Not A Threat, A Premonition.

More people are falling on hard times these days, which means more people are falling back on what they assumed was a reasonable fall-back position: Social Security. Then they find out that this 'sure thing' turns out to be not so sure, and that it can take a .long. time to get your claim paid out, if you ever do.

So, as more people are getting trapped in the red tape required to (as they thought) get what is rightfully theirs, there are more people getting mad about it. This means there will be more, and worse, threats against the administrative law judges in charge of disputed claims cases. Yahoo! brings the unsurprising news.

Well if you think that's bad, yer honor, just wait.

People can live without money. You can move in with a relative or even go to a homeless shelter if Social Security won't pay out. If you can't get medical treatment, you're dead and there is no fallback position. According to the new Obamacare mess system, there will soon be administrators in charge of deciding whether or not you have enough quality-adjusted life years remaining to qualify for a hip replacement or just a wheel chair. They will decide for you if your life-saving cancer drugs are too expensive.

So, presumably in the next few years in America (because I hold out scant hope that the Republicrats will do anything about it) there will be a man or woman denied medical treatment or equipment which would save their life. That patient will have literally nothing to lose. That person will have a face and a name to hate: the one who signed the form denying his life-saving care. That patient might have military or hunting or police training and experience in the use of arms, or be able to drive a car (which is just as deadly) or will have access to a butcher knife (which is more deadly) AND a person to hate AND the prospect of DEATH because of this person.

At least one judge on the "death panel" is going to be killed.

It will be covered up and/or spiked in the press, but the remaining death panel judges will get the message. Then, treatments that would be deemed too expensive or otherwise disqualified under Obamacare will be approved - out of fear of a patient with nothing to lose. The costs will continue to skyrocket, and Obamacare spending will increase faster than anticipated. It is even possible the "death panels" will turn into rubber stamps approving treatment, and we will have to steal more money from our grandchildren to give liver replacements to alcoholics. Or we could see an attempt to shield the judges from public scrutiny, and you would then have anonymous decisions from faceless bureaucrats ending peoples' lives . . . leading to more generalized anger and the possibility of downright terrorism on the part of people condemned by the System.

Not that I'm for it, but remember you ought not to be surprised when it eventually happens.