In its first month, the Obama Administration has been on a Crisis-of-the-Week schedule--economic stimulus last week, mortgage bailouts now and apparently health care next week as the President prepares to name Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas to be Secretary of Health and Human Services and to highlight health care in his prime-time speech to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night,
After the Daschle fiasco, the President is turning to a staunch supporter who served eight years as her state’s insurance commissioner before becoming governor six years ago in a very red state and whose bipartisan credentials include Republicans as her running mates in winning two elections.
The vetting process, it's safe to say, will be intense but, at the rate that crises are coming at him, Barack Obama is easily on track to become the most activist new president in US history since FDR.
Somewhere in the crowded schedule will be saving Detroit, but that may not rate a full week.
Showing posts with label Health and Human Services. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Health and Human Services. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Friday, December 19, 2008
Parting Prescription From Dr. Bush
The Administration's final gift to American health care could keep pulmonologists busy with patients afflicted by its breath-taking cynicism.
The Health and Human Services Department has issued a rule prohibiting "discrimination" against doctors, nurses and health care aides who refuse to take part in procedures because of their convictions and barring hospitals, clinics, doctors’ office and pharmacies from forcing them to do so.
"This rule," says the Secretary, "protects the right of medical providers to care for their patients in accord with their conscience.”
Abortion is the obvious subtext but, if literally applied, the new standard could allow vegetarian doctors to withhold cholesterol-lowering treatment from meat eaters and abstinent pharmacy clerks to decline filling prescriptions for birth-control pills.
But the rule is not about health care. The regulations are timed to coincide with the start of the new administration, which will surely overturn them but allow Republican candidates in the next election to claim that the Obama people are forcing devout doctors and nurses to become baby killers against their will.
Patients won't suffer, but the body politic will take a long time to recover from its Bush infection.
The Health and Human Services Department has issued a rule prohibiting "discrimination" against doctors, nurses and health care aides who refuse to take part in procedures because of their convictions and barring hospitals, clinics, doctors’ office and pharmacies from forcing them to do so.
"This rule," says the Secretary, "protects the right of medical providers to care for their patients in accord with their conscience.”
Abortion is the obvious subtext but, if literally applied, the new standard could allow vegetarian doctors to withhold cholesterol-lowering treatment from meat eaters and abstinent pharmacy clerks to decline filling prescriptions for birth-control pills.
But the rule is not about health care. The regulations are timed to coincide with the start of the new administration, which will surely overturn them but allow Republican candidates in the next election to claim that the Obama people are forcing devout doctors and nurses to become baby killers against their will.
Patients won't suffer, but the body politic will take a long time to recover from its Bush infection.
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