Government Funded Means Government Decided

Cal Thomas | Syndicated Columnist | Updated: Dec 30, 2010

Government Funded Means Government Decided

December 29, 2010

Remember when Sarah Palin predicted the insurance reform law would create death panels which would decide who gets live saving treatment and who doesn't, based on a formula created in Washington? She was ridiculed by the big media and many politicians who said it would never happen.

Now in a front page story in Sunday's New York Times - a newspaper that ridiculed Palin - we learn the Obama administration will achieve the same goal as a death panel when it creates a new policy that allows the government to pay doctors to offer end of life counseling.

Few would dispute a terminally ill patients receiving information about their options, but when government pays doctors for this, government will inevitably have a role in the outcome of the patient's decision. And that will lead to government deciding whose life is worth preserving and whose is not.

The new congressional Republican class had better try to reverse this new Medicare regulation and fast.

Cal Thomas is a nationally syndicated columnist based in Washington, D.C.

Government Funded Means Government Decided