It is an unfortunate reality that whatever policies are implemented in the UK are eventually implemented here in the United States. It was only a short time before Britain’s increased domestic surveillance, horrid healthcare system, and curtailment of free speech reached the shores of America.
Of course, the United States serves as a breeding ground for the exportation of its own brand of tyranny – i.e. militarized police forces etc.– to England. A more informed observer might view this trade-off of oppression as a more organized attempt at the implementation of a standardized system of domination . . . and this observer would be correct. But, regardless, it is true that even a casual observer can view the domestic policies of the country across the Atlantic as indications of what is coming to their own.
Of course, the United States serves as a breeding ground for the exportation of its own brand of tyranny – i.e. militarized police forces etc.– to England. A more informed observer might view this trade-off of oppression as a more organized attempt at the implementation of a standardized system of domination . . . and this observer would be correct. But, regardless, it is true that even a casual observer can view the domestic policies of the country across the Atlantic as indications of what is coming to their own.
Recently, it was announced by the British government that 1 million elderly British citizens who have paid exorbitant taxes and endured sub-par healthcare for years will now be given a personal healthcare budget which they themselves will have to administer. After generations of being told that citizens were not individuals but part of the collective, British ministers are now claiming that healthcare can no longer be left to the state and that it is “everyone’s responsibility.” In past years, when Britons were being trained to accept higher taxes and reduction in healthcare, “everyone’s responsibility” meant the collective society as a whole bore the collective burden. Now, when healthcare rationing for the elderly becomes more prominent, “everyone’s responsibility” means that each individual has to worry about their own costs. Of course, there is no likelihood of taxes going down as a result. George Orwell’s Big Brother would indeed be proud of the doublespeak being successfully implemented in his home country today.
These personal care budgets would force the elderly to ration out their pittance from the UK’s National Health Service in order to purchase procedures and care from private companies. Paul Burstow, Liberal Democrat care services minister commented that “Personal budgets give people choice, control, and independence.” War is peace indeed.
Besides cutting care for the “non-productive” elderly by reducing the amount of services rendered, these personal care budgets also have a psychological function. By forcing seniors to choose their services on the basis of costs and forcing them to look at the prices of these services before purchasing them, they are being conditioned (as well as the children who aid them in this process) to justify why the British government is cutting these costs. They are now “learning the lesson of finite resources.”
Unfortunately, there is a parallel between the newly instituted British policy and the new healthcare legislation being implemented in the United States. While the Brits may be a bit ahead of us in the rationing department, it is only because our new healthcare legislation is just beginning to take effect. Rationing boards -- labeled death panels during the debate over the bill -- were largely dismissed by the mainstream media even though they existed as plain as day. Such treatment was mainly an attempt by the media to reduce any real discussion of real issues to a traditional democrat v. republican sideshow. Nevertheless, the Coordinating Council on Comparative Cost Effectiveness Research had already been created in the stimulus bill months before, and stood ready and waiting for the healthcare bill to pass.
While radical Paul Krugman argued that “death panels” didn’t exist and that those who said they did were merely conspiracy theorists, right-wingers, and/or racists, after the bill passed he went on to admit on a variety of talk shows that death panels did, in fact, exist and that they would be extremely helpful in reducing the costs of healthcare. (See here and here). There is really no debate now as to whether or not these panels exist or even whether or not healthcare will be rationed. The only question now is how much rationing is going to occur. Unfortunately, the well informed already know the answer to this question.
Mirroring the British decision to force the elderly to accept a personal budget for their care, the United States, as a result of the healthcare legislation, will be cutting Medicare and Medicaid by close to $500 billion. In true Orwellian fashion, these cuts are labeled as “savings.” However, these “savings” have to come from somewhere and there is no getting away from the fact that what they will come from is the slashing of services and payments to the elderly and the poor.
It is for this reason that Medicare’s MEDPAC will also morph into a death panel. As a result of the slashing of billions of dollars from the Medicare budget, MEDPAC will oversee the cuts to Medicare that determine the quality of life for millions of senior citizens all over the country.
MEDPAC will be responsible for examining which services, procedures, medicines etc. are “cost effective” and which are not. For many seniors, MEDPAC will be making life and death decisions. The same is the case with Medicaid, which provides healthcare assistance to the poor.
What we are witnessing is the implementation of a eugenics program that was dreamed up long ago but is finally beginning to come to fruition. With such drastic cuts to healthcare benefits for the poor and elderly, as well as the legislation itself which limits care given to those with chronic illnesses and disabilities, we are seeing a system in which the term “cost effectiveness” replaces “unfit” and “undesirable.” The entire population has been engaged in a war of attrition and an attack has been launched against its most vulnerable members – children, the disabled, and the elderly – and it’s time we fight back.
Brandon Turbeville is an author out of Mullins, South Carolina. He has a Bachelor’s Degree from Francis Marion University where he earned the Pee Dee Electric Scholar’s Award as an undergraduate. He has had numerous articles published dealing with a wide variety of subjects including health, economics, and civil liberties. He is a regular contributor to Activist Post, and is the author of Codex Alimentarius - The End of Health Freedom
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Brandon Turbeville is an author out of Mullins, South Carolina. He has a Bachelor’s Degree from Francis Marion University where he earned the Pee Dee Electric Scholar’s Award as an undergraduate. He has had numerous articles published dealing with a wide variety of subjects including health, economics, and civil liberties. He is a regular contributor to Activist Post, and is the author of Codex Alimentarius - The End of Health Freedom
Recently by Brandon Turbeville
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