Posted on 08/09/2013 11:33:53 AM PDT by Morgana
Oregon rations healthcare to Medicaid recipients. Terminal cancer patients are denied chemotherapy to extend life–and now the Oregon rationing board wants to go deeper into the weeds.
From Hope Landsem’s Wall Street Journal blog:
Liberal states often preview health-care central planning before the same regulations go national, which ought to make an Oregon cost-control commission especially scary. On Thursday a state board could change Oregon’s Medicaid program to deny costly care to poor patients who need it most.
Like most such panels, including the Affordable Care Act’s Independent Payment Advisory Board, the Oregon Health Evidence Review Commission, or HERC, claims to be merely concerned with what supposedly works and what doesn’t. Their real targets are usually advanced, costly treatments. That’s why HERC, for example, proposed in May that Medicaid should not cover “treatment with intent to prolong survival” for cancer patients who likely have fewer than two years left to live. HERC presents an example to show their reasoning for such a decision: “In no instance can it be justified to spend $100,000 in public resources to increase an individual’s expected survival by three months when hundreds of thousands of Oregonians are without any form of health insurance.”
Let us not forget that Oregon Medicaid happily pays for assisted suicide–and indeed, has offered terminal cancer patients that option while denying life-extending treatment.
CLICK LIKE IF YOU’RE PRO-LIFE!
Also, Vermont–which legalized assisted suicide recently–as a single payer plan the state can’t pay for. And guess what: Using assisted suicide and rationing are both on the table as means of paying for the program. No question: Centralized control, mixed with culture of death values make for a toxic brew.
As for the eventual push to turn Obamacare into single payer: As I wrote at length, health care rationing is central to the operation of single payer systems. Obamacarians want more!
The problem with these hypothetical “examples” is that they are used to numb people to the idea of death panels.
As though there is some cost/benefit analysis that would be objectively and scientifically applied.
The truth is you won’t have to worry about being denied the treatment, because the diagnostic testing won’t even be authorized.
OR Soylent Green Waiting Stations
Suppose it isn’t three months? I find it hard to believe that if a person is that far along with cancer that chemo is even a choice. The problem is it involves the governments interaction in what should be a decision between patient and doctor. How long a person’s life may be extended is unknown is most cases.You don’t have to be on Medicare and Supplemental insurance to not live long after chemo treatment.
Does Oregon pay for sex change operations?
“claims to be merely concerned with what supposedly works and what doesn’t”
these are always no more than statistical averages
which means no matter how many persons for whom
a certain medical procedure may not be effective
or as effective, that is NEVER everyone, never every
case, and the blaket rationing of care based on such
statistics ALWAYS means that care will be denied
even to those, however many, whom it would have
helped
the justification that such rationing is “cost
effective” is not good enough, and particularly
not good enough when it is being made by
government fiat
I knew three people who had terminal cancer, once survived three years, one survived two years and one nine months, in all instances I am glad they fought tooth and nail to remain alive as long as possible, to see kids graduate, to see siblings get married, etc.
I don’t understand the concept of just rolling over and dying: whatever happened to “I refuse to @#$$#ing die!”
I don’t even go to weddings, graduations, etc. Attended a wedding once when I was 8.
A lot of people with pre-existing conditions enthusiastically support Obamacare because they think the government will pay for the expensive treatment of their ailments. They have yet to realize that they are prime candidates for the Death Panels. And not just the elderly, either. A premature infant could be denied an incubator under this law. A child could be denied a much-needed transplant. Any chronic condition would not be considered cost-effective by the Obamacare bureaucrats. They will be as competent as the Post Office, and as compassionate as the IRS.
One thing that does not get talked about with Obamacare is that it is NOT insurance.
If you cannot pay the amount the government decides that the IRS will take from you, then you will be placed into your states welfare roles. And if you get sick, and require care, the state will pay...
...THEN THE STATE WILL GO AFTER ALL YOUR ASSETS TO COVER THE COSTS. AND YOU OR GRANDMA WILL LOSE YOUR HOUSE OR OTHER BELONGINGS.
There is no good side to Obama care and making sure people were covered more than they are now is not what it does.
OBAMACARE MAKES SURE THAT THE MEDICAL-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX HAS INCOME FROM TAKING HOMES AND ASSETS FROM PEOPLE.
DO NOT FORGET THIS
________________________
Note from CNS News
People whose household income is too small to qualify for the subsidy will be put on Medicaid. People whose household income exceeds 400 percent of the FPL will get no subsidy at all.
According to the IRS, which responded to a CNSNews.com inquiry on the issue, a household earning an annual income that is just $1 more than 400 percent of the FPL is ineligible for an Obamacare subsidy, period.
As explained by both the IRS—which wrote the regulation governing the Obamacare subsidy—and the Congressional Research Service, which published a July 31 report on the matter (Health Insurance Premium Credits in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act), the Obamacare insurance-premium subsidy essentially works as a cap on the percentage of annual income an eligible person is required to pay in health-insurance premiums.
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Then there is the question....... is the panel God directed?
I hear ya. My mother was 80 and although she was/is ready to go at any time, she fought to stay alive. MAJOR operation and came through with flying colors. She is now 87, seen most of her grandkids marry, witnessed the latest great grandchild’s birth. She is perfectly healthy despite the odds. (with no further treatment)
Or we could have just said no to the operation and let her die. The “state” surely would have denied her if they had been in charge.
Using your argument, we should spend an unlimited amount of money to keep everyone alive for a few extra months no matter what the prognosis. In short, we should spend half of your lifetime earnings - or more - to keep you alive for a few - probably miserable - extra months.
The sentence immediately prior to that talks about denying further cancer treatment when the prognosis for death is fewer than TWO YEARS.
Big difference.
Precisely. And GOOD for your mom!
IF the time ever comes when she has to make that decision, let us know what she decides.
I have a very feisty 89 Year Old Aunt. She has been Blind for over 60 years due to Glaucoma. When we did her Health Directive, she was very adamant in doing whatever is necessary to keep her alive.
Edward G. Robinson’s character in Soylent Green she is not.
I always think back to the Woman “asking” Lord Obama if her 90+ Year Old Mother should be able to get a Pacemaker of she needed one. She said her Mother was very spirited and lived Life to its fullest. Lord Obama, Commander of the Universe, told the Woman that perhaps her Mother should just take a Pill so there were more resources left for others.
And to think Sarah Palin was slammed for suggesting that Obamacare will depend on Death Panels to keep costs down.
As for me, I have been through two Chemo Programs during the last eight years while being treated for Leukemia. I am now 60 Years Old and I have no idea what I will decide when things get bad, and they will. I’m about 5 to 7 years away from the Expiration Date given to me by my Oncologist.
That being said, nobody speaks for me and my little 89 Year Old Aunt feels the same about herself.
And u think there is a big step from one to the other with bureaucrats making that decision?
My friend’s father had major open heart surgery at 82, leukemia at 85 and sepsis at 86. He fought through each of those (he was a vet, and was tough) and because he fought to survive he was able to move in with his son, to see his friends and to be with his daugther.
The nurses and doctors kept telling su “let him go, he’s had a good life,” yet he got four more years and all of us were so glad he stuck around those extra four years!
ed
So you’re against medicare, medicaid, public hospitals, emergency rooms, state institutions for the ill, public nurses who vaccinate, all forms of public resources for sick people?
Ed
I don’t believe in Socialized medicine. As Solzhenitsyn stated-—even a little socialism “rots” the soul. It is evil. Government needs to get out of our lives and health “care” to the extent it was prior to 1912.
We need to dump all the government involvement and get back to robust Charities and where people have time to “volunteer” and give to their Churches. We need a Virtuous people-—We need to teach Virtue in schools—(Socrates was right when he stated the only reason for education was to teach Virtue. Without Virtue —there can be no Freedom.) Government needs to get OUT of education-—it destroys Virtue intentionally to make slaves for the state (JS Mill).
People should be responsible for their own health and health care. You really missed my entire point. Once you have a socialist (evil) medical system, then they will determine Life and Death-—it is a slippery slope and intrinsically evil to play God. We can not allow Death Panels-—we need govt. OUT of practicing medicine.
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