If your blood pressure’s not high enough today, then head on over to American Spectator to read about the “Two Midnight Rule.”
This is precisely the kind of NHS-style bureaucratic nightmare we all worried about, and it came to pass even sooner than anyone imagined: a family’s beloved father is dead because of a turn of phrase in a law that nobody read, including the “man” who signed it. There are no words to describe how infuriating this is — it’s impossible to comprehend how this man’s family must feel.
Read the whole thing, if you can stand it. If not, here’s the key takeaway:
The “two midnight rule” became a death sentence for Frank Alfisi. An Obamacare Catch-22.
Simply put: Frank Alfisi could not be admitted to the hospital because he needed dialysis. Dialysis does not require a “two midnight” stay in the hospital. So, therefore, Frank would not be admitted as an in-patient and given dialysis. And since the lack of dialysis — which was deliberate per the Obamacare directive to the CMS — had now made Frank so sick that it resulted in two seizures and unconsciousness, a need for oxygen and a wheelchair, Frank certainly was no longer qualified to be an outpatient at DaVita.
This wasn’t even in the law, it was part of a 1500-page regulation as a result of the law. If you or a loved one rely on Medicare, this is your future.
In some measure this can be chalked up to unintended consequences: pass a 3000-page bill that nobody had time to read before voting on it, and that’s what happens. Which is, of course, why I can’t think these consequences are “unintended.” In the long run this clause will save the government money by causing old people to die off sooner. The bastards knew exactly what they were doing and didn’t give a damn about who it might hurt, because Greater Good or whatever.
God save us from politicians hawking good intentions, because their intentions are rarely good. First, last, and always, they are about control. So what if a few eggs got broken; just look at that tasty omelet!
I’ve been ruminating about this for a long time, as it’s increasingly obvious that very few people in politics are actually working in our best interests. Washington is a company town, and the local industry is politics. Its products are laws and regulations, and so it becomes everyone’s interest to craft them in a way to bring in as much profit as possible.
Economics, in other words. But this isn’t private industry operating in a free market, and so the profiteers aren’t labor and management. They’re politicians and their various hangers-on, including the parasitic lobbyist class.
There are precious few national-level politicians whom I believe are honestly working for our interests — and even they have their own agendas. Which is fine, so long as it aligns with the nation’s and adheres to the Constitution. And that’s what it really comes down to: do you, or do you not, believe that our government must perform within the limits defined by our Constitution?
If you don’t, then we have no common ground for compromise. You must therefore be defeated at every opportunity, because your beliefs will ultimately end this nation. And we are getting dangerously close to that tipping point.
The Chiles Files 