One of the realities permeating the health care debate is that the bulk of medical spending occurs in the last few years...sometimes the last few months....of people's lives.  That's why the idea of government-run health care raises not-unreasonable fears of rationing, the dreaded death panels. We are on the threshold of a tidal wave of baby boomers entering their peak healthcare-consuming years. Medicare is already facing its own financial crisis.  Proposed healthcare legislation funds itself, in part, by cutting Medicare further just as the boomers turn 65 and increase enrollment in the program by thirty percent.

Betsy Mc Caughey, chairman of a group called the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths, has been a voice opposing a nationalized healthcare system.  In a recent Wall Street Journal op ed she argues that the current plans amount to an "...Assault on Seniors." Ms. Mc Caughey, says this assault began in February with the stimulus package, which contained over a billion dollars for comparative effectiveness research, code, writes Mc Caughey, for "limiting care based on the patient's age." 

Rationing care is central to the proposed overhaul. One of President Obama's key advisors on cost-efficient health care is Ezekiel Emmanuel (brother of Rahm Emmanuel, White House Chief of Staff.) Dr. Emmanuel's 2009 Lancet article on the allocation of medical resources advocates a concept called "the complete lives system."  If you've reached a certain age...say around sixty-five...you have lived a "complete" life.  Scarce medical interventions should be directed to the 25 year-old. 

Once the system is government controlled (the current plans give us a few years to get there) inevitably, medical bureaucrats will ration lifesaving care for the elderly. In Betsy Mc Caughey's words, they'll "doom baby boomers to painful later years." In another column she quotes top oncologist, Dr. Seymour Cohen, who says, "When we went to medical school people used to die at 66, 67, and 68.....we're the bad guys.  We're responsible for keeping people alive to 85.  So we're now going to try to change health care because people are living too long." 

Dr. Cohen laments the bias against specialists in this plan. In creating a cheaper system, the heath care bills punish fields like cardiology and oncology. Proposed regulations change how doctors are paid to benefit general practitioners, internists, and family physicians, considered in short supply.  Okay fine. 

But ObamaCare cuts funding for cardiology , specifically stress tests (by 42 percent) and heart catheterizations (by 22 percent) This will mean practices close their doors. Seniors wait longer.  The rap on cancer doctors is they order too many MRI's and CT scans.  Those are set for big cuts, as are funds for anti-tumor radiation therapies. 

The plans on the table will, in the course of a few years, squeeze market forces out of health care.  When that happens, you get scarcity, shortages. This takes us in precisely the wrong direction.

If this week's election results derail this thing, we should get on our knees and thank God.