Thread: 2011 to die for: 'Super death panels' on a 'massive scale

DOCTOR'S ORDERS

'Super death panels' on a 'massive scale'

New Obama end-of-life regs 'more egregious' than ones Congress rejected

Posted: December 29, 2010
10:02 pm Eastern
By Brian Fitzpatrick
© 2010 WorldNetDaily

Angry pro-life leaders are calling on the incoming 112th Congress to revoke a new Obama administration regulation resuscitating "death panels," which were rejected by the last congress after a public uproar threatened the passage of the president's signature health care bill.

At the request of several Democratic lawmakers, the administration quietly slipped language into a Medicare regulation paying doctors to provide "end-of-life" consultations with patients. Doctors will instruct patients how to write "advance directives" listing what types of treatment they wish to receive, or not receive, if they are hospitalized in such poor condition that they are unable to make health care decisions.

The new regulation was revealed by the New York Times on Dec. 26. The regulation will go into force Jan. 1.

"Nothing good can come of this," said Judie Brown, the president of American Life League. "This will affect everybody's parents and grandparents and preborn babies, and it will not affect anybody for the good."

Find out about President Obama's real agenda in The Manchurian President

Congress must step up to cancel the regulation, Brown added. "If not, a death certificate is written for an awful lot of elderly people."

"Those of us who voted in common-sense representatives to take control of the House will be expecting to see reversals of regulations like these that run roughshod over the will of the American people," said Dr. Janice Crouse, director of the Beverly LaHaye Institute at Concerned Women for America.

"This new Congress has to pass a law that revokes this new Medicare regulation because we're going to see pressure on the elderly to end their lives prematurely," said Liberty Counsel President Mat Staver. "This regulation is more egregious than the original Obama health care legislation."
Mat Staver

The original legislation provided for end-of-life counseling once every five years, Staver explained, but the new regulation pays doctors to counsel their patients every year during the annual "wellness" appointment provided by Medicare.

"I'm not opposed to having end-of-life directives but the problem is when a doctor gets paid to consult annually with his patients." said Staver. "Doctors will have a financial incentive to counsel patients on end-of-life care.

"When you have the government mandating this end-of-life counseling, they're conscripting doctors to do end-of-life counseling on a massive scale. It will be the equivalent of a super death panel. Elderly patients will get confused and will end up signing documents without having a clue what they're signing, and they will sign away care they might really want."

Operation Rescue President Troy Newman called the Obama approach "Darwinist," and predicted it would lead to rationing of health care.

"When you have a fixed amount of money that is allocated to health care, it's only logical that some bureaucrat will regulate it and decide who will get treatment," Newman told WND. "That treatment will be based on some humanist, egalitarian principle that these bureaucrats always seem to hold. Their principles are Darwinist, survival of the fittest.

"My grandmother is 94 years old," Newman continued. "Suppose she breaks her hip. Are they really going to authorize that expense over a 16-year-old who has urgent needs? It was Obama who said maybe Grandma should take a pill rather than get this expensive treatment."

Brown said the terms "end-of-life counseling" and "death panel" are "interchangeable."

"The term 'death panel' is a creation of Sarah Palin and it's been picked up by everyone. It's the same as a consultation with a family to determine when someone is to receive care. Many times these so-called consultations will be to coerce and convince a family that a person is better off dead and should be put out of his misery. You can call it anything you want, but those terms are interchangeable."

"The media had a heyday making fun of Sarah Palin when she first talked about death panels," said Crouse, "Now, the New York Times presents a blase report accepting the fact of the existence of "end-of-life" decisions that were at the heart of the massive health care reform package that Obama, Reid and Pelosi rammed through during the 111th Congress.

"Having just returned from the funeral of a dear lady – widow of a Navy man, both buried at Arlington National Cemetery – I couldn't be more repulsed by the idea of government-controlled death panels that will make end-of-life decisions for the most vulnerable of our citizens," Crouse added.

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=245469

Now I don't like the idea of paying doctors to have the end of life counseling but I don't see why it should be a problem as they spin the "death panels". Now I really don't see doctors telling patients "hey, its time to die.... get it over with already"... but I don't really see that much of a point to at that time pressuing for healthcare directives... so theres bound to be some other agenda they want in eventually which is my question. They never want to really go into detail whats in it so I'll admit I don't know much more.

They do make some good points though.

"My grandmother is 94 years old," Newman continued. "Suppose she breaks her hip. Are they really going to authorize that expense over a 16-year-old who has urgent needs?"

Money isn't limitless and some hard decisions should be made. When it comes to it that 16 year old has a whole life ahead of them while that 94 year old is past the vast majority of their life. Add in healthcare costs these days elderly cost an extreme amount of money to take care of medically.

But like they say it should be the families decision and not a politicians, well it is. The family could have grandma on a private healthcare and take care of their family as our old family values said to do. The government unless we actually had a socialized public healthcare system cannot cover every single thing.

Now yes many of this may sound horrible but as a parent how would you feel not getting that life saving treatment for your child because the money was spent on an elderly, keeping in mind often the treatment for your child is likely only a fraction of whats spent on that 1 elderly.

Its a real tough call and we need to really go back to family values and family responsibility. None of us want to kill grandma be us Reps or the Dems, but only so much can be done on the public dime especially when we want to trim the budget.

Personal and family responsibility is what we have lost. Its now all on the government and if we fail its the governments fault.

Now that is even if they did try and say "sorry grandma, the public credit cards maxed".