The marvelous Mr. Cohen has written a chilling piece here tonight, The end of privately held medicine.

In the piece, he tells the tale of a Senator’s quest to ban medicine in your home, for the purpose of, drum roll please… Saving the Children!  The surprise is overwhelming!

But I’m not sure how up-to-date Mr. Cohen is on the technological front…

From CNSNews.com:

The Senate Committee on Aging last week offered a preview of the government’s future role in health care, showing how Americans will interact with doctors and other health care providers. The demonstration offers a glimpse at an overlooked effect of health care reform.

The effort, loosely called e-Health or e-Care, combines health-care technology with 21st-century Internet connectivity. It will allow doctors to interact with their patients through innovations such as video chats, telephone health checkups, and home-health monitoring devices that relay data over wireless Internet connections.

Ok, everyone catch that?  The Senate Committee on Aging wants to hook seniors up to wireless Internet-equipped devices so that doctors can “interact with their patients”.  In the article, it’s billed as a necessary cost cutting step.

But then they begin to actually describe some of this stuff…

“What we’re talking about, folks, is using a device like this one,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said, as he displayed the small device. “It attaches to the patient’s skin and is loaded with drugs that are administered in the exact way that the doctor prescribes – wirelessly.

“That means that a doctor can vary the doses based on the information the doctor is receiving [from the monitor]. The patient doesn’t have to go in to the doctor and then the pharmacy to change his or her prescription,” he said.

The data recorded by such devices would be automatically uploaded to a patient’s electronic health record, which could then be reviewed by a doctor from a computer or smart phone, allowing the doctor to monitor a sick patient in almost real time.

Mr. Cohen’s quip:

In fact, no one is expected to dissent.

That is, not if they want to get their medication.

 is frighteningly on the money, eh?

Take it a step farther, Mr. Cohen!  What happens when the government stops letting seniors into the doctor’s office all together, and just starts dispensing pain pills to Grandma instead of medication?

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