Posted on 07/26/2009 8:58:53 AM PDT by cricket
Please read and take note folks:
Let you 'Reps; hear from you!
Section 1233 of HR 3200, the healthcare reform measure under consideration, mandates "Advance Care Planning Consultation."Further reading of the law reveals that these sessions are nothing more than a not-so-veiled attempt to convince the elderly to forego treatment.
HR 3200 calls outright for these compulsory consultations to recommend "palliative care and hospice." These are typically administered in the place of treatment intended to prolong life, and instead focus on pain relief until death. These are, of course, reasonable and beneficial options for terminally ill patients and their families.
But this legislation doesn't stop there. Section 1233 requires "an explanation by the practitioner 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." But, under the terms of the section, the federal government can compel more frequent end-of-life sessions if it declares a "significant change" in the health of the Medicare recipient, a change that the bill does not confine to fatal illness, but which encompasses broad and abstract conditions described as "chronic," "progressive," or "life-limiting." The bill even empowers physicians to make an "actionable medical order" to "limit some or all specified interventions..."
In effect, the government can determine that a "life-limiting" condition demands the withholding of treatment.
The bill puts the Secretary of Health in charge of life and death decisions coming out of these sessions. Under the heading, "QUALITY REPORTING INITIATIVE," the bill says, "For purposes of reporting data on quality measures for covered professional services furnished during 2011 and any subsequent year, to the extent that measures are available, the Secretary shall include quality measures on end of life care and advanced care planning that have been adopted or endorsed by a consensus-based organization, if appropriate.
Such measures shall measure both the creation of and adherence to orders for life-sustaining treatment."
These measures are merely an extension of the healthcare provisions hidden in the stimulus bill, which contained alarming new guidelines that required medical practitioners to judge whether or not treating certain patients was "comparatively effective." These decisions were to be based on the findings of a presidential advisory council on the costs of varying treatments.
As a result of these changes, treatment is now a question of "cost" and humans are viewed as potential "liabilities" instead of patients. kind of demagoguery imaginable.
Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) lacks any shame, saying that doctors who oppose this legislation have "lost sight of the common good and the pledge they took in the Hippocratic oath." Last time I checked, the Hippocratic oath didn't say anything about refusing to treat patients on the basis of cost.
And somehow, whenever the words "common good" are thrown around, individuals are about to be hurt. McDermott even went on to accuse anti-reform doctors of "practicing fear without a license," saying that "they should be subject to a malpractice suit."
President Obama has even been so disingenuous as to accuse Republicans of denying medical treatment to people that need it, saying, "The opponents of health insurance reform would have us do nothing. But think about what doing nothing, in the face of ever increasing costs, will do to you and your family."
This is a classic false choice scenario. Either we pass Obama's legislation, or people will die.
In fact, doing nothing is infinitely preferable to doing the wrong thing, especially when we're being pushed to move too quickly.
more/[. . .]/end
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Modern translation of the English:[4]
I swear by Apollo Physician and Asclepius and Hygieia and Panaceia and all the gods, and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will fulfil according to my ability and judgment this oath and this covenant:
To hold him who has taught me this art as equal to my parents and to live my life in partnership with him, and if he is in need of money to give him a share of mine, and to regard his offspring as equal to my brothers in male lineage and to teach them this art–if they desire to learn it–without fee and covenant; to give a share of precepts and oral instruction and all the other learning to my sons and to the sons of him who has instructed me and to pupils who have signed the covenant and have taken the oath according to medical law, but to no one else.
I will apply dietic measures for the benefit of the sick according to my ability and judgment; I will keep them from harm and injustice.
I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody if asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect. Similarly I will not give to a woman an abortive remedy. In purity and holiness I will guard my life and my art.
I will not use the knife, not even on sufferers from stone, but will withdraw in favor of such men as are engaged in this work.
Whatever houses I may visit, I will come for the benefit of the sick, remaining free of all intentional injustice, of all mischief and in particular of sexual relations with both female and male persons, be they free or slaves.
What I may see or hear in the course of treatment or even outside of the treatment in regard to the life of men, which on no account one must spread abroad, I will keep myself holding such things shameful to be spoken about.
If I fulfil this oath and do not violate it, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and art, being honored with fame among all men for all time to come; if I transgress it and swear falsely, may the opposite of all this be my lot.
The more the Old Timers catch on, the harder it will be to pass.
Yes. . .perhaps that is all that needs to be said in protest. Who would have imagined we would need a ‘no Soylent Green’ logo in America, 2009?
Don't even need that. The gooberment "end of life" counselor that comes out HERE has to get past Sunflower. Sunflower is a 1600 lb longhorn bull with an attitude problem. Come on, Washington, bring your "outreach" to fly-over country, where people work and live in the real world. It should be entertaining.
/johnny
This is entering Oh My God territory -- why ANYone thinks this would be relegated only to the elderly is beyond me. As you wrote, unless someone is capable of true production, he will be expendable ... and this legislation is going to okay his elimination.
Imagine THAT last 'counseling session'.
Where the heck is 'AARP'. And Nursing Home and Hospice? They will be put out of business!
And we have only to remember; that 'young-timers' soon become. . .'Old Timers'/sigh. . .if only in someone elses eyes.
We have an historic opportunity to do better than the Germans did.....what will we do....
Good point RWGinger!
Reading this should remind us all; it is 'later than we think'!/sigh
I am suspicious that the cost control measures of this bill, combined with EFT measures also in the bill, are intended to grab bank accounts of the dead upon death to ‘pay’ for the plan. Kill people. Claim it’s expensive. Grab the money and run. The people dying from here on out, above 53 years of age and below 73, are the beneficiaries of trillions of dollars in earnings and assets. 0bama and crew have to get their hands on this...in order to pay the government without having use their OWN money.
It’s (snif) for the (snif) children!
Print that twitter. Give to folks. Find those town halls and pin the suckers down until they explain the reasons to support DeathCare and why they’re not in it.
Get old, get diagnosed with terminal condition...
Save healthcare costs by remembering every neighbor who had a "0" sign in their yard and go out with a blaze of glory.
This is not so far-fetched. When people have nothing to lose, they take extreme measures. This may work out pretty well for our side."
NOTE TO FR MONITOR TYPES: PLEASE, PLEASE INCLUDE THIS POST TO YOUR MASTERS.
First laugh of the day. Thanks.
Great style.
Yes, and we can ascertain from the 'food nazis' that the 'big eaters' will be next. . .
As for abortion; even Justice Ginzberg let slip 'this' as a population control MO. But we knew that about 'Planned Parenthood' right? (Who thought it was about individual Rights?)
Obama and these lefties want old people to die when their care becomes too expensive. The government will ration care with the goal of culling the old.
Any relation to Rosie O'doughnut?
Seriously, the pot is indeed getting hot.
An even more threatening 'money angle' - that I had not considered. . .OMG. Marxist Economics rules, of course!
I'm two years younger than 0bama, I guarantee you I am on this list. It's not just culling the *old*.
INDEED.
Deception and Death have long been hallmarks of hell.
If they had their way. . .right now; we would have no need for Medicare. . .
Obama promises 'fundamental change'. . .
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