Obama Administration: Depressed and Disabled Veterans Should Consider Foregoing Medical Care

IsraPundit ^ | 8/19/09 | Bill Levinson

[Winged Hussar]

Depression, disability, and "being a financial burden" could constitute "Lebensunwerte Leben" (Life Unworthy of Life) in U.S. Government end of life planning document

"The Death Book for Veterans: Ex-soldiers don't need to be told they're a burden to society" by Jim Towey in today's (August 18) Wall Street Journal says,

Last year, bureaucrats at the VA's National Center for Ethics in Health Care advocated a 52-page end-of-life planning document, "Your Life, Your Choices." It was first published in 1997 and later promoted as the VA's preferred living will throughout its vast network of hospitals and nursing homes. After the Bush White House took a look at how this document was treating complex health and moral issues, the VA suspended its use. Unfortunately, under President Obama, the VA has now resuscitated "Your Life, Your Choices."

We downloaded this document directly from the Veterans Administration, and the content suggests that both family finances and depression--a non-terminal illness--could constitute Lebensunwerte Leben, or "life unworthy of life." Smoke is generally indicative of fire and, although HR 3200 says nothing about mandatory end of life planning, euthanasia, or anything else similar to Germany's Aktion T4 program--the euthanasia program that served as a precedent for the Holocaust--we have shown (http://www.israpundit.com/2008/?p=16320) that there is indeed fire to go with the smoke. "Your Life, Your Choices" is simply more evidence, and it even suggests that war veterans with depression consider themselves a burden on the society that sent them to war.

[STARWISE]

I think we unbelievably are! Note: That term is not in this
document that I found.

The actual VA document = July 2, 2009:

http://www.ethics.va.gov/docs/policy/VHA_Handbook_1004-02_Advance_Care_Planning_20090702.pdf

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Stunning .. how bureaucratized and roboticized the VA docs will have to be, in just one excerpt below .. they’re going to spend a lot of time being govt. functionaries. It would now be hard to believe that his evil plans, if successful, couldn’t extend to the broader population.

I agree it’s important to discuss these things with your family and personal doctor at appropriate age and time, but it’s possible to now visualize that every conversation with your physician will be quite regulated and get reported and put into their massive population/cost monitoring databank. 1984.

Obamacare MUST fail.
______________________________________________________

Excerpt:

9. RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE PRIMARY CARE PRACTITIONER

Primary care practitioners are responsible for:

a. Raising the issue of advance care planning with all patients who have decision-making capacity, explaining that they do this with all their patients. These conversations may be brief, or more extensive, depending on the patient’s circumstances.

For patients who request more information and/or assistance completing advance directive forms, the primary care practitioner may personally provide the information and/or assistance, or make a referral to another qualified
individual (see paragraph 9).

b. Giving patients pertinent educational materials (e.g., Refer patients to the “Your Life, Your Choices” module in MyHealtheVet at the web site http://www.myhealth.va.gov, or provide written material such as Appendix C).

**The links that come up when you click that site above and search for ‘your life your choices.’**

http://www.index.va.gov/search/va/va_search.jsp?SQ=&TT=1&QT=your+life+your+choices&searchbtn=Search

c. Encouraging patients to discuss their preferences for future health care with their loved ones.

d. Explaining the potential benefits of advance care planning in general, and of advance directives in particular, especially for patients who are at high risk of losing decision-making capacity (e.g., patients with cerebrovascular disease, early dementia, or other serious mental or life-limiting illnesses).

e. Highlighting the particular benefits of appointing an HCA, especially if a problem related to surrogacy is anticipated (e.g., patients who have no family, patients who would want a surrogate other than the person authorized in VHA Handbook 1004.1, or patients with multiple
surrogates at the same priority level who may disagree with each other).

f. Describing the limitations of advance directives.

NOTE: Pertinent information is contained in the references cited in paragraph 8b, and in paragraph 14.

g. For patients who already have an advance directive in the health record, reviewing the advance directive with the patient to help ensure it is up to date, and that it states the patient’s intentions clearly (see paragraph 10c).

h. If the patient has more than one advance directive in the record, asking the patient to indicate which one(s) remains active and which, if any, needs to be rescinded because of changes in the patient’s preferences (see paragraph 11).

i. Initiating conversations about advance care planning periodically (at intervals no longer than three years), whenever the primary care practitioner observes a significant change in the patient’s health status, and at the earliest opportunity after a new or revised advance directive is entered into the patient’s record.

In addition, primary care practitioners need to initiate these July 2, 2009 VHA HANDBOOK 1004.029 conversations more frequently with patients who are at high risk of losing decision-making capacity (e.g., patients with cerebrovascular disease, early dementia, serious mental illness (SMI) or other life-limiting illnesses).

j. Documenting that the required advance care planning discussion occurred and summarizing the significant content.

(1) When the discussion results in the patient completing an advance directive, the advance directive must be filed or scanned with a progress note titled “Advance Directive.”

(2) Documentation of the discussion that led to the filing of an advance directive can be in the form of an addendum to the “Advance Directive” note associated with that advance directive or in a separate note titled “Advance Directive Discussion.”

(3) When there is discussion, but no advance directive, the note needs to have the title “Advance Directive Discussion.”

(4) When the discussion concerns an existing advance directive, documentation can be in the form of an addendum to the “Advance Directive” note associated with that directive or may be made in a separate note titled “Advance Directive Discussion” (see par. 5).

_____________________

Related:

“Your Life, Your Choices:
Planning for Future Medical Decisions

Note –

The following is a 1997 publication that was produced
under VA IIR Grant No. 94-050, “Development of an
Advance Care Planning Workbook,” 4/01/95 – 3/31/97.
The document is currently undergoing revision for
release in VA. The revised version will be available
soon.

http://www.ethics.va.gov/YLYC/YLYC_First_edition_20001001.pdf

[ApplegateRanch]

My stupid email program accidently sent all of this information out...all by itself. Seems I can’t control it these days!

You must have gotten yours from the same cheap, 'chop-shop' online software store mine came from; it did the same thing.

[Pajamajan]

Oh how wonderful! Yeh.... health care for all! Health care for all! Just look at that fabulous example of government run health care- the VA. And Obama has said that he wants our care system to be like Canada's and England's -such perfect health care for their citizens.

Won't it be great when EVERY ONE can fill out this form and turn it into the federal government too? I mean why should our soldiers, who put their lives on the line for our country, get to have all the fun?

I don't want to keep my health care issues between myself and my doctor- I want politicians, and as many bureaucrats as possible, involved in my health care.

If my mom gets sick with something like, for example, Cancer- it will be so nice to have the Acorn representative show up at the door to take an inventory of how many bad habits she's had. How much she drinks or smokes, how much she weighs, and how much exercise she gets, what she eats, exc.... in order to determine if she gets any treatment at all.(Follow link and check the bill for yourself)

Oh, and if my mom is over age 65, the sweet man from the government can persuade her to refuse treatment, and die, in order to save the family State money.

This is exactly what some one needs who is fighting Cancer, or some other life threatening condition.

Death panels? Wha'd ya mean there are death panels?

You're all just a bunch of ignorant right wing nuts. I'd have better luck talking to a table.

Repeat after me:

Obamacare is not about health care rationing or putting Grandma to sleep.(I mean she's going to be denied any treatments that might save her life because she's too old, not a politician's relative, and it costs too much-but, that's not a death panel)

C'mon every body chant: WHAT DO WE WANT?!

DEATH-CARE er......I mean HEALTH CARE!

HEALTH CARE NOW!

Nothing to see here-move along.....

[STARWISE]

United States Department of Veterans Affairs
National Center for Ethics in Health Care

Ethics Resources
http://www.ethics.va.gov/resources/ethicsresources.asp

“Reviewed/Updated Date: August 19, 2009”

[ApplegateRanch]

Love that photo!

“You is been inspected, and is been found lacking.”

Wish (almost) I had gotten there soon enough to see what the tidbit of kittybait had posted.

[MestaMachine]

Sadly, it’s nothing less than a lot of us have suspected. Treating and sustaining our Warriors has become a “burden” to the state, much like unborn useless eaters.

[prayin4_swcb]

As far as I’s concerned these liberal idiots are EVIL to the core!! Talking life’s decisions over with your Doctor and family is one thing, but notice the circles around the government PREFERRED OPTIONS....I call that the EVIL power of suggestion!!...and a whole lot of other things...#%*@*#$@!!! Then, they highlighted in BOLD type to punctuate it!!! IMHO, there is no hell deep enough for these idiots, trying to play God!! In the Book of Job...he states,”The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, Blessed be the name of the Lord!” ... and the LORD is NOT Obama or the Federal Govn’t!!

[ExSoldier]

Thanks, I put this on some other boards, too. It will also be an opening topic of discussion for my AP American Government classes when school begins next Monday.

[SkyPilot]

Yep, Gen Shinseki has sold completely out to nObama

You watch. His mismanagement of the new Post 911 GI Bill (that shortchanges many 911 veterans and their families) is going to be a disaster.

I guess the solution would be to purchase more black berets.

[bmwcyle]

ping

[Pajamajan]

"SO, Let me get this straight. We're going to get a health care plan shoved down our throats that is written by a committtee whose head says he doesn't understand it, passed by a Congress that hasn't read read it but exempts themselves from it, signed by a president that also hasn't read it, and who smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes, overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that's nearly broke.What could possibly go wrong?"

That's a great post. Hits nail on the head.

Let nothing disturb you
nothing frighten you
All things pass
God does not leave.
Patient endurance attains all things.
He who has God lacks nothing.
God alone is enough.

-St. Teresa of Avila

[Senator_Blutarski]

btt

[Pajamajan]

m. I can no longer think clearly- I am confused all the time"

m. I can no longer think clearly- I am confused all the time and I can't read. Check here _________.

Nope- nothing strange about this form at all.(sarcasm)

Let nothing disturb you
nothing frighten you
All things pass.
God does not leave.
He who has God lacks nothing.
God alone is enough.

-St. Teresa of Avila

[Sparko]

[1951Boomer]

You are exactly right. I’m currently reading Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel’s memoirs. It’s the bloodlust for death that I just can’t wrap my head around. The Nazis’ (and others’) insatiable appetite for cruelty and death seems to be the same spirit fueling certain tenets of “health” care. I’d love to believe the “Never Again!” declaration, but unfortunately, I believe the same ethos is still around—just repackaged with prettier-sounding terms.

[leilani]

That is a scream, Sparko. Forced to forage from my home? LOL!!!

[USAHOME]

Fantastic! I completely respect anyone who’s fought or been involved in the military at all. My dad and my father-in-law were in the military (both have died) and the stories they’d tell me...amazing. Speaking of courage!

Thank you!!!

[penelopesire]

ROTFLOL PING!

[xone]

Well, in truth the long march is correct in that it is commonplace procedure to ask family about how long/much someone wants to be kept alive.

As stated before, if this was a family/lawyer/doctor questionnaire for development of legal doc for use later, no problem. For forcible providing for gov't info, I call BS.

[maggief]

Good job!

“The post office is where I get my medical care” (from SEIU union thugs).

:)