Obama is not the leader of Obamacare

Chuck Norris is writing a fascinating series exposing the socialism of Obamacare. I found Part 2 particularly interesting:

Dirty secret No. 2 is that Obama is not the leader of Obamacare. And neither is Congress. The one who has been spearheading the initiative behind the scenes is one who goes under the misnomer “adviser” to the Obama administration, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, a bioethicist and breast oncologist and brother of White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel. And his bible for health care reform is his book Healthcare, Guaranteed.

Tenants of EmanuelCare

Excerpted from Chuck Norris’ article. These are taken right out of Ezekiel Emanuel’s book:

1. Page 185: Emanuel rejects any attempts at incremental change or reform to our health care system.
2. Page 171: Emanuel drives home “a key political lesson: the need to rush the legislation through.”
3. Page 183: “Americans need to avoid the policy weeds. Focusing on details will only distract and create tangles and traps.”
4. Page 83: Emanuel describes a comprehensive government health care program that is run completely by a national health board and 12 regional health boards (“modeled on the Federal Reserve System”).
5. Pages 88-89 and 94-95: Emanuel believes in the “phasing out of Medicare (and) Medicaid.”
6. Pages 109-112: Emanuel believes in ending employer-based health care (pages 109-112).
7. Page 100: Emanuel believes a universal health care program could be paid for by phasing out Medicare and Medicaid, adopting a value-added tax of at least 10 percent, etc., and then allowing Americans themselves to “pay extra with after-tax dollars” for additional medical benefits (beyond the government program).
8. Enough has been written lately about Emanuel’s end-of-life counsel and consultation, including withholding his advice from The Hastings Center Report (in 1996) that medical care should be withheld from those “who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens. … An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia.”