Friday, August 14, 2009

Why is Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel important in the health care debate?

Denise Hunnell, M.D. explains:

Those advocating for President Obama's health care reform label concerns about rationing of care and denial of care to the elderly and disabled as irrational and the product of fear mongering. However, if you read the work of Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, who is the health-policy advisor at the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and a member of the Federal Council on Comparative Effectiveness Research (FCCCER) and also the brother of the President's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, these concerns seem very reasonable indeed. The current legislation does not specify medical treatments to be covered. Rather, it delegates these decisions to a Health Benefits Advisory Council. This panel is advised by the FCCCER. That is why the ideology of Dr. Emanuel is very relevant to concerns about rationing of health care.

This should be the guiding principle:

The value of treatment to any given patient can be ethically evaluated, but every patient's life is of inestimable worth.

But don't take someone's word for it. Read Emanuel's recent Lancet article.




2 comments:

Chuck Brooks said...

Eerily similar to Joseph Goebbels' writings about 'useless mouths' and how these were balmed for hindering a previous national socialist activity.
Chuck Brooks
FutureWare SCG

Joseph said...

Your guiding principle breaks down completely when faced with the dilemma of who to save.