PREPARE YOURSELF>
Posted on 12/25/2010 7:58:43 PM PST by jimbo123
When a proposal to encourage end-of-life planning touched off a political storm over “death panels,” Democrats dropped it from legislation to overhaul the health care system. But the Obama administration will achieve the same goal by regulation, starting Jan. 1.
Under the new policy, outlined in a Medicare regulation, the government will pay doctors who advise patients on options for end-of-life care, which may include advance directives to forgo aggressive life-sustaining treatment.
Congressional supporters of the new policy, though pleased, have kept quiet. They fear provoking another furor like the one in 2009 when Republicans seized on the idea of end-of-life counseling to argue that the Democrats’ bill would allow the government to cut off care for the critically ill.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
He’s under no obligation, even as a Catholic, to receive possibly life-extending care that he doesn’t want, or to accept operations for other conditions that may not be life-threatening or even those that are. It is not permitted to hasten his death or do something that will ensure it, but he doesn’t have to go on forever accepting treatment.
I think what concerns people here is that in the future, it’s not going to be you who is making that decision for your father, but instead it will be the government deciding what is best...for the government.
They are going to constantly reduce the care available to people. First it will be for the elderly who have multiple health problems, particularly Alzheimers, and then more and more people will somehow become expendable. And it won’t be voluntary.
Something nobody mentions in this is that such an approach also reduces the impetus to do medical research. Researches are actually working on a gene therapy approach to Alzheimers that not only halts it but reverses it, and results in animal trials have been very promising. But if it becomes the rule just to kill people with certain conditions, why bother with research and cures?
Family making decisions informed by competent, caring officials is what we all want. You are in the position of making difficult decisions and doing all the right things.
That is NOT what this thread is about. This is about someone removing that decision making ability from you by government fiat because end of life counseling does not mean the same thing under a health care system faced with rationing by government fiat than it does when you make decisions for your father based on the doctors consultations.
The decisions you are having to make are personally difficult but there is no reason to complicate them by worrying that you will do something that is contrary to Church teaching.
As surrogate decision maker, it is licit to deny extraordinary measures that would prolong the life of one who denying from a terminal illness. Now, if you were to withhold food or fluids in order to expedite someone's death that would be something else. Likewise, with giving excessive doses of narcotics to kill them. But, for instance, if your father expressed his desire not to have surgery for a slow growing cancer like prostate cancer knowing that a complication of dementia will kill him first, there is nothing here that the Church would disagree with. This sounds a little more like your situation.
Satin, reading your posts it is clear that you are thinking this through very clear and making virtues based ethics decisions. No one in the Church can find any fault with your approach or decisions. Besides, your Dad has clearly spelled out his wishes on this. Don't make things any more complicated or gutwrenching for yourself than they already are.
I’m glad to discuss my end of life plan with anyone and everyone. Here it is:
At the end of my end on earth, after I die, I will go immediately to be face to face with my Lord and Savior, Jesus the Messiah, and in that place I will live forever for eternity, without time, praising and worship him.
No federal government needed.
Shame on you. Asking a question you already know the answer to. ;-)
...At the end of my end on earth, after I die, I will go immediately to be face to face with my Lord and Savior, Jesus the Messiah......
Hmmmm....government-funded evangelism, this Obama never ceases to amaze.
...At the end of my end on earth, after I die, I will go immediately to be face to face with my Lord and Savior, Jesus the Messiah......
Hmmmm....government-funded evangelism, this Obama never ceases to amaze.
PREPARE YOURSELF>
On Death Panels...
Before we can reasonably discuss death panels, we have to look at medical treatments. Medical treatments fall into one of three categories: (1) Ones that cure (for instance, giving Amoxicillin to a patient with an ear infection< (2) Ones that prolong life (for instance, giving a diuretic to a patient with Congestive Hearth Failure), and (3) Ones that are futile (for instance, performing surgery for prostate cancer on a patient who already has advanced metastatic lung cancer or giving a patient an antibiotic to which the bacteria causing his infection are already resistant).
Nobody is really arguing about those treatments that fall into the third category. Everyone from Hippocrates on down has believed that these are unethical. Every medical intervention carries a potential downside (from something as mild as a drug rash to death) and if it carries no benefit, it’s wrong. Remember, “first do no harm.”
What we as physicians are worried about is the rise of a federal bureaucracy that will begin denying treatments that fall into category 1 or 2 on the basis of cost - something the NHS does in England regularly. This is the sort of bureaucracy that becomes a death panel.
Back to the phones on Mon, no rest for the weary AKA the average American citizen.
>>He said he doesn’t want to be on machines that keep him alive artificially when he would otherwise be dead.
This is difficult for me as I’m a Roman Catholic, but these are his wishes and not mine.<<
The Catholic Church does not demand extraordinary measures to keep a person alive.
My Uncle is a Bishop and told us this when my Dad had cancer.
Now that you’ve said that, it occurs to me that this law, or rule, or EO, stands in violation of the First Amendment.
End of life discussions are, by nature, religious.
Refuse to discuss this with your physician’s office (’my lawyer and my family, etc. have the info’) and make the point that you will be checking the billing to make sure that the enticement of further payments for such is not fulfilled.
Before the gas, the Nazis killed the “undesirables” in the hospitals and homes.
Such planning does help the decision makers when the time comes but gov't doesn't need to get involved.
When a heart stops beating for the last time after a long term illness and you know that individual did not want extraordinary measures taken you know he can finally rest in peace and be with God.
Anyone can do a health directive today.
Should Medicare and doctors be pushing this decision-making onto patients? No. At most patients should be made aware these legal documents are available to them.
In the piece, I cringed at the quote from Dr. Donald M. Berwick, "In economic terms, it is waste," regarding "unwanted" care.
It's clear they want to push the unwashed masses towards forgoing "extraordinary measures" like surgery, a respirator or CPR while they will run off to have their brains operated upon to eek out a few extra months in power like Ted Kennedy. Some animals will be more equal than others.
Just saw the movie ‘Coma’ again. Reminded me of Obamacare!!
I blame the media. They purposefully promote stupid arguments in order to re-direct the conversation. Meanwhile, folks are convinced the government would never overtly ‘kill’ them, never considering the government would simply withhold live saving measures based on age, etc.
Another stupid argument proposed....”we can’t deport 12 million people, it’s impossible”. Media and pro-amnesty politicians purposefully re-direct and won’t touch ‘attrition through enforcement’.
Media is holding these and many other conversations hostage.
That was always the plan. I seriously don’t think there is much more this Marxist, Muslim, fag, traitor could do to outrage or surprise me. Since I expect he wants to be dictator and destroy America, anything he does short of THAT, will be a surprise.
Thank you, that’s really good to know, particularly as it makes a great deal of sense.
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