This is a topic that needs to be talked about. Needs to stay in the news. The Democrats want us to overlook it. So too add to DrJohn’s post yesterday about the return of the Death Panels check out this interview of Dr. Mark Seigel on Fox:
Partial transcript:
Dr. Mark Seigel – Think about it Greg, every year I’m gonna talk about that? [end of life care] The first problem is, as a practicing physician, I could tell you that that discussion is often unnecessary or overblown when you actually get into the trenches of being sick. When you get a so-called terminal illness you find that there is no such thing as a terminal illness. You may get better, there may be hope, and a lot of the patients who tell me “I wouldn’t want that doc,” when they’re sick they do want it. They want it and their family wants it. So the idea of having a yearly discussion…which an obvious goal here is to scale back on technology, scale back on end of life, get somebody in advance to tell you they don’t want something so you don’t have to pay for it. Let’s extend the insurance to 32 million more people who can come to see me with the common cold without anybody restricting it, with low co-pay, with no deductible, and then when they are really sick, when they really need my help and my care they already opted out of it, they’ve already told me they are not going to have this procedure done. It’s a very sneaky way to get end of life technology scaled back.
As the previous post stated, those death panels were removed from the final version of the ObamaCare bill but now Obama is moving us closer and closer to making those death panels a reality via the back door. His partner in crime, lover of all things Socialism, Dr. Donald Berwick has ensured that:
Under the new policy, outlined in a Medicare regulation, the government will pay doctors who advise patients on options for end-of-life care, which may include advance directives to forgo aggressive life-sustaining treatment.
~~~While the new law does not mention advance care planning, the Obama administration has been able to achieve its policy goal through the regulation-writing process, a strategy that could become more prevalent in the next two years as the president deals with a strengthened Republican opposition in Congress.
What could go wrong with that eh?
Just imagine how things will turn as the ObamaCare system becomes bankrupt (and it will) and the government looks for ways to shift costs. End of life care is expensive and mark my words they will look for ways to get rid of it.
A doctor interviewed for the NYT’s article was quoted with some examples of the questions you will be asked:
In a recent study of 3,700 people near the end of life, Dr. Maria J. Silveira of the University of Michigan found that many had “treatable, life-threatening conditions” but lacked decision-making capacity in their final days. With the new Medicare coverage, doctors can learn a patient’s wishes before a crisis occurs.
For example, Dr. Silveira said, she might ask a person with heart disease, “If you have another heart attack and your heart stops beating, would you want us to try to restart it?” A patient dying of emphysema might be asked, “Do you want to go on a breathing machine for the rest of your life?” And, she said, a patient with incurable cancer might be asked, “When the time comes, do you want us to use technology to try and delay your death?”
The government can get a lot of people to sign away critical care simply by asking their insidious questions of young and healthy patients, who are much more likely to insist they don’t want to lie in a hospital bed with a bunch of tubes stuck in them.
The Democrats remember the furor this issue caused so they want to keep it hush hush:
After learning of the administration’s decision, Mr. Blumenauer’s office celebrated “a quiet victory,” but urged supporters not to crow about it.
“While we are very happy with the result, we won’t be shouting it from the rooftops because we aren’t out of the woods yet,” Mr. Blumenauer’s office said in an e-mail in early November to people working with him on the issue. “This regulation could be modified or reversed, especially if Republican leaders try to use this small provision to perpetuate the ‘death panel’ myth.”
Moreover, the e-mail said: “We would ask that you not broadcast this accomplishment out to any of your lists, even if they are ‘supporters’ — e-mails can too easily be forwarded.”
The e-mail continued: “Thus far, it seems that no press or blogs have discovered it, but we will be keeping a close watch and may be calling on you if we need a rapid, targeted response. The longer this goes unnoticed, the better our chances of keeping it.”
Hmmmm
If you have to hide what you’re doing then you KNOW you shouldn’t be doing it. Period.
This is just the beginning because while the bill itself is bad…the power the bill gives to the government to do things like this is worse.
See author page