A Wall Street Journal article written by Betsy Mccaughey examining the writings and opinions of Dr. Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel comes to some frightening conclusions.  I admit when I first heard Sarah Palin, R-AL, use the term “death panels” with regards to President Obama’s health plan, I cringed slightly at the apparent hyperbole.  Perhaps I should have done more research before reacting as it appears Ms. Palin’s remarks did not go far enough.

Dr. Emanuel is not just the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, he is a renowned bio-ethicist and a special adviser to the President on health reform.  Dr. Emanuel is also representative of a school of thought which believes doctors spend waste time and effort concerning themselves solely with the health of their patients.  Rather, this school of thought holds, doctors should concern themselves with the most efficient distribution of scarce health care resources across society.  As a Hastings Center Report from Nov – Dec 1996 stated:

“Substantively, it suggests services that promote the continuation of the polity—those that ensure healthy future generations, ensure development of practical reasoning skills, and ensure full and active participation by citizens in public deliberations—are to be socially guaranteed as basic. Covering services provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens are not basic, and should not be guaranteed. An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia.”

In order to accomplish this goal Dr. Emmanuel has advocated what he calls the  “complete lives system”:

“One maximizing strategy involves saving the most individual lives, and it has motivated policies on allocation of influenza vaccines and responses to bioterrorism. . . . Other things being equal, we should always save five lives rather than one. However, other things are rarely equal—whether to save one 20-year-old, who might live another 60 years, if saved, or three 70-year-olds, who could only live for another 10 years each—is unclear.”

Unclear? Tell that to the families who will be denied coverage because their child, or their grandmother, is not deemed worthy.

“When implemented, the complete lives system produces a priority curve on which individuals aged roughly 15 and 40 years get the most substantial chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get changes that are attenuated”

Infants can also be done away with as “society” has nothing “invested” in them yet:

“Adolescents have received substantial education and parental care, investments that will be wasted without a complete life. Infants, by contrast, have not yet received these investments”

Suddenly it becomes clear, statists have argued the free market is unfair because it essentially allocates medical care based on access and ability to pay.  They are now suggesting an alternative system whereby medical care is allocated based on your worth to them.  I don’t know about you, but I trust my own ability to get the treatment I need in an open market, not a government panel that sees me, not as a person, but as a line item on a budget.