Peter Orszag and His $700 Billion Pound of Flesh

May 4, 2009 (LPAC)—Peter Orszag, the morally unbalanced head of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) who gives President Obama his lines to recite on health care policy, believes that "as much as $700 billion can be carved out of the [health care] system by eliminating duplicative or excessive treatments that don't change the outcome of patient treatment," according to an article by Jeanne Cummings in the May 3 issue of Politico.com.

Orszag is fond of citing a study that purportedly shows that care for patients in the last six months of life at the Mayo Clinic cost $25,000 v.s. $50,000 at other health centers, with no difference in the outcome for patients. "But extrapolating that conclusion over the entire system is largely an instinctive call by Orszag," Cummings emphasizes.

That "extrapolation," Lyndon LaRouche has repeatedly argued, should be called by its proper name: Nazi economics.

"Obama's policy centerpiece is health care," Cummings notes, and Orszag is The Man on health care for Obama. From the outset, Obama has "framed the health care debate differently than have many Democrats," choosing to emphasize "the economic threats of spiraling costs rather than a moral imperative to provide every American with good health care."

Orszag and his British imperial masters didn't come up with these ideas yesterday. In fact, the Obama Presidential campaign's "Plan to Lower Health Care Costs and Ensure Affordable, Accessible Health Coverage for All" said right up front, in its second paragraph: "A growing body of research points to substantial opportunities to improve quality while reducing the costs of care..."