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Thursday, July 23, 2009

Obama Madness

To my friends and neighbors,

Great News! More than 625,000 Americans have signed the petition, voicing their support for affordable, accessible, high-quality health care. Many of you have asked, Can you sign twice? The answer is no, and in fact you will get a message that you have already signed. However, we need your help to forward this important information to all your lists, networks, friends and family members.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell recently summarized the dangers of a government-run health care system as being a "system in which care is denied, delayed, and rationed." He's exactly right! To fund a nationalized health care system, Congress will have to deny, delay, and ration care for the sick and elderly.

If health care is rationed, how would that work? White House health advisor Zeke Emanuel (who is also the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel) wrote an entire article on this subject in the Lancet on January 31, 2009. In the article, Emanuel advocated giving young adults priority over senior citizens. Suppose a 25-year-old and a 65-year-old each has a life-threatening disease. Since the 25-year-old has many more potential years of life ahead of him, he should receive preferential treatment, according to Emanuel. He justifies denying care to elderly patients in the following way:

Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination; every person lives through different life stages rather than being a single age. Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years.

There is more! In another article written in 1996 for the Hastings Center Report , Emanuel said health services should not be guaranteed to "individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens." He continues, "An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia."

Ultimately, such a health care plan would ignore the end-of-life needs of many Americans!
What can you do about all of this?

Sign the petition at www.freeourhealthcarenow.com and forward this email to your family, friends and networks!

Track our progress by going to http://actionpack.ncpa.org and clicking the 'ticker' link.
Watch NCPA President and Kellye Wright Fellow John Goodman, discuss the effects of a nationalized health care system streamed live on Wednesday, July 22, at 7:30 pm Eastern Time.

To view the broadcast, go to www.pjtv.com and click on the 'Live Broadcast' button.

Read what John Goodman says about Zeke Emanuel's articles at his blog http://www.john-goodman-blog.com/rationing-health-care-2/.

Use the Action Pack to access our Learning/Teaching Tools about health care at http://actionpack.ncpa.org so that you can educate your friends, family and neighbors.
Share the petition through viral networking by clicking on the icon of your preferred social media.

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