Thread by NYer.
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Two Republican leaders in the House of Representatives are confirming reports that the health care restructuring bill the House is currently considering promotes euthanasia. A leading patients rights advocate is worried about the effects of the legislation.
Betsy McCaughey, the former New York lieutenant government who is now a patient's rights advocate, notes that the government-run health care plan would require "end of life" counseling for seniors.
The counseling, she says, would be focused on telling seniors how to end their lives sooner.
In a statement sent to LifeNews.com House Republican Leader John Boehner Republican Policy Committee Chairman Thaddeus McCotter confirm those fears.
"Section 1233 of the House-drafted legislation encourages health care providers to provide their Medicare patients with counseling on ‘the use of artificially administered nutrition and hydration’ and other end of life treatments,'" the pair say.
That section "may place seniors in situations where they feel pressured to sign end of life directives they would not otherwise sign."
"This provision may start us down a treacherous path toward government-encouraged euthanasia if enacted into law. At a minimum this legislative language deserves a full and open public debate – the sort of debate that is impossible to have under the politically-driven deadlines Democratic leaders have arbitrarily set for enactment of a health care bill," they state. . .
Threads by trueamerica and me.
An 83-year-old woman from Östergötland in southern Sweden was forced to pay for back surgery out of her own pocket after doctors at her local public hospital told her she was too old for the treatment. . .
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Ezekiel Emanuel, one of President Obama’s premier health care advisers–and the brother of his chief of staff–insists that rationing based on age isn’t invidious discrimination. Oh no? Check out this story from Sweden that illustrates how wrong he is. From the story:
An 83-year-old woman from Östergötland in southern Sweden was forced to pay for back surgery out of her own pocket after doctors at her local public hospital told her she was too old for the treatment. “Without the operation, I might have lived another five years in incredible pain. But what kind of life is that?” Marianne Skogh told the Östgöta Correspondenten newspaper.
Skogh has suffered from pain and numbness in her legs since 2004. After waiting for more than a year to see a specialist in the public health system [my emphasis], Skogh was finally told that the pain was likely to do problems in her back. Doctors told her she suffered from spinal stenosis, a disease that involves a narrowing of one or more areas in the back. The narrowing puts pressure on the spinal cord or on the nerves that branch out from the compressed areas, often causing cramping, pain or numbness. But despite the lengthy wait for the diagnosis, Skogh was then told that, even though the ailment was treatable [my emphasis, again], she was too old for the surgery.
It wasn’t that she was too frail to handle the surgery–obviously–it was because they thought she was too old to be worth the expended resources. In other words, she was denied optimal care by her own doctor who placed his or her loyalty to “society” over the medical needs of his own patients.
If this is how you think we should treat our senior citizens who have given their country so much over so many years–not to mention people with serious disabilities, expensive chronic and terminal illnesses, etc.–you will support Obamacare. If not, you won’t.