Neal Boortz: Slick move reveals Obama’s true aim

Every day I wake up hoping that Barack Obama will not prove himself to be more dangerous to freedom and our republic than he already is.

Every day I’m disappointed. Every day I wonder why I can’t be right ... just once.

Let’s talk health care rationing. Are you one of the misguided (probably government-educated) Americans who think the government will not ration health care under Obama’s wonderful new law? You are? Well, I have something for you to rattle around in your consciousness. That something would be one Donald Berwick, M.D.

To adequately describe Donald Berwick, I have to tell you about Linda O’Boyle. O’Boyle lived in Great Britain and was a captive of Britain’s National Health Service. In short, O’Boyle had bowel cancer. She dared to use her own money to purchase a drug that was not approved by the NHS; not approved because it was deemed not to be “cost effective.”

When the NHS zombies found out O’Boyle dared to use her own funds to buy this drug, they were not amused. They disallowed further treatment for her cancer under NHS. Linda O’Boyle died.

Following her death the NHS reversed course. Now NHS patients will be allowed to use their own funds to supplement NHS payments. Too little, too late for O’Boyle.

Now. Let’s learn something about Dr. Berwick. First, he loves Britain’s NHS. I don’t mean he approves of it, or he just likes it. He loves it. Berwick, speaking in London in 2008, tells the audience, “Cynics beware. I am romantic about the National Health Service. I love it.”

But what does the good Dr. Berwick think about rationing — the type of rationing that may well have killed O’Boyle? Actually, Dr. Berwick sees rationing as inevitable. He’s on record as saying, “The decision is not whether or not we will ration care — the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open.”

So there you go. We will ration health care; we just have to keep our eyes open while we do it. Why all this information on Donald Berwick, M.D.? Well, because the Community Organizer has made Berwick the Medicare Czar, if you will.

As administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Berwick will oversee a budget larger than that of the Defense Department while he helps shape ObamaCare. Rationing, here we come.

Now the story here is not so much that Obama has appointed a huge fan of socialized medicine and health care rationing. The story is how he maneuvered him by the Senate confirmation process. Obama knew full well what would happen if those evil Republican senators got their rhetorical hands on Berwick. He would be asked to defend, or at least to explain, his intense love affair with socialized medicine.

Maybe he would be asked to explain how he, as Medicare boss, would have handled the doomed O’Boyle. We can be certain that Berwick would have been grilled on health care rationing. None of this would have been good for His Excellency just before a midterm election.