Posted on 12/07/2011 1:11:20 AM PST by JerseyanExile
Expect to see more and more articles like this as Obamacare kicks in and we are all encouraged to forgo that bothersome end-of-life care to make the numbers look a little better.
You read my mind, didn’t you? My thoughts exactly!
See my post at #39...
Once a government runs health care they control costs by reducing lifespan. Like the fake unemployment numbers they politicize the statistics. The UK and Canada governments claim better results than the US. The fairness crowd demands that rich people not be allowed expensive treatments at any price, or be allowed to travel to the US to get treatment.
Remember, boys and girls, 50% of the doctors graduate in the lower half of their class. But this is a doctor playing as journalist.
Supposedly. Unless he is like those liberals who all say they served in combat, won scads of decorations and are against the war. Liberals like this author are big on that.
This is where I see this eventually going (fictional dialog)
Here is what will happen first:
"...I'm sorry sir...we cannot schedule that appointment for you in November 2010 to have that melanoma removed because you have not undergone your mandatory annual counseling after age 65...oh, of course you are right. I know you are only 62, but they did move the age down again this year...we have an opening in three months with the counselors office...would you like that?"
This type of thing is fully expected, but It will not be the people you will be FORCED to talk to in order to receive your care, nor the intentional delays in care that will be the most insidiously evil facets of this, in my opinion. It will be the conversations like this one below that will REALLY illustrate what it is all about:
(END OF LIFE COUNSELOR SPEAKING TO THE DAUGHTER OF A MAN WHO REFUSED TO PARTICIPATE IN HIS "END OF LIFE COUNSELING SESSION")
"...Hi Jan, how are you? I heard your father is resisting counseling. It must be difficult, I know. There just seems to be so much of that lately. I know I am only 40 years old, but I don't understand why people like your father are so opposed to this.
Personally, I went with my mother to her own counseling session. She was pretty angry and initially refused to go. She said that it wasn't right the HCRRA (Health Care Resources Redistribution Agency) moved the age lower by five years without even passing any kind of law or holding any debate, and I said that even though I agreed, there was nothing to do but comply. I had to tell her that the HCRRA and the IRS would begin automatically withdrawing money from her savings account when she was six months overdue, and she said she didn't care. I had to explain that they take half of the money available in her account every month until she either complies or there is no money left. I pleaded with her that her savings money was supposed to be given to me and my family along with the government bonuses to match if she engaged in the counseling and entered EEPSI (Early Exit Program for Seniors and Infirm). I had to plead that we really needed that money, since Tommy is going to college next year.
I thought she was really rude to the counseling agent, who was just a young woman only doing her job. Someone told me they are only hiring young women as counselors now, because the men who were doing it just got angry too easily and shouted at people to just "sign the damned papers". Hm. I tried to tell my mom why they have to do this, but she said they do it just to get rid of old people to save money.
The counseling agent gave my mom a copy of the book "Death is Joy". I read it, and it makes a lot of sense to me. Of course, when I was going to school, we didn't have to read it, but now they have required classes they take every year beginning in first grade.
Suzie is in third grade and is taking the course this year that deals with the chapter on keeping birth rates down, and Tommy is in his senior year where they cover the financial aspects of care for the elderly. He was so excited, he said that since they have implemented this national care program, the number of elderly people has dropped dramatically, so they can spend more money on programs such as monthly equality checks for the economically disadvantaged and reparations for the descendants of slaves. I think it is wonderful.
He asked me why so many elderly people are so selfish and refuse to accept counseling...I didn't really have an answer for him. Hm. Now, don't be defensive, I am not criticizing your father. I am just saying, it is a problem.
They had an hour-long program on PBS about this the other night, and they were saying how the people who are being selfish about this and refusing to take advantage of early exit programs like EEPSI that pay cash to their children (and also pass their savings along to their beneficiaries at a low tax rate) are being so self-centered because they grew up in a time where everyone was self-centered and were interested only in money for themselves. You know, they showed films from the days of the capitalists where there were people who had what they called 'gas-guzzlers", and they used to make so much more money than they needed to live comfortably, so many people were going without health care because they were taking all the money..."
“What is the article suggesting? That I should have left my 37 year old colleague (with two young children) to die on the floor? That I should have allowed my 53 year old neighbor to die on the floor of her kitchen in front of her 16 year old son?”
What are you suggesting? How could anyone, after actually reading the article, have to ask what the article is “suggesting”? Why are you suggesting that the article is suggesting that the article suggests leaving people to die “on the floor” when it suggests no such thing?
You mean, a sudden cardiac event, right?
The range of events for which CPR has even a vanishingly small chance of success is very narrow.
The range of events for which CPR is currently applied is enormous.
Take, for example, the patient found dead in bed at 5am nurse rounds. I have never, in 35 years, seen such a patient successfully resuscitated. Have you?
Have you ever seen one such patient without a preexisting DNR order NOT get CPR?
CPR is subject to more magical thinking than any other medical procedure of which I am aware.
You sound like you agree with the author, but what conclusion would someone come to after reading this section? This supposed "voice of authority" says that in his career, he has seen only one person survive, and that person didn't actually have any cardiac problems, but his heart stopped due to an oxygen shortage.
Words have meaning. If this supposed doctor didn't mean to say CPR is worthless, what exactly do YOU think he meant to say? Substitute any other activity in there for CPR, and the meaning is evident.
Non-medical people are not expected to make decisions about when to administer CPR and when not to.
If a lay person comes across someone who is unconscious, and it is determined there is no heartbeat and breathing, you administer CPR. The chances may indeed be small across the vast range of reasons a person might be found with no pulse or breathing, but do you want to advocate that a 13 year old Boy Scout who has had training in CPR try to determine if it is worthwhile or not?
I would hope not. You would want that boy to do what he was trained to do, as a bridge to letting a professional decide.
You seem to be trying to extract a meaning from a part of the essay, that a complete reading of the essay does not say.
I disagree. As I said, words have meaning. If the author did not mean to use that anecdote of HIS that CPR is worthless, then why did he put it in there?
Exactly. As I read this I immediately thought...Obamacare propaganda. Good propaganda has a ring of truth to it but leads you down the path ‘they’ want you to go. That is all this is and yes, we should expect to see more of this.
Bump for later.
“If I found out I was terminal...”
You are terminal, we all are. Time to get right with God now... :)
I would recommend “Vanity Fair’s” January issue with an article by Christopher Hitchens. In his terrible battle with cancer, he questions whether he would have gone to such extremes to live given the pain and horror of his present life. Sobering and upsetting.
Bookmark,Thanks for posting.
Lots to think about....
Lots to think about....
(For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.)
yes, I remember the agony of the doctors fighting with my mom and me doing futile care on my 96 year old grandmother, IV antibiotics given through a tube in her chest........meetings with the nursing home staff and their attorney who said we would have to get her parents to agree to no treatment...ridiculous.
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