Bush regime would let poor and disabled die in pandemic

This story is beyond appalling, but with the current totalitarian regime, it's not surprising.

The Department of Homeland Security, Centers for Disease Control, and Department of Health and Human Services - an alphabet soup full of Bush appointees - are all part of a task force that has issued new guidelines dictating who receives treatment in a flu pandemic or other disaster.

First, with government officials insisting for the past several years that such a disaster is inevitable, I want to know how they know this. Second, I want to know why so little has been done to prevent it. If we've known about the threat for a few years, shouldn't we have had time to stop it? Maybe if Mike Leavitt didn't misuse the CDC's emergency plane for personal trips, we'd be better prepared.

In a pandemic, resources may be limited, and the sad fact is that not everybody is going to get treated. But the new rules reflect an arrogance that's almost unspeakable.

The new government guidelines tell hospitals to just forget about saving people with disabilities that may be completely unrelated to the person's chance for survival. Also out of luck is anyone with "severe mental impairment", which may include anyone misdiagnosed with a "mental illness." Now all this business about labeling kids for the rest of their lives seems even more insidious than ever.

Georgetown University's Lawrence Gostin said the new rules likely violate laws protecting the rights of the disabled and would in effect hit poor communities harder. (The poor suffer disproportionately from disabilities.) Treatment has had to be curbed in disasters before - but until now, hospitals have tried to do it without shutting out the disabled and poor.

Something about the new guidelines also strikes a sour note reminiscent of that of new policies by insurers and hospitals that prohibit medical marijuana patients from getting organ transplants.

With Bush's track record, you know the new rules can't be good. But if people truly believe they are, it's because folks have been conditioned for so long by conservatism's long record of disregarding life. Bush has so little respect for life that he started a war for no good reason, and as governor of Texas he enacted a law that lets hospitals cut off life-saving treatment from fully conscious patients against their will. You can debate this all you want, but the Bush brand of conservatism has had a "let 'em die" attitude that has had few parallels.

The utter indignity of the new DHS/CDC/HHS guidelines is really more than I can bear to read.

(Source: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/P/PANDEMIC_RATIONING_CARE?SITE=OHCIN&SECTION=TENNIS&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT)