The White House fights the people

About: white house launches web site to battle health care 'rumors' - political news - foxnews.com

~ Here is their site. My question is can you believe their website any more than you can believe their campaign slogans. I would have to have references into the actual bills themselves to believe anything this group produces. Like, for example, where in the bill does it say that Obamacare will not pay for abortions or conversely will absolutely pay for abortions? Where, for example in the bill or the Hippocratic Oath for that matter does it say that counseling for the possibility of physician assisted suicide

is included or prohibited?

source: ... I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone.

...

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Mark de LA says

As a repeat you should also be aware of the health care myths that the Obami are spreading:

Myth #1 Health Care Costs are Soaring
Myth #2 The Canadian Drug Story
Myth #3 Socialized Medicine Works In Some Places
Myth #4 Socialized Medicine Is Better Because Their Cost/GDP For Health Care is Lower
Myth #5 A Public Option Can Co-Exist with a Private Option
Myth #6 We Can Have Health Care Without Rationing
Myth #7 Health Care is A Right
~

I say my vision in 12267 is much better than either Obamacare or the current system. Choose your vision & evolve toward it - don't just jam it down the public's throat in a hurried con-game!

Seth says

source: MR asks
Where, for example in the bill or the Hippocratic Oath for that matter does it say that counseling for the possibility of physician assisted suicide is included or prohibited?

Well HR 3200 does not mention "physician assisted suicide" at all. Section 1233 does provide for counseling about the patients' options for life sustaining treatments and other things that need to be dealt with at the end of life such as wills. I can find nothing that says these consultations are mandated, but it seem to provide for paying for them. You can read Section 1233 here, and a detailed analysis of it's language here.

Mark de LA says

seth 2009-08-10 10:35:30 12373

source: MR asks
Where, for example in the bill or the Hippocratic Oath for that matter does it say that counseling for the possibility of physician assisted suicide is included or prohibited?

Yep, it intentionally vague because euthanasia is unpopular except in Oregon where it is apparently legal. That is why I want a specific line in the bill which prevents or states that euthanasia is covered. Your links & the bill points to 50 states plus territories? laws which have to be searched to answer the question. Same goes for abortion. You could probably read planned parenthood's mission & directives & not find the word abortion & yet they support it. Will the funds from Obamacare go to fund Planned Parenthood?

Mark de LA says

On the euthanasia front:

source: ...

The 64-year-old Oregon woman, whose lung cancer had been in remission, learned the disease had returned and would likely kill her. Her last hope was a $4,000-a-month drug that her doctor prescribed for her, but the insurance company refused to pay.

What the Oregon Health Plan did agree to cover, however, were drugs for a physician-assisted death. Those drugs would cost about $50.

Opponents say the law presents all involved with an "unacceptable conflict" and the impression that insurance companies see dying as a cost-saving measure. They say it steers those with limited finances toward assisted death.

"News of payment denial is tough enough for a terminally ill person to bear," said Steve Hopcraft, a spokesman for Compassion and Choices, a group that supports coverage of physician-assisted death.

...So this being the law in Oregon will this process then prevail in Oregon under Obamacare? Where in the law is this kind of thing prevented from happening? Is some board of bureaucrats going to decide your life or death by statistical affect upon the cost of care?

Mark de LA says

It is worthy of note that even with a 1000+ page health care bill that all the rules are not contained in therein. The processes put in place & the government documents yet to be created will still have to be written to determine all the questions that the people want to know of their representatives who will be voting on the laws themselves. Your life or mine or that of your children could hang on some procedure written by a well-meaning assistant who might not be able to write English well enough to codify into words the letter of the laws being voted upon. That's why this link should have been a wake-up call but was refused franking privileges by Pelosi to send out to the people by the Republicans. Does anyone know if she ever corrected it?

Source: ... We have not yet estimated the administrative costs to the federal government of implementing the specified policies, nor have we accounted for all of the proposal’s likely effects on spending for other federal programs.”

You don’t need an accounting degree or clairvoyant powers. The administrative costs and spillover spending effects will be astronomical. Look at existing federal programs. In 1966, the Office of Management and Budget put the total taxpayer costs for Medicare at $64 million. In 2011, Medicare costs are expected to balloon to nearly $500 billion. Medicaid cost $770 million in 1966. By 2011, that program will cost taxpayers an estimated $264 billion. The Virginia-based Council for Affordable Health Insurance estimated the administrative expenses of both programs last decade were 66 percent higher than those of private-sector health insurance companies.

... the diagram (previously available in pdf):

Seth says

There is nothing in Obama care that even talks about "Your life or mine" or dolls out care based upon an assessment of the value of the life being treated. It simply is not that kind of a bill. These decisions, like today, are made by the patient and the doctor. That said, you will always get rulings like "medicare does not cover that procedure", just like you get that same kind of rulings from your Insurance carrier. I surmise that with Obama care that kind of decision will be made by the physicians on MedPAC. I also surmise that in the past those kind of decisions were made by some kind of blanket vote by congress. Now they will be made by MedPac and Congress would need to overide them with a vote. So it looks like with Obamacare physicians will have more control of the coverage, the politicians control will be weekened. That sounds like a good thing to me.

But if you still have fears that the bill is the start of rationing based upon guidlines that go against your ethics, you need to find the wording in the bill which justifies your fear.

Mark de LA says

seth 2009-08-10 13:05:00 12373

I am using my common sense. If there is a scarcity of health care such that even today there is as you say a rationing by insurance companies, what will happen when you add those 40 million more to the system without increasing the number of facilities? The rationing comes through the procedures & bureaucracies created in the bills. It would never be mentioned in the bills themselves since it is a hot-button of the opposition. Besides you have the UK & Canada & European systems as models where rationing takes place by fiat - too many patients too little facilities. Wait..WAit...wait.....By the time that MedPAC & Congress get together to consider your appeals you will be fucked & dead anyway.

Seth says

MR 2009-08-10 14:36:16 12373

seth 2009-08-10 13:05:00 12373

Well granting there is no such thing as unlimited care, then there must be a process in place to limit it. This new bill does nothing in that regard that is not already being done by medicare, by insurance companies, or by poverty. Fact is it attempts to improve the process. Some alternative to the bill's way of implementing the process is certainly in order here. But to deny the necessity of the process is not common sense at all.

Mark de LA says

seth 2009-08-11 05:28:08 12373

source:washingtonpost
One of the foremost advocates of expanding Medicare end-of-life planning coverage is Johnny Isakson, a Republican Senator from Georgia. He co-sponsored 2007's Medicare End-of-Life Planning Act and proposed an amendment similar to the House bill's Section 1233 during the Senate HELP Committee's mark-up of its health care bill. I reached Sen. Isakson at his office this afternoon. He was befuddled that this had become a question of euthanasia, termed Palin's interpretation "nuts," and emphasized that all 50 states currently have some legislation allowing end-of-life directives. A transcript of our conversation follows.

Read the whole interview it tells you what Section 1233 really means - and doesn't mean.

It's time for the "deathers" to give up their scary ghost.

So why doesn't the bill specifically outlaw euthanasia & end the discussion? There is DNR (do not resuscitate) & then there is government creepy end of life planning; just like there is obstetrics & then there is abortion. Too bad lefties can't tell the difference. It's the procedures subsequent to the actual bill, as I mentioned above somewhere that make all the difference. With specific prohibitions written into the bill the procedures will be illegal. Frankly, I don't give a shit whether a Republicans or Democrats support it.

Mark de LA says

Governments don't do well rationing - the market does a better job. You have admitted that rationing will occur. You blame it on MEDPAC, but that is just for Medicare. How big will the government bureaucracy become to cover all those people not on Medicare today & the 40 million not insured today? How are you going to get enough doctors to provide the triage services when they are needed for giving medicine to sick people?

Mark de LA says

source: ...

Part of the controversial health care reform proposal in Congress that discusses "end-of-life" counseling and medical procedures that could be rationed based on the age of the patient and other factors was written by suicide advocates who argue openly for the "right" to death, according to reports.

...While it may be moot because some have announced that the end of life counseling has been removed, look to what actually shows up in the bill Obama signs (or NOT).

BTW those of you who are pro abortion and pro assisted suicide are the real "deathers". Notice how that meme has been twisted!

Seth says

seth 2009-08-13 09:52:11 12373

source: MR above
So why doesn't the bill specifically outlaw euthanasia

Well if you mean death with dignity laws like Oregon has, those have been left up to the various states. Why should the federal government override the state jurisdiction in this regard?

This morning Plain responded to Obama's remarks about the end of life consultations. Primarially she channeled arguments from Charles Lane's Washington Post article titled "Undue Influence". This article does make a good point ...

source: Undue Influence
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.

Personally i don't think it is necessary for the federal government to encourage these counsultations. I suggest that Section 1233 should be stricken from the final bill.

Wow, i didn't know the Senate was reading your blog. Apparently they are going to take my suggestion ...

source: Grassley via TheHill.com
"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."

... Does this justify the deathers tyrades? I, don't know, you decide.

The White House fights the people

About: white house launches web site to battle health care 'rumors' - political news - foxnews.com

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