The "stimulus" bill rations seniors health care.

In 1994, Dr. Betsy McCaughey published an article that explained the extremely serious problems with the national health care proposal of the Clinton Administration.  As a result of these startling revelations, the bill, which had seemed headed for passage, was derailed.  A few months after McCaughey's information became well known, a national poll found that only 7% of the public supported the plan being touted by then-First Lady Hillary Clinton.

McCaughey, who is now an adjunct senior fellow of the Hudson Institute, has just published a new analysis of the "stimulus" bill that is being heavily pushed by President Obama, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

This analysis found that, buried in the 1,500-page bill, were provisions strikingly similar to concepts contained in Tom Daschle's 2008 book, Critical:  What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis. 

Daschle admits his plan "will not be pain-free." 

The stimulus bill will affect every individual in the United States, as all medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system.  One bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and "guide" your doctor's decisions.

The legislation states that doctors and hospitals that do not comply with the new system will face penalties.  The bill empowers a Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research (FCCCER) to make the "tough" decisions elected politicians won't make.

Seniors will be especially hard hit.

McCaughey explains, "Medicare now pays for treatments deemed safe and effective. The stimulus bill would change that and apply a cost-effectiveness standard set by FCCCER," which "is modeled after a United Kingdom board discussed in Daschle's book. This board approves or rejects treatments using a formula that divides the cost of the treatment by the number of years the patient is likely to benefit."

The strategy of passing government-run medicine in the stimulus bill was advocated by Daschle in his book.

"Daschle supported the Clinton administration's health-care overhaul in 1994, and attributed its failure to debate and delay. A year ago, Daschle wrote that the next president should act quickly before critics mount an opposition," McCaughey revealed.

In his book, Daschle said, "If that means attaching a health-care plan to the federal budget, so be it."

That explains Obama's frantic effort to get the stimulus bll passed before the contents of it become well known.  The President may succeed in that effort, as the House is scheduled to vote on the work product of the Conference Committee almost immediately with the Senate slated to take action over the weekend.

McCaughey's new article, Ruin Your Health With the Obama Stimulus Plan, is online at http://www.hudson.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=publication_details&id=6010.

A Human Events article, Cantor Confirms Beginning of Nationalized Healthcare in Stimulus Bill, is at http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=30659.

And the Wall Street Journal verified that the bill sets up A High-Tech Monopoly: Another Surprise in the Stimulus Fine Print at http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB123431432273870909-lMyQjAxMDI5MzE0MDMxMTA0Wj.html.