Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel Defended

The following is an excerpt from an article by Alex Koppelman of the on-line journal Salon. This is to give a response to allegations of others which were repeated in my previous post here.


And now, the excerpt:



It's become a growing theme on the right: "Obamacare" will mean mandatory euthanasia for your grandmother in order to save money, and the person who created the ideological underpinnings for that policy is the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

There's a deep irony to that suggestion -- Ezekiel Emanuel, who's currently advising the administration on healthcare reform through a post at the White House Office of Management and Budget -- is actually one of the country's leading medical ethicists, a forceful defender of people who are approaching the end of their lives. Indeed, he opposes even voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide.

The charges against the doctor are "a gross distortion of Dr. Emanuel's 25 years as an oncologist and leading academic researcher," Kenneth Baer, the communications director at OMB [Office of Management and Budget at the White House], told Salon. "He has dedicated his professional life to improving the quality of care and giving more choices to terminally ill patients. He was an outspoken public opponent of euthanasia when the Supreme Court was considering the legality of physician-assisted suicide. We all wish that instead of spending time distorting one doctor's record we all could come together and do the hard work of health insurance reform. This is only a distraction from that important work." (Emanuel himself was vacationing and unavailable for comment.)

[end excerpt]

Clearly, the bill continues to be put together by Congress. And clearly, Mr. Obama can be faulted in many ways for the confusion which now reigns. It also must be seriously asked what kind of behind-the-scenes funding by corporations is being directed toward political operatives and agitators.

As time permits I plan to continue to present the facts as best as I can glean them in a very difficult media environment which has plenty of heat, but very little light.