling someone to take pain pills when surgery is what is needing is not a good way to save money either.
I have a questions...
Take the clip of President Obama, and imagine if it was a clip, word for word, by President Bush. What would happen?
I think there would be a media blitz, and the Internet would overload due to traffic and comments of condemnation and outrage.
I don't know if this is of interest to you, but after re-reading the story of your heart attack maybe.
Spot-on, Doctor.
Quoted from and linked to at:
http://www.thecampofthesaints.com/2009.07.19_arch.html#1248394206270
and permanently linked to at:
http://www.thecampofthesaints.com/wwuam.html#JTFM
his plan will provide adequate health care for people with money.he is power hungry and has surrounded himself with thugs who perceive themselves as elitists. Pain killers are for you but not for them and their cronies.they will get as many tests as they want and need. what were you thinking when you voted him in.where are you now.
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