Posted on 08/12/2009 9:36:38 PM PDT by euram
Yesterday President Obama responded to my statement that Democratic health care proposals would lead to rationed care; that the sick, the elderly, and the disabled would suffer the most under such rationing; and that under such a system these “unproductive” members of society could face the prospect of government bureaucrats determining whether they deserve health care.
The President made light of these concerns. He said:
“Let me just be specific about some things that I’ve been hearing lately that we just need to dispose of here. The rumor that’s been circulating a lot lately is this idea that somehow the House of Representatives voted for death panels that will basically pull the plug on grandma because we’ve decided that we don’t, it’s too expensive to let her live anymore....It turns out that I guess this arose out of a provision in one of the House bills that allowed Medicare to reimburse people for consultations about end-of-life care, setting up living wills, the availability of hospice, etc. So the intention of the members of Congress was to give people more information so that they could handle issues of end-of-life care when they’re ready on their own terms. It wasn’t forcing anybody to do anything.” [1]
The provision that President Obama refers to is Section 1233 of HR 3200, entitled “Advance Care Planning Consultation.” [2] With all due respect, it’s misleading for the President to describe this section as an entirely voluntary provision that simply increases the information offered to Medicare recipients. The issue is the context in which that information is provided and the coercive effect these consultations will have in that context.
Section 1233 authorizes advanced care planning consultations for senior citizens on Medicare every five years, and more often “if there is a significant change in the health condition of the individual ... or upon admission to a skilled nursing facility, a long-term care facility... or a hospice program." [3] During those consultations, practitioners must explain “the continuum of end-of-life services and supports available, including palliative care and hospice,” and the government benefits available to pay for such services. [4]
Now put this in context. These consultations are authorized whenever a Medicare recipient’s health changes significantly or when they enter a nursing home, and they are part of a bill whose stated purpose is “to reduce the growth in health care spending.” [5] Is it any wonder that senior citizens might view such consultations as attempts to convince them to help reduce health care costs by accepting minimal end-of-life care? As Charles Lane notes in the Washington Post, Section 1233 “addresses compassionate goals in disconcerting proximity to fiscal ones.... If it’s all about alleviating suffering, emotional or physical, what’s it doing in a measure to “bend the curve” on health-care costs?” [6]
As Lane also points out:
Though not mandatory, as some on the right have claimed, the consultations envisioned in Section 1233 aren’t quite “purely voluntary,” as Rep. Sander M. Levin (D-Mich.) asserts. To me, “purely voluntary” means “not unless the patient requests one.” Section 1233, however, lets doctors initiate the chat and gives them an incentive -- money -- to do so. Indeed, that’s an incentive to insist.
Patients may refuse without penalty, but many will bow to white-coated authority. Once they’re in the meeting, the bill does permit “formulation” of a plug-pulling order right then and there. So when Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) denies that Section 1233 would “place senior citizens in situations where they feel pressured to sign end-of-life directives that they would not otherwise sign,” I don’t think he’s being realistic. [7]
Even columnist Eugene Robinson, a self-described “true believer” who “will almost certainly support” “whatever reform package finally emerges”, agrees that “If the government says it has to control health-care costs and then offers to pay doctors to give advice about hospice care, citizens are not delusional to conclude that the goal is to reduce end-of-life spending.” [8]
So are these usually friendly pundits wrong? Is this all just a “rumor” to be “disposed of”, as President Obama says? Not according to Democratic New York State Senator Ruben Diaz, Chairman of the New York State Senate Aging Committee, who writes:
Section 1233 of House Resolution 3200 puts our senior citizens on a slippery slope and may diminish respect for the inherent dignity of each of their lives.... It is egregious to consider that any senior citizen ... should be placed in a situation where he or she would feel pressured to save the government money by dying a little sooner than he or she otherwise would, be required to be counseled about the supposed benefits of killing oneself, or be encouraged to sign any end of life directives that they would not otherwise sign. [9]
Of course, it’s not just this one provision that presents a problem. My original comments concerned statements made by Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, a health policy advisor to President Obama and the brother of the President’s chief of staff. Dr. Emanuel has written that some medical services should not be guaranteed to those “who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens....An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia.” [10] Dr. Emanuel has also advocated basing medical decisions on a system which “produces a priority curve on which individuals aged between roughly 15 and 40 years get the most chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get chances that are attenuated.” [11]
President Obama can try to gloss over the effects of government authorized end-of-life consultations, but the views of one of his top health care advisors are clear enough. It’s all just more evidence that the Democratic legislative proposals will lead to health care rationing, and more evidence that the top-down plans of government bureaucrats will never result in real health care reform.
[1] See http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/08/president-obama-addresses-sarah-palin-death-panels-wild-representations.html. [2] See http://edlabor.house.gov/documents/111/pdf/publications/AAHCA-BillText-071409.pdf [3] See HR 3200 sec. 1233 (hhh)(1); Sec. 1233 (hhh)(3)(B)(1), above. [4] See HR 3200 sec. 1233 (hhh)(1)(E), above. [5] See http://edlabor.house.gov/documents/111/pdf/publications/AAHCA-BillText-071409.pdf [6] See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/07/AR2009080703043.html]. [7] Id. [8] See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/10/AR2009081002455.html]. [9] See http://www.nysenate.gov/press-release/letter-congressman-henry-waxman-re-section-1233-hr-3200. [10] See http://www.ncpa.org/pdfs/Where_Civic_Republicanism_and_Deliberative_Democracy_Meet.pdf [11] See http://www.scribd.com/doc/18280675/Principles-for-Allocation-of-Scarce-Medical-Interventions.
It puts levers in place that are too dangerous to allow to exist.
The so-called "Euthanasia" program was National Socialist Germany's first program of mass murder, predating the genocide of European Jewry, which we call the Holocaust, by approximately two years. The effort represented one of many radical eugenic measures which aimed to restore the racial "integrity" of the German nation. It endeavored to eliminate what eugenicists and their supporters considered "life unworthy of life": those individuals who--they believed--because of severe psychiatric, neurological, or physical disabilities represented at once a genetic and a financial burden upon German society and the state.In the spring and summer months of 1939, a number of planners--led by Philipp Bouhler, the director of Hitler's private chancellery, and Karl Brandt, Hitler's attending physician--began to organize a secret killing operation targeting disabled children. On August 18, 1939, the Reich Ministry of the Interior circulated a decree compelling all physicians, nurses, and midwives to report newborn infants and children under the age of three who showed signs of severe mental or physical disability. Beginning in October 1939, public health authorities began to encourage parents of children with disabilities to admit their young children to one of a number of specially designated pediatric clinics throughout Germany and Austria. The clinics were in reality children's killing wards where specially recruited medical staff murdered their young charges by lethal overdoses of medication or by starvation.
At first, medical professionals and clinic administrators incorporated only infants and toddlers in the operation, but as the scope of the measure widened, they included juveniles up to 17 years of age. Conservative estimates suggest that at least 5,000 physically and mentally disabled German children perished as a result of the child "euthanasia" program during the war years.
Source: US Holocaust Memorial Museum. Also see Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica.
Observe the "creep" of this program in two short years.
If Obama gets his way, we are stepping out onto the slippery slope leading to the destruction of the United States.
She doesn’t sound so over the top anymore, does she?
Death Panels, under whatever guise or terminology, shows just how over the top this bill really is. This is life and death counseling, offered by the government. This is way, way over the line in the minds of about 90% of Americans, no matter how disengaged.
sarah palin wrote this??
What’s really scarey is that if the ‘Bama started rounding up the disabled and trucking them out to a rural gas chamber, as Hitler did long before the death camps were built, would the media report it? I sincerely believe they would not.
I don’t think we’ll hear much from Peggy Noonan anymore after this...
On another forum, I said at the time that she had laid out the perfect trap with “death panel” that she knew the left and the media (BIRM) could not help but fall in.
I personally expected mostly snipes from RINOs and Dem hacks...but the White House press secretary? The PRESIDENT??
That told me her trap probably worked even better than maybe even she envisioned. Or perhaps she was waiting for it to filter up to O before snapping the trap shut.
At any rate, she gave it time to percolate...and percolate it did...circulating through our culture and driving the debate on this health care legislation. She’s driving and Obama’s responding. I LOVE IT.
Death Panels?
Now, why in the world would the government want to sentence any old person to death or encourage them to die?
1. Reduce future government health care medical costs to this person.
2. Reduce future Social Security payments to this person.
3. Allow the government to get their half of the inheritance (via the inheritance tax, often called the death tax.)
Will there be a complicated formula combining age, quality of life, and other factors to determine how much health care expenses the government will spend on you?
No. The government will want you dead the moment that money spent on you by the government exceeds what you pay in taxes. It is a simple cash flow calculation.
You will be encouraged (at first) to die or required (later on) to die based upon the year that you take out more than what you put in.
You’re right—it’s a masterful setup and, now, pounding. I love what she’s done in Facebook over the last week. The tone of what she’s posted is first-rate.
Sadly, you are correct.
Bingo! Lifeboat-care. Musical chairs-care.
btt
Excellent. I want more attacks on the media as they are part of this conspiracy. It is time the media be equally put to the test here as they are part of this leftist agenda and nothing but propaganda.
Bump for later.
FReep On!
WOW! i’m jealous of you. ;) what makes me nervous, redpoll, is that she is taking on several corrupt individuals who will stop at nothing to get what they want...i honestly pray everyday to God to keep her and her family out of harms way...there are other leaders in this country that share our ideology but Sarah is our champion...atleast that’s how i feel — and i know it’s wrong of me to put her on such a high pedestal when she is only human...the people also have to help pull us out of this black hole...she can only do so much.
bttt
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