Posted on 10/29/2009 9:43:29 PM PDT by Steelfish
It's Alive! End-of-Life Counseling In Health Bill
By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR WASHINGTON – It's alive. The Medicare end-of-life planning provision that 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin said was tantamount to "death panels" for seniors is staying in the latest Democratic health care bill unveiled Thursday.
The provision allows Medicare to pay for voluntary counseling to help beneficiaries deal with the complex and painful decisions families face when a loved one is approaching death.
For years, federal laws and policies have encouraged Americans to think ahead about end-of-life decisions, and make their wishes known in advance through living wills and similar legal documents. But when House Democrats proposed this summer to pay doctors for end-of-life counseling, it touched off a wave of suspicion and anger.
Prominent Republicans singled it out as a glaring example of government overreach. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, at the time a lead negotiator on health care legislation, told constituents at a town hall meeting they had good reason to question the proposal. "I don't have any problem with things like living wills, but they ought to be done within the family," he said. "We should not have a government program that determines you're going to pull the plug on grandma."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
I never thought the end of life counseling was what Palin was referring to as “death panels”. I thought it was the cost effectiveness studies that determined who could get treatment based on age and current health.
I thought the counseling was just what the Democrats tried to deflect the criticism to.
And everyone kept saying “Never Again.” Well, gang, Hitler is back.
Amazing how two words have had a lasting impact.
Palliative End of Life Optimum Serenity Initiative (PELOSI): We can help.
Obamacare in the words of Democrats:
President Obama: At that age just a pill might be better than expensive cures.
Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle has praised Europeans for being more willing to accept "hopeless diagnoses" and "forgo experimental treatments," and he chastises Americans for expecting too much from the health-care system.
Former Governor of Colorado Richard Lamm: Seriously ill old people have a duty to die and get out of the way.
When curative care is just too damn expensive.. PELOSI
Those who forget history are doomed to reapeat it.
I hope he gets old and sick. One less turd out of the punch bowel.
You are right. The MSM have reading comprehension problem.
Its more like rationing.
AP??? wwaahhh??
Is this a little blowback for the intimidation attempt with FNC last week??
Palliative End of Life Optimum Serenity Initiative (PELOSI): We can help.
Lololololol you’ve invented a new one!
Your right about that. Tom Daschle wanted the fedgov to determine what treatment people got based on cost and not on whether it worked.
I thought so too. People who think Obama would not do such should remember, he voted twice to throw babies into closets to die.
He's not only back, but he has a dedicated bunch of henchmen (known as czars), ready to serve at his command. There will be deaths of loved ones (and potentially ourselves) long before those deaths should have occurred. Of course, the democrats who so casually dismiss our loved ones as not worthy of further medical treatment in a move to save money (dispatching them by not treating them or withholding nourishment) will not have their beloved family members subject to the same heartless and frugal dictates. This is just diabolically evil.
President O. B. Noxious only wants to preside over “viable” human life... That excludes those who cannot walk, speak, feed themselves, clothe themselves, perform personal hygene in either the first four years, or the last four years of human life!!!
That would be too complicated for the peoens to understand!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.