All The President's Death Providers, Part 1

Till Death Panel Do We Part

Charges of a 'death panel' are being bandied about by some who feel the Health-Care bill gives allowance, even encouragement, from doctors to speak to patients in preparation for their medical cost in twilight years. The government will be paying doctors to perform these consultations, so is it any wonder some doctors and health care advocates are behind this agenda for their own financial reasons?

Secondly, they would be explaining to you concepts of a 'living will' and what 'power of attorney' means. In addition to a doctor putting on his attorney hat (hmm...), he is to provide patients with alternatives to several organizations and health-care providers (which ones and who makes the list or not...another hmm...). The federal code already outlaws federal $ being spent on suicide.

Is Sarah Palin correct when she wrote on her Facebook page:

"The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil."

Undeterred by criticism, she writes again:

“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.’"

Backers include the American Medical Association, the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization and Consumers Union.

A shocking YouTube video by Rep. Michele Bachmann shows the atrocious mentality of the President's backers to the Health-Care plan in matters of selective discrimination.

As Adam Brickley points out:

"Bachmann was talking about two specific points: First, she noted that Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, a key health adviser in the Obama administration and the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, has indeed supported denying care to the elderly and disabled as a way of redirecting care to more able-bodied members of society.

Second, she pointed out that the administration is working to remove congressional supervision of Medicare and place it under the direction of panels in the executive branch (like the one on which Dr. Emanuel serves)."

In other words, the President's advisers are saying if you are a handicapped elderly, then resources need placed elsewhere to those who are salvageable and not quite as terminable. Short version: your time has come and its not the redcoats this time; it's the white coats coming, one death if by disabled; and another if by handicapped, for a medical parole board visit to remind you of final options. True, it's voluntary for you to listen, but mandatory of the Doctor to seek you out for this discussion.

Throwing fuel on the fire, Salon.com quotes Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa:

"There is some fear because in the House bill, there is counseling for end-of-life," Grassley told a town hall crowd. "And from that standpoint, you have every right to fear. You shouldn't have counseling at the end of life. You ought to have counseling 20 years before you're going to die. You ought to plan these things out. And I don't have any problem with things like living wills. But they ought to be done within the family. We should not have a government program that determines if you're going to pull the plug on grandma."

The National Right to Life Committee writes: "it doesn't take a lot to push a vulnerable person – perhaps unwittingly – to give up their right to life-sustaining treatment." This last statement makes a good point. If you see little hope in getting better in this lifetime, the government may not recommend your termination, but it won't stand in the way, and will proactively bring these end-of-life counseling discussions to you, and hopes you understand what is best. Not that the government would pay for a Kevorkian poisoning, but this time the doctors, paid by the government, will be a mandatory part of the discussion, normally reserved by family members.

It appears the government wants to be involved at all stages of life development; err..lack thereof, from abortion to the grave.

Q: Would the health overhaul legislation change the way people now deal with making end-of-life decisions?

A: It very well could. Supporters of the provision say the main consequence would be to formally bring doctors into a discussion that now takes place mainly among family members and lawyers. "When you execute a legal document with your lawyer, it ends up in your files and in the lawyer's files," said John Rother, a senior policy and strategy adviser for AARP. "Unless the doctor is part of this discussion, it's unlikely that your wishes will be respected. The doctor will be the one involved in any decisions."

An advocate for government death panels writes on capitolhillblue.com:

"Think of the wasted resources. We have comatose people in line for transplants, even though a new kidney, heart or lung will not reverse their fatal condition. We have brain-dead lumps of inanimate flesh wasting the most expensive, high tech, and rather rare and dear machinery, keeping those machines away from newly injured or diseased folks who could actually gain a huge benefit from their intended use. And worst of all, we keep people alive who really have no interest in more pain and suffering."

Another proponent who feels the government is pushing for a government euthanasia writes, according to msnbc:

"Still, one proponent of the euthanasia theory, Mr. Neumayr, said he saw no reason to stop making the claim. “I think a government-run plan that is administered by politicians and bureaucrats who support euthanasia is inevitably going to reflect that view,” he said, “and I don’t think that’s a crazy leap.”

In other words, we return to whether the government should be in this business at all, much less, the last years, months, and days of your life. The bad wording of the legislation and other portions of the Health-care versions of the House and Senate led to emails that shut down the House website this week. House bill.

ABC News, carries comments, even interpretations, from others regarding the section that Sarah Palin used in the House Bill, pg. 425 which is the advanced care consultation. It directs the medical provider to give the patients “a list of national and State-specific resources to assist consumers and their families with advance care planning,” and an explanation “of the continuum of end-of-life services and supports available, including palliative care and hospice, and benefits for such services and supports that are available under this title,” as well as “an explanation of orders regarding life sustaining treatment or similar orders.”

Factcheck.org disputes this interpretation, saying “accepted definition of end-of-life planning means thinking ahead about the care you would like to receive at the end of your life -- which may include the choice to reject extraordinary measures of life support, or the choice to embrace them….the bill would not make these sessions mandatory.”

Here is the bottom line: One paragraph per se does not constitute a death panel to dictate your death, but the openness in the following pages after 425 put together a number of processes that lead to 'life sustaining' "orders" coupled with considerations of value of costs vs. care. Theoretically, can Grandma be denied a heart transplant when she also has terminal cancer? Factcheck is also semi-correct in saying these consultations are not mandatory, but a closer language look reads voluntary by the patient, but mandatory that the Doctor 'shall' make the effort and be reimbursed for it.

In a startling update:

"Key senators are excluding a provision on end-of-life care from health overhaul legislation after language in a House bill caused a furor. Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said in a statement Thursday that the provision had been dropped from consideration because it could be misinterpreted or implemented incorrectly."

Isn't is strange that several pages may be headed to the shredder over something like death panels that never existed?

It appears the populists are having an affect, and representatives are hearing more than noise. Do we need the government making judgments on quality care vs. need vs. costs? Does Lady Liberty's words soliciting those less fortunate also require a governmental intervention to look after them, collectively having invited them to our shores? : "Give me your tired, your poor,Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door." Does it matter whether this is a personal liberty statement or a collective 'we the people' statement?

Beyond the philosophical, it is the practical that most worries citizens. From the cry of Patrick Henry, As for me, give me liberty or give me death, it was his own decision; not that of a government where bureaucrats contrive 1000+ pages of legislation that balloon into thousands of applications for legal medical orders for your final out of body experience. Perhaps Palin's hyperbole is just what the doctor ordered for Washington, and just maybe we need to offer Palin a hat tip for the stirring the kettle. Let those legislators revoke their Cadillac plans and be the test subjects of their own creation for a few years.

--Patriot Paul