Reid Bill Provisions Threaten Rationing

Folks, there’s much more to be concerned about with the current Senate health care reform bill than just federal abortion coverage. National Right to Life has an analysis:

Senior citizens’ ability to use their own money, if they choose, to avoid involuntary denial of medical treatment under Medicare could be severely limited.

State commissioners of the new health insurance exchanges created by the bill would be given power to deny people who are trying to obtain policies in the exchange the option of choosing health plans less likely to deny treatment, by limiting what they would be allowed to pay for such policies.

In response to public reaction over the summer denouncing efforts to encourage patients to agree to reject treatment as a way of saving costs, the Senate avoided including the “advance care planning” provisions still in the House bill. Instead, it has sought to achieve a similar result under a different name, Under the title “Shared Decisionmaking,” the bill funds and promotes “patient decision aids” to “help” patients make treatment decisions.

A Medicare Advisory Board is established to force Medicare payments below the rate of medical inflation.

Read more

Even more details and documentation can be found here: http://www.nrlc.org/healthcarerationing/reidsubstitute.html and at the Robert Powell Center for Medical Ethics blog

Debate Over Department of Veterans Affairs’ “Death Book”

National Right to Life’s Dave Andrusko comments on the USDVA’s “Death Book” we told you about last week that was highlighted in a Wall Street Journal article by Jim Towey:

Although Jim Towey’s column has stirred the proverbial hornet’s nest, my hunch is that not enough people are aware of the growing controversy over what is afoot at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). According to Towey (the one-time director of President George W. Bush’s Faith-Based Initiatives, among other things), the VA has brought back to life a death initiative into which Bush tried to drive a stake back in 2007. All this, needless to say, is being pooh-poohed by the Obama Administration.

Towey’s Wall Street Journal piece (available at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204683204574358590107981718.html) charges that a 52-page “hurry up and die” workbook/primer titled Your Life, Your Choices: Planning for Future Medical Decisions “presents end-of-life choices in a way aimed at steering users toward predetermined conclusions, much like a political ‘push poll.’ For example, a worksheet on page 21 lists various scenarios and asks users to then decide whether their own life would be ‘not worth living.’”

*snip*

Since the document is available online (complete with a quickly added disclaimer once Towey’s op-ed appeared), I read it for myself to see if Towey’s allegations held water. And, unfortunately, they most assuredly do.

Read more: Part I and Part II

The Death Book for Veterans

Excellent editorial in the Wall Street Journal about the Department of Veterans Affairs’ National Center for Ethics in Health Care advocated 52-page end-of-life planning document:

If President Obama wants to better understand why America’s discomfort with end-of-life discussions threatens to derail his health-care reform, he might begin with his own Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). He will quickly discover how government bureaucrats are greasing the slippery slope that can start with cost containment but quickly become a systematic denial of care.

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.”

Who is the primary author of this workbook? Dr. Robert Pearlman, chief of ethics evaluation for the center, a man who in 1996 advocated for physician-assisted suicide in Vacco v. Quill before the U.S. Supreme Court and is known for his support of health-care rationing.

“Your Life, Your Choices” presents end-of-life choices in a way aimed at steering users toward predetermined conclusions, much like a political “push poll.” For example, a worksheet on page 21 lists various scenarios and asks users to then decide whether their own life would be “not worth living.”

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.”

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

Read more.

And they wonder why we are concerned about the possibility of ‘death panels’ being part of the national health care reform! Here is another article from NewsBusters.

Key Points and Action Items About the Proposed Health Care Reform Legislation

Key points about the proposed health care reform legislation:

1. Both the U. S. House and Senate are expected to vote on health care reform in September.

2. Proposed legislation in both houses would greatly expand abortion in America and raise acute concerns about future rationing of lifesaving care.

3. Both the House Bill, HR 3200, and the Senate bill (as yet unnumbered), known as the Kennedy bill, will require federal officials to define a package of “essential benefits” and mandate broad categories of services including “preventive care.”

4. These broad categories have been interpreted to include elective abortion as with the federal Medicaid program.

5. The Hyde Amendment, which was passed to prevent Medicaid money from being used for abortion, will not cover the new avenues of funding that are proposed in these bills.

6. Both the Senate and House committees defeated all attempts to add pro-life amendments to the legislation, including language that would have prevented federal funds from being used to subsidize abortion or plans that include abortion.

7. Beware of “phony compromises,” such as the Capps Amendment that was approved by the House committee, which would allow the HHS Secretary (pro-abortion Kathleen Sebelius) to call for inclusion of abortion in the public plan.

8. Unless there is sustainable adequate funding, the proposed programs would lead to rationing.

9. The government must not be authorized to deny medical treatment based on patient’s age, disability, or quality of life.

10. Medicaid consultations must not be used to pressure patients into rejecting life-saving treatment.

Action Items:

1. Visit district offices of Sen. McCaskill and your congressman, especially those in Cong. Skelton’s district. Be polite and respectful at all times. Your message would be similar to:

Abortion must not be covered as an “essential service” under any health care reform legislation. Rather, abortion must be explicitly excluded from all government health care mandates, and federal funding for plans that cover elective abortion must be expressly prohibited. Also, health care restructuring must protect Americans from rationing or denial of treatment based on age, disability, or “quality of life.” Please vote against any plan that includes abortion coverage or elements that lead to health care rationing.

2. Call Senator McCaskill and your Congressman, especially Cong. Skelton, with the same message as above.

Link to your Congressman and Senators both in Washington D.C. and Missouri

3. Write a hand-addressed letter to the District Offices of Senator McCaskill and Cong. Skelton. Send hand-addressed letters with the same message as above.

4. E-Mail Senator McCaskill and Congressman Skelton using the above message and request a response so you know they got the message.

5. Offer the church bulletins, action alerts, petitions, or other materials to pro-life churches in your area.

6. Distribute flyers at any event that is likely to be attended by primarily pro-life people including fair booths and tea parties. You can download a flyer at http://stoptheabortionagenda.com/dowloads

7. Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper.

8. Call in to local radio talk shows.

9. Circulate petitions in opposition to the proposed health care legislation. and return to the state office. Link to petition here.

10. “Work like it’s all up to you. Pray like it’s all up to God.” (unknown author)

To download a packet of information from NRLC, click here

For updates on the legislative situation, check in frequently at www.nrlactioncenter.com

For additional documentation and background information on this issue, go to the NRLC Abortion in “Heath Care Reform” web page.

For information on tea parties go to www.teapartyexpress.org.

Additional information and flyers: www.stoptheabortionagenda.com

Stop Taxpayer Funded Abortion and Euthanasia

The United States House and Senate will vote after Labor Day on massive health care reform legislation. Both HR3200 in the House and the Kennedy health care bill in the Senate would represent the greatest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade. Both bills will result in federally-mandated coverage of abortion on demand in virtually all of America’s health plans. If abortion is established as an “essential benefit,” then new abortion clinics will need to be established to provide access to abortion. In addition, Missouri laws that are seen to impede access to elective abortion – such as waiting periods and parental notification requirements – may be nullified. The bills would also result in massive federal subsidies of elective abortion.

Another threat to life is that the planned cuts to Medicare to help pay for these new programs will necessarily result in rationing of medical treatment for the disabled and elderly. Inadequately funding Medicare at a time when the numbers of those eligible is greatly increasing could only result in rationing of health care, a form of involuntary euthanasia.

Now is the time for you to let your voices be heard while legislators are home for summer recess. We urge you to do the following:

1. Call the White House at 202-456-1111 and voice your opposition to the proposed health care legislation.

2. Attend town hall meetings of the Missouri senators and legislators. See list of meetings.

3. Call your legislator’s home office and urge them to oppose health care reform that doesn’t specifically exclude abortion coverage or that would result in rationing of health care. To contact your legislators please click here.

4. Write a letter to your local newspaper in opposition to this legislation. For a sample letter go here: sample letters

NRLC Advisory Memo on Peter Singer NYT Article about Health Care “Reform”

A memo from National Right to Life:

In a 5,000 word missive in the New York Times Magazine July 19, 2009, Princeton University Bioethics Professor Peter Singer openly advocated what many have feared – that under health care “reform,” lifesaving medical treatment be rationed so as to deny it to those deemed to have too poor a “quality of life.”

He makes it clear that society should be more willing to withhold treatment from those who are old and those with disabilities. “The death of a teenager is a greater tragedy than the death of an 85-year-old, and this should be reflected in our priorities,” he writes. “[S]aving one teenager is equivalent to saving 14 85-year-olds.” Similarly, “If most would . . .choose 6 years of nondisabled life over 10 with quadriplegia, but have difficulty deciding between 5 years of nondisabled life over 10 with quadriplegia, then they are, in effect, assessing life with quadriplegia as half as good as nondisabled life.”

The premise of Singer’s article is the conventional wisdom that America cannot afford increasing health care costs. But, as documented on the National Right to Life Committee website at http://www.nrlc.org/medethics/AmericaCanAfford.html, we as a society are spending more on health care because we CAN – because productivity increases over time have reduced the resources we need for food, clothing and shelter, freeing up more of our budgets to go toward saving our lives and improving our health.

A webinar presentation is available at: nrlcomm.wordpress.com/2009/06/13/hcrwebinar/ that provides a thorough explanation of how we can afford and assure health care for all without rationing.

NRLC’s Balch is available for comment on the Singer piece as well as why the United States can afford health care without the need for rationing. To arrange an interview, contact the NRLC Communications Department above.