Posted on 11/08/2013 5:43:25 PM PST by xzins
As I have discussed here previously, the first state to explicitly ration Medicaid–an integral feature of all single payer systems–tightened the screws against terminal cancer patients a few months ago. Now, the issues is gaining wider discussion in Oregon. From an opinion column published in the Statesman Journal by Peter J. Pitts:
In August, Oregon’s Health Evidence Review Commission issued an update to its guidelines for providing cancer treatment to low-income individuals covered by the state Medicaid program. These new guidelines require that Medicaid deny coverage for certain cancer treatments for patients that have been deemed “too” sick, haven’t responded well to previous treatments, or can’t care for themselves.Through these new rules, Oregon state bureaucrats are severely restricting access to care and dooming potentially thousands of local patients to a premature death…It’s true that for some late-stage cancer patients, the odds are long than any additional treatment can help. But without access to the latest that medical science has to offer, a patient’s survival rate simply drops to zero.
These guidelines dictate that Medicaid only provide “palliative” care – painkillers, acupuncture treatments, wheelchairs, drugs for nausea, and the like.
It’s death panel time!
In the new USA, these kind of death maneuvers will always be done in the bowels of the deep bureaucracy without direct representational democratic involvement.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
Cancer Warrior Ping List ping here!
We’ve been seeing this coming for decades, haven’t we?
It seems our fellow Americans won’t wake up to this until they’re told they can pick up Grandma’s body at the morgue.
Escort the elderly out to the glacier and leave them there to die.
-PJ
Before the Moslem Tyrant destroyed American healthcare,
and the military, and the borders, and the morals,
and the Law, patients afflicted with advanced cancer
were treated ... and many were cured.
No more, unless it involves a member of Congress,
their staff, or in bed with one.
Nahhhh, Palin simply couldn’t have been right...
It’s one thing if, for medical and financial reasons, your HMO denies coverage beyond a certain level. You still might find acceptable life-saving care on your own or from some charitable source. But when your government says you’re toast, you’re toast!
This is going to become more and more common and the sheeple will learn to accept it. Opposition to death panels will be considered “extremist” within a few years.
Being connected makes all the difference.
Congress doesn’t want ObamaCare for many reasons, but most of them are old, and they know death panels are included. It’s probably in the top 3 reasons they wanted out.
Crony Medicalism
bkm
From Wikipedia's modern American version
I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant: I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow. I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism. I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug. I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery. I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God. I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick. I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure. I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm. If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help. —Written in 1964 by Louis Lasagna, Academic Dean of the School of Medicine at Tufts University
I don’t agree with this but I do wonder - since when is everyone “entitled” to the latest most expensive treatments? It’s as if some people think money and resources are unconstrained. Someone has to pay for all this. I think everyone should be able to pay for whatever care they can afford.
Given the movement towards socialism what is happening in Oregon is inevitable. This is what the voters get and deserve. This is exactly the reason why we should NOT have socialized medicine.
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Note that they start with Medicaid patients and say it is a budgetary measure. It won’t end there. This is the camel’s nose under the tent.
The point is that under a pay-your-own-way system, they were free to have whatever kind of insurance they wanted, so their death decision was their own.
Under a government-pays system, the government makes death decisions.
Whatever those who voted this in were thinking doesn’t really matter. Their stupidity affects me and my family, and I did NOT vote for this, but it will be imposed on me and mine eventually.
Amen, brother.
When we have the technology to technically keep someone alive forever more or less at enormous cost of course someone somewhere is going to be making the decision to pull the plug before they are bankrupted.
It can't control the truth, wisdom, knowledge, and experience that grandma and grandpa pass down to their descendants. Especially their warnings of tyranny. Older people care less and less about political correctness and self-censorship as the years of their lives slide into the past.
It is in the best interest of beast.gov to silence those voices... the voices Barack Obama said to reject.
Well said. So true.
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