Senate Removes ‘End of Life’ Provisions
Palin Wins Death Panel Battle
Sarah Palin has won a fierce battle to eliminate Barack Obama’s “death panel”provision in the House Energy and Commerce Committee legislation. The so-called “end-of-life” counseling provisions will be eliminated.
She scored a big victory today when it was announced the “death panel” provision of the bill was being deleted. This provision is still in the house version, and could be added back in that is also why this entire health care bill needs to be thrown away.
Tammy Bruce
Palin, apparently an irrelevant quitter yet strangely powerful typer, forces the Senate to do the right thing with two Facebook posts. This is called leadership and will prevail regardless of the medium. It also speaks to the impact and import of Palin’s positions despite the establishments, both political and media, insistence (aka strange, misplaced hope) that she’s irrelevant.
Palin responded again last night on Facebook to attacks on her exposure of the Death Panels as part of Obama’s DeathCare agenda.
This time she did it with a hard slap at the Obama admin .
Facebook
Sarah Palin: Concerning the “Death Panels”
Yesterday President Obama responded to my statement that Democratic health care proposals would lead to rationed care; that the sick, the elderly, and the disabled would suffer the most under such rationing; and that under such a system these “unproductive” members of society could face the prospect of government bureaucrats determining whether they deserve health care.
The President made light of these concerns. He said:
“Let me just be specific about some things that I’ve been hearing lately that we just need to dispose of here. The rumor that’s been circulating a lot lately is this idea that somehow the House of Representatives voted for death panels that will basically pull the plug on grandma because we’ve decided that we don’t, it’s too expensive to let her live anymore….It turns out that I guess this arose out of a provision in one of the House bills that allowed Medicare to reimburse people for consultations about end-of-life care, setting up living wills, the availability of hospice, etc. So the intention of the members of Congress was to give people more information so that they could handle issues of end-of-life care when they’re ready on their own terms. It wasn’t forcing anybody to do anything.” [1]
The provision that President Obama refers to is Section 1233 of HR 3200, entitled “Advance Care Planning Consultation.” [2] With all due respect, it’s misleading for the President to describe this section as an entirely voluntary provision that simply increases the information offered to Medicare recipients. The issue is the context in which that information is provided and the coercive effect these consultations will have in that context.
Section 1233 authorizes advanced care planning consultations for senior citizens on Medicare every five years, and more often “if there is a significant change in the health condition of the individual … or upon admission to a skilled nursing facility, a long-term care facility… or a hospice program.” [3] During those consultations, practitioners must explain “the continuum of end-of-life services and supports available, including palliative care and hospice,” and the government benefits available to pay for such services. [4]
Now put this in context. These consultations are authorized whenever a Medicare recipient’s health changes significantly or when they enter a nursing home, and they are part of a bill whose stated purpose is “to reduce the growth in health care spending.” [5] Is it any wonder that senior citizens might view such consultations as attempts to convince them to help reduce health care costs by accepting minimal end-of-life care? As Charles Lane notes in the Washington Post, Section 1233 “addresses compassionate goals in disconcerting proximity to fiscal ones…. If it’s all about obviating suffering, emotional or physical, what’s it doing in a measure to “bend the curve” on health-care costs?” [6]
As Lane also points out:
Though not mandatory, as some on the right have claimed, the consultations envisioned in Section 1233 aren’t quite “purely voluntary,” as Rep. Sander M. Levin (D-Mich.) asserts. To me, “purely voluntary” means “not unless the patient requests one.” Section 1233, however, lets doctors initiate the chat and gives them an incentive — money — to do so. Indeed, that’s an incentive to insist.
Patients may refuse without penalty, but many will bow to white-coated authority. Once they’re in the meeting, the bill does permit “formulation” of a plug-pulling order right then and there. So when Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) denies that Section 1233 would “place senior citizens in situations where they feel pressured to sign end-of-life directives that they would not otherwise sign,” I don’t think he’s being realistic. [7]
Even columnist Eugene Robinson, a self-described “true believer” who “will almost certainly support” “whatever reform package finally emerges”, agrees that “If the government says it has to control health-care costs and then offers to pay doctors to give advice about hospice care, citizens are not delusional to conclude that the goal is to reduce end-of-life spending.” [8]
So are these usually friendly pundits wrong? Is this all just a “rumor” to be “disposed of”, as President Obama says? Not according to Democratic New York State Senator Ruben Diaz, Chairman of the New York State Senate Aging Committee, who writes:
Section 1233 of House Resolution 3200 puts our senior citizens on a slippery slope and may diminish respect for the inherent dignity of each of their lives…. It is egregious to consider that any senior citizen … should be placed in a situation where he or she would feel pressured to save the government money by dying a little sooner than he or she otherwise would, be required to be counseled about the supposed benefits of killing oneself, or be encouraged to sign any end of life directives that they would not otherwise sign. [9]
Of course, it’s not just this one provision that presents a problem. My original comments concerned statements made by Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, a health policy advisor to President Obama and the brother of the President’s chief of staff. Dr. Emanuel has written that some medical services should not be guaranteed to those “who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens….An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia.” [10] Dr. Emanuel has also advocated basing medical decisions on a system which “produces a priority curve on which individuals aged between roughly 15 and 40 years get the most chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get chances that are attenuated.” [11]
President Obama can try to gloss over the effects of government authorized end-of-life consultations, but the views of one of his top health care advisors are clear enough. It’s all just more evidence that the Democratic legislative proposals will lead to health care rationing, and more evidence that the top-down plans of government bureaucrats will never result in real health care reform.
– Sarah Palin
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And viola, after being derided as “nuts” and out-of-touch, Grassley of the Senate Finance Committee made this statement today:
Finance Committee drops end-of-life provision
The Hill
by Michael O’Brien
The Senate Finance Committee will drop a controversial provision on consultations for end-of-life care from its proposed healthcare bill, its top Republican member said Thursday.
The committee, which has worked on putting together a bipartisan healthcare reform bill, will drop the controversial provision after being derided as “death panels” to encourage euthanasia by conservatives.
“On the Finance Committee, we are working very hard to avoid unintended consequences by methodically working through the complexities of all of these issues and policy options,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said in a statement. “We dropped end-of-life provisions from consideration entirely because of the way they could be misinterpreted and implemented incorrectly.”
The Finance Committee is the only congressional committee to not report out a preliminary healthcare bill before the August congressional recess, but is expected to unveil its proposal shortly after Labor Day.
Grassley said that bill would hold up better compared to proposals crafted in the House, which he asserted were “poorly cobbled together.”
“The bill passed by the House committees is so poorly cobbled together that it will have all kinds of unintended consequences, including making taxpayers fund health care subsidies for illegal immigrants,” Grassley said. The veteran Iowa lawmaker said the end-of-life provision in those bills would pay physicians to “advise patients about end of life care and rate physician quality of care based on the creation of and adherence to orders for end-of-life care.”
“Maybe others can defend a bill like the Pelosi bill that leaves major issues open to interpretation, but I can’t,” Grassley added.
Get this man an asprine but don’t call us in the morning! ~ Wild Thing
Zeke Emanuel on Sarah Palin’s Accusation of ‘Death Panels’: ‘It’s An Absolute Outrage’
Political Punch
Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the health-policy adviser at the White House’s Office of Management and Budget — who has been caricatured by conservatives as a “Dr. Death” seeking to pull the I.V.s out of your grandparents’ arms in the name of cost containment — is not happy.
Asked by ABC News in an interview about the thoroughly discredited claim by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to paint his philosophical writings as evidence — along with a provision providing optional end of life counseling in the House Democrats’ health care reform bill — that President Obama wants to set up “death panels” to deny medical treatments to seniors and the disabled, including her son Trig, Emanuel, brother of White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, does not hold back.
“It’s an absolute outrage that you would take first of all a provision written in the bill,” Emanuel says, a provision allowing for “doctors to talk to patients about end of life care, and turn it into the suggestion that we’re going to have euthanasia boards — that’s a complete misreading of what’s there. It’s just trying to scare people.”
“It’s an absolute outrage that you would take first of all a provision written in the bill,” Emanuel says, “A provision allowing for doctors to talk to patients about end of life care, and turn it into the suggestion that we’re going to have euthanasia boards — that’s a complete misreading of what’s there. It’s just trying to scare people.”
Emanuel says as an oncologist he’s had hundreds of discussions with patients about what to do when treatment doesn’t work.
“It’s wrenching,” he says.
As for Palin’s vision of “Obama ‘death panels,’” Emanuel argues “there’s no basis for that claim either in any of my writings or the legislation. It has no grounds in reality. It’s surreal and Orwellian, the idea that this legislation or my writings suggest that her son Trig shouldn’t get health care.”
Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel who was tapped as a White House Health Care policy adviser. Dr. Emanuel is also a proponent of state-assisted suicide.
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Wild Thing’s comment……
God bless you Sarah!!!!
Something important to mention:
“The Senate Finance Committee will drop a controversial provision on consultations for end-of-life care from its proposed healthcare bill”
The Senate will start to strip the bill of the offensive areas to the people. The House will pass it because they will have the votes.
We have to make sure some how they don’t amend it after they pass it . But something else bothers me a lot.
This may not be popular to say but it is just how I feel. I don’t want them to systematically take our talking points away so they can ram the biggest portion of this bill down our throats. Not to mention what they’ll add as soon as they clear the major hurdles. Remember how the House passed the Cap and Tax bill with 300 pages added on at the last minute, that had those handwritten margins.
I don’t want any part of this bill, not the public option, not the controls, not the bureaucrats, none of it.
The entire thing is a freedom grabbing, socialistic plan. NO to government run health care, period!! Gee whiz, they throw everything in it knowing people will scream about the most heinous parts, remove those and people FEEL like they won when in reality they get most of their liberal crap agenda gets passed. They get socialized medicine and then all the stuff they took out can be put right back in.
Please don’t get me wrong, I am thrilled, and so grateful to Sarah Palin she is awesome. But we have to keep in mind what I just mentioned. This is a large victory for Sarah, it is huge and it is something that will set her apart from the horrible leadership of rino’s. I am sooo proud of her, but this whole Obamacare bill has to die.
Whittling away at the health care bill implies that there is some point where we will accept it. Instead we need to be insisting that the Federal Government has no business dabbling in health care at all. The right does this every time the dems propose an idea. They try to change a few things here and there instead of opposing the idea completely.
I want to share something. During the Clinton years on one of the political shows they were discussing why the Democrats things get put through and the Republicans agenda seldom wins. Then we look back afterward and ask what happened, how come they keep getting their way and their agenda passed.
The political analyst said this.
( not exact word for word quote but very close)
” The Republicans want to take the whole mountain, and the Democrats know that to win in the end it is better to win one step at a time, one battle at a time and in the end they WILL have the mountain.”
I never forgot that and as that was during the Clinton years I have seen it happen over and over. It happened with things going “politically correct”, the dems did not say we are going to change and dumb down verbiage for things to weaken morals, weaken the parental leadership in a home, lower grade expectancy so more students can pass that normally would have failed. No they did one thing at a time, and each time our side gets ticked, rants and then we kept thinking it would stop. But it never has it is only in remission till the next part of their agenda is brought up and put through.
For example, they bashed and slandered our Founding Fathers, next they changed the names of some schools named after them. Then they started to teach a re-written history, telling students they had to answer test questions how the teacher taught the subject, such as the Vietnam war etc. or they would not pass. Now we see Saudi Arabia doing our text books for schools.
I want our side to learn the political warfare that the left has won with so they can’t destroy our country more then they already have. A dem does not say My Friend to a Republican when they want to disagree with them. A dem would not speak highly of a Colin Powell when he came out and did talk shows how he was voting for the other party for president. Yet when Rush Limbaugh laid into Powell for doing this, the RINO’s attacked Rush Limbaugh for not being willing to accept what Powell did and still say he was a Republican and can stay as a spokesperson for the Republican party on talk shows.
If a Dem said they wanted Bush’s agenda to fail thus wanting Bush to fail as a president, there would not be some dem lite ( like a rino on our side) bashing that Dem for saying they wanted the president to fail. Yet when Rush said it many agreed with him, Rush was attacked by all kinds of Republicans some calling themselves conservatives as well as the rino’s.
It is never a mistake to assume bad faith when dealing with our thoroughly corrupt political class. You can bet that in the discussions preceding the deletion of the “death provision”, two “safe harbor” schemes were discussed for later use: carefully drafted vague language that will later be used to justify exactly the same thing that was deleted, and the federal bureaucracy which writes the regulations will do what they always do, incorporate the “death provision” in the regulations using that vague language provision in the bill to justify the regulatory language.
Guaranteed — especially considering who we are dealing with: the Obama thugocracy.
The ENTIRE bill is crap. I want the whole thing to be shredded and never seen or heard from again. Sarah is amazing, in a span of a few days she was able to accomplish something NO ONE in the GOP could do, bring down this bill. Now, we have to make sure this entire bill fails
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….Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
I’m really tired of arguing with these idiots. For over a month they have claimed the “Death Panel” is not in the bill, Per se, it is not in the bill. I called it a Pre-death interview. Sarah Palin calls it a Death Panel, they call it end of life counseling. They are parsing words, trying to convince everybody that these Nazi like features are not in the bill when in fact they certainly are. After 65 you get an interview every 5 years, unless some other malady supervenes in that time.
Dr. Emanuel is also parsing his words. For any Jew to be talking about eliminating anybody for whatever reason is just plain despicable. I know this Jews respect life and that is a big part of their religion. Dr. Emanuel is an anomaly, He is also gay maybe that has something to do with his world view, I don’t know.
In ‘Doctors of Death’ by the New York Post, Emanuel states that the most deserving of Health Care are the ages between 15 and 40(this was also the Nazi’s view of Eugenics) on either side of this curve life becomes less valuable and considerations should be made to limit the care given. Because, at 15 alot has been invested in the youth and he is much more valuable to the State(lets call a spade a spade here this is what we are talking about Statists)than someone like me at age 63. I am less valuable than that age group. Therefore, I would be entitled to less care that a 25 year old. This is what Emanuel has said.
Next question who decides who gets the care. The Government. Not me, not my wife and not my Doctor.
The patient gets nothing , he has no input into the system only a nameless Washington Bureaucrat gets to decide.
My care is then rationed.
Bottomline, they can re-insert this at anytime. Just because they say they are going to remove it means nothing.
Being from Illinois, and after a lot of research and reading last year when Zero started being popular, I have been absolutely crazed that this Chicago combine group that has held this state hostage for over 60 years could infiltrate the WH. Many of us knew how it would be…and it is. I don’t think they are going to get away with it in DC though.
This is very encouraging that this bastard is upset.
Also they still haven’t removed the ‘Special Needs’ section of the bill, which would be of concern to Sarah Palin. They still haven’t removed the QALY portion of the bill(Quality Adjusted Life Year) This is where they assign a pirce tag to what your life is worth. Ergo, Rationing.
Like it or deny it, they can’t run away from it. It is in the bill. The bill, both versions are bad, real bad.
One step to begin with–this means we’re having an effect on them. Now let’s work on the rest of it. The journey has begun and the destination is on the path. Let’s go get ’em!
“Also they still haven’t removed the ‘Special Needs’ section of the bill, which would be of concern to Sarah Palin.”
As the father of a Down Syndrome son I share the same concern along with many others that have a special needs “child”.
Yes, they may make a big smoke signal and remove certain parts of the health bill in order to get the framework passed into law. Then deviously add favored(Marxist) amendments later. The entire bill needs to be defeated. I am afraid that like all laws, once enacted never revoked.
This entire bill was a smokescreen and a feint.
They rolled it out with all the radicalism to a) see what they could get away with, b)to see who was paying attention, and c) to make Obama’s yet-unseen “plan” seem moderate by comparison.
The bizarre sideshow under way is intentional. Dear Leader is out there fielding rational complaints about the House plan while denying that such provisions are in HIS plan.
WTF? Does this only seem strange to me?
No Rhod. Many many people see what is going on. They agree with you, me, Wild Thing, and everyone who comments here. That is why all the protesting by people who have never protested in person before. Yes it is a sideshow. Like which of the three shells is the bean under.
Some people protest certain parts of the bill, but by far, most protesters don’t want any bill passed at all.
We here all know that this bill is the camels nose inside the tent, once passed they’ll amend it to whatever they want. They are not shy about closed door meetings and have the silence of the media on their side. What bothers me now and has always bothered me is how the GOP jumps in to ‘modify’ or rewrite the bills, instead of taking stance against the encroachment of Socialism, they foster it!!! Remember tobacco taxes were sold to the public in most states as a ‘veteran’s fund’ 2 cents a pack, look at it now, and what about those veterans, eh?
No to all of it!!!
Sarah Palin has her site on Facebook where you can join as a supporter. I joined.
The MSM is too stupid to realize that their frenetic attacks of Sarah Palin keep her in the public eye and give her credibility to thinking people. Their mindless attacks are the price she will have to pay to lead the Republican Party. I say hold up her hands! I’ll go to her Facebook immediately and tell her I’m a supporter.
As Rush said today we don’t need to pay for healthy people. So where are they going to cut the cost. Trial Lawyer’s, who make a living sueing Doctors ? I doubt it.
A friend of mine lost both of his kidneys. He told me this, I said, well you can’t live without a kidney. He said you’re right. Then showed me his arm. He had a (AVFISTULA PORT)to plug into the Diallysis Machine which he had to have 3 times per week, for about 2 hours each. He is on the Kidney donation list and as far as I know he is still waiting. So with this new Health Care Bill what will happen to him. He is not alone there are many kidney patients out their, lives depending on that treatment and it’s not cheap.
The Death Panel may not be there, now, but there sure is the QALY-quality adjusted life year. As a Kidney patient what will his life be worth when some inhuman bureaucrat sees his folder. Will he be denied treatment ? Without diallysis the patient dies of his own poisons, that the kidney’s would normally dump. And from what I am told this is a horrible way to die. So does that mean, he gets the Prez.’s “RED PILL”. He’s 57 now, so now what does he do ?
This bill is inhumane and totally out of whack with what this country is all about. This is how obama plans to save money, get rid of the sick, infirmed and the Elderly.
Thank you sooooo much everyone!!!
We need to make lynchings legal.