We Will Not Bow This Old, Grey Head
Aug 20, 2009 Political
I have heard that the best way to stir up a hornet’s nest is to walk up, thrust a stick into the entrance, and stir it around vigorously. You will get a result.
You will note I did not say this was a smart thing to do. And yet that seems to be the result of this Healthscare legislation that the Resident is flinging on the walls. He has targeted senior citizens, what with the 500 billion dollars he wants to cut from Medicare (don’t worry- this is money you won’t need), and the talk, however incendiary, of “death panels” whose purpose is to deny care.
The two groups you don’t want to piss off are seniors and veterans, and yet the Resident, like some little kid whose mind aint right, continues to stir with the stick. He seems surprised at the reaction.
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.
online.wsj.com
Health-care rationing. End-of-life counseling. There it is again, inconveniently popping up like some bizarre whack-a-mole game. The Resident says it aint so, but here it is again. That surely must chafe his nether regions- wow- an “Inconvenient Truth”! See, it can bite him on the butt, again and again.
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?
online.wsj.com
Really! Gee Mr. Resident, can you explain that one in your dulcet tones and excess verbiage? I do not truly believe you can, because here’s the truth: Seniors are tough- they have lived through a process called life, where the weak are naturally winnowed out of the population, and old people have survived. That word means something special, because not everyone makes it this far, so seniors are tough.
In addition, these seniors are the parents of the baby boomers, who, while having supported you in your quest for the ultimate power, are beginning to have their doubts, because these seniors are their parents, and they quite naturally don’t want to hear that their mom or dad will just have to live diminished lives because you are too niggardly with the choices available for their health.
No, they want their parents to have the best, and you sir, are not providing the best- not even close.
And they (baby boomers, seniors, and veterans) are figuring this out.
If I were you , I would watch your step- the footing gets tricky from here.
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Tags: baby boomers, death panels, lies, rationing, seniors