As with many Constitutional provisions, “recess appointments\u201d have come to be used in ways the founders didn\u2019t intend. Presidents now use recess appointments to get a desired appointee into office — at least for a time — over the objections of recalcitrant legislators, especially when the Senate is in the hands of the opposition party.<\/p>\n
But President Obama\u2019s recess appointment of Dr. Donald Berwick to the position of Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services — July 7, when lawmakers were out of town for their annual July Fourth break — broke new ground, because Dr. Berwick was not a nominee whose appointment had been subjected to inordinate delays or an overtly hostile reception by the Congress.<\/p>\n
Dr. Berwick was nominated on April 19, less than three months ago. He had not yet had a hearing. His committee vetting wasn\u2019t complete. Why the rush?<\/p>\n
There\u2019s little doubt President Obama wished to avoid the mortifying spectacle of Dr. Berwick being asked to explain his essentially Marxist view that government-run health care is a good thing because it is and ought to be a method of redistributing wealth from the productive to the mendicant classes, in full Senate hearings, on the eve of this fall\u2019s off-year elections, when Democrats may fairly expect to have their heads handed to them by voters, as it is.<\/p>\n
Bad enough for the president and his party to be SUSPECTED of purposely leading the nation down the path to Marxist bankruptcy. The problem with putting Dr. Berwick in front of a microphone is that he has a tendency to open his mouth and confirm it.<\/p>\n
His apologists offer the usual, pro forma, \u201cquoted out of context\u201d excuses.<\/p>\n
But that\u2019s not true. The context was that Dr. Berwick, who has just been put in charge of rationing American Medicare and Medicaid services for about 100 million Americans, was in London on July 1, 2008, at a National Health Service conference celebrating 60 years of socialized medicine in England — a system now generating massive scandals as sick people there die waiting for treatment, in a nation where cancer and diabetes and heart disease survival rates have dropped far below ours — when he said we must realize that \u201cSick people tend to be poorer and that poor people tend to be sicker and that any health care funding plan that is just, equitable, civilized, and humane must, must redistribute wealth from the richer among us to the poorer and the less fortunate. Excellent health care is by definition redistributional. Britain, you chose well.\u201d<\/p>\n
The context was a 2009 interview with Biotechnology Healthcare magazine. Dr. Berwick said: \u201cWe make these decisions all of the time. The decision is not whether or not we will ration care. The decision is whether we ration care with our eyes open. And right now, we are doing it blindly.\u201d<\/p>\n
In fact, government indeed begins to ration care as soon as it starts to meddle in paying some people\u2019s medical bills, since there can never be as much wealth (seized tax revenues, in this case) as there is demand for what beneficiaries come to see as \u201cfree\u201d health care.<\/p>\n
The problem does not arise with bottled water or boats (either of which, yes, can \u201csave your life\u201d under the right circumstances) because those are \u201crationed\u201d only by price — those who work hard and save their money and plan for the future can buy pretty much as many boats and as much bottled water as they choose. In emergencies when supplies of these things may be limited, demand drives prices up. When new suppliers spot profits to be made and enter the market, supply catches up and prices drop. Everyone chooses how much of their limited wealth to allocate to each use. The free market works.<\/p>\n
But those who want government to run more and more of our lives instruct us such a system is \u201cunfair\u201d when it comes to medical care — that bureaucrats must be empowered to seize wealth from those who have worked and saved and planned ahead, in order to pay for the care of those who have done none of those things — oblivious to the fact that this discourages hard work and savings by those who see their wealth seized, while encouraging sloth, idleness, and unhealthy habits among those who are thus encouraged to expect \u201cUncle Sam will pick up the tab, so who cares — pour me another one.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the last resort, in fact, the government will order a doctor to treat a patient for free, or for below-market compensation at whatever rate the government shall dictate, under threat of force — a blatant violation of the 13th amendment.<\/p>\n
What Mr. Berwick wants to do — on the model of the collapsing British system which he so admires — is to have government ration by perceived \u201cneed,\u201d which is Marxism by definition. (\u201cFrom each according to his ability, to each according to his need.\u201d)<\/p>\n
Under government rationing, a hypothetical 78-year-old woman needing life-saving surgery will be told — as they\u2019re now frequently told in Britain and Canada — \u201cThe \u2018system\u2019 can afford to do only a certain number of these expensive operations per month. Those who can be given more years of productive life — those younger than you — will be ahead of you in line. This is only rational, it\u2019s nothing personal. We\u2019ll schedule your surgery four months from now.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut the doctor said if I don\u2019t have the procedure within six weeks I could die,\u201d our hypothetical patient replies.<\/p>\n
\u201cMa\u2019am, no one is telling you to go die,\u201d Dr. Berwick\u2019s bureaucrat will cheerfully tell the patient. \u201cThere are no death panels. We just have limited resources, so you\u2019ll wait in line, that\u2019s all.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI have savings. I can pay for the surgery, myself, in cash.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sorry. We no longer allow people to cut in line just because they\u2019re lucky enough to be rich. Everyone has to be subject to the same rules for the sake of fairness; you can see that. You\u2019ll wait four months. Maybe you\u2019ll make it. Next, please.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLook around; no death panels,\u201d chortles the president in his recent public appearances, chuckling at the absurdity of his critics, now that Obamacare has been enacted but will not fully take effect till 2014.<\/p>\n
No? But the man who will put together the instructional manuals by which the faceless bureaucrats will take the next major step toward \u201credistributing wealth from the richer among us to the poorer and the less fortunate\u201d was just appointed to head up Medicare and \u2019Medicaid, controlling what health care will be funded for 100 million Americans. And he\u2019s now in office without so much as having to answer a single Senate question.<\/p>\n
A recess appointment used to be the last resort in cases of egregious delay. Last Wednesday, the \u201cmost open and transparent administration in history\u201d used one to put a man in charge of the medical care of millions of Americans — a man who Barack Obama simply did not want to see questioned.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey did everything to hide Dr. Berwick\u2019s radical views,\u201d comments Rep. Tom Price, R-GA. \u201cClearly, they did not want Berwick\u2019s adamant support for rationing health care debated in the light of day. … This recess appointment is just another indication of the Democrats\u2019 belief that their plans to radically alter our health care system require no approval from the American public.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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