0 comment Sunday, September 21, 2014 | admin
In this NYT article, published on Christmas Day of all days, we read that the 'end-of-life counseling' that was to be included in the government-run healthcare plan in 2012 will take effect in January 2011. Merry Christmas, America.
In this new policy (which is nothing to do with death panels, honest!) Medicare will pay for 'voluntary advance care planning' with the annual visit to physicians.
Read the details at the NYT article, allowing for the inevitable bias, of course.
This blogger thinks that there is no reason to be concerned about this, though he takes exception to the backdoor way in which it was done.
Conflating euthanasia with Living Wills is silly, but Obama has decided to bring the issue through the back door through regulation - a dangerous precedent that the president apparently feels will be necessary with other Obamacare issues that never made it past the finish line in Congress[...]
It would probably be better if the government was totally out of the loop on making these decisions but most people who take advantage of such counseling will be seeing their family doctor - someone they trust to advise them with their interests at heart. I doubt whether a family physician will be pushing old people to end their own lives rather than receive critical care according to their wishes.''
The commenters are a little less sanguine about the intentions behind this measure, as am I of course.
Many people on Medicare no longer have trusted family docs with whom they have a personal relationship. Given the assembly-line type of care that is dispensed, and given that the recent Medicare cuts have caused many doctors to drop their Medicare patients, they may well be getting their 'end-of-life' counseling from a relative stranger, who is too hurried to take a real interest in the patient or in his or her needs and concerns.
I don't like to discuss personal and family issues here, but I have a relative with Alzheimer's and there is considerable pressure to choose a 'Do Not Resuscitate' order so that should there be a need for emergency care, none will be extended. And as the commenters on the AT blog indicate, in some cases even food and water and IVs are considered 'extraordinary measures.' I can see many Terry Schiavo-type scenarios playing out.
I am dismayed every time I read comments on Free Republic or even here on this blog saying that it would be good riddance to the old folks. This is a decidedly un-Christian, not to say inhumane attitude, and it would not have been expressed in polite society only a decade or two ago. Have we fallen this far in so short a time? If so, it is in large part attributable to the influence of the left and of the everybody-for-himself wing of conservatism in which human life has no value in and of itself, only economic concerns. Surely that is the left's worst stereotype of the right, but it seems to be based in reality, sadly.
One more thing: this anti-elderly policy is very much of a piece with this regime's anti-White policies -- after all, the old are demographically the most White of all age groups. Once they are gone, which it is apparent, is the desired end, the demographic shift away from the historic White majority will be very much speeded up. That's something to think about for those who pay attention to these things.
Meanwhile, compare and contrast this story in which the financially-strapped government (no money for those costly oldsters) is out soliciting for children to be put on Medicaid. Do I need to tell you the demographics of that age group? It is crystal-clear where the priorities lie.
The regime considers this a 'moral obligation' while care for the old is dismissed as too expensive.
Do I begrudge children necessary care? That would be hard-hearted, but it seems to me that society's first priority should be its own citizens. Those who have contributed to this society through years of labor should not be cast adrift as the Eskimos of lore disposed of their unwanted old.
In this new policy (which is nothing to do with death panels, honest!) Medicare will pay for 'voluntary advance care planning' with the annual visit to physicians.
Read the details at the NYT article, allowing for the inevitable bias, of course.
This blogger thinks that there is no reason to be concerned about this, though he takes exception to the backdoor way in which it was done.
Conflating euthanasia with Living Wills is silly, but Obama has decided to bring the issue through the back door through regulation - a dangerous precedent that the president apparently feels will be necessary with other Obamacare issues that never made it past the finish line in Congress[...]
It would probably be better if the government was totally out of the loop on making these decisions but most people who take advantage of such counseling will be seeing their family doctor - someone they trust to advise them with their interests at heart. I doubt whether a family physician will be pushing old people to end their own lives rather than receive critical care according to their wishes.''
The commenters are a little less sanguine about the intentions behind this measure, as am I of course.
Many people on Medicare no longer have trusted family docs with whom they have a personal relationship. Given the assembly-line type of care that is dispensed, and given that the recent Medicare cuts have caused many doctors to drop their Medicare patients, they may well be getting their 'end-of-life' counseling from a relative stranger, who is too hurried to take a real interest in the patient or in his or her needs and concerns.
I don't like to discuss personal and family issues here, but I have a relative with Alzheimer's and there is considerable pressure to choose a 'Do Not Resuscitate' order so that should there be a need for emergency care, none will be extended. And as the commenters on the AT blog indicate, in some cases even food and water and IVs are considered 'extraordinary measures.' I can see many Terry Schiavo-type scenarios playing out.
I am dismayed every time I read comments on Free Republic or even here on this blog saying that it would be good riddance to the old folks. This is a decidedly un-Christian, not to say inhumane attitude, and it would not have been expressed in polite society only a decade or two ago. Have we fallen this far in so short a time? If so, it is in large part attributable to the influence of the left and of the everybody-for-himself wing of conservatism in which human life has no value in and of itself, only economic concerns. Surely that is the left's worst stereotype of the right, but it seems to be based in reality, sadly.
One more thing: this anti-elderly policy is very much of a piece with this regime's anti-White policies -- after all, the old are demographically the most White of all age groups. Once they are gone, which it is apparent, is the desired end, the demographic shift away from the historic White majority will be very much speeded up. That's something to think about for those who pay attention to these things.
Meanwhile, compare and contrast this story in which the financially-strapped government (no money for those costly oldsters) is out soliciting for children to be put on Medicaid. Do I need to tell you the demographics of that age group? It is crystal-clear where the priorities lie.
The regime considers this a 'moral obligation' while care for the old is dismissed as too expensive.
Do I begrudge children necessary care? That would be hard-hearted, but it seems to me that society's first priority should be its own citizens. Those who have contributed to this society through years of labor should not be cast adrift as the Eskimos of lore disposed of their unwanted old.
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