Killer care

Health | The federal government may be taking a step toward deciding which lives are cost-effective | Cal Thomas

Kevin Dietsch/UPI/Newscom

Thanks to former Lieutenant Governor of New York Betsy McCaughey and her recent essay on Bloomberg.com entitled "Ruin Your Health with the Obama Stimulus Plan," we know of another problem with the stimulus bill, one that may threaten the lives of many Americans.

McCaughey discovered buried in the bill a new bureaucracy called the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology. Among other things, it means that a Washington official will "monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective." Some of that occurs now, but this would take it to a whole new level.

The idea comes straight from former HHS nominee Tom Daschle's 2008 book Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis in which he says that doctors are going to have to give up their autonomy and "learn to operate less like solo practitioners." Inevitably, this means the government will decide who gets life-saving treatment and who doesn't. It is survival of the fittest in practice. Thank you, and belated happy birthday, Charles Darwin.