"death panels" obamacare

[coadie]

Choices, formerly known as the Hemlock Society. is also says it had a hand in crafting Section 1233, writing July 27:

Compassion & Choices has worked tirelessly with supportive members of congress to include in proposed reform legislation a provision requiring Medicare to cover patient consultation with their doctors about end-of-life choice (section 1233 of House Bill 3200).Compassion & Choices calls itself part of the "aid-in-dying movement." About itself Compassion & Choices writes:

... An organization dedicated to care of terminally ill patients, including those seeking a hastened death....

Compassion & Choices... improves care and expands choice at the end of life....

Our professional staff and trained volunteers help thousands of clients each year by... guiding their search for a peaceful, humane death....

We offer information on self-determined dying....

Our team of litigators and legislative experts fights bills that would force patients to endure futile, invasive treatment....




Fight eh. Let the "death panel" know!!!



http://www.jillstanek.com/archives/2...3_au.html#more

[coadie]

Ha! Folks who really want to stick it to Obama and sow hysteria about "death panels" will extract this from Obama's same fateful interview with David Leonhardt of the Times (my emphasis):

THE PRESIDENT: So that’s where I think you just get into some very difficult moral issues. But that’s also a huge driver of cost, right?

I mean, the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill out here.

DAVID LEONHARDT: So how do you — how do we deal with it?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think that there is going to have to be a conversation that is guided by doctors, scientists, ethicists.

Panel of scientists, ethicists doctors

And then there is going to have to be a very difficult democratic conversation that takes place. It is very difficult to imagine the country making those decisions just through the normal political channels. And that’s part of why you have to have some independent group that can give you guidance. It’s not determinative, but I think has to be able to give you some guidance. And that’s part of what I suspect you’ll see emerging out of the various health care conversations that are taking place on the Hill right now.


So Obama "suspects" that the legislative process will produce some sort of independent group that can give non-determinative "guidance" on end-of-life care for the chronically ill, with an eye towards saving money. Just don't call them death panels!
Well, as are friends on the left will surely chant in unison, it's not in the bill right now so it is calumny and perfidy to suggest we might end up there. Even though Obama "suspects" we will.

HOW "NOT DETERMINATIVE" IS NOT DETERMINATIVE: Just how voluntary will Obama's voluntary guidelines be? If the government posts suggestions on a website and leaves it at that, that is one thing. But suppose governmnt watchdogs decide that a doctor who routinely fails to comply with the voluntary guidelines ought to be subjected to a full examination of his billing practices, treatment decisions and hiring practices. How many doctors will "volunteer" to comply with the guidelines rather than deal with that?

Not call it a panel and don't call it death. Call it guidance and notice the "costs" end immediately except for the funeral.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/ma...pagewanted=all

[coadie]

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=116471698434

Yesterday President Obama responded to my statement that Democratic health care proposals would lead to rationed care; that the sick, the elderly, and the disabled would suffer the most under such rationing; and that under such a system these “unproductive” members of society could face the prospect of government bureaucrats determining whether they deserve health care.

The President made light of these concerns. He said:

“Let me just be specific about some things that I’ve been hearing lately that we just need to dispose of here. The rumor that’s been circulating a lot lately is this idea that somehow the House of Representatives voted for death panels that will basically pull the plug on grandma because we’ve decided that we don’t, it’s too expensive to let her live anymore....It turns out that I guess this arose out of a provision in one of the House bills that allowed Medicare to reimburse people for consultations about end-of-life care, setting up living wills, the availability of hospice, etc. So the intention of the members of Congress was to give people more information so that they could handle issues of end-of-life care when they’re ready on their own terms. It wasn’t forcing anybody to do anything.” [1]

The provision that President Obama refers to is Section 1233 of HR 3200, entitled “Advance Care Planning Consultation.” [2] With all due respect, it’s misleading for the President to describe this section as an entirely voluntary provision that simply increases the information offered to Medicare recipients. The issue is the context in which that information is provided and the coercive effect these consultations will have in that context.

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." [3] During those consultations, practitioners must explain “the continuum of end-of-life services and supports available, including palliative care and hospice,” and the government benefits available to pay for such services. [4]

Part of what Gov Palin wrote last night.

[coadie]

Tired of the political migraines it’s getting from this, the Finance Committee finally decides to, er, pull the plug:
“On the Finance Committee, we are working very hard to avoid unintended consequences by methodically working through the complexities of all of these issues and policy options,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said in a statement. “We dropped end-of-life provisions from consideration entirely because of the way they could be misinterpreted and implemented incorrectly.”…“The bill passed by the House committees is so poorly cobbled together that it will have all kinds of unintended consequences, including making taxpayers fund healthcare subsidies for illegal immigrants,” Grassley said. The veteran Iowa lawmaker said the end-of-life provision in those bills would pay physicians to “advise patients about end-of-life care and rate physician quality of care based on the creation of and adherence to orders for end-of-life care.


So they are taking the "end of Life" or "death panel" provisions out.

Because of exposure and opposition. This is what happens when normal people read these bills.

[coadie]

Death Panel Bus

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESlJG...layer_embedded

[coadie]

Originally Posted by coadie

Death Panel Bus

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESlJG...layer_embedded

WASHINGTON, D.C., August 17, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The US Senate has sounded a hasty retreat on "death panels" in health-care reform by striking out the provision on "end-of-life counseling" from the bill.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), announced last week that the Senate Finance Committee has now expunged all "end-of-life" provisions from the Senate version of health-care reform in order "to avoid unintended consequences."

Grassley admitted in a statement Wednesday that the storm of controversy surrounding the "end-of-life" provisions in detailed in section 1233 of the House version (H.R. 3200) expressed legitimate concerns that the elderly and infirm could end up pressured into lower-quality care or none at all.

"We dropped end-of-life provisions from consideration entirely," said Grassley, "because of the way they could be misinterpreted and implemented incorrectly."

That is nice to know the end of life provisions are removed. Twisp said they weren't in there.

[coadie]

Rules for radicals.

Deny the concept of "death panel" in it's entirety

Manipulate the target to voLunteer and come forward as if it is the patients' idea to end it:

When the government can steer vulnerable individuals to conclude for themselves that life is not worth living, who needs a death panel?

Plant the seeds when the opportunity is there:

The circumstances listed include ones common among the elderly and disabled: living in a nursing home, being in a wheelchair and not being able to “shake the blues.” There is a section which provocatively asks, “Have you ever heard anyone say, ‘If I’m a vegetable, pull the plug’?” There also are guilt-inducing scenarios such as “I can no longer contribute to my family’s well being,” “I am a severe financial burden on my family” and that the vet’s situation “causes severe emotional burden for my family

.”

Well, the VA has instructed its physicians to deliver this end-of-life counseling to all of its patients

When the Bush administration finally reviewed “Your Life, Your Choices,” it suspended its use within the VA system. For some reason, the Obama administration and Shinseki have reinstated the booklet this year. The directive reinstituting the booklet was issued last month.

That would mean Obama administration

\
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/08/2...-to-treatment/

[coadie]

http://www.rihlp.org/pubs/Your_life_your_choices.pdf

Read the 'death book"

Obama wants to help you move on. The Death Panel hereinafter named "Advanced care Planning associate" will help ya.

[coadie]

Originally Posted by coadie

http://www.rihlp.org/pubs/Your_life_your_choices.pdf

Read the 'death book"

Obama wants to help you move on. The Death Panel hereinafter named "Advanced care Planning associate" will help ya.

Some other news sources now cover the death book. When do they bring out the liberal spin?

[coadie]

UPDATE: Obama's VA pulls so-called 'Death Book' from its website.
The Washington Examiner adds:

We were supposed to be beyond any debate over "death panels" when it comes to health care reform. But now the administration is scrambling to explain whether and why it has been referring physicians to use a document for end-of-life planning that strongly hints at the worthlessness of life when its quality is diminished by even relatively minor injuries and health problems, such as being wheelchair-bound.