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| -Land of the Free |
| Obamacare Takes a Life |
| 2014-04-03 |
| RTWT And so Frank Alfisi -- Amy's beloved Dad, "Poppy" to his grandchildren and "Frankie Bananas" to his friends, the man who only mere days earlier was going out to dinner, playing cards, pool, shuffleboard and bocci, driving a car, enjoying a girlfriend -- that Frank Alfisi disappeared into the cold, impersonal "care" of Obamacare. It killed him. Incredibly, this past Sunday Obama adviser David Plouffe went on ABC's This Week to proclaim "the law is working." On March 27 -- last week -- the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill popularly known as the "doctor fix." Included in that bill, according to news reports, is language that "postpones hospital compliance with the controversial 'two-midnight rule' and recovery audits of medically unnecessary claims until March 2015." CMS has jumped into the breach as well, issuing not one but two delays. But the fix -- and it would be a temporary fix along the lines of the "mend it, don't end" approach so many Democrats are being urged to adopt about Obamacare -- begs the question. What business did the government have in getting between Frank Alfisi and his doctors in the first place? In fact, as long as Obamacare is not repealed what happened to Frank is inevitable. This is what occurs when the cold rules of a centralized impersonal Washington bureaucracy that views Americans not as individuals but statistics are substituted for the judgment of a doctor. And recall Amy's mention of that chilling statement of her sister-in-law the ER nurse? The statement saying "similar situations have happened where she works. Patients who should be admitted for a day are discharged because they don't fit the criteria to be admitted for two or more days. She said it's not a secret and while we, the public, may be unaware of this, it's well known by doctors and nurses." This time, the victim was Frank Alfisi. The next time? It could be your "Poppy," your Mom, your child. It could be you. And one more thing. The detail of Frank Alfisi's previous illnesses? Why did Amy feel it necessary to list them in telling her father's story? Because, in Amy's words, "I'm sure Harry Reid's people will point these things out if it ever gets that much attention." Think of that. An American citizen feels the need to get out the details of her father's private life in illness as she recounts his death struggle with Obamacare because she thinks it possible the Majority Leader of the United States Senate will call her a liar. As Reid has previously stood on the floor of the Senate and said that the Obamacare horror stories coming from other Americans are "untrue... tales, stories made up from whole cloth." Raising another question. What kind of country has America become? |
| Posted by:Beavis |