Talking Seniors to Death

The American Thinker ^ | September 06, 2009 | Rita L. Marker

[Scanian]

First, the bad news. For the first time since 1975, Social Security recipients are being told they won't be receiving an annual cost of living increase in their monthly benefits. At the same time, their Medicare premiums will go up, so monthly checks will actually shrink next year. Not to worry, though. Here's the good news. Seniors may not have to live on such meager funds for long because the government is going to help them plan how they want to die.

This benevolent plan is in Section 1233 (p. 424) of the health care reform bill known as "America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009" (HR 3200). It didn't just show up on the doorstep of health care reform, but was packaged and delivered by Compassion & Choices (C & C), the assisted-suicide advocacy group previously known as the Hemlock Society.

Under Section 1233, a doctor would be paid for having an "advance care planning consultation" with a patient. The consultation wouldn't be mandatory, at least for now. But if the doctor wants to get paid for it, the consultation's contents are very specifically prescribed. For example, each consultation "shall include" an explanation of legal documents such as living wills and durable powers of attorney, and information about the "continuum of end-of-life services." Patients need not be ill but, because they are over a certain age, their doctors will suggest that it's time to talk about death.

So, if George, a healthy 70-year-old marathon runner, goes to the doctor because of tendonitis, his doctor will have the all-important discussion with him, reminding him that he's not getting any younger and that it's time to decide how he'll die. Sure, George may or may not be adversely affected by this. But consider Clara, an 84-year-old widow who needs a hip replacement. If the doctor tells her that the government health plan won't pay for her surgery but will pay for pain pills, and then tells her it's really time to discuss her end-of-life options, what message is she getting? Isn't it likely that Clara will acquiesce, if her doctor suggests that she "choose" to forgo treatment for any future illnesses so she won't be a burden on her family?

To hear proponents of Section 1233 talk about it, one would think that people have no access now to information about advance directives. But for years, federal law has required that patients be provided with general information about advance directives.

In 1992, Congress passed the Patient Self-Determination Act. It requires every health care organization receiving Medicare or Medicaid funds to do the following: at the time of admission, provide a written summary of a patient's rights under state law to make health care decisions, including the right to have an advance directive; ask all adults entering for treatment whether they have an existing advance directive; and document the existence of an advance directive in the patient's medical record.

Cheerleaders for more advance care planning claim that physicians won't tell their patients about options regarding available treatments and the right to accept or reject them unless they receive reimbursement for doing so. But physicians already have a responsibility to provide that information to patients so they can give or withhold consent to available treatments. This is known as informed consent.

[Mjaye]

In the course of FReeper research, I was perusing the guide that Medicare puts out for persons with serious kidney disease. It’s actually quite informative regarding the disease, dialysis, etc. They do make one mention urging persons who make their own decision to end treatment to seek counseling, and they point out that the consequences of such a decision are likely to be serious/lethal. If the new bill passes, maybe ending treatment would be listed at the front end of the disease as a “viable” option (wrong word, I know).

[CPOSharky]

They claim to be against anything that might shorten your life, smoking, over eating, drinking, etc. Even though the shortened life of these partakers would reduce health care costs.

But then they don’t want to care for you when you are old.

So what is it. Be a good little healthy slave until you are old, then get out?

Or do they just like to torture old people?

[vortec94]

General comment. Nobody over 65 is involved in drafting this stuff. Only the elderly in Congree vote on it but they’re exempt. My how we’ve fallen

[orchid]

By law, Medicare premiums cannot increase more than the cost of living increase. Social Security checks will be reduced because of higher prescription drug premiums which are not restricted by law. Also, there will be no COLA next year. As an aside, government workers will get a 2% COLA instead of a 2.4% increase. NICE!

[wagglebee]

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